Behemoth
Outside his small prison a storm raged, a storm of steel and fire, hatred and rage. Overlord Gremble sat in his small command center deep in the body of his Behemoth class super heavy combat walker. He checked his consoles and smiled grimly as he saw they were still making steady progress on the rebel lines. Those Hegemony dogs wouldn't even know what hit them when Mary Ann’s weapons came into range of them. A tremendous clang suddenly rang Gremble’s whole body like a bell. He cursed loudly and opened internal communications to Mary Ann’s Pilot “Huans, what the hell just hit us?”
Hauns took a moment to respond as he grunted in effort. He answered “Sorry Captain, we got locked by some sort of infrared beam, and then we got rocked by a missile barrage. We don't have any active protection kits left on our port side.” he finished with a verbal shrug.
'"So what are you telling me, the point defenses aren't working?" Gremble asked the man.
Hauns replied quickly "I'm not sure, they seem to be having difficulty locking incoming projectiles. I can maneuver us around that ridge at two o'clock. That should shield us from the line of sight of their spotters at least." The pilot responded.
Gremble nodded to himself as he pulled the forward image up on his scopes. Yes, it would make decent cover, they could use it as a hull down position as well, give the main gun some action. "That's sound tactical advice Huans, get us in cover ASAP." He commanded the man before the link cut.
He pulled up the diagnostics on Mary Ann. He smiled as he saw that there had been nothing but cosmetic damage from the strike, she was a tough old girl after all. She had carried her crew of fourteen through many engagements, while this had been the hottest one so far, he was supremely confident that they would make it through.
He pulled up the tactical charts to check up on his backup. He had gone into this engagement with three full platoons of Quinten Main Battle tanks and two platoons of Warhammer Class Heavy Beam Carriers. The Quinten's had 140mm main guns that could deliver an explosive or armour piercing projectile at incredible velocities. The Nerivith manufactured Warhammer HBCs were equipped with heavy beam cannons that fired a beam of near ultraviolet light, they were adept at piercing thick armour but vulnerable to side attacks.
He had set the Quinten's to cover the right flank as they moved forwards in a slight pinwheel formation. The Quinten MBTs had encountered heavy resistance, losing one of their number, and so he had called for an artillery strike on the enemy's position. The rebels had responded in kind and knocked out two of his eight Warhammer HBCs. The burning wrecks lit the scrubland in a hellish glow as the HBCs capacitor banks overheated and exploded in gouts of blue sparks.
He scowled, whoever he was fighting against was a capable commander indeed. He felt the subtle vibrations of Mary Ann's legs as the massive command walker stomped into position behind the ridge. He opened the channel to his Commander first class Francis.
The woman answered immediately as he connected to her and he said "Tell Marco and Jalliinn to ready the 225, we are likely to have targets over the ridge that need exterminating."
She replied smartly "I'm sure Marco won't have an issue with that, Overlord. Is that all?" She asked.
He said "For now yes, we need to regain the upper hand. Time for the big guns." He said smiling as he looked at the tactical readout on his many displays.
**********
Marco bared his teeth in a savage grin as Francis gave him his orders. He was to eliminate the enemy with extreme prejudice when they crested the hill. Jalliinn stood beside him, the Gre'vahn barely fitting in the cramped compartment with his large stature and quadrupedal build. He operated the main gun's autoloader and selected ammo types for Marco. He was also Marco's best friend as they had known each other since basic training.
"Alright, looks like we finally get to blow something up." Marco said as he fist pumped the air in the cramped turret.
Jalliinn snorted and turned his wide features to him before he asked "And what is it you find so fascinating about explosions again?" The normally jovial tone of the man's voice now a bit muted.
“I don't know, they are kinda just, well you like explosions too right?” He asked his friend.
Jalliinn just shook his head and said “I don't understand you Humans, I don't think I ever will.”
