Welcome to Chapter Five! M1911's Echelon must now hunt down and destroy scouts from Sangvis Ferri, as well as potentially find more stranded T-Dolls.
Like I said, I'm going to adapt the game's opening into the Recollection, due to the manga/anime ruining the mystery that chapter 00: Seed solves following Emergency 4. Also, I'm kinda pissed that the anime got so much wrong. And why the hell did PPS-43 have an UMP in episode 2?
Note: Italics with normal quotation marks indicates that the Zener Protocol is being used or that somebody's whispering.
Unnamed Forest, Sector 09
Neo-Soviet Union
July 03, 2062
Tactical Doll MP5
After about fifteen minutes of driving, the Humvee soon stopped in its tracks at an area of the forest that had seen a lot of foot traffic, along with small tire tracks imprinted into the ground below them, and the whole way there, MP5 had been clutching her weapon in a death grip, not wanting to fumble it at the timendue to the desperancy of the situation. Looking at her leader as she gathered explosives together to use on the Command Post in her seat, the tiny T-Doll saw a bit of worry in those crystal blue orbs of hers, despite her claim of not being worried earlier on.
"M1911, is something bothering you?" she asked concernedly, catching her attention.
"You remember seeing M1895 and P38 being sent here to scout this region, right?" the American asked back.
She knew about that, as well as the fact that M1895 and P38 hadn't reported back to Station 794 in days, and that their signals weren't popping up anywhere nearby.
"Ja. They never came back from that mission, though."
"What if Sangvis killed them? I know that they have data backed up, but I don't like seeing my friends die. Not to mention, Sten's outpost was destroyed, meaning that those Dolls lost their backups and don't have any second chances. If they die and their Cores get destroyed, then they die for good."
"Oh, no."
"So if we can, we have to save them. And if we can't..." M1911 trailed off as xhe finished her explosives, getting out of the vehicle and storing them in a bag hung off her slim shoulder.
"We'll find them, M1911." MP5 told her. "I know that our luck isn't the greatest, but we have a Commander again, so we'll be able to find those Dolls, and it's because of you, gnädige Frau."
"He almost shot me when we first met, you know?" the HG suddenly confessed.
"Why?" MP5 asked, causing her leader to laugh sourly.
"He thought I was an assassin working with the Soviets. Of course, it didn't help that I didn't disarm myself before knocking on his door, but he held me at gunpoint and interrogated me about who I was working for, how I found him, and why I was there."
"Sounds like your meetup was a lot messier than you let on, then." AK-47 told her from as she stocked up on ammo.
"Make that very messy. But we needed a new Commander, and HQ was too fed up with the other Sectors to help us out. I know how stupid it was for me to approach a paranoid ex-soldier without so much as a plan, but if it wasn't for me, we'd still be lacking a Commander."
"You did that?"
"Yeah. I even did the scouting. Anyways, we got a job to do, people, so let's fuckin' go!"
With that being said, M1911 turned and ran off through the forests, leaving her allies in the dust as she began her mission.
"Hey, wait up, comrade!"
"Miss M1911, wait!"
"Don't leave us here, M1911!"
Not wanting to be left behind, the rest of the Echelon burst towards the HG as fast as they could, desperate to catch up to her, all while the Commander watched them through their active feeds and took note of the intel he just got...
Commander Ian Becker
Station 794 Command Room
"So that's how I was selected..." Ian noted as he watched the Echelon advance towards the Command Post, or rather its general location, as HQ didn't have the exact coordinates.
"Miss 1911 was determined to find a replacement for our old Commander." Kalina told him from his side, echoing M1911's earlier statement. "It was a longshot, but after a few weeks she came back from her observation telling me to go through every database we have access to to find you. And when I did find you, she insisted on recruiting you herself."
The whole statement made the scarred veteran wonder just how long M1911 had spent looking for a new Commander to lead her, as well as what kind of liquor she was drinking when she picked a PTSD-ridden, paranoid wreck of a man and not one of the bright, hopeful young men that hadn't seen the full horrors of World War 3.
