Hey everyone. Well, I apologize for the delay. I've been on a bit of a Fallout bender for a while. Still can't play Fallout 4 thanks to my lack of a Xbox One, but I've been keeping busy replaying Fallout New Vegas and Fallout Shelter. Kinda been hoping that something would shake loose and allow me to write a few chapters for my Fallout fanfic on DA.
Anyway, got some ideas together for World Fury and now here we are. Enjoy.
Not much action in this one, just a group of soldiers trying to survive.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING OR ANYONE IN THE SPYRO UNIVERSE. ONLY MY OCS.
Chapter 48: Not One Step Back
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Day 88
13 Floodrain, 1933
1130 hours
Record of Staff Sergeant Vasili Alexandr
Federal 8th Volunteer Corps/ Federal 11th Army
What madness is responsible that drives men to make so costly a sacrifice for so little a gain?
This morning, the Commander ordered a charge from the factory to the enemy emplacements where they were fortifying their positions and openly executing POWs, right before our eyes. I understand grief, having lost Cazel in those damned sewers, but not this needless slaughter.
All the soldiers we met in the factory, or nearly all of them, are now dead, including the Commander. He led the men straight into the machinegun traps the enemy had built specifically to repel such a direct assault. The wounded dragged themselves through God only knows how much mud, shit, and rot to the factory. The doctor expects that, without proper care, more than half will die of infections.
Yet, the enemy withdrew. Those of us still capable of fighting now reverse their own machineguns on them and take shots at them as they try to retake the position. The bodies are piling up on both sides. For every one of us they kill we kill ten. The beautiful park that once sat in front of the factory is now a hideous, crater-scarred mass grave. Rotarian bodies lay unburied next to our brothers and sisters. The ground drinking their blood without care if it's from native child or foreign invader.
If one is careful, you can use the bodies of the dead for cover in leu of sandbags or proper cover. However, there is a drawback to this. The mud makes it difficult to tell who is dead or alive. Try to take cover by one of our own wounded, he'll awake with a start and try to scream at you to get him the hell out of here. If it's an enemy...
...well, let's just say that already there's a few who are sticking their bayonets into enemy bodies at the drop of a hat, making sure they aren't 'playing possum'.
It would be effective, if only they weren't so jittery they keep sticking the same dead corpse over and over again. They know he's dead, the lack of a head proves that, but they keep sticking him anyway. Docs call it 'shellshock', Generals call it 'cowardice', others call it 'battle-fatigue'.
Well, I can say this for certain... there's a hell of a lot of that going around.
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The moans and screams of the wounded were near deafening in the silence of the factory. Quietly Vasili hoped against hope that they would recover. Yet, staring at the ghastly injuries they each suffered, he doubted that one in eight would survive. The doctors, or what they had that passed for doctors, in an effort to keep morale up, gave a more optimistic one in three.
Yet, most people not half-fevered with infection or delirious with fatigue could smell what they were selling and silently muttering prayers requesting forgiveness, mercy, shelter, succor, even a few prayers for safe passage. There was a saying that there are no non-believers in foxholes. Or in half bombed out factories. Whether you were a religious and pious man or a low down scoundral or simply didn't put much stock into faith, the fact remained that you prayed in times of crisis.
The soldiers were losing hope. That much was obvious. The morale officer, in an attempt to put the men at ease, has managed to fix an old record player and is currently playing whatever records he can find that are not broken, scratched, or being used for target practice. They had little ammunition remaining in the factory. Most of it went out the door with the men who stormed the fortifications across the park.
Most of that remained unused, still slung over soldiers shoulders as their bodies sank into the mire and muck. Barely sixteen men out of the original three hundred survived the crossing and then they had put up such a fight the enemy had panicked and retreated. Vasili gazed around and saw his small group offering what little comfort they could to their comrades. An irritated comms officer was trying everything he knew to get an old dynamo/vacuum tube radio to start working so that he could transmit messages.
