Chapter CVII: Silent Enim Leges Inter Arma - Part 2
1 Nov 0520 KST
The near entirety of the 4th Korea's fighters were mustered in Seongnam in preparation for the attack intended to end the Empire once and for all. Crews checked out the vehicles and ensured everything and everyone was functioning properly while soldiers loaded into the buses and armored vehicles. Learning something from the Empire some of the 4th's fighters padded down their body armor with skitter skins and also used them to hover the hoods of several vehicles in order to mask their heat signatures. While not the greatest form of body armor out there in terms of stopping a bullet skitter skin was proven to be very versatile for blocking heat, X-rays and other forms of radiation. It also offered a fair amount of protection against slashing and bashing weapons which the Empire would no doubt employ as secondary arms in place of their guns. It was also far more abundant these days than more traditional forms of body armor as dead skitters were everywhere and the skins did not decompose, only the internal structure within the "second skin" would truly be at any risk of breaking down as Earth's bacteria would eventually learn to metabolize its constituent parts.
Bremer and Min-ho boarded the K21 together and established it as their command vehicle. Sun-mi said her goodbyes to Eun-mi and boarded the M1135 with Min-ji.
"You keep the place pretty for us ok? I'll be right back sis." Sun-mi told her kid sister.
"Promise?" asked Eun-mi.
"I promise." Sun-mi replied.
Eun-mi nodded, looking resolute but feeling sad and afraid. Sun-mi leaned in and hugged her sister in a firm lasting embrace before Min-ji, getting impatient with her grunted and urged her to hurry over to the vehicle. Sun-mi climbed on board the armored vehicle while Bora, Jenkins, Seo-jun and the other de facto platoon leaders also found vehicles to serve as their respective flagships during the assault. In spite of all the heavier fighting vehicles available Vargas mounted a common rusted up pickup truck and swiveled around the mounted auto-grenade launcher on top of it and tightened the strap to his sniper rifle slung over his right shoulder. Ji-hwan and So-hyun walked together towards the rows of available motorcycles.
"Are you ready for this?" So-hyun asked him.
"Are we ever ready for anything?" Ji-hwan answered.
"We always come everything though." he assured her.
"I hope so. I won't be able to watch your back this time. They've got me heading off to Gangnam District to bring the crew there home." So-hyun said as they got to the bikes and started combing through which ones they wanted.
"They're not pairing you with me for a change; sure picked a funny time to break us up." Ji-hwan remarked.
"What? Are you going to miss me or something? How cute." So-hyun teased him.
"No, ah, come on. You know, we've just been working together ever since this thing started and well you get used to certain routines, certain people. You get a groove going you know? I'm just saying it's an odd time to throw off that groove with so much on the line." Ji-hwan explained.
"There's a shit ton on the line every time we go out there. Nothing special about going after humans that we don't see when going after aliens." So-hyun remarked. "It'll be over before we know it; you won't even notice that I'm gone." she continued.
"So whose ass are you going to be covering this time since you're leaving me to cover my own?" Ji-hwan asked her.
"They've got me with that social justice warrior girl, what's her name, Da-hee I think." So-hyun told him.
"Ah, well good luck with that. I hear she's a handful." Ji-hwan remarked.
"She's actually a nice girl when you get to know her." So-hyun replied.
The two of them picked out their bikes and looked back longingly at each other. There was a feeling between them that this could be the last time they ever saw each other. In truth that was the case every time they went out on a mission but this time it was different. They were staring death in the face together as they had before. This time they couldn't watch each other's back and make up for each other's shortsightedness. This time they would be on their own.
"You take care of yourself now." So-hyun said to Ji-hwan before rolling her chosen bike out of line.
"You too." Ji-hwan told her in return
They never needed to say much to each other. What they felt and what they meant was mutually understood. There was always an unspoken bond between them, a mutual respect and a sense of closeness that went beyond simple friendship. Ji-hwan guided his bike out of the storage rack and mounted it, trying it on for size. With the vintage and underperforming selection they had he actually managed to pick out a top notch model. He admired the glossy red paint job and the polished chrome. This bike had been well taken care of even after the apocalypse. So-hyun and Ji-hwan stood idle on their bikes waiting for the cue to go. Usually they would be comparing their rides, making small talk or working out the details for the mission ahead. This time they simply waited in silence. A minute or so later Da-hee pulled up in a city bus and honked at So-hyun indicating she was ready to go.
