As the whole squad was taking a rest, Captain Varrot arrived to see the post-operation situation in the area. What she saw was simply amazing. The whole squad was almost intact with only one injured. She inspected a few areas before carrying on a debriefing. Those present in it were Noctis, Welkin, Alicia, Isara, Largo and Rosie. Everyone else was outside sleeping or resting under the sun.
"Casualty report."
"So far, only Sergeant Squall Leonhart was wounded during the whole operation in Vasel. According to Private Nelson, Sgt. Leonhart was trying to get the men to safety while there was intense mortar shelling in the town. He got wounded by a shrapnel from a mortar round that hit beside his ground. Lucky, his injuries were only on his face and groin." Alicia reported.
"Thank you, Sgt. Melchiott. I'll make sure he gets a Purple Heart for that."
Varrot turned her attention to everyone in the room.
"It appears that Lieutenant Gunther's plan worked. An impressive start, soldier."
"Thank you, Captain."
"Also, My sources tell me that you performed impressively on the battlefield, Lieutenant Caelum."
"Indeed, Captain. Were not not for Lt. Caelum, we wouldn't have beaten off the Imperial countertattack." Alicia voiced. "He was really taking initiative for the operations. As much as possible, he wanted the tide of the battle to be in our favor."
"Mmm… That's impressive. I guess the Squad 7 deserves an early unit citation." Varrot remarked.
"Well we're honored ma'am."
Rosie and Largo still couldn't move on about the scene of the operation.
"The kid's crazy! Drove a damn tank right into the stinkin' river!"
"Yeah, and I can't believe it worked. I'm still in shock."
"All right, you two! Now, hold up your side of the bargain and you listen to Welkin." Alicia said.
" Feh...yeah yeah." Largo replied, before walking away.
"The kid might got the chops to command, but that don't mean I gotta like any dark-hairs. "
"Hey! Come on!"
"It's okay, Alicia. I'm used to it by now. But I hope...I know the day will come when Darcsens can join society as equals."
Just then, they hear a camera sound and see a flash from their back.
"Heyyy! Hope I'm not interrupting anything. It's me again, reporting for GBS! Lieutenant Gunther! That was quite an impressive result on your first mission." Ellet complimented.
"Yes, thanks to the squad's hard work, we managed to take back the Great Vasel Bridge."
"Any impressions on things to come, now that you've gotten your first taste of victory?"
" Impressions? Well, let's see...Bridges are important. They link the roads that bring people what they need. I'd like to become a sort of bridge, linking my crew together. I think that's my new goal."
"That's great! I think that should be enough. Thank you!"
"Pleasure's all mine!"
The Following Week
As Squad 7 was resting briefly for a few days before another mission comes around knocking them, nearly everyone was relaxing. It was a few days left before they were back for another operation. Welkin, Noctis, Alicia, Luna and Cloud were having afternoon tea; Largo was busy checking out the vegetable stocks in the mess hall; Rosie was busy tending her voice; Aerith and Susie were tending a small garden by the camp; Isara was busy fixing the Edelweiss; and everyone else was tending to each other's interests.
"This tea blend is amazing, Luna. How'd you make it?"
"It's a very delicate fruit blend that I made. Back when I was in Lucis with Noctis, I'd always make this for the two of us. Quite frankly, it's simply something he enjoys a lot. Whenever he'd go back from a journey of some sort, he'd always come crawling up to me to ask for more."
"You two sure look like a willing pair." Alicia described.
"Actually, we're already dating before we got here."
"Oh… So how far have you gotten to hit on him?" Cloud joked.
"Oh shut up you!" Noctis voiced, lightly punching Cloud on his shoulder. "I don't have dirty thoughts."
"By the way, where's Tifa?" asked Luna.
"She's busy talking with Juno, Aisha and Edy. Apparently they were curious about how Tifa's martial arts skills work." Cloud replied.
Just then, Rikku burst in with a new invention; Probably wanting to show it off.
"Hey guys!"
"Hey Rikku, what brings you here?" Welkin asked.
"I managed to actually invent something new. It's something that aside from a vehicle that I decided to make with Wakka. Apparently, we managed to get more manpower since Lulu and Paine wanted to help us making more new stuff."
"Well show it."
