January 5, [REDACTED]
Southern Sicily, Legionnaires HQ
[Base Codename Juno, Outpost Alpha]
"Sandbags, that should be easy. Barbed wire, we can always make some. Ammunition we're getting shipped, food, we have our C-rations. Water, there's that fucking river! What I can simply not tolerate, is the absolute lack of any entertainment!" one marine complained loudly.
"Well, if you just took the time. You could watch some of the films left behind by the civilians, but apparently they're all Sicilian or outdated," an Army soldier said. "You could have a whole lot less free time if you wanted to."
"Well, maybe that's because as a marine, I'm not used to getting secondhand equipment."
I took a glance at the Army equipment placed next to the soldier and instantly knew he was right. He had a battered old M16A1 that was on top of everything looked like it had been through a couple of campaigns against the Vietcong before being handed to this soldier, it looked like it was about to fall apart. Don't get me wrong, in my opinion the M16 is a superb weapon, besides, I think it's better looking than the L85, but it performs less than satisfactory on most aspects.
The Allied Army issued its infantry soldiers with other relics. For example, the Colt 45 that I and all the other troops in the Allied Army had was the same, but this army guy had an older version of it. And let's not even get into the body armor of Army troopers. It is cumbersome, heavy, and on top of everything, is slightly less effective than the Marine Battle Dress. Really, poor guys.
The soldier and marine started getting into an Army vs. Marines argument as I walked away from them. The Outpost had been made a fortress. There were sandbag barricades forming a wall covering the perimeter of the small hill, then there were more elaborate defenses inside of the perimeter, mostly consisting of tanks aiming down the two avenues of approach and Armadillos in the intersections. It would be a nightmare to get through this place, especially when a company of Legionnaires and a company from the Army and Marines defended it.
Unfortunately, this place was boring as fuck. We hadn't had a major attack in the few days that we had been here. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing, but I'd rather fight a hundred Sangvis right now than have to wait for them endlessly. It made me feel jumpy and I wasn't the only nervous one.
I jogged through the small camp to kill time, not really because I wanted myself fit. I went through the center mass of tents, which served as headquarters for the 'Joint Strike Force', as we had been nicknamed by ourselves. We were a Joint Strike Force, mainly because members of two different Allied Army branches composed our strength. The place had been turned into a mountain of sandbags, with said objects covering all openings and forming another perimeter surrounding the officers. This is where the Last Stand would take place, if it came to that...
I made my way to the small armory, barely the size of an troop transport. It had been used as storage for weapons and ammunition, seeing that it was the only building in the camp designed to store weaponry and actually fend off assaults. A Blackhawk was positioned on the landing pad, not that it was used, it was simply there because it was an actual landing pad. We had scavanged a few Sangvis AH-6 Attack Choppers, from the attack a few days ago. Right now they were on use as courier messages and shade providers. The mongooses we had were not getting any use and likely wouldn't receive any for a long time. They'd probably serve better as barricades.
The worse part about this though, was the sun. It was significantly colder here than it had been back in Afghanistan, but 41º Celsius is still hot as fuck. Not literally. I think… Well, I don't know. Regardless, it was still very hot, and most male soldiers chose to mill around topless. Doesn't sound that sexy when it's with large military men does it? I can tell that some of the female soldiers were excited about that. They giggled and pointed at different soldiers sometimes. I managed to forget that most of them were in their early twenties or late teens. They could've been going to college and getting a nice degree, perhaps even getting married. Or they could've been dancing in strip clubs. Who knows?
I finished my running at the river. Fortunately, the water was drinkable cause I didn't want to get the flu. I drank it, it felt good as splashed water on my face. I would've jumped inside right then and there, but I didn't want to get one of my two pairs of cargos soaked. I returned back to my own little house at a slow pace. I am very glad to say that I did spot a group of Marines stealing glances at me and giggling amongst themselves. Fortunately, they were all women...
Two hours later I was dragging a marine without both of his legs to safety. Funny how things change that fast. The marine had been hit by a phosphorus grenade, the explosion it produced actually managed to burn through both his legs. His screams were almost unbearable.
"Cover me!" I yelled as I dragged the soldier over a pile of sandbags and to safety. The marine was aided by two corpsmen and tourniquets placed above his knees. The man would probably survive just fine. He'd be open for replacement limbs for free. He'd probably get a nice pair of electrical legs after he was honorably discharged. He would be able to live his life fully and normally.
An instant later a RPG rocket from a Helicopter engulfed them all, killing them instantly. It turned around for another pass but a Jeeps's M2 Browning shot it down, sending it crashing into a couple of unlucky Jaegers.
"Shoot the Officer, the Officer!"
Instants later the Officer had received about two pounds worth of lead to the face and chest, making said areas look like hamburger meat. The grunts from its squad panicked and fled. They were all shot down within moments.
