"ROCKER-1, this is DESK JOCKEY you are clear for takeoff, mark 0-4-0, Angels 3. Be advised:you will be acting in support of Operation GREENVILLE, so keep HITMAN and LUCKY in your sights at all times. Good hunting."
"ROCKER to DESK JOCKEY, copy your last. We're in the pipe, Five-by-Five. Godspeed. Out."
The Construction Battalion had taken 'building an airfield being a logistical clusterfuck' as a challenge from command and gotten it done in a little under three days, just in time for the Operation to have Air Support beyond rotary. Brad watched as two F-16s, sleek, single-engine, silver birds with yellow cockpits, powered their afterburners. Gouts of orange flame exited in a cone out from the aircraft's behind as they finished their final checks. Each jet was armed with six thousand-pound JDAMs, three on each wing pylon, plus air-to-air missiles and guns. They also had fuel tanks on their under-bellies.
As they let go of the brakes, the two jets jerked back, then sped down the tarmac of the runway before lifting off via the use of their ailerons and tail wings. Their noses lifted off the ground as soon as they'd gained enough speed and the twins soon sped up into the heavens at a near-fortyfive degree angle before turning to their designated target area. GREENVILLE was the nickname of the operation to assault the enemy's resupply bases deep within the Kloden wild woods, a thick virgin forest that acted as part of the massive natural border between Gallia and the Empire.
So, to put it shortly, they would be their support. He nodded to a grinning Ray to start the truck and form up with the convoy heading toward the Wildwoods. He could hear Isara sort of freaking out over the com in one of those cutesy 'kid in a candy store' kind of ways as she saw the US Fighter Jets of the Air Force flying overhead as their support. Rolling Stone joked, "To think the girl hasn't seen what we take for granted nowadays in her life..."
"Flying's her passion," Brad replied as he shouldered his rifle. The vehicles began rolling down the dirt road toward the target area as he told them, "She's an egghead. Probably would've built a plane for cheap if we didn't come about first," to which Trombley let out a laugh. He shrugged and told them, "Keep your heads in the game, boys. We're going into the hellscape of a Forest fight. Ambushes can come from anywhere."
"Hell yeah, baby, Vietnam time," Joked Ray.
Rolling Stone replied, "Would call it Fulda, but, yeah, fair," as he jotted down stuff in his little notebook. Ray muttered a 'nerd' under his breath as the Humvees, supporting elements and tanks rolled on through down the main highway. Espera started speaking over the radio to command, while Captain America was simply told to mumble a little less loudly.
Garza stood silent, holding onto the Mark-19 while looking back at the rest of the convoy of mixed troops. The drone of the overhead jet engines also kept him steady and alert, causing him to look up at the Air Force birds every-so-often to make sure they were still with them. No GPS in the general area of operations meant they were basically rolling in blind with only laser-guided bombs. He could see the aircraft had their targeting pods, at least, meaning thermals from above.
And pinpoint accurate bomb drops.
GREENVILLE rolled on, the convoy of HITMAN and LUCKY driving to their designated target areas. Largo poked his LMG out from the Jeep and scanned the area ahead. Sighing deeply, he looked back at Rosie as the woman manned the vehicle's fifty cal. The US Army had wiped their insignia off the transport and painted a crude blue, white and gold roundel on the front to denote that it was now Gallian property.
Alicia, who was riding with him and Rosie, checked her M16. She mumbled, "Just a crash course and suddenly they expect us to use this stuff like it's second nature..." before shouldering it and checking the sights to make sure they were aligned. Rosie let out a snort, gripping tightly onto the handles of the Fifty and looking around, before the brown-haired rifle girl looked over to Largo and asked, "Fancy the new gear?"
"Ain't so bad, I guess," The man shrugged, cigar between his lips, "They did outright make me and the other Lancers the heavy weapon teams."
"General purpose machine guns and single-shot anti-tank launchers," Homer, the driver of the vehicle, a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, shakily said, his voice obviously still undergoing puberty. He said, "We took extra ammo, just in case..." while turning the wheel to slowly veer left onto the road toward Kloden, as per the crossroad sign to their left.
