Blood and Glass
We’re unloading on a tarmac in what used to be an American airfield before they pulled out gears prior. The actual soldiers of this airfield are giving us space, I feel like they are avoiding us, and we unsling our vehicles. I watch as all but one takes off and leave after we unload some extra supplies they had inside, so now we only have one aircraft. I’m sure Tanya has a plan so I’m not going to worry about it especially now that I see a government car and escort driving up to us. I leave Snorble to supervise our equipment and walk toward the convoy.
Soldiers pile out of the escort vehicles while an older-looking gentleman in a nice suit gets out of the government car from one side and Ori from the other. Meeting us at the airfield, this keeps getting more serious. I take off my helmet and fasten it to my waist then shake the president's hand when he extends it.
The president smiles warmly “Miss Ori told me that a request for assistance would be met with a fast response but I never imagined soldiers would arrive the same day” so we were requested that’s really interesting as it’s a first for the republic as the rest of the world basically ignores us as they can’t do anything anyway but also these people have had lots of foreign soldiers in their land now they have asked for them. “How can we be of assistance I’m afraid our fast redeployment has left us a little in the dark,” I say.
the president's face darkens for his reply “We are going to be attacked, we have noticed a huge buildup of soldiers and equipment” he sighs “I don’t believe we can weather the coming storm alone” he takes a breath “Please come with us to the general headquarters you’ll be able to get more information from them bring anyone you need” I nod them whistle and wave over sergeant Rosa.
While she makes her way to us I ask a quick question “mr president forgive me but I was under the impression that your people were vehemently against foreign soldiers, and I don’t blame them, what changed” Rosa arrives and we get in his car before he answers “Ori convinced me to let her talk to our people then held a vote on the matter, it was decided that only a single battalion will be allowed. I was then recommended the 104th who I understand conquered a nation by itself”
I feel some pride well up “Correct sir if only a single battalion is allowed to help then the 104th is the best option” his mood seems to be lifting after hearing my confidence “indeed though from what I see you are not a battalion” I nod simply “you are correct we are the forward element, the rest are in route”
Ori places a hand on the president’s shoulder reassuringly “president Hadi I doubt those rats would attack so soon and if they do this platoon will be plenty to stall them as needed” he seems to want to say something but the car stops pulling him from that thought “ah I see we’re here please follow me” we exit the car and head inside a large building with a tracking dish on top. Likely left over from the Americans, I’m certain we would have recommended the headquarters to be underground and the dish placed away.
After winding through some hallways we enter a room with two guards outside of it. Inside I see several grizzled men looking at a tactical table. That’s definitely ours. I did hear we did a few limited sales to them so it’s not that out of place. President Hadi clears his throat and what I correctly assumed were generals quickly give him their full attention. “Gentlemen let me introduce Lieutenant Griffin from the 104th.
I’ll turn you over to my generals lieutenant as they are more knowledgeable in matters of war I’ll only interject as I deem absolutely needed” I nod and walk up to the table “Before we begin may I use my helmet to share all of this to my platoon, they may have valuable input” the eldest of the generals with a fantastic white mustache answers me “I don’t see a problem as long as it’s not a distraction” I nod and put my helmet back on linking my visual and audio to everyone, I look at Rosa who just gives me a thumbs up so the feeds good. I clap my hands together in a satisfying thump and clank “now then gentlemen it is my understanding that a war is brewing luckily war is our specialty. What exactly are we looking at”
I’m supervising the loading of my battalion onto the carrier ER-DumbFord. Sometimes I love the names that shipyard crews come up with. Not every ship needs to be named Dragon or whatever. It’s just my luck though that I would get an emergency retasking and redeploy when my battalion is broken up on the edge.
Only Angel platoon had enough supplies left with them to be able to be shipped straight to the east everyone else was red and retuning to beachhead anyway. The ship and attached vessels should be setting sail by nightfall and this time I am lucky as I get a battleship to use as fire support. Not having anything else to do I pull out my tablet and see that Griffin is sharing his inputs to his platoon so of course I tune in as well, don’t mind me lieutenant I’m just taking a peak.