He almost had it a few times but something always happened. Either the dynamo stalled, a tube failed, or someone carelessly bumped into the table jarring the nearly gone piece of equipment. The last incident was a doctor rushing by to a patient who suddenly started convulsions and passed away just as the doctor reached him. This time he angrily threw his headset to the floor and started cursing the medic out and calling him every variation of a bastard known to man, even a few NOT known to man. The young medic actually flushed with a mixture of embarassment and amazement at the tirade.
Vasili chuckled to himself as he listened.
(If my grandmother were still alive, she'd have grabbed him by the shirt collar and washed his mouth out with soap...)
Suddenly, a young soldier, his face coated in dirt and old grease came running in, rifle held in one hand, a wild look in his eyes.
"We need men to the embankment! The enemy's trying to retake the emplacements!"
At the sound of that several of the walking wounded, and a few of the more severely injured, rose from their spots, grabbed whatever weapons were closest and walked, ran, or hobbled out of the factory as best as they could. Vasili grabbed his rifle, ammo belt, and climbed an old ladder to the second floor of the factory and set up on the north face of the building.
The embankment was well within rifle range, provided that you had a scope mounted (which no one other than Vasili had) or you were pretty damn confidant in your eyes. On the walkway on his left and right, a few sharpshooters took up position. They didn't have scopes but their eyesight was exceptionally keen.
"Sergeant, can you cover the center of the embankment and the park? Gorochek and I can cover the left and right flanks." Vasili nodded and leveled his rifle at the embankment, waiting for the first sign of Rotarian forces to appear.
The second that he saw the unique 'soup pot' helmets that the Rotarians wore, he effortlessly cycled the bolt, chambering a round into the rifle. His first target, a sergeant, was turning left and right, obviously egging the men onwards. Through the scope, he saw the man's moustache and beard, ragged and starting to show grey in spots. He had a face hardened by time in battle, made all the more apparent by a jagged scar that ran from the left side of his neck, up his face, and presumably, up onto the scalp. He had brown eyes, eyes that despite the hardness within, held a softer light when gazing at the troops to his left and right.
He was the old man, the kids next to him were his kids. They looked to him for encouragement, for example, and for strength. If he could do it, they could do it. Vasili gave a moment to wonder what the man had done before the war. He spared a chuckle that he realized how similar that he and the sergeant were. Still, there was a difference.
Vasili leveled the crosshairs over the sergeant and squeezed the trigger, then watched as the expressions of the soldiers around the sergeant changed from a steady confidance to outright shock, and then terror as the sergeant's headless corpse fell backwards, the empty helmet clanking on the broken street and rolling away. Despite how similar they were, he was the enemy. Vasili reloaded and thought back to something as he started firing into the Rotarian ranks.
(War is a creature that devours good men and gives nothing in return. How many good men have already lost their lives? How many more will it take until the war is won?)
A Rotarian soldier, watching his comrades fall left and right, gathered his courage and made a dash for the embankment, evidentally trying to reach cover to counter-snipe. Vasili watched as he ran down the street for the moment, dodging bullets as the whizzed by him like he was a hero in the movies. Seeing one of their own boldly rushing the lines, rifle readied, bayonet fixed, seemingly invulnerable to the hap-hazzard rifle, pistol, SMG, and machinegun fire. Grenades exploded to his left and right, showering him with bits of dirt, concrete and asphalt. Using the hashmarks in his scope, he leveled them over the charging soldier, said a prayer for forgiveness, and squeezed the trigger.
The Rotarian soldier, a young private, staggered as the round struck home and went straight through him. Then, Vasili muttered a curse as the soldier, gritting his teeth in both pain and determination, straightened himself and started towards the embankment again.
(A hero is not a person who simply does his duty. He is a person who doesn't give a damn about himself and seeks to protect his friends and comrades.) Vasili watched as the soldier came forward, rifles on both sides falling silent in absolute shock as he made his way forward, blood leaking from his mouth. Vasili knew from that he'd hit a lung but then checked his scope.
