Kaviel gave Freddy a thumbs up as he connected his comms to the two IFV’s that escorted them. “Ssergeantsss Gursshnik and Juliuss, we have new ordersss. I have ssent the location of our new possition to you, go ahead and follow on thiss one. We are not moving that far. Kaviel out.” He finished with relative vigor. They would need to be careful moving near contested zones, he had been shot at once before by jumpy friendly troops. They hadn't done any substantial damage but Haggy had been furious about it.
Kaviel grabbed onto a couple nearby handholds as Haggy threw the Old Man Death into reverse and whipped it around by locking the left track. Well, he whipped it as much as he was able, the result was a slightly jarring semi-circle turn on the spot. While it was a bit bumpy, it was much faster than taking a regular corner. The rubble pinged off the underhull as he completed the turn, the sounds reminding Kaviel of settling burrows or heavy rain. Kaviel let go of a few of the handholds but not all, Haggy was known to be a bit of a zealous driver after all.
The Haggard Grinskal and The Saile Onessa fell in behind them, the two IFV’s turrets skewing left and right. They seemed a bit on edge and Kaviel couldn't blame them, they were moving up towards the front. Well, where the front had been that morning. It was now a few hundred meters further forwards, which was the main reason they had been tasked to move up as well.
The front had more or less stayed in the same place for the last few years. When the secessionists had originally landed they had taken ground in huge swaths as the surprised defenders fell back. But soon the Union forces had cemented their positions and the rebels smashed into their titansteel defenses. The war had ground to a sudden halt, both sides pushing men and machines into the grinder of no man’s land to no avail. After a time a stalemate had settled with neither side attacking or withdrawing. Occasional pushes gained meters of ground but counterpushes often took the stolen territory right back.
Kaviel wasn't one to belittle the efforts of the Union’s defenders on Dreyvan II, but even he had to admit they had made precious little progress in pushing the attackers off the planet.
The main problem lay in logistics. The rebels had taken a few of the heavy industrial sectors before they were stopped and the result was that they had the ability to both repair and construct new vehicles and armaments to a similar degree to the local forces. With sympathetic elements of the local population fleeing to the Hegemony held lands, they had a strong work force that had all the reasons in the world to help their side win.
The war had stagnated into a grueling tug of war with the city of Vastolnok right in the center. The city of pastel delights and towering industrial stacks had largely been reduced to cratered ruins and rubble strewn passages that were coated in a thick layer of ash and dust. Even if they won, and the rebels were defeated, the city would never be the same again. There were too many scars to heal fully.
Six months into the ground war an enemy missile had struck an ammunition manufacturing center and the resultant detonation was nearly nuclear in scale, almost five hundred square kilometers of the city had been flattened and coated in layers of toxic chemicals that required the use of respirators to traverse even now. The amount of damage done had left a huge crater that had since filled in with poisoned water and corrosive sludge. It was an area that many had begun to refer to as the quagmire due to the extreme difficulty of moving through the thick clinging morass.
Kaviel was jostled as the TAG ramped over another pile of scattered debris and he hissed low in annoyance. The streets were routinely cleared by engineering vehicles, but constant shelling and missile strikes saw the roads continually cluttered with additional rubble.
“Sslow down a bit Haggy. You are going to throw a track doing that.” Kaviel warned him.
Haggy responded by throttling down slightly, reducing their speed from forty to thirty-six kilometers per hour.
“Thanks. That's a bit better.” He told him, but Haggy just fluttered his antennae in silent protest
While they only had to move about half a kilometer, they couldn't travel directly there. Haggy had them taking a side road at the moment that should lead them right to their new firing zone.
As if to spite his errant thought, the vehicle slowed to a stop. Looking at the front view on his monitors he could see why. One of the buildings that bordered the street had fully collapsed, its rubble forming a steep embankment that would be dangerous to cross without stabilization. It did not extend all the way across the street however, there was just enough room to squeeze by on the left side and it was towards this that Haggy steered them.
“Hold on to ssomething, thisss iss going to be a bit bumpy…”. Haggy said over comms with a smile in his voice.
