Ready… For War? HAHA!
I believe it was around April or May of 2068 and the unrest was still going on almost stronger than ever.
We were sent to the main entrance to the Underground City as reinforcement for a situation that was growing out of hand. Almost the whole 98th was in a convoy of trucks heading down the main highway into downtown. Captain Morales ordered our company to assemble in heavy riot gear, not because of a riot, but because he deemed the extra protection fit for the situation described the night prior.
So, there we sat in the back of our truck covered in armor as we rolled down the highway in a column of twenty others. The heavy gear consisted of all black ballistic plates, a crotch and neck protector, as well as extra leg armor and gauntlets on top of our standard gear. I couldn't tell who was who in the truck because we were all completely covered, and I knew my squad was with me, but there was no telling which was which. Our heads were concealed by a black reinforced combat helmet and regular mask, below that was the standard ski mask, and the model of those protected gas masks didn't have a good voice emitter. So, the truck rocked, and even sitting was almost exhausting due to the weight of that added gear. Our heavy armor was almost as protective as power armor, but without the weight assistance of an exoskeleton powered by a nuclear battery. I heard everything that everyone else had heard about where we were going, but wondered what exactly was happening.
When the convoy pulled off the highway, three Vertibirds flew overhead going toward downtown. Not that we even could, but nobody spoke as we approached closer and closer, almost like we were going towards the original siege line from that airport south of the city.
The situation facing us was only described as a big fight between the Canadian "freedom fighters" and the US army. It started out as a standard riot, but grew into a full-on battle when 8 US soldiers were captured, beaten, and hanged down the street from the shield wall. The army wouldn't stand for a display like that, so the rioting mob dispersed at the first shots saying it went too far. As the guns burst, the mod broke apart, only to return with weapons and openly fight our guys. The match was struck at 1900 the night before, and rapidly escalated till our Square across the city was put on standby. After getting the official order around midday, it was 1300 when we arrived on the scene. The fight proved to be more than just pacification, and more than the two nearest firebases could handle, so companies from all over the city were being sent to put the resistance down. We were one of them.
The skyscrapers grew taller and taller as the convoy approached the battle zone. I still couldn't hear very well through all the face protection and thick helmet I was wearing, but I heard the gunshots growing louder and louder. The trucks, pulled off the highway, reached an army position, then the convoy halted and we dismounted. Our company started to march down the street toward the warzone, and I remember fidgeting with my gun, undoing the safety catch that appeared to spark a few hundred clicks of the same noise intermixed with the heavy steps of so many. A nervous energy surrounded the whole formation all the while until we reached a staging area where dozens of our soldiers were preparing to enter the brutal fight. On the other side of a large building, we could hear the chaos and watched soldiers from all over the city readying for something. The whole company took a knee in the open plaza behind that building and Captain Morales stood up, took off his mask and helmet, and gave a similar brief to the one before the Assault on Montreal;
"Alright Soldiers! Listen Up!..." He got handed a poster with a layout of downtown and pointed out three highlighted skyscrapers on the map.
"These buildings are the main targets! Be aware that there are dozens of armed fighters in them and fortified emplacements pinning our guys in the intersection! Stick with your squads and reinforce our holdouts along the line. Squad leaders will be briefed on when to move up, but our objective right now is to clear the area before going anywhere near those skyscrapers!…"
He paused briefly to collect himself after a string of distant explosions. He continued, "I said this before we took Montreal, so I'll say it again: I'm not going to lie to yall… Many Will Die! So, Make Your Death WORTH SOMETHING!"
After that "Motivational" talk, our lieutenants spoke to the squad leaders and I was given my own objective to carry out in the assault. All of this seemed like deja vu, but there it was; 8 months later, and we were about to launch a second assault in an already "Claimed" Montreal.
We all assembled into our squads and moved towards the carnage on que while a bulk of our guys moved into the building separating the staging area from the chaos. After passing a sentry position, and relaying our objective to the soldiers manning the sandbags, me and my assault squad moved forward. As soon as we entered the street, we came under intense fire. I dropped to the ground and crawled to a crater in the middle of the street, really feeling the weight of that armor. Upon reaching the crater, I peeked over the shell hole and uneven piles of rubble across the urban warzone, and some bullets went over my head. Feeling one knick the side of my helmet, I ducked instantly, and looked back over at my squad to see them stuck nearly back at the sentry post. They were awaiting orders and unable to move as the bullets continued whistling inches above our heads. I laid on my back gripping my R91 tight, and facing my suppressed squad by the staging area, I frantically thought what to do. I surveyed the area around me and saw some dead soldiers among a distant sandbag emplacement with five troopers being pinned down.