"Huh. Well, I suppose she made the right choice..." he trailed off in spite of his personal beliefs, scanning the map for hostile signals. "Hey, who are the other Dolls we have? I need to know who else I'll be working with."
"We have an M1903 Springfield T-Doll, an M1895 T-Doll, and a P38 T-Doll. But if that Sten gets back to base, we'll have her, too." the ginger replied dutifully.
"What star rating does everyone have?"
The Star Rating system was a system used by both IOP and Griffin to determine a T-Doll's quality. 2-stars, the "General" class, were basic T-Dolls with average stats, but some 2-stars were exceptional. 3-stars, the "Rare" class, were higher quality than 2-stars, although AK-47 models were considered the worst. 4-stars, the "Epochal" class, were high-quality T-Dolls that had very high combat capabilities and had excellent AI. And finally, 5-stars, the "Legendary" class, were the best that Griffin could produce, wielded high-end weapons, and had the best AI quality. They also produced the most elite T-Dolls.
"Um, Miss 1911, Miss M1895, and Miss P38 are 2-stars, Miss AK and Sten are 3-stars, and Miss Springfield, Miss G36, and Miss MP5 are all 4-stars."
"Good to know."
"We just encountered enemy troops!" M1911 suddenly reported, and true to her words, a group of enemy units depicted as a single chibi-style Prowler unit. "It's just a pair of Prowlers, though. Nothing too big."
Sangvis Ferri's Prowlers were lighter-duty four-legged scout drones with a similar design to the civilian-grade target drones used by Griffin, but black, bearing a squareish head, and carrying a deadly, but somewhat innacurate particle cannon under its head. They had simplistic AIs, however, so their lethality was less than their humanoid cousins as they were easier to fool than them.
"Helian told me to destroy any and all Sangvis troops I found, and since it's just Prowlers, you should be able to fool their AI pretty easily, so mislead 'em and scrap 'em as you see fit." he ordered them.
"Yes, sir."
Tactical Doll M1911
Holding a rock in her gloved hand and crouched down in a random bush overlooking the clearing that two Sangvis Prowlers were occupying, M1911 was aiming at the Prowler on the left, which faintly mirrored the training exercise HQ reassigned them from, and had already concocted a plan to take the pair of hostiles out, where she would toss the rock she picked up at the left Prowler and get their attention, then her teammates would put the Prowlers down once they targeted her hiding place.
If the plan failed, then she'd at the very least avoid death due to her good evasive maneuvers.
Out of the corner of her eye, she was glad to see the barrel of AK-47's weapon sticking out from a thick tree she had taken position behind while the SMGs laid prone under a collection of foliage, ready to jump up and ambush their targets like their teammates, snd using the heavily-encrypted Zener Protocol all second-generation IOP T-Dolls used, M1911 signaled her team to get ready to attack.
"Three..."
Getting into a better posture for throwing objects, the blonde girl raised her rock...
"Two..."
...held her left arm out a bit to use it as a sight as a projected flight path for her scavenged rock appeared...
"One!"
...and threw the rock straight into the left Prowler's optic, breaking the camera and reducing the quadruped drone's sensory abilities by destroying its sight.
As the other one turned its head to face her and the other one detected her signal, the HG quickly jumped out of the bush as four blue lasers seared the bush, then the combined sound of three automatic firearms going off rent the air as her teammates tore through the hostile drones with a loud hail of gunfire.
Seeing the drones' mangled remains as she landed from her evasive maneuvers, M1911 pumped her fist in triumph and contacted the Commander again.
"Targets eliminated, Commander." she reported happily. "We're continuing towards the enemy Command Post now."
"Good. It may seem like just Prowlers, but there could be more dangerous Sangvis units out there. Be careful." he told her seriously.
"Understood, sir. M1911 out."
The HG cut the line, and instead faced her celebrating teammates as they moved past the destroyed hostile units in the forest clearing.
"As much as I want to celebrate this victory, we haven't even destroyed the Command Post yet, so let's keep going." she told them, getting their attention.
"Roger!" her teammates acknowledged in unison.
