Disclaimers: I do not own anything of Konami or MGS4, other than a few of the made up characters, and vehicles, and factions I've made up.
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Metal Gear: Engagement
Chapter 2
Darren opened his eyes slowly. He looked to see the PMC soldier body lifelessly crumple to the ground. He had hit the soldier dead on, while his vest managed to stop the bullet from penetrating, although the force of the bullet made his chest hurt like hell. Everyone in the dugout was okay.
Suddenly he heard loud explosions outside of his defensive position. He kept his head down till the shells had stopped landing and the dust had settled.
Darren looked out to see the entire armour column, or what was left of it, retreat with several exploding from AT gun rounds fired from the defensive positions further back. All PMC soldier had been killed either by gun fire or artillery shells.
Darren exited the dugout to see a PMC soldier's body, the man's arms were missing and his legs had been blown off, while around the body were pools of blood, while the body itself was badly mangled. Darren's stomach lurched, and he threw-up on the ground the sight of the body was sickening, he had never seen a body that badly mangled before.
Emerson hopped out of his dugout; he looked at the body then let out a sigh. "Poor bastard didn't stand a chance." He said in a sad tone.
Darren heard Vespes call out to the troops to see how many troops were lost.
"Two dead, one wounded sir." Said a soldier
"All of Gamma Team is has been killed. That makes five KIA."
"None here sir."
"Two wounded, one KIA."
"Three dead no wounded here sir."
Vespes let out a sigh. "We lost twelve good soldiers today." Darren looked to see a tear roll down his cheek.
"That means we lost one-quarter of the entire platoon." Vespes said solemnly. "Tell HQ we pushed the enemy back, and we're coming back for some R&R."
"Roger that sir." Paul said as he got on the radio.
Wiseley walked toward Emerson and Darren who were discussing the battle, "You guys alright?" Wiseley asked.
"A little shaken, but I'll be okay." Darren replied. "We were lucky we had those anti-tank guns, Just goes to show that power and range is useless if the missiles guidance system disrupted."
"I never expected any PMC group to actually have any tanks with missing jamming systems; those systems on those vehicles must be really expensive." Emerson commented as he looked at one of the burning tank wrecks.
Specter then called out to them. The group immediately ran over to where he was. "Helicopters approaching and they don't look like anything we've seen before."
Darren looked closely before he commented on the situation. The helicopters looked like combination of a Hind and a Apache. It carried more rocket pods then either copters, and it had two chain guns, on each side of the nose of the copter as well as having a troop compartment. "Those would be the new Grizzly helicopters, made by Canadians. Looks like those things finally got here."
"Wonder why we weren't alerted to their presence." Emerson stated.
Vespes then came up from behind. "They were just deployed to the area and HQ has stated they are friendly so no need to worry." Vespes paused has he took a drink from his hydration pack, "Well it's time to pack up everything, we're heading back now."
A few trucks and Humvees soon appeared as everyone packed up the AT guns and any other equipment, or anything useful, including weapons and ammo of the PMC as they could be unlocked, then everyone got onboard a vehicle and returned to base.
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Johnson sat patiently in the large single room inside a converted hotel in the Middle-East as he waited for Liquid, and several commanders and other personal of the various PMC groups that operated from Outer Heaven. He was wearing the Raven Sword's standard uniform, but instead of a helmet he was wearing a green beret. The building he was in used to be a random hotel, but now it looked like something from a sci-fi movie being the command centre for all PMC groups in the Middle-East after a long back aching process of massive renovations. The building was essentially rebuilt.
Johnson was a forty-seven year old man American of British descent. He was the Raven Sword's PMC group co-founder, Liquid being the founder, as well as the group's commander who only took orders from Liquid. His full name was Johnson Roger Madison. Johnson was married, but his wife died to cancer a few years ago. He was a former member of the U.S Special Forces being a lieutenant before he resigning after PMC groups started doing all the work when nanomachines started to be used. He disapproved of using nanomachines due the affects of withdrawals, and that he has actually stated to his troops that being a real soldier requires developing your senses that hard way, through actual combat. He had his own personal army like Liquid, but they were all seasoned soldiers who, like him, rejected nanomachines.
Johnson had no idea Liquid wanted them to meet here. It would've been better if each commander had communicated over the comm channels other then meeting up in this building. These meetings were only called when something important needed discussing.
