3 days into this deployment, we've had at least 8 skirmishes with the Grimm and multiple assaults into our defensive lines. After the huntsman team debriefed the Major on the situation, after which the intel was dispersed amongst the companies, it seems that this village recently had one of the tunnels in their mines cave in, claiming the lives of 3 miners. Funerals were held, though that did mean a spike in negative emotions which attracted the Grimm like flies to shit. Though the townsfolk have started to warm up to us since the shovel requisition we did. Most even provide the mess with fresh vegetables where possible, though getting a hot meal out here to the defensive lines has proven more than difficult to accomplish. Turning the commodity into a luxury for us on the frontlines.
"So I suppose we just weather the storm then," Kelso sighed.
"Seems so sergeant," Meehan said with a nod.
"In any case, once this is over it should be easy sailing for a while, battalion CP has even managed to get a signal out to the advance force which is meant to do the bulk of the clear-cutting work for this road," I said while peering out of my binoculars. The town had a large supply of barbed wire for a cattle ranch which never came to fruition. So using my "wealth" I purchased it off of the townsfolk for our use. The engineers quickly fashioned it into concertina wire for our defenses.
"Word on the grapevine is that they'll be flying in for us a new weapon," Meehan said, trying to drum up some conversation.
"Oh? Go on, I haven't heard anything related to weapons development since I transferred out of the engineering corps," I said, curious.
"Yeah, the Major was talking about how it would be a game changer for defensive positions," Meehan said with a shrug, "I think it's a modified version of a huntsman weapon made for mass production," he theorized.
"Any details on how it works?" Kelso asked.
"Yeah, supposedly it fires the same round our rifles shoot but with the fire rate of our SMGs," Meehan answered.
"By chance do you mean a machine gun?" I asked with a sigh.
"Yeah, that's what they were calling it!" Meehan said with a smile.
"Those aren't new Meehan," I said shaking my head, "huntsmen have had them for years, but so have Atlas, granted their machine guns are underpowered compared to the ones they'll be sending us, but it's not like the technology is new," I explained while taking a seat inside the trench.
"Well it's new to me," Meehan mumbled.
"Though I certainly won't complain if they fly in enough for our positions here, I can't say I'm exactly thrilled for the prospect of fending off another wave of Grimm with just our rifles and submachine guns," I said emphasizing the machine gun in the word while shrugging. The defensive lines so far have held up against the assaults, but multiple men have ended up injured from lucky swipes by a Grimm which escaped the rifle fire. The aid station set up in the village is currently backed up with injured men, luckily most of them not being fatal, though the bulk of them are unable to fight for the moment.
"Hey cap, looks like a runner from the major is coming here," Kelso said pointing behind me. Getting up and turning around I see a messenger from battalion CP.
Reaching our position, the private crouched to get closer without climbing in, "Captain Nash?" He asked while looking at me.
"Yeah? I mean this is my section of the line," I replied confused.
"Major Harper needs you at battalion CP, you should also bring your company messenger with you, the engineers have repaired your flooded-out radio," the runner said before getting up and making his way to battalion CP.
"What do you think the major wants?" Kelso asked.
"With any luck, it'll be that she wants me to pick up the repaired radio set and let me know about the incoming machine guns," I said with a shrug, "Meehan you're in charge until I get back," I said to my XO, climbing out of the trench I check my rifle to make sure it's loaded and made my way over to company headquarters to get the radioman before we both headed to battalion cp.
Walking by the working engineers I observe them alongside some of the town's builders who volunteered to help work to put up the walls designed for them. I quickly ignore them and continue on my way. Arriving at the village's community center, we let ourselves in and find the major pacing about by a table with a map laid out, I turned to the radioman, "You go get the radio and return to company headquarters, I think I'll be running a bit late," I said to them, the radioman nodded and walked towards the engineers working on some electrical equipment. Walking up to the major, I gave a quick salute as I got her attention, "Something the matter ma'am?" I asked.
"Not exactly, we lost contact with Second Battalion. Third battalion is reporting the same thing," Harper said with a frown, "however that's not exactly your problem, I called you up here to have your men work on clearing out an area for some bullheads to land," she told me while pointing to a location on the map. I recognized it as the patch of forest directly behind my section of the line.
"Alright, any reason why?" I asked her.
"Dr. Watts is sending a shipment of experimental weapons, it's just some machine guns, but these are rechambered and reinforced for powder cartridges rather than dust cartridges," she answered.
"I'll get right on it then," I told her, "are we going to send a team to search for the missing battalion?" I asked her off-handedly.
