Engagement
The Commander stood over the war room's table, watching the various icons and symbols representing his echelons, the enemy's presence and other miscellaneous details move about the digital overhead display of the battlefield. Over the comms bead in his ear he listened to the reports getting sent home by his teams on the field, M4A1's voice crackling through the light static as gunfire and explosions went off in the background.
"Commander! AR-Team reporting!"
"AR-Team what's the status on that power grid?"
"Almost down Commander, AR-15's just about finished blasting the last generator"
"Well tell her to double time it, Echelon 3's going to get massacred by that Jupiter cannon if this keeps up"
He heard M4 shout an affirmation and focused his attention elsewhere on the battlefield, moving around digital displays and tapping a few buttons into the command console until he brought up a video feed of an overhead view over Echelon 3's position, the squad of Rifle and HG T-Dolls running from cover to cover in a set of ruined buildings, dodging fire from the close-in weapons systems of the Jupiter Cannon, it's towering shape casting an intimidating shadow below it while its defenses fired at the T-Doll squad. While they were too close to be fired upon by the main gun, the smaller weapons systems were more than capable of landing a kill shot if one were clumsy.
Leading the squad was M14, sliding into the cover of a slab of concrete just as a spray of energy weapon's fire kicked up the snow she was running across just a second ago. She pressed her back against the wall, cradling her rifle close to her and catching her breath, over her comms she heard Mk23 relay that Sangvis T-Dolls were being deployed to attack them. She peeked her head just a smidge over her cover to see a small horde of Sangvis forces charging at them. Dinergates, scouts and Ripper's backed up by a small group of Jaguar launcher's slowly rolling up behind them. She clicked her tongue, ducking her head back down just as more weapons fire peppered her cover. She readied her rifle and looked to the side to see her fellow sniper T-Doll, WA2000 slide into a crouch behind the concrete barrier next to her. The Sniper T-Doll nodded at her with her own rifle at the ready and in the next breath the two had slid their guns over their cover and started firing.
Pinpoint accurate sniper fire rained down on the advancing Sangvis units. Dinergates fell apart with singular shots, Scouts went down or exploded on impact and Rippers went down like puppets with their strings cut as high caliber sniper rounds tore through them with ease. Even still, they numbered far too many for the two to take on alone as the first scouts got within firing range of them. It was a good thing they weren't alone then, as pistol fire erupted from the surrounding buildings, taking out the drones before they could get more than a single burst out. Mk23, Px4 and Five-Seven joined the fray, having ducked into the cover of the buildings and waited for the faster units to get closer before quickly finishing them off.
With the Scouts and Dinergates handled, WA2000 and M14 focused on the Rippers and the Jaguars. One lucky shot from the twintailed T-doll struck the ammo rack of one Jaguar and caused it to explode, triggering a chain reaction as its munitions detonated and caused the other mobile mortar units surrounding it to explode as well. M14 pumped her fist with a triumphant huff and then ducked with a squeak as the Jupiter's weapons systems focused back on them, peppering their position with suppressing fire to cover the advance of the remaining Rippers. Sporadic gunfire left the Handgun T-dolls only able to blindfire over their cover at the advancing Rippers while WA2000 and M14 stayed down to conserve ammunition. Even under the roar of suppressing fire she could hear and even feel the Rippers getting closer.
Then, just as she readied herself to fire when she felt one of the Rippers get close enough to peek over her cover the suppressing fire stopped, the guns falling silent as the Jupiter Cannon powered down, it's emergency power supply struggling to reroute power back to its defense systems. Taking advantage of the surprise the HG T-dolls took out what remained of the Ripper's advancing on their position, making short work of them and leaving WA2000 and M14 free to fire upon the Jupiter's weakpoints from afar.
Explosions rippled across the side of the Jupiter, 40mm grenades and plastic explosives being tossed at it from a cliff nearby as AR-Team ran up to the edge to engage it as well. Catching a satchel charge from AR-15, M16 gave it a whirl and with a mighty shout threw it at the side of the Jupiter. It bounced on impact with only a second's delay before the explosive detonated and created a massive opening in the thing's structure, exposing it's volatile inner workings. M14 took this opportunity to load in a magazine of armor piercing rounds, and activating her Damage Focus protocols.
"Aiming… Attack!"
With extreme accuracy, she emptied her magazine as fast as she could, each shot landing dead center on the sensitive machinery exposed by the explosives AR-Team had used. The last shot that landed was the final blow that led to a chain reaction of detonations within the cannon, it's very structure shaking and falling apart. With a grand, last explosion the blasted machine fell apart, destroyed beyond repair. Faintly, M14 could hear the Sangvis Ringleader responsible for putting the thing up in the area complaining petulantly to them about "Destroying her toys" but M14 couldn't care less. She stood up from her cover, breathing a sigh of relief as the other girls in her squad gave a cheer.
"Commander, hear that? It's the bell of victory ringing~"
In the command room the Commander breathed out his own sigh of relief, nodding to Kalina as she sent out the recovery choppers to bring the girls back home. He looked back at the video feed of M14's squad, watching the twin tailed Rifle T-Doll stare triumphantly at the wreck of the Jupiter Cannon. He opened the comms line to her with a smile.