I know he’ll get a icon showing him I’m watching but he’s professional enough to ignore it. From the feed, it’s obvious that he’s meeting with the generals from Iraq now a sub-state of the unified east. His camera moves to look at the tac table obviously for my benefit and I gaze upon their estimate for enemy troops and their positions and… there’s a lot. If the unit organization counts a standard there are easily 20,000 enemy soldiers massing at the border.
I type out and then throw Griffin a text message to ask the generals if they’d like us to put a satellite over to recon the area which he obliged to. Before I get an answer I send a request up the chain and it gets approved. I find myself getting lost in thought as I watch the meeting. The camera catching Ori brings up some memories back from when I was in training. Before that point, I found it strange that Ori had darker skin than Spero and his family, after all, she is his daughter so what gives?
Well as promised by drill instructor Yorm after I passed the next exam at the top of my class with considerable effort he answered some questions and explained a few things. A minor point is that Ori was adopted, not really a big deal but it did explain a few things. The most notable subject at that time though was pillars. Not those in construction… well not exactly. He posed the idea that there were several defining forces that make up the universe's existence, pillars if you will. At first, I thought gravity and mass to which he replied “Close but those are only a part. Think in more esoteric terms such as life and death”
My mind began to spin as I recalled that weeks prior he called the leader of the republic Spero a pillar. So I of course asked Yorm directly about it “Before, you called Spero a pillar you don’t mean the same ones that your talking about now right” Yorm nodded sagely “Tell you what graduate at the top and I’ll give you a book explaining everything though you mustn’t utter a word siff would have my head as she isn’t the biggest fan of these things spreading” nearly drowning in as much confusion as interest I asked a final question “why tell me then”
A jerk of sudden motion from my tablet pulls me from thought and I refocus hearing air raid sirens from his feed.
We were in the middle of talking about the composition of the Iraq forces with the general watching my feed when the sirens sounded. I immediately get on my radio “Get the sky racker in position and keep the air clear” Then I turn to the generals in the room with me “Is there a secure location for the non-combatants” The lead general shakes in disbelief and responds “yes I will have some men escort them” he motions to someone in the room and continues “what do you intend to do lieutenant” I study the map of the border regions briefly before I answer “I'm going to stop their advance at the Golan heights, a fitting place don't you think” I turn to leave the command center placing a hand on sergeant rosa’s shoulder before I left “I'm rolling your squad in with the armor you'll stay here to help coordinate us with the main army” and without another word im on the airfield running back to my men. “Bravo and Charlie squads are merged for now alpha get on the LRVs and pick me up make sure you bring the Gauss rifles”
It isn't long before one of the vehicles races up to me, not even stopping as I climb into the passenger seat. “What's the plan,” the driver Snorble asks me “To the Golan heights we'll stop the advance there from extreme range and harass them” We tear out of the base going as fast as the vics can take us, the sky lighting up above us as missiles and drones are knocked out of the sky from old C-wis emplacements and the sky raker.
While we drive I get an incoming signal from the general “The main force is en route but is still at least two days out lieutenant so you'll be mostly on your own however you'll have a live satellite and soon heavy artillery” not the worst news ever, I pull up the live map on my hud as I respond to her “well bleed them, dry sir, we have a reputation to uphold after all” I watch a mass of red dots heading for the Golan as I was hoping for. “Throne breakers and land takers over and out lieutenant”
A few hours later I’m lying prone on a hill overlooking the Golan pass with rabbit as my spotter and wraith and snortable on the other gause rifle a few meters away from us leaving brick and barbosa for overwatch. We arrived before the approaching army so we had some time to get properly settled in and mark a few landmarks to direct fire more effectively. We're nearly two miles away from where they will be driving but when one is using a gause rifle with a dedicated power source two miles is nothing.