Johnson pulled out a picture from his vest which showed a picture of his daughters. He had heard his youngest daughter, Kelvana, had been captured during a raid on a T.F.E base. He looked at the picture; Kelvana was a beautiful young woman, being only twenty-two, having light green eyes and brown hair that reached her shoulders; strangely she had never popular in school, she often kept to herself, only talking to people she trusted. He had never wanted her to join in any army, let alone be in the FROGs, but she kept insisting till he finally stopped arguing with her. He had wanted her to join the T.F.E, if he had to pick an army for her to join, since they had a strict policy of not using nanomachines, but he was impossible to change that girls mind when she stick to something at times. His two other daughters, Kally and Linda also operated in the FROG unit, although they were assigned to Europe operating with the Raven Sword to bring down a resistance group. Liquid then came in with the leaders of the other PMC groups operating under Outer Heaven. There was a woman behind him with black hair wearing a greyish coat. He had no idea who she was and he didn't trust her, even if Liquid did.
"Ah glad to see you are here early as always Johnson." Liquid said.
Everyone sat down except for Liquid, and started bringing out their papers containing their reports.
"Now down to matters, what are the reports on the attacks on the T.F.E bases around the globe?" Liquid spoke.
"All T.F.E bases have been eradicated in Russia. They had no time to react, and the media thinks it was another organization." one of the Russian commanders said confidently.
"In Europe they have a strong military group there and they have repelled us, but they don't know how attacked them. They think it was one of our competitors, the Viper Grenadiers." a Praying Mantis commander said.
"Sabotage in the U.S and Canada has destroyed some of their major bases, and has slowed the production of some of their new weapons."
"None are in South America, although we have spotted their new Behemoth-class carrier off the coast, it's three times the size of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier." a French commander said, his strong accent made some of the English words sound strange, but everyone knew what he had said.
"Any details on that thing? That could interfere with our plans." Liquid asked as he his back turned toward the entire group.
"Nothing yet, although reports claim it much more versatile then our Arsenal Gear; It seems it was being developed for several years before the construction of Arsenal gear," the man paused before continuing. "It appears to be armed with everything ranging from CIWS and anti-air systems to a howitzers and new flak guns based off the German 88 flak gun."
"I want you to gain as much Intel on this floating fortress, I'll dispatch a FROG unit to aid in reconnaissance, now what news in the Middle-East reports?" Liquid asked as he turned around and looked at the Praying Mantis commander.
A Praying Mantis commander stood up and pressed a button on the table. Images flooded a screen in the room. "Unlike Europe they know who we are, and they have successfully repelled us with one of their large forward bases which is only a few miles away from here. They are being equipped with new weapons as we speak. They got the new Grizzly helicopters in the area as well as A-10 and F-22 Raptor that are being deployed to the area from airbases further back. We've only managed to attack that one forward base since we're spread too thin. Most of the Praying Mantis are in different cities fighting militia groups." the commander stated as he changed to another image showing destroyed vehicles. "Unfortunately our second attack with an armour company was a disaster. The T.F.E set a trap and destroyed most of our armour column with a single platoon and artillery, it appears that they haven't forsaken AT guns. We thought they would just use guided rockets and missiles to engage our tanks, which have ECM systems. There is no way to disrupt a shell with ECM due to the lack of a guidance system."
"What do have to gain from attacking the T.F.E?" Johnson interrupted. "It's because of your attacks on the T.F.E I've lost my youngest daughter to the enemy."
"I'm willing to sacrifice people for these missions including you Johnson so that our insurrection against Patriots will be a success. The T.F.E must be weakened enough so they don't send everything at our forces before JD is destroyed. Once JD is destroyed GW will take over JD position giving us control over the remaining AIs giving us control every single weapon on the globe under the influence of SOP, and once that happens any military organization without SOP will have to surrender or face total annihilation, due to our control of the U.S's nuclear arsenal." Liquid then turned back toward the group, and looked at the Werewolf's chief-engineer.
Everyone in every PMC around the globe knew the Werewolf group provided most of the military vehicles and weapons for all of Outer Heavens group. Werewolf had a monopoly in weapons manufacturing and they produced weapons that were superior to PMC most groups, like the tanks equipped with ECM systems. It was also known the group would bribe officials of other weapon manufactures so they would have plans to the latest weapons being produced, although they could never seem to bribe manufactures who supplied weapons and equipment to the T.F.E. Werewolf rarely took part in combat relying on AI controlled aircraft, and vehicles that were operated and controlled from their base of operations in the U.S.
"What are the reports on the construction of our own Metal Gear model? I hope that progress is continuing quite smoothly and will be finished on schedule." Liquid said.
The man took out a document from his folder and handed it to Liquid. Liquid stared at it for a moment before replying.
"Production is ahead of schedule and they're being deployed to our forces in the Middle-East and Europe." Liquid read out loud from the document, before putting it down.