Kaviel grabbed several handholds as the Old Man Death rolled up on the rubble and started to climb. The left side of the vehicle stayed level to the ground but the right rode alarmingly into the air as it climbed the tip of the rubble heap. The engine groaned and Haggy throttled up, the purr turning to a hungry roar as the engines sucked more diesel to power the tracks. Slowly at first but gaining momentum they crested the rubble hill and slammed back down on the other side, the entire vehicle seeming to shudder as it settled to level ground once more.
Haggy nodded and slapped the side of the TAG with his lower arms as he hissed “Yesss! That’ss how you do it!”
Kaviel’s antennae rose in amusement, Haggy loved a challenge and would often take the most difficult path on training runs to challenge himself. It certainly came in handy in situations exactly like this. They moved forwards a bit as the two escorting IFVs moved through the gap behind them. The IFVs were just slightly slimmer than them and so had less trouble squeezing through the narrow gap, once through they fell back into position and signaled they were all set. Haggy took them out again, the sound of the rubber surfaced tracks on the hard pavement muffled by his headset but the vibrations shaking his carapace.
They reached the new firing position with no problems, the stretch of flat cleared ground looking like the remains of an old parking lot. While a great deal of public transportation had existed in the city before it was destroyed, not everyone had used it facilitating the need for such areas. This as well as the large, hardened pads made ideal staging grounds for military use.
Haggy drove them into the leftmost portion of the lot, the pinging of crushed masonry on the lower hull almost drowned out by the growl of the engines as the vehicle slowed to a halt. Kaviel checked the perimeter using the advanced scanners on the outside of the TAG’s hull. The picture feeds being piped directly over to his command screens. It looked clear, no heat signatures or targeting lasers detected. He would have only been slightly surprised if there had been enemy contacts here. Both sides were pouring considerable resources into espionage and sabotage. One of the main reasons they had the checkpoints at every major mustering field was to counter the spies and insurgents that the rebels were constantly sending over.
Kaviel sent a confirmation to sector command that they had reached the new position and in response he was relayed another series of firing missions. The work never ended for the just it seemed.
Kaviel inputted the new orders as Haggy adjusted their position. Julius and Gurshnik relayed all clear signals to him as well. It was going to be a long day, but a fruitful one it seemed.
Over the course of the next forty minutes Kaviel and the crew fired off another trio of shots, the high explosive shells doing much to alleviate the strain on the front line. With each shot he grew more and more nervous. The front line was shifting again, this time towards the rebel backline at a more accelerated rate than was normal.
Kaviel knew from experience that nothing in this conflict was gained that easily or bloodlessly. Something was going on, and he was worried that it might come back right at them as they were sitting right behind the main push.
“Load high explossive.” Kaviel commanded as a new set of firing orders came through. The front had been progressing rapidly, making over two kilometers of ground in the last hour. It didn't feel right to him, there was too much that could go wrong, a break in the line, a counter push. His antennae drooped in worry and Haggy gave him a look. Kaviel shook his head and continued watching their surroundings. It had been getting quieter as the fighting moved away, the silence was ominous.
He felt a prickle of worry under his chiton but before he got the chance to dwell on it Freddy said “High explosssive loaded!”
Kaviel checked his fire orders against their targeting system one more time and then fired, the fearsome recoil slamming through the interior of the vehicle and dazing him for a bare moment, and in that second, all hell broke loose.
Kaviel jerked as something impacted the thick side armour of the TAG, and then another. The sounds of the detonating impacts like the snapping of thick bones through the insulating hull.
“What in the Mother’ss name wasss that!!” Freddy hissed loudly as Kaviel frantically checked the sensors to see what had hit them. It was no use however as they were shrouded in a thick cloud of dust kicked up by the main gun’s firing. They could have been surrounded by an entire company of armoured vehicles and the sensors on the TAG would likely have not seen them through the hot exhaust.
“Kaviel to esscort, what hit uss!?” Kaviel demanded over the comms.
Gurshnik was the first to respond, the communication coming through slightly warped which didn't help the Slaaveth man’s thick accent. “Ther.. ..ers all around us. They cam.. ..tta nowhere. Anti-vehicle weapo.. .. pning fire now!!” The broken speech was followed immediately by the sound of at least one of the IFV’s Hinkel Mk.8 autocannons firing a long burst. This was followed by the thumps of an automatic grenade launcher.
