“The most common form of musketry, the heavy matchlock musket, is the best line of defense against these demonic creatures in the hands of the common human soldier. Current observations in past battles, including failed suppression missions against these things, have shown that with the enhancement of musket fire with basic skills, musket fire may wound or deter a demonic entity. It is recommended however that further innovations in musketry be made, focusing on improving its penetrative potential by reinforcing the barrel to withstand more powder, all while employing more efficient locks to increase the fire rate of the men on the field. Indeed, this may in turn make the weapon heavier for conventional conflict, but a specialized anti-demon musket is not designed to fight man, but monsters.”
- Excerpt from “An Emergency Treatise on the Subject of ‘Demons’” by Daniel Specke.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
En Route to Belancon
“Quite frankly, I agree with her,” Captain Strobel said. They were now positioned one and a half kilometers from the overrun village, the men resting temporarily on the side of the road as they conducted their meeting beside the parked vehicles of Hans and Adelyn.
Adelyn was presenting her plans on a hastily set up table to Father Olbrich, Captain Strobel, and the Lieutenants of A and B Company that surrounded them. She had explained their positionings, the sighted concentrations of the beings, and the terrain around it.
“However, I have my doubts on firing at four hundred paces, Father,” Captain Strobel explained. “My men’s muskets are only effective at a hundred twenty paces. A hundred sixty would be pushing it. We might as well be shooting blindly in this case.”
Hans looked at Adelyn. “A hundred paces is not even a hundred meters, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Adelyn nodded, turning to Captain Strobel. “Captain, unfortunately, at such a distance, we might have no chance to intervene if things go wrong. You need to start opening fire at four hundred paces. At that distance, your guns should still have enough energy to devastate their rotten flesh…”
“Young lady,” Captain Strobel reacted sternly. “Know that it would require a lot of powder. We traveled here with light stocks, just enough for two fights. At four hundred paces, we’d have to place more powder in our guns, and our accuracy would be in question. At most, my men would fire six times each.”
Adelyn frowned. “This is bad. How many musketeers do we have?”
“Eighty in both companies. Forty in A Company, and forty in B Company. Accompanied by sixty pikemen on both companies. They would be on both sides of the pike formations, twenty men each, four ranks each in countermarch for constant fire. Should these ghouls get close, my men would hide on the main pike formation.”
The answer from Captain Strobel seemed to have forced Adelyn into a frenzy of quick calculations. “At that rate, the entire formation would be firing eighty shots spread out per minute. Assuming a quarter of the hits would land…it would take eight minutes and thirty volleys of twenty shots from both companies to put down a town of approximately one hundred fifty people…”
“...Um…Captain,” Hans awkwardly interjected. “I feel like your twenty-five percent hit rate assumption is quite optimistic.”
Adelyn shook her head. “But it’s what must be done, gentlemen, unless we're asking for casualties. Hell, we’re not even sure how fast these things move. We have to engage at four hundred paces, hell, even more…perhaps…”
“Remind me, how far can those…rapid firing guns of yours hit?” Captain Strobel asked.
Hans answered. “At eight hundred meters of an assumed effective range, that would be at a thousand paces, give or take. And Captain Wittenstein and I would be able to output at least a hundred rounds per minute if we take careful aim for each burst. Unfortunately…as we said…our bullets are irreplaceable at the moment…”
“Unacceptable,” Father Olbrich said. “Captain Strobel, get your men ready. Follow all of Captain Wittenstein’s advice, and engage at four hundred paces. Tell your men to aim well. And if things go south, only then will I let these two engage. We’ll figure out something once we find that rat. If need be, we’ll check that village for gunpowder and ammunition. I know some merchants were inside there when it was overrun.”
Captain Strobel looked at his Lieutenants, who all merely grunted. “Fine. We’ll do our best.”