"Right." The HG then turned northwest to the direction of the hostile Command Post and ran towards it, the SMGs darting ahead of her while AK-47 followed behind her and they started to see the end of the forests they'd beem stuck in for a good bit.
And not too long after, the Echelon encountered another set of Prowlers coming back from a patrol of the open fields on their side of the border. There were four of them this time, and even though the Commander had gave them coordinates to the enemy Command Post, they didn't know exactly where it was, but said Commander was paying attention to the feeds.
"You seeing these guys, sir?" she asked anyways, hidden behind a destroyed BTR from the PMC/non-state-actor conflicts that happened a few years before Griffin's foundation rise to fame as she marked the hostiles.
"Affirmative. You ought to follow those Prowlers back to the Command Post and go on from there. Be careful, though, there's more of them than last time, so if you get spotted, it'll be more difficult to deal with them."
"We won't be caught." she assured her commanding officer.
"Good. Commander Becker out." he told he before cutting the comms link.
"Let's follow these guys back to the Command Post, then zap 'em." M1911 said over the Zener Protocol.
"Understood, Boss."
Hanging back as instructed, the Griffin T-Dolls left their hiding place behind the BTR and started to tail the Prowlers along their path as carefully as possible, re-entering the forests and passing by a destroyed camp along the way, a few dead scavengers scattered across the forest ground with their old rifles laid beside them, as Sangvis had no use for standard ballistic weapons.
Whoever these people were stood no chance. Now without proper equipment. she thought grimly as she walked by their bodies.
"These people weren't even bandits." MP5 shuddered from behind her after seeing the carnage. "None of this equipment was stolen, the salvage is from scrapped Sangvis bodies, not any of ours, and there's a dead child in the tent."
Scanning he camp more throroughly, she indeed saw a child stuffed in a tent with a large hole in his torso due to Sangvis weapons' nasty effects on flesh.
"Son of a bitch. They're gonna pay for this."
As they left the camp behind, the Echelon saw two more Prowlers join the four from an old storage building about a hundred yards away from them, and a scan directed at the building revealed a Command Module the size of an industrial printer inside, confirming it as the hostile Command Post they were to destroy.
"Commander, we found the outpost." M1911 reported, taking cover behind a tree. "It's small, but they killed off a group of scavengers and a kid that set up camp a bit too close to camp."
"A kid?" The Commander asked.
"Yeah, they were just a couple guys and a kid that got slaughtered like a flock of sheep." the Doll explained, causing him to sigh ruefully on the other side.
"Damn. You know what to do. Blow that thing up and mop up any stragglers you find."
"Yes, sir. M1911 out."
After she logged off the comms a loud thump resounded and alerted the Sangvis drones to AK-47's position behind anothrt tree, who had somehow reobtained her vodka and was trying to create a Molotov Cocktail, but had dropped it somehow.
"Shit. I think they know we're here..." she told M1911 apologetically, wincing at the loud thump.
And as soon as those words left her lips, a hail of plasma bolts immediately tore through the air from the Prowlers, forcing everyone to duck down to avoid death. As the others opened fire back at them, M1911 pulled her explosives bag off her shoulder, clutched them to her chest, fearful of them getting hit by a bolt, and burst from her cover, beelining towards the Command Post as the firefight raged on.
Tactical Doll AK-47
Despite having fumbled her would-be Molotov and getting her and her friends spotted, AK-47 was having quite a lot of fun, as she was honestly sick of all the sneaking around and she needed to prove her worth to her new Commander— the thought punctuated by a long burst fired at an offending Prowler that hit its mark and scrapped it with ease.
"Keep these bastards off of me!" M1911 soon yelled at her team, having burst from her cover and started running towards the hostile Command Post with her explosives in her arms.
"Understood!" the AR yelled in response, reloading her weapon as plasma bolts stung at her cover. "MP5, Sten, you heard her! Draw their fire!"
"Got it!"
