Gallian Front
Town of Redor
5 Days into the Imperial Invasion
Devil take that Gallian Lieutenant! Maia cursed as she dismounted her bicycle the instant the main gate of Redor came into view. And the Devil take all soldiers, Gallian and Imp both, for starting this stupid mess and getting me involved! Anger seethed in her, thankfully burying the very real fear of death struggling to overwhelm her emotions. What do I care if some governments decide to blow each other up over territory, wealth, and all that garbage? Life for a Darcsen's not going to change, bottom of the heap everywhere. Imps and Gallian both look at you as inhuman, Federation too, so why spill my blood over it?
That Lieutenant though, Maia heard a voice from some deep, dark, usually silent place speak in the back of her mind. He didn't bother with bullshit, and he didn't make any Darcsen remarks. He just held up that gun and said 'choose.' That's some ice cold stones there, no mistake. She could almost respect the man, despite sending her here to take an Imp bullet to the head, almost.
The sounds of battle, close now, intruded on her thoughts, but there was nothing to see. It was all lost in a fog of smoke and dirt beyond the gate, errant noises of pain and death and destruction raining down with the continuity of a factory assembly line, but she could discern nothing from this maddening din. It was all merely noise; she had not the skill to discern the particular melody of the different weapons, the variable frequency of the rifles and machine guns used by differing sides. The explosions and the human sounds of pain and despair were always universal, of course, but universally uninformative.
So Maia hefted the rifle and tried to focus on it to calm her nerves. She sighted in on the gate's right pillar, finding a great knot in the massive logs used to build it.
Heavy…she noted, feeling the unfamiliar nature of the weapon. So this is a military model, so different from a sporting rifle. The recoil's sure to be fierce; I'll have to be careful. The technical thoughts were calming, they avoided dwelling on the crux of the matter: shooting a human being. Maia had never done that before, though she'd fired a weapon thousands of times in competition, having taken up biathalon as a winter counterpart to triathalon. The Imps don't allow Darcsens to enter their competitions, but I guess anyone can enter a war, she thought grimly.
Then the battle shifted.
A tattered line of men pulled back through the gate, running in many directions. A lone tank rolled backward trying to cover these men in the blue of Gallian regulars, mixed with town watch, but a shell slammed into its turret just as the threshold was crossed, and a massive ball of fire engulfed the gateway.
Eyes burning, Maia blinked desperately, trying to focus on what was happening. Machine-gun fire tore through the gate even as few men retaining sense labored to seal it shut. Bodies hit the ground as a tank shell tore a huge hole in the side of the steeped wood, and the young Darcsen watched in terrible fascination as an arm, severed by shrapnel, tumbled through the air for a good thirty meters before landing in a bed of marigolds.
Moments later, the gate shut but not properly sealed and already buckling under heavy fire, the Gallian regulars streamed away in every direction. Some ran past Maia's position of modest obscurity behind a patio bench, but other took any road. I really hope they're responding to some kind of retreat plan, she thought desperately. Otherwise Gallia's not going to last very long and getting out of the country could be a hot prospect. Bitterly she regretted taking the wrong turn and entering that square. She could be putting miles and refugees between her and the Imperial column even now, instead she'd been sent by that ice-hearted Lieutenant to play tag with trained soldiers.
An ear-splitting crack ran out above the din, and then a long tearing creak echoed as half the gate buckled, tore, and fell to the ground with a powerful but soft whump.
Maia's eyes followed it out of instinct, and so she barely noticed when the first tan clad form crossed over her field of view.
Imp soldiers! Shit! Her body responded faster than her mind. Schooled to track and fire immediately when finding a target she pressed down on the trigger automatically, slicing through the first long pull and then subsequent short pulls as she emptied all five rounds.
The tan-armored soldier, struck where his neck plates and helmet met by the third shot, tumbled to the ground. Belatedly Maia observed he must also be a scout, for he carried one of their bolt-rifles.
Somewhere something in the back of the young woman's mind a singular thought registered to the exclusion of all others: you just killed a man. He never even saw you and now he's dead. The whole world went numb.
Her eyes and body didn't bother listening to her mind. True to her sportsman's heritage they were going on based on pure adrenalin and instinct. Tracking the tan-colored uniforms, surprisingly difficult to see against the backdrop of dust and masonry, she fired at another scout as he scrambled over the fallen gate.
This man took hits to the left arm and leg, but did not fall. He spun and returned fire erratically, sending shots over Maia's position. Swiftly reloading the Darcsen blasted two bullets through his helmet and into his brain with her next volley.
