Thirty minutes prior to the attack, just after the train departed from Dever, Maxwell Margot and Louis Cadieux stepped away from their unit. Entering the third traincar, Maxwell and Louis brushed past stacked crates of guns, bullets, and explosives. In the center of the car, a woman a few years older than Maxwell was standing over a map spread out over a weapons crate. Her long brown hair was pulled into a tight bun atop her head. One hand rested on the crate, the other on the top of her stiff officer hat sitting on the crate. Her uniform was clean, though hers bore an additional crest, marking her as a higher rank than Maxwell himself.
Maxwell’s boots made a rhythmic stomping as he approached, whereas Louis’ footsteps scarcely made a sound as he followed in his captain’s wake. The two came to a stop across from the woman, before standing at attention and saluting her. The woman briefly flicked her eyes up towards the two before continuing to study the map laid out before her.
Unfazed, Maxwell held his salute and called out, “Second Infantryman Maxwell Margot, reporting for duty.” Awkwardly, Louis looked between the two before following suit.
“First Infantryman Louis Cadieux, reporting,” he said. The woman lifted her head up and took in the two men before her. She sighed and straightened out before returning the salute to the two men.
“At ease you guys,” she spoke before dropping the salute. “You know, you don’t have to do the whole formal thing with me Margot.”
“Perhaps Levonne, however, if I get too lax with rules, sooner or later someone who cares will catch me off guard,” Maxwell replied.
“Well, as your superior officer, I can confidently say that you are free to be a little lax right now.”
Maxwell chuckled, replying, “Maybe I can, but we are officially deployed right now. I want your report to say good things so that I can finally transfer out of the Vanguard.”
“Oh? And you just took command. Eager to be the lowest ranked in the Infantry?”
“No. Just eager to work at a field hospital. Off the battlefield.”
“Well if you want a good post-op report, then as your commanding officer I am ordering you to drop some of the formalities,” Levonne gave Maxwell a cocky smile. “Speaking of lax regulations, have either of you seen Fritz?”
“He didn’t pass through our car before us,” Louis began.
“However…” Maxwell pulled out his pocket watch once more, “he has about five seconds… three, two, one…” Louis and Levonne both looked up to the door, expecting to see it open.
“Well, I suppose that tracks with his previous attendance record,” Maxwell closed the pocket watch and returned it to his pocket. “Shall we get started without him then?”
“If you insist,” Levonne turned her attention back to the map in front of them. The map depicted a topographical layout of the area between Dever and Norone. Dever was nestled at the western end of the map, at the base of two tributaries joining a single river. The train tracks crossed over the eastern tributary before continuing towards the city of Norone. The empty middle area between the two cities depicted a rocky terrain, with a wide canyon that bisected the area. The far east of the map, at the end of the train tracks, was Norone. The city sat just north of a large lake, along a different river. Levonne pulled out a folded piece of paper and laid it out next to the map. At the top of the page it read:
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: ASSESS NORONE STATUS
OPERATING PARAMETERS: AUTONOMY
SUPPORT: ARTILLERY, TRANSPORT
“So, our primary mission objective is to assess the situation in Norone,” Levonne began. “Secondary objectives include determining methods by which they took the city and rescuing any immediately endangered civilians. We’ve got an artillery team that left Dever by horse and is planning on setting up on a tall plateau over here,” Levonne pointed at a large clearing on the southern end of the map, midway between the two cities. “The artillery team should be in position in about two days, and they’ll be on standby constantly. The moment we light one of our flares, they should fire on it. We’ll be approaching the city from the tracks, obviously. However—”
“What do we need artillery for?” Louis interjected. “Are we expecting to shell them out of the city?” Stunned, Levonne looked at Louis. She was accustomed to his quiet demeanor.
“No,” Levonne slowly replied, “however if we run into any encampments on the way in or out, it would probably help the Infantry to level them. Once we return with the intel about how they’re set up in the city, the Infantry will blow through to liberate it.”