He then climbed his horse, just as the cuirassiers followed his lead. “Men! Let’s slay some undead.” He then pulled his saber and aimed it in the direction of the village as the footmen stood up and returned to their formations. “Come on pick up your paces, let’s get a move on lads!”
Both Adelyn and Hans turned to each other as she closed her notebook.
“This feels like a difficult puzzle,” Adelyn said.
“Welcome to early modern warfare, Captain.”
+++
“Gentlemen, it should begin now…” Father Olbrich said as he returned his clock watch to his pocket.
Hans and Adelyn both parked their Wanderpanzers to the side of the road, a kilometer away. Eight wheeled artillery pieces, which they called “minions”, were unlimbered and set up. They were merely packing 76mm calibers on it, but Hans knew these things were exactly the best ones they could have. This was basically the lightest artillery available to them that could be moved quickly by their horses.
Both Hans and Adelyn watched with their binoculars as Captain Strobel and his men rode straight to the village. The infected inhabitants, upon seeing them at two hundred meters, began chasing them, as Captain Strobel and his men fired off their pistols, and began retreating.
Just as silently, Hans observed as B Company and A Company finished positioning themselves on the hills, all while Captain Strobel and his men began dashing to the positions of A and B Company, with the infected horde chasing them from behind.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
At that point…Hans began panicking.
“They’re fast,” Hans exclaimed. “Captain, they’re too fast!”
Adelyn lowered her binoculars, a look of horror in her eyes. “Father…listen, you must let us intervene, now!”
Father Olbrich himself merely breathed in deeply, watching as the undead almost sprinted, albeit slower than a living human, straight into the positions of A and B Company. In fact, some already began dashing straight into their positions, as the musketeers that covered the artillery unit, twenty of them lined up in irregular lines of five men ahead of Hans’ and Adelyn’s position, began visibly shaking in fear as the things dashed toward them.
Hans’ blood ran cold. He wasn’t dying to those things.
“Do it then,” Father Olbrich ordered as the first cracks of musketry opened up through the fields. “Move. Men! Prepare your guns and your swords! Don’t despair, the Gods are on our side against these unholy beings!”
Both Hans and Adelyn however cared not for the preachings of Father Olbrich as they dashed quickly to their vehicles. Hans immediately fumbled on the controls as he dropped on his seat, and he took to the control stick.
“Adelyn! Get those ADI MPATs you prepared loaded! Set it on airburst mode. We’ll waste rounds if we have to!”
“Copy that, Lieutenant.”
Just then, their two beasts of metal sped through the battlefield. First, Hans charged straight into the undead rushing through the main road, and with his targeting interfaces taking aim at the beings, still comfortably eight hundred meters away—he pulled the trigger, launching a torrent of 12.7x99mm rain on them, dropping them rapidly.
Beside him, Adelyn was doing much the same, until the last of the undead dropped dead right in front of them. Immediately, they diverted their attention to the companies they were assigned to. On the top of the hill, however, it seemed that the plan was working.
The undead was dropping as they were slowed down on the hills. Captain Strobel’s men, like a well-oiled machine, unleashed fire in disciplined order at the two hordes that were climbing their respective hills. Both Hans and Adelyn hesitated again on intervening, as it seemed that they were doing their job.
…Until they realized, it was really going wrong. Captain Strobel’s men were opening fire at the planned three-hundred-meter mark, yes. But the things…they were rushing in fast. Way too fast, and they were dropping very little of the undead. Each volley, at most, only dropped ten or so, and they continued on. Even if the musketeers of A and B Company fired their guns in a systematic manner.
The first rank would fire, then they would retreat to the back—as the second rank advanced forward, placing down their musket rests on the dirt, taking aim, and firing a volley, then the next, then the next. But in just thirty seconds, both Adelyn and Hans could see that they had yet to even shave half of the numbers advancing to them—and they were now closing in at one hundred fifty meters.
Hans wouldn’t wait any further.
“Damn it! I’m charging, Captain!”
“Permission granted. Go! I’ll cover A Company.”
