Chapter 50: Commanding our forces, conquering our enemy
As Tex speaks to Buster I'm full of anxiety hoping that he won't follow, there's no way we can waltz in without a fight. We have to go loud; we have to fight our way out of this base carrying a nuke, as well as to blow the weapon of mass destruction up.
"If I'm honest I have a confession to make: the reason why I know of the defectors that plan to blow up this nuke is because we are the defectors. I find it sickening that Lady Green Heart orders us to nuke Lastation, and all of those innocent civilians that live there. I also hate how you insist on invading and destroying their nation." He called out.
"You treacherous fan boy! Kill him!" The commander yelled in a fit of rage.
He quickly dives into the truck before anyone fired their guns. As this happens the guys in our truck engage the enemy along with me and Tex, but it is then that they fire bullet after bullet at our truck.
While we manage to take out a good number of them on the ground, there are still a good number of their forces. In fact there are a group of them at the catwalks along with Buster who are trying to snipe us down. A brief while later she retreats after being shot by one of our snipers, but my gut says she still has plenty of fight left. As I look around finding enemies to kill on the ground, I notice various soldiers being shot down one by one in the head by pistol fire. From the sound of it, it is semi-automatic dual wield pistols. I reckon this must be Tanya. Even with Tanya's great shooting skills they still keep coming from various directions. It is then I give the order.
"OK guys we need to split up into two groups: Tanya, White, Tex and Amy you're with me. My group will go up one set of stairs to the right. The rest of you take the other stairs, we go up to the catwalks and trap Commander Buster on both sides. When she's dead Tanya will plant the explosives and when that's done we'll head over to the other base. We have to go loud on this one, engage all hostiles and watch each other's backs. OK?" I ordered.
They all nodded although Tanya said moving out boss to me as well. We then get out the truck despite being shot at; the occasional bullet even hitting us, but none of them would have killed or even mortally wounded a soldier. Therefore our cover as defectors are not blown, not yet at least.
Just as I ordered we split up and head up the stairs, it amazes me how we work well together and I'm very impressed with Landon, Haruka and Tanya as we all manage to not only avoid dying, but we manage to kill plenty of them that try and shoot us from the ground, as well as killing the ones that are on the stairs.
Despite fierce resistance from constant enemy fire, we manage to go up the stairs onto the catwalk. But when we reach there we are surrounded on both sides of the catwalk, what's more unlike before they hide behind a wall of trollies full of crates. Not only that their weapons appear more advanced than the ones we currently have, even their uniforms appear to be different. From where we are it's difficult to flank them and we have no means of attacking them from behind cover. Fortunately I have an idea. I give the order for them to cover me while I rush to the catwalk. I manage to get there and I'm now lying on the ground prone along the wall.
"Uni I'm gonna need you to let me know if the guys behind me are going to fire." I inform her by my special communication.
She agrees to do that, even if she was to warn me though, I doubt I'd be able to react in time. Despite being prone I'm too exposed, I'm frustrated there's no cover but I do my best not to panic at the situation.
"Guys when I give the word I want you lot to advance to my position OK?" I ordered.
They nod. One of their soldiers pops out trying to shoot down the cat walk, but as she exposes her head I quickly shoot her with my rifle. It is then I run out of ammo from my rifle, fortunately though I have a side arm and a good number of clips for that. I give the word and White charges towards my position, as Uni warns me about one of them popping up from behind me. My Loweean ally notices this threat and so she fires an entire magazine at the enemy, which was more than enough to take him down. I order the rest of my squad to regroup at my position.
"How you guys doing for ammo?" I ask them.
They all answer in turn but it is then I realise that my squad only has 1 clip left for their primary weapon, apart from Tanya who still has plenty of ammo for her pistols. Oh dear our pistols against their main weapons? Hmmm…... I switch to my magnetic vision and look to see how many of them are behind the trollies, oh great there are 2 guys behind them along with a group of them advancing. I look towards the centre and find at least a dozen of them moving around, in fact a few of them are behind the trollies close to us.
This situation does look quite grim; I hope our other squad is OK.
"How's the other squad doing?" I ask my Lastation Candidate.
"They're pretty much in the same position as you." She replied.
I thank her for informing me. With the help of our vision me and White decide to engage the side away from the centre, we manage to catch them off guard and with our guns we manage to shoot them down, though annoyingly once again it took an entire clip of our precious ammunition.
"OK Amy and Tex I need you guys to hold back the enemy over there." I say to them pointing away from the centre.
Before they can vault over the trolleys they see two more guys charging towards us, though they both get shot down. After which my two guys vault and guard our rear.
