Through the years, he’d commanded all kinds of units. From armor, to infantry, atomic artillery and even the odd air assault component, he’d done a bit of everything. Some out of skill, others out of sheer luck —or unluckiness—. Yet even after so many years of leading combined arms units, he was still a tanker at heart.
He still remembered the first time he’d been put in the command of a tank, back in the regular Akritan Army. There was no other feeling like the rush of adrenaline as those seventy tons of steel and chobham drove into battle…and no other emotion like the devastation after.
…
The Roach’s crew compartment smelled like sweat, propellant and piss, its once squeaky-clean appearance relegated to the inspector-general’s records. Empty boxes of ammunition for the panzer’s .50s was strewn about the bottom of the basket, alongside empty MRE packets and water bottles. Among the sea of trash clinked a lone shell casing, pristine brass warped by the autoloader’s failing ejection mechanism and dirtied by unburnt propellant dust.
Had the lieutenant colonel been there to look at the mess, he would’ve put them to the saber without second thought. Fortunately, the miserable fuck of a commanding ‘officer’ had been the first to get sniped by the enemy’s new guided artillery rounds. Served the bastard right, for leading from that custom-fitted, unarmored excuse of a personnel carrier instead of a panzer.
He focused back on the present, as his platoon of four —minus the unfortunate Lucky 13— crested the sand dune.
After two weeks of cat and mouse on the dessert, his unit barely needed to communicate to function effectively. The three panzers advanced as one, climbing just barely up the dune to allow the turret-mounted commander’s sights of each vehicle to look over the dune. Nowadays it wasn’t even advisable to let the whole turret peak, lest you be spotted early by an enemy artillery observer and turned into a pincushion.
“Anything on the scopes, Vic?” His gunner asked, adjusting his own sights while they were of little use, pointed straight into the red sand as they were. In the past few weeks McRiley’s pale white complexion had slowly turned red from the fine dust.
He gently guided the small turret full of sensors and cameras to look at the crimson dunes beyond, searching for tracks or exhaust haze. Satellite overwatch was spotty at best, but they’d gotten intel about a convoy moving through the Bullet Road headed for Lotz. One of many, most of which managed to get through the blockade, supplying the city’s defenders with more of those damned artillery shells, but even a single truckload less of the stuff would save dozens if not hundreds of lives.
“Well, there’s a whole lot of sand.” He quipped, cursing the—
A glint, there on that dune. He immediately taped the platoon comms; the short-ranged radio frequency fell on deaf ears where the enemy’s radios were concerned, and had quickly become vital for 1024th Cavalry’s continued operations.
“Visual signature, bearing zero-nine-two. Verify?”
The reply came back instantaneously from his second. The Matilda’s optics were a generation newer than his own, and Victor hoped they had some better insights.
The Avenger’s commander remained silent, though she sent a ping every time they spoke to confirm receipt. She was a junior to tank command, but Victor had high hopes—
BOOM
A shockwave blasted the panzer, fragments pinging against the chobham.
“Void, what was that?!” JJ screamed.
Victor turned his scopes right, and found the Avenger’s turret split in half. The gun had flown off its mantle and was rolling down the dune, while ammunition violently cooked off inside the chassis.
“Artillery!” He shouted into the comm, knowing his platoon had just been reduced to two. “Full ahead, chase down that convoy and get us out of here!”
The Matilda followed along as his driven gunned it, the Roach’s tracks bitting and grinding against golden sand.
DUDUDUDUUDUDU
Autocannon shells dug into the ground around them. It took less than a second for Victor to spot the lone box-shaped IFV cresting the hill, its driver madly turning about in a futile attempt to prolong their attempt at a distraction.
A poor attempt indeed; the Vogdi had damned good artillery, but their vehicles drove like snail-driven bricks.
“Gunner, HE, Right, IFV!” He shouted into the crew comms.
“Confirmed, Aiming!” A shout came back. “On the way!”
BAM
A shell flew four hundred meters downrange, striking the IFV in on a rear corner…and passing right through. It exploded a few meters away harmlessly. Damn the damn Vogdi and their vehicle’s shitty armoring; the shell’s fuze hadn’t armed.
In the background, the massive arm of the autoloader shoved another shell into the open breech, as another badly-ejected shell skipped over the collection hopper and landed in the rubbish-filled basket floor with a clang.
