A/N : This will be a multi-POV chapter. Expect some POV changing!
The rest of the other chapters will be like this too.
Note : Chapter name will NOT be rewritten.
Disclaimer : I don't own anything except anything I own.
Chapter 21
*Tactical Agenda - Playing*
UT-Taskforce
The monitor showed a big forest. There were many white dots moving on a road, and labels following it.
"Many days we've passed, many souls we've sacrificed, and this day has finally arrived." Said Xan. "Today, we shall fulfill our goal as the Taskforce."
"Here's where it ends. When the sun sets. The Skaarjs will be out of this planet."
"Today, our combination of power shall drive the Skaarjs away from our land. Today, every blood we've spilled would not go in vain! Let every rage and hatred toward the Skaarjs break loose! Let them feel the wrath of Taskforce! We will give them a quick lesson not to ever touch our land ever again! For FREEDOM!"
"OORAH!"
"Dawn and Dusk."
Great Britain, 0700 Hours.
Staff Sergeant Lauren.
UT Taskforce –Delta
Status : Alive.
The Major's speech had been replied cheerfully by the battle cries from every single Human Trooper fighting in this big day. Our troopers formed a convoy consisted of tanks, buggies, hovercrafts, trucks, and some foot soldiers.
I was in one of the Delta's Goliath tank. Inside the Goliath I was boarding were Malcolm, Brock, Koden, Naruto, and me. Malcolm was driving the tank and firing the shell, while Brock was controlling the machine gun turret. The rest of us were only sitting on the chairs. "Brock, 2 Skaarjs at ten o'clock."
"A little busy here. Lauren, go get 'em."
I nodded and climbed up the top and opened the hatch. As I got the Skaarjs on sight, I emptied an enforcer clip on them. "Tango down!"
Suddenly an explosion shook the Goliath really hard. "Gunners and Tanks at our 3! Hull plating is about 50%!" Reported Malcolm. "Energy failure at section 5. Someone, get a Link Gun and power it up!"
Koden reached for the Link Gun and opened one of the panels, "Whoa, engine's busted over here. Alright, let's do it." He electrified the power coil with the Link Gun's alternate fire, the beam mode. "I think it's working." He said to himself as the coil began to glow blue.
"Oh shit…" cursed Brock. That couldn't possibly be good…
KA-BOOM!
…
I quickly got up, and saw that I was outside. A Paladin tank, the tank with 4 pairs of wheels was next to me, having its energy shield erected. It was trying to protect me.
"Lauren! Get the hell outta there!" I heard Brock's voice from behind.
I jumped before I knew what was happening. To say that I did the right thing would be an understatement. The Paladin, unable to hold its shield longer, exploded as the Skaarj Twin Cannon tank fired its plasma cannons, penetrating its shielding. Suddenly a blue ball of energy came out from another Paladin and blasted the tank to oblivion.
I didn't have time to watch the show. I ran toward my group in the bushes, where they exchanged fire with some Skaarjs in the top of a scout tower.
"True ETC Bomb!" Exclaimed Koden as he threw a ball of electricity, which hit a Sniper on its chest. The Sniper fell down to its death. They should've built their tower a little bit shorter.
Yeah, they should, because just after that, Naruto threw a kunai and missed a Gunner, who dodged to the empty air, and ended up falling to its death, because of its own stupidity.
"That's the last of 'em. Get a move on! Go!"
Great Britain, 0800 Hours.
Sergeant Jayce Oswald.
UT Taskforce –Epsilon.
Status : Alive.
I was driving the Epsilon's Leviathan, and just ran over a tank for the fifteenth time. The gigantic wheels of Levi's are very strong and deadly. It could even survive numerous of missile strikes.
The controllers of 4 turrets were Boris, Valerie, Jonathan, and Ramirez. I was lucky that Ramirez was on the turret. He sent the death warrant to every Skimmers and Fighters that were foolish enough to encounter Axon's ace vehicle.