Now it's just the group towards the centre we have to deal with, while we hide by the make shift barricade we look through with our magnetic vision to see where the enemies are. There is a group of them, but only two of them are near the barricade. They were about to shoot at us but we managed to flank them and take them down with our pistols. We look with our magnetic visions again to find a few more of them try and shoot at us from a distance with their rifles.
"How's the other squad doing?" I ask Uni with anxiety hoping they'll be alright.
"The good news is they're still in one piece and they're able to defend themselves. Unfortunately they're still pinned down though, and worse still the Titans will be in this base soon, I have reason to believe this Buster could be a boss enemy." Uni informed me via mind talk.
"Tanya I have reason to believe our allies are pinned down, there are a few guys near their commander, I'm gonna need you to take them out on my go, we'll try and cover you." I ordered quietly and quickly.
"Any time boss." She replied to me.
Using our magnetic vision I give the word to ambush them with our pistols which we do successfully, although they have managed to fire a few bullets which do hit us in the process. Thankfully though I doubt those bullets would have killed us if we didn't have plenty of health, but I still hope that Tanya's OK.
"You OK Tanya?" I ask her.
"I'm fine thank you." She answered me.
I see no bullet wounds on her and I have reason to believe like us she has plenty of health. Thing is though I reckon Buster has this as well unfortunately. I'm not sure if we have the fire power to take her down, and I'm not even sure if we can take her down without her being suspicious regarding our immense health. Let's not forget we're meant to be Leanbox soldiers gone rogue, and what regular soldier has a lot of health? Never the less she has to be taken down as soon as possible, I shudder to think how much time we have left before the missiles are launched.
After looking with our special visions once again we find a group of their guys, but none of them are approaching us or even looking at us, Buster is there however.
"OK there are no more by this barricade, remember take out her minions before going for Buster, we'll cover you." I said.
"Moving out Boss." She replied.
She leaps over the barricade only to hide behind a makeshift hiding spot, she then peaks around one side and with her dual pistols she opens fire at the enemy. She's able to take out a couple of them and even wounding Buster herself, causing her and a few of her elite troops to come our way.
Despite all of us firing at them as a group, we only manage to take out a couple more of her minions before we take some damage from Buster's assault rifle. This sadly forces me and White to play dead, and for Tanya to play wounded she even screams in pain. Though I know she's faking it I think she definitely sounds convincing, I just hope it'll fool them. I see her trying to fire at Buster again, but that results in more damage from Buster's assault rifle. Tanya collapses on the floor clutching her pistols acting as though she's in serious pain, even panting. Just as well we're playing dead as we're out of ammo.
Buster drops her rifle and switches to her pistol as she taunts at us.
"So you thought you could betray Leanbox did you? How foolish you peons must be to think you could get away with such treachery!" She boasted.
She was about to fire at Tanya when all of a sudden out of nowhere shotgun shell after shotgun shell was fired into Buster's busts, each shot pushes her to the edge of the catwalk only for the last one to cause her to fall over, that must be at least 10 metres she's fallen.
"Well done everyone, all the enemies in the base are now defeated and Buster is now dead. You need to plant the bomb and get out of here, these nukes will be unleashed soon and the Titans will be here any minute now." Uni informed me by mind talk.
With that I get up and so does White and Tanya.
"Thanks Haruka you saved us." Tanya replied.
"No problem Tanya-chan, you have saved us as well." Haruka replied panting, probably bewildered that she was able to save us, or perhaps the taking down of a boss drained her. I understand.
"Nice, we've all saved each other. OK Tanya you plant the explosives while everyone pick up new weapons, they seem better than the ones we already have. After that just jump down from the catwalk, it will be quicker and we should be able to survive any fall." I ordered.
"Hmmm these weapons appear to be from Titanfall they must have just got them in." My friend Landon commented.
We all pick up the weapons from our respective classes quickly, while Tanya successfully blows up the nuke. The explosion consumed the rocket and it leaves nothing standing. It's quite loud, and while it did take out the entire base and surrounding areas, it didn't shake the ground, nor does there appear to be any radiation, but then again since we destroyed it and friendly fire is impossible, why would we. This is exactly as Noire said it would. In any case, it's satisfying and heart-warming to know we're halfway there: one down, one to go.
"There's no point in trying to talk our way out now, shoot any enemy you see, we need to step on it now. Let's go." I ordered.
We then make our way out of the base with me in the lead.
"Uni can you tell me what we're up against?" I ask her.