Marco grinned as he peered through his gunsight and said “You and everyone else. But I think Keeps is starting to understand me.” he said with a chuckle. He couldn't see anything out of his scope, they seemed to be behind some sort of embankment. They must be hunkering down for some reason, maybe it had something to do with that nasty rap they had taken earlier.
Jalliinn asked him “You are still trying to get her attention are you? You aren't even the same species, your biologies are entirely incompatible.” He lectured.
“Au contraire, our physical biologies are quite compatible, believe me I did my research.” he added.
“Oh so that's what you call that disgusting behavior. Just keep your research to yourself, I don't want to walk in on that again…” Jalliinn said with disgust.
Marco smirked to himself. It was a stressful job, and he had needed a release. “Hey, at least I had the decency to apologise, you just walked in without saying anything…”
“Leave it…” his friend said with a wave of an arm. Jalliinn was a Gre’vahn, and while they had the body shape of a mythical centaur, they had the prim attitude of aristocrats. He shook his head as the large man turned around to check the autoloading system.
The Mary Ann’s main cannon was a whopping 225 millimeters in diameter and fired incredibly heavy shells. Far too heavy for any except maybe a body building Yeown to heft. They did have a Yeown in the crew, Nathan was his name. He was actually the second gunner, in charge of the port beam cannons while Keeps was Nerivith and in charge of the starboard Beam cannons.
He had yet to meet the Yeown man, but from what he knew of his race the males were the smaller and weaker gender. He wondered what that translated to, he had seen a female Yeown before, and she had been muscled like a professional bodybuilder. Not really his cup of tea, he was more interested in Keeps, the Nerivith were from a slightly lower gravity world than Humans and it showed in their tall graceful forms. Add on the fact that she had fiery rose colored skin, horns like a succubus and a sinuous tail and it checked all of his boxes for mysterious and exotic. It certainly helped that the Nerivith were a lot tougher than they looked, more than capable of drinking till the sun came up and getting into some brawls.
He smiled at the memory. He shook his head to clear it as they were in an active hot zone, not the place to get lost in day dreams.
His comms buzzed as he received orders from Francis. Checking them he smiled and said “Looks like we’re up. Get ready with the ammo selector, we might need it.”
He turned back to his targeting array and scanned the scope, nothing ahead of them yet, but he could see that they were now climbing the large hill they had taken refuge behind. Another few seconds and the turret would be able to fire over the top and potentially into the enemy.
“Cmon, give me something to blow up…” he muttered to himself as the scope started to clear the ridge.
He swore as a gleaming projectile wizzed over the top of the turret mere centimeters from hitting his scope. That would have sucked. He turned in the direction the shot had come from and saw a pair of Sharptooth MAVs on a ridge about a kilometer away. He measured the range while shouting “Load semi armour piercing!”
“Semi armour piercing aye!” Jalliinn shouted back, in a moment the massive shell was rammed into the insulated breach and he targeted the leftmost vehicle.
The vehicle started to pull back into cover but wasn't quick enough as he depressed the firing trigger and the gun erupted in fire and smoke. The shell crossed the thousand meter gap in an eyeblink and struck the Sharptooth with enough violence to rock it up onto its rear wheels. It only stayed like that for the barest instant before the semi armour piercing shell’s explosive core detonated, tearing the armoured vehicle apart in a spray of razor sharp fragments of semi molten metal.
The other Sharptooth slewed to the side as a large chunk of its companion destroyed its rearmost wheels. It started to turn its large main gun in his direction but he fired off another shell before it could get a bead on them. He smiled savagely as he watched the vehicle get torn to shreds by the massive battle cannon.
Checking his scope for additional targets he saw an unarmoured troop transport fleeing the scene and said “Load high explosive!”
“Loading high explosive.” Jalliinn intoned.
The turret creaked slightly as he made a small adjustment to the inclination of the main gun and fired. The high explosive shell traveled slower than the armour piercing shells and it took almost a full second for it to reach its target.