Unfortunately, though strong, Levi's not completely invincible, and its big size makes it a very easy target.
And it looks like I had attracted too much attention.
Or to be exact, the gunners had.
I wasn't shooting just yet, because Levi's not for close quarters. It was meant to be a super strong artillery. Deploying on the wrong place and in the wrong time would result death to all of us. Leviathan also took a very long time to deploy, and while the main gun is on preparation, the Skaarjs could freely shoot us without fearing anything, except for the turrets of course. And I had my Leviathan heavily guarded by a skillful turret gunners.
But now we need to get to our position, ASAP! We didn't have time to fire our ion cannon aimlessly (well, not literally aimlessly, of course. If It really was, chance of intolerable friendly fires would be very high.)
Due to its slow speed, vehicles guarding the Leviathan found that it was hard to match the Levi's speed, because they were a lot faster than that tank.
Numerous of Skaarj Warriors tried to storm the tank, but the turrets acted too fast for them and rained them with series of attacks, which resulted some nearby trees falling down to the ground.
Enough said, you need more than a regiment to take out a fully manned Leviathan, whose driver and gunners were professionals.
"Alright, this is it!" I said as we arrived at the wall. It was high and heavily fortified. I deployed the main gun and released the wheel holder. You know, the bigger the attack, the harder the gun would get pushed back, the law of momentum.
I charged the Ion Cannon and fired it on the gate. With a horrifying sound, the Leviathan unleashed its full power of doom. The gate disappeared into void, and was replaced b a huge hole.
I packed up the cannon and rolled the Leviathan forward to the second wall. Those aliens had constructed a quite huge fortress enclosed by walls 4 times. But too bad for them, not even the thickest metal in the world could escape the wrath of the Leviathan.
Great Britain, 0830
Sergeant Celis McDodd.
UT Taskforce – Epsilon
Status : Alive.
Bringing a Leviathan in the war, that's normal.
But THREE! Wasn't that too overkill!
Epsilon, Delta, and Gamma had a Leviathan each, all of which were going to storm the fortress from 3 different location. When those three arrived, the Doomsday would locally occur in the Skaarj base.
We had been riding a Goliath to the base, until the Skaarj Fighters swarmed us and almost didn't give us any chance to run like hell.
My group consisted of me and Tabby. Not much of a group, wasn't it? And speaking of Tabby, she was running on the road, firing AVRiLs above, sending some Skaarj crafts to oblivion.
Suddenly, the ground exploded next to me. I saw a Skaarj tank rolling right behind me. It was about to fire again, when a ready-to-kamikaze Scorpion rammed it and exploded, taking the tank with it.
I heard a growl coming from the forest. I quickly unsheathed my Insurrection blade. It was a special Necris Sword crafted by Karen and me. She had put some spells that made the sword deadly, and as the last touch, I coated it with my Nanoblack. Thanks to Valerie who found a way to separate my blood cells and th Nanoblack inside it. While Karen's spells makes my sword unbreakable, sharp and extraordinary (that part I'll explain later), my Nanoblack makes every wounds my sword created refuse to heal. It decreases the victim's Thrombocyte, so even a scratch could be fatal.
If there's prove that mixture of Science and Magic can create such powerful weapon, Insurrection would be it.
Tabby also unsheathed her own sword, the Blue Striker. I'd say that blue blade could be a perfect counterpart for Insurrection.
A horde of Skaarj warriors started charging toward me. I just smirked and sunk my blade in the dirt. "Desolation!" Suddenly, a red energy wave came out from where I sunk my blade, throwing every nearby Skaarjs who set foot on the ground and also setting them on fire. I wasn't affected because I jumped when I did the technique.
Suddenly, a Skaarj tank appeared and fired on me. I was glad it missed. I held my sword with both hands and pointed it at the tank. "Nano Devastator!" A red beam shot out from my blade and hit the tank, utterly destroying it.
"Cool laser beam." I heard Tabby commenting my attack.
"Thanks, what do you got, Tabs?"
