Unexpected Encounter 8
06 Apr 2016Rebecca Hail
She woke up, when someone touched her knee. She opened her eyes and saw Kenneth leaning over her and saying something. She took her earplugs out to ask him, but she barely could hear her own voice over the artillery fire and as she looked over the flatlands she saw one artillery battery after another, firing their rounds into the sky.She leaned towards Kenneth and shouted:
"Kenneth? What's going on?"
With a confused look he signaled her to put up her headset. She put it on and the headset immediately filtered out the loud artillery fire in the background.
"What's going on, Kenneth?" she asked again.
"Gear up. Five kilometres to the suburbs and another ten to the base camp." he shouted back.
She looked over the loading area and saw how her comrades were already busy with preparing and checking their gear.
Roland and the other machinegunners were busy with checking their exoskeletons and armor and the recruits were busy with checking their personal armor, assaultrifles and with syncing up their targetting and life monitoring systems.
Then she looked to Kenneth. He already put his armor on and was now checking the new antimaterialrifle.
Quickly she started with her own preparations. Her armor as marksman was lighter than the standard infantery armor for improved agility. Also she and Kenneth had no full helmet like the other soldiers. Instead she had only her headset and a protective visor covering her eyes. She synced up her targetting computer with the scope of her rifle, then with her visor.
A lot of numbers popped up in her field of vision, giving info about current wind speed, humidity, gravity, temperature and other factor.
After she checked the gear with Kenneth for completeness, she switched her headset into voice activated mode.
"Archer 1 and 2, gear checked and ready." She said while she pressed the butt of her marksmanrifle into her shoulder.
"Copy. Two kilometres to the suburbs. Keep your eyes open."
She looked over to Roland who helped one of his gunners with the ammunition belt leading from the ammunition container on his back to the machinegun with fixing it on the inner side of the right arm.
He closed his helmet, then he stated over the com channel: "All Exos ready for combat."
Shortly after she heard the voice of sergeant Baeza: "The recruits are ready."
"Alright, were entering the suburbs in 20 seconds. It's possible that we encounter enemies so stay alert."
The transition into the suburbs was shocking. The federation hadn't left a single house standing. The complete suburb with no exception was black from the soot and smoke. The once colourful module houses were burned to uneven piles of molten metal as far as they could see.
"What the f*ck?" was the only thing a new recruit exclaimed, the rest of the truck remained silent.
They drove past a subway entrance, which produced dense cloud of smokes.
"What happened here?" Kenneth asked with a brittle voice.
Roland and his Exo-troopers remained silent and stared at the burned districts of the city.
The lieutenant looked up from his reports and said:
"They burned the whole area down because the conventional bombardements had no effect and the jamming transmitters prohibit a orbital bombardement. The rebels took every single point defence from every single ship and outfitter in the space port and put them up in the unshielded suburbs to protect their front positions. The point defences shot every single bomb down regardless of the kind. So the high command got creative and came back to weapons which are several centuries old. They used highly incendiary substances called Napalm and white phosphorus against the suburbs. The point defences destroyed the bombs and their contents spread over the whole suburbs burning everything to ashes. Some of those fires in the subway and in the huge tunnel system of New Philipsburg are still burning after almost 5 weeks."
"And what happened to all the civilians in the suburbs? There is no way you can evacuate such a huge population in such a short time." Sergeant Baeza asked haltingly.
"The report says, most of them fled into the tunnels of New Philipsburg to save their lifes buuuut ..."
The whole truck remained silent and stared at him.
"... that's the official report written for the federal senate. And they don't like to hear about the intentional burning of civilians. Especially not when the PR department has difficulties with finding reasons to justify their little war out here."
Roland looked to Baeza.
"What do you think, burns down there?" He said, while pointing onto the columns of smoke climbing out of the subway entrances into the sky.
The lieutenant stood up before Baeza could answer.