“Haggy, back uss up out of thiss ssmoke, get usss between thosse IFVss now!” Kaviel said as calmly as he could. Now was not the time to panic, though his blood rushed faster and his spiracles were sucking air more heavily in response. He didn't have adrenaline like a Human would have, but his body was still more than capable of amping its energy production up in anticipation of a fight or danger.
The vehicle shuddered, though this time it was from the engine roaring to life and not enemy fire. As Haggy threw it into reverse Kaviel started to get a clearer picture of what was happening all around them. Surrounding them on three sides were a platoon of infiltrators in their distinctive grey ghillie suits. They woven material looking disturbingly like crushed masonry and debris, they also seemed to protect the soldiers from infrared detection as they were not showing up on his sensors even as they cleared the smoke.
A grey suited figure ran in front of the TAG in an attempt to get around their other side but Haggy was ready for it. The driver fired the hull mounted heavy machine gun, the bright tracers cutting a bloody fissure through the soldier. As their bloody remains spilled onto the dusty ground Haggy got the Old Man into the relative cover of their escort. One of the IFVs on either side of them.
Kaviel let go of the handholds and was about to call for help from command when the entire vehicle was rocked by an impact from behind causing him to smack his head against one of his screens. While he wasn't hurt in any significant way, the screen he had impacted was not so lucky. Sparks from its shattered screen fizzed and popped as smoke trickled into the fighting compartment from behind him.
His comms crackled as Julius’ voice came through. “Kaviel, you jus.. ..ook a hit to your rear! Ar.. ..lright?”
“Engine iss dead!” Haggy shouted at almost the same time.
Kaviel pointed to the smoke and said “Haggy, engine took a hit! Get on it!” The man left his crash couch without a word and skittered into the rear of the vehicle. Kaviel saw him open the engine access hatch which belched a cloud of noxious fumes and smoke making the cabin smell of burned metal and spent propellant, the driver’s long armoured body disappearing inside.
He couldn't do anything to assist at the moment as he had bigger issues. They had enemies on three sides and only two escorts covering. Kaviel popped the top hatch without hesitation and stuck his upper body out of the hole. His headset protected his tympanal organs from the worst of the noise, but still the sounds of desperate combat thudded through his body. The bright flashes of grenades and forty-millimeter munitions lighting the smokey air like lightning in high clouds. The shapes of the two IFVs were almost obscured such was the thickness of the surrounding smoke. The damn rebels must have thrown smoke grenades to obscure their vision.
‘Clever bastards.’ Kaviel swore silently.
He readied himself and turned to face their rear, there seemed to have been a few rebel infiltrators that had managed to get around behind them. He grabbed a hold of the pintle mounted ten-millimeter repeating railgun atop the command blister. While it had a much slower rate of fire than the hull mounted heavy machine gun, it made up for it with pinpoint accuracy and a ludicrous amount of firepower. This was demonstrated for him as a figure was spotted running their way through the smoke.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Kaviel knew that any targets running up on them would be hostile in these conditions and so did not hesitate to open fire. The bright bluish streaks of the hypervelocity slugs met the body of the figure and they seemed to vanish. In their place was a pile of torn flesh and a thin pinkish mist, ‘The attacker must have been Slaaveth.’ He thought grimly as he scanned the area.
He fired a few more times into the smog to encourage any additional rebels to think twice. While the weapon was powerful, he was nearly fully exposed while using it.
Getting an idea he hollered into the hull “Joana! Grab me a rifle!” The TAG was equipped with service weapons for him and his crew for just exactly these conditions.
He didn't hear a reply, but not more than a few seconds later he felt something bump into his lower chest and grabbed it. Hauling it up with his third pair of arms he saw it was one of their standard issue Specter 1 railguns. The weapon fired fifty-gram projectiles at extreme velocities of over sixteen hundred meters per second, the impact heavy enough to destroy even lightly armoured targets with ease.