Tabby answered by dashing toward a horde of Skaarjs and jumped in the air while swinging her sword. "Energy Wave!" A blue wave came out and threw the Skaarjs high in the air, "Energy Slash!" She continued and swung her blade toward the Skaarjs. Every single of them were soon slashed by invisible force, along with their weaponries.
She landed gracefully and crossed her arms. "How's that?"
"Artistic."
Great Britain, 1200 Hours.
Staff Sergeant Valerie Young.
UT Taskforce – Epsilon.
Status : Alive.
Well, this sucks.
One moment we were owning…
Now our own Leviathan had prevented us from going any further.
Those Skaarjs had set some EMP mines on the third gates. As our Leviathan rolled to the fourth gate, the mines went off and disabled the engines and made out own Leviathan a replacement for the third gate. Yeah, that tank was tall enough to be a replacement.
That means, only Leviathan drivers and gunners could pass the obstacle, since we only need to jump to the other side, while the others need to find a way to climb up the wall or the tank.
I jumped out from the turret and met the others in the front side of the third gate. I checked my brand new Quad-Shotgun and Lightning Gun, the sniper gun that fires lightning. They were all unaffected by the EMP, but my Hoverboard was completely busted up. I saw Boris briefed the situations and the plans.
"Alright boys and girls, since our tanks are EMP-ed, our troopers cannot go any further for a while. We still have Beta Team air support, but for now they're unavailable because the fighters from the Skaarj Forces are still in the sky, fighting with them in a dogfight, and with these SAM Sites, our air forces would be no more by the end of the day. That's why, we can't rely on them."
"So, what's your plan?" asked Ramirez.
"Simple, we'll take control of the SAM sites and use it against enemy air force." Suddenly, an explosion occurred next to us.
"This isn't a safe place for planning strategies!" Shouted Archer. "We need to regroup somewhere else!"
"Good idea, Sarge. Troops, regroup at the armory on the west!" Boris pointed at a small storage building on our left, and quickly dashed toward it. Suddenly, another explosion occurred right in front of him, and forcing him to take cover. We quickly rushed to his aid.
"Shit, where the hell are those explosions coming from?" said Ramirez as he searched for enemies with his sniper rifle.
"Must be coming from the wall." Replied Boris.
I aimed my Quad-Shotgun at the nearby Trooper who dashed toward me, then I fired a cartridge filled with phosphor. The result was the Skaarj was caught on fire and was burned to ashes.
Suddenly I heard a transmission from E.D.F.'s air force. "Taskforce, Phoenix Bomber at positions. Please point the targets!"
"Bombers. They're always right on time." Said Jayce. "Ray, got the cannons yet?"
"Just a second. Bingo, there it is. Now who's bringing the Target Painter?"
Everyone looked at me. "What?"
"Remember that sniper-like gun that emits infra red signal?" asked Jayce. I quickly pulled out the gun. Jayce had given it to me before we went to the Leviathan. "Just in case." She said, but she had never told me what it was.
The Target Painter was light weighted, but if it could call airstrike, it would be deadly. Ramirez gave me the location of the cannons. Boy, was it enormous, huge, gigantic, and oh… whatever. I held the trigger and a red beam came out from the gun, and began to grow large.
"Target acquired. Moving to coordinates. Bombs away!" 3 Planes with 2 pairs of wings and a pair of engine in the front wings flew on the cannon and dropped small bombs which exploded in a huge explosion. The cannon and some nearby SAM and nearby Skaarjs were eradicated by the huge blast of the bomb. "Target destroyed! 30+ K.I.A.s confirmed, check your fire!"
"Group, we're Oscar Mike! Go!" We dashed to the armory and rained the Skaarjs guarding it with series of bullets, lightning and rockets. "Tango down." Said Boris as I lighted up the cranium of the last Skaarj Trooper with my Lightning Gun. "Alright, we're back in business. We need…" Suddenly, there was another transmission. "Epsilon 8 here, we're currently at the fifth wall." Everyone's jaw dropped. Tabby had infiltrated the base *that* fast! And as if she could read our mind, she spoke again, "No need to be surprised. I was boarding Luke's Cicada along with Celis and Daniel."