"Okay, listen up. The orders have changed. The convoy is driving directly to the assembly point of the fifth assault unit. ETA is 45 minutes. The attack is starting in 4 hours. Eat one of your MREs and check your gear again. That's all. DISMISSED."
6 hours later, main road 5 of New Philipsburg, two kilometres from the assembly point
The earth shook as the doublecannons of the gigantic Ozymandias siegetanks, spearheading the fifth assault unit, opened fire and the shields of the city district laying ahead gleamed up blue as the shells hit it. The gunfire and the explosions coming from the sides of the mainroad indicated that the infantry advancing into the labyrinthine streets of the district encountered heavy resistance.
Rebecca pressed herself against the wall behind two other soldiers, tightened her grip around the pistol handle, then looked to Sergeant Baeza and the soldiers behind him on the other side of the door and waited for the signal. Sergeant Baeza gave a hand signal to one of the exotroopers. The following machine gun fire was deafening even through her ear protection and the bright muzzle flashes hurt in her eyes. What was left of the door hung lacerated in the three hinges and the walls of the following floor was covered in bullet holes.
"GO." Baeza shouted the signal and the soldiers stormed the building, carefully cross checking the corridor. Two muffled blasts echoed through the corridors of the building, then gun shots.
"Team Two in. Six Romeos down." came through the static noise of the radio, then "Team Three in. No Romeo down. Have casualties, need backup and ..." The rest of the message was interrupted by heavy gunfire.
"Team Four, Team Six, Exos One and Two, go backup Team Three. Team One and Five secure the stairwell, Seven, Eight and Archer secure the elevator." shouted the Lieutenant over more muffled gunshots.
The first floor was secured faster than expected and the casualties kept down to one dead and two wounded. Rebecca and Kenneth stood in front of the elevator door, which was pried open by a bald, redbearded soldier and two of the new recruits with a crowbar. Finally the gap between the two door leafes was wide enough to insert a spreader. With a loud whir it pressed the elevator doors apart.
He took a bunch of glowsticks out of his bag, bent them and threw them into the elevator. Several seconds passed before he saw how they hit the ground. Then he grabbed his flashlight and shone down the hoistway.
"Looks like the cabin is several stories beneath us. That's good, now you don't have a barrier above your heads when you climb up there and I don't have to mess around with the cables holding the counterweight."
"Aw man, now we really have to climb 25 stories through a hoistway ...", Kenneth jokingly complained.
"Well, that's the reason why you are carrying the heavy stuff.", Rebecca answered in a sarcastic tone.
"Oh yeah, before I forget it. Use these when you have to put people down." Redbeard pulled out two silencers from his bag. "If there are only half as many Romeos up there as I think there are then you really don't want to attract their attention. And be quiet while you climb up, we don't want it to get ugly."
"Oho, The Beard is sensitive today." Kenneths sarcastic answer came immediately.
"No, but do you know how much work it is to clean up an idiot who got shot and then fell fifteen stories?" He answered while he hooked the snap links into the wall bars next to the elevator door.
"I guess you have to add cleaning lady right after badass bald bearded butcher in your resume."
"Enough with the joking, Private, my job is done. Two snap links for each of you. Happy hunting." He handed the safety line to Rebecca.
"Yes, Specialist Beard, Sir." Kenneth answered while he saluted.
"Drop the damned Sir, Private. You know how easily it is to p*ss the lieutenant off with this kind of sh*t."
"Are you two done with the flirting?" Rebecca sounded impatient when she spoke up.
Rebecca put the silencer on her pistol, then she grabbed her equipment and hooked herself in the safety line. Kenneth did the same, but his equipment was heavier than hers.
Then they entered the elevator and began climbing. Beard stood in the frame and looked past them, then he said.
"And, don't die up there, okay?"
"We'll see what we can do." Kenneth winked as he answered. "See you later."
"See you later." Then he removed the spreader from the elevator door and darkness fell over the two soldiers hanging in the hoistway.