"OK the base isn't too far; about a good several minutes walk although there are still plenty of enemy patrols that include dogs and they begin from there at a couple of hundred metres away from your position. The base itself is surrounded by concrete wall but there are gaps which act as gates, which are guarded by machine gun nests and tesla coils which are currently offline. Inside the base are buildings, a motor pool, a few barracks and the nuke, as well as a radio tower that is being repaired right now. It's guarded by more patrols but a couple of Titans are on their way to enforce it and the Jin Dynasty is heading there too. You need to try and get there as quickly as possible, it won't be long before the nuke launches and their brain wash facility will be back online. Keep it going guys Noire herself is happy you have destroyed one of their nukes as am I and our friends." Uni informed me.
Note: Readers please listen to Red Alert 2 Fortifications while reading this:
I thank Uni for the information and it is at this point we have now left the base, as we follow a trail through a dense forest leading up to our next objective doing our best to ignore the dead soldiers and dogs, who were severely affected by the blast with burns that are unpleasant to say the least. It is ever so sad for this to happen, and this is all that damn Neptune's fault for having Vert fighting us on their behalf, for having such an edge with a deadly weapon, and us having to destroy it to save ourselves even if it causes so much horror against innocent soldiers. We cannot let that get to us, since we need to ensure there's less of that and not more of that. As always as we press on with that in mind, Uni tells me of any enemies that approach and as always I'd tell my allies, and so as always we wipe them out as a group. Thanks to our skills they never know what hit them.
As we approach the base wiping out the remaining patrols with very few bullets when we see them, and being pleased that after getting half way the enemy patrols appear healthy and unaffected by radiation,I couldn't help but feel suspicious that there doesn't seem to be that many and they're all foot soldiers and dogs, no tanks not even jeeps. I wonder whether they still know of our presence? Could this be a trap? Could they wish for us to enter their base only to wipe us all out then? Either way we have to rush in and destroy the nuke before the Titans get there.
It's not long at all before Uni informs us that we have reached the outskirts of their base. We can actually see it for ourselves although it's just the perimeter that we see. It's surprisingly lightly guarded: all there is are a couple of manned machine gun nests and a patrol consisting of two riflemen and their German Shepherd. My sniper team from Leanbox find a target for themselves and on my word they take them all out simultaneously. Excellent they still don't suspect us but we have no time for stealth.
We casually stroll to the outside of their base, acting like a patrol; this is where I give the plan.
"OK guys this is it: Tanya I need you to blow up the nuke, Amy you head to the radio antenna, radio Lastation when the nuke is blown up: tell them that we wish to defect but we request a ride out of here for the 10 of us, don't worry I believe they should have fixed it by now. The rest of you snipers I need you to man the machine guns and provide us with cover, the rest of you I wish for you cover Tanya, be as quick as you can guys, let's go!" I ordered.
It is then we head in the entrance only to find lots of enemy troops all over the base. Thankfully a good number of them are next to barrels, and so we open fire at them catching them completely off guard. The barrels that get shot causes fiery explosions; sending the enemies and their dogs flying all over the place to their deaths. The explosions even reduce various tents and buildings to rubble, all that's left are just pieces of debris and bricks. While our ambush was successful there are still many more of them, we don't have much time.
With the aid of our stamin up perk a colas we rush to the silo at the speed of pro athletes. Yet despite this bullets still whistle around us a few even hit us, but thankfully our snipers take out any enemy that tries to shoot us down. It's not long before we reach some stairs that would lead us to the nuke.
"OK guys we head up the stairs, clear the catwalk and Tanya you blow up the nuke, when that is done we will hold the catwalk before our ride arrives." I inform them.
With that we charge up the stairs under the cover of our sniper support, after a few flights of stairs we reach the catwalk. Before I can advance further one of their guards tries to shoot me down with their assault rifle, but I shoot him down in the head before he can even fire.
I half expected to be greeted by more of them but I just see dead bodies with head wounds; they must have died by our snipers. However I still see a few of them there, only for them to get shot whenever they stand behind their cover.
"Are there any more of them on the cat walk?" I ask Uni via mind talk.
"There are about a couple of dozen of them I'd say who're engaging your snipers. There are however two of them by the nuke itself, they're crouched and the snipers can't get to them, be careful as they appear to be bosses they're armed with mini guns." She warned me via mind talk.
I signal for my group to crouch down as we go through the catwalk, slaloming through various crates that act as hiding places. I couldn't help but notice that as we approach the guards that are firing at our snipers, they get shot in the head collapsing to the floor. It's not long at all before we approach the nuke guarded by two bosses, we need to take the two bosses down without being shot, or all could be lost. If we could just get them to stand up or at least lure them out.