Liquid then turned his back on the group again. "I want attacks to continue on their forces, alert me if anything I should worry about happens, understood gentlemen." Liquid then started moving toward way toward the exit stopping right infront of the door, the woman in the grey coat behind him. "I'll be heading off to test to see if we're nearing the seizure of the SOP system away from this city, I expect you people know what to do on what you've been asked."
After a few moments when Liquid had left everyone started leaving while Johnson just sat there.
"To think we're all pawns in this scheme just for him to acquire world dominations." Johnson thought to himself as he looked at the picture of his daughters.
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Kelvana opened her eyes as she lay in one of the field hospital beds. Her head was killing her with occasional sharp pains which lasted until someone gave her a shot in the neck , although a medic would often give her a shot to ease the pain, while the rest of her body ached in pain, due to SOP withdrawal, especially the right side of her torso.
She looked to see the area where she had been shot only had a faint scar that was barely visible on the right side of her torso. She was conscious when they were removing the bullet, and she saw them spray something over her wound which really caused it to hurt as if she had been hit by a large piece of shrapnel that pierced her through body, before she fell out of unconsciousness.
She was doing better than some of her squad members who had their nanomachines shut down on them. She looked to see one her teammates head in a pillow. She could hear the muffled sobs coming from her. She looked around to see alot of people in the hospital were PMC personal, some were holding their head, while others kept to themselves. She saw a few people scream and shake uncontrollably before a medic would inject a sedative in them. It also seemed like a few people hearts were stopping since she could see a medic defibrillator on someone.
Another sharp pain entered her head. She fell back in her bed and held her head with both hands. It felt like her head was going to explode. Someone came up and gave her a shot of something into her neck. Several moments later the pain had dulled. Every time that shot was injected in her.
A man then walked infront and pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed she was lying in.
"Who the hell are you?" Kelvana asked as she massaged her head.
"Take a guess, it shouldn't be that hard." the man replied.
Kelvana looked at the man with her light green eyes, he had short black hair brown eyes, and he appeared to be Asian. She recounted all the events that had happened up to this point till she remembered when she pointed a pistol at a man.
"You're that soldier I didn't shoot aren't you." Kelvana said, as the man leaned back in the chair.
"That's right, name's Darren Chan and yours would be...?" the man asked, his eyes were scanning the room.
Kelvana paused before she spoke, she didn't trust this person, but she guessed that it wouldn't matter after she was released she was going straight home. "Kelvana Madison." she replied in hateful tone, she didn't look at him when she spoke.
Darren let out a sigh before he spoke. "I wanted to know why you didn't shoot me, you should have been able to do it, you had nanomachines and you don't seem to be new to killing, especially what you people did to HQ." Darren said, he was now looking at her, he had stopped leaning in his chair. He seemed really serious about this.
Kelvana just looked away, and didn't say anything.
"You don't trust anyone at all don't you? I used to be that way when I was a kid, eventually you'll have to stop being distrustful of everyone." Darren waited to see if he would get a response before he continued. "Aren't you even to answer my question at all?"
Kelvana just ignored him.
After several moments of thinking everything over she finally decided to respond.
"It just didn't feel shooting you." was what came out from her mouth; she had said it so quietly Darren almost didn't hear her.
"Strange, you've probably killed people, yet I'm the one who doesn't." Darren said.
A man then came up to Darren and whispered something into his ear, Kelvana managed to hear what he was saying. "We've been given orders to meet at HQ they're giving us a briefing on what we're going to do next."
Darren got up before he replied. "Well let's go then." Before he left he looked at Kelvana. "Maybe we'll meet again, although I wouldn't be surprised if it was back in a warzone."
Kelvana lay there and closed her eyes. "Maybe we will......sooner then you expect it." Kelvana whispered so that no one could hear her.
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Wiseley and Darren entered HQ to see the entire platoon was there at one of the briefing room. The briefing had already started.
"Crap we're late!" Wiseley said as the two ran into the room and quickly sat down.
Vespes didn't seem to mind, and it looked like the briefing had just started and the projector was showing a grid map of what each different platoon was going to do.
"Alright everyone HQ has given us orders to establish a defensive line in this area." Vespes pointed on the image with a plastic stick. "Charlie, and Bravo platoon are already there building the defences building of defences, while Weston's artillery group will move into the area and deploy near us."
Wiseley looked at the image there were several other platoons that are going to make defensives all around the city. When Vespes had paused he spoke out. "Why are we surrounding the city with several defensive lines? Wouldn't it be better us to go in?"
"It's rather simple, the enemy will expecting us." Vespes replied. "If we surround the city the enemy will either have to surrender since they will be cut off from supplies."