From further back we were receiving a constant rain of enemy fire from three different turrets. They had been mounted on I don't know what to make them mobile. The bullets slammed all over the place, mostly missing. Mostly. I dived to the side as I fired in the general direction of the moving turrets. I was to far away to actually aim and fire accurately that quickly, but I am proud to say my shots landed around the feet of the Sang gunner. I sprinted a few meters before sliding behind an overturned tank. From that position, I popped up and managed to shoot down one of the gunners. Instants later another took its place, and the firing resumed.
"Draco, where are you with those Arrowheads?" I asked.
"Still no luck, the launching tubes were damaged badly," he said. "I need a higher vantage point to actually throw them."
"Well, climb on top of something!" I said.
It sounds absolutely crazy, but the missiles were designed to be able to thrown by a foot soldier. Similar to a javelin or spear, it would be thrown straight up, then the thrusters would be engaged. All you had to do was throw, last the target, and watch 'em fly...
"On it!" he replied.
I joined the barrage of gunfire that B and Echo companies were providing, halting the enemy advance but not eliminating it. I did my usual thing, targeting Officers and Sharpshooters. Goliath units with shields were somebody else's problem, so I dedicated myself to shooting down the sharpshooters. I jumped off the tank and switched positions to another barricade, I was beginning to attract to much attention...
"Ok, I'm ready!" Draco called out. This time I could actually hear his voice from behind me. I turned to face him and saw that he was on top of the armory, right behind me.
"Painting targets!" I said as I activated the laser targeter on my rifle. "Throw one," I said.
"Two!" I called out as I sighted in on another turret. As I said that the first missile flew straight at the first turret I had targeted, destroying it and killing the crew. The second one didn't fly high enough and slammed into the ground ten feet away from the second turret.
"Throw it higher!" I said.
Draco grunted as he complied, and the third missile hit the gunner directly, killing it and destroying the turret completely. The third missile took two attempts as well, but eventually we had destroyed all of the three turrets.
"Where is that damn Armadillo?" I asked out loud.
As soon as I said that a red tracer bullet flew right next to my head, hitting the radio components on my headset. It was awfully close to hitting my face as well.
"Fuck!"
I had to sprint all the way back to Darbinian's position. He was in command of this section of the line. I had to sprint through fifty meters of dirt to finally reach the lieutenant.
"Sir!"
"What?" he asked as he fired a steady burst at a Goliath, knocking back its shield and killing it.
"Where's the Armadillo?"
"On its way," he said as he ducked to avoid a strafing Ah-6. "Fuck you asshole!" he called out as he shot at the heli as it flew overhead.
"We need it now!" I said.
"I thought we were doing just fine," Darbinian returned angrily and, obviously, sarcastically.
"There's a fucking battalion there and we can't do shit about it!" I said.
"Fine, fuck," he relented. "Ask Vazquez to use the radio to command."
"Thank you, sir," I said.
Huh, he actually is a soldier. I thought as I crawled ten meters towards Vazquez.
"Hey, the lieutenant told me to…" Of course he was hit in the face with a piece of shrapnel. What else could've happened? "Argh! Help me!" he called out as he tried to pull the glowing red metal from his cheek.
"Calm down!" I said. I grabbed the metal and yanked, freeing the metal and earning a scream from the soldier.
I left the man there and grabbed his radio as blood spurted out of his cheek wound.
"Command! This is Captain Cameron, we need the Armadillo right fucking now!" I said.
"It's on its fucking way Captain, and watch your fucking tone!" came the answer from none other than Chloe Delacroix, Draco's new fling...
"Just tell the fucking thing to hurry up!" I yelled into the radio, getting into the discussion. "Or we'll die."
"Done," she said.
As soon as she said that I dropped the radio from and let it dangle from the guy's backpack. I grabbed him from the back of his vest and started pulling him back, he was firing from his SMG while I did so.
"Medic!" I called out. A corpsman sprinted towards me and grabbed the bleeding Vazquez from the same place. I took a knee and killed a Jaeger that was shooting in out direction. Lines of red bullets appeared ten meters away and moved towards me only to stop an inch away from my boot. I took the moment to eliminate the sharpshooters with three shots to the head respectively.
"Jimmy!" I called into my throat mic, at least that still worked. It allowed me and Draco to keep in contact, since we were in the same squad...
"What?!" He replied, gunshots ringing out over his voice.
"Make those damn Jaegers keep their heads down!" I ordered.
"I'm fucking trying!" he said as I heard a steady burst from his M60. Normally, we would've been more quiet and professional when on a mission, but this wasn't actually a mission. We were simply fighting to push back a Sangvis advance. This was actually the weakest point of the their attack, but we only had two platoons to defend it. The rest of the troops were defending the western side of Outpost Alpha from a stronger advance.
"Chopper!" someone yelled.