What was happening? Stealing glances across the intersection, it seemed like the entire occupation force of Montreal was pinned down in that one ruined intersection at the heart of downtown. I tried to yell at my suppressed squad laying in the street, but my mask, their helmets, and the constant stream of bursting guns made any commands I wanted to give impossible. I tore off my helmet and gas mask.
When I put my helmet back on, I yelled over to my guys, "Radio a Vertibird! Suppress them ahead!" I had to repeat that a few times, and made all the relevant hand signals. I couldn't hear the response I got from Miller, our guy with the radio, but the message I understood was, "No Dice." We were pinned. I was stuck in a crater in the middle of the street, and my squad hadn't been able to hardly leave the staging area. There was almost nothing to do, and I didn't really feel my death would be "Worth something" if I just stood up or got my guys killed. Stuck in the crater and alone with my thoughts, I listened to the gunshots for a while, and stole a glance of the warzone on occasion. After enough time in Suppressionland, I found myself wondering why we were sent into the streets, and wondered where the bulk of our guys went in the dividing building.
Not more than two minutes into my hopeless thoughts of the shell hole, we still couldn't move. After pondering that last thought, I blindly fired down the street, and my squad did the same, hoping another squad could draw the fire away from us. Less than a minute after that, a siren blasted really loud, interrupting the chaos of the warzone. With that came an answer to my question about where the rest of the army was. Almost a hundred US soldiers stormed into the area towards the first Canadian occupied skyscraper from that building, dropping all the while or moving forward. The emplacement pinning me and my boys turned to the wave of US troops, so I yelled for my squad to join in the move. We sprinted down the street toward the Canadian position, accompanied by others from the sentry position or staging area.
The Canadians started to fire on us when they realized that we were flanking. I reached the middle of the intersection when I was shot. I found myself in a daze, watching my team shatter the emplacement with concentrated machinegun fire, and the others who chucked volleys of grenades into it. Just then, I was hit four times, twice in the left arm, once in the chest, and once in my left leg. I fell to the ground watching our men swarm the building and the last of the militants fall back. Resting in the comfort of a pile of cinder blocks, men were dropping left and right onto the asphalt of the intersection/Warzone. It was complete anarchy.
Feeling unbelievably bruised, I picked my head up and saw half of my squad get gunned down from the exposed third level of the skyscraper. The machinegun knocked my squad down and began spraying lead all over the troops still moving across the intersection. Still on the ground, I felt my left arm. I wasn't badly hurt because of my armor, but I felt like I had been smacked by Scott Hansen several times in the same spots. Then, I was hit once again as I laid there. That bullet wasn't kind enough to put me out of my misery. Instead, it ricocheted off my chest, and chipped a part of the face shield. No eye damage thankfully. Although, I took that que to don my gas mask again, just to be safe.
As I stared up at the grey sky, two Vertibirds hovered into position above me, and fired rockets into the third level of the building. After the explosions, the aircrafts sprayed their machineguns on the Canadians down the street, and those remaining around the base of the first building. I watched the hot brass rain down on me from the sky, pelting the visor of my face shield. It was actually quite magical despite the pain from being shot repeatedly. In any event, the Canadians on street level were dead, but they continued to fire sporadically from each floor of the building as the soldiers in back repelled out of the Vertibirds to join the fight.
Still pretty battered, a medic saw me wincing on the ground, and approached. At sight of the medic working on my, I recalled what I saw happen to my squad and felt the adrenaline. Shrugging off any pain, I jumped up and led the medic over to my squad that was still taking cover in the street or remains of that emplacement. Miller and Stiles were lying on the ground losing blood fast while the others' armor protected them enough to try patching the two less fortunate boys with assistance from Andrews. The two medics sterilized the wounds and injected each of the wounded with morphine.
Then, the nameless medic shouted to me, "The rest of you all move up! Our guys will need all the help they can get securing those buildings! Don't worry Sergeant! We'll take care of them!"
I grabbed my rifle and led the remainder of my squad over to that first skyscraper where the army was preparing to breach. My mind raced about whether my guys were going to be okay, but realized I was still in a lot of pain. I ripped open my med pouch for something to block the agony of five bullets shattering protective plates against me, and soon lost track of my men in the sea of helmets all around me.
