Sometimes, it's difficult to decide whether I hate Airborne Troopers more, or Rangers. Both of them are well trained and both of them are capable of flanking the shit out of you out of Goddess-damned nowhere.
- Captain Heather Ichimaru, D Company, 33rd Regiment, 9th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile
Combat with squid comes down to two things: fire power and a decent magical girl. Trying to do anything without either is a recipe for massive casualties and no gains.
-Sergeant Major Kevin Vanderbilt, 17th Regiment, 4th Light Infantry Division, 4th Army Group of the Yangtze
The sheer volume of drop pods, typical for any squid offensive, had overwhelmed the point defense cannons. Then the Airborne Troopers, well armed, well armored, and well trained, had begun overwhelming the defenses. Most of the outer cannons had been disabled, and the Helsinberg perimeter was in serious contention.
More importantly, the stream of supply vehicles had to be halted until the threat of the Airborne had been dealt with. The high mountains surround Kolasi made it difficult for aircraft larger than a small regional jet to operate, so the large, commercial aerodome had been built outside the Basin. Now, the route had been cut off, and critical supplies were no longer being flown to the front. The Basin needed to be reopened as quickly and as permanently as possible.
"You can get back to the roof now," said Ingrid at Bridgette, who had been fiddling with one of her javelins nervously. "Stay under the parapet."
"Y-yes sir," said Bridgette, nodding, leaving for the roof yet again. Emma had the distinct feeling that Bridgette would be running back and forth as the battle shifted.
"Aren't you her subordinate, technically?" asked Tracy to Ingrid.
"Yes."
"And, uh, doesn't that mean that you're not allowed to give her orders, technically?"
"Yes."
"Then-?"
"Because Chief Jones knows more about shooting squid in the face than you and me combined," answered Emma.
"Oh."
It was nearly silent inside the school except for the echo of weapon's fire piercing through the walls. Tracy began pacing.
"We need to get out there," said Tracy eventually.
"Yeah," said Emma, nodding. "But we can't just run around. And you're not going anywhere."
"Grrr…"
"She has a point though," said Emma over mental chat to Ingrid, checking her updates tensely and tapping a foot against the floor. "Why haven't we been given the order to move? The squid have already taken the outer defenses, they're going to overrun us at this rate."
"I suspect KOLUCOM is hoping to draw the squid into a trap," said Ingrid. "As our center gives way, they can send the 12th in to hold it, then 8th Battalion to break the offensive. Using heavier armor runs the risk of destroying the fortifications that the squid took from us, either by stray fire or by the squid suicide bombing the fortifications."
"And the landings in central Allatia?" asked Emma, referring to the continent the Kolasi Basin was part of.
"If we cannot permanently hold the passes and the routes to the aerodomes, then there is no point," said Ingrid. "Better to plan well and destroy this attack, then fight rashly and have to expend more men and resources later for minimal gain."
Emma nodded and stewed. Truth be told, she wanted, like Tracy, to get out there sooner rather than later, but she would wait if she was going to be forced to. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait much longer.
"C Company, mount up," ordered Fatima. "We are to break the enemy offensive with the Battalion at gird marker delta seven six two. 45th Regiment is already committed to hold them, we have five minutes until they will need to fall back."
"Let's go," said Ingrid, standing. Emma followed her, biting back a shiver. Rebecca and Varsha were in 45th Regiment. She hoped they were okay.
"Hey, hey, what about me?" asked Tracy, trailing behind.
"If we need you, I'll give you a call, alright?" said Emma. "Let's hope not though, because it'll mean shit has hit the fan very badly."
Tracy subsided in frustration as the doors of the school swung shut behind Emma and Ingrid.
"The battalion is to attack by company," continued Fatima over battlenet. "We will be handling the left center. Form up in wedge formation, magical girls behind the main spearhead . We open with a barrage, then drive into the enemy ranks. Platoon leaders, you will conduct extermination operations against enemy Airborne troops in coordination with the rest of 8th Battalion. Alanis, you have tactical command."
"Understood," said Alanis. "Qing, we attack under cover of your mirrors. Emily will provide medium range cover, I will provide long range, and Emma will conduct interdiction operations."
"Pretty way to say I'm the bait," said Emma flatly as she and Ingrid climbed into their IFV, along with Beckett and Han, and were immediately heading towards the edge of the city. Around them, the platoon's IFVs were pulling out of hiding and streaming out of their positions. "Please come get me if I get in trouble."