Kaviel held the rifle at a low ready while simultaneously aiming the larger weapon with his uppermost arms. Again he saw movement in the smoke and opened fire. At least one figure fell, their body a gory ruin, but the others rushed on. Kaviel acted quickly, raising the rifle with his third arms he fired a trio of slugs into the ghillie suited figure that appeared not more than eighteen meters from him. The rebel was thrown backwards from the force of the impacts, their body falling still almost instantly upon impacting the ground.
A series of stabbing red beams issued from the dust, another of the rebels opening fire with a laser weapon of some sort. The stabbing beams impacted on the weaker rear armour of the TAG with almost no effect, the power of the lasers insufficient to pierce the rolled armour plates. Kaviel was another matter however and he hissed in anger and pain as one of the wild shots grazed his side. The pain was immediate but manageable as it had been a near miss, instead of blowing a crater out of his body it had instead seared an angry groove out of his carapace.
“Sshit!” He swore loudly as he jerked to the side instinctively. He fired both guns at the source of the beams and was rewarded with a cry and then silence. Breathing out heavily he looked around. The sounds of combat had ceased, the silence deafening in comparison to the commotion only moments before.
He opened the comms and spoke “Kaviel to Juliuss and Gursshnik. Are we clear?” The link spat static back at him. He looked to his escort, the blocky shapes of the two vehicles visible through the rapidly thinning smoke. They seemed alright, some burns and superficial scarring to their exteriors but nonetheless intact.
They should have responded to his hail seeing as they seemed operational ‘Unless…’. He thought to himself silently.
“Freddy! Check commss!” Kaviel said quickly over the vehicle's internal link. He winced as the burn on his side made its existence known, he had been shot before. But it never got any less painful.
Hissing in anger at the situation and in pain from his injury, Kaviel closed the top hatch as he settled back into his command position. Before he could issue another order Joana had moved up beside him with a first aid kit and began to open it.
“I can do it Joana thankss.” He started to say but was cut off by the younger Vinarfel woman.
Her compound eyes seemed to bore into his as she flared her faceplates and raised her antennae. “Like hell. You went out there and got yoursself sshot protecting uss, the lasst thing I am going to do is let you wasste your time patching yourssself up. You command, I’ll fix thiss.” She said in a manner that left no room for argument. He shook his head slightly, there was no arguing with her in this situation, doubly so because she was right. He needed to be focusing on getting them out of their situation, not his laser burn.
Freddy waved at him to get his attention and pointed to his own screen. It was covered in a multitude of datapoints and squiggly signal indicators, most of them red. “We are being jammed!” The man hissed angrily, as if the jamming was a personal attack on his character.
Kaviel thought hard and then punched a few buttons on his still functioning command screen. After a moment Freddy tapped his own screen and two of the signals turned a solid green.
“This iss Kaviel to Juliuss and Gursshnik. Be advissed, we are being jammed. I have sswitched uss to a direct tightbeam lasser link. Pleasse activate your linksss to maximise the ssysstem’s flexibility.” He said over the open link.
After a moment his headset crackled to life and the voice of Sergeant Julius came through, much clearer than before. “I was wondering why everything had gotten so quiet all of the sudden heh.” He chuckled quickly. “You took a few good hits there, how are you holding up?” The man asked.
Gurshnik cut in before Kaviel could reply saying “The area appears to be clear, but I strongly recommend falling back as this area is compromised. They may have called for missile support before we drove them off.” The man said in his thick guttural accent.
He had a point, Kaviel turned to ask about their status when Haggy appeared through the rear access hatch, grimy but in good spirits. “He’ss all good. Took a hit to the manifold but it didn't penetrate, just knocked ssome linesss loosse and burned a cable. They have been replaced.” The man said cheerfully, his antennae brushing the ceiling as he took his place in the driver's seat once more. Joana finished her own repairs to his damaged side and he nodded his thanks.
Kaviel reached over and slapped Haggy on his upper shoulder saying “Good work asss ussual Haggy.” Switching to open comms he advised “We are good to go, no ssignificant damagess. I agree with Gursshnik. We need to move out now, Haggy, take uss out. Esscort, follow behind, we are loading the main gun jusst in case.” Pausing, he turned to Freddy and Joana and said “Give me a high explosive in the barrel. I want to be ready for anything.”