A brutal whir cut toward her, and a mighty stream of bullets ricocheted off the bench and nearby ironwork. Eyes twitching to the left they observed a trooper with a stubby, heavier weapon held slung low.
Shocktrooper, Maia noted, recognizing the machine-gun indicator.
What are you doing woman? Her mind finally caught up with her body. Get out! Get out! You can't fight the whole Imperial army by yourself, you'll get killed. That Lieutenant said to haul ass when the gate fell!
"Shit, shit, shit!" Maia hissed under her breath, spitting the words to keep her sanity as she grabbed up her bike, and, in a momentary pause in the firing, streaked into motion.
Bullets seemed to fill the air, and she crouched down as low as possible over the handle-bars, rifle rattling against her back in jolting painful motions. Zigzagging with abandon, Maia struggled to make a difficult target, though she doubted any of the Imperials were trying very hard to hit her. Fear spiked and she dared to look back for a single glance when her ears caught the sawmill-shredding rumble of a tank's tracks thrashing over the fallen gateway. Ragnite engine backlighting it with cobalt fury, the tank trundled forward inexorably. It had come to claim Redor for the Empire, and what was there to stop it?
Thigh muscles churning with the power of a tri-athlete at need, Maia covered the distance very fast, leaving the Imperial troops and their cautious advance into the urban maze, well behind. In seemingly mere seconds she had reached the little line of the '5th Irregulars,' and caught the stern-eyed Gallian Lieutenant peering out through his field glasses, sighting past her.
Skidding to a stop on the rough cobbles the surge of battle-rush faded a little, and Maia felt suddenly overcome with fear. Why did I stop? Why didn't I just keep riding? Surely that Lieutenant wouldn't have wasted time to try and shoot me down, I could have escaped. Glancing at the Gallian Regular, Maia felt a sickening thought in her stomach. If I'd run, I'd be a lesser human than him though, and I'll never admit to that. I don't owe Gallia nothing, but I'll be damned if I let you think I haven't got your courage blue-boy.
"Report scout!" the Lieutenant commanded. Maia could not recall his name, if he'd even been introduced.
"They're coming, the gate's fallen. The regulars were running like lost sheep," she couldn't help but smirk. "I killed two of them." She had not intended to say the last, but it tumbled free on its own accord, impossible to hide.
The Lieutenant's face was unmoved, he id not smile or frown, giving a completely neutral expression. "Two less then, but there's plenty more," he said with soft iron. "Any idea of the overall strength?"
"I couldn't say," she berated herself silently at this admission. He sent me to spot, what kind of an idiot am I, not making a count? "A tank came through almost immediately though."
"They'll run scouts up, and then bring up the armor once they determine there's resistance," the Lieutenant's voice rose, making certain all could hear him. "Everyone, suppress the scouts and wait for the tanks. Stay under cover! Hold your grenades until you can hit a tank; we haven't got enough to spend them otherwise. We have to hold as long as we can!"
"As long as we can?" Maia questioned. "When will we know if we can't?"
His eyes went suddenly murderous, then unexpectedly softened. "Several conditions," he answered. "If they give a direct charge and we can't hold, then we're overrun. That's what they want and what we are going to stop. Eventually they'll fan out through the alleys to flank us or bring up artillery. If they do that then the position is untenable and we'll withdraw." He said it with pride, but Maia saw something else. He doesn't believe we have a prayer of lasting that long, does he?
"Take the left side of the formation, scout," he ordered Maia. "You now have seniority here, by virtue of ten minutes more combat experience than anyone else."
She had just begun to scramble to where he pointed when a sharp cry went up.
"I see them, they're coming!"
"Quiet!" the Lieutenant ordered. "Don't fire until they get close. We want to pin them down! Get under cover you fools!"
Maia scrambled into position, hastily checking the bolt on her rifle. Breathe, Maia, breathe, she told herself. Keep it together. She rolled into place behind and overturned cart, now piled high with reams of paper for padding. It looked comical, and she could only hope the Lieutenant knew what he was doing. I doubt it, what kind of real officer would be taking a bunch of nobodies like us on a stand and die mission? I'll just have to keep myself alive.
There were four scouts, in the androgynous helmeted armored suits used by the Imperials. They advanced in two teams, one covering the other as they scurried from cover to cover, weapons continually up and forward, eyes scanning, all the little behaviors marking them as professional soldiers. They spotted the Gallian position with little difficulty, but held their fire. Maia guessed they were unsure how many persons they faced, or whether there might be a tank hidden in an alley. The second team advanced to the edge of effective range and with surprising suddenness, shattering a surreal calm no one had even realized existed, opened fire.