“I’m just saying that the artillery would ruin our cover. If we need their help before we get to the city, the whole place will lock down once they know that they’re in artillery range,” Louis argued. Maxwell shot an annoyed look at Louis, who obliviously continued. “Plus, what happens if they run into resistance out there? They’re just as alone as us and we won’t be able to back them up. At that point, we’d circle back to the issue of the UBM realizing they’re in artillery range and—” Maxwell let out a not-so-subtle cough. Upon looking up at his captain, Louis quickly clammed up. “I just think we’d do better if they just sent people with us. It’s a whole city after all.”
“Don’t mind him Levonne,” Maxwell reassured, “he’s just very thorough. Please continue.”
“No, no, Louis is right. We should be considering all of these things. It’s part of why these meetings happen at all.” Levonne turned to look at Louis directly. “As it is, our biggest concern is our own mission objectives. The artillery crew is operating the same as us, autonomously. If they run into resistance, then they’ll be responsible for their own safety, same as us. If the city goes on lockdown because they discover we have artillery, that’s actually good.”
Louis, confused, asked, “How’s that good?”
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Maxwell interjected, “It’s because we learn a lot about the state of the city.” Levonne nodded along to Maxwell. “Right now, we need to assume that they haven’t had enough time to completely reinforce Norone. That’s why we’re being sent at all, to get in and out before they completely fortify. If they do, then we report that upon return and they send more infantry. Otherwise, we figure out the situation and report that instead.”
“Correct,” Levonne concluded. “Our mission requires understanding the situation, not necessarily eliminating any UBM forces. Anything more than that is just icing on the cake. That being said, there’s the main issue of the tracks and how we plan to get—” Levonne was cut off by a loud crash followed by the sounds of bullets lightly rolling on the ground. The three infantrymen looked up to see a man in goggles erratically picking up the bullets that had begun to sprinkle onto the ground.
“Oh don’t mind me,” he said, “just tidying up.”
“You’re late Fritz,” Levonne said, “Again.”
“And yet you didn’t seem too concerned to send someone to check up on me,” Fritz stood up, a collection of loose bullets in his arms. He lazily dumped them into a nearby open box, taking the opportunity to then stretch. Fritz’s unkempt uniform and chaotic attitude clashed with the traditional concept of a military commander. While the others in the room watched, Louis particularly aghast, Fritz took his merry time. He made sure to stretch every part of his body, touching his toes, reaching over his back, pulling his arms across his chest, and even lowering himself to the ground and bridging his back. He looked as though he were stretching for a track meet despite being dressed like a cross between a mad scientist and a soldier. Maxwell and Levonne both rolled their eyes while Louis confusedly stared at the sheer audacity of Fritz’s disregard for decorum. When his joints had sufficiently cracked through his audacious stretching, Fritz lumbered over to the map with everyone else.
“How are you Anais?” Fritz leaned over the crate and looked up at Levonne, cradling his head in his hands like a schoolgirl talking to her crush.
“I’m fine Fritz,” she dryly replied.
“Oh that’s just wonderful! I do enjoy a good strategy meeting before it all falls to shit.”
Maxwell interjected, “You could at least show up on time then, 2nd Infantryman.” At this, Fritz craned his head to look at the man.
“And who do we have here? Mr. Maxwell Margot, how nice to finally see you at the big kids’ table. Tell me, how does one go from a squad medic to a squad commander?”
“By being a bad medic,” Maxwell stared at Fritz, no emotion betrayed by his tone nor face. Fritz stared back for a moment before his eyes darted around once more.
“Well, if we’re going to kill the mood, then let’s just get to work, shall we?” A coy smile spread across Fritz’s face. “Where were we? Still lecturing poor Louis on how we all already understood the situation and just never told him? What’s the issue?”
