Chapter 10
Alarms blared across the base. A week after the initial invasion, Ft Moore was under attack again. Savage company personnel engaged in the high speed, high risk organized chaos that immediately preceded contact with the enemy. Pilots scrambled to their exo-mecha, rushing to change into the skin tight cooling suits on the way. Heavy weapons teams sprinted for the ammo depot to swap out half empty cans of training ammo for full live ones, and the XO and first sergeant made their way as calmly and collectedly as possible toward the command center. In the first sergeant's case, the calm and collected outlook was practiced surety. For Lyndis, it was an outward projection that didn’t match her reality.
“I know we’ve been over this many times sir, but are you 100% sure you really want to be heading out on your own?” Lyndis questioned on the command team’s channel.
“I know both of you just want me to be as safe as possible, but I think you’ll understand why this is necessary as soon as all this is over. If either of you have the chance, get to level 4, but if possible hold off on level 5. I need you two to keep a level head, and I can’t have you running off like horny teenagers in the middle of a firefight.” Matt replied.
Lyndis thought about what the captain had said for a moment. Why would she start acting like a horny teenager at level 5? For that matter, she didn’t think anything could possibly cause that effect on the first sergeant. Somehow she was convinced it didn’t really matter though, and she focused back on the various drone feeds. Garrow was in the command center, but he was letting his protege, SSG Tom Garcia run the swarm feed. Meanwhile Cabral was busy shouting orders over the various squad and platoon channels, making sure everyone was in place to offer support by fire or re-position as needed.
Lyndis reviewed her character sheet again, wanting to do a last review of her abilities.
Attribute
Score
Modifiers
Strength
7
+1
Dexterity
6
0
Constitution
7
-1
Intelligence
7
0
Wisdom
8
0
Charisma
9
+1
Luck
3
+1
Aggregate Stats
HP: 196
Stamina: 283
Mana: 108
Vitality: 31
Resistance: 28
Soul Storage
Skill Tokens
Gear Tokens
Attribute Points
Upgrade Points
Currency ($20,000 USD)
($3,000 USC*)
* company fund admin
Other
SKILLS
ABILITIES
SPELLS
Stealth (I)
Cybernetic Hardpoint
Systemic Overdrive
Battlesuit Piloting (I)
Youth vs. Experience
Organization (II)
Class
Advanced Class
Mastery
Battlesuit Pilot
Levels
2
Class Features
Battlesuit Pilot
Pilot some kind of battlesuit. Gain Skills, spells, and abilities to enhance your piloting
She’d been able to spend all her points the day after Matt left. Her main class was a bit of a surprise, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it, since the Exo-mecha program had mostly been designed to buy humanity time, and eventually it was planned to phase out once the average soldier was powerful enough to fight without them, but it also had her thinking about how she could upgrade her mecha with the system’s help.
A flashing yellow overlay on one of the drone feeds immediately caught her attention. A silver dot on the horizon soon resolved into one of the boxy troop carriers the Ice Elves used to drop their troopers. With the enemy in sight, Lyndis focused on the coming battle.
*******
Cabral had just finished positioning the last MG team when Lyndis directed his attention to one of the large monitors. A full screen view from one of the drone swarms showing several of the troop transport drop-ships.
“Cabral, take a look at the speed these ships are approaching.” Lyndis said.
Something did seem to be wrong with the ships. Dirk considered for a moment before a lead weight put his stomach on the floor.
“Staff Sergeant Garcia, rewind that footage.” First Sargent Dirk Cabral ordered.
“Yes Sir! Here’s the whole timeline in 3x speed.” Tom Garcia replied.
“Pause the feed!” Dirk called
The three plus 2nd Lieutenant Garrow huddled around the still frame. As Dirk had suspected, there were several almost imperceptible silver dots separating from the ships. Then they accelerated. The team had a choice to make. Either these ships were part of a decoy, or they were planning a gun run. The enemy soldiers would wait for the right moment, and attack from the ground.
“Ok you two, I want your input. Do we send the captain on this one, or do we have one of the regular pilot pairs with a platoon of heavy weapons try to beat it back? Either way we need to figure this out asap, or we’re going to be up to our necks in enemy.” Cabral noted.
Garrow spoke first. “I think this could be a good chance to level up as many people as possible, assuming we can maintain a high rate of fire. We can double down and send 4 mechas and 2 platoons of heavy weapons. The rest can contain while the captain clears any other units, leveling himself and getting all of us as many levels as possible. Once everyone hits 5 we can team up and close it or send the captain to close if that doesn’t work.”
Lyndis was already shaking her head before Garrow was half way through. “If the enemy has any kind of reserves, or some kind of bomber craft, we’ll be exposing everything we have. The captain will have to deal with anything else quickly, so he’s available to save our butts if anything goes wrong. That’s just too much for one man, even if he is a level 8 destruction machine.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Dirk was about to start issuing orders when Garrow’s VI, CAMEIN spoke up. “While the enemy does seem to have some craft in reserve, at least according to what I can get from air force assets in the area, I doubt they will make an appearance here. It would seem the enemy has decided to attack local population centers. We need to deal with this as quickly as possible, so we can act as reinforcements for local police.