"Tabs, you see any control station there?" I asked.
"Yup, that's the station in where we're trying to breach. Kinda busy here, Epsilon 8 Out."
Great Britain, 1530 Hours.
Sergeant Tabby Monson.
UT Taskforce – Epsilon.
Status : Alive.
"We're not your enemy." Said Luke as he waved his hand toward the Skaarj Trooper, then, he continued, "You will let us take control of the security system."
The most bizarre thing happened right in front of my eyes. The Skaarj, the only one inside the station complied and left the station, without even firing at us. "How the hell did you do that?"
"Jedi mind trick. Works for weak-minded only though." Luke replied.
"Okay, let's see." I looked at the buttons. "Uh-oh, they're all in Skaarj. You should've told the Skaarj to disable the security instead of leaving us." I looked at the buttons, "Hmm, wonder what this thing do." I pushed a button that looked like a lamp being turned off.
Suddenly, the ground trembled. "Warning, warning." I heard a low female computerized voice. "Self destruction sequence initiated. Please evacuate in T minus 2 hours. Outer wall explosives armed, exploding in T minus 2 minutes."
Everyone stared at me in disbelief, "Oopsie." I smiled sheepishly.
"You just signed our death warrant, Tabs." Said Celis quietly.
"W-well, how can I know which one is which? I don't speak Skaarj."
Everyone rolled their eyes. Yup, I just made the biggest mistake of my entire life. "But… 2 hours is a long time, right? We can make our way back in…" suddenly we saw our Cicada flew away, and in the next minute, Skaarj SAM sites launched barrage of missiles and annihilated it.
"There goes our copter." Said Danny. "I can take us all outside, if those SAM sites are gone, either that, or those emitters on the wall are gone."
"We aren't taking any chances, I think it's best if we call for a transport." Said Celis.
Great Britain, 1700 Hours.
Major Jalaluddin A.F.
UT Taskforce – Beta.
Status : Alive.
The third wall just blew, and the ground had begun to explode. What did the Skaarj use to make such disaster! It was like a volcano eruption! The ground trembled and explosions occurred endlessly.
Everyone had been evacuated a long while ago, but were still missing Daniel and Luke, while Epsilons were missing Tabby and Celis. Last time we received transmission from them, they were on the fifth wall, but SAM sites were still active, so we wouldn't be able to fly safely.
Suddenly Isa rushed toward me, "Have you checked the fifth wall yet?"
"SAM sites blocking. They're gone for good."
"Nope, they're not! I'm gonna pick 'em up myself. I need your Raptor."
I was shocked to hear that. "What! No, you're gonna get yourself killed!"
"I'm not gonna lose anybody else! I'm going, whether you help me or not."
I sighed, "Fine, my raptor's parked there." I pointed on my back. "Safe journey my friend."
He took off and speeded into the base, or what was left from it. Then suddenly, I saw someone grappling on his Raptor.
Great Britain, 1720 Hours.
Sergeant Koden.
UT Taskforce – Delta.
Status : Alive.
Hitchhiking Captain Hande's Raptor wasn't the brightest idea in my mind, but I didn't have any time to ask his permission.
The Captain landed his Raptor gracefully, allowing me to get away from his landing spot. When he got out, I jumped in front of him and saluted. He, of course, was shocked, "K-Koden? Sergeant, what the hell are you doing here!"
"Trying to help you out."
"But…. Fine then. Now that you're here, I guess I can't do anything. Alright, on me!"
We dashed to the station on the fifth wall. It was quiet and less gory than outside. Looks like there wasn't any fight occurred here.
After entering the station, the corridor was split into two. "Split up. When you found them, report to me."
I went to the right side and found the control room, but just as I found it, the ceiling started to crumble. 'Damn, gotta be fast!' I thought as I increased my speed.