Hopping out of cover, the SMGs qypuickly fired straight into the pack of Prowlers, destroying two of them and getting the attention of the rest drawn away from their leader. Seeing the drones' attention getting swiped, AK-47 them pulled a finished Molotov Cocktail out and lit its fuse with her bullet-shaped lighter, fully embracing her grenade-throwing capabilities as she readied her explosive.
"Eat this, pridurki!"
As the lasy syllable left her lips the AR then threw her improvised grenade at the three Prowlers in front of her, rewarding herself with three burning drones and the perfect opportunity to finish them off. Taking aim, she fired the full contents of her magazine into them as the SMGs sprayed them with bullets, destroying all three of them but surely earning her complaints over "lack of fire discipline." As the last one fell, she heard M1911 activate her Zener link and ducked back into cover in case more hostiles were present.
"Alright, I got the explosives planted! Are those Sangvis drones gone yet?" the HG asked her.
"Da. Are there any prisoners by chance?" she replied, reloading her rifle again as dhe noted the lack of reinforcements.
"No, but I found sone intel. I'm gonna get out of here and blow the place up now."
She then peeked her head out and saw the blonde quickly running out of the building, a detonator in hand as she ran to a safe location and ducked down behind a fallen log.
"Blowing it!"
And few seconds later, the Command Post combusted and blew apart due to the force of the improvised incendiary explosives uded, sending fragments of building and machinery flying far, far away from it as the structure collapsed and fire consumed it from the inside out while AK-47 watched it all with a mad grin on her face.
Commander Ian Becker
As he watched it happen from inside the Command Room, the first red dot on the tactical map blinked and turned blue as the live feeds showed a dark-colored storage building combusting from the inside out, numerous other red dots turming blue soon after and showing that his unnamed colleagues did their jobs.
"Enemy Command Post destroyed, Commander!" M1911 reported tight aftet. "No prisoners, but we found intel on another Command Post somewhere in the city."
"Nice work." Ian said approvingly, checking the automatic reporting system for the results. "By the looks of it, the other friendly units destroyed their targets as well.
Eight targets destroyed, zero T-Dolls lost or damaged, with four kills on AK-47's record, earning her the MVP status by Griffin's standards. And of course, one Command Post destroyed.
"AK-47 got MVP? I thought she was the worst out of the three." he commented.
"She normally is. She still wasted a bit too much ammo, though." G36 noted, rewatching the footage and allowing the rookie to see that the AR had done a mag-dump to accomplish the feat as opposed to the two-to-three shots per unit US Army personnel could scrap Prowlers with by hitting the optics.
"Make that way too much ammo, then it fits."
That was when Helian's hologram suddenly materialized on the holotable again, thoroughly surprising the man and making him nearly spill his coffee.
"That Command Post just got destroyed, and all hostile units have been destroyed." he quickly reported once he recomposed himself. "The other ones got blown up as well."
At those words Helian nodded in response and pulled up his results with a swipe of her holographic hand, reading the basic summary first.
"You did quite well for your first combat mission, Commander." The senior officer then pulled the rest of the report up. "No... your performance against Sangvis Ferri has far exceeded my expectations, and an AK-47 model achieved MVP status... You certainly have potential, Commander."
"Those Prowlers weren't exactly the best they had, you know, and AK used a lot more ammo than needed." her subordinate replied, being modest about it.
"True, but other Commanders have failed against them or have at least gotten a T-Doll injured."
He knew whst she was talking about, and since his first encounter with Prowlers back in the War didn't even involve any friendly casualties or fuck-ups, the thought that some rookie got jumpy and managed to do what even a green-as-grass rookie didn't do was almost embarrassing.
"Please tell me you're kidding, ma'am." he asked a moment later.
"I wish I was, but not everyone has the benefit of military training and discipline." Helian replied with a sigh, causing him to shake his head in disbelief.
"That's just sad..." he murmured under his breath before a question popped in his head. "Wait, what is the deal with Sangvis Ferri, anyways? Do you know why their T-Dolls are going rogue?"
"You're not clear on that?"
The rookie nodded, painfully aware of how little he knew about the enemy's motives.
"True, the academy never told you why it happened, so I'll tell you everything I know about Sangvis."