Half of the US troops were in the heavy gear and the other half were in standard kit; there were still too many of each to track down my men while officers and higher NCOs moved idle soldiers to and fro. At the foot of the skyscraper I found Captain Morales; he was stacking up a dozen guys to lead the breach while many more were stacked in places spanning the length of the enormous building. Soldiers fired through the windows into the big financial institute while more and more American bodies fell to the cracked pavement. Captain Morales snatched me and several other soldiers, placing us in the breaching team. We stood there for five minutes waiting while soldiers fired in through the shattered glass. I watched more of our guys charge across the intersection from the staging area when suddenly, three rockets flew out of the window of the building, leveling the main entrance to that big building they came from.
Forty of us stacked against the entrance when Captain Morales' voice pierced the deafening anarchy "BREACH!"
I couldn't see the men who initially smashed the enormous lobby doors open, but I saw the explosion. There was a massive explosion at the doors, obviously showing that the Canadians rigged the entrance to detonate. I looked at Captain Morales; a shard of the steel door was sticking out of his face. The whole world was in slow motion as we moved in, but I watched my company commander fall to the ground with his head nearly split in half.
I moved in the line slowly while each soldier poured through the blasted entrance and into the lobby. For some odd reason, it occurred to me right there that: There was nothing tactical about this battle. There was "danger close" air support, infantry charges, and bodies left in the street. The Army was essentially throwing us at the enemy. It reminded me of the initial assault on Montreal, but without the glamor of giant howitzers, paratroopers jumping out over the city, or bombers dropping their payloads deep behind the lines.
Before I could wonder which General was in charge of this strategic disaster, I entered the building. Upon my entry, I was shot in the shoulder, but the angle of my pauldron deflected it. So, it again only felt like I was punched really hard. We overwhelmed the lobby, and I fired blindly toward the shadows on the mezzanine, aiming high to avoid killing one of our guys still filing into the lobby. I sat there behind a column while the ground level filled with our guys until the place eventually fell silent and hazed in smoke.
No time to think about anything, there were still 20 more floors to clear. So, I stood up and joined a group of soldiers headed by someone with multiple chevrons and rockers. I had no idea where my squad was, or which group I was following; I didn't even know if my boys survived the door explosion, or the fight in the lobby. I tried not to think about it as the group I was with moved up to the second floor. There was almost an entire platoon in tail, and I considered again how strangely normal it felt to be running towards a wood chipper with the intention to dive head first.
The stairs had an opening to the second floor that was full of office cubicles. Moving across the open office space, a dozen heads rose out of the wreckage and guns tore down a dozen of our men in an instant. The whole second floor was in another firefight, only standing out from other battles by the influx of papers getting sent into the air with each gunshot.
Peaking up, I saw one of the Canadian partisans rear his head up in the midst of the fight. I lined up the sights of my R91 on his head and pulled the trigger. I saw the nameless man's head jolt backward as the bullet shattered his skull, and felt something just start to warm inside me when that feeling was interrupted.
Within that second, I was shot three or four more times in the chest and fell over into the wall of another cubicle. I sat there gasping for air, watching papers flutter around, seeing bullet holes appear on the wall next to me, and hearing the endless rattle of automatic weapons. I had been shot almost a dozen times within a half hour. Dazed from the pain of my shattered chest protector, I weakly removed the heavy plates that had been saving my life in an effort to breathe a little better. I kept the heavy leg plates on, but removed the excess plates from my torso, arms, and helmet back down to my usual level. As soon as I was done, I leaned my helmet back onto the wall, and refitted my gas mask for the second time in that eternal battle. Just as I tilted my helmet back, I saw four of our guys with miniguns running up the stairs. I didn't even see the dark green soldiers, only their CZ-57 miniguns. We were pinned, but not for long.
Once that first minigun went off, I went deaf. Then the other three went off, and I watched the empty casings pour onto the ground just like from the Vertibirds. I couldn't see from my seated spot, but I knew the damage those guns were causing. The whole floor went silent when the last minigun stopped. The second floor was clean of Canadian nationalist life.