The bullets impacted futilely against blocks of paper and the cobblestones. "Hold your fire!" the Lieutenant shouted, but his request was futile. Someone, Maia had no idea which of her fellows it might be, she didn't know them at all, shot back.
Their fire missed wildly, but the Imperial scouts shot back with solid accuracy, sending tufts of paper and nasty wooden splinters everywhere.
"Damn!" the Lieutenant's voice rose against the din. "Fire at will! Take them down! Do it now!"
Sighting at the vague tan shapes, huddling in between obstacles, Maia pulled the trigger, zipping little pellets of metal, powder, and lead through the air. She could not see any damage she inflicted, only that one Imp dropped to his belly, lying prone as shots sailed harmlessly over him.
Reload, fire, reload again, always keep shooting. Every second became an eternity of urgency and the outside world disappeared into a razor focus on the dual commands, aim and fire. One Imperial stuck a hand out too far and pulled a bleeding stump back in, another ended his days sprawled on the pavement, though no eyes had seen the round to claim him.
It was not one-sided. A man grunted and then collapsed doubled over, red staining all through his smock. Chips of stone leapt up from the cobbles and off the building walls to join the wooden darts in the air. One claimed a man through the left eye, and he dropped as if boneless.
Then the Imperials displayed that, for all their success against Gallian so far, most of them were new to the world of warfare. Instead of hunkering down and attempting to wait for support, using suppressing fire to stay safe, one man jumped up and backpedaled, trying to get out of range.
Maia sighted, drew in a slow breath, and pulled the trigger again and again.
Red spots burst through the tan armor plating in the chest.
"Concentrate fire! Take the last one!" the Lieutenant's exhortations barely registered against the storm of gunfire, but bullets followed his command.
They didn't reach before the tank came into view.
It was one of the Imperial light tanks, a stubby, conglomerated two-turret mess of a vehicle. It ugliness did not effect its combat ability against poorly trained infantry opponents, however, and the sight of the metal beast terrified Maia. One little rifle and a single ragnite grenade against that? Hell no! How can the Lieutenant expect us to stand?
The tank, for reasons Maia could not understand but was fervently thankful for, did not fire while it advanced, caterpillar treads clawing through the cobblestones.
"Fire at the support troops you fools, the support troops!" the Lieutenant shouted, and one rifle, presumably his own, spat forth bullets at an angle behind the tank.
Looking through the dust kicked up by those treads, Maia saw them, scouts and shocktroopers scrabbling forward with the tank as a mobile source of cover. She aimed at best she could and fired, striving to hold back rising panic.
Bullets filled the air as Imperial soldiers dropped and returned fire, spreading a cacophony of confusion and pain.
Then the tank's advance paused, its turret moved, and its weapons spoke for the first time.
A massive detonation impacted the fallen cart in the center of the street. Blinking away the obscuring dust the Darcsen woman saw nothing but flinders remaining, and bodies tossed about. Remarkably these blue-smocked Gallians appeared mostly alive, some even unhurt, simply tossed by the blast. It was not a state to last, as now exposed Imperial scouts focused a deadly stream of fire upon them, and a pair of shocktroopers ran forward, looking to exploit the gap.
Bullets flew, men fell, and blood stained the ground. There were screams and shouted commands, all lost to the persistent noise. If we're overrun, we lose; Maia remembered the Lieutenant's cold explanation. Worse, we're probably all dead. She turned her body and fired as fast as she could at the shocktroopers, hurling bullets in desperate effort.
Running forward in a fighting crouch, their sturdy blast suits protecting them, the shocktroopers did not fall quickly or easily. One, struck through the leg, dropped to one knee and poured a storm of lead from his machine gun, lacing a pair of crouched Gallians and sending one young girl down in a bloody pool on the cobbles before he was overcome. The other kept on charging. Maia saw one of her shots plaster against armor, and the man stumbled, but she had not inflicted a severe wound. In seconds he'd be close enough to lob a grenade into their barricades, and that might finish it all.
The irregulars were saved not by their own valor, but by Imperial numbers and enthusiasm. The tank, firing again, made a bad shot, and the force of the explosion threw the tan-plated shocktrooper to the ground. Maia emptied a full clip of five shots into his head, and he did not get up afterwards.
