Chronicles of the darcsen brotherhood
Chapter 9: The Empire's nightmare
Accepting to help the Militia, i ordered the warpack to follow the seventh squad, we were going to support them and squad one as their reinforcements, i was told to talk to commanding officer Faldio Landzaat once we've got there.
The situation is apparently pretty intense this time, the Empire is invading this town to the south to capture some more darcsens as slaves, but Welkin told me that this town is also an important commercial point of Galia, most of the national treasure of Galia come from the taxation of this town, and now that we now this we have to stop the Empire from taking this town at all costs. If the Empire gets their hands in this town, all will be over, the government won't have enough funds to pay the Militia and the galian army, it would be the end of everything.
After some time marching we could see the town from the distance, It was a mess, people running around and gathering anything they could as fast as they can, they were being evacuated, it remembered me of Bruhl when the Empire was invading.
We approached the main square, and there was squad one with their tank, Welkin walked forward and greeted a man that appeared to be the commanding officer, Faldio Landzaat, i walked forward to their direction…
"Excuse me, are you the commanding officer of squad one, Faldio Landzaat?" He looked at me and said:
"Yes, that is me!"
"Nice to meet you, i'm Neroh, i was told to inform you the role of my warpack in this mission, we're going to be your reinforcements."
"Well, i'm glad! It's always good to have reinforcements for a thought battle like this one."
The time has passed, and we were discussing about the plan, and we needed to do it fast, because the imperial squad could get here anytime. The plan was that Welkin, having the best tank, would try to hold off the imperial squad, while Faldio would try to flank them from the right, if anything happened, we were supposed to get in action, half of us were going to help Welkin, with one tank, and the other half were going to flank the enemy from the left, with the other tank.
After that, we've got ourselves in position, putting barricades outside the town, were the imperial squad is suspected to appear, and in the main square, in case that things goes wrong so we can retreat to a more secured position. We waited for hours and hours, no one made a move, not a single word was spoken the entire time, when suddenly, we heard an explosion, i picked up a binoculars that i had next to me and saw in the distance, four small tanks, one medium class tank, and a total of thirty five high class soldiers, these was really going to be a trouble, this soldiers were veterans, the best the empire could give us, i fell the other battles that we've passed through are going to be nothing compared to this one, but no going back now, if we don't stop them here, is all over…
It has begun, the first shot was fired from the medium cannon of the imperial squad, both sides begun to exchange fire, they seem to be holding them off pretty well, i don't really know if we're even going to be needed for this battle, well, thats what i though…
"Neroh! Look over there!" Shouted Nazir.
I looked to the left, were he was pointing, and i saw a squad with 25 elites and one medium tank!
"There are more of them?" Said Zanna.
They were heading right on us, they were almost entering the town!
"Hurry! Point the cannons at their foot soldiers and fire! Give us some time to get a better position to stop them!" I ordered
Me, and about thirty of my soldiers followed me, together with Zanna, Nanah, Nazir, Mannar and Zig.
"Now listen to me everyone!" I talked while we were running in the direction of some buildings to make a proper defensive position. "We will need to hold them at the edge of the town! We have barricaded the main square, but without the Militia, we won't have power enough to hold them back! So we'll need to stop them right where they are!".
"But how are we going to do that?" Asked Zig.
"By taking out their tank! It seems to be that it is their commanding officer is in there!" I replied.
"But that tank is a B medium type, we can't take them out with just our lances! What will we do?" Said Zanna.
I actually didn't thought of that, i had no idea how we were going to take him out, it is one of the toughest tank type i've ever seen.
"Well, all the tanks, no matter how tough they are, they all have a weak spot!" Said Nazir.
"What do you mean?" Asked Nanah.
"The B Medium type tanks made by the Empire have a though armor, but it's too heavy to move around to fast, and also, the wheels are exposed, if you shoot the wheels, we'll may have a chance to destroy it from the underneath part of it!" Replied Nazir.
"Okay then! That's the plan! Three lancers are going to hide inside some buildings next to the edge of the town and when i order, you'll fire at the wheels of the tank! Got that?" I said
"Yes sir!" three lancers that were behind me answered.
"The rest of us, are going to hold them off in the town's edge!" I said
"Yes sir!" Everyone else answered.
We already started moving into position right outside the town's edge, and the lancers were already in their positions as well, the only problem is that the tank was in a position that they couldn't aim for its wheels, we would have to wait for the tank to get into a better position, but we didn't had that much time, we were being shoot down one by one out there, for our luck, commanding officer Faldio saw our situation and ordered one of his squad tanks to fire at the imperial tank, he turned to fire back, that was the chance we've being waiting for! I ordered at the same instant that the lancers should open fire. We've got him, we took out their tank, it was unbelievable, we've thought that now that their commanding officer was dead, they would retreat… but we were wrong. Instead of retreating, they kept firing at us!