The three leaders stood there with mouths hanging open. “Is that even possible? The system was supposed to guarantee the civilian population wouldn’t be attacked” the XO stated.
“Yes, system records indicate as much, First Lieutenant Soto. I can’t say for sure what the enemy is capable of, but this does represent a significant shift in tactics. Somehow they must have found a work around allowing them to attack however they like.” CAMEIN replied.
Dirk swore under his breath. The returnees were hiding too much. He couldn’t fight an effective war to save humanity if he didn’t know things like this were possible.
“Well, that changes things. Lets have 3 platoons of infantry hold the line, and hold ourselves plus Savage 1-4 in reserve to eliminate or provide fire support if things get out of hand. We can have Canary 1 & 2 hunt down stragglers and start finding us the best route into the city, while the rest of the infantry keeps the status quo on the other side of base. The captain can decide what to hit after we’ve made contact on all fronts.” Cabral provided.
A nod from Lyndis was all it took to get Cabral kicking men in gear. The savage pilots were a little disheartened when they learned they’d be in reserve for most of the fight, especially SFC Ming and SSG Davis, but they’d get over it.
Just as the ships reached gate 5 in a large wave, the trucks transporting 1st, 2nd, and 3rd platoons arrived at the base of the artificial hill that’d been built to give them firing positions, and allow the M-2 heavy machine guns to walk their fire over the group. It was a race to see if Savage company could get their guns up before the enemy overran the position. Dirk nodded to Lyndis before giving a last order to deploy the exo-mecha pilots before he sprinted out of the combat control center, steps pounding along the metal grate floor of the tunnels connecting the CCC with Hanger 1. He knew they would be cutting it a lot closer than he’d like.
*****
Matt listened to the chatter coming through the various comms channels his company had been assigned. Everything seemed to be going well, and he was just waiting to be assigned somewhere once enough info was built up at the CCC to determine where he was most needed. He idly wondered why there wasn’t much traffic from Lyndis or Dirk before deciding to review his character sheet.
Attribute
Score
Modifiers
Strength
11
+1
Dexterity
10
0
Constitution
10
-1
Intelligence
10
+1
Wisdom
10
0
Charisma
9
+1
Luck
2
0
Aggregate Stats
HP: 2,934
Stamina: 990
Mana: 405
Vitality: 45
Resistance: 51
Soul Storage
Skill Tokens (3)
Gear Tokens (3)
Attribute Points (0)
Upgrade Points (1)
Currency ($104,578 USD)
($1,000 USC)
Other
SKILLS
ABILITIES
SPELLS
Stealth (I)
Reap the Harvest
Touch of the Endless [redacted]
Mental Fortitude (IV)
Commune
Touch of the Icy [redacted]
Hardened Soul (IV)
Student of War
Inspiration
Tactical Mastery (I)
Breach the Defenses
Heroic Taunt
Class
Advanced Class
Mastery
Hero (redacted)
Siegebreaker
Tactician
Levels
8
Class Features
Hero (redacted)
Heroic calling from a Deity or greater being
SiegeBreaker
Specializes in ending conflicts that seem to drag on
Tactician
Expert at directing friendly forces to maximum effect
Matt ogled his HP again. That couldn’t possibly be right… could it? He’d have to remember to study up on aggregate Stats tonight in the system guide book, or whenever he next got a chance to review it.
Matt realized he’d allowed his mind to drift, and decided to check in with his XO, since they hadn’t sent him anywhere yet. “Savage 6, this is Savage 6 actual, come in” Matt sent.
Just as he’d decided there was some kind of static and that he’d need to call again, Lyndis answered his comm. “Savage 6 actual…, this is Savage 6. I hear you loud… and clear. Send traffic, over.”
Matt noted the slight hitch in his XO’s breath, but gave her the benefit of the doubt. “Savage 6, what’s your status? Do we have targets worth my attention yet?” Matt asked.
“Savage 6 Actual, this is Savage 5. We’ve had a bit of an issue with positioning of 1st through 3rd squads, and Savage 6 plus myself and a couple others are helping get things squared away. Garrow and CAMEIN will notify you when they have a battlefield solution for you.” First Sargent Cabral cut in.
Matt instantly knew something was wrong. Cabral wouldn’t have responded to his direct request that Lyndis fill him in if everything were OK, but he didn’t feel confident heading that way if elements of the company were already engaged, especially three full platoons plus exo-mecha support. All he could do was trust that Cabral and Lyndis would solve the problem. Instead he reached out directly to Garrow on a private channel.
“2nd Lieutenant, I’m told you are running the CCC while the NCOIC and XO are out. Do you have anything for me to handle?” Matt requested.