No second rush followed, but the tank advanced inexorably, and now the counterfire was so fierce every Gallian head hunkered deep behind cover, their accuracy to hit the Imperials reduced to almost nothing.
Turn away, breathe deep, reload, turn back, one blink to grab a target, unload, don't bother really aiming, turn away, and repeat as long as sanity holds out. This maddening process transformed into Maia's entire existence for the shockingly long time, hours it seemed it must have been, though a man with a watch would have said just over a minute, as the Imperial tank moved up, carrying a small sea of troopers in its wake.
In the midst of one of these abortive sequences of violence Maia saw the tank's turret slowly ascend toward the heavens, and then launch a slow-moving glowing projectile toward the truck that remained the principle strong point of the defense.
Mortar!
Maia's mind flashed an image of the Lieutenant coated in blood and shrapnel, only wearing her face, as the shell exploded.
The world went white, chunks of paper raining down like heavy confetti. The Darcsen realized what had happened a moment later, the truck's bed had been filled with paper and then soaked, creating something like a wet sandbag effect. The truck was no longer recognizable as such, but men, battered by shrapnel and deafened but whole, remained behind it.
A familiar stubby cone shape emerged over the edge of the metal ruins, and with a low burst of compressed gas the lance took its first shot at the tank.
The anti-tank weapon hit between the two turrets, scoring a major hole in the armor.
Instantly the fire of the Imperial soldiers shifted toward the lone lancer.
Tank lances took some time to reload, just as tank guns. Sighting down her scope Maia understood the Imperial's strategy, and knew she had to stop it. Something inside her told made it clear death was certain if they didn't take the tank out now.
She rolled right, into the gap previous shells had opened, firing the moment she came up, taking advantage of the single second of clarity.
Two shots clipped a shocktrooper in the head, and he collapsed instantly. Maia didn't stop, but made the move to charge forward, aiming directly for the left edge of the enemy tank's profile. Machine gun fire from the tank screamed in her ears as it passed just over her skull when she slid along the cobbles inside the arc of fire.
Best cover in the world, a tank between you and the enemy, the reasoning part of her mind, practically an observer into actions happening of their own accord, noted. Elbows churned as she crawled forward, pausing to fire at an enemy scout as she did, sending the man ducking down. Tanks are weak in the rear, at the radiator, every soldier knew this, and unconsciously it must have been her intent.
Even as Maia sluggishly advanced toward an open position almost certain to result in her demise, the battle changed again. The lancer fired a second time, slamming the tank along the turret again, only perhaps a meter and a half above her head. Heartless bastard! The Darcsen's fury imaged the Lieutenant once again. The imperials redoubled their fire, and the Lancer went down. A third shot seemed impossible.
Yet Maia saw something as she glanced up at the tank. The armor had been bent and stripped by the shell's impact, with the inner spaces of the turret fully exposed through a ragged aperture. Her hands moved of their own accord, acting even as she realized what had to be done. Pull out the grenade, ignite it, jump upright and stuff it inside, then roll, roll, roll!
The tank blew apart in a huge inundation of sound and fury.
For a single, infinitesimal moment everything held at a stop.
"Drive them back!" the Lieutenant's voice was raw and shrill, but still had potency. Gallians fired recklessly, and Imperials, bereft of cover, fell or scrambled backward, seeking alleys in which to hide. Staying prone Maia did not bother to shoot, but crept back toward whatever remained of their defensive position. Gradually all the targets disappeared, and there was a space of relative calm. The noise of battle persisted, but it was distant, elsewhere.
"Good work scout," the Lieutenant nodded at her, and then moved on to other concerns.
Is anyone still alive? Maia gasped in horror as she saw what remained of their little squadron. There had been eighteen to begin with, counting the Lieutenant. Now there were ten, and everyone sported at least minor gashes. The scouts had suffered worst, she noticed idly. Aside from the lieutenant and herself, there were only two others. The remaining six men and women were shocktroopers, blessed with something resembling armor. Six scouts, one lancer, and one shocktrooper made up the casualties.
They aren't all dead, Maia could see. She'd some experience with exhaustion and injuries, people collapsed in triathalons after all, at least three of their fallen could be saved by a medic with a ragnite suite, she was sure. "Where's the evac Lieutenant?" she demanded.
"I don't know," the man didn't look at her; he was struggling with a shocktrooper to rearm their lance. "This squad hasn't got a dedicated medic. I've called for aid on the wireless, but there's been no confirmed response."
"Who's in command then?" a shocktrooper asked.
"I'm in command," the Lieutenant snapped, looking indomitable despite his beat-up appearance.