Helian inhaled, and then began to tell him everything she knew.
"As you know, Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing is a Romanian industrial manufacturer who specializes in Tactical Dolls and robotics. Due to their possession of undisclosed technology and some very talented researchers, T-Dolls created by Sangvis Ferri have extremely high combat efficiency, a fact the United States Army and other NATO militaries learned the hard way. However, in 2061, their T-Dolls suddenly went rogue and killed off the human employees in their factory, as well as occupying a vast area of human settlements and military-owned outposts. They have been strategically expanding their territory for months since then."
She then stared him down with a sharp intensity that reminded him all-too-much of his drill sergeant.
"Sangvis Ferri is now, without a doubt, an enemy of humanity. When their reach got too close to heavily populated Green and White Zones, the Soviet government hired us to push them back, and because a past event left us with numerous empty posts, we have been searching for suitable candidates to assume Command and coordinate operations to keep Sangvis contained ever since."
So the Russians lost control of their toys and ran to Griffin for help. Nice to know that Matheson was right.
"Okay, that helped out a lot, Helian. Thanks." Ian told her gratefully.
"You're welcome. Either way, welcome to Griffin and Kryuger, Commander, and I thank you for being here today."
A call request from HQ suddenly pinged on Helian's side, interrupting what she was going to say next.
"Excuse me, I have to take this." she told him, turning around to accept the call.
"Yes? Those T-Dolls have been found? Thank God." She sighed in relief, then continued as her boss spoke to her. "That can be arranged. I have someone who can provide aid. Sure, leave it to me, Mr. Kryuger."
The line cut, and the holographic Helian returned her gaze to Ian as he drummed his fingers on the holotable.
"Sorry about that, but it was an important call from HQ."
"It's fine." the rookie Commander assured her.
"Understood. I have an important mission for you, but first, I need to confirm the intel. See you in a bit."
Dismissing the call, Helian's hologram phased out once more, leaving Ian alone to process everything she told him.
So... basically, the Russians lost control of Sangvis Ferri and need us to help them, and I'm gonna get to be be part of a top-priority mission. Kalina's gonna love this.
And as if her mention was a summoning of sorts, the door to the Command Room opened up and Kalina walked through it, carrying a cup of coffee in her left hand and a contract of sorts in her right.
"Komandir, here's your coffee and a T-Doll Contract." the ginger told him dutifully, giving him a new cup of coffee to replace his old one.
"T-Doll Contract? What's that?" Ian asked her, taking a sip of the hot coffee.
"It's for IOP. The funds have already been alloted to it, so all you need to do is give it to IOP and they'll produce a T-Doll and send her here." Kalina explained to him, stepping to his side once more.
"Nice. I'll get to it." Turning to the holotable, Ian then contacted M1911 to give new orders.
"Alright, ladies. Return to base and wait for a new assignment."
"Yes, sir!" the leader replied.
Cutting the line, the Commander took his beret off and wiped some sweat from his forehead, deciding on a new course of action as he stood there.
"Kalina, I'll be waiting for our T-Dolls outside."
After telling her that, he then turned to the door and promptly left the room, heading outside like he said.
Now alone, Kalina looked at the holotable, where a Humvee highlighted in blue approached M1911's chibi form that was standing at a now-blue Command Post node. She then pulled up the results page and read it as carefully as she could before saying only one thing.
"Not a bad way to start off, Komandir."
I don't know why this mission is called Transporting the Injured when it's just you destroying Sangvis Ferri's Command Post, but I liked how I adapted it. Anyways, the next chapter's gonna adapt the game intro as an intermission between Search and Destroy I and Search and Destroy II, the next combat chapter.
I truly hope that I don't miss Dual Randomness (as well as the opportunity to get my hands on G36C,) and I also need to see episode 3 of the anime. I wonder how much they got wrong in it.
Seeing as AK's vodka was taken away last chapter, she isn't so drunk she performs badly, but her tendency to waste ammo is gonna be the death of Sector 09's logistics teams.
See you at the next chapter!