Chapter 5 - Into the Jaws of Death
Azur Lane Fleet
Wednesday, March 27th, 1946, 6 days after leaving port
07:41
The troop ship buzzed with tense energy, a hive of motion and noise as sailors and soldiers rushed past each other. While the first group were prepping the landing craft, the latter were strapping on their combat gear, faces set with grim determination. Everyone knew what was coming, and what was at stake. After three long years of fighting this enemy, today they would finally bring the fight to the Pacific.
As I slid the last magazine into my ammo pouch, the deep, resounding boom of Kansen naval artillery echoed across the water. The distant thud seemed to underscore the urgency of the moment, each rumble a reminder that we weren't alone in this fight; yet we knew it wasn't going to be easy.
"Sir, is it really true we'll have direct Kansen support?" Corporal Walker, my radio operator, asked hesitantly. She'd just finished tuning the radio, and now she looked at me, searching for reassurance.
Her question caught the attention of several nearby soldiers, who paused, glancing our way. I felt their eyes on me, waiting, and chose my words carefully. "Captain Mercer secured a radio operator from Battalion. That operator's a Forward Artillery Observer with a direct line to the Kansen."
A murmur of hushed whispers swept through the group, anxious energy filling the air. I quickly raised my voice to cut through it.
"Any requests for artillery support go through him," I said, turning back to Walker. "Keep that in mind."
Her eyes widen with understanding, and she nods quickly. "Understood, sir. I'll keep the radio up, no matter what."
Just as I give her a quick nod of approval, a sharp, piercing whistle sounds across the deck. A signal. Fifteen minutes until the landing commences.
The mood shifts instantly as we start moving toward the landing craft. I glance around, taking in the scene. In the next craft over, Nina and Vargas were assembling their squads, securing weapons and making final checks. Further down the line, the rest of the company was doing the same, everyone getting ready for what came next.
Just as I want to look away, I catch Sturm's eye. The Iron Blood officer stares back, his scar beneath his eye prominent in the morning light, before giving me a faint nod. I return the gesture in kind, and I return my attention back to my platoon.
As the first of my soldiers begin climbing aboard the craft, I hear a voice shout behind me. "Lieutenant Ledger!"
I turned to see a sergeant from the logistics company hurrying toward me, two privates trailing behind him, lugging a wooden crate between them.
"What is it, Sergeant?" I ask, meeting him halfway.
He hands me a notepad with a few hastily scribbled sheets of paper. "Don't know how you managed it, and don't care to know. Chief Thatcher from the 112th sends his regards."
I glance down at the note, and a grin spreads across my face. "Well, I'll be damned," I mutter. "That old bastard really came through."
Quickly signing off on the papers, I hand them back to the sergeant. He snapped a salute and was off, already running toward his next task.
Drawn in by the scene, Vargas approaches with a curious look on her face. "Anything your second-in-command should know about?"
Wordlessly, I lead her over to the crate, lifting the lid with a quiet chuckle. She leans in, her eyes widening as she takes in the contents. The same grin I wore tugged at her lips.
"How the hell did you get these?" she asks, lifting one of the items out. "I thought only the Royal Marines had their hands on these things?"
I shrug as we start handing them out to the rest of the platoon, a cheeky grin on my face. "Everyone has a price. In this case, it was several cartons of cigarettes and a bottle of some damn fine whiskey."
Fifteen minutes later, the loud thrum of the landing craft's engine vibrated through the thin plywood hull, reverberating through our bones. The mood was tense as we drew closer to shore, with some checking their rifle's safeties over and over to distract themselves.
Suddenly the distant roar of the Kansen's guns, which had been pounding the Sirens positions for the last two hours, fell silent. The quiet left behind was unsettling, a hollow emptiness in the air. From now on, it was up to our Forward Observers to guide their strikes.
But the eerie quiet left in the wake of the Kansen bombardment didn't last long.
A new sound emerged. While the fresh, inexperienced replacement troops might not have recognized it, it sent a cold chill through the veterans.
A faint whistle, barely perceptible at first, began to grow louder, rising in pitch. Our eyes snapped upward just in time to see streaks of glowing purple plasma arcing down from the sky.