“Rog,” his feet pushed on the pedal, and the Wanderfalke’s legs went into overdrive. He pulled the trigger on his MG24s as he took his targets on the move. Rapidly, the hail of machine gun fire cut down the advancing lines, and Hans stopped just two hundred meters on the side of B Company’s formation, helping them clear out the horde.
But…many were getting through, and to his surprise—the formation broke down. Panicked musketeers suddenly peeled away in a sprint, slowed down by their guns. Others entered the pikes as the pikemen opened up their ranks in a few seconds, before reforming it and presenting their pikes on the undead. Hans charged forward, trying to cut as many of the undead as he could before they reached B Company, but he was too late.
Many had already begun hitting the formation, and Hans couldn’t just open fire at them! He could only shoot those still running up the hill. A boom distracted him for a millisecond, and he looked at the other hill. It was the same there, and it seemed that Adelyn deployed her magical ADI MPATs, judging by the masses of burning undead.
Hans did the same. He finally pulled the trigger for his main gun as he aimed at the base of the hill. The MPAT round careened straight out of his main gun, dropping straight at a mass of at least two dozen undead—and sending them, alongside dirt and grass, straight into the air as a violent explosion downed even more with the shrapnel.
Hans continued his job. Adelyn’s estimates of a hundred fifty undead seemed inaccurate. There was definitely more. Perhaps there were even three hundred or four hundred from what he could see. He continued spraying MG24 fire on the undead rushing both to the Peacemaker and B Company, though he didn’t have much that he could do in the melee between pikes and angry flesh. All he could really do now was to stem the horrifying tide upon them.
Another MPAT round was loaded by his autoloader, and Hans took no hesitation and fired it again at the base of the hill, continuing on with his frenzied gunfire. Suddenly, his screens turned red. One of the coaxials overheated, and the automatic barrel replacement system kicked in. He still continued firing the other coaxial as it took eight seconds for the mechanisms on his turret to replace the overheated barrel.
“Damn it! There’s damned too many of them!”
More booms…he could hear it, coming from the road. It seemed that the artillery was now opening fire, sending in solid-shot cannon balls at the undead rushing on the main road. Momentarily, Hans turned his turret there, and aimed at a mass of probably thirty undead, loaded an MPAT, and let it loose. The road was silent again.
He sure as hell wouldn’t just let Father Olbrich die to these things.
He turned back to B Company. They seemed to have reformed and regained their morale, as their pike formation began pushing away the undead that managed to get close, their pikes bloodied from those they literally stabbed with it. On their sides, the musketeers returned, firing their guns shakingly, as Captain Strobel and his men fired their pistols too while on horseback.
In fact, two curraisers covered his sides, both of them slicing any undead that got close with their sabers, now crimson red from the blood of their victims. Hans for his part continued firing his machine gun…left and right, up and down. He felt lost. They must have lost men in this fight. They must have…
His final shot downed the last undead on the hill, who plopped pathetically when he released his fingers from the MG triggers.
Almost simultaneously, Adelyn’s gunfire ended on the other hill, and Hans looked there.
A Company seemed to be standing still…and so was B Company, as they all looked at the hundreds of unmoving and moving bodies around them, that pure rage still twitching from the bloodied and disfigured bodies of these diseased creatures…
…This is hell.
“Gentlemen! See if anyone is bitten. Apprehend them and tie them up! Check each of you, and I swear if any of you dares hide it, your heads will be flying off from my saber!”
That was the last thing he heard outside from Captain Strobel, as he released his hold on his control stick.
They hadn’t even met the actual demon yet.
[123 INFECTED UNDEAD (AVERAGE LEVEL: 8) LIQUIDATED!]
[LEVEL UP! NOW LVL. 11!]
[PROGRESS TO LEVEL 12: 16%!]
[AVAILABLE AP: 140 PTS]
[NEW SKILLS UNLOCKED!]