"I'll see you round." So-hyun said before she followed Dae-hyun heading off on their own.
Ji-hwan did not reply, he just watched her leave and waited for the motorized division of the 4th to pull into formation behind him before taking off on point.
Before the dawn's first light had struck the 4th Korea was on the move. They kept together maintaining a close watch on the skies as they left Seongnam. They did not provoke the ships cruising by in the air and strangely enough the alien airships returned the same favor and did not carpet bomb the human column advancing into their territory. It was as if they knew that today it wasn't the aliens that the 4th Korea was going after. Today for a brief moment in time they would be coincidentally fighting on the same side. Perhaps these beings were intelligent enough to see this and would not interfere with those who would suffer their losses in their place. Perhaps Kwang-su was wrong and indeed the aliens did value life to some degree, at the very least their own lives.
Upon leaving Seongnam Da-hee and So-hyun split off with a few additional motorcyclists in their company to evacuate Gangnam Station while the main force continued on to engage the Emperor on his home turf. Later Vargas and his platoon also broke away to bring in some much needed reinforcements of the extraterrestrial variety to the fight. Bremer and the main force continued onward. The tension was real, every cross street, every underpass, every building brought with it a chance for their utter destruction. There were enemies all around them both of the human and the alien variety and one wrong move could so easily spell their swift and total demise. They approached every corner ready to fight. Again it seemed like the aliens had intentionally pulled their forces back to allow the 4th Korea to do their dirty work for them. While it could be assumed they could have dealt with the situation themselves very easily by repeated heavy bombardment leaving behind only weak, scattered remnants of Kwang-su's empire of dirt for some reason they did not. The aliens seemed to have a vested interest in preserving whatever they could of the remaining infrastructure and the human population to boot for their own purposes. Apparently to the detriment of their own well-being once again bringing into question just how much they valued life to begin with.
The roads were clearer than they were used to during previous trips through Seoul, in part as a result of the continued fighting between the aliens and the Empire and in part due to salvage efforts conducted by the Empire's vassal groups. Reinforcing this notion were the cars left abandoned on the road were several marked with the Empire's green or black symbol. Those must be the ones that still work, or have useful or interchangeable parts with those that still run presumed Bremer.
"The markings on the vehicles, look. We must be getting close." Min-ho quietly told him, pointing out those that had been tagged.
They then reached a spot closer to the river in northern Songpa District and turned west by southwest. Here through a part of the city that had been leveled like a plain the 4th Korea could see clearly across the Han River where the invader's designs were starting to take shape. What exactly that shape was they could not be sure but it looked like some kind of giant three legged satellite dish based on the rickety substructure and scaffolding that had been erected.
Bremer noticed the giant alien structure rising from the ruins on the other side of the Han River. The upper portion was still little more than bare bones scaffolding with only one of the legs fully complete on the outside and the other two were but a frame and a handful of metal panels. This is why the aliens allowed the Empire to persist; this is why they did not strike back against Kwang-su until now, until after he agitated them in some way. All this infighting between human resistance groups had been buying the aliens time, time to build this. For what purpose it served he did not know but it certainly will not be good.
In its present condition the alien structure was structurally unsound. Bremer could spot half a dozen ways to bring it down with a little C4 and some ingenuity just by looking at it. This only strengthened his resolve to deal with Kwang-su expediently so they could mount a strike on the structure before it could be secured and completed. It made a tempting target, either as an alternative to Incheon or as a two pronged attack depending on what their intelligence in Incheon came back with. All this planning would be for naught if they could not pacify the madman that was standing between them and the alien apparatus taking shape across the river. True Kwang-su was fighting the enemy too but his priorities were askew. He could not be trusted to mount a worthwhile attack on the alien structure for in this self-styled Emperor's mind it was the 4th and those humans that rejected him that were the greater threat.
