Sergeant Muller rubbed his gloved hands together, cursing the blizzard that had rolled in over the last hour. Twelve Groundhog APCs arrived an hour ago, and the Sergeant, along with the rest of his detachment, had been assigned to ferry refugees and the wounded onto the Shepherd VTOL transports. Following the PAC takeover of Berlin, there was a major rush by EU High Command to get as many remaining refugees into Camp Gibraltar from Cerbere Landing, before the bulk of the PAC forces cross the Rhine. Thankfully, this was proving to be a slower process than EU High Command dared to hope, as several PAC Titans suffered engine malfunctions during the crossing.
Once the refugees got on board the Shepherds, they'd be safely whisked off to the EU Hospital Titan, stationed halfway across the Mediterranean. After this group, High Command reports there are only 10 more APCs heading to Cerbere Landing, but they had intermittent contact with PAC forces. This worried Muller; all he wanted was to return to the Hospital Titan, where his wife and family would hopefully still be waiting for him. He didn't really like any of what was going on; the PAC offensive in Europe after the attack on the Suez Canal took everyone by surprise. Not all the refugees were evacuated by the time the Nekomatas rode through the Polish border, and no word has been heard of what the PAC did to those left behind.
Muller shook his head. There was no point dwelling on this right now, as the driver was clambering noisily out of the lead Groundhog, the vehicles not being made for ease of entry. "I take it you're Sergeant Frank Muller, 5th Detachment of the Hell's Brigade?" the captain enquired, looking quite eager to leave for the dry-docked Titan near Gibraltar, where he'd be safe for his trip over to Africa. He was probably going to be lucky, unlike Muller. Muller had a feeling in his bones from the last reports that they were going to get hit soon. "Yes, that's me," Muller replied, snapping out of his brief reverie, "How many are we dealing with here?" "There are twelve APCs, each packed with 6 refugees, that makes 72," he promptly replied, beginning to look agitated. "I think you better get your men ready for combat Sergeant, we saw some odd shapes moving through the forests and we were getting a fair amount of interference as well. Could well be some of those new camouflaged units we've been hearing about."
Muller was not happy to hear this. Whilst the EU had been field-trialling their own active camouflage system over the last 5 months, word had spread that elite PAC forces were already being equipped with their slightly superior version, the TL-S1C. "Thank you, have a safe journey." Muller turned to the two attendant Privates that had been waiting for the conversation to finish. "You," he said, "Raise Lieutenant Brooks, inform him that we may be expecting cloaked infiltrators in the next half hour." He waited until the first Private was on his way before addressing the remaining Private, "And I need you to get these people onto the Shepherds, nice and safe, don't be afraid to pack them in tight, we'll be putting the sides on." The Private got on with the task promptly. The Shepherd was an interesting relic of the conflicts during the 2090s, a result of heavy research by several EU aviation firms. The cargo variant removed the pod systems, replacing them folding side doors to protect the cargo, and to stop it spilling out in flight. The Shepherd was one of the first VTOL attack transports to be made, and after 50 years it was so far the only reliable one for transporting troops into battle. The PAC counterpart, the Yastreb, was based on a later design that the EU never got to work. The PAC got it to work, but in doing so had to make sacrifices leaving it no more effective than the Shepherds.
Muller sighed, he was losing concentration again. Probably a side effect of the extreme cold, he reckoned. Muller made his way over to the Sat-Com booth, asking the duty Sergeant if anything unusual had been picked up. The Sergeant reported that nothing had been detected, but added that they only had one fully operational satellite in the area at the time. That would have been fine, he continued, except the PAC knew this, so if they were going to attack at all, today would be the day.