Rikku then took out a sort of a gun that was wrapped around with a white cloth. When Rikku removed the cloth, it was nothing more than a steel-stamped sub-machine gun that had a magazine port on its side, a steel pipe buttstock and a heat shield leading up to the main body of the weapon.
"What's that? Looks more like a grease gun." Alicia described.
"Sten."'
"Say what?"
"Sten. I call this invention Sten."
"Sten? What kind of name is that?" Noctis asked.
"It's just something that Lulu offered to me. Wakka suggested I name it Stoner but it was sounding like a heavy gun and Paine wanted to name it Armas but sounded like putting a gun through your armpit so I took Lulu's suggestion of naming it "Sten".
"Ok. What does it fire?"
"9mm bullets."
"Ohh… Can I fire it?" Alicia volunteered with a hint of curiosity."
"Sure."
Later, the six of them went to an open area near the camp. The firing range was empty so they decided to make use of it. Once there, Rikku handed the weapon onto Alicia, who noticed there wasn't a safety feature but it was quite light.
"There's no safety. How do you engage it?"
"To engage it, cock the bolt fully back and place it up. You could still press the trigger but a round wouldn't really fire. "
"Oh. Can I fire it?"
"Sure!"
"Ok, here it goes."
Upon holding the trigger, it was quite uncomfortable holding the weapon given that it was all metal and that it had no hand grip like most weapons that the Gallian Army had issued (especially the standard Gallian SMG, the MAGS), which made it rather uncomfortable for the user to operate. Adding to it, Alicia had no clue where she could hold her the weapon from her left hand so she placed her left hand onto the magazine since there was no grip to let her. Firing the gun itself was rather smooth and that it had less recoil compared to Noctis' "Tommy" or the MAGS.
"This is actually quite smooth." Alicia described before firing again.
"Umm… Alicia, I wouldn't hold it there if I were you." But Alicia didn't hear what Rikku said.
"Why?" Welkin asked.
"The magazine would jam apparently. That's why I added a heatshield."
"Oh... ALICIA!" Welkin bellowed.
Suddenly, the gun just stopped firing. Smoke was coming out of the shell ejector and the gun had misfed due to Alicia's way of operating the gun.
"Huh?! Why'd it stop firing?"
"Forgot to tell you. Don't ever hold it onto the magazine. You're supposed to hold on the heat shield by the barrel. Guns tend to jam a lot when you hold it by the magazine." Rikku explained, fixing the gun. "But aside from that, the jam's pretty easy to clear."
"Oh, I see. But why make another machine gun?"
"Apparently I suggested to Captain Varrot to make silenced guns so I decided to make this. You can either attach a silencer on it or just fire it as is."
"That's fascinating." Welkin described. "But still, I think it may be unnecessary. Squad 7 isn't made for clandestine operations, well maybe it had something to do with Noctis' sneak attack during our previous operation but-."
"Owsh! I'll prove it. I want Noctis to use it on the next mission. I'll take his Tommy back for now." Rikku brushed.
"Whatever you say, Rikku." Noctis replied.
"Alright, that's enough for now. We better go back."
Later that day, they returned to their barracks to rest and prepare for the next day's activities. In so far which they still had a few days of relaxation before being called back up for service once again.
Five Days Later...
It was mid-morning when everyone had finished taking in breakfast. Many were so stuffed that they had to go back to the barracks to take a siesta. However, someone familiar had came back from the field hospital and back into active duty again. It gave quite a slight of a shock for the others to see him again. Alive and well.
"Back to see you quite so soon, Squall." says Irvine.
"What happened?" Karl asked.
"Squall took a shrapnel from a mortar round. Lucky Edy and Homer took him to safety."
"Yeah. Quite frankly, I owe them a big thanks for saving my life."
Just then, Captain Varrot arrived to greet Squall a welcome back from his trip to the hospital.
"Sergeant Leonhart." She saluted. "Welcome back."
"Ma'am." He saluted. "It's nice to be released from the hospital and back with the squad again."
"I didn't know you'd recover this fast. Are you sure that you'll be fine to participate with the next operation?" She asked.
"Heh. Mortar rounds ain't that much of a hurt on me. What's gonna hurt me more is if I see my friends get killed on the field."
"Looks like you haven't lost your touch. It's good see you again, Squall."