About twenty minutes after we arrived the first vehicle crests the hill onto the pass. It's an abrams. “Alternate fire on my shot,” I say to Wraith so that he’ll fire once my charge is at 50%. I wait for a few moments to wait for a few more to crest the ridge but also to pull up on my hud a rough blueprint of the abrams so I can shoot the ammo racks. I take aim and squeeze the trigger and not even a second later the round hits a shell inside the lead tank igniting the tank. A few seconds later wraith shoots, destroying another. This has sent the column into a panic as tanks pull off onto the side of the road and we watch infantry swarm them. They seem to be looking for a large group or something closer to them. Rabbit speaks up “Lieutenant what's the music choice” without hesitation “To hell and back”
For the first rendition of the song, things went well. we popped more tanks forcing them to push the burning wrecks out of the way.
That all changed by the third rendition when drones started to fly overhead, which Brick took out but we've been spotted. Then something new. These have six mechanical legs and one cannon on the back. I watch as it clumsily climbs over dead tanks and then aims at us. “Shit get down”
A shell impacts down the hill from us. More of them come to bear and begin to bombard our position. I poke my head back out from cover and take aim shooting one, the round entering the front and ripping out the back, it drops but there are a lot more. I send the data to Tanya for intel then key in the com for the artillery, not noticing at the time it's a navel code.
“This is Angel actual I need the following grids saturated” I list off the grid coordinates and attach the video I took “Fire mission confirmed keep eyes on to verify targeting” Why does the guy sound like a sailor? “Roger watching for impact” Half a minute later I see a glimpse of a shell streak in and I swear I saw drag fins deployed on it. “Solid hit confirmed go for full barrage” I hear a short argument on the other side before I get a response “Confirmed go for rapid-fire” Rapid fire? That’s battleship slang.
Next thing I know Tanya is on the radio “Griffin hold on to your teeth you have a full complement of thermobaric shells coming straight for you” fuck me it is a battleship firing “mount up and clear out battleship bombardment incoming” I scramble up and basically dive into my seat as we tear off in a dust cloud. I turn around just in time to see the first one hit and watch the whole valley ignited. It’s only now that I realize I never stopped my stream and the entire battalion was watching.
A few hours later we returned to the base, welcomed by cheats from the locals. From satellite images, it looks like we’ve stopped them entirely at the Golan, which is still burning, and have slowed them at all other fronts. Strangely aside from the missile barrage, there have been no aircraft.
As we pull up to the barracks they are letting us use I stay in the Vic for a while longer, on the radio with the general. “Those walkers are primitive but the cannon shouldn’t be taken lightly even if the armor is a joke,” I say to which Tanya replies “Agreed the legs are obviously the weakest point they honestly remind me of the prototype scorpion artillery except the scorpion has four legs and a much larger cannon mounted rear of the center”
I nod even though she can’t see “it’s probably more heavily armored too” she replies stating the obvious “it is but I’m not sure how much use it’ll see, the drawback of legs over tracks is still immense. Tracks are faster and both are ridiculously stable the only advantage legs would have currently is on uneven terrain or possibly on a mountain or cliff” Again I nod my head before I respond “So the fleet is arriving tomorrow correct” she begins to respond when
Flashes on my hud and I jump out of the Vic and sprint into the command center a short way away. I know everyone got it too so I’m not surprised when I see Sergeant Rosa evacuating everyone to the few bunkers on base. The president looks confused and asks me once I get close “What’s going on” Before I can reply Ori answers for me “Imminent nuclear attack” his face pales and again it flashes on my hud.
Though this time the side flashes to indicate direction, so I turn to look and watch dozens of ICBM trails in the sky. Again the sky explodes with tracer fire as the sky raker desperately tries to shoot them down. It manages to get a few but it’s not enough. I hear several supersonic booms as streaks race across the sky and meet the missiles. It takes me a second to realize the battleship is firing solid slugs to help try and down them. It helps but again not enough.
I pull the president close and kneel down as a nuke lands miles away but the shockwave still hits hard throwing lighter vehicles and some people. Over the howling wind barely kept at bay by my helmet I make out the scream of tortured metal and a second later feel something rip through my right arm, missing the president by not even an inch likely deflected by me. I grit my teeth and the wind slowly dies down.
