Colonel Hacket watched on with a mix of awe and concern as Major General Tetanus argued with one of the arguably most powerful man on the planet. The verbal clash had been going on for nearly an hour now, and has only lasted this long because no one has arrived to take command from General Tetanus. It was very apparent that neither man was going to back down, but both arguments had their merits. Unfortunately, the merits of one greatly out value the other in the eyes of the greater good.
“We're not going to level the entire damn city! For the last time there are still people in the other bunker! We can't just wipe them off the face of the planet!” Grey Spade yells at the general.
“I want to agree but we haven't heard or seen anything from them. And the other bunker is already acting as a base for these cultist rats. I have to assume the worst and that the whole city is lost. And if this continues to escalate we could lose more than just ONE city.”
“So that justifies killing them? As long as it's for the greater good we can just throw their lives away?”
“I do not like this any more than you do. But I have to think of the repercussions to the nation at large. The nation which I have sworn to defend with everything at my disposal. So long as I breathe we will not have another Moscow incident on American soil!”
“This isn't going to be another Moscow! It took the demons weeks to set up the gate at Moscow, it hasn't even been twenty four hours.”
“And our intelligence analysts have determined they have made so much progress in the last day that the gate could be up by tonight. We cannot afford to wait, my decision will not change unless circumstances permit. We will continue to escalate our attacks until noon today, if the shield is not broken by then we hit it with everything we have. If those still inside the city survive the blowout, assuming they aren't already dead, we will rescue those who are left.”
“Rescue them?! You’re going to glass the whole city! There won’t be anyone left to rescue!”
It had been going like this for the last two hours, a circular argument between Grey Spade and the general. Grey Spade couldnt technically act without authorization, which the general refused to give, citing keeping assets on ready standby. But in reality the man could do whatever he wanted, no one was going to stop him. And it looked like it was getting close to the point where he would act without permission. Still, that was outside Hacket's purview, and by extension, not his problem.
The argument continued on while Hacket moved back to his work. Positioning troops, coordinating the ungodly amount of guilds that showed up, reviewing the tactical and strategic situations. Yes strategic, because if they can’t get through that shield they need to be ready with a long term plan, or risk another moscow incident. That's something the world wouldn't be able to handle. The Eurasia front is already bad enough, but another large front on U.S soil, that would be checkmate for the human race. If the largest supplier of basically everything at this point has to pull back to defend its home front, or worse, gets part of its own industrial base knocked out, game over. People fight wars, but logistics win them.
One of the saving graces of the situation though is that the scale and exposure of this event has brought out everyone. Big guilds, small guilds, Air Force, Army, National Guard, hell even the Navy is moving ships farther inland via the channels around Norfolk to provide strike support. Granted anything they launch or fire will take like ten minutes to get here, but at least the extra firepower is semi accessible. Of course, with the extra hands comes resources and manpower, and more politics to go with. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, a slice of the ham, a cup of the enemy's blood so they can boast about it later for clout and glory. And if their not careful about who is positioned where, guild rivals can turn violent at worst, not actually work together at best. The armed forces don't get along very well either, but at least most of the commanding officers realize a fustercluck would probably get every one reprimanded, or worse, the demons could get out. Currently, General Tetanus is in charge because the army got here first and he is the highest ranking officer on site. But the moment someone else with an extra star walks in all hell might break loose.
As if summoned by Hacket’s thoughts, an older woman with blonde hair pushes her way through the flap of the command tent, a scowl very clearly drilled deep into her features. His thoughts turn to the worst for a moment, before realizing the figure isn't wearing an actual armed forces uniform. No, if he remembers correctly that's the uniform worn by the guild master of FlyBoys. A guild best described as paramilitary that focuses on aerial combat and support. Still, they are the backbone of the air cordon around the city. Unless something particularly powerful starts flying around, they will guarantee air superiority when it's needed most.
The old guild master walks straight up to the command table and stands next to Hacket, but a quick glance reveals she has no interest in the man. Instead her green eyes bore into the holographic display showing all the compiled information on the city, the positioning of troops around it, and other seemingly random bits of information. Said display was also being constantly updated by no less than three aids on the other side of the tent, constantly tapping away on terminals to input information, make corrections, and run calculations.