“Damn, missed.” he grumbled as the shell struck the ground a full three meters to the left of the transport. He shrugged as he watched the blastwave crumple the side of the transport like it was paper, the heavy vehicle sent flipping end over end before its power cells ruptured and it exploded in a brilliant white flash of chemical fires.
He scanned the horizon and turned to look at Jalliinn as he said “All clear, nice job, not even a millisecond of lag on your selections.” his friend nodded severely and remained silent.
Not all races in the Sapient Congressional Union were good fighters. Many simply lacked the stomach or resolve to do what was necessary. But he admired Jalliinn, the Gre’vahn were a rather peaceful race, but when Jalliinn had learned of the Hegemony’s unprovoked attack on Gorlich station he had decided to fight. He had put aside his fears and doubts and taken up arms in the defense of the Union. That was something brave, not like himself. He had only joined because his veteran father had told him too. Until the rebellion had started his heart had not been in it. Then he had seen the footage of thousands of innocent civilians being sucked into the freezing cold void of space as a cowardly Hegemony vessel rammed the megastation. The looks frozen on the faces of children as their eyes burst and their blood boiled, the images would haunt him forever.
He realised he was breathing heavily and felt a large furred hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Jalliinn giving him a concerned look.
“Are you alright Marco, you seem to be having trouble breathing…” his friend asked him.
Marco placed one of his hands on the larger man's own and patted it as he calmed down. “I'm, I'm fine. I was just thinking, well. Nevermind, we need to make sure we are alone out here right.” he said, evading the issue. Jalliinn took the hint and released him.
He opened comms to Francis and said “Commander, scopes are clear. That looked like the last of them for the moment.”
He waited a second as she replied “Good shooting Marco, keep sharp though, Luck only knows how many more of those rebels are out there.” He nodded to himself as the link ended. It seemed they were not as alone as they would like to be, and there was still the matter of the rocket launcher that had to be around somewhere.
He leaned back into his gunner's seat as he inspected the surroundings, all thoughts of levity and lightheartedness gone from his mind.
**********
Huans sat in his pilot crucible silently, he managed the Mary Ann with a precision and grace that was at odds with its 350-ton bulk. She was like an extension of his own body at this point, so deep was his concentration.
He watched in satisfaction as the enemy vehicles were obliterated by her main gun, their flaming wrecks broadcasting their demise by belching thick plumes of oily black smoke. They had reached the crest of the hill and now had two options, to continue into the intervening valley where they would be at a disadvantage in the low ground, or they could continue sideways along the ridge where they would be sitting ducks for any HBCs or destroyers that peeked them.
The choice was taken out of his hands as he was given orders to descend into the valley, shrugging mentally he began the slow descent. The Mary Ann was a big ol girl, fully twenty-five meters in length and over eleven meters tall, she was a big target. Being a big target she needed an adequate amount of protection, she was layered with sheets of heavy armour composites sandwiched between layers of hardened steel. Her most vulnerable areas were further strengthened with thick titansteel plates that would protect against anything but the heaviest caliber of fire.
His crucible itself was a titansteel ball, gyroscopically stabilized to minimize distractions during combat maneuvers. The inner walls of the ball were entirely covered in monitors connected to outside cameras and sensors so as to give him an entirely unimpeded view of the outside. It was as if he was able to see through the walker to the outside. There were a couple of fuzzy spots as coverage had been lost due to repeated missile impacts, but the armour itself was hardly scratched.
He carefully navigated the Mary Ann down the steep hillside, the small scraggly bushes and misshapen trees being crushed under her wide clawed feet. It was dry and hot outside, but inside was cool. He stepped over a large ravine that would have swallowed a MBT whole and continued along the bottom of the valley towards the location set by overlord Gremble.
He watched the dust from the decent drift lazily through the air for a few moments. This whole engagement had been a bit chaotic, he was looking forwards to the end of this deployment. There was a huge difference between guarding a trade route against marauders and fighting an organized insurrection. Especially one of this scale, last he had heard almost a quarter of the SCU was now embroiled in this crazy war.