"Don't do something stupid like the time you attacked Qing Duo solo and we'll be cool," said Emily. "You're an idiot, but we're not going to just let you die."
"Thanks, Emily, real up-lifting."
"Hey, you asked for-."
"Quiet down, the two of you," said Alanis with a disapproving growl. "You want to bicker and have angry sex, you can do it off the battlefield."
"I do not want to-!"
"What the fuck are you-!"
"Cut the chatter, C Company," broke in the Division Commander. "You're cluttering the battlenet."
There was a brief embarrassed silence that had Beckett snickering at Emma's blushing visage.
"A-anyway," Emma continued over telepathy as the platoon's vehicles exited the city and grouped into the appropriate formation under VI direction. "Do you want me to take point, Alanis? I can make a lot of noise and then fall back."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," said Emma. "Vortex spheres are pretty flash and do a decent amount of damage, especially in combination with explosives."
"Keep it tight and keep an eye on your supplies," said Alanis. "Otherwise, then, I think that works. Emily, keep an eye on her and be prepared to yank her out."
"Yeah, yeah," said Emily in a put upon voice. "Fucking babysitting duty…"
"Ass."
"Noob."
"Moving on," sighed Alanis. "Goddess, I've never heard a more unprofessional pre-battle plan."
"Well we wouldn't need one if it weren't for the FNG," said Emily.
"Only because any complicated plan would go right over your head," Emma sniped back.
"Hey-!"
"For the love of the Goddess, shut up, both of you!" Qing Duo mentally shouted.
"Thank you, Qing Duo," said Alanis. "Now, the river is going to be on our right flank. Overall, we'll need to drive the enemy into the river and pin them against A Company's advance. Any shield generators and defense turrets we encounter along the way will need to be taken care of, but those can safely be left to the rest of the division. Understood?"
Emma clicked in her affirmative, taking care not to speak too much and gain Qing Duo's wrath again. She didn't seem like the sort of girl who yelled a lot, unlike Emily, and Emma figured that getting Qing Duo to yell at you was something of an accomplishment.
The plan had been transmitted across the battalion already, so Alanis's speech wasn't entirely necessary. Both the general overview and the specific details had already been transmitted to Emma during the forming up process, but hearing Alanis confirm what Emma already knew was… well, it wasn't comforting, exactly, as a variation of this plan had been in every sim Emma had ever been in, but it followed the romantic expectations behind a battle and lent a degree of order to the oncoming chaos.
As long as there was a plan, things couldn't go too terribly, right?
Silence reigned in their heads as the company formed up. Conversely, the battlenet got increasingly noisy as the number of units in their calculated combat radius increased. Fortunately, the conversation was immediately filtered, Emma's TacComp switching over to TeamComm and DistressComm only .
The formation of IFVs was tightened, the command teams collating into the center while the four platoons formed into a giant wedge. Their autocannon soon opened up, blasting out three-centimeter wide projectiles to defeat enemy shielding in concert with close air support. Impact reports demonstrated wide spread success. It seemed that the counter-thrust would have enough power to avoid committing the heavy armored battalions.
A few more seconds passed, then: "Leading vehicles, brace for impact," said Alanis. "We salute your sacrifice."
"Godspeed, Lieutenants," answered the leader of the wedge.
Emma closed her eyes and cut the connection to the leaders. She couldn't handle listening to them on comms. It was bad enough that she had to watch her display as-
-the leading vehicles sailed over friendly trenches and slammed into the enemy line. The lucky ones smashed into energy shields , the front ends of the vehicles crumpling against the immovable barrier for a moment until the generators failed and the IFVs went skidding to a stop. The soldiers inside had time to escape and engage in close combat immediately, their vehicle's turret still operational and providing suppressing fire as they did their level best to blast away any squid in their path.
The unlucky ones kept going, wheeling to the left and right to arc back towards friendly lines as their guns kept firing. These were quickly picked off by Hydra missile drones, AT missiles designed to rip apart human tanks blasting the much more lightly armored IFVs into so much scrap.
Emma came next. With a nod at Ingrid, Emma blasted upwards out of the turret hatch and spun in midair, casting vortex spheres out in a wide arc of fully automatic wind explosions. Dust and debris were thrown high into the air as she fell, the cutting blades of her magic ripping into the ground and into squids. Those without shielding , shattered perhaps from autocannon rounds or misfortunate enough to be briefly disabled by rifle fire, were torn into pieces as the small storm ripped its way across what part of the battlefield Emma could effect.