"You two, Irvine. Where's Rinoa by the way?"
"Private Heartilly and the others are currently in the barracks, sleeping. Apparently too much breakfast rations given by the army as a reward for our participation back in Vasel was too much for them and the squad got apparently too 'careful' getting on the table."
"You should see just how puffy Rinoa's cheeks were." Cloud added.
'She never changes doesn't she...' Squall voiced in his thoughts.
On another note
"Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sooooooollllllllll" a female brunette went.
"Do, Re, Mi, Faaaahhhhh, SOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHLLLLL" Edy went.
"ARGH! Edy. You won't get good in this if you couldn't practice toning your voice."
"I'm trying to, Yuna."
"Let's try again."
It was approaching lunch time and most of the squad took a siesta in their barracks. Meanwhile, outside the barracks, it seems like Edy couldn't really fix her tone-deafness over and over, something which Yuna couldn't seem to get tired of curing her of it. Apparently, when Yuna first listened to Edy's singing the day before, she was too tone-deaf to sing. From a slight distance, Questis and Homer were talking about it.
"What's with Edy?" asked Quistis.
"Apparently she heard that Rosie is such a big star in her place so she thinks that she's a potential rival of hers so she decided to copy here." Homer answered. "But apparently I'm literally having a headache right now because of her."
"SOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHLLLLLLLL!"
The apparent sound that come out of Edy's tone-deaf voice was apparently too much for Yuna to handle that she ended up fainting and that Quistis' eyeglass lenses cracked. Homer on the other hand became so dizzy.
"I think I may have to run away now." Quistis uttered, taking off her glasses.
"How was that Yuna?" Edy asked. "Yuna?"
But all that she saw before her was Yuna who had fainted.
"Oh... I guess I could finally say that I've done it. Maybe Yuna fainted out of joy of hearing my syllables. Time for an encore!" She voiced to herself.
Later in the Afternoon
Inside Captain Varrot's office; Varrot, Welkin, Noctis and Faldio gathered around for a small briefing on the next operation. It was about time that they made a move again after a few days rest. Varrot understood that they had to take the initiative once more now that the Imperials had retreated from Vasel, thereby saving Randgriz. The three men assembled before her as she was sitting by her desk.
"Thanks in part to Squad 7, the Great Vasel Bridge is back in our hands. That pushed the front line back, forcing the Empire to gather forces in central Gallia."
"Does this mean we're headed that way as well?" Faldio raised.
"The army will take that front. Meanwhile, the militia will head south."
She pointed on the map by her desk. Her finger pointed on a region over the map called "Kloden."
"Our next target is here, in the Kloden area. "
"The Kloden Wildwood...I was there last summer taking soil samples." says Welkin. "It's a dense forest with plenty of hills and valleys. It's hard to get around in there."
"In other words, the area's gonna be densely packed for us to fire." Noctis added.
"Seems like it." Faldio replied. "What's our strategic objective there, Captain?"
"The Empire has set up a supply base there to fuel their invasion of central Gallia."
"I see. So if we seize the supply base, we cut off the flow of supplies moving north."
"Precisely. The Third Regiment's objective is to take that base. All squads are to prepare for woodland combat and await orders. Good luck. Dismissed."
After the short briefing, the three stepped outside of their superior's office and started to talk to each other about the upcoming operation.
"Woodland combat...what a nightmare!"
"What do you mean?" Welkin asked,
"The woods dull your sense of direction, and poor roads make for slow advances. This'll be our toughest operation yet."
"Faldio's right, Welkin. We have to time our attack and cooperate our suppression as well."
"Maybe so, but deeper in the woods you have a better chance of spotting rare foliage. There's one kind of insectivorous plant in Kloden called the moondew that can suck a-
"All right, We get it! You really do have a one-track mind, you know that?" says Faldio, rubbing his forehead.
"I'm saying nature isn't just a burden. We might find the key to victory in the woods."
"Perhaps. But still, forest area's a place for close quarters engagement." Noctis added. "It's gonna be hard for our riflemen and snipers to maneuver around."
"You can leave it all it me, Noct." Welkin assured.
"All right. I'll keep a lookout for your key while we're slogging along. Hopefully your plant won't have eaten it."