Huans was a military man, he lived and breathed his work as a pilot. He loved every second of the day he was controlling the gigantic steel monsters of the Union, but he hated to see such death. Billions had perished already across the width of the Union's northern side, and billions more would likely die in the upcoming years. He didn't even know why they were fighting, just that the others wanted him dead so he made them dead first.
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His gaze wandered to the top of a nearby hill where a plume of dust was rising. He wasn't worried though, the IFF tag showed it was just one of the Warhammer HBC platoons. The large tracked vehicles crested the ridge and started to make their way down, there were only three of the vehicles, the other having been destroyed.
The Warhammer HBCs were interesting vehicles, their main heavy beam cannons looking less like instruments of death and more like telescopic science equipment. They were more than capable of projecting an intense beam of near ultraviolet light that could destroy heavy armour at ranges of almost two thousand meters. Their beams were more effective at close ranges but nevertheless deadly in their own right. The tanks themselves looked wholly alien in design with split tracks and a flexible middle joint that allowed them to make sharp turns.
He watched as the lead tank popped its commander hatch and a horned Nerivith poked her head out. As the females were the stronger of their species, they were the more likely to join active duty conflict, although the males were no less fierce. Thousands of years of unrelenting castle age conflict had hardened the Nerivith to the point that they no longer felt fear or worry in combat, they were unaffected by stress and would stoically hold their position till they died.
The Nerivith waved to the Mary Ann and he smiled, he would have waved back if he thought she would have seen it. The moral boost Mary Ann gave to the other units was immense. To see such a powerful symbol of the Union's military might destroy their enemies must have been a sight to behold. Too bad he was no longer affected by the sight in the same way.
He opened comms to the Engineering deck and was greeted by the gruff voice of the Engineer. "Huansss, we got a bit of a bonk there a while ago. What did you pilot usss into thiss time, not another building I hope." The Engineer hissed with mirth over the link.
Huans smirked and replied "Not at all. We were just walking through a little explosive rain. Nothing to be alarmed about Kruups. Though you might want to do a diagnostic on the middle portside leg, I'm getting some feedback lag on it which is making her pull to the left." He mentioned to the Vinarfelien Engineer.
Kruups responded "Ssure thing. Wouldn't want you to have an excusse for the next time you walk us through ssomeonesss back yard."
Huans groaned and said a quick thanks before cutting the link. That man could be so annoying at times. He was unusually sunny of disposition for a Vinarfel, the large centipede-like aliens were usually quite dour. But he liked the dark cramped spaces of the engine room, probably reminded him of home as Vinarfel were burrowers and liked to live underground.
He was about to ask for instructions from Gremble when he was shocked by a tremendous explosion to their left. He looked over in time to see a pair of Quinten MBTs roll to a fiery stop at the bottom of the hill. He watched as another tank was rocked by an explosion, but this time the tank's armour held.
He saw the thin contrails that led into the sky and growled "Missiles."
**********
Commander second class Hooligan jerked in his command chair at the rear of the Mary Ann as multiple friendlies disappeared. He opened a link to Gremble and asked "Sir we are being hit with indirect fire. There must be a spotter somewhere."
He heard Gremble reply to another crewmember before switching his attention to him and saying "Missiles, likely from a Sideswipe SPA, we need to take out the spotter. I'm counting on you to deal with it, Hooligan." And then the link was cut.
Hooligan gurgled in minor frustration. What he wouldn't give to be relaxing in his pool back on the base. All this dry air was making his scales itch, and getting shot at by invisible missile carriers was not helping.
He did a quick scan and cursed as it came back empty. He swore as another missile barrage struck the valley floor, one of the HBCs losing a track to a near miss. He scanned again, this time while adjusting the frequency to eliminate the chances of missing something.
Success, he smiled widely, revealing his shark like teeth and said to himself "I got you now you little sluurge." He had detected a tiny signal return from directly above them. A tiny unmanned drone was lasering them from above and he directed the twin linked 30-millimeter anti air gun to deal with it.
