Our vehicle had joined the convoy of five other vehicles, including two personnel carriers and three tracked logistic trucks. It had begun to snow, much earlier in the year than I have ever seen before by at least a month.
“This winter is going to be the worst of our lifetimes,” said Arkette.
“Why so? It’s just an early snow?” Asked Ekni.
“This is the year where all the planets align perfectly to cut off sunlight for most of the winter. This is just a warning,” replied Arkette, sounding serious with a hint of worry in her voice.
“We are accustomed to the cold, the enemy isn’t,” replied Ekni.
“How so?” questioned Arkette.
“Their logistics will get bogged down easily, they use wheeled trucks, we use tracked trucks– logistics win wars,” Ekni responded.
“I guess we are lucky for them to pick the worst time to invade. We will prevail.” Arkette spoke with a hint of pride in her voice at the last few words.
“I hope so, becoming cattle is not what I want to become,” I responded.
We continued along the wide paved road, and many other vehicles of all types passed us. Eventually, we made it to a rarely traveled dirt track tank headed east. As the personnel carrier in front of us turned right to join the road east, we followed. Both of the personnel carriers that accompanied us had the open heavy machine gun turret, fielding the 16.2x220mm TMK4, powerful enough to knock a fully armored Estal out with a single round. No one yet sat in the turret as it was not yet necessary. After ten minutes of driving across the open tundra, the personnel carrier in front of us stopped within the collection of abandoned farm buildings located here.
I received a radio message broadcasted to all vehicles and soldiers within the formation, Take position to the south of these buildings and stay hidden. Trucks stay the furthest away while personnel carriers stay the closest, on my command, 07- you will load a round for a personnel carrier and drive forwards until you can see the road fully ahead and the vehicles upon it. Hit only the vehicles that float off the ground.
I responded over the radio, “Understood.”
I heard many others respond with something similar to what I had said. After explaining the plan to the rest of the crew, we took up position behind a storage barn that bordered the dirt track ahead.
“Arkette, preload APHE,” I commanded.
Arkette proceeded to take one of the red-tipped shells from the floor rack, and with some effort, inserted the long round into the breach snapping forwards half a meter into firing position, making a deep metallic “clank” as it did so. I was nervous and so was everyone else within this vehicle for their first engagement, yet we did not yield when the time came.
“Ready!” Arkette yelled after loading the shell, notifying Ekni that the gun was ready for firing.
“Seven, two enemy personnel carriers are on the road, you are clear to engage within the next ten seconds,” I heard from the radio in an urgent tone.
“Ishi, bring us forwards, face hull left once we are clear of the barn. Ekni, you are clear to engage once we have stopped and unlock the turret this time,” I barked out.
My heart rate increased as everyone else’s did. We cleared the barn and Ishi turned the hull left, Ekni unlocked the turret and scanned the road for targets, finding two personnel carriers and three, four-axled wheeled logistic trucks with one axle in the front and three in the back. He spent a few precious seconds ranging them in with the optical range finding equipment. He led the shot, but could not bring himself to fire the gun.
“What's taking so damn long?! Ekni, fire the cannon!” I yelled.
Ekni appeared to be having a panic attack, whimpering something unintelligible under his breath.
“Fire the fucking gun, if you don’t, we’re all dead!” I screamed, he re-lead the shot, closed his eyes and quickly pressed the fire button located on the turret traverse lever.
The cannon made a deep “pom” sound, followed by the ear-shattering sounds of the shell casing hitting the shell tray. The vehicle kicked backwards slightly. Immediately, I saw that Ekni’s blind shot had hit directly in the front of the Estal vehicle, blowing its turret into the sky and slamming into the field to our right, with blue sparks flying from the engine compartment. Arkette quickly slammed a second APHE shell in the breach, repeating the motion done before, yelling “Ready!” once again.
I watched as the hostile convoy became disoriented, with the remaining personnel carrier heading off the road to the east, going below what we could see. The lead truck turned off the road and went into the ditch on our side of the road, immediately getting stuck in the mud and snow. The other two trucks stopped and began to reverse towards the forest they came from.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I don’t see the other PC anymore,” stated Ekni.
“They went to the other side of the road– Ishi, put us on that road facing where they came from,” I commanded, yelling over the sounds of battle.
The personnel carrier that hid behind the road dropped off its infantry and began to engage our scattered infantry forces. The sound of enemy gauss discharges mixed with gunfire, the sounds of battle filling the air. Our vehicle rolled onto the road, and stopped once we were in position. Ekni had once again begun to scan for the enemy personnel carrier, he found the vehicle as it found us. It fired off a volley of rounds at us, making multiple “ping” noises as the rounds ricocheted off , stopped by our strong frontal and turret armor. Ekni, this time did not hesitate to shoot, and made the personnel carrier meet the same fate as the one before it, being destroyed in similar extravagant fashion to the other. Arkette loaded yet another APHE shell, since she had not yet been instructed to load anything else.