Faldio left the two to attend to his matters while Welkin and Noctis went back to their barracks. Still thinking of what to do on their next operation, the two started to talk with each other.
"Don't you think that our troops aren't trained for forest combat?" He asked. "I mean, they handled the operation in Vasel quite ok but I'm quite concerned about engaging them in the woods."
"Maybe so but still, all we can do it coordinate our attacks. Fighting in Kloden alone would be too dangerous for someone to handle. I'm not saying it's hard but it's gonna be a tough operation that needs a tough approach to. It's kind of like trying to get close to a spider and not letting it jump on you."
"For the love of god, Welkin. Don't start talking about spiders. I hate bugs."
"Really?"
"No comment."
As the two were heading back, they suddenly hear a loud cannon fire. The noise immediately caught their attention.
*BOOM!*
"What was that?!" Welkin asked. "Sounds like cannon fire."
*BOOM!*
"I think it's coming from the garage. Let's go check it out."
As the continuous cannon fire sounded off, Welkin and Noctis ran towards the garage to the cannon itself. When they got to the place, the Edelweiss was parked beside the garage where Rikku, Kreis, Leon and even Isara were working on the prototype tank they salvaged from the Military Warehouse weeks ago. Seeing some smoke coming from the side of the building, the two ought to see what was going on.
When they got there, it was apparently Rikku and the others testing the tank's gun if it could still fire.
"Rikku!" Noctis yelled. The yelling caught her attention.
"Oh hey Noct! What's going?" She answered, hopping off the tank
"You tell me. What's going on here?"
"Oh. Me, and the others are just testing the 77mm gun that we salvaged from the garage. Apparently, the gun makes a tight fit on the turret ring so I guess this tank packs a punch after all."
"Good to hear. How's the restoration going?"
"Well engine was already fixed two days ago and it's running perfectly. Yesterday, we managed to put the turret on and today, we're just testing if the tank's gun fires. The machine guns work as they should be too. We've repainted the tank itself into an urban scheme."
Welkin looked at the machine.
"What does it have that the Edelweiss doesn't?"
"Well Sir, I gave it the usual refinements. Apparently, Isara's never seen some of them. So anyway, allow me to present you my 'baby', I call it the Comet Tank."
"Originally, this was called the Cruiser tank." Kreis added while working on attaching the smoke launchers on the side of the turret.
"Well aside from that, it's armament is a Quick-firing 77mm gun. I've also added smoke dischargers by the side of the turret, as you can see that Kreis is attaching them. Aside from that, I added buffers so it wouldn't recoil that much and that it could still switch targets at a fast rate. Compared to the Edelweiss' 8.8cm gun, this baby eats recoil for breakfast. Aside from that, we have a 12.7mm machine gun. You have a birdcage sight by the commander's hatch so you could pretty much zoom targets in manually. It also has a vertical stabilizer so it wouldn't lose its targets when it's on the move. The hatch can be rotated for 360 degrees so that the commander can be able to turn around without having to turn your back. There's also a telephone by the rear so that the infantry can talk with the crew."
"A phone on the rear of the tank? Quite impressive." Welkin complimented. "How fast does it go tho?"
"The Comet can sadly go only at 52 km/h. Not as fast as the Edelweiss but I modified the engine a little bit just to give it a better horsepower at 850 hp. It's operating range is 280, which is 10 meters better than the Edelweiss. It's protected by 111mm of frontal overall armor. But the disadvantage is that it isn't sloped. However, I am proud to say that it has 12 degrees of gun depression, which is better than the Edelweiss' 8 degrees. Overall, I think I may have made the Edelweiss obsolete." Rikku cheekily said.
"She really couldn't stop saying that." Isara added. "It seems Rikku is proud of her work."
"Bragging about it just makes me annoyed at the fact just how he turned an ordinary prototype into something better." Leon sighed.
"Well that's Rikku. She's a pretty good engineer. Apparently she told me that from where she, Tidus and Yuna came from, her people were skilled with machines so I guess you could say that she's a pretty fast inventor." Noctis remarked.
"So uh.. Rikku. Think you could be able to deploy this tank for the next operation?"
"Well judging by the completion right now, I'd say it'll fight on the field just in time. All we need to do is for Noctis to actually give it a test drive, see what it could do." Rikku turned to Noctis. "Noct, think you can operate a tank?"