Blood and Glass
We’re unloading on a tarmac in what used to be an American airfield before they pulled out gears prior. The actual soldiers of this airfield are giving us space, I feel like they are avoiding us, and we unsling our vehicles. I watch as all but one takes off and leave after we unload some extra supplies they had inside, so now we only have one aircraft. I’m sure Tanya has a plan so I’m not going to worry about it especially now that I see a government car and escort driving up to us. I leave Snorble to supervise our equipment and walk toward the convoy.
Soldiers pile out of the escort vehicles while an older-looking gentleman in a nice suit gets out of the government car from one side and Ori from the other. Meeting us at the airfield, this keeps getting more serious. I take off my helmet and fasten it to my waist then shake the president's hand when he extends it.
The president smiles warmly “Miss Ori told me that a request for assistance would be met with a fast response but I never imagined soldiers would arrive the same day” so we were requested that’s really interesting as it’s a first for the republic as the rest of the world basically ignores us as they can’t do anything anyway but also these people have had lots of foreign soldiers in their land now they have asked for them. “How can we be of assistance I’m afraid our fast redeployment has left us a little in the dark,” I say.
the president's face darkens for his reply “We are going to be attacked, we have noticed a huge buildup of soldiers and equipment” he sighs “I don’t believe we can weather the coming storm alone” he takes a breath “Please come with us to the general headquarters you’ll be able to get more information from them bring anyone you need” I nod them whistle and wave over sergeant Rosa.
While she makes her way to us I ask a quick question “mr president forgive me but I was under the impression that your people were vehemently against foreign soldiers, and I don’t blame them, what changed” Rosa arrives and we get in his car before he answers “Ori convinced me to let her talk to our people then held a vote on the matter, it was decided that only a single battalion will be allowed. I was then recommended the 104th who I understand conquered a nation by itself”
I feel some pride well up “Correct sir if only a single battalion is allowed to help then the 104th is the best option” his mood seems to be lifting after hearing my confidence “indeed though from what I see you are not a battalion” I nod simply “you are correct we are the forward element, the rest are in route”
Ori places a hand on the president’s shoulder reassuringly “president Hadi I doubt those rats would attack so soon and if they do this platoon will be plenty to stall them as needed” he seems to want to say something but the car stops pulling him from that thought “ah I see we’re here please follow me” we exit the car and head inside a large building with a tracking dish on top. Likely left over from the Americans, I’m certain we would have recommended the headquarters to be underground and the dish placed away.
After winding through some hallways we enter a room with two guards outside of it. Inside I see several grizzled men looking at a tactical table. That’s definitely ours. I did hear we did a few limited sales to them so it’s not that out of place. President Hadi clears his throat and what I correctly assumed were generals quickly give him their full attention. “Gentlemen let me introduce Lieutenant Griffin from the 104th.
I’ll turn you over to my generals lieutenant as they are more knowledgeable in matters of war I’ll only interject as I deem absolutely needed” I nod and walk up to the table “Before we begin may I use my helmet to share all of this to my platoon, they may have valuable input” the eldest of the generals with a fantastic white mustache answers me “I don’t see a problem as long as it’s not a distraction” I nod and put my helmet back on linking my visual and audio to everyone, I look at Rosa who just gives me a thumbs up so the feeds good. I clap my hands together in a satisfying thump and clank “now then gentlemen it is my understanding that a war is brewing luckily war is our specialty. What exactly are we looking at”
I’m supervising the loading of my battalion onto the carrier ER-DumbFord. Sometimes I love the names that shipyard crews come up with. Not every ship needs to be named Dragon or whatever. It’s just my luck though that I would get an emergency retasking and redeploy when my battalion is broken up on the edge.
Only Angel platoon had enough supplies left with them to be able to be shipped straight to the east everyone else was red and retuning to beachhead anyway. The ship and attached vessels should be setting sail by nightfall and this time I am lucky as I get a battleship to use as fire support. Not having anything else to do I pull out my tablet and see that Griffin is sharing his inputs to his platoon so of course I tune in as well, don’t mind me lieutenant I’m just taking a peak.