A second later the tiny drone was falling in pieces as the high explosive rounds tore it from the sky. He opened a channel to Gremble and reported "Spotter is down, but they still have range on us, I recommend we take evasive action."
Gremble didn't reply but a moment later he felt Mary Ann shudder as she started to move. Looking through his optics he saw that the other tanks in their convoy had started to move as well, spacing out so as to avoid being hit by the same fire.
He heard a series of beeps as another volley of rockets was detected a split second before they impacted the ground in a series of detonations where they had been not five seconds before. The blast waves from the missiles rocked the Behemoth slightly and he smiled grimly as he registered the miss. He connected the radar to the point defenses and tried to get them to sync up, but there appeared to be some sort of damage to the radar system. He swore silently and switched to the backups, no wonder the point defenses had not been firing, they had been blinded.
The secondaries came online and the point defense turrets began to scan the skies for threats. He leaned back into his seat briefly and let out a gurgling sigh. He scratched his head fin with his webbed hand and nodded. They should be safe from additional missile strikes now.
**********
Nathan was angry. Why were these Hegemony fucks trying to destroy the Union. What had the Union ever done to them?
He understood the need for freedom, he was a Yeown himself, his bestial features screwed up into a snarl as he watched his comrades in arms destroyed by cowardly indirect fire. He was ashamed that his people, his people's homeworld of Bright Moon had gone into revolt. Just because he was a Yeown didn't mean he was a traitor, despite what some people seemed to think.
He had seen enough Human and Vinarfelien soldiers in the rebel ranks to know it was bigger than that. But it didn't change the fact that the first world to rebel had been the Yeown colony of Mountain Veil. People blamed the Yeown for starting the war but it wasn't so simple. The second world to join the rebels had been a Human world after all, why weren't they as suspicious as he? Because they were the founders of the Union? That was a bunch of yentin shit.
They began to move shortly after and he gripped the trigger of his twin linked beam cannon array tightly in his large furred hands. His claws unsheathed slightly as his anger boiled up but he pushed it back down. Now wasn't the time to get riled up, he needed to stay calm.
Several explosions went off in the air above them as the top mounted vulcan rotary guns spewed a stream of lead at the incoming missiles. He smiled, looked like the point defenses were back up. Now if they could just find where that fucking SPA was they could stop the missiles at the source.
His forward sensors were still fully operational giving him an unimpeded view out of the front of the Behemoth. His beam cannons were charged and ready to go, with a maximum range of twelve hundred meters, anything that tried to come over the top of the hills next to them would be well within his range.
He kept his guard up as the remaining MBTs and HBCs rolled towards their objective with them. They were trying to reach a small mining settlement about ten kilometers from their current position. Orbital reconnaissance had suggested that there was a significant rebel presence in the region and they were using the town as a refueling and resupply point.
The rolling hills of the arid landscape provided ample cover even for the massive bulk of Mary Ann. The same could be said for their enemies. With neither side having achieved air superiority, they had no idea what lay beyond the next ridge, there could have been an entire battalion and they wouldn't have known. Being blind as they were, he was extra on edge, his green eyes tracking every swaying bush and puff of dust on the horizons as he expected an attack to show up at any time. It was his scrutiny of the ridgelines that alerted him to the attack just before it swept over the hilltop to their left.
Nathan spotted an irregularity that sat ill with his eye. Trusting his honed instincts, he zoomed in on the spot and his eyes widened as he made out the tube of a rocket launcher. The Daggertooth launcher started to swing in their direction so he reacted, aiming his twin linked beam cannons at the camouflaged soldier holding it he fired without warning.
One moment there was a malevolent figure on the hill, about to do harm to one of his fellow Union soldiers, and the next a pair of blinding purple beams seared through the air and the man was vaporized. Another man whom Narhan has not seen went rolling away from the blast, his ghillie suit alight and writhing in agony as his flesh burned from his bones.