I order Haruka to take point, she then sees the two bald muscular guys with green body armour and trousers, crouching next to each other who must be the bosses. Sadly she's spotted so they open fire but before the guns can actually fire bullets at a rapid pace, she manages to get away and hide just in time.
The rest of us try and find cover but this concerns us as their mini guns manage to destroy some of the crates that are in the way. All we can do is just retreat while they fire away destroying a lot of the crates. Eventually they run out of ammo and that is when we all fire back at one of them with every bullet we have in our clips. The other one retreats while reloading, the one we shoot at however stays. Remembering the rule that switching to a side arm is faster than reloading, he switches to a futuristic looking revolver and quickly fires a few at Landon. He then does a fake death as he falls on his back to the catwalk, dropping his gun in the process. In retaliation Haruka switches to her pistol and tries to shoot the boss in the head multiple times, but he just shoots Haruka making her fake her death as well. She is also forced to fall backwards on the floor clutching her pistol in her hand.
By this point in time we have a fresh mag so again we fire every bullet we have at the boss's head, this time around he goes down, but sadly his friend has reloaded his chain gun and he has mowed down Tanya. He even mercilessly shoots her after she fakes her death. I can only hope she's OK from that. Fortunately we quickly interrupt him as we fire the last of our rounds at him, only for him to retaliate in mowing down White and shooting her repeatedly. I manage to interrupt him by firing my assault rifle at him, but when he turns I quickly dive behind cover as he fires the rest of his magazine at my cover, obliterating it. I rush to some more cover behind me as he switches to his revolver.
Oh dear, it's just me against him now, unless I can get him to stand up of course. If I'm to have any chance I need to aim for his head in short bursts. With the help of my magnetic vision I'm able to flank him, quickly fire a few bursts at him and hide before he can hit me. Even better he fires a couple of shots, meaning I could strike him better when he has to reload. I repeat this trick a few times, but it is at the third time when he does shoot me, at least I can play wounded but now my rifle is empty. I'm better of switching to hand to hand; it doesn't look as though he'll die by my pistol.
I manage to sneak around the cover quietly, luckily I'm behind him while he's reloading and so I dive on to his back, I wrap my legs around his torso and I put my hand over his eyes, while with my right hand I constantly fire bullet after bullet into his head. Out of panic he drops his revolver; sadly he's still alive although I think he's wounded. I'm relieved he then stands up as he wanders around trying to get me off him, at that point though my sniper team shoots him repeatedly. That's it now, he now collapses onto the floor dead, as he falls I let go and drop to the ground feet first.
I pant heavily, thankful for being able to defeat the bosses.
"You OK guys?" I called out to them.
My friends got up from the floor saying yes to me and oh boy am I pleasantly surprised. Despite Tanya and White being shot by numerous bullets from the bosses' miniguns they're still in one piece, though while they're appearance suggests that they're alright I have reason to believe they're about 50% health right now.
Without a word Tanya arms the explosives with little effort and blows up the nuke, which causes a significant explosion and eliminating any trace of the weapon ever being there, and provides the same effects as the last one. As if on cue Uni then speaks to me:
"Well done guys, now all that is required is to call for extraction and we will happily get you out of there. Without a shadow of a doubt you have saved our nation from utter destruction. Noire herself is very pleased with you all, and she wishes to provide you all with a very handsome reward for your bravery. Unfortunately though, the Titans along with the Jin Dynasty will be here any minute." She said by mind talk.
It is then afterwards that Amy speaks on the recently repaired radio; we all hear what she says from a mounted speaker on the catwalk:
"I broadcast this message on both Lastation and Leanbox frequencies, as I wish both nations to hear what I have to say. As a soldier of Leanbox serving under a goddess who I thought to be noble and just, I wish to say that I no longer feel I can serve Leanbox anymore. I can no longer serve a Leanbox that persecutes Lastation, a Leanbox who wishes to not only fight Lastation, but to have an all out war where millions of innocents have already died and millions more will die, I can no longer serve a Leanbox that will use nuclear missiles to destroy Lastation and it's people. I am not alone in this and for what Leanbox has done; we have destroyed two of their nukes. We wish to defect to Lastation, if you are listening Lady Black Heart, I beg of your kindness and generosity to welcome us with open arms and transportation, so we can live to fight for you, so we can live to have a better life and fight for a better world. My friends in Leanbox, all that are tired of this war, join me and defect to Lastation, a nation full of hope, full of freedom and full of justice for everyone." Amy spoke through the speakers.
Her speech was moving; coming from a former Leanbox soldier for her to favour our nation, a nation she used to fight over her own nation is something very powerful in our opinion. Sadly I doubt that any more people will willingly defect on their own free will. I can only hope that the 5 snipers we have can make it out in one piece.