I know he’ll get a icon showing him I’m watching but he’s professional enough to ignore it. From the feed, it’s obvious that he’s meeting with the generals from Iraq now a sub-state of the unified east. His camera moves to look at the tac table obviously for my benefit and I gaze upon their estimate for enemy troops and their positions and… there’s a lot. If the unit organization counts a standard there are easily 20,000 enemy soldiers massing at the border.
I type out and then throw Griffin a text message to ask the generals if they’d like us to put a satellite over to recon the area which he obliged to. Before I get an answer I send a request up the chain and it gets approved. I find myself getting lost in thought as I watch the meeting. The camera catching Ori brings up some memories back from when I was in training. Before that point, I found it strange that Ori had darker skin than Spero and his family, after all, she is his daughter so what gives?
Well as promised by drill instructor Yorm after I passed the next exam at the top of my class with considerable effort he answered some questions and explained a few things. A minor point is that Ori was adopted, not really a big deal but it did explain a few things. The most notable subject at that time though was pillars. Not those in construction… well not exactly. He posed the idea that there were several defining forces that make up the universe's existence, pillars if you will. At first, I thought gravity and mass to which he replied “Close but those are only a part. Think in more esoteric terms such as life and death”
My mind began to spin as I recalled that weeks prior he called the leader of the republic Spero a pillar. So I of course asked Yorm directly about it “Before, you called Spero a pillar you don’t mean the same ones that your talking about now right” Yorm nodded sagely “Tell you what graduate at the top and I’ll give you a book explaining everything though you mustn’t utter a word siff would have my head as she isn’t the biggest fan of these things spreading” nearly drowning in as much confusion as interest I asked a final question “why tell me then”
A jerk of sudden motion from my tablet pulls me from thought and I refocus hearing air raid sirens from his feed.
We were in the middle of talking about the composition of the Iraq forces with the general watching my feed when the sirens sounded. I immediately get on my radio “Get the sky racker in position and keep the air clear” Then I turn to the generals in the room with me “Is there a secure location for the non-combatants” The lead general shakes in disbelief and responds “yes I will have some men escort them” he motions to someone in the room and continues “what do you intend to do lieutenant” I study the map of the border regions briefly before I answer “I'm going to stop their advance at the Golan heights, a fitting place don't you think” I turn to leave the command center placing a hand on sergeant rosa’s shoulder before I left “I'm rolling your squad in with the armor you'll stay here to help coordinate us with the main army” and without another word im on the airfield running back to my men. “Bravo and Charlie squads are merged for now alpha get on the LRVs and pick me up make sure you bring the Gauss rifles”
It isn't long before one of the vehicles races up to me, not even stopping as I climb into the passenger seat. “What's the plan,” the driver Snorble asks me “To the Golan heights we'll stop the advance there from extreme range and harass them” We tear out of the base going as fast as the vics can take us, the sky lighting up above us as missiles and drones are knocked out of the sky from old C-wis emplacements and the sky raker.
While we drive I get an incoming signal from the general “The main force is en route but is still at least two days out lieutenant so you'll be mostly on your own however you'll have a live satellite and soon heavy artillery” not the worst news ever, I pull up the live map on my hud as I respond to her “well bleed them, dry sir, we have a reputation to uphold after all” I watch a mass of red dots heading for the Golan as I was hoping for. “Throne breakers and land takers over and out lieutenant”
A few hours later I’m lying prone on a hill overlooking the Golan pass with rabbit as my spotter and wraith and snortable on the other gause rifle a few meters away from us leaving brick and barbosa for overwatch. We arrived before the approaching army so we had some time to get properly settled in and mark a few landmarks to direct fire more effectively. We're nearly two miles away from where they will be driving but when one is using a gause rifle with a dedicated power source two miles is nothing.