The sharp tang of ablative sheeting burning away made Emma twist and bounce off of the air to avoid incoming laser fire. Her armor had taken a hit, a line of blackened ablative shielding revealing the sizzling polycarbide underneath. Combat instincts screamed at her, and Emma was tumbling to the left to hit the ground far harder than was ideal, a missile from a Hydra passing just over head to impact harmlessly against the ground.
Wincing, Emma rolled to her feet and lashed out with a sarissa to bring the Hydra to the ground, followed immediately by flash of magic to knock the next missile careening into a squid position. Laser fire and more missiles converged on her, most deflected or absorbed by Emma's drones, some passing through and scoring lines across her armor. The intensity of fire increased as Emma kept dodging and she suddenly realized that she was far deeper into the enemy lines than was ideal.
Then an explosion and a blast of blue-white light. Emma was thrown sideways and landed with a crunch. Everything hurt, then everything stopped hurting as she reached for her magic and crushed the pain into a ball and threw it away. Emma's TacComp reported damage everywhere, with armor burnt away on her left side and her arm dislocated on the right. Emma needed time to recover, she needed a second to shove her arm back into its socket, but now there were Airborne troopers coming towards her, weapons up and firing, and she needed to get back up and-
-water streamers punched into the Airborne, throwing them back as their shields flared. Emma felt a hand pull her to her feet.
"Fucking new girl!" Emily shouted, directing water into the enemy. "What did I say? What did I fucking say?!"
"Oh shut up!" Emma yelled back, snapping her arm back into its socket before priming a pair of frag grenades and throwing them onto the enemy position.
"Yeah, I'll shut up," said Emily angrily as the grenades went off and the two of them spread out to retreat towards Qing Duo and her mirrors. "I'll shut up when you stop doing shit like this."
Emma bit back a retort and kept running, skidding behind one of Qing Duo's mirrors and bringing a handful of cubes up against her soul gem. It seemed that Emma's distraction had worked, allowing the other three girls in C Company lay complete waste to their area and capture a small pillbox. They all piled in to regroup and plan.
"Good work," said Alanis, recharging her soul gem as Qing Duo kept up constant suppressing fire with an assault rifle through the firing slot. "Time to make the push, you ready to go?"
"Used up a lot of juice just now, give me a sec," said Emma.
"Tch," snorted Emily.
"Oh don't start," said Emma.
"Didn't say anything," said Emily, coolly looking away from Emma.
"Focus, girls," said Alanis reprovingly, flicking her tail idly and squinting at the enemy forces, pulling back in surprisingly good order. "Fatima, can you get…"
Emma glared at Emily briefly before turning her attention to Third Platoon. "Chief Jones," she called out over the platoon's teamcomm, "how did the attack go?"
"We have taken 2 5% casualties , two KIA and ten wounded," reported Ingrid. "Third Platoon is arrayed along sector five-," Emma's TacComp lit up the relevant positions on her map, stretching across a kilometer long arc from the river towards the mountains on the valley's southward side "-and is holding steady with support from the 45th and 9th Militia Division."
"How hot is your area?" asked Emma, requesting a supply truck from the motor pool in the city. "We're about to make an assault, I want to make sure you guys are supplied for the attack."
"The squid have our positions zeroed with mortars," said Ingrid. "But there are no snipers. Something small and fast-."
"I can do it," said Tracy. Emma bit her tongue. Teamcomm was open to anyone in the platoon, so of course Tracy had heard.
"No, you're not," said Ingrid flatly. "You will not enter combat directly at this time."
"Right, I agree," said Tracy, "I've been listening in and it's… it's scary, and I don't want to get hurt. But I can run pretty quick, Bridgette can too. We'll park a truck back behind the 45th, then run the ammo up to you."
Emma turned towards Alanis for help, but then stopped. Tracy and Bridgette were Emma's responsibility, so it ought to be up to her to make a decision. It was a lot like committing a new member of the football team to a semi-critical role: you had to do it at some point, so it was best to do it when it was relatively safe.
"Tracy, are you absolutely confident that you can do this?" asked Emma.
"Yes."