Haggy turned the engine over, the thrum a little shakier than it had been before. It didn't seem to be too bad however as they began to roll out. The tracks ground against the pavement below and Kaviel once more found himself thinking of the war and its cost.
While the mission to save the city was technically paramount, he had realised over the last few years that what the Union high command seemed to be most interested in was hurting the rebels. At virtually any cost as well, he had seen acts of terror perpetrated by both sides, and while he knew his cause was the just and right one, it was hard to see innocent civilian’s homes burned to ash in the name of retribution.
He gave a sigh as they moved out of the parking lot. This war was taking a toll on him. Him and everyone. ‘Fuck those guys that say glory lasts forever.’ he thought vehemently to himself. There was nothing worth this cost in lives, surely this whole war would end soon and they could all go home.
Haggy spoke up, interrupting his dark thoughts. “Kaviel, where are we withdrawing to? Sector command? Main base camp?”
It was a good question. They were being jammed, a dead giveaway that the front line had likely experienced a broad scale counterpush. Without knowing exactly where the lines were compromised, they had no way of knowing which areas of the battlefield were safe to traverse or not.
Thinking hard, he racked his brain. Sector command would be under fire surely by now, they could likely use the help. On the other hand, with the front being jammed, central command would likely have no idea how bad their situation was. He decided to confide with his escort to see what they were thinking on the matter.
Kaviel began hastily “Kaviel to esscort, we have a ssituation. The way I am ssseeing it, we have two optionss. We can either make our way to ssector command and hope it sstill standss…”. He trailed off as he tried to think of the best way to work the next part.
A gurgling chuckle came through the link, Gurshnik replied “Or we can make a break for the main base. I assume that is what you were about to say?” He asked.
Julius asked suddenly, the man’s normally smooth voice a little tense “There is no way we make it all the way back to base in one piece. We have infiltrator squads roving this far behind our front lines. That's not a good sign, that means that in all likelihood at least one part of the front line has crumbled. For all we know the luck damned rebels could be moving tank columns up the side roads as we speak. Or worse, superheavies.” He said grimly.
Kaviel knew the chances were less than optimal, but what choice did they have? Both options were subpar at best and downright disastrous at worst. They could all end up deep in the Mother’s dark embrace if things went even slightly out of whack.
Either way they would have to make the decision soon, Haggy steered the vehicle away from the compromised firing position and towards one of the main roads. They would be coming up on a crossroads soon that would force their hand. They would either turn and move on the local area command center in hopes it was still standing. Or they could continue onwards, making a mad dash for safety before the entire flank was crushed.
The decision was made irrelevant as Haggy hissed and slewed the TAG to a grinding halt. Julius swore over the open comms as the Grinskal was forced to make a similar emergency stop just behind them.
Before Kaviel could ask, Haggy hissed urgently “Enemy vehicles front!” Kaviel looked and nearly jumped out of his carapace, that had been an understatement. In front of the Old Man not more than eighty meters away was a small convoy of vehicles. Vehicles painted with the clenched fist of the Hegemony instead of the soaring eagle of the Union.
He used the laser rangefinder to target the convoy and attempted to fire the main gun, and swore as nothing happened.
“MOTHER FUCKER!!” He cursed loudly enough to make the others jump. He had forgotten to hit the emergency arming safety disabler switch. The TAG’s shells were equipped with arming switches that kept them from detonating too close to the vehicle on accident. While this was generally considered a great safety feature in most situations, the two-hundred-and-fifty-meter arming distance on the HE shells had stopped him from firing. The vehicle’s sensors had detected an error and thus stopped him from wasting a valuable shell, but it had also stopped him from obliterating the Hegemony vehicles.
Kaviel punched in the override faster than he ever had before, his chitinous fingers flying over the commands. The instant the warning light flashed to amber, he fired.
The enemy convoy consisted of three vehicles, two Barricade class heavy transport trucks and a Pulveriser HGC. What looked like a whole company of soldiers marched behind the vehicles, their weapons glinting in the afternoon sun. The shell flew true to its original aim, impacting the space between the two trailing trucks and detonating in a blinding flash. This close to the blast Kaviel could hear the pings of hypersonic shrapnel bouncing off the thick frontal armour of the TAG.