"No, third battalion has radioed in that they have Ivy company on the job already, so we should focus on our jobs," she said shaking her head, "now go on and get that clearing out that land already, dismissed," she said sternly. I nodded and left to return to company headquarters.
Arriving at said headquarters, I called for a team of volunteers to clear-cut a section of forest behind us to make way for a landing pad.
Hours later, I watched as the first bullhead of three touched down and dropped off their cargo. Though I didn't expect the first shipment to have been a news crew, "What do you think you're doing by bringing a news crew out here to contested territory?!" I hear the battalion S4 shout at the bullhead pilot.
"Calm down Reeds," I said while walking up, "what's a couple extra civilians to watch over, I'll have a couple of men escort them into town," I told the logistics officer.
"With all due respect Nash, this is my job, so let me worry about the cargo coming in on these bullheads," he replied sternly.
"Right, I'll leave you be then," I mumbled. Whilst I see no real issue with the press being out here, them showing up now while we're in the middle of a hurricane of Grimm, does make our jobs a helluva lot more difficult. Personally, I would rather just send these reporters to the Major to let her and the S6 figure out what to do with them, but if Captain Reeds wants to have a shouting match with the bullhead pilot it's not my problem. Especially given the part where these bullheads are most certainly rented from Beacon. Right now it was in the middle of the school year, so most students were too busy with classes to go anywhere further than the commercial district of Vale. Meaning the bulk of these bullhead pilots were going to be on standby or working side contacts that Beacon approved of. Normally it's just random contracts huntsmen teams put out for rides out to the boonies because it was safer, if at all more expensive, than going overland on foot. However, it seems that Watts wanted us to have these for testing as soon as possible. It also seems the Army PR department has also decided to smuggle some illicit cargo alongside the approved shipment. And by smuggle I mean add-on by orders last second and not update any of us out here in the field.
"Look I'm just paid to drop them off here, there are at least two more bullheads waiting for my take-off, figure out what to do with them cause I'm not taking them back until a week from now when I'm scheduled to come back for them," the bullhead pilot said gruffly. I sighed and signaled for the press team to come to me while Reeds and this pilot had their mud-slinging match.
"Well seeing as they're too busy arguing, why don't you fill me in on why you're the first shipment in our newly constructed cargo yard," I said semi-serastically. After we had finished clearing the trees out, Reeds had marched out here with a couple of privates and had them start setting up covered areas with poles and tarps to make the entire landing zone we had just cleared out into a Cargo yard and depot despite my protests.
"We're reporters from CBN and we wanted to show Vale footage of this "republic's" army in action," the reporter said snarkily. Ah yes, CBN, short for Color Broadcasting Network and the conservative counterpart to the progressive-leaning VNN. I had almost forgotten about them since I do my best to avoid them at all costs since they tend to try and make the Republican movement look bad or downright treasonous to turn public opinion against us. It's a well-known open secret that the owner of the network is a personal friend of a current council member, one who is very outspoken in the "treasonous" nature this movement poses. Which has always fascinated me. Since, from the very start every member of Congress has tried to petition the current council members for a democratic assembly to address the needs of the people more effectively multiple times to no avail.
"Well I'm sure you'll find that we're doing our jobs to our mother nation and our fellow countrymen," I said diplomatically. The reporter scoffed and rolled their eyes. "Look I don't care what you do here, just don't harass the soldiers out here on the front lines and you'll be safe enough from any Grimm that could reasonably try to attack the town," I told them firmly. "As much as I would love for Vale to get a first-hand view of the fighting we do here, it is simply too dangerous for you civilians to just be wandering around, in or near, our trench works," I explained shortly after my statement.
"If you could escort us into town, that would be enough," the reporter said unimpressed.
I sighed, "Sure, I just need to-"
An explosion cut me off, turning around to the source. I see a plume of smoke rising from my section of the line. "Shit," I said quickly, I quickly turned back to the news crew, "I recommend taking cover behind those crates," I said pointing to a set of sturdy crates storing a portion of our food rations, they should be at least safe in case this is an attack. Swinging my rifle to bear from my back, I quickly ran over to the front line to see what caused the explosion myself.
Sliding behind a sandbag wall, I peek over it and see the company firing at a giant deathstalker, "where the hell did that explosion come from though," I mumbled while scanning the area. Seeing Lieutenant Meehan in a nearby trench, I climb over the sandbag wall, run over, and hop into the trench. "Sitrep Lieutenant," I shouted above the din of gunfire.
"Giant deathstalker attacked us randomly, the damned thing crashed through where we were storing our fire dust reserves, so that went up in flames," he said while reloading his rifle.