“Contact fuze, fire!”
“Reloading!” JJ reported, as Victor spotted the breech sealing on the edge of his vision. “Fi—”
BOOM
Something struck the IFV on its front plate, the tin can violently ejecting flaming inards as its unarmored rear and top blew off. A limbless Vogdi body ragdolled through the air, the head exploding like a crimson pumkin as it slammed to the ground.
It took Victor but a moment to realize it was the Matilda which had gotten the kill. He turned the optics turret to look at the other half of his surviving platoon…
Only for something to violently slam against its turret from above, cleaving the armored beast in half.
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The Matilda was no more.
…
“…sir?” A voice called out to him. “Colonel, are you okay?”
Victor came to with a jolt, realizing he’d been staring right into his glass for stars knew how long. He turned towards the voice. Lieutenant Colonel James McRiley looked at him with a knowing expression, while several other officers held back worried glances.
He was at the conference room…not the Roach’s crew compartment.
“Y-Yeah, the hyper translation must’ve hit me harder than I expected.” He replied, rubbing his face. “My apologies, where were we?”
“I’ll call for a round of tonics.” Major Hossier said, standing up.
Victor nodded subtly as the officer glanced at him, but immediately focused back on Archer. The man was hunched over the map-screen at the center of the conference table, little more than a hardened touchscreen-holofield combination that was useful for looking at maps, inspecting schematics and space navigation.
The map was of the city, algorithmically designed based off the sensor data from the Jackal scout drones flying overhead. The city was big, though only horizontally speaking. The overwhelming majority of buildings inside the boundaries of its impressive black walls were less than four stories tall; only the castle and temple were taller, though the northwest and southwest corner towers of the wall were nestled on top of hills that made them taller still.
It wasn’t just a geographic map; as Victor inspected it he saw the signatures of enemies, highlighted critical infrastructure as well as friendly units. A gray foggy texture covered many small streets and alleys, as physical obstructions made constant surveillance impossible. He remembered the forest had once been gray in its entirety save for the landing site, yet now the overwhelming majority of the four square kilometers of overgrown garden had been scouted by short-ranged quadcopter drones and patrols.
The perimeter defense taskforce hadn’t rested for a moment, sending scouts and monster-hunting teams —quite literally, much to many officers’ horror and amusement— to every corner of the walled garden.
As such, most of the monsters had been cleared out. Only a few stragglers remained; birds, rodents and somewhat large insects that were not quite monsters, as they lacked much of the aggression that made the shadow wolves and chameleon spiders come to them. All of the latter two’s population had piled on to the perimeter defences like a tide, and was promptly eviscerated by heavy stubbers, autocannons, mortars and grenade autolaunchers.
They’d nearly lost during the first hour, when the sole defenders of the garage hatch had been a company of light infantry, but now the monsters could do nothing against a full battalion of mechanized infantry reinforced by heavy weapons and armored vehicles.
The perimeter was expanding rapidly, as M31 Demolishers blew apart dozens of trees and scores of shrubbery in one swoop with mine-clearing charges. Nearly three hundred kilograms of explosives were shot out of a stubby mortar, tied to the tank via a reinforced cord. They landed in the form of a conical net, meant to clear a path for tanks through minefields.
Instead, they demolished a chunk of the garden, leaving charred and fragmented remains to be moved further away from the Victoria by the M31’s titanium dozer blades. Thus more and more area was cleared out, allowing the perimeter to be expanded.
Defensive positions were moved forward, giving way for the additional heavy mortar platoons and artillery batteries to set up their positions in a rough oval around the Victoria. Tents where already being set up as chow halls, field medical stations and armories to service the perimeter’s troops without them having to go through checkpoints and crowded corridors inside the crashed transport.
Even more space, however, was being quickly filled by idling panzers, personnel carriers and IFVs full of carapace infantry and cavalry scouts, as units were mustered and organized for operations outside the garden.
“So far we’ve found four critical areas that we have to occupy to establish a defensive zone against the undead.” Archer spoke. “The first is the palace, and the bridges next to it.”
His finger fell just one kilometer north of the garden’s northern wall, it and the palace kept separate by a thin band of buildings and indoor markets that must’ve once functioned as the city’s interior commerce zone. The place was crawling with the undead. It made sense; markets were crowded, highly accesible spaces that easily fell victim to chemical and gene agents like whatever had prompted this zombie outbreak.