About twenty minutes after we arrived the first vehicle crests the hill onto the pass. It's an abrams. “Alternate fire on my shot,” I say to Wraith so that he’ll fire once my charge is at 50%. I wait for a few moments to wait for a few more to crest the ridge but also to pull up on my hud a rough blueprint of the abrams so I can shoot the ammo racks. I take aim and squeeze the trigger and not even a second later the round hits a shell inside the lead tank igniting the tank. A few seconds later wraith shoots, destroying another. This has sent the column into a panic as tanks pull off onto the side of the road and we watch infantry swarm them. They seem to be looking for a large group or something closer to them. Rabbit speaks up “Lieutenant what's the music choice” without hesitation “To hell and back”
For the first rendition of the song, things went well. we popped more tanks forcing them to push the burning wrecks out of the way.
That all changed by the third rendition when drones started to fly overhead, which Brick took out but we've been spotted. Then something new. These have six mechanical legs and one cannon on the back. I watch as it clumsily climbs over dead tanks and then aims at us. “Shit get down”
A shell impacts down the hill from us. More of them come to bear and begin to bombard our position. I poke my head back out from cover and take aim shooting one, the round entering the front and ripping out the back, it drops but there are a lot more. I send the data to Tanya for intel then key in the com for the artillery, not noticing at the time it's a navel code.
“This is Angel actual I need the following grids saturated” I list off the grid coordinates and attach the video I took “Fire mission confirmed keep eyes on to verify targeting” Why does the guy sound like a sailor? “Roger watching for impact” Half a minute later I see a glimpse of a shell streak in and I swear I saw drag fins deployed on it. “Solid hit confirmed go for full barrage” I hear a short argument on the other side before I get a response “Confirmed go for rapid-fire” Rapid fire? That’s battleship slang.
Next thing I know Tanya is on the radio “Griffin hold on to your teeth you have a full complement of thermobaric shells coming straight for you” fuck me it is a battleship firing “mount up and clear out battleship bombardment incoming” I scramble up and basically dive into my seat as we tear off in a dust cloud. I turn around just in time to see the first one hit and watch the whole valley ignited. It’s only now that I realize I never stopped my stream and the entire battalion was watching.
A few hours later we returned to the base, welcomed by cheats from the locals. From satellite images, it looks like we’ve stopped them entirely at the Golan, which is still burning, and have slowed them at all other fronts. Strangely aside from the missile barrage, there have been no aircraft.
As we pull up to the barracks they are letting us use I stay in the Vic for a while longer, on the radio with the general. “Those walkers are primitive but the cannon shouldn’t be taken lightly even if the armor is a joke,” I say to which Tanya replies “Agreed the legs are obviously the weakest point they honestly remind me of the prototype scorpion artillery except the scorpion has four legs and a much larger cannon mounted rear of the center”
I nod even though she can’t see “it’s probably more heavily armored too” she replies stating the obvious “it is but I’m not sure how much use it’ll see, the drawback of legs over tracks is still immense. Tracks are faster and both are ridiculously stable the only advantage legs would have currently is on uneven terrain or possibly on a mountain or cliff” Again I nod my head before I respond “So the fleet is arriving tomorrow correct” she begins to respond when
Flashes on my hud and I jump out of the Vic and sprint into the command center a short way away. I know everyone got it too so I’m not surprised when I see Sergeant Rosa evacuating everyone to the few bunkers on base. The president looks confused and asks me once I get close “What’s going on” Before I can reply Ori answers for me “Imminent nuclear attack” his face pales and again it flashes on my hud.
Though this time the side flashes to indicate direction, so I turn to look and watch dozens of ICBM trails in the sky. Again the sky explodes with tracer fire as the sky raker desperately tries to shoot them down. It manages to get a few but it’s not enough. I hear several supersonic booms as streaks race across the sky and meet the missiles. It takes me a second to realize the battleship is firing solid slugs to help try and down them. It helps but again not enough.
I pull the president close and kneel down as a nuke lands miles away but the shockwave still hits hard throwing lighter vehicles and some people. Over the howling wind barely kept at bay by my helmet I make out the scream of tortured metal and a second later feel something rip through my right arm, missing the president by not even an inch likely deflected by me. I grit my teeth and the wind slowly dies down.