"Artillery!" someone screamed, panic breaking out just as the whistle turned into a shriek, and the first blast landed with a deafening roar to our left. The shockwave rattled the landing craft, sending sprays of water high into the air. A second explosion followed almost immediately on our right, closer this time.
"Where the hell is that coming from?" one of my soldiers yelled. "Weren't the Kansen shelling the damn island all morning?"
"Sir!" another one shouted over the chaos, his voice cracking with fear. "What do we do?"
"Stay low!" I yell back, my voice hard with grim urgency. "If one of those hits near us it'll turn the water to steam, and it'll burn your face off if it touches you!"
As if to drive the point home, another plasma shell detonated nearby, close enough to rock the craft beneath our feet. We stumbled, but managed to stay upright, hearts pounding. The soldier's eyes went wide, and he yelled again, panic creeping into his voice.
"But what if it hits us?"
I met his gaze, the cold reality of war hanging heavy between us. "Then there's nothing we can do."
We'd passed the point of no-return; we were in it now.
The Siren artillery pounded us relentlessly as we closed in on the beach. Some blasts sounded different, hitting something solid rather than the water. I forced myself not to think about what that meant.
Some of the other veterans even managed to ignore the distant screams that followed.
"Thirty seconds!" the driver of the craft called out, his voice cutting through the noise like a whip. The air grew even more tense, my soldiers gripping their rifles with white knuckles, their breaths coming in shallow, quick bursts.
A plasma bolt streaked in from the left, smashing right through the thin plywood hull of the landing raft and continuing out through the right side, leaving only two charred holes in its wake. The bolt passed half a meter above our heads. Close enough to smell the ionized air, but miraculously, no one was hit.
"Brace! Brace! Brace!" came the next shout.
We barely had time to steady ourselves before the craft slammed ashore, jolting like a wild buck. We jolted forward, the shock rattling through our bones, but the warning came just early enough that we stayed upright.
The ramp slammed down, and for a split second, the beach looked almost familiar. Like the one we trained on before. But that brief moment of recognition shattered instantly as the first woman charged off the ramp and into a storm of plasma fire.
Bright, deadly bolts cut through the air, kicking up sand and whizzing by only inches from our bodies.
"Go! Go! Go!" I roared, my voice straining against the deafening chaos, as the rest of my platoon poured onto the beach, straight into the jaws of death.
As I took my first step off the ramp, my boot sank into the sand. I stumbled, crashing face-first into the shallow surf. Cold water splashed over me, soaking through my gear. Seconds later, a burst of plasma tore through the air where I'd just been standing, punching three blackened holes through the ramp behind me.
"Lieutenant!" I heard Walker's voice, barely audible over the cacophony. I glanced up and saw her crouched in a shallow crater just a few meters away, the rest of the landing craft's two squads huddled there as plasma rounds sizzled overhead.
I crawled through the sand and water, making my way to cover as another burst of fire seared the air just above me. Rolling into the crater beside Walker, I took a deep breath and risked a quick glance over the edge. There, in the tree line just ahead, a Siren machine gun was entrenched, spitting plasma at anything that moved.
I ducked down as another round of plasma raked across our position, then pulled out a pre-marked map and pencil from my breast pocket.
"Walker, I need the radio," I said.
She handed it over without hesitation, keeping her head low. I keyed the microphone and spoke into it with practiced precision. "5-Heavy, this is 5-4, requesting fire mission on grid November-Three-Five-Four-Whiskey-Eight-Niner-One. Target is a Siren machine gun in the tree line, 12 o'clock from our position, over."
The radio crackled for a moment before a clipped voice, accented with Iron Blood tones, replied. "Artillery incoming. Thirty seconds. Out."
I passed the radio back to Walker, and twenty seconds later the faint whistle of friendly artillery starts growing over the noise. It intensified until a thunderous boom echoed across the beach, and the plasma fire abruptly stopped. I risked another peek over the ledge and saw the remains of the Siren machine gun, now a smoking wreck.