They made their way into Gangnam District and towards the mall at the location which their informants had provided them with. There the flattened ruin of the city became more populated once again with towers, homes and businesses. It its heyday this would be an upscale refined neighborhood shining with artistic luxury. Now it was littered with rubble, crushed bits of concrete, steel and glass were spread out like a blanket of snow of a cold winter's day. Many of the routes into the mall complex were strategically blocked by collapsed buildings and mounds of gnarled rubble and steel girder beams. Bremer and Min-ho could rightly assume it wasn't just the aliens that had done this though in appearance the average bystander would assume this to be mere destruction and not an intentionally constructed wall. The rubble formed in essence a stone wall encircling the area around the underground mall grounds leaving only three points of entry; one to the northeast which the 4th was approaching, one to the south and a small one to the west. The lack of holes blown into it led one to believe the visual deception had fooled the aliens but it would not fool the trained eyes of the 4th's military commanders, who understood the way the human mind thought. Particularly on the approach in that the 4th was taking there were four towers that particularly concerned Bremer. These 4 towers were all partially demolished having their top floors blown away leaving an open air roof upon the uppermost intact floor. From the windows and gaping holes in the superstructure Bremer saw through his binoculars the ever so slight movement of high caliber weapons being directed towards them.
Without causing a noticeable stir to give away the fact that the enemy's trap had been detected Bremer calmly ordered his divisions to split and seek cover behind the ruined structures to their right and left. The element of surprise was over, that was one thing that could not be counted on now. Though the Empire was alerted to their presence the battle was not lost. It would take Vargas a while to get here with the space cavalry and at their distance the Imperials would have to come out in order to get them. Such was the benefit of having air superiority denied to the enemy, even if it was denied to the 4th themselves. Without a spotter any indirect fire artillery the Imperials had would be of minimal effectiveness at this range. If they came out for them the 4th would be prepared, if the mortars started crashing too close around them they could pull back further and spread out. Bremer had hoped that at least for the mean time they would be safe. It was perfectly quiet save for an alien airship passing by overhead. In the moment of silence following the craft's passage Bremer could hear his own breath and see the clouds form from it and drift away. With his heart pounding and the adrenaline kicking up his blood flow he could not even feel the cool in the air. In fact it even felt warm despite being only twelve degrees above freezing on this unseasonably cold day, the cold being another after effect of the alien bombardment. Bremer ordered the armored vehicles, now running hot against the backdrop of a cold late autumn morning, to shut off their engines and cool down lest they draw fire from the air. The last thing he needed was the aliens to make the Empire's job easier on them. The vehicles were spread out over a wide arc, roughly in the shape of a crescent around the perimeter of the outer Imperial fortifications. The excess foot soldiers that had been riding in the vehicles for transport disembarked and spread out even further leaving only the drivers and gunners of the vehicles left inside, ready to make a hasty retreat or attack run whichever their commanders decided upon or the situation necessitated. Bremer was among those who disembarked and ran to the south across the street leading directly to the snipers' nests while his command vehicle went north. Min-ho remained in his K21 in the narrow alley across the street to the north of Bremer with his squad. Sun-mi was also there with him having command of the M1135 this time as was his sister Min-ji on the ground with a RPG launcher on her back and a K2 rifle in her hands. On the southern tip of the crescent Bora and Seo-geun stood with their unit, comprised entirely of the remnants from their former camps. Seo-hyun and Seung-hwa were at the northern tip of the crescent behind mounds of rubble with few standing walls just before the ground was flattened as one went towards the river. In the middle of the encircling formation between Bremer's and Bora's squads were Jenkins, Meyers and Pearson in one group and then Myung-yong, Chae-young and Seo-jun in another. Along with Bremer on the south side of the direct approach to the Empire's base were Hong-gi, Da-bin and SSGT Yi Yeon-woo. Moon-soo was also there, having served as their guide as well as being conscripted into service as the 4th's field medic for this mission. They each waited at their respective positions unsure of what the next move should be and who should make it. For the immediate term Bremer believe the ball was in the Empire's court, that they would be the one to make the first aggressive action towards them now that certainly the 4th Korea's cover had been blown. Bremer expected mortars and rockets to begin shelling their position anytime now and when they did not come he found himself thinking "What's taking them so long?"
"Do you think they even saw us?" Hong-gi asked crouched up against a partially erect wall of bricks that used to comprise a merchant complex across from Bremer.
"Yeah. I saw them train their guns on us when we approached. They were just waiting for us to come within range." Bremer answered.
"Why didn't they shoot? I could've made that shot from where we were." Yeon-woo sarcastically inquired.
"Aren't you glad they didn't?" Da-bin asked him in return, personally glad that no one was shot.
"Not all of those guys are ex-military marksmen. Basic training isn't gonna cut it if you want to make a shot count that far down range. Plus you're going to need the right gun, a good scope and so on. I barely saw them at full magnification." Bremer answered.