"And what a sweet sound that was, M14. Good job, all of you. Your all getting some RnR when you rtb, now get to the heliports and start heading home girls" Listening to them all express their excitement, happiness, relief or satisfaction at a job well done he sat down on a chair behind him, feeling the tension leave his body as Kalina informed him that the extract choppers were on their way to bring the girls home.
Praise
The Commander put down his paperwork, massaging his temples as he finished up the paperwork on his end. As much as he wanted to go and greet the girls as they returned from their mission he still had paperwork to do. Paperwork that he had been taken away from when the emergency call went out to take care of the Jupiter Cannon before it could do any damage to the surrounding settlements. So, while Kalina greeted the girls he set about finally finishing off his paperwork so he could at least greet them at their dorms, or the repair bays for the ones that might've gotten injured during the mission.
He was just about to slip the last files into the Out tray when the door to his office flew open and in came running a certain twin-tailed T-Doll who'd done an exceptional job in the most recent operation.
"Co-mman-deeeeeer!"
The Commander stood up to catch her and was immediately pushed back into his chair, sitting down with the excitable rifle t-doll nuzzling her cheek against his chest. The Commander, stuck with no other option, simply hugged her back with one arm while the other patted her head.
"Welcome back M14. Shouldn't you be at the repair bay? You took a couple of hits back there" The rifle pulled away from the Commander's chest to shake her head, still smiling, before nuzzling her cheek against his chest again, relishing in the warmth.
"Nope! I'll go down to the repair bay with Miss Kalina later. I need headpats now!" She looked up at him, resting her chin against him and giving him what can be accurately described as "The Puppy-Dog Eyes" and he could only sigh in fond exasperation as he did as requested.
For the next hour or so, the Commander spent his time patting M14's head and cheeks affectionately while the Rifle t-doll absolutely basked in it, completely unaware of the scathing, almost jealous looks the Commander was getting from certain T-Dolls standing by the door of his office. Said door, by now, was going to need a replacement from the cracks that M4 and 45 were spreading on it with their respective grips.
Mask
"Hey hey, Commander, do you ever take off your mask?" P7 Asked, the curious catgirl nun keeping pace with the Commander as her pet Dinergate, chopsticks, trotted along behind her. The Commander hummed, absentmindedly shuffling through the papers he held in his hand and thinking over her question as he mentally noted the one's he'd actually sign and the one's he'd shove in the paper shredder.
"Whenever I go to sleep and whenever I take a shower, otherwise? Never" P7 hummed, looking appeased but not fully satisfied with his answer.
"Never?"
"Never"
"Never, ever?"
"Never, ever"
"Never, ever fore-"
"P7 Shouldn't you be in the training room helping SVD and the other snipers with marksmanship training today?" The Commander deflected, knowing that if this continued it would keep going until P7 had sufficiently annoyed him. Said cat-eared nun responded with a whine.
"But Commaandeeeeer, I did that yesterday!"
"We decided on a two-day shift schedule for training sessions P7, no buts. Unless of course, you'd like to help the grenadiers with explosives training today instead?" At this P7 visibly shuddered, not liking the prospect of donning an EOD suit to assist the grenadier t-dolls with training. Usually, that duty was relegated to other T-Dolls that handled high-explosives. But sometimes, it was doled out as punishment to particularly mischievous or troublesome T-Dolls.
She huffed, crossing her arms petulantly. "Fine then, I'll go back to the firing range to help with marksmanship training. But! On one condition" She raised a finger, pointing up at the Commander as she stepped in front of him so they could stop walking. "Why do you wear that Mask anyway Commander? It's not like the radiation around the base is very high or like we're under risk of a gas attack. What gives?"
Hearing the genuine curiosity in her voice as opposed to the usual smug and mischievous tone had the Commander pause, audibly humming in thought.
"Well, I can't say much. But let's just say that this mask… it holds a lot of sentimental value to me. Of the life I used to live before I came here…" He reached up to it, stroking the fire-proof plastic material with a certain fondness. P7 hummed again, nodding in satisfaction and putting her hands on her hips.
"Weeell if that's all your going to say then I won't pry anymore! I know when and when not to push things and I'll respect your privacy Commander, but only because you've been so nice to all of us!" She spun around, facing away from him and throwing him a look over her shoulder. "Well, like I promised I'll be going to the firing range now. See ya Commander!" And with that she ran off, spreading her arms out childishly as Chopsticks followed behind her.
The Commander sighed fondly as he started heading towards his office again. As he sat down in his office, setting down the papers he carried and shoving the one's he planned to shred into a bin next to his desk, he thought to himself of how lucky he's been to have been picked up by G&K all those years back, as opposed to dying out there in the radioactive wasteland to either mutants or Sangvis.
It is now roughly 4am in my timezone as I finish this update. Holy shit its been another month spent procrastinating and being anxious in online classes god help me.
My woes aside, hope y'all enjoyed this chapter and see y'all in the next one. Hopefully it doesn't take another month to upda- WHY AM I JINXING MYSELF ON THIS AGAIN