All at once the ambush was sprung, but the element of total surprise had been lost. The other vehicles of the convoy were already turning their weapons to the hilltops when the rebel forces started to stream over them.
**********
"Whoa what the hell…. CONTACT!! Load high explosive!" Marco yelled as a twin beam of purple light stabbed out from the front of Mary Ann and vaporized a pair of unfortunate rebels. Not as unfortunate as the next group that were utterly destroyed as Marco sent them a 225 millimeter care package.
As the pieces went spiraling away he noted that his scope, which had shown the all clear just seconds before, was now swarming with contacts. The Mary Ann was the lynch pin of their defense and was receiving targeting data from not just her own scopes and sensors, but those of the convoy as a whole. Enemies that were not in his direct line of sight were still marked as red chevrons by allied units as they sent their telemetry data his way.
He registered a tracked vehicle cresting the ridge to his left, swinging the massive battle cannon to bear on it he depressed the trigger and felt the whole vehicle rock under its tremendous recoil. The tracked vehicle, an M3A2 Edward IFV, crested the hill and fired a trio of shots with its autocannon before Marco's shot impacted its frontal armour at an angle. The high explosive shell detonated on contact caving in the front of the IFV and flipping it over onto its back.
As a trio of wounded soldiers crawled from the wreckage they were cut down by the copilot Jeebs as he worked his 12.7 millimeter heavy machine gun over the ruins. The soldiers were torn to pieces and Jeebs directed his stream of armour piercing tracers to another patch of light infantry.
Marco called back to Jalliinn "They have light armour support, but might bring in heavier guns, load the semi armour piercing."
Jalliinn responded quickly "Semi armour piercing aye."
Marco smiled. No nonsense was just the way Jalliinn liked to do things in combat and it suited him just fine. When they made it through this he and his friend would go back to their usual joking selves, but now in the midst of combat. They were laser focused.
As soon as the round was loaded he spotted another troop carrier coming over the hill, he squinted as he noticed it was a Vinarfel design. Shrugging internally, he fired anyways and was rewarded with the HAPT-D67 heavy personnel carrier rocking onto its side, only one set of wheels on the ground.
As it slammed back down he frowned, why hasn't it exploded. "Luck damn it Jalliinn! I said semi armour piercing, that was armour piercing!" He shouted to the Gre'vahn loader as he realized what had happened.
Jalliinn replied "It must have been loaded into the ammo rack incorrectly, it was indeed drawn from the semi AP section."
Marco grunted loudly in frustration and said "Well load me up another and tell me if it's correct this time." He turned his attention back to the transport which had opened its back ramp and was just starting to disgorge its troop complement.
"Semi armour piercing loaded, correctly!" The other man yelled and Marco fired on the same target immediately. Only one of the rebels had time to dive out of the way before the heavy troop carrier detonated like an overripe fruit.
"Hell yeah, that's more like it!" Marco shouted. Keep us on semi for now." He said to Jalliinn.
As another round thumped into the hungry maw of the gun breach, he scanned for another target worth his shot. He saw a multitude of light utility vehicles crest the ridge to his right. Both Yeown manufactured Sharpclaw LUVs and Human designed Valor M3 LUVs joined the mad dash towards their lines. They were only two hundred meters away and closing fast.
"Load high explosive next." He said as he fired on the lead truck. The semi armour piercing shell punched through the Valor's engine block and buried itself a meter in the dirt under it before exploding. The blast lifted the three and a half ton truck off the ground and sent it cartwheeling end over end before it smashed into a nearby Sharpclaw. Both vehicles then careened out of control before the Valor's power cells detonated in a blinding flash of light.
The sensors of his gunsight automatically darkened the blast and he fired the high explosive shell as it loaded. The high explosive detonated on the ground in between two of the approaching light vehicles smashing both to splinters and splashing their occupants across fifteen meters of dry soil.