Emma sighed, but made her decision. "Then I think you've got a decent plan that should work. Remember what I told you earlier?"
"Keep moving, keep an eye on my gem, and keep an eye on my drones," said Tracy.
"Good. Bring Bridgette along, she should be fine if she has command mode on. Chief, any objections?"
"None sir," said Ingrid, though she didn't sound happy about it. "Godspeed then, Lieutenants."
"Thank you," said Tracy confidently. "I won't let you down."
Emma clicked back an affirmative and swapped out her display to see Alanis' plan. She and Fatima had evidently been able to coordinate a push with A Company, who had been able to punch slightly further in than C Company. The two companies would converge on the river bank, C Company first, then A Company. Hopefully, the double-bluff of two companies attacking in alternation, along with air support and artillery fire, would be confusing enough to break cohesion and push the squid into the river, to be bombarded at leisure.
"Alright, C Company, prepare to move," said Alanis. "I'll go first, under cover of transformation. Standard blitz, straight down the middle, on my signal."
"Wait, now?" asked Emma.
"Yes, now. We can't give them time to recover," said Alanis.
"But my platoon still needs resupply!"
"That's unfortunate, but we can't wait," said Alanis, flicking an ear unhappily but unmoving from her position. "They will fight to their strengths and conserve ammunition, but we must push now or we'll lose momentum."
Emma bit her lip and looked away. "Alright," she said. She was more worried about Tracy and Bridgette, but she wasn't going to pitch a fit in the middle of battle. She couldn't, there was too much at stake to make this a problem.
"Then we're all clear," said Alanis. "Emily, gimme a boost." With a flash of forest green magic, Alanis shrunk down into a house-cat again. Emily crouched down and offered an arm for Alanis to jump on to, then carried the magical pet to a firing slot. Glancing back and forth cautiously, Alanis slunk forward, close to the ground, and disappeared from sight amongst the debris.
For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a flash of forest green, before several squids were tossed out of a pillbox without their limbs.
Emma was out of the pillbox first, running forward with arms outstretched. Great spinning whirlwinds, damaging but not very much, immediately made her the biggest target on the field. Emma danced left and right as she advanced, slinging vortex spheres and the occasional grenade but never closing to melee. This she left to Qing Duo, who's reflections were smashing apart squids with brutal swiftness, or Emily, who had taken control of the water within the ichor of wounded squids and used it to strangle them. Alanis was flitting back and forth within the enemy positions, alternately a house cat and a tiger, ripping apart a pillbox with tooth and claw before disappearing between rocks and stones.
Behind this vanguard came C Company's human soldiers, advancing leap-frog style across open ground or diving into pillboxes to provide covering fire from light machine guns. As expected, in the face of a direct assault, the squids concentrated their forces by retreating.
Then A Company began their attack, starting with a massive explosion that briefly stilled combat on the southern bank of the river. Emma suspected Rene had done something with one of her teammates in A Company, given the French girl's pyromancy, but put it aside as she continued her duties. It appeared that the squid had bought into the double bluff, sending squads from the South Bank to the North Bank to support the "true offensive". C Company rallied and Emma was once again on point, making noise to divert attention from Alanis and Emily and taking cover in a pillbox or behind Qing Duo's mirrors to recharge. She was running a bit low on cubes, it looked like-
-the squids had realized what was happening and begun a disorganized, but furious, mortar barrage. Emma had to scramble into a pillbox, diving in amongst a jumble of men before the plasma balls could burn her into oblivion.
"Air support, take out those mortars!" Alanis called over the battlenet as enemy fired quickly began to tighten up. "Quickly!"
"We're trying!" a flyer called back, static tinting the non-telepathic message. "They've got them in pillboxes, we can't-!"
The flyer was cut off. Emma peered out of her pillbox for the magical girl's body, biting her lip as she looked for some sign. If they could recover the soul gem….
"Body sighted, tumbling into sector 5-2!" one of the men behind Emma called out. Emma looked over and caught a glimpse of the girl's body before it hit the ground.
"Medical Team 3 is en route," answered one of the division's medics. "Can we get some cover?"
"I'll go," volunteered Emma. "I'm closest-."
"Negative, you concentrate on the attack," said Alanis tensely. "You have men in your pillbox, use them."
Emma blinked, then turned to the soldiers in the pillbox. There were four of them, mixed from Fourth and Third Platoon. "You heard?" asked Emma.