"Me? I've never operated a tank before. I only became a loader once in the Edelweiss. Was quite easy to learn but commanding a tank..."
"It's pretty easy, Noct. Here, allow me to give you a tutorial." said Welkin.
It was quite easy for Noctis to adapt to the tutorial that Welkin had provided. Noctis' tank only needed 4 crew men. Leon stepped in to volunteer being the driver of the tank, he didn't actually need to be trained to drive a tank because he has prior knowledge of. Zell and Barret opted to take the Loader and Gunner roles, which they were able to adopt to but certainly took time. For the tank to work, Noctis had to throw commands to the crew members. He did remember how Welkin was doing it back when he acted as temporary loader in the Edelweiss. Understanding how difficult it was to operate a tank, he ought to place his tutoring session to live action by the next day. After a day's work, they rested.
The following day, Noctis placed his knowledge to the test. Welkin was standing by with Prompto's radio from a distance where he could see him. Along with him was Prompto, Alicia, Luna, Rikku and Isara.
"Ok Noctis, this is your boot camp for tank training. Quite fast for you to learn. eh? Just one read of the manual and boom." Welkin said, through the radio.
"Quite frankly, I'm in the most crappy position here." Noctis voiced. "My legs are stretched out."
"You'll do fine."
Inside the tank, it was almost cramped pack but it was quite workable.
"Damn.. this loader's position is so packed. Can't move my legs." Zell described.
"I feel like I'm gonna explode here." Barret voiced. His position as gunner was the most uncomfortable. "Bloody well uncomfortable."
"Driver ready." Leon voiced. "Jammed-pack and quite hard for me to get in."
"Alright. Let's see how this baby works." Noctis uttered.
When Noctis ordered the tank to move forward, Leon pressed the clutch hard and shifted to gear 1. Loosening his clutch, the tank started to move forward.
"Steer to the right."
Leon cranked the lever to the right. The driver's job as absolutely a difficult one. But Rikku had loosen the clutch pedal a bit to make it seem as it wasn't that much of an effort to drive a tank with manual transmission.
"Move by the sandbags."
Leon headed towards the sandbags by a tree. Once there, the tank stopped. Before them was an open field with a captured Imperial tank dating from the First Europan War.
"Alright Noctis, It's time for target practice. See that tank before you? That's your target. Take it out."
"Roger."
Noctis shifted his attention to his crew.
"Load Armor piercing."
Zell opened the container that had 4 rounds of 77mm shells. Taking in one, he loaded the slightly heavy round onto the breech.
"Armor piercing loaded!"
"Target, 500 meters.
Barret was sweating.
"Aim. Keep her steady."
In seconds, Noctis finally gave the word.
"FIRE!"
Barret pressed the trigger hard on the gun and it fired very smoothly. The round left the barrel and was heading straight for the tank in the open field. Upon hitting the tank, the shell went through armor and inside, hitting the ammo rack. When it did hit, the rack exploded and the turret was blown off.
"WHOAH!"
"Goddamn' Noctis just scored an ammo rack!" Leon exclaimed.
Back in Welkin's observation post, Rikku jumped at the success of her efforts in restoring the salvaged tank. Welkin on the other hand was impressed, seeing how Noctis was able to handle the tank that fast.
"Wow! That was unexpected. Seems like my baby works after all." Rikku noted.
"Nice work Noctis! Looks like you're ready for action."
"What can I say? Hard work pays off. Anyway, Heading home to base. Out." Noctis transmitted.
With that, Leon started to find their way back to the garage. When they returned, Welkin and Noctis got back to their quarters and prepared for the next operation into the Kloden Wildwood.
A/N: So anyway, the flaw maybe is how fast Noctis and his crew were able to learn about operating the tank. I always thought that the Gunner and Loader position is quite fast to master, the same goes for Noctís' position. The driver had no issue as Leon may have had some experience in operating a tank so I guess it's ok. Anyway, Chapter 9 is in development.
If you guys are curious if the Comet tank is actually a real life tank... It is... It was used by the British during WW2 but saw limited action. I've thought of putting it in the story since it may be on par with the Edelweiss, except for the gun. The data that was described for it is the real life specifications of the tank. I always thought that the tank itself is aesthetically pleasing to look at.