"They were counting on the fact we couldn't see them I assume. Once that opening barrage let loose they knew we would seek cover so my best guess is that they were waiting to make every shot count, until we were close enough that they could've really thinned our ranks out before we knew what to do with them." Bremer answered.
"What's bugging me though is why they haven't tried to flush us out of hiding yet." Bremer admitted.
"Mortars, rockets, grenades, the big stuff that goes boom. That's hard to come by and it's the only shit that works to take down the walkers." Da-bin answered. "Perhaps they don't want to waste them on us when bullets do the job just as well." he continued.
"They'd have to come out here and get us if they want to be cheap about it. If they do we'll be waiting for them." Bremer remarked.
"They might be working on that right now." suggested Hong-gi. "These guys are arrogant but I don't think they're stupid enough to come at us head on, they'll probably sneak around the back way or something."
The curiosity and the fear kept nagging at Bremer and he was compelled to take a closer look. He could envision a column of vehicles or a large contingent of foot soldiers storming out that gate right now and in spite of the chance of getting dropped by a lucky long range shot he resolved to poke his head out and look. Bremer glanced over at the rifle Yeon-woo was carrying. It was equipped with a rather high powered scope that could enable him to see clearly quite a distance down range. He couldn't ask Yeon-woo to stick his neck out for him though, he was the leader and as such he should see exactly what they were facing with his own eyes so he could make the best informed decision about what to do with it going forward.
"Can I borrow that for a second?" Bremer asked pointing to Yeon-woo's sniper rifle, particularly the high powered top of the line scope he had affixed to it.
Yeon-woo handed the rifle over to Bremer who handed Yeon-woo his standard issue K2 in exchange, just in case a firefight broke out in the few brief moments when Bremer was checking the corners. Bremer peeked around the corner and observed the snipers' nest through the scope of Yeon-woo's rifle. The Imperials were just waiting there, their guns still pointed in the direction of the 4th. There was no sign of movement or activity in the space beyond these guard towers. Based on the information that Moon-soo and others had given him if the Empire was to mount a counter attack against them it would most likely come through this gate. A circuitous strike reaching around from one of the other gates would take some time and likely would be noticed before it got into position due to the excessive rubble limiting the points of approach such an attack could make against the 4th's position. They were spread out, yet positioned well to repulse a direct ground assault from any direction that it might come in. The moment one squad started shooting the others could rapidly respond to and envelop the attacker. Bremer looked the other direction down the street and also saw nothing. Still Bremer feared a pincers maneuver from a numerically superior and better equipped adversary was in the works. The absence of aliens anywhere along their lines and the apathy the extraterrestrial air power had appeared to show them was also unsettling. The thought had crossed his mind that the aliens were setting up a scenario by which they would draw both factions of the human resistance out into the open in a relatively small space only to drop a well-placed bomb on them without risking too much collateral damage to their designs a short distance across the river. Would the space crabs be that smart though? Bremer could only hope not, and that Vargas' team's actions to bring them in prematurely would throw a wrench into whatever scheme they had devised against the humans this day.
Seeing Bremer peeking around the corner Min-ho waved him down once he got back into hiding. When Bremer's attention was diverted he shouted over to him, just loud enough so that the Lt. Colonel could hear him but no louder.
"What now?" Min-ho asked Bremer acknowledging that they were trapped.
While Min-ho had brought the big guns to the party he was not a military strategist by any means. Seeing that an attack was not imminent judging by any indicators that he could observe Bremer began thinking ahead to the later stages of their plans. Vargas could be cut down on that street ahead of them when he arrived and they wouldn't even be in position to take over and lead the bugs into the mouth of the beast. Instead the bugs would be turned back at the Imperial gate and swarm the 4th's position achieving the exact opposite of what the 4th had aimed to accomplish. He knew it would be a difficult proposition and one with the certainty of many casualties but they had to take out those gun nests. They were hard targets indeed but absolutely vital to the success of their mission. Being that timing was an uncertain thing, that Bremer could only estimate when Vargas would be arriving so the question of when to make an attack on the guard towers would be a gamble. If they moved to early the Empire would react and the battle would be on in full force and possibly be over before the space cavalry arrived to level the playing field. If they moved too late then Vargas would be cut down and the same fate Bremer had feared would befall the 4th if they had done nothing would befall them. He thought that if they could seize the towers and hold that ground for their own they would make strong fighting positions to repulse the Empire's forces thereby giving them a little more wiggle room on the timing though the possibility for losses was magnified as opposed to just lobbing some rockets into these buildings and collapsing them, which also brought about the potential risk of blocking the road into the mall grounds and once again spelling doom for the 4th.