"Fucking hell," I groaned, "alright, looks like I'll need to-" A loud crunching sound interrupted me, looking over the parapet, I see Major Harper with her sword firmly in the deathstalker's dome. "-Nevermind, looks like I have a new problem to deal with," I mumbled. Meehan nodded in agreement. Climbing out of the trench, I walk over to the dead oversized scorpion and watch as the Major wrenched her saber out of the Grimm. "Not that I'm complaining ma'am, but what are you doing out here?" I asked her.
"Dealing with a problem our men aren't equipped for," she answered with an eyebrow raised.
"No, I mean- Y'know what, never mind, I don't care, thank you for bailing us out major," I said throwing my hands up in the air out of frustration.
"Yes well, it's been a while since I last got to use my huntsmen training," she said with a smile, "they forced me into retirement Y'know?" She said while sheathing her saber.
"Good to know ma'am," I said with a nod, I never looked into the major's background too much. Too busy with paperwork and organizing things to care to be honest, but I do remember that she was considered a controversial member of her class at OCS. Guess she's a disgraced huntsman or something, not that this is the time to speculate on this stuff. I turned to my men, "Alright reload your rifles and be on standby, we could be on the hook for another wave," I shouted so that they could all hear me.
"Do you think the General would be open to forming a special forces unit with huntsmen-level training?" Harper asked passively while standing next to me.
"I don't doubt that something like that could be useful for missions like this, though I doubt you'll get a transfer to a unit like that anytime soon," I said offhandedly.
"How come?" She was intrigued by my response.
"We barely have an entire division of soldiers, the experimental motor infantry unit is still being trained and equipped for their first deployment, and at best it would be a company-sized unit that could be made available for such an idea," I listed quickly, "I imagine he'd say that you're far more valuable as an Army major than in command of an SF unit,"
"A shame," she sighed, "good work with the landing pad by the way," she told me with a pat on the back. "Though do you wanna explain the news crew hiding behind our rations?" She asked with a laugh.
"What's there to explain? The army PR team decided to smuggle them in with the weapons shipment, Reeds is likely losing his mind and the rest of us are left footing the bill for keeping them alive," I said with a sigh.
"Right, well I'll have them escorted to battalion headquarters and I'll figure out what to do with them, should be safe enough out here for the rest of the day at least, if there were any fodder grimm, they would have charged in by now," she said before taking her leave. I nodded silently and elected to climb into a nearby trench and take a rest. Luckily for all of us, nothing of note happened for the rest of the day.
It's been a day since that last Grimm attack, meaning either we're thinning the numbers or they're moving away from us. I don't know which one is scarier since the former makes the entire world look slightly incompetent and the latter implies that the beowolfs have gained some low-level intelligence. Putting that aside I look back to the machine gun I had set up for a field test. "Alright, I think you load it like this…" I said while fumbling around with a belt of ammo, it's an M1919 browning machine gun, though in this world it's a modification of the mass-produced huntsmen model…uhh browning machine gun. Should've looked closer to the stamping when I first had this thing pass by me. Finally managing to get the belt to feed into the gun, I cock it and fire the thing in short 3-5 round bursts. Blowing open some empty cans from the mess we filled with dirt.
"Impressive," Meehan said while observing the weapon in action.
"Yeah well this thing is spitting the same ammo as our rifles but at the same rate as our Submachine guns, possibly even faster," I said while climbing out of the foxhole where we set this up. "But I'd recommend not touching that barrel after a battle, unfortunately until they provide us with carrying handles it'll just prove to give us all third-degree burns if we move it right after firing," I told him forebodingly.
Meehan sighed, "I'm guessing you're saying this for my sake rather than the rest of the company?" He mused.
"Well you're the only one here for one thing," I said unamused, "but also because I don't think any amount of lengthy explanation will prevent at least a few burns here and there. Plus the third-degree burns will only happen if you're holding onto the hot barrel for an extended period," I said trying to be positive. "The best we can do is warn them and hope they understand the basic idea that firing bullets creates heat which will make the metal of the gun hot," I said with a sigh.
"Well I'll be sure to find a few men who are fit enough to lug that thing around for a couple of hours to man it, doesn't seem like accuracy is the point of this thing so we may as well get people who can keep up while lugging around the extra weight of this cumbersome thing," Meehan said.
"Yeah, that's about as much as we can do, l think that we ought to distribute one per platoon at a minimum and ideally one per squad, that'll provide a massive force multiplier to individual squads and will put us head and shoulders above those smarmy pricks in the Atleasian armed forces," I said with smirk.
"Didn't know you hated Atlas that much sir," Meehan chuckled.