“Right, as I was saying,” Levonne started over. “We’re approaching Norone via the tracks, however, I doubt we’ll make it that far. If we somehow got there with no hiccups, we’d be in Norone within a day. But, it’s already been a day since we lost contact with our forces in the city, so the UBM likely set up a blockade somewhere along the tracks.” As Levonne spoke, she gestured to the map, pointing out areas close to Norone where ambushes were likely. However, Louis pointed to the canyon just under halfway across the map.
“If they’re going to ambush us, it’ll be around here,” Louis said.
“No way,” Levonne replied, “if they got this close already, we’d hear about it.. If the UBM were already that close, the artillery team would’ve spotted them on the way to their position.”
“No, Cadieux is right,” Maxwell spoke out. “The canyon is enough cover for them to hide a few squads out of sight. There could be any number of them in the canyon.”
Fritz jumped into the conversation, “Ah, so now you’re ready to take Mr. Cadieux’s input on how to proceed?”
“Yes,” Maxwell shot a cold stare at Fritz, “like I said, he’s thorough. He’s missing the big picture that comes with command, but he knows how the enemy operates on a more granular level.” Louis nervously looked down, avoiding the eyes of the others in the room.
“Okay…” Levonne stared at the map, somewhat troubled by this thought. “That doesn’t make too much sense though, at that point, they should just blow the tracks. We’d plummet into the canyon and they’d cut off our attempt at doing this in the first place.”
“Maybe they want to take out some of our forces in that blast?” Louis wondered aloud.
“I’d wager that they think we wouldn’t be so stupid as to ride the train into the town they just captured,” Fritz spoke.
“In either case, the train isn’t the main point of this operation,” Maxwell explained. “It’s just a vehicle to get us as close to the city as possible, and we should make a plan to regroup somewhere if the train needs to stop and we have to go out on foot,” He pointed to the eastern edge of the canyon, “there’s a slow elevation change on the eastern end. If we get separated on foot, we can just rendezvous at the base here.”
Fritz suddenly spoke, “Or maybe they’ll want to capture us when they attack the train!”
“If they attack the train,” Levonne interjected.
“Yeah whatever,” Fritz continued, “Either way, I’ve got a plan for dealing with the UBM then,” Louis, Margot, and Levonne all raised eyebrows as they looked at Fritz.
“We all put on these armbands and pretend to be defectors,” Fritz held up a dark blue armband with the UBM insignia, a set of three dark blue boxes stacked upon each other. “This way, they’ll take us straight into the city and we can survey as much as we need.”
“That’s insane!” Louis cried out incredulously.
“Need I remind you that our mission is to assess the situation in Norone. We aren’t trying to reclaim the city by force. That’s the infantry’s job, the real infantry that is.” Fritz shot a sidelong glance to Maxwell and Levonne.
“And how would you propose we relay our findings to command once we are taken into the city?” Maxwell asked, no longer trying to mask the venom in his voice.
“We could look for a radio hub or something, I don’t know. We wing it.” Fritz shrugged. Louis silently shook his head while Levonne and Maxwell shared a concerned glance. “Did you have a plan for contacting command?” Fritz shot the captain a smug grin. From behind, Louis watched Maxwell’s knuckles whiten as his fists tightly wrapped together.
Eventually, Levonne broke the silence, “In either case, our mission remains the same. I do think it’s… good having multiple plans. We’ll see how far we get on the train. If all goes well, we can hit the brakes once we’re past the canyon and continue on foot. We might be able to remotely survey the city from the north along the river bank. If we stop before then, meet up at the eastern ridge of the canyon and we’ll go from there. Understood?”
“Aye aye ma’am,” Maxwell slowly said through gritted teeth.
“Of course Anais, as you say,” Fritz mockingly bowed. “However, I’ll pass out the armbands to my men, just in case.” Fritz gleefully walked off, practically skipping as he left the room.
“I’ll tell my men to prepare for an ambush, you should do the same.” Levonne told Maxwell as she rolled up the map. Without a word, Maxwell turned about face and marched off towards his troops.