Matt could hear CAMEIN chattering in the background when Garrow responded. “Nothing concrete yet sir. If we’d deployed differently, we’d have you handling the situation that Lyndis and Cabral are involved with, but we thought we could get men there before it became an issue. We’ll reach out when we have something sir. Until then, stay frosty. Something tells me that if we need you, it’ll be in a great damn hurry.”
Matt could understand the problem. Ft. Moore was roughly 180,000 acres, so there was a travel time element that had to be considered. Even when the men could move in mostly straight lines via trucks and MRAPs, you would still take a significant amount of time to get from one side of the base to the other once shots were fired. And in the heat of combat, 5 minutes could be an eternity, let alone 30 minutes or longer.
Fortunately there had been quite a bit of warning before the first attack, so they’d had ample time to plan and deploy their men accordingly. Things were a bit more chaotic this time around.
Matt’s pers-e-comm ding’d with an incoming message. He brought it up wondering who would be sending messages that way during combat, only to see that it was from CAMEIN. He opened the message to find a few clips from the drone feed showing another ice queen elf guiding her summoned soldiers towards the base. There was a battle map outlining Matt's route to intercept, and a few additional notes on how the portal had formed and how quickly it was growing which Matt translated to mean he needed to get this done.
A grin split the captain's face nearly from ear to ear. Finally he’d get a chance to unleash a little hell and see if he was really as bad ass as the returnees from Strike Eagle had insinuated.
*******
2nd Lieutenant Lyndis Soto piloted her exo-mecha as quickly as she could, First Sargent Dirk Cabral close on her tail in Savage 5, toward gate 5 and the men and woman of Savage Company struggled to get their guns online in an orchestrated manner. Latest comms and the ubiquitous drone feed showed that they’d gotten 2 of the 6 heavy machine guns operational, and Savage was living up to it’s name, mowing down silvery armored elves with .50 caliber incendiary, but it was only barely enough. The other guns couldn’t quite get set before the elves managed to push toward the position, and the MG teams would have to back away so the existing emplacements could mow down the attackers. It was rinse and repeat, but as soon as reinforcements arrived, or something armored enough to tank a round, things would go bad very fast.
The other issue was that the two MG teams that were up and running had just hit level 4, and while they had time, level 5 would eventually present itself. Then they’d have to rotate teams out, for what reason Lyndis wasn’t sure, and the Captain hadn’t been able to provide a definitive time table for level 5’s to get back into the rotation.
Fortunately almost everyone on the base had been assigned a position in the rotation roster, so if things got that bad, they could start pulling support personnel, or people from non SRG units, but she would prefer to avoid that. Too many paperwork headaches after the fact, not to mention spin up time.
As the dirt mounds that had been designated machine gun emplacements for gate 5 came into view, Lyndis started laying hate, opening up with her the heavy M2 .50 caliber machine gun and Mk-19 Automatic grenade launcher.
The enemy commander had switched up tactics, sending smaller waves to keep the guns busy while sending a large maneuver force to either flank. Before Lyndis could draw attention to the fact, Cabral took up her left flak, walking his .50 machine gun over the elves building up momentum in that sector. With 4 big guns and both of the exo-mecha mounted grenade launchers, the men and women of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd platoon were finally able to get themselves in order and set up the rest of their fire positions, and finally start effectively letting the guns ‘talk’.
*******
Cabral felt a palpable sense of relief. They'd been able to get all the emplacements set, and the first set of ammo trucks had just delivered, ensuring Savage Company would have the staying power to finish the fight. The big Maw Deuce M2 .50 cal BAR machine guns were lighting up the incoming enemy, and at least for now, the incendiary ammo they’d decided would be standard issue was doing the job. Some of the armored elves were able to take a round, being resistant to fire somehow, but it wasn’t a problem yet, with the heavy round having enough force to dish out the damage even with resistance to fire. Things might change if the gun ships made a pass, but for now the situation was contained, and the two members of the company command had a chance to breathe.
Cabral took the opportunity to check in with 2LT Garrow at the CCC. “Savage Command, this is Savage 5, how copy?” Dirk spoke into the communicator on his shoulder.
“Savage 5, this is Savage Command, you are clear to send traffic, over.” Garrow responded.
“Where is Savage 6 Actual? And can you get a status check going on the company chanel?” The First Sargent asked.
“6 Actual is en route to handle a flanking force. Status check coming right up.” Garrow’s voice crackled over the open company wide channel. “Savage Company, this is Savage Command, Send status report as ordered. Savage Command is green, over.”
Cabral focused on building a tactical map in his head from the available drone feeds and what each squad or exo-mecha pilot reported.
“Savage Command, this is Savage 1, all is green. Engaging enemy as ordered.”
“Savage Command, this is Savage 2, All Green. Engaging as ordered.”
“Savage Command, this is Savage 3, All Green…”
The first Sargent continued with the mental exercise, wondering what the enemy commanders were plotting.