"Isn't there something else we can do? I doubt they'll give up. They might even be prepared for a long siege." Wiseley said not convinced anything will cause the enemy to surrender the enemy.
Vespes looked at Wiseley as a small smile came on to his face.
"Crap he's got that smile on his face." one of the sergeants said. "He wants us to drop into the city, doesn't he? This going to be a suicide mission I just know it."
"That's right Dave; we're going in to the city, but only after we've cleared an area, I make sure we don't get sent on a suicide mission. We'll only head in once we built the defensive lines and hold out in them for awhile."
"We'll have access to call in air support on this mission, as well as Weston's artillery support, so sergeants make sure you remember that, you to Darren, you'll be in charge of the squad during the operation." Vespes said as Darren looked at him.
"Wait if I'm in charge of the squad what are you doing?" Darren asked as he didn't feel quite confident in his leadership skills.
"I'll still be around, but I can't be around all the time so it's better if you actually learn to command a squad, not small fire teams." Vespes stated. "Now everyone get your kits people we're moving out in fifteen minutes, now go we don't have time to sit around."
Everyone quickly got up and headed towards their barracks to grab their equipment and prepare for the next battle.
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One day later at the defensive line
Darren moved another sandbag and placed it on the pile of other sandbags.
"Damn, this reminds me of basic training. Isn't there anything else we could be doing?" Darren whined.
"Maybe, if you shut your mouth we'd be done this sooner. Besides you sort of got it easy, you can boss most people who are below you in rank around." Emerson said as he shovelled more sand out of the trench that was being built. Emerson then looked at, Wiseley who was scanning the nearby city with his scope. "See anything yet?" Emerson asked as he kept shovelling.
"Nothing yet, I'll keep you guys informed though if anything comes up." Wiseley replied as he went back to his scope.
A few hours later the trench had finally been dug and fortified, while machine gun teams and anti-tank gun crews started setting up.
"Alright I think we're finished here." Darren said as he jumped into the fortified trench. "If I have to build another sandbag wall it'll be too soon."
The three platoons had quickly constructed the defensive line with make shift bunkers that were rapidly erected from thick metal sheets. Sand bags were placed around the bunkers and in the trench so the wooden walls wouldn't collapse. The trench was wide being six metres across, while the length reached atleast two-hundred metres. It had all the equipment as the ones back at base. There were several bunkers built into the trench itself to be used as a medical area, and ammunition storage.
Darren let out a sigh of relief that the job was finished, he thought he was lucky unlike Charlie and Bravo platoon who were sent here an several hours earlier.
Victor came toward Darren, and Emerson who were having a discussion about video games.
"You know I've never seem to be able to switch factions in RTS games it's just......." Darren turned around and looked at Victor. "What is it Victor, sighting of the enemy or what?"
"Actually," Victor said. "We'll be getting reinforcements into the platoon to replace the soldiers we lost in the previous battle from what I heard Vespes said when he was speaking with other LTs."
The ground then rumbled and shook. It didn't seem to be from the any tanks rolling into position.
"Guys you may want to take a look at this." Wiseley said as he continued looking on.
Emerson looked out of the trench. Several hundred metres away were several walkers. They were bipedal mechs with a blunted triangle head, which were carrying Gatling weaponry, and missile launchers on the side of the head. It appeared to be an AI controlled machine with similar artificial legs like the Gekko, but expect the legs were thicker, larger, and had a more mechanical look.
"What the hell is that? Is that some kind of thing from a sci-fi movie?" Emerson commented as he ducked back into the trench.
A communications from the radio came on. "All units engage those mechs at once!" the voice ordered as everyone grabbed recoilless rifles or Javelin Missile systems.
"Load HEAT rounds in the AT guns!" someone shouted as a man loaded a shell into the 100mm gun.
Darren got the Javelin off his back and started to lock on to the mech and fired.
The missile had been set to direct-fire and it flew quickly through the air toward the mech and hit it dead on. The target was now obscured in smoke.
"Did that do it?" Darren asked as Emerson looked through his binoculars and zoomed in.
The mech was wobbling, but it regained its balance and started firing at the trench. The walker had minimal damage with only chips on the metal and a dent where the missile had hit.
"Shit! The thing survived the Javelin." Emerson stated as he ducked, rounds were flying over their heads.
A HEAT round came flying at one of the mechs and hit it in the legs causing the leg to be blown off, and it fell to the ground.
A missile then came flying toward the bunker from where the shell had come from and Wiseley saw the crew run out of the bunker before the explosion engulfed it in flames. Wiseley saw the walkers have seemed to learn not to head straight at the defensive line. They were strafing the rounds fired at them by moving side to side causing most of the AT gun rounds to miss.