"Alright, people, we've wasted enough time! All squads, advance!" I shouted, climbing out of the crater. My boots kicked up sand, and I moved forward, leading the charge.
Sgt. Carter, crouched in the same crater as I was, took his squad to the right, anchoring the flank against a tall, sheer cliff that boxed in the beach. Nina and Staff Sergeant Vargas, having landed in another craft, spotted us moving and immediately joined in, pushing forward with their squads. Like so many times during training, we fell into the rhythm we'd drilled over and over.
Shoot. Advance. Cover. Repeat.
But this wasn't training anymore.
"Spread out! Keep moving!" I yelled, the words barely cutting through the chaos. The veterans instinctively broke into staggered positions, moving low and fast between the sparse cover, while the squad leaders made sure the inexperienced new recruits followed.
God, the recruits.
One of them, a kid barely old enough to shave, was frozen behind a rise in the sand as my squad pushed forwards to join the rest, his rifle limp in his hands. Plasma bolts zipped past, too close for comfort. His eyes were wide, unfocused, lost in fear.
"Move!" I barked, grabbing the back of his harness and yanking him forward. "Keep low! Follow me!"
He nodded, but his legs were shaky, like the terror hadn't let go yet. I pushed him down into a crouch, hoping muscle memory from training would kick in as we pushed through the killing ground. We needed to move forward. This beach offered no cover, and the clock was ticking. Only pure luck had allowed us to make it this far without any significant casualties
A plasma round exploded nearby, spraying sand in all directions. I barely flinched, only muttering a silent prayer. We kept moving. One foot in front of the other.
Survival was a numbers game now.
It's always been a numbers game.
Corporal Walker always stayed glued by my side, and through the radio I heard several times how the other platoon leader called out smaller Siren positions. Every time, our Forward Observer would give a curt acknowledgement, before one of the Kansen hit the emplacement. Each strike was, as if the heavens themselves had answered our prayers, yet it was also a constant reminder of the sheer difference between them and us.
They were powerful, indestructible. We had beat-up rifles and died in one hit.
They were a valuable, strategic weapon. We were expendable, replaceable.
We moved forwards slowly but, thanks to the support we got, steadily and with less casualties than expected. Only three wounded and none dead, it was akin to a miracle. We had almost managed to cross the entire open beach, nearing the tree line with the palm trees and smoking Siren emplacements. The other platoons and companies were fairing similarly, from what I could see, and in the distance, I could see the landing craft having returned to the fleet, loading the second wave of the invasion into their holds.
It seemed like the perfect operation; the plan having succeeded flawlessly in the face of the enemy.
We should have known better.
After all, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
That large, steep cliff that flanked our right side. So far, it had allowed us to focus our attention to the front and left, and we had naturally taken advantage of that. It meant we didn't have to fear getting shot from that direction. It meant that any cover we took, anytime we shot at the enemy, we left our backs open in that direction. It was the reason nobody noticed when parts of the cliff slowly opened, revealing a dim, purple glow.
We were only twenty meters from the tree line. Sporadic plasma fire was still coming from the front, but we could see behind the first layer of trees. Unexpectedly, the ground dipped into a small gully, creating a natural bottleneck.
I turned to the fresh recruit beside me—the one who had been shivering in fear on the beach. He had stuck with me all this time, the terror easing from his eyes.
"You did good, Private," I told him. "But link back up with your squad."
"Y-yes, sir!" he stammered. Before moving, he hesitated, looking at me. "T-thank you, sir. For not leaving me behind."
He took two steps-
A purple plasma bolt slammed into his skull, disintegrating the right side of his head. A dozen more followed, shredding his body and the sand around him.
It felt like slow-motion as his helmet spun in the air, trailing blood and brain matter. My hearing vanished, replaced by a high-pitched ringing. I barely noticed my head turning toward the cliff, where I saw the barrels, at least a dozen of them, pointing down at the beach.
"AMBUSH!"
I roared, but my voice felt distant, drowned out by the sound of plasma cannons opening fire. Purple bolts streaked across the beach, and in a cruel twist of fate, the only reason why we weren't instantly annihilated was due to the Sirens aiming at the entire battalion that had landed on the beach, and not just my platoon.