I turned to see the attack helicopter come flying over a hill. It started shooting all over the place, hitting one soldier in the arm, blowing it clean off. Instants later the low flying heli was propelled upwards by a grenade explosion and then blown up with a rocket.
I started moving towards it to confirm the kill and use it as cover when a large mass moving at 30mph slammed into the wreck, tearing it apart. The armadillo slowed down a little bit to allow for better accuracy. Its twin autocannons started roaring as it spewed explosive rounds at the troops. The IFV stayed there, shooting any vehicles it could spot with its autocannon and mowing all infantry down with the robotic machinegun. I ran towards it.
"Hey, open up!" I said as I banged on the hull.
"What?" asked a voice through a thin slit.
"There are some tanks over that rise, you'd better keep moving," I told the pair of eyes.
"Ok, roger that," he said. A few moments later the armadillo rumbled forward and two high explosive blasts landed a few meters away from the vehicle, making my neck feel warm. I moved with the IFV and used it as cover, occasionally popping out to shoot at a couple of enemies.
"Tank!" someone from behind yelled. I banged on the hull.
"I see it," someone answered without bothering to show his face.
I turned just in time to see a tank appear from a small rise, its sights on the Armadillo. The autocannon peppered the tank with fire as it received fire from the tank's gunner. Suddenly the tank was sent veering of to the side and then stopped. Now with broken tracks, a couple of rockets made it blow up.
Instants later the armadillo started rumbling forward, actually, it was retreating towards our line. On of its sides was completely undamaged while the other one was scorched, cracked, riddled with bullet holes, and slightly melted from phosphorus grenades.
"What about the other Tank?" I called out to it as it passed. I got no answer.
"Scotty, need some help over here," Draco said. He was behind me and climbed a ladder to the roof of the armory as soon as he said that.
I painted a couple of minor targets such as a Officer and a cluster of soldiers before a few Arrowheads slammed into them. I repeated the routine a couple of times before we were ordered to cease fire.
"They're falling back!" some marine said, almost like he didn't believe it.
"Finally," Draco groaned as he sat on a surprisingly undamaged chair. "Those guys in the tank were fucking pussys."
"IFV, it's not a tank," I informed him. "And that's rude."
"I know," he said as he let his head rest on one of his hands.
I left the house and headed towards the Lieutenant, he was meeting with a staff sergeant and asking him for a sitrep on he battle.
"Three KIAs and three WIA, two of them serious," the sergeant said.
"Could've been worse," Darbinian returned. "What the fuck do you want?" he snapped as he saw me.
"Easy there Kriks," I said. "Just wanted to see how it went." I immediately turned around and left, leaving the bitchy asshole to chat with his staff sergeant. I was surprised that he had been given command of this section of the defense, but he had done a decent job at it, so I wouldn't berate him for that.
Our three KIAs were the guy that had had both his legs blown off and the two corpsmen. Our WIAs were the guy with shrapnel in his left eye socket and the other one was the one that had gotten his arm blown away by the chopper. The one with the metal in his cheek would be operated on and remain here as a combatant. His cheek would be patched up, stitched, and healed by tomorrow night. The other soldier would likely be evacuated to a hospital in the nearby headquarters where there were larger regiments. Maybe he'd even get a replacement arm.
I headed back towards Command, the other attack had been repulsed successfully with help of one tank, three Jeeps, two Apaches, and seven goddamn Armadillos. Assholes.
I looked up to see a Apache spewing smoke from one of its rotors. The two door gunners' faces were covered in soot and smoke. It landed noisily right outside of the landing zone. That would need some serious repairs pretty soon. The two gunners hopped of the craft and coughed half their lungs out while the pilot stopped its rotors and managed to make the flow of smoke slow down a little bit.
I heard a few mortar shots and saw a Blackhawk fly by towards the place of the other attack, probably on its way to pick wounded soldiers.
"Captain, what in the fuck are you doing here?" asked Captain Sharma.
"We pushed them back," I said. "And it's not my shift for watchout."
"It doesn't work like that Captain, you just fucking pushed back an enemy attack five minutes ago, you have to remain in the frontline for at least an hour before gradually phasing back to regular shifts.
"But the surveillance drones show that…" I started.
"I don't give a fuck, go back there and be helpful!" she ordered.
"Ma'am!" I said as I saluted and did a neat about turn. I headed back to the place where we had been attacked and did an exemplary job of replacing sandbags that had been damaged with intact ones. I didn't have to follow her orders, since we held the same rank, but I wasn't in the mood for a petty dispute...
AN : Thanks so much for your views and reviews! I planned on ten chapters, but it seems the battle continues...What will happen to our two troopers and Kate?! Stay tuned for the possibly 5000+ word ending to the prolouge...
Don't worry though! After a small break to plan ahead the story,(I have twelve chapters so far!) the Main Story will be realeased!
"See you on the Frontline, trooper!"