(It's zeroed in... how the hell is he still walking when that round should have gone through his heart?) Then he remembered something. A medical condition he had once seen on the farm in a cow and that he had learned that occured with humans as well. It was a rare condition that was present in roughly one out of every ten thousand people. Dextro-cardia, all internal organs in the opposite place they should have been. This young man must have been that one in ten thousand...
As the soldier reached the embankment, the spell over the Tellanian defenders broke and three machineguns, six SMGs, and twelve rifles opened up on him, riddling his body with bullets. The body slumped and fell at the bottom of the barricade. Now the Rotarians broke from their silence and started firing at the embankment again, forcing the Tellanians to take cover and return fire.
Vasili fired the last round in the clip and pulled the bolt to reload when a loud whistling was heard. He looked to his left and right and yelled.
"Incoming mortars! Take cover!"
Mortars began falling behind the embankment and into the park. The trail of explosives worked their way towards the factory as the crews beyond sight and range adjusted their trajectories. The first solid hit on the factory struck the corner of the old building, knocking a tractor-sized hole in the wall and bursting some pipes that had stagnant, foul-smelling water still in them which showered all over the doctors and the wounded they tried, ineffectually, to shield from the debris and dust. Another hit struck the foreman's office which broke the supports and made the third floor office drop like an anvil through the second floor and landed, ludicrously intact, on the factory floor. Apparently, the foreman who ran the building had a habit of bolting his belongings down so that they wouldn't 'walk off'.
Before anyone could catch their breath, a round came in at an obsenely high angle and detonated halfway up one of the factories few remaining smokestacks. The whip crack of snapping cables and the crunching of stone and metal buckling drew the attention of the soldiers who watch as the smokestack tilted by slight degrees until it passed the point of no return and started to fall. One of the cables whipped around, shearing a makeshift barricade on the roof in half as well as cutting another stack's cables which started it falling as well.
The first stack broke into six sections as it landed, creating an odd 'tunnel-bridge' path that led to the city canal that was now choked with burnt and scuttled riverboats and destroyed bridges. The second came apart as it stood and the whole structure telescoped downwards into the smelters which, being a longhouse-style building, channeled the dust and smoke from the collapse right into the factory. Vasili coughed and hacked as the dust blew in and he shook his head to try and get his ears to pop so that he could hear properly again. Doctors struggled to dust themselves off while also examining their patients to make sure none of the dust and debris got into open wounds.
As Vasili gazed outside at the damage, he heard one of the other marksmen curse as he came up beside them.
"Bastards can't break through the front door so they blow through the back. Our entire right flank is now exposed and the enemy can send troops through the ruined stack in cover until they're right on our doorstep." Vasili looked to him.
"Do we have any mines or materials to make mines?" The sniper shrugged.
"Damned if I know. That supply sergeant was in the smelters when the stack came down. There may be something there but I doubt it's intact. What would you need in place of mines?"
"Gunpowder, nails, cans, pipes, and blasting caps or something similar. We can't make mines that can kill an enemy proper but we can make dirty bombs that maim and incapacitate." The sniper nodded and started down the stairs towards the smelters.
He returned moments later with a box full of metal shards and filings, broken tools, and nails as well as twenty-eight segments of lead pipe. He looked at Vasili expectantly as he went over the items.
"Good work. Now, for the fuel... what kind of rounds do we have plenty of yet we have no use for them?" The sniper left and returned with another box of Rotarian rifle bullets.
"Been finding these cheap pieces of junk everywhere. How the hell the Rotarians use such a little bullet is beyond me. Hell, even the Syllian rifles use a bigger round than this thing. What do we do next?"
"Here, I'll show you."
Vasili relied on his intuition (and a little experience because he HAD made one of these before though without shrapnel as a prank to scare some of the local bullies when he was little) and soon several pipe explosives and cannister bombs were made, armed, and some of the less injured were taking the traps to the fallen smokestack.