The next few seconds were a blur. I dove behind the thick trunk of a coconut tree, Walker crashing into me, desperately wanting to put as much of herself as possible behind cover. My hearing slowly returned, the chaos swirling around us—screams, explosions, and the smell of cooked, burnt meat filled my nose. I scanned for my platoon.
Up ahead, Vargas's squad was pinned down behind the wreckage of a Siren emplacement. The destroyed gun was twisted at an awkward angle, all bent and ripped apart, with the fortification around it either part of a crater or crumbled from the blast. Yet it was just large enough to provide cover from both the right and the front. She waved me over, ducking her head as another volley of plasma whipped past.
"Lieutenant! We're stuck! Can't move forward or backward with those nests firing from the ridge!" she yelled as I sprinted toward her.
"I know!" I snapped, crouching beside her, breathing hard.
"Then what's our move?"
I ignored her, snatching the radio from Walker. "5-Heavy, this is 5-4. Taking heavy fire from the cliff at three o'clock, requesting an immediate high-priority strike! Coordinates are as follows…"
After rattling off the grid, I released the microphone, glancing at my crumpled map for reassurance. Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. Thirty.
Nothing.
"5-Heavy, this is 5-4. Do you copy?" My voice cracked with desperation.
The radio hissed back, silent and mocking.
Vargas glanced at me, her face pale. "Lt, this would be a really bad time for comms issues…"
The air split as another plasma round tore through our cover. The radio crackled to life, but it wasn't the Iron Blood observer.
"All units, this is 5-Actual," came the grim voice of Captain Mercer. "We've lost contact with 5-Heavy. Does anyone have eyes on him, over?"
"5-Actual, this is 5-2," Drake's northern accent comes through, surprisingly calm "negative on the Kraut observer, over."
A frantic voice cut through. "This is Rossi! I-I don't know where he is! I haven't seen him since, since…I don't know!"
"5-Actual, 5-4," I say after keying the microphone. "Never had eyes on the observer either, over."
A beat of silence fills the air. I exchange a grim look with Vargas, as the situation seems to turn from bad to worse. An explosion nearby causes us to duck once again, as it sent rubble and sand raining down onto our helmets.
"Fuck, it feels like they're shooting at us more often now," someone from her squad mutters as another burst of plasma impacts our fragile cover. Suddenly, the radio crackles alive once more.
"Scheisse, 5-Actual, this is 5-3!" the voice of Oberleutnant Sturm is heard, "He was behind my platoon. When the Sirens ambushed us, one of my men saw him get shot!"
"Fuck!" Captain Mercer's voice cracks over the frequency, before continuing. "Alright, y'all hang tight. I'll contact the other company commanders, see if their FO's can't call it in."
As the transmission ends, I look up at the rest of the squad. They were all looking at me with fear in their eyes, having heard the transmission.
"Our sister companies will help us," I say, voice firmer than I'd have expected. "They'll call it in. After all, we're not alone in this fight."
Some gave a forced smile, before another explosion turned our attention to the fire that we were receiving.
"Damn it, they really are cranking up the heat here!" someone shouted, and it did feel as if another autocannon had taken our position under fire, slowly chipping away at our cover.
"All units, this is 5-Actual," the voice of our Captain comes through, grim and final. "All FO's are either confirmed dead, wounded or missing. Be advised, the Sirens are specifically targeting anyone with a radio."
The blow hit us like a punch to the gut. No observers. No artillery. No way out. The enemy was systematically cutting off their lifelines. And once their lifelines were cut…
"We're going to die," someone muttered, breaking us out of our trance.
"Like hell we are!" Vargas snarled back, grabbing the soldier by their collar. "I am not planning on dying here, and I will drag you with me whether you want to live or not!"
"But-"
As the squad started to buckle under the pressure, the radio also seemingly exploded with chatter as the others platoon leaders asked for order. The gunfire, the radio, the squad, it all pressed down on me, almost drowning me beneath the pressure. I needed to do something; we couldn't stay here. But what?