"Yes," answered one of the soldiers. Her name was Sergeant Donnelley, from Emma's platoon, and was the ranking officer. "We'll give MT3 cover, don't worry sir."
"Right," said Emma, turning back from the entryway and taking a deep breath. She could only hope that she wasn't sending them out for nothing. "Godspeed."
"Thank you sir," said Donnelley as the soldiers braced themselves. "You too. Squad, on my mark."
They sprinted out of the pillbox. Emma was left alone with her thoughts. Only briefly though, until-
"C Company, I've got an idea," said Ayane, coming onto the battlenet. "Me and Emma used to do this maneuver in training where I'd toss her at a position and she'd use the momentum to smash through."
"That's ridiculously stupid," said Alanis.
"We used it in sim though," said Emma. "I took out a squadron of armor with it once."
"In what were probably ideal conditions," said Alanis. "No, I am not going to let you do this."
"Well, our other option is bunker busters," said Ayane. "Which aren't ideal, since we'd have to rebuild the fortifications, and it'd take a lot of bombs."
"The scrub's got a point, actually," said one of Ayane's flight mates. "If we try and bomb them to hell, it'll just give the squids more time to regroup. We want them off balance, right?"
"Fuck," said Emily. "This is dumb. You flygirls are dumb. Everything is fucking dumb! We have sights on them, right? Use the fucking artillery! We'll advance under suppressing fire and then take 'em out in melee."
There was a brief pause as they considered this.
"That is a much better plan," said Alanis. "CAS Squadron, maintain your orbit and prepare to drop weapons as the squid are flushed. I'm calling in the artillery now, everyone prepare to advance."
Emma grimaced and got ready. She hadn't really had high hopes for that plan, but it was a pity that the experimentation in training wasn't going to be used. Oh well.
The moment she saw artillery rounds, massive airburst projectiles that sprayed fragments across hundreds of square feet, Emma was running, crossing the open space as quickly as possible and throwing vortex spheres into pillboxes as she went, trusting in Emily or Alanis or Qing Duo or anyone, really, to kill whatever got tossed out in a more permanent manner. Emma jumped over a small trench, used really for nothing more than getting from one pillbox to another, and-
-slammed face first into a rock, breaking several teeth and her nose. A tentacle was wrapped tightly around her ankle, the sizzle of energy shields beginning to heat up her boots. She tried to kick, tried anything to get out of the grip, but the squid was still in the trench and she had no leverage. It took but a second, and then she was thrown bodily into the bottom of the narrow trench, cracking he head against the floor but bringing her hands up instinctively to catch the plasma cutter headed for her neck, slicing off two fingers in the process.
Emma's vision was blurred, she couldn't really see the multi-tentacled thing she was fighting, but she didn't need to this close. Emma kicked upwards, throwing the squid back, and giving her a brief second to try and respond properly. Time dialed down until it moved very, very slowly, her perception snapping into massive over drive as the options were laid out in front of her. She had been trained for this, this was nothing new, she just needed-
-to watch in horror as Tracy appeared out of nowhere, cutlass in hand and hacking off two of the squid's limbs before sweeping upwards to bisect it once, twice, three times and let the pieces fall to the ground.
"Are you alright?!" shouted Tracy, spinning and dropping to her knees beside Emma, hands fluttering in anxiety. "What can I do? What do you need?"
"Cubes, then get out of here!" Emma shouted telepathically. "What the hell are you doing? I told you to-!"
"Make deliveries, and that's what I'm doing," said Tracy, voice trembling as she dropped a handful of grief cubes onto Emma's soul gem, swallowing. "I've made half a dozen runs already and-."
Tracy suddenly fell, eyes wide with shock as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Emma was on her feet immediately, leaping out of the trench as laser fire tore into the space where she had been. She threw a vortex sphere, punching into an Airborne Trooper and throwing it back into the pillbox that she thought she had cleared. Emma charged, using the momentum of her first attack and slamming the point of her halberd into the squid, before blasting it at point blank with a ripping whirlwind that tore it to pieces.
Emma spun and threw again, vortex sphere whistling pass Tracy's prone but convulsing form to throw back another trooper. Emma ran forward, pulled her arm back, and threw her halberd, the heavy weapon flipping through the air to hack into the squid's face plate and, probably, kill it. That wasn't her priority at the moment though.