"Wow for Amy to say all of that, I'm very moved it's very powerful indeed. OK your rides will arrive soon; unfortunately you still need to hold the area off from the enemy Titans and Jin Dynasty. The Titans will be sure to arrive sooner than your transport." My youngest sister informs me through mind talk.
It is a bit frustrating that we have gone through all of that and we're not out of the woods yet. I hate to wonder if my friends start to feel fatigued.
As if on cue it is then wave upon wave of troops charge toward our location, though they only have small arms it is the number that concerns me as to whether we can all hold them off. I feel we're in quite a predicament as everything they have in the area is going to be thrown at us. Though the nukes may be destroyed and Lastation is safe, we are vital to their war effort and it would be sad if we were to die, or worse Leanbox learns that we're from Lastation. If that should happen then any edge we have over them could be lost, and Lastation will probably be as good as lost.
Me and Landon choose to pick up the mini guns the bosses had, and use them to mow the infantry down who appear to be affected by the radiation from pain and severe injuries, including unpleasant burns. While I do not take joy in seeing them like this, and killing them, it has to be done since we cannot afford to die by them. And while it's tragic for them, I understand that it's better than having this done who knows how many times over to the people of Lastation.
As I look around noticing only plenty of rubble all over this place, I do see plenty of soldiers in similarly severely rough shapes charging at us despite the pain and condition they are in, they do get shot down however, and they're unable to pass a certain point. Though they were relentless at first we are able to hold them off and their numbers dwindle, though sadly ammunition is starting to run low.
After a while they stop sending in their dogs and troops, but instead they send jeeps with mounted machine guns. Though even they who still suffer from agony from radiation, meet the same fate as their comrades, this is down to our sniper team shooting the drivers and gunners with ease, what does concern me is whether they have any more rounds for their rifles, because they certainly do a good job in helping us keep the enemy at bay. Upon seeing them send jeeps to accompany their soldiers. Uni then talks to me.
"Be advised guys, they're sending in troops that are capable of jumping very high, and they're immune to the radiation." Uni warned me via mind talk.
Great, if they can move about with ease, they'll probably be able to dodge our bullets. They'll probably take a lot of our bullets before they die, ammunition we already have so little of.
"Watch out guys the enemy has sent in jumpers, back to back everyone, fire in short bursts!" I order.
With that command we move to the centre, our backs to each other. I look around to see where they are, it is then they suddenly appear as if from no where, they jump towards us almost as if they're floating. Luckily for us they don't have much armour, although aiming for them is trickier. While a few shots is all it takes to take them down, they're still quite numerous and one by one we're forced to switch to pistols. Meaning we're at the mercy of these jumpers, as they can shoot us with no way for us to get to them.
As if things are not grim enough, I then see a group of large robots moving slowly towards us one step at a time. All of them have legs, a torso, arms and a head like that of humans. In their arms are large mini guns. Without thinking we switch to our rocket launchers but I do not know if this alone will be enough to hold them off.
We wait before the robotic monstrosities get within range of our missiles, at least they move quite slowly but the moment they do we fire round after round of rockets at the machines. While we have eliminated them all we are now out of rocket ammo, if any more come we are toast. It is at that point I notice their pilots eject from their robots sending them high into the sky. We try shooting at them but it's no good, they're out of range and one by one we all run out of bullets for our pistols. I guess we'll have to try and scrounge for more guns but I believe we may have done that earlier.
"Uni are they are many more forces coming apart from those already in the base?" I ask her.
"Fortunately not, but the Jin Dynasty is…..here and they too are radiation proof." She spoke through mind talk deeply concerned at our predicament.
A large VTOL aircraft confirms this as it approaches us in the air, it's engines are noisy indeed, the plane is quite futuristic looking. It consists of a mounted mini gun at the centre and a missile launcher on each side next to the two propellers. There are also plenty of hatches as well, when it's very close I now see it's pilot.
I recognise him to be Sima Yi the leader of the Jin Dynasty from Dynasty Warriors, who's wearing a light blue camouflage cap and t shirt as well as sunglasses, so that's what they meant by the Jin Dynasty.
"Mwahahahahahahaha…..you fools." The Jin leader gloated.
Great, no ammo and we've got what I believe to be the entire Jin faction in a VTOL against us, and our rides have yet to be seen. At least we can have the honour of dying for our nation though it's down to me and my friends that Lastation has still stood. I worry that if we're to die here then so will our nation. I may not wish to embrace my fate but I can accept it.