The jury was still out when it came to the latter question, though the science types and doctors were certain it was biological. Air tests showed no airborne pathogens, which was a blessing; had the variant been aerosolized, the overwhelming majority of the regiment —if not all of them— were dead men.
This was likely not a very advanced agent variant, likely decades if not more than a century out of date compared to what the superpowers of the Core Worlds were certainly developing in secret.
Early versions of genewar munitions were dispersed like neurotoxins; bombs or shells exploded a dozen meters off the ground, dispersing droplets of highly-concentrated agent. Some inadvertedly entered people’s systems by falling into eyes, mouths, open wounds and such, though more potent variants survived in foodstuffs and water for hours if not days.
Afterwards, the only method of transfer was the exchange of bodily fluids, usually through bites or wounds caused by the infected. Such outbreaks were devastating during the first hours against a concentrated civilian populace, but military and police responses using lethal force and hazmat gear took care of the issue with ease.
Hopefully, dealing with these undead would be similarly easy. Without a civilian in sight, cleanup would be a swift and violent affair, though thankfully they wouldn’t need to use atomics. Just holding checkpoints with heavy weapons and taunting the horde.
Major Hossier returned with a tray full of polymer shot glases. The glasses glinted under the lamplight, filled with an emerald liquid.
The officers paused for a moment, toasting to resilience as they downed the thick, tasteless liquid. There was no jolt of energy, as with combat stims, but Victor slowly felt the fog lifting from the edges of his mind.
Archer continued where he’d left off, sounding a tinge more energetic than before.
“Kampfgruppe Odin, comprised of the 2nd and 3rd Companies of 3rd Cavalry and two platoons of combat engineers, will move to occupy the bridges’ southern end as well as the walled palace complex. Clearing the palace itself it a tertiary objective, seeing as there is no need to rescue anyone or preserve its cultural significance.”
“Clearing it out with thermobaric mortar shells is the most cost-effective solution, though I say we try to clear it without demolishing it. It could serve as good barracks or command infrastructure in the future, or as bargaining chips in case we meet actual civilized, living people.”
Victor nodded. They’d yet to meet any living humans, but they all hoped that was only a matter of time. Even cannibals or raping barbarians would be useful, if not pleasant to eal with; he had no qualms about using the decivilized and degenerate to mine the ore that would be turned into the parts to get the Victoria off this mudball. If they met actual humans who cared about this city, trading a castle for raw materials, labor or technology would be more than useful.
“Our second and third targets are intersections, here and here.” He pointed on the southwest and southeast corners of the garden, where major roads —made of cobblestone, yet still major compared to most in the city— joined together.
“Kampfgruppes Nemea and Hydra will occupy them, each kampfgruppe made up of two armored and two infantry platoons, plus a combat engineer platoon. Combined with Odin, these three task forces soak up all the available manpower of 3rd Cavalry. That means the 4th and final area will be occupied by elements of 2nd Infantry; a full company of mechanized infantry plus two platoons of fire support vehicles The combat engineer platoon will be stripped from the perimeter expansion task force, as we’ve already made enough progress clearing out a zone for occupation and defense.”
“Kampfrugruppe Hera will set up a defensive line here.” He pointed to a row of blocks east of the garden, separating it from the harbor. “This is not quite a critical area, but it is crucial if we want to expand the containment zone in the future.”
“If we secure the western portion of the port, we could secure the entire peninsula.” Major Hossier surmised. “With Nemea and Hydra holding the south and west, and Odin securing both bridges and clearing the castle…if we clear the northern harbor we’d be effectively setting up a green zone.”
“A good plan indeed.” Victor applauded Archer’s proposition, though he was curious. “What about the cav scouts?”
The ops officer grinned. “They will be in their element, sir. We’re sending the whole of 1st company to scout ahead in independent platoons. One to the harbor and mercantile district south-southeast, a second to the central, wealthy district just west, a third three kilometers further than that towards the concentrations of barracks near the western walls, and the final to the lower-class housing south.”
“Combined, what they discover may be enough to tell us what happened to the city…and if there are survivors. If both of those objectives are a bust, at least they’ll thin out the population.”