"H-help," croaked Tracy as Emma skidded to her. A series of laser burns cut open Tracy's back and her TacComp, leaving her lungs and GI tract open to the air and spilling out onto the ground. "H-help me, Emma! Please! I-I don't want to- I don't want-!"
"You're going to be okay," said Emma, checking Tracy's gem first. It was rapidly coiling with black. "Listen to me, Tracy, you're going-," Emma grabbed Tracy's head and looked her in the eye as the girl writhed "-You are going to be fine! Do you understand me?!"
Tracy nodded, crying from pain and terror as she felt her body shutting down.
"Okay, okay," said Emma, taking deep breaths to stay calm. Tracy's gem was already below twenty percent, there wasn't any time. "Okay, Tracy, you have to trust me. Do you trust me, Tracy?"
Again, Tracy nodded.
"Okay, then, then, close your eyes," said Emma, gripping Tracy's hand tightly. "Close your eyes for me, okay?"
Tracy bit her lip, then closed her eyes tightly. Emma took a deep, steadying breath, put Tracy's soul gem into her backpack, and drew her sidearm. She set it to incendiary, then clicked the safety off and brought it to bear against Tracy's head.
"Emma?" asked Tracy. "Emma, why did you stop talking? Emma? Emma?!"
Emma pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash as the high velocity round first blew away the head, then began to burn. Emma backed away, then pushed a whirlwind into the body, whipping the fire white hot with her magic while tearing the body into pieces for faster incineration.
"New girl, where the fuck are you?" asked Emily over telepathy. "You're not down, that much I can tell, so what the fuck-?"
"Tracy Geyeller is down," reported Emma on the battlenet calmly, flatly, her TacComp kicking her into command mode to keep her from screaming. "I need a medic to collect her soul gem."
The battlenet dropped to complete silence for almost exactly one second.
"Medical Team Seven is inbound," said one of the teams. "Have you secured her body?"
"Negative, the body had to be destroyed," said Emma, breathing deeply as C Company advanced past her.
"What? Why?"
"She was inexperienced and panicking. Her gem was near zero by the time I pulled the trigger."
"Shit, you pulled the trigger yourself?" asked Emily. "Holy fuck, Ne- Emma. I… Goddess."
"Are you going to be alright?" asked Alanis. "Do you need to pull back and take a breather?"
"No, I'll… I'll be okay."
"Alright. Hold your position and keep her gem going. The squid can wait a bit."
Emma clicked affirmative and made her way into the pillbox adjacent. She took a seat beside the remains of the squid she had splattered earlier, along with a pair of machine gunners busy giving suppressive fire.
This, she reflected as she monitored Tracy's soul gem and made sure her backpack was feeding it enough cubes, was where the hero in the old flicks was supposed to light a cigarette. She didn't have any cigarettes, and she didn't feel like looking up what effect nicotine had. She supposed it would have been nice to have one, regardless.
"ETA two minutes," said MT7's leader.
"Acknowledged," Emma said, pulling her legs in towards her and resting her head on top of them. Distantly, it occurred to her that it was a very, very good thing that her TacComp had automatically turned on maximal command mode, or as maximal as could be got at her level. Some vague, isolated part of her was screaming, wanting desperately for Tracy to come back, for this to have never happened, that maybe just one action could have made all the difference.
Every other part of Emma rejected this. With the hormones, drugs, and implants slamming into her brain at the moment, there was nothing that allowed her to feel as if there was anything wrong about what she had done. It was a judgment call, and from the rate of decay of Tracy's gem, and it was probably the right one.
"Medical Team Seven reporting," said MT7's leader, the medic-bodyguard combination ducking into the pillbox. "The gem?"
Emma brought the gem out, hovering now at about 50% and beginning to drop again, and handed it to the magical girl. She couldn't believe it had been two minutes already, but then again, she wasn't exactly completely lucid.
Gently, the medic placed the gem in a padded case, surrounded with grief cubes, and then closed it. The outside was armored with the same material used for soul gem covers, impervious to just about anything except full on artillery. The gem would be safe inside.
"Alright, we'll get this back to the medical facility in Helsinberg as quickly as possible," said the medic.
"Thank you," said Emma, because it felt like that was the appropriate thing to say. "Chief Jones, status report, please."
"Third Platoon is advancing with the rest of the company," reported Ingrid. "Our supplies are holding well, thanks to Lieutenants Geyeller and Hayer. I understand Lieutenant Geyeller is down?"