And then an idea started to take root.
In a moment of silence on the radio, I keyed the microphone.
"Sturm, it's Ledger," I say, both interrupting whatever conversation had been going on over the radio and the fight between Vargas and the Private. As the squad all turned to look at me, the Iron Blood officer replied over the radio.
"5-4, what is it, over?" he says, voice strained.
I take a deep breath, before replying. "5-3, 5-4, can you tell me where exactly the FO was killed?"
A pause is heard over the radio. "...Standby, 5-4," he finally says.
"What are you planning, Lt?" Vargas asks me, her expression as if she had found a single ray of hope, yet almost hesitant to latch on. I raise a finger to silence her in order to hear the reply over the radio.
"5-4, the observer was killed 50, maybe 60 meters before the tree line, which is my current location, over."
I turn to look in the direction but couldn't quite make out where exactly he meant. "Can one of your soldiers run and grab the radio?
"Are you out of your mind, Ledger?!" he yells, speaker buzzing as the intensity of his voice over-modulates the microphone. "I will not send one of my soldiers into guaranteed death!"
"Then, can you mark the position somehow?" I ask, ignoring his outburst.
Silence fills the air for a few seconds, before he finally replies. "...I don't know what you're planning, Ledger, but alright." Seconds later, a distant pop followed by a hiss is heard, and I see a red flare being shot at a location not too far from where I was. 75, maybe 100 meters. But in combat, that generally may have been around the world when you were pinned down by enemy fire.
"I see it. Wish me luck, over."
"Wish you luck?! Du gottverdammter Eagle Union cowboy, don't you-" I tune out whatever he was about to say and turn to my squad leader, who was still looking at me with question marks in her eyes.
"Vargas, remember the supply crate we got just before boarding the ships?" I tell her, and her eyes widen as she catches on. "It's time to use them."
"That's suicide!" she yells, before seeing the look on my face.
"Maybe," I say grimly. "But it's also our best shot."
She hesitates, before finally giving in. As she reaches into one of her ammo pouches, she hits me with another question.
"Who's going?" she asks. When she doesn't get a reply back, she stiffens again and looks at me. "No."
"Yes," I reply dryly, fishing my own cylinder-shaped object out of the ammo pouch.
"...I'm not going to be the one to tell Nina that you killed yourself, so you better make it back," she finally says, before nodding her head. "Alright, let's do this."
With an unspoken agreement, we simultaneously threw the objects in our hands, one right at our feet and the other in the direction of the burning flare marking the fallen observer. As they gracefully arced through the air, it quickly became apparent as to what they were when the spoon flew off, and seconds later thick plumes of white smoke started pouring out of them.
They were smoke grenades. Specifically, ones fielded by the Royal Marines.
Their smoke grenades looked ugly. Large, unwieldy, pipes that had been welded shut on the ends, with a few rough holes cut into the body. They only came in one color and burnt out twice as fast as the ones from basically any other country. However, they had one specific upside, one that I saw during the previous exercise when Lieutenant Drake threw them around as if they were going out of style:
The smoke given off by them was much, much denser than the smoke grenades from most other countries, and tended to linger around. It provided much better concealment.
And I was betting everything on that one, single fact.
Seconds later, once a small cloud had formed, I leapt out of cover, and into the fray.
Instantly, I saw the purple bolt cut through the air in front of me and felt the air on my face heat up for a second.
I kept running. One step after the other.
75 meters.
50 meters.
30 meters.
10 meters.
The thick cloud of smoke had expanded massively, completely hiding me from view. But concealment wasn't cover, and as the sirens blindly fired into the smoke, I forced myself to not think about that.
Survival, after all, was just a numbers game.
I finally reach the burning, red flare. But the observer wasn't here.
No, I saw the body, it has to be here!
I stumble around in the fog, desperately searching for him.
There! A faint outline in the sand; the stench of burnt meat mixed in with the acrid smell of the smoke. I quickly make my way to the observer.
The sight is not a pretty one. Half his chest was burnt, his face contorted in pain as his eyes stared lifelessly into the sky.
'Focus,' I reprimand myself, 'grab the radio!'