"Heaviest damn thing in the LAW is the rocket," Largo said, scratching his cheek.
Overhead, a pair of American Cobra helicopters sped past, their blades causing the air to ripple, gusts of wind and dust being kicked up and caused the grass to bob and weave. The pilot of the lead chopper, a woman, spoke over the radio, "This is BAKER-1-1 to LUCKY and HITMAN. Sorry for the low buzz, but we took AA Fire from the forest below, probably MGs. We're gonna haul it back to rearm and we'll come support."
"Roger, BAKER," Godfather's RTO replied, "Looking forward to having even more firepower."
Rosie quipped, "I heard what those Anti-Tank missiles can do from the Russians and a few Army groups. Apparently, they'll peel an Imp tank wide open like a can of sardines," while watching a slew of Mi-8 Helicopters, several marked with the red cross, flying back toward Fort Amaranthine, the Home Base of this entire mess and 3rd Regiment's own personal house.
"Feeling ever more useless," Largo quipped as he gently turned the wheel again, keeping in line with the convoy. The others let out a couple of awkward laughs, with Alicia herself cradling her M16 as they moved on. The Forest was starting to grow around them, isolated pockets of shrubbery soon forming into massive, all-obscuring treelines, canopies providing shade to the plant and animal life below.
Despite the forces on board the transports quieting down into even more basic small-talk, their eyes still scanned the area around them for hostile contact. Squad 7 and HITMAN had only participated in one operation so far. The Third Regiment and First Recon were barely starting to get acquainted with one-another while the groups underwent joint training, the Gallians slowly being trained to be a Motorized Infantry Regiment with Mechanized backup.
And airpower, obviously. The drone of the F16s' single engines still caused the group's teeth to chatter in their heads. Most of the 3rd Militia that wasn't driving was staring up at the single-engine multirole aircraft with a degree of reverence, honestly. Alicia herself looked up at the Jets like they were their two Guardian Angels. And they might as well have been, with all the stuff that was supposedly stuck onto them.
Sighing, she leaned back into her seat, cradling her M16A1 as her gaze swept left. She looked at the distant shrubs, shaded by the crowns of the forest's trees ,then paused as she saw one shuffle. She blinked, pulled her binoculars off her belt and looked over. She swallowed as she saw one shift again, then spoke quietly, "Rosie, shift the gun left... Everyone else, be ready..." before she pulled the microphone of the radio off and clicked the transmit button, speaking, "This is LUCKY-7-4 to LUCKY and HITMAN Actual... I saw movement to our left."
"Seven-Four, this is HITMAN Actual. Interrogative:Can you confirm you've sighted possible hostiles?" Captain Schwetje's RTO inquired, calm.
"... Negative for now," Alicia replied, though the hairs on her neck stood on-end. Something was coming. And she could see it in the eyes of the other people aboard that they agreed, Largo shifting his own LMG to greet the incoming. She spoke, "Might just be an animal, but I and my crew are keeping our eyes on it..." before she shifted her rifle up and thumbed the safety off. She let go of the mic's transmit button and said, "Homer, you keep driving no matter what happens..." with an almost uneasy tone. She watched another shrub move, closer to them this time.
... A momentary pause and dead air from the radio, followed by the RTO of Godfather speaking, "This is HITMAN Actual to all HITMAN and LUCKY Elements. GODFATHER and LUCKY ACTUAL have issued the following order:Continue with caution. Rules of Engagement have been relaxed. Be advised:Air Support is on tap to engage and aid us, so feel free to make use of them. Just make sure to lase it properly. Remember standard procedure for Ambushes."
Alicia blinked as affirmatives echoed over radio, then looked down at the radio. She smiled a little, while Rosie said in a murmur, "Good thing they listen to us country bumpkins, eh, kid?" as she checked to make sure the MG had a round in the chamber. Homer tensed, his hands gripping the wheel so tight the leather creased and creaked against it. Largo gently grabbed the boy's shoulder and squeezed, causing him to yelp a little as he grew pale, but he nodded. Rosie hummed, then peered down the peephole sight of the weapon right at the moving shrubs. The group looked back, hearing the whirr of the Edelweiss's electric turret motor as the tank's gun shifted.