"Affirmative. Please restructure your offensive to account for this."
"Understood, will comply."
Emma clicked off the battlenet and switched to telepathy: "Alanis, I'm ready to go."
"Good. We're holding a few dozen meters north-," three green dots appeared on Emma's vision, north of her position and relatively near the water "-and keeping the squid suppressed. Can you still provide flash for us?"
Emma evaluated the situation and had her TacComp run a prediction. "Negative, I will be restricted to a melee capacity for the remainder of the offensive. Current emotional fluctuations are unacceptably high."
"Damn," said Alanis. "Alright, stick close to Emily and give her support then. We'll run a Dungeness."
Emma clicked affirmative and ran at speed for Emily's position. The Dungeness Maneuver was named after a type of Earth crab, the key part being the crab's hard shell and snapping claws. Emma's role was to be the jaws of the crab , tearing into anything weakened by Emily's "claws" while protected by Qing Duo's "shell". Alanis would run around shooting things and giving them cover.
"You ready then, Emma?" asked Emily, hunkering behind a pillbox. Emma nodded and summoned a halberd.
"Right then. Qing Duo?"
A phalanx of mirrors bearing reflections appeared about them. Emily led the attack, stepping forward at an easy jog and pushing the water out of her gourd in a wide arc, crashing it against the shields of the squids she could see until they failed and were strangled, drowned, or otherwise killed. Emma helped by flagging any enemies she spotted. It was a fairly straight forward maneuver, with the mirrors and drones blocking most of the incoming fire and Emma and Emily working in concert to hack and smash their way into the enemy.
The soldiers of C Company advanced behind them, sweeping clear the defenses in their path. Still farther behind came the 45th Regiment and the 9th Militia, pushing up and clearing the defenses in totality. All along the front, the Airborne Troopers were being forcibly pried out of their positions and cast back, the charge of the 48th Division Mechanized Battalion having fragmented their line enough for the heavy infantry to create a salient and begin the messy, but relatively easy, business of exterminating the cephalopod presence. In terms of casualties, about 25% of the defenders had taken any hits, but only a quarter of those casualties were fatal. The organized retreat of the Militia, followed by the timely offense of the 45th Regiment and the decisive action of 48th Regiment, 8th Battalion in particular, allowed for a clear victory, reopening the flow of supplies and allowing for the organized withdrawal of many units along the main front deep in Allatia.
This news was delivered via TacComp, along with the order for all human personnel to withdraw and stand by for further orders. A ragged series of cheers could be heard over the battlenet if Emma had been inclined to listen. Instead, she made her way from the battlefield towards a relatively secluded spot by the river, easily visible of looked for, but out of the way and with a certain amount of quiet.
She sat there for a long time, staring out over the water and the corpses, human and squid, that floated down it. It was good news, she decided as she watched a corpse bob along, the news that the attack had been important. That meant that all the deaths were worth something, at least, to the overall objective of "protect humanity". It had to mean something.
Rene found her sitting at the river bank with her legs drawn up, quiet and unmoving as Samsara's sun rose over the mountains. Late stage mopping up operations could be conducted largely autonomously from the platoon commander, with ground drones doing most of the work.
"Emma!" Rene called out, jumping across the river with magic and landing with a small flare. "Emma, how goes? Did combat go well for you today?"
"Rene," said Emma quietly, looking up before nodding in greeting. "Good morning."
"Are… you alright?" asked Rene, sitting down beside Emma.
"I…" Emma blinked as she realized that she hadn't turned off the emotion suppression. She paused, mechanically drawing a set of grief cubes out of her backpack and holding them in the palm of her hand, together with her soul gem.
"Are you still suppressed?" asked Rene. "Emma, that is not healthy."
"I know," said Emma calmly, turning the suppression off with a mental flick. "I j-just turned it-."
Emma stopped again, licking her lips and blinking rapidly as tears pooled in her eyes.
"What is wrong?" asked Rene, moving closer in concern. "Emma, are you sure you are alright?"
"Rene, I… I had to-."
"Wha- hey, hey, it's okay," said Rene, surprised by Emma suddenly grabbing onto her and sobbing uncontrollably into her shoulder. Quickly, Rene scooted closer and wrapped her arms around Emma's shoulders. "Shshsh, it's okay, it's okay."
Emma was crying too hard to respond.