"I don't, I just can't stand their methodology behind combat, saving lives with cheap disposable robots is great and all up until the point where someone hacks into your system or you need to improvise," I said with a huff, "robots are notoriously bad at dealing with both of those things and while they have normal infantry it's nearly exclusively human with most Faunus being denied entry due to uniform issues," I said in frustration.
"To be fair, we do as well, we're just much more willing to take a Dremel to our cheap steel helmets than Atlas is for their dust-steel alloy armor," Meehan said with a smile.
I sighed loudly before continuing, "Oh yeah, and another thing-"
"-which is why I think that remnant needs to wean itself off of what could very well be a limited resource, it's unsustainable at best," I said finishing my rant. It's been uhh two hours since I started on this rant. Meehan is taking a nap on a nearby tree right now which I noticed right after finishing the rant. I elected to let him be for a bit if only as an apology for the unwarranted ranting I went on. I guess I spent way too long in procurement and things got to me.
"Oh hey you're finished with the ranting, Major Harper wanted me to swing by earlier and let you know that she got the news team to stay within the confines of the town for now," a messenger said looking up from his book.
"And you didn't think to stop my rant?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Uhh nope. It wasn't urgent anyway and I had checked in with the Major who told me to leave you be," he replied while putting the book away into his messenger bag.
I sighed and dismissed the soldier, l got up from the ground, patted myself clean off any dirt, and headed to the town, maybe I could pick up something for Cinder and Emerald while I'm here. It's not like that's a thing forbidden by military regulations, for the moment anyway. Walking around the town's stores, I told the few MPs patrolling around to make sure us soldiers didn't do anything stupid that I was passing through the area on my way to headquarters. Technically not a lie, but I am failing to tell them that I'm gonna be browsing the shops here. Not that I expect they'll stop me even if I did tell them, but shopping ain't exactly on the list of activities considered stupid by most people.
I walked by the first dozen stalls in the market as they were food stores and so not souvenir or gift-worthy. I stopped in front of a clothing stall and noticed the high-quality coats on sale in a hidden corner of the tented area, most of them also containing a low-purity fire dust lining. "Are you interested in them?" The stall owner asked.
"A little, my two little girls are gunning to be huntresses and I hear that winters get pretty cold in Patch and unlike Mantle, there's not a convenient public heating system in place there. I figured I would get them a gift while I was separated from them," I explained.
"I see, how come you don't have them enrolled in one of the primary schools in Vale?" The stall owner inquired.
"I have a friend who teaches and lives on the island, it was far less stressful to know that my girls will have a place they can go to at night with someone I trust," I said while looking at the coats closer.
"Well, your daughters are lucky to have such a caring father," the stall owner said, amused by my story.
"If caring these days means being only somewhat available at night," I mumbled, "how much for these?" I asked.
"The ones you're looking at specifically are made for adult men and are about 5000 Lien each," he said with a chuckle.
I coughed lightly, "Right, umm perhaps you could recommend me two coats for two young girls about yea high?" I asked the merchant.
"Right over there," he pointed over my shoulder, "those are only about 1000 lien each, much less material and dust used after all," he said with a smile.
I dug out my wallet as he cleaned up the jackets of any tags, "Here you are," I said, handing him two 1000 lien chips, "I wonder why they went with chips," I mumbled while putting my wallet back into my jacket.
"Those are only recently adopted, all Lien are printed by Atlas, meaning they have to make it involve some sort of technology," the merchant said with a frown. "I preferred the old Valean pound coins and bills myself, much easier to carry, however legally to do business all transactions are done in Lien now, much easier to catch counterfeiting," he explained.
"Oh uh, thanks," I said awkwardly, realizing he heard my complaint.
"Think nothing of it, I'll always take an excuse to complain about these cumbersome things," he said with a grin while waving the lien chip in the air.
Leaving the stall, I walked past the rest of the stalls, got to my tent, and stashed the coats away in my bag. "I can't wait to get home," I sighed. I'm just a little tired of being outdoors 24/7. Not many of us have had a good rest in a few days now and more than half the soldiers smell like wet dogs. That is If it weren't for the constant smell of freshly burned powder covering up that smell, a small win in this pile of gripes.
I grabbed my rifle from its position propped against my cot and headed out again, it's about time for the daily check-in. "Now if only second battalion could stop being lost and get here to relieve us already," I thought idly while walking back to the main defensive lines.
Woo, another chapter is finished, I think I'll skip ahead to the end in the next chapter and wrap this up. I wanted to use this and the last chapter as a bit of world-building. Let me know how I did in that regard.
That being said I hope you all enjoyed, please do let me know where I can improve and any suggestions you have for me in the reviews.