"Sergeant, any idea if they'll work?" Vasili sighed.
"There's no doubt they'll work. The question is not if but when. A man could step on one of those things and it either blow his leg off or simply make him land on his ass. If we had better primers or triggers it would be a certainty but... I give them a roughly forty percent success rate. Either way, the enemy spots them, they'll be cautious and take their time clearing them and that can buy us time for whatever need happen next." One of the soldiers, a wounded Junior Lieutenant, looked to him.
"Sergeant... what do YOU think needs to happen?" Vasili grimaced and gazed about the factory.
"When this place was intact it gave us pretty decent cover. Now the place is falling down around our heads. Not to mention the enemy has now moved mortars into positionAt the risk of sounding like a defeatist, I would suggest a withdrawal, under cover of night, to a position within the city that we know would have been fortified in a time of war such as a hospital, a train station, police department, any kind of government or civil service structure still standing." A young private came up, his eyes knowing.
"Sergeant, Lieutenant, I'm from here. There's a train station three miles east of here, then there's a hospital one mile south, and a police department and civil engineers workshop right next door." Vasili smiled and then looked around for the person he needed and saw him.
"Mishka! Over here!" Mishka came over and nodded to the Lieutenant and then faced Vasili.
"I need you and this young man here to travel south of the factory. With any luck, you should be able to reach a hospital nearby with a police department and a workshop nearby. If there is no sign of the enemy, come back here and report to the Commander in charge, whoever the hell that is at the moment, and then we can hopefully start to evacuate our wounded, our supplies, and ourselves to the new fortified positions."
Mishka nodded and together with the young man left the factory through the back way on their mission. The Lieutenant looked to Vasili and gave a sigh of relief.
"I can see now why Lieutenant Alenkov trusts you like he does. You have a gift Sergeant. If we make it out of this alive, I'm recomending you for promotion, maybe even an officer's commission." Vasili chuckled.
"Kind of you sir but I'm happy where I am for now. I prefer just being one Sergeant amongst many. Unlike people who perform heroics to get noticed, I just want to be forgotten when the war's over and go back to my farm and my family. If I make it through the war that's what I'll do. Just retire back to the old back forty. A man my age has no buisness trying to play hero in a young man's war. I'm content to just share my knowledge and experience with others and use my skills to keep as many of you kids alive as I can." The Lieutenant chuckled and nodded before returning to his post.
It was night before Mishka returned with the young soldier, both of them pale and desperate. When they were asked what had happened, Mishka told Vasili and the others what he had seen.
Column after column of medium tanks had already taken the square and the officers had set themselves up in the police department, the wounded in the hospital, and the enlisted in the workshop. Based on the chatter they overheard, the troops were going to try and flank the factory from the south, catch the holdouts in a pincer attack from both North and South. Vasili sighed and looked to the Commander of the little group, his face stern.
"That settles it sir. We'd best pull our men off the barricade and rig it to blow with what explosives we have left and evacuate. It's dark so there's a good chance we can reach the train station before daybreak." The officer nodded solumnly and then gave orders for the wounded to be carried by all able bodied soldiers. What couldn't be taken would be trapped or destroyed.
Once again, Vasili was placed with his group of survivors and they started the trudge east towards the station, a wounded comrade hanging on to each shoulder for support. As if to match the mood, an unseasonable storm was starting to brew. Just as Vasili stepped out of the shelter of the factory roof, he felt a mix of rain and snow start falling.
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Well, that's this chapter done, I hope ya'll like the setting I've set. Anyway, as with all things, the situation will get worse before it gets better.
I finally got my head back above water so I'll try to put a rush order on these next few chapters. If I can't update regularly, don't worry. Bit of good news, the firehouse here in Bellwood is finally getting rebuilt. The old one was just a step up from condemned so we'll be tearing down the old one and building a newer one. The bad news, the local roads are getting worse... go figure.
Next Chapter: Vasili's Express