“I see those two are hell bent on dying of old age before coming to an agreement.” The guild master says, clearly addressing Hacket. Well, guess it's time to play politics again.
“It would appear that way.” Hacket replies, trying to keep the conversation short so she can't try to rope him into anything.
“Ahem!” The guild master says aloud, clearly trying to make her annoyance clear to the two people arguing in the tent.
“Guild master Hanah, I thought I ordered that the central command tent is to remain clear.” General Tetanus remarks.
“You also ordered everyone to be ready to push into the city two hours ago, and haven't responded to any inquiries since then. My boys and girls are getting tired, along with everyone else from sitting at maximum vigilance. So I need to know if we can start rotating out resting groups, or if we should continue to sit around with our thumbs up our asses?” Guild master Hanah snaps at the general, her sour mood evident in her voice and the scowl still sitting on her face.
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General Tetanus rubs his face as he walks back over to the operations table. He puts his hands on the table and lets out a sigh while looking down at it, the exhaustion on the man’s face the only crack in facade seen within the last few hours.
“We will make one more strike on the shield. If that fails that I will give the order to move to lower readiness.”
“Like the last three times you ordered strikes on the shield?” Guild master Hana retorts.
“No, this time we have shield disruption specialists on hand for the attempt. They will be positioned at the base of the shield and attempt to destabilize it as we hit it with another round of strikes. Our last set had an effect, so with them here we will break it and push in.” The stone faced general says.
“You sound very confident.” Grey Spade replies.
“If you had seen them in action on the front lines you would be as well. Hammer Time’s demolition experts excel at breaking enemy fortifications. This will be over soon, then you can have your break.” The general says, shooting a pointed look at the guild master.
The politically powered bickering continues as Hacket continues his work. Someone has to make sure everything is set up according to plan after all. It was during his double checking of troop positioning that he noticed the message from the intelligence division. Whenever the spooks wanted to talk directly, you were either going to wish you could promise them a budget increase or curse their very necessary existence. He reluctantly swiped to the message on his personal pad, fully expecting the worst. What he instead found was a short but surprising message. ‘Possible armed resistance cell within hot zone, see report 1532 for details.’ Ah yes, because just telling me the important parts so I didn't have to dig is overrated, Hacket thought to himself. Either way the message was clear, important information was in the report, so it was forwarded straight to him. A link to said report was sent in an immediate follow up message.
Hacket would tear into them for violating IT security protocols later, the report itself took precedence right now. So he tapped the link and opened the document, only to find it was measly twenty pages long. That length was basically nothing compared to some of the reports on what the regular cultist patrols were doing, much less the camp itself. At least that meant it would be a quick read, at least that's what he thought as he started skimming the document over. But as he continued reading he had to slow down in an attempt to wrap his head around whatever he was reading. It started late last night when a drone had picked up an odd heat signature bolting through the streets, being chased and slowly surrounded by a large mass of other signatures. No doubt a survivor trying to escape death. The chase had continued for a little while, before the individual was surrounded on all sides with no chance of escape. Said individual then managed to jump up onto a nearby street lamp in almost a single bound, but they ended up hanging and had to pull themselves up. This caused the local monsters to attempt to rip the pole down, which in turn caused the individual to repeat their impressive feat and jump up onto the roof of a nearby building. Hacket continued reading the report, how said individual eventually jumped to the building over, thus disappearing from view. The drone observed the area for a while longer but eventually departed after not seeing the individual reappear and several other heat signatures enter the building, including a large one. The drone was a basic model, so it didn't have any advanced sensors or night vision, only a basic camera and IR.
That concluded the first indicedent, but several hours later another incident occurred. This time a recon drone, one with actual detection and spotting equipment, picked up a new set of signatures in the same building from before. Said signatures seemed to hang out in the windows and use optical magnification devices to observe the city below in the direction of the cultist camp, which was starting to unfurl from the central bunker by this point. Eventually most of the signatures disappeared, leaving only one to continue observing the camp. A while later several more signatures reentered the corner room they were observing the city from, several of them carrying weapons, before one of them collapsed and was carried off by the others. That was the end of the second incident. While was all interesting information, but it didn't do Hacket any good, aside from maybe adding it to the list of places to check for survivors if they ever get in. A few armed civilians were not going to be able to do shit, even if they figured out a way to communicate with them and IF they were willing to help.