Some sergeant greater than me was making the rounds, and I stood up still feeling my wounds. I took notice of the executive offices on the left side of the room covered by a glass wall. Something strange stood out in that despite the hell of gunfire moments before, none of the office walls were broken; they were all seemingly bulletproof. I was wondering why a pre-siege Canadian office building would have bullet proof private offices when I went over to secure one. I opened the door as more soldiers entered level two behind me, and stepped inside. Faced with nothing but a near pitch black executive office, the door shut behind me, and I heard the click of an electronic lock. I was startled at that, and when I turned around, a man emerged from the shadow of the room.
The man before me wore a thick bullet proof vest, heavy leg armor, and a lot of patchwork items of US Army gear. He took off an M90 issued gas mask and drew a rusty combat knife from his belt. He wore the rank of Sergeant, and lieutenant, likely trophies of US troops he killed. Once his mask was off, he took another step forward and said;
"Hello American."
I'd seen partisan insurrection leaders before, and if this guy didn't just look like your average Montreal insurgent, his calm but confrontational demeanor said he was something else. At those words, I aimed my rifle at him, shouting through my mask, "Get on your knees! NOW!"
He told me he was something more if not by his tone, but by his own admission. He defied my order and shouted back instantly, "NO, I will NOT! I! I am Jacque Marchal, Captain of the French-Canadian National Militia! America has destroyed MY LIFE!"
He lunged at me with his knife at lightning speed, and I let loose a spray of bullets before the rifle was ripped from my hands. I reached for his knife hand and held his fist tight. He tried forcing it down on my neck, but I held on. He punched me in the stomach, and then dragged the knife downward. It sliced my hand open. My hand poured blood onto the floor, and with my right hand, I swung and felt my knuckles crack on his face. I hit him twice more, and he stumbled into the corner. I took the opportunity to dull the pain of getting shot a dozen times and cut. I ripped open my medical pouch again with my bloody hand and stuck a syringe into my arm. The syringe contained a drug called "Med-X" that almost immediately blocked out all the pain, but the blood continued to pour with my pounding heart.
I looked up from my arm and felt a sharp new pain in my side, before the dulling could react. Jacque drove his knife into my stomach right between my standard plates. The blood pumping, I tackled him and rained both fists down on his face. He gripped my neck while I slammed my fists onto his face, but with one blow from his free hand, he knocked me off of him. I felt the knife; it was still in my gut and snug between the polymer plates. I looked around from my position on the ground. On the other side of the glass were a large group of soldiers pounding on the wall and door. They were watching the whole fight while trying hard to break it open.
I stood up, but cringed at the faint and dull pain of the knife. So, I ripped off my helmet and chucked it straight at his head, and he stumbled back into the corner. I chucked my gas mask at him, and it smacked him in the knee without any effect. He ran toward me again, but I blocked his arm and shoved him into the glass of the office. I pinned him to the glass wall and decked him in the face. I kept throwing my fists into him feeling my knuckles break while my other hand poured blood all over him. The man was weak by then, wounded, and sore, but he uppercut me in the jaw with tremendous force, somehow landing another blow on the scarred side of my face as well. As the punches sent me to the ground, I dragged him with me. After two seconds of rest, I saw him crawling away toward my rifle in the corner of the room. Despite all my open scars, bruises, pouring hand, and knife in my gut, I leapt onto the guy and hit him one more time in the face with a nearby broken stapler. Then, I pulled the utility knife that was strapped to my boot and drove it into his neck. He sputtered blood and coughed all of it onto my face as his eyes bulged in terror. Then, I twisted the knife, and he convulsed his way into oblivion.
That was it, the adrenaline was fading, my rage was settling, and the reality of what was done to me was coming back. I stood up and stumbled over to the glass. All the men were watching me from the other side, still pounding on the glass, and a few new cracks in it showed their effort wasn't entirely unrewarded. I looked at my allies through the blood smeared glass only seeing the illuminated lenses of their respirators in the smoke cloud beyond. I fumbled with the doorknob, but I was locked in. No idea how to unlock that door; switch above the knob, remote on Jacque's body, didn't matter, I couldn't even think.
I was losing more blood every second that passed, and feeling my side where the knife was, I looked back into the glass and saw myself. Everything I was wearing was absolutely shredded, my hand still pumped blood onto the floor with each heartbeat, the knife stuck from my side, but I couldn't feel it, and the scars on my face had reopened through repeated punches to it. I looked like a walking corpse, but I was alive. Just barely.
I thought of the most recent man I killed, and then thought of what he was trying to keep me from. At that, I felt a smile crack its way across my face, saw a blinding flash of light, and dragged my bloody hands down the glass as I went to kiss the floor.