The results were as spectacular as they were deadly, the lead transport simply vanishing as a series of secondary detonations tore it apart. The other transport fared little better as its cabin was flattened by the blast wave, the soldiers who had been walking behind it either killed outright or knocked savagely to the ground by the sudden overpressure. The HGC jerked and ground to a halt as its rear wheels were shredded by shrapnel and fire. It seemed to fall still and Kaviel thought hopefully that it might have been destroyed.
“Reload, high explossive!” He commanded quickly. His hearts sank as he saw the Pulveriser’s turret move, the one hundred and sixty four millimeter battlecannon slowly turning towards them. It was a race now, a race between the hydraulics of the enemy heavy gun carrier against the raw muscle of his loaders. It was a race that he knew they were going to lose.
As the dark maw of the enemy’s cannon turned to face them Kaviel heard the sound of automatic cannon fire. One of the escorting IFVs had opened fire on the enemy tank, the forty millimeter rounds doing nothing to the enemy vehicles' thick armoured hyde. The psychological effect of the rapid impacts must have screwed the heavy tank’s aim though as it fired.
The huge shell flew high and to the left, impacting on the most extreme angle of the TAG’s frontal glacis. A sound like a million gongs tolling in his head smashed through Kaviel as the powerful round failed to penetrate their front. The entire vehicle vibrated with the power of the shot, but they were trained tankers of the Union. Freddy and Joana pushed through the pain, their antennae pressed tightly against their backs in discomfort. A solid thunk echoed through the interior of the vehicle as the mortar shell was slammed home.
“Just die you bastards!” Kaviel couldn't help but scream as he fired the shot. As if in slow motion he watched the shell fly. The enemy vehicle was so close that the two hundred and eighty millimeter shell didnt even drop, the rocket motor propelling it along a flat arc directly into the side armour of the disabled tank.
If the previous explosion had been blinding, this one was downright painful. The autosensors on the front of the vehicle blacking out in static as they were temporarily overloaded. When they returned the scene was one of carnage. The remains of the HGC were strewn around like the remains of a larvae’s meal. Torn pieces of thick armour spread over an incredible area.
Kaviel was in mild shock, his system overwhelmed with the events that had just happened in the last minute or so. He felt something touch him and jerked, a slightly feral hiss escaping his mouth before he could stop himself.
“Woaah, you okay Kaviel?” Freddy’s voice asked him.
Kaviel observed the interior for a moment before responding slowly. “No. Not really. But I will be, when we get back to basse.”
Haggy gave him a concerned look, the man’s faceplates flared open a bit and his antennae waving slightly. Kaviel just waved a hand and said “Move out to the basse. That convoy looked bad, they were definitely moving to ssome sssort of musster point.”
Julius, who had been listening in apparently, cut in. “Kaviel, I agree that the main base is likely our only real option now. But you should let one of us lead, you got lucky not to be a smoking wreck right now. And if you had gone you would have taken both of us with you.” He said.
It was true, the Old Man Death had enough boom on board to level a city block if it was detonated. Something that was likely to happen if they were paid a surprise visit from an enemy shot.
He gave a small sighing hiss as he thought it over, while he hated the idea of sacrificing anyone, it was true that the loss of one of the IFVs would be less damaging to their cause than the loss of the entire group in a single swoop.
“You are right, you knew I would come to the realization ssooner or later. Juliuss, the Grinskal will take point. Gursshnik…”. He said to the Grinskal’s commander.
Gurshnik responded, the man’s signature style of blunt remarks unchanged as he replied “I will take the rear then. This seems like a fair idea, though I don't like this one bit I will freely admit. My crew is a bit shaken up, we have a leaking coolant pipe. We tried to seal it with tape but it's only a temporary fix. Without emergency maintenance I'm not sure the Saile Onessa will make it back to base.
Kaviel shook his head. This was bad, but again, he had no real choice. “Understood Gurshnik. We will look for a defensible area and attempt repairs as soon as possible. Keep alert, this is enemy territory now it seems.