“Focus on the infantry. No more armored threats persist!” I barked out once more.
I grabbed the radio phone off its rack and broadcasted a message to the rest of the squad, “Both personnel carriers have been dispatched. Clean up what remains and then capture the trucks.”
I directed my attention to the infantry engagement throughout both the road directly in front of us, and in the field to the right, a few of the Estal infantry had taken cover behind the ruined personnel carrier that had driven in a ditch prior, the sound of their clicking vocalizations could just barely be heard over the din of combat, it was a sound I expected to hear a lot.
I noticed the Avali soldiers had split into two smaller groups and formed a primitive but effective two-pronged attack on the Estal terror troops, dropping a few Estal in the process with their powerful D-94 bolt-action carbines. The Avali soldiers, despite the effectiveness of their weaponry, would mostly like be unable to take the position alone, the advantage of cover that the Estal possessed, forced their advances to stop so they might seek cover of their own, taking the form of the detached gun that we had blown off of the Estal personnel carrier.
“Arkette! Shrapnel round! Now!” I shouted, turning and nodding to Ekni.
“Ready!” She responded, Ekni wordlessly positioned the gun towards the Estal infantry, and pressed the fire button.
The cannon fired once more, sending a deadly multi-kilogram package downrange. The cannon breach recoiled half a meter backwards, dispensing the smoking casing into the shell tray below. Arkette quickly grabbed another orange tipped shell from the wall mounted rack, and slammed the heavy round into the cannon breach. The breach snapped forwards into firing position with Arkette yelling “ready!”
On the outside of the vehicle, the shell impacted faster than you could blink, sending a fatal swarm of steel shrapnel into the Estal infantry. Immediately after firing, Ekni had begun to suppress other scattered Estal infantry with the heavy machine gun mounted inside the turret next to the cannon.
Most of the Estal were in a bounding retreat away from the elite infantry, one of them, seemingly a commanding officer based on the ornate, bright red armor, appeared to persist. As the other soldiers fled, this one limped forward, one of their four arms grasping at a gaping wound in their side, another brandishing a pistol of sorts. They stumbled toward a cadre of Avali soldiers, one of the sappers took charge, pointing their submachine gun at their face. The Estal officer raised the pistol up to fire, before the pistol met with an SMG round and exploded, it was apparently very volatile and took their arm with it.
They fell to the ground, producing the most blood-curdling screech they could muster, hemolymph lazily dribbling from an uncounted number of holes, flailing in rage and fear, they would most likely die if not given attention quick, and that would require them be restrained. I pondered for a moment before taking the radio phone off its rack once again.
“Let it bleed.” I said, the soldiers soon darted away to pursue the rest of the Estal and finish the mop-up, alongside their PC marked ‘03’.
After earlier events, we found ourselves resting in multiple metal folding chairs given to us by the locals. The locals being the farming collective workers and their families who we had saved earlier. Ekni was busying himself by sketching a particularly odd looking tree. I imagined what machines they used to make the submachine gun that the heavily wounded sapper that lay next to me carried. The sapper was still being tended to by the squad nurse, dressed in a violet-accented military uniform. Ishi is messing with her wounded upper-left ear. It must have itched even though it healed many years before now. Arkette did not sit with us, she decided to help the locals with moving supplies and getting settled back into their previously ransacked collective.
“You doin’ okay?” I asked the wounded sapper, his arm was covered in bandages.
“Better than when I got shot,” He said, chuckling slightly.
“Glad to hear it. I th-” I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps headed towards us, I turned around and saw an Avali in a brown uniform, to their side was a large black mass which immediately startled me as soon as my brain registered what it was.
An Estal with a black carapace, wearing what appeared to be some clothes stitched together from many insulatory sheets. The creature stepped forward with the Avali following close behind them. A few of the other people were also frightened by this.
“Hello!" The Estal produced, intermittent clicking noises could be heard as the creature spoke.
“Erm… Hi!” I said, still slightly startled.
“Hello, comrades. Sorry if we startled you..” The Avali began, “My name is Vehli, this is my good friend Exu.”
“Mind explaining how you got here?” Ishi said, most likely still suspicious. The Estal spoke again to respond.
“Ah, so, our detachment, that being the 13th Mechanized Infantry, was attacked by Imperial forces whilst we were moving to your ‘City of Steel’, We narrowly escaped capture or final death in the attack, we then became lost, and wandered until we found our way here, to thou all.”
“Well you certainly got close to where you were trying to go.” Ekni said, before a fit of coughing overcame him and he made out an “Excuse me” as he covered his face with his elbow.
“Are you okay, sir?” Exu asked, concern still audible in his voice, despite the oddness with which he pronounced the words he said.
“Yeah, I’m good, just needed a second there, sorry.” The Estal sat down on the ground next to Ekni, his lower arms wrapped around his knees, his handler sat next to him, he yawned, the hike here was probably long.
“If y’all are okay with it, I believe we are to stay here for the night?”