"And who do you report to?" Maia refused to let him off so easy. Admit its no one, damn it! Admit we've lost; let's get out of here while we still can!
He didn't have time to answer.
"Sir, they're coming back!" one of the scouts yelped.
The Lieutenant's head snapped around to take one quick look. "Damn," he muttered under his breath. "Too many." Quick he spun about. "You two," he pointed at two of the battered shocktroopers. "Take the wounded and our lance back to the camp at the square. Move!" They managed a slow lurch into motion. "Everyone else, layered withdrawal. You!" Maia was shocked when he pointed directly at her.
"What?" the last time he'd done that there'd been a death threat involved. "I'm not playing rearguard."
"Stuff it," he snapped. "You take him, him, and her," he indicated two shocktroopers and a scout. "Can you measure thirty meters in steps?"
"Yeah," of course she could, she was a trained runner. "What of it?"
"That's the interval," he explained, surprisingly patient. "You go back thirty, and wait until we fall back to you. You hold for thirty seconds, and then fall back past us another thirty. Got it?"
"How long do we keep it up?" she had no way of believing they could pull something so intricate all the way back to the square.
"As long as we can," apparently neither did the Lieutenant. "Go now, they're coming!" He was firing as soon as the order was given.
Later Maia would wonder if she hadn't gone crazy and charged the tank would the Lieutenant have picked her for that duty, and if he had not, how many things would have been different? In the moment there was only survival.
They managed the interval three full cycles before he waved her to break and run, dropping the last grenade on a hydrant to provide an illusion of cover. The slower shocktroopers suffered terribly then. Only one survived to reach the square with them.
It was only in that square, in the chaos of those who tried to escape the Imperial onslaught, Maia learned the Lieutenant's name was Vernon Marten. He gathered survivors from the Regular army, the town watch, and the irregular squads, and led them in a general retreat, commandeering every vehicle available. Four people, three men and a woman, all over seventy, volunteered to stay and fight to the last. Maia could never remember any of their names.
What she did remember was the Lieutenant looking at a time piece the moment they passed the western gate of Redor, bouncing in a flatbed with every twisted cobblestone. "What is it?" she asked from the seat of her bicycle, seeing the scowl on his face.
"In three hours and twenty-nine minutes the Empire conquered Redor completely," it was an utterly deadpan statement, delivered flatly, like a grocer reading off an order for flour. Hearing it, Maia felt the world had changed, and a doom vast and beyond her understanding had descended on more than just her, Gallia, or Darcsens. It overwhelmed her.
As she turned away from the ruins of the embattled town, she caught a glimpse of Marten's eyes. Though weary, they burned with a precise crystal vision. He stared into all-devouring doom and was undaunted.
Technical Notes
Regarding the first reviewers comments that Gallia is intended to be Lithuania, I can only say that for all the supposed commonality between the Europa of Valkyria Chronicles and actual Europe, there are very significant differences. In point of fact, a rough superpositioning of the two maps would probably place Gallia in the North Sea to the immediate west of Denmark. The Empire actually consists of territories corresponding to Germany, Poland, and the various central European countries such as Austria and Hungary. The equivalent of 'Russia' is the very eastern most portion of the map and represents a power that, so far as we know, was not involved in EWII at all.
More generally, it's dangerous to draw strong parallels between EWII and WWII, despite the symbolic aspects the game displays. EWII is a much smaller, shorter conflict and is played out with very different technologies (most obviously the almost complete absence of air power, but also huge differences in tank technology: ie. in 1935 the Germans had just begun producing the Panzer II). The conflict on the Gallian front, specifically, lasts less than a year, presumably from early spring to late fall (one of the Writing on the Wall reports indicates Bruhl is retaken 6 months after is initially fell).
Regarding the second reviewer's comment about Maia's name, yes Darcsens as a culture don't have names. Maia, however, is a professional athlete who has competed beyond Gallia, and therefore has to use a last name for contest (and probably passport) purposes. Therefore she uses the name Serl, representing her birthplace, officially. This is the reality of the modern world, as administrative convention forces cultures to adopt a native convention capable of being processed in international databases.
One of the odd challenges of writing in the Valkyria Chronicles setting is that characters in the game routinely take hits with no loss of functionality, and the critically injured can be healed almost immediately and recalled to the fighting. I had made certain compromises about armor, bullet impacts, and shrapnel to preserve a narrative that does not play out a game mechanic, but still stays true to the spirit of how your troops could move under fire. I hope it works.