All in a sudden, I was hit hard from behind. I collapsed and turned around. My surrounding was dusty, that I couldn't clearly see my attacker. The only thing I saw was an M32 'Duster' Combat Assault Rifle being pointed at me.
"Point your gun away." I heard the Captain's voice. The dust cleared, I saw the C.A.R., held by Tabby, and Hande, who had his Enforcer MP pointed at Tabby, point blank range.
Under normal circumstances, I'd be questioning's action of threatening his own squad with a gun. This however, was NOT normal circumstances. I understood that the Captain just wanted to save my ass, and that he wasn't serious about shooting at her.
Tabby didn't say anything, but she lowered her Duster. Luke, Danny, and Celis appeared, all weapons were pointed at us, but as soon as they recognized their allies, they lowered their guns.
"About time, Hande!"
"If everyone has gathered around, I think it's time for us to leave this forsaken place behind." Replied Hande, "Unless if you wanna watch the fireworks in the danger close range. Y'all got grapplers?"
Everyone pulled out their grapplers from their belts. But then I looked at the Raptor from the window. It was too small to pick up everyone. "Sir?" I asked.
"Hm?"
"How can we possibly pick everyone up? We can't all hang on one Raptor."
"That's where Captain Fenton comes in."
"Huh? What?" asked Danny, who was confused.
"I'll explain later. We don't have enough time. We're Oscar Mike, move out!"
I didn't know if the Captain's crazy or what, but again, I too usually ignore logic, and do whatever it takes to achieve something.
So the Captain's plan was, Danny and Luke were being towed by the Raptor. Danny would be flying as fast as the Raptor, but grappling on it, just in case. Tabby and Celis would be grappling on Danny's belt, which might be dangerous for all three of them.
And me? Well, I'm inside the Raptor, in the back seat.
Since Danny was also flying, the Raptor would carry less weight and the chance of it going down to the heavy weight would be slim, unless if Danny lost all his strength.
"Careful, Daniel. I'll be maneuvering the Raptor." Said Hande as we were about to pass the fourth wall full of SAM sites.
I would never forget that day. The Captain descended the aircraft to dodge the missiles, and ascended it back up quickly . The speed of the Raptor was an alarming rate. The Captain must've overloaded the systems…
"Isa! You only got 30 seconds left! Get your ass over here! Quick!" yelled the Major from below.
Suddenly, maybe because the Captain lost his concentration, a missile hit the jet fuel, exploding the rear engine. "Damnit! I'm losing speed!"
"10! 9! 8! 7!"
We were still at the radius of self-destruction explosion. "Sir! Transfer the control to me!"
"On it!"
Soon, the Taskforce troopers were visible. I dived down to the ground.
"HANG ON! THIS IS GONNA BE A ROUGH LANDING!"
"2! 1!"
KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!
Our Raptor landed at the same time as the base exploded. We quickly jumped out before our Rapter's power grid melted.
BOOM!
…
I felt my hand on the Captain's shoulders. The captain was dragging me to the crowd of UTTF squads in front of us. I looked at the others. Danny and Celis were also incapacitated and were being carried by Luke and Tabby.
My back felt like it was on fire. The blast of the Raptor must've burned my body.
"You did a damn well job, Sarge." I heard the Captain's voice. "You saved us in the very last second. You should've been proud of yourself."
Malcolm and Brock rushed toward me. "Hande! We'll take him back to base from here!" said Malcolm as he laid my hand on his back, followed by Brock.
"Understood. Take care of him. He has remarkable skills."
"Will do. Thanks a lot." Said Brock.
"Don't mention it. Semper Fi, Koden.' Hande saluted on me. I just smiled and saluted back.
With that, Brock and Malcolm carried me on their shoulders to a Hellbender. "Don't worry, Koden. You'll live" said Brock.
A/N : That part where Tabby pointed a gun on Koden was a reference to COD 6's mission, the 'Gulag.'
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