"Goddamn adaptive AIs." Wiseley cursed as he fired a recoilless.
"Someone request an artillery strike. Those walkers aren't going down and it's hard enough to hit the legs with the thing constantly moving side to side!" a Lieutenant screamed as he fired a rocket.
"Hey Paul get those A-10s or whatever support we can get, artillery,bombers, anything on the line we need their support now!" Darren ordered as he kept his head down with the rounds flying everywhere.
"Got it, I." Paul could never finish his sentence as an explosion in the trench had landed forcing him to duck, and a round slammed into his radio pack totalling the inside of of the radio pack.
"This isn't fucking good!" Emerson said as more automatic fire came around them. "Paul was the one the goddamn radio!"
"Shut your mouth Emer! There's more than one damn radio around here." Wiseley shouted back as he threw away a used recoilless.
Darren was using a radio from another soldier beside him, not from his platoon. "Weston, requesting artillery barrage infront of the defensive line! Danger close, I repeat danger close!"
The radio crackled abit before an answer was heard. "Roger coordinates are locked in from an over passing plane, hold on we're putting rounds on target, Weston out."
"That artillery better get here soon, before these walkers are on top of us." Paul said as he threw his radio pack onto the ground.
An A- 10 passed overhead as it strafed a walker's position with Gatling fire before firing off two Maverick missiles off crippling the walker at the very top where the armour was the thinnest and where the AI was stored.
"That works to." Paul commented before he ducked back down into the trench.
Shells came raining down in front of the trench, a few of the walkers were hit directly and exploded ,like Gekkos, into artificial gore, and mechanical parts.
Darren was busy reloading the Javelin and when he finished he set it to top attack. "If this doesn't work on the top of the walkers head and a Maverick missile works I don't know what will hurt those things from the ground." he stated to Emerson as he fired the Javelin.
The missile went atleast several hundred feet into the air before it landed on top of one of the walkers exploding on contact.
Emerson looked through the binoculars all he saw was a crater; it seems the rocket didn't just destroy the AI, but it caused all the ammunition to detonate inside of the head.
"That's a confirmed kill!" Emerson told Darren as Emerson looked back through his binoculars.
Emerson looked to see there wasn't much left in front of the defensive line. The artillery had done its job and what was left of the walker group had retreated.
"Good job people! Targets retreating." some said as people cheered.
Darren sat down onto the ground and let out a sigh of relief. "Another close one wouldn't you say Emer?" Darren said as removed the disposable launch tube on the Javelin and strung the launch controller on the side of the body.
"Ya I'd say that's a close one if we had no artillery or air support we'd be screwed. Probably be out of missiles in about five minutes." Emerson replied as he put his binoculars back into one of his uniforms pockets.
"You know one thing?" Darren said before he continued. "I'm glad they upgraded the Javelin from the one they made me use in training. Before we could only launch in infrared vision, but now we can launch it without using it, not to mention the new Javelin is considerably lighter and packs more of a punch." Darren then took off his pack and placed on the ground and dug in it and brought out three chocolate bars. "Wiseley, Emer catch." he said as Emerson and Wiseley caught the bars.
Emerson looked at the chocolate bar before he opened it and starting eating it. After he swallowed he spoke. "I can't wait to get back home to get so we could atleast stop having the same thing to eat on the field."
"To bad we still have another three months till we're relieved of active duty. I bet we will be in alot more conflicts since we got a large PMC group trying to wage war on us." Wiseley said as he ate. "Hey Darren what's with you meeting that woman who almost shot you?" Wiseley asked.
"I just wanted to know why I wasn't shot that's all." Darren replied.
Emerson and Wiseley didn't seem convinced as they looked at him strangely.
Vespes then came towards them. "There will be no rest for us. HQ wants us to head into the city and rescue a paratrooper platoon pinned down in the city while Charlie and Bravo platoon stay in the defensive line."
"Great those flyboys just had to jump in for a fight didn't they? Will we ever get a break?" Darren groaned as he got his equipment together. "How are we even going to get into the city anyways? We'll get pulverized before we even make it a few metres there."
"Well you'll have to get over it that's the only way to help the paratroopers. We'll be taking several Bradley APCs into the city. Artillery will launch a regular barrage then a smoke barrage to cover our approach from ambushing AT squads." Vespes said as he pointed toward several armoured transports which had just arrived behind the defensive line. "Now let's roll out and kick some ass." he finished as everyone ran toward the transports, mounted up and moved out toward what lay ahead in the city.