In the lead vehicle, Garza had already traversed the Mark-19 left and racked in a round. Brad was tense as all hell, while Trombley wore a well-concealed grin, his cheek pressed against the skeletal stock of his SAW. Ray murmured something to himself as he eyed the treeline, his helmet on. He slapped it twice for good luck, then looked over to see where his rifle was. Rolling Stone was practically shitting himself, too, Ray noticed. He told him, "Relax, homes. You know we ain't gonna let your ass die..."
"Yeah, I know," Wright replied, holding onto his kevlar and the top of the vehicle.
"So, why so tense?" Brad asked, though his voice was ice cold.
Wright swallowed empty, then replied, "These guys feel a little more motivated than the Iraqis..."
"They've got shittier weapons, though, meaning they can't exactly punch through good armor," Trombley almost seemed like he was trying to comfort wright. He looked back and said, "Relax, Reporter. Shit's about to get fun and you just get to watch. No need to stain your pretty little hands with anything but ink," before grinning properly and then sighting back down his LMG. Garza mumbled something from
"Y'know, I was joking about the Vietnam parallel," Ray murmured, looking up at the ceiling of the Humvee in what seemed to be a pseudo-vain attempt at talking to what a couple of people on board might've seen as a non-existent God. God probably did exist and had an obvious sense of humor. Ray, however, racked the bolt of the M4 that sat by his side and put his hand back on the stick.
The men aboard the transports noted the shifting shrubs now, all of them. It wasn't long then, many thought as they thumbed the safeties off of their firearms properly, shifting their weapons to meet the incoming threat. It seemed to be a standard ambush. Brad poked his rifle out through the window and looked forward down the ACOG on his rifle, noting distant humanoid figures running between the two sides.
An L-shaped ambush. The front would blunt their advance and the side would hammer them. He told Ray, "Get ready to blow through them," as he zeroed in on the leading target. He then picked up the radio and said, "All convoy vehicles, be advised... Engaging hostiles ahead," before receiving an affirmative. He zeroed in on the silhouette that wasn't moving, aimed, steadied his breath...
... Then he squeezed and felt the gun gently buck in his arms, kicking lightly into his shoulder. The spent casing fell. The figure fell.
All hell broke loose. Gunfire raked the Humvees, bullets causing sparks as they shattered off the armored doors, Ray crying out, "FUCK! TAKING FIRE!" before shifting the vehicle to full gear and slamming the accelerator. The engine revved and the wheels screeched, the vehicle lurching forward just as one of the enemy's Anti-Tank rounds shot out from the Lance.
The Mark 19 thundered and the fifty-caliber MGs on the convoy's hulls roared, followed by the chit-chatter of machine guns, SAWs and the single-shots of rifles. Intermixed with them were various callouts and mixed explicit swearing from the various crews aboard both armored and unarmored Humvees. Brad fired his rifle, aiming for head and body-shots that would kill the enemy. He saw their armor glinting in the darkness as rays of sun struck from amidst the imperfect cover of the canopy, lighting tiny patches of grass and bush. He fired at those.
On board Alicia, Homer, Largo and Rosie's Jeep, Rosie had opened fire. She felt the heavy machine gun rattling her arms, shaking the living fuck out of her, her arms feeling like noodles that barely held the gun on-target with each burst. Largo barked, "FASTER, KID! FASTER! KEEP US WITH THE CONVOY!" at Homer, who nodded and yelled something unintelligible back. Alicia pushed herself slightly back and aimed her rifle, firing over the boy's head at silhouettes.
"Ain't this some hell!" Rosie barked as she shifted her fire, her teeth rattling in her mouth as the vehicles sped forward. The Edelweiss's main gun roared and a round skimmed through a tree, exploding in the second behind it and spraying shards of steel and wood around that caught advancing enemy shock troops and scouts in the back. In a truck behind that, the rest of the squad fired their rifles.
