April 7, 80 Km Southwest of Arnus Hill, 11:30 local
Two days into this mission and things had not gone well at all, Coady thought as the clatter of gunfire echoed up and down the valley.
They had received intelligence information too late that a group of Imperial guerillas with crossbows had been seen in the area. These "Guerillas", had crossbows and ballista's. They had been driving slowly down the road on the valley's floor when a bolt smashed against the Ratels windshield, partially shattering it. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but then the Imperial archers opened up on them. Scott fired at a suspected firing position "Whitt! Magerfleisch! Try and get us some fucking air support!" His AK joined the cacophony for a few moments. "Someone get a cannon ready dammit!" he shouted into his radios speaker/mic. The tanks and APC rotated their turrets almost in sync, their main cannon aimed to either side of the road and as high as they could raise to fire at the enemy.
The Fleet Girls were firing their cannon as well, but not to as great effect as they should have, Scott guessed it was the narrowness of this section of valley that was causing them all this trouble. Scott saw that half the Fleet Girls shells ricocheted off rocks, while the other half exploded, seemingly not hitting anyone.
The gunfire died down to an eerie silence as rifles and MGs were reloaded. Everyone cautiously scanned the hills around them. Then the sound of bolts whizzing past or pinging off of vehicles. Everyone aimed at the direction they saw the arrows and bolts originated.
Coady watched the tracers move up the hill to where the bolts came from, kicking up dust and debris as it went. In his peripheral vision Scott saw turrets angling towards the area the bolts came from, he got down behind the wheelwell and covered his ears, then called for everyone to do the same "EARS!" The cannon from tanks and Fleet Girls opened up all at once in a roar that was felt as much as it was heard. Dust kicked up from the firing mixed with the smoke and obscured his vision, burning his eyes a bit. He peaked over the engine block at the position they had just fired at, It was a cluster of smoking, overlapping craters.
They waited for several minutes for the firing to resume, it didn't. "Alright let's mount up!" Everyone returned to their vehicles. "Haines you wanna ride up front for a bit?" "No, I'm fine." "I wasn't asking Whopper Junior, I wanna fucking take a nap." Haines sat in the front seat as Scott sat in the back.
Atago smiled at him "What?" "I've never been in infantry combat before." "Believe me, it's not as fun as you think, besides the only way we could win that time is we have heavy guns with us." He smiled at her as the convoy resumed driving down the fairly straight road.
"Someone wake me up next time we stop." Scott said as he lay his head back and place his helmet between his feet.
When Scott was woken up by Mane, it was 12:30. "Cap wake up, we've stopped for food." Mane got out of the Humvee and walked out of Scott's line of sight, carrying his M60 by the pistol grip. Scott walked back to where everyone was resting under a cluster of trees that gave a surprising amount of shade. He sat down as someone tossed an MRE, or Meal Ready to Eat to him. Scott looked at the wrapper, Chili Mac, he smiled and used his knife to cut it open. Inside was the entree and heater, a powdered drink, a slice of snack bread and cheddar cheese and jalapeno spread. Scott pulled out the contents and poored some water from his canteen into the heater and placed the chili mac pouch in it to heat up. He poored more water into the drink pouch, he got the vanilla shake, his favorite. "If anyone has a Charms in their MRE, don't eat any of it that shit's over a decade old." There were a few laughs, but the Japanese troops didn't get the joke.
Coady cut open the now heated chili mac and squeezed thw cheese spread into it. He ate it slowly, taking bites of the snack bread every few spoonfulls. He saved the gum, powdered coffee and hot sauce for later and tucked his spoon into some free MOLLE webbing on his IOTV. Leaning against the tree trunk, he unfolded his map and traced a line along the route they'd taken, marking wherever they stopped, how long they stopped for, and the times they arrived and departed each spot. He looked at his watch, it had been a gift from his dad when he enlisted, a fairly standard two handed watch with illuminated hands, a woven paracord strap with a plastic buckle on the opposite side as the timepiece, a small compass was located next to the buckle and the strap held a P-51 can opener that could be taken off without unweaving the strap. It was water resistant to 150 meters too. "Haines! You got any Rip-Its?" "Yeah, what kind?" "Any of 'em!" Haines tossed Scott a can "Thanks!" "No problemo!"