That was three down, but there were still seven of the LUVs approaching, he was only going to get one more shot before they were on top of him. He aimed for two more trucks that hadn't gotten the memo to spread out and put a HE shell right between them. The forward truck was sent end over end, its rear drivetrain shredded. The other one suffered an immediate detonation of its capacitor banks as red hot fragments were sent slashing through its forward section, the bright flare of a chemical fire visible for a split second before it wrecked into the crater his shot had left at high speed.
He sucked in a breath as the other five vehicles screamed towards them, and let it out in surprise as they were all destroyed by intense beams of purple light. He looked to the side and saw all five of the remaining HBCs turning away looking for new targets. He grinned widely, they weren't alone in this fight, they still had their allies.
As he looked across the battlefield he saw the rebels were falling back in disarray. Their last ditch charge had been broken utterly and the remaining soldiers were either cut down as they fled or captured as they surrendered.
He turned to look at Jalliinn and smiled at the large furry alien. Jalliinn shuffled on his four clawed feet and crossed his arms saying "It still wasn't my fault the rounds were not loaded in the proper location." He heard him grumble.
Marco laughed, he laughed hard, finally he wiped his eyes and said "No, it wasn't. But if you're willing, we can track down the son of a bitch who messed it up together and invite the poor bastard out for a drink. I think I need a drink anyways." He finished as he sobered.
Jalliinn nodded and said "Sure, why not. This is a Human custom I am familiar with."
Marco just nodded and turned his attention back to the scopes. The enemy had fled, but the wrecks littering the valley floor could still be hiding hostiles. Until the area was cleared he would remain alert.
***********
Gremble sighed as he leaned back into his chair. The firefight had been over for almost two hours now and they had been forced to hold their ground as one of Mary Ann's legs had taken a direct hit from an enemy armour piercing shell and needed to be repaired.
Command had dispatched backup in the form of two Crocodile AFV engineering tanks and a platoon of Longbow Class laser anti armour wheeled tank destroyers. The Longbow LAAs would help to cover their losses of HBCs. Though not as powerful as the Warhammer HBCs, the Longbows were much more maneuverable and could cover ground faster than their heavier counterparts.
He watched the plume of dust approach slowly over the top of the ridge they had crossed two hours before. Using the magnification on his scope, he could just make out the four LAAs and the two chunky Crocodile AFVs as they approached. A minute later and his comms went off as he was hailed.
"Overlord Gremble this is commander Thomas of the seventeenth engineering corps, I heard you got yourself in a bit of a bind and I'm here to dig you out." A sturdy voice said to him.
"Thank you kindly, Commander Thomas. Always can count on the corps to dig us out of a hole. We are immobilized and in need of emergency repairs. Our orders are to then move to the mining site to secure it." He said. Gremble heard the man give an acknowledging grunt and asked "That should not be too difficult right commander?"
The man was silent for a minute before he spoke. "Our orders were to assist with repairs, not to pursue the enemy." He said reluctantly.
Gremble shook his head, that wouldn't do. "And what if I told you those orders were bullshit commander?"
He could hear the man grin through the link as he answered "Then I would be forced to agree with you sir."
Gremble smiled in response and said "Then welcome aboard Thomas. This is Mary Ann, she's a very special lady and should be treated with care and dignity. We need to be able to move out in a minimum of two hours." He finished.
Thomas responded immediately "From what your diagnostics say it will probably only take us about one. Sir." He added.
Gremble nodded to himself, they were stuck, but it was only a minor setback. They would push those rebel scum out by nightfall. "Tell your crew that we are grateful for their help. And good luck." He added.
The link severed and he looked once more at the carnage of the battlefield. He was proud of his crew, damn proud. Today they had been ambushed and surrounded, but rather than tremble and fear, they had girded themselves with fury and destroyed the enemy. The burning wrecks of Hegemony vehicles attested to that.
He decided that he would invite them all to have a drink when they got off duty. It was only fair, plus he really wanted a drink as well. He smiled once more and looked off into the middle distance towards their target location.
"Soon." He said aloud. "Very soon."
End of Story