Marina scoped in the first man she could see, a Lancer aiming for them. She zeroed in on him, then shifted her aim left by a few mil dots and squeezed. She watched the bullet 'curve' in, striking exactly at the point the man was as he was taking aim. The round punctured the helmet and threw it clean off his head while the black-haired Sniper pulled back the bolt and slammed it back forward, feeling another round feed into her rifle.
She fired again, nailing a second man, an officer going by the red outfit, right between the eyes, killing him on the spot. She aimed again, but didn't fire, a thunderous explosion sounding in the distance. A cry over the radio echoed, "HITMAN-2-4-Actual to all Elements! HITMAN-2-4 is immobile! Bastards dug a ditch in front of us with a bomb, but we're fine!" that being Brad's voice. She shifted her gaze and peered past the tank, to the sight of one of the humvees in the distance. They were stuck in a ditch, stopping the whole convoy.
"GODFATHER to all elements, shift your positions and take cover past the berm. Leave only your turrets exposed," The RTO of Godfather spoke, still terrifyingly calm despite all the roaring and worry going on around him. Marina could respect the RTO being so calm, so, kneeling, she tapped their driver, one Lynn, on the shoulder and showed her to shift the vehicle past the berm of the raised road so they'd be in defilade. The RTO then spoke, "ROCKER, BAKER, we will momentarily begin lasing targets. Prepare your payloads."
The Pilots replied positively. Marina looked up as the vehicle rolled down the slope of the road and into cover. She saw the two planes bank left, then pull the turn, entering standard flight pattern for payload deployment. She jumped off the truck as their gunner, one Edy Nelson, swung the MG about and let loose again. Mark 19s and tank guns thundered, followed by the 25mms of American LAVs and even Bradleys.
A HEAT round from a Lance arced above them and struck a Bradley's front armor plating. The subsequent explosion left nothing but a mark and a possibly rattled crew inside as the strange, brick-like armor plates on the front of the transport took most of the molten jet's heat. Marina hummed, nodded approvingly, then crawled up the berm, joining a bunch of other riflemen and snipers. She told them, "Officers are dressed in red. Easy to spot. Aim for them and enemy morale will break..."
The prattle of the Helicopter blades overhead echoed as the two-gunship flight shifted into position, their rocket pods and cannons immediately roaring. To the soldiers of the United States, it was proof of either blind courage or cockiness on the side of the imperials that they did not retreat the moment air support started laying into them with their payloads.
The rockets screamed out of the pods, the 20mm gatling cannons ripping through the treeline and cutting down trees in volleys alongside any Imperial unlucky enough to be caught in their bursts. Marina shifted her aim and fired, picking off the officers, exactly as she said she would. She watched a soldier wane as he aimed his SMG, aimed for his head and shot him with little remorse.
A round skimmed over her head, one of thousands of enemy rounds, obviously, but that felt like a little reply for killing what seemed to be a man ready to surrender. She sighed, then slid down into cover and reloaded her rifle, watching as Corpsmen and Medics rushed back and forth between the allied units, dragging wounded out of vehicles that had been damaged or hit with precision under the cover of a hail of lead.
Ahead, Alicia rushed forward toward Colbert and the others' vehicle, watching them move to cover as the 'ditch' dug by the enemy bomb held onto their humvee. Brad helped drag Wright out of his seat, with Alicia noting the man had taken a round in the shoulder. She asked, "You guys okay?!" only to get a thumbs up from everyone. Trombley scrambled for cover over the metal separating his seat from the Reporter's and jumped out of the reporter's door, before diving into cover beside them and immediately returning fire with his SAW.
"My bad!" Trombley patted the reporter on the shoulder in a break between gunfire while Brad tied a bandage around the man's arm. Wright simply laughed it off, though it was probably trauma response. Ray, meanwhile, fired his rifle from cover underneath the humvee, with Alicia watching him. The RTO seemed a little pissed that his truck got hit like this.