"What the heck?" Mannar shouted.
"I thought that when the commanding officer falls, the order is to retreat, isn't that right?" Said Nanah.
"Maybe the commanding officer isn't there, maybe he is hiding somewhere nearby." Said Nazir.
"But where?" Said Zig.
"We better not think of this right now, let's move back to the main square right now!" I shouted.
We moved back to the main square, and things are not looking good for the Militia side either, they can't hold back the imperials for too long, and we can't help them because we're being hold in position by the other imperials, if we get out of the main square to help the Militia, we'll die for sure, i ordered the tanks to open fire to see if this would scared them away, it didn't work well, as they still holding their positions. But still, I and two other soldiers managed to sneak to a building that was close, we've got to the roof and begun to search for the imperial commanding officer with our binoculars, i looked in the direction of the forest to the north and in one of the trees i saw a something shining.
"I think he's there!" I pointed to the tree.
"Okay then! Sir, may i have the permission to take him out?" Asked one of the soldiers that was by my side, while loading a Kronos, a small rifle specialized to assassination missions, since it doesn't make too much sound when fired.
"Permission granted!" I replied.
The soldier then grabbed a scope and adjusted to the rifle, he shot, but he missed, he shot and misses again, when he shot the third time he look at the rifle with an angry expression.
"What is wrong with this thing?" He said. "Every time i shoot it misses, and i got the target in sight!"
"The Kronos… is broken?" I thought to myself.
As i said those words, i was taken by my memories to the past, to the time i was a kid and i saw my father checking a Kronos…
"Dad, what is it? Is it broken?" I asked him.
"Hmm… Oh! It's you Neroh, no, it's not broken, it is in perfect state actually, you see, this morning a commanding officer of the army came to town asking me if i could fix this rifle for him, when i asked what was wrong with it he replied saying that it wasn't calibrated, he said that he got the target on sight, but every time he fired, the bullet always missed the target." He said.
"But dad, if it isn't broken, then why it doesn't hit the target?" I asked.
He then got up from his chair, he knelt down, looked to me and said:
"Son, listen careful now, okay? If one day you'll have to use this rifle, the Kronos, you must know that this rifle is made to assassination, it is especially projected to make the lowest possible noise, in the other hand, he loses his fire power and it bullets can't travel to a target that is too far away from you if you shoot with your sight directly at him, remember this, okay?" He said.
"Okay!" I replied while showing a smile.
The images in my head started to fade out as i heard the sounds of explosions and guns being fired.
"Pass me that rifle soldier!" I ordered him.
"Y- yes sir!" He replied.
Felling that the direction of the wind was going east, i adjusted my aim a little above the target and a little to the left, i was hoping that i would hid the target that way, i shot and waited two seconds to see if it was going to hit the target, after those two seconds, we heard someone screaming, and them the body of the commanding officer felt from the tree right to the floor.
"Yeah! We did it sir!"
"Wohooo! That's it! We've one!" Shouted the two soldiers that were with me.
At this rate, the soldiers that were firing at us stared to run away, we followed them until the edge of town, to make sure that no one stayed hiding behind. After that we've turned right, to help the Militia, but they don't seem to be in trouble anymore, the imperials there are fleeing as well, they managed to capture the B Medium type tank and captured some prisoners as well.
"Wohooo! Take that you imperial jerks!" Shouted Zig while jumping up and down.
"I can't believe that we pulled off back there!" Said Mannar.
"Well, looks like another job well done!" Said Nazir.
"Yeah! We won! We won!" Shouted both Zanna and Nanah while jumping up and down and hugging each other.
"Well, looks like you guys made it in one piece hun?" I turned my head and it was commanding officer Faldio.
"Oh, commanding officer Landzaat!" I said
"Please, no need for formalities, just call me Faldio."
Some hours have passed since the battle and we are on our way back to the HQ, we were just cheering our great victory, now we were confident. We made two imperial squads of elite soldiers retreat, we were certain to win this war at all costs.
The same time at a conference room of the Empire's HQ on Galia.
"Sir, we have some bad news" Said an imperial soldier.
"Speak then cadent!" Said a mysterious man.
"The attack to capture one of the towns next to the galian north base failed" Said the imperial soldier.
The mysterious man punched the wall after what the soldier said, the punch made a crater in the wall.
"This damn galians! It was the army or the Militia?" He asked.
"Well, it was the Militia and…"
"And who soldier?" Asked the mysterious man
"A warpack mostly made of darcsens sir!" Answered the soldier.
"Those brats that took my beautiful cruiser?" The mysterious man asked.
"Yes sir!" Said the soldier
"damn them! Next time i'll take care of them… next time, i'll make sure they pay dearly for what they've done to the Empire, and to me…"