"I'm thinking of something. Stand by." Bremer told Min-ho.
It was better if he didn't shout out a strategy session across the street. He would have to rely on those around him for counsel and then once he had some semblance of a plan send someone to confer with Min-ho and company about it. For the mean time they both still had to be on guard against an attack. He looked over to Yeon-woo, Da-bin and Hong-gi who seemed to be waiting on him to come up with something. They had assumed that they would be waiting out the storm where they were until Vargas got back with the planned third party to the attack. They expected Bremer's orders, if he had any new orders to give would involve sneaking around further and getting into a more advantageous position for when the strike would happen. They had no idea Bremer was mulling over the prospect of sending some of them to their doom.
"Chico's going to be coming in fast with bugs chomping at his heels when he gets here. He's not going to have time to sniff out the gun nests up ahead. He'll be running straight into an ambush before we have a chance to take over. If that happens our backup crabs are going to take the path of least resistance when they turn to fight." Bremer explained to the men around him.
The news seemed unsettling to the other fighters, especially Da-bin who was really not wanting to be in the first wave of an attack. He joined the 4th to have a better chance for survival for himself and his sister. He would have a better chance of achieving that goal if he was in the middle of the assault behind rank upon rank of geomis who would take the lion's share of the Empire's defensive fire in his place.
"Gentlemen, we are the path of least resistance." Bremer plainly told them.
"What we've got to do is, we've got to take out those sniper's nests before Vargas gets back with the crabbies." Bremer stated.
"If we go straight down that road we're gonna get cut down before we get within a hundred yards of those towers." Da-bin objected.
"That's why we don't run straight at a gun nest you idiot! We go around, slink between these buildings here and try to crawl up the ass end." Yeon-woo admonished Da-bin who clearly knew nothing of proper military tactics post-1920. Da-bin was certainly old enough to have done his time in the service, he must have been admin or something off the lines Yeon-woo thought.
"We don't really know what kind of route we have through all this mess either. These buildings are all in shit shape; we can't even assume there is a walkable route through this maze of wreckage. We're going to need to scout it out; climbing over this crap puts us just as much in the line of fire as going straight down the road." Bremer corrected the both of them.
"Hong-gi, you take your boy here and sniff us out a path forward. I'm going to go down the line to the south, make sure everyone is on the same page." Bremer told Hong-gi.
He then turned to a different soldier leaning up against a lump of charred bricks behind him. "Private umm. . ." Bremer started to address the soldier at a complete loss for his name.
"Lee." the soldier told him.
"Yeah, I need you to do the same to those boys on the other side of the street alright?" Bremer instructed him.
"Sergeant Yi is infantry; wouldn't he be a better choice for a scouting mission than me?" Da-bin suggested to Bremer trying to get out of his assignment. "I could hang back here and protect the doctor." Da-bin offered.
"Fine. Yeon-woo you go with Hong-gi and blaze a trail. You stay here and keep tabs on the good doctor." Bremer consented without even thinking it over. It really didn't matter who did what as long as the objectives were completed.
Bremer handed the sniper rifle back to Yeon-woo and got his own weapon back. Bremer checked the magazine and the under barrel grenade launcher one last time then crept away down the line, ducking down where the walls and piles of debris were lower to the ground. Private Lee darted across the street, eliciting a single shot from the towers than pecked into the dirt behind his feet. At least one of the Imperial snipers were getting bold, fortunately their aim wasn't up to snuff to nail a shot from that distance on a moving target. Hesitantly Hong-gi set off behind Bremer to seek out an alleyway or completely flattened section of the ruins to cross between the seemingly concentric rings and parallel straight lines of demolished structures along each of the former streets between them and the mall complex. Yeon-woo followed behind and quickly caught up then assumed the lead before they found an open alleyway behind a mangled chain link fence. As the word was spread the 4th Korea began sending out squads into the labyrinth-like ruins of one of the most upscale parts of Seoul to probe a means of attack the troublesome guard towers that had so deeply concerned their commander's plans.