I grab his torso, turn him around-
-and am greeted by the sight of the radio, with a molten hole punched straight through the battery.
'No,' I think to myself, 'this can't be it! There has to be something, anything!'
I quickly start to check his pockets, his pouches, everything. As plasma bolts keep ripping through the fog I stay there, kneeling in the open next to a corpse.
Finally, as my hand reaches into his breast pocket, I feel something different. My fingers curl around a half-burnt piece of paper. I pull it out, my eyes quickly scanning the smudged ink. And my heart nearly stops beating.
Frequencies. Radio frequencies. Most were burnt or otherwise illegible, but one stood out. A long shot. But the only shot I had.
I stuff the paper into my vest, before sprinting the entire way back to Vargas. Just as the smoke started to dissipate, and dodging a few very close calls, I slam back into cover.
"Holy shit," Vargas says, for once looking at me completely stunned, "You're the craziest son of a bitch I've ever met, let alone had as platoon leader."
"Frequency!" I gasp, sucking in large amounts of fresh air. "I've got a frequency!"
Walker, my ever-faithful radio operator, quickly stumbled over to me. As soon as she was close enough, I grab the receiver and punch in the new frequency from the burnt scrap of paper. After confirming that the frequency was set, I grab the microphone.
I had no idea if this was going to work. But we were out of options.
I key the microphone, and speak.
—
Far off in the distance, where the fleet was anchored, an Iron Blood battleship watched the unfolding chaos with an unsettling sense of detachment. Before the assault, her cannons had roared for two hours, unleashing her 380mm primary and 150mm secondary cannons with a speed only attainable by Kansen. Yet as her shells crashed down on the Siren positions, a chill of disconnection settled over her. When the human infantry launched their landing, that detachment only deepened. All she had now was the cold, mechanical chatter of the radio.
At first, the voices had been plentiful. Some were tense, others very short, some even sounded excited. But one by one, they began to fade, each silence marking a loss that gnawed at her insides.
Suddenly, she noticed the fighting in the distance intensifying, and then:
Silence.
As seconds grew into minutes, Tirpitz felt a familiar dread come over her.
She failed them. Again. They needed her, yet she was powerless from this far back, far removed from the heat of the fight.
Just like back then…
She gazed back towards the island, towards the beach, towards the scene that seemed so hauntingly familiar…
Then, through the silence and her spiraling thoughts, a new voice broke through.
"This is 5-4, can anyone hear me, over?" The desperation in the words pierced through the chaos, accompanied by the sounds of explosions and gunfire in the background before the transmission cut off.
Tirpitz' brow furrowed. "Unknown contact, identify yourself."
"This is Lieutenant Matt Ledger, 115th AAC!" the voice identified itself. "We're pinned down and need artillery support, badly, but our Forward Observer was killed! Whoever you are, we desperately need help here!"
"I understand, Lieutenant. You are speaking to KMS Tirpitz. I will support you with all my might."
"Tirpitz?! I…" an explosion rocketed through the radio, and the voice coughed before continuing. "Understood." And in a move that both surprised and intrigued her, the voice, clearly tinged with an Eagle Union accent, switched to her mother tongue. "Erbitte sofortigen Artillerieschlag, Ziel ist eine befestigte feindliche Stellung…"
As the voice relayed the coordinates using familiar Iron Blood protocols, her eight primary cannons slowly swiveled into position. Tirpitz took aim, adjusting the elevation with practiced precision. As the voice finished calling in their request and she was confident everything was correct, she keyed her microphone.
"Rounds away," she said calmly as her main guns roar all at once, unleashing a full broadside at the Siren fortification. "45 seconds to impact."
A minute later, a report crackled back: direct hit, excellent effect on target. The Lieutenant didn't waste any time, and he quickly called in a new request. Soon, other units were relaying their requests through the strange Eagle Union officer to her, and the once halted assault slowly regained traction across the battlefield. Together, they managed to slowly turn the tide of the battle.
They shared one frequency. One voice.
And, for the first time since the operation began, the battleship felt as if the distance didn't seem insurmountable.
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