It remained the same after that, with one of the signatures watching the city below and base while the others were nowhere to be seen, until just after day break. Just after dawn the signatures all regrouped in the corner room to discuss things, seeing how they cleared the tables off to the side and wheeled in a white board. The drone that was observing them now was one of the newer models, which had all the good stuff for long range observation and enough surveillance equipment to put a nosy old lady neighbor to shame. It managed to capture a few good frames of their armory despite being god knows how far away circling above the shield. The weapons were listed in the report, but Hacket immediately realized they were not well equipped at all. Just a couple of old model pistols, a newer shotgun, and an old DRM. Decent for self defense in this situation, but not much else. The DRM might be useful in the hands of a trained professional, but that was a bit of a stretch. By this point the cameras had somehow managed to capture clear shots of the people inside, so clear on some frames in fact that they were able to get facial shots or partial shots to feed to a facial recognition program for identification. Almost all civilians, as Hacket expected, the only one with any experience was the older man who was a ten year veteran of the war. But he had received a medical discharge, so Hacket highly doubted he would be able to do anything.
Their discussion seemed to continue on until one of the group members became irate, with the rest of the group seemingly against him on the subject at hand. Eventually he turned and stormed out of the room, running into a not yet seen young woman on his way out, who he seemed to be aggressive towards before leaving. When the new individual was finally able to enter the room, the drone got a clear shot, and Hacket was able to understand why the spooks had directed his attention to this report. The girl was identified as Lucy Bretmont, newly awakened defender who got her powers after the near disastrous breach event just over week ago. Yet despite that she has two confirmed kills and one assist accredited to her. It seems someone was doing their part to help with cleanup.
Still, she wasn't exactly the shining solution to the big problem like he had been hoping for. One other big and glaring issue stared back at him from the girls file, aside from the lack of training, experience, and power. Age, nothing screams evil quite like a child soldier. While she isn't really a child, being almost legal, in the eyes of the law she is. That means anyone touching her is fiddling with fire at a minimum. If they have absolutely no other choice to prevent disaster they could maybe, just maybe get her help and spin it in a way where they don't get dishonorably discharged on the spot. But if anyone so much as reaches out to her while alternatives are available….. that will result in a dead career at minimum, probably taking everyone above and below you in station down with you to boot.
Ironic, she's probably more dangerous than any singular, normal human soldier. And the only one inside they know of who might actually be able to do anything. And she's off limits because of her age, which Hacket would completely agree with if demons were not threatening to open a second super portal on American soil……. Unless.
Hacket swapped away from the report, instead opening the web browser on his tablet and going to the internet. Soldiers were taught a lot of things in basic, most of it completely useless after taking the corresponding tests. But one of most hated things was the mind melting memorization of almost all the various acts, laws, and bills passed by every who ha and politician regarding service and the war. Drill instructor Michel might have been the most hated person on base because he had to teach that, and he did so with zeal. Now for once Hacket is thankful for that zeal, instead of cursing it. The world really is going crazy. But thanks to that zeal Hacket remembered most of the key points of the documents, even if he doesn't remember which document. And if he is remembering correctly, one of them should provide just what he needs. The Bunker Defense Act of 2029? No, maybe the Expanded Conscription Act of 2035? Shit, not that one either. Then Hacket remembers the passage he’s looking for is in a really odd place, not where you would expect it. He swaps gears and starts combing through the more innocuous acts. It takes a few minutes, but he finally finds what he’s looking for in the Child Education and Defence Act of 2036. Section ten, article five point thirteen, ‘any persons not of age may be pressed into involuntary service in the events of invasions of foreign entities which may threaten their safety, and all other avenues of ensuring said safety have been pursued.’ There is a bunch of restrictions and political gibberish immediately after, but that was the most important part. It's supposed to be for situations where everyone is going to die anyway, so might as well give the children guns for a fighting chance.
Using it to tell a young girl in the middle of cultist infestation to go effectively put her neck out is not the intended use, but he can probably spin it enough that it's technically allowed. So only his career will get torpedoed, instead of getting thrown in prison for the rest of his life. Better than getting fucked by demons though. This was going to be a long day….