Brad said, "Bastards had probably hopped we'd roll over the mine," in a murmur as he moved over to Alicia, "I dropped the guy with the detonator. He still hit it and we rolled into the ditch just as the explosion hit," before motioning to the Humvee, which was covered in dirt and debris. He looked over to his left, to the sight of Garza sitting down, a bit dizzy. He then said to Alicia, "We got lucky, though..."
"I can tell..." The girl replied. She ducked as an enemy burst zipped over her head. She poked out with Brad and both of them fired single-shot at the enemy, cutting him down on the spot. As they dipped back into cover, letting Trombley and Ray deal with the enemy, she told him, "Can you guys call in one of the birds from above to drop a bomb or something? Scare them!?"
"Already did," Brad replied, "I didn't do it, but the JTACs attached with the Bradleys did. They'll hopefully be painting the bastards with a nice, big dot for the bombs to drop on," only to shift his position. He saw Fick running over toward them by the berm and with a platoon of Medics on their asses. The young Lieutenant knelt beside Alicia and looked between them, then at Garza. Brad told him, "Easy, sir. We're fine. Just a bit shook up."
"Good," Fick replied, just as calm, "We've got a tow coming up to get you out of that ditch and a Bridgelayer moving in to..." he then noticed the width of the ditch and murmured, "The hell kind of explosives did they pack under that part of the road?" before sighing. He heard a call from the F16s overhead, then said, "Sounds like our birds finally got confirmation!"
... Aboard the F16 'ROCKER-1', Flight Captain Jacob Rawley shifted uneasily in his seat, peering at the thermal feed from his SNIPER Pod. Almost a hundred enemy combatants still remained, engaging the allies with no seeming desire for retreat, their guns flashing. He sighed and radioed, "ROCKER-1 to BAKER, HITMAN and LUCKY, be advised:Upcoming strike is DANGER CLOSE. Keep your heads down unless you wanna lose'em..." then he switched channels over to his buddy, "ROCKER-2, be advised:Ground team requested two thousand pound JDAMs, forty meter dispersal due North-East of the Convoy, distance is 180 meters from friendlies."
"Roger. Tracking enemy movements. Permission to drop first JDAM," His wingman requested.
Jacob replied, "Granted. We'll drop at the same time," and he shifted his weapon selection, peering at the camera as it panned. He radioed, "Three... Two... One... Pickle," then thumbed the trigger. The aircraft shook a little as the bomb decoupled. He saw it leave the wing and tracked it on the SNIPER Pod, veering straight for the enemy. Heh, this was gonna be an easy job.
Down below, Brad tracked the bombs as they fell, murmuring, "Here they come," as the exchange of gunfire around them continued. The group watched the two bombs glide in from the aircraft that were supporting them while BAKER was waving off to rearm and to avoid the blast. The others ducked, with Fick pushing Alicia down into cover as well. The two bombs soon disappeared behind the canopy...
And, moments later, the ground around them rumbled and shook twice, the two explosions roaring in unison, the combined shockwave shaking leaves off of the canopy of the trees and nearly cutting down several. The infernal thunder filled the consciousness and ears of the Gallians for two more very, very long seconds, the group looking at the rising clouds of dust, debris and dirt ahead with fear and awe.
Fick put his hand up to his radio and transmitted, "... ROCKER, BDA incoming:Good effect on target. Targets destroyed. Thanks for the support," before shifting uneasily and looking to Alicia. He told her, "Welcome to the Twenty-First century," before the cheers of both their people and their allies filled their ears. Fick sighed deeply, then radioed, "This is HITMAN Actual to all elements, stand-by to mount up..."
Ray sighed deeply, dropped the spent magazine into his dump pouch, then asked Trombley, "Had some fun?" to which the MG Gunner grinned and nodded. The two helped Wright up to his feet, then went to help Garza, who had thankfully recovered his mental faculties by now. Alicia, meanwhile, still stared ahead. As the dust settled, she saw nothing but craters. No corpses, no blood or other signs of their enemy. All was either hidden by the bush or gone thanks to those bombs.
... It was honestly terrifying. How quickly it happened and how quiet it all had become...