alertcommando | Just Another Day of War

Entry tags:

Just Another Day of War

The door takes them to the main area of a ruined church: pews and benches are missing, the altar is empty and dusty, ruined by time and weather. Outside a broken window nearby the sun is setting, a gorgeous orange ball at which they can look directly. That night, the wind would blow in to add another layer of dust to what had been burying the small dead city for the last three years.

The whitish dust lay over everything, covering the streets and the open spaces, starting the work of hiding the small houses that had been crushed and made into rubble by soviet artillery and their massive tanks.

It is quiet. Like a cemetery. "And here we are."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One hour before sunrise, they can take off. The road is not far, and the group has a half hour to set explosives, take up sniper positions, hide for the ambush...

And then, 'long' 15 minutes of wait until the convoy is seen approaching.

A perfect calm settles over Petra as she and her squad fade into the brush on one of the small escape holes marked on Tanya's map. She watches the road, the smallest smile on her face.

Without the scope, Ryan can barely make out any details at all along the road. With it, everything is crystal clear.

He can feel the cold ground underneath him starting to warm from his own metabolism as he waits for the convoy to appear. And even then, he has to wait till they reach a certain point before he starts shooting. He also has to make sure the sunlight doesn't shine off his lens and give his position away. Not his first time doing this, no.

Doesn't mean he can't start taking aim now.

Annabelle and her spotter are in position. The scope on the rifle gives her a far greater visual range than she's used to, so she waits with predatory eagerness until her targets reach the right position. When they do, she'll finally find out if she can take out their engines in a single shot.

The convoy approaches, at a regular speed of 45 miles per hour or close to it: The guards seem alert, holding to their weapons in a relaxed but not lax stance. Everything seems to be going well...

Until the moment the road flies to pieces ahead and behind, and the hummers, armored cars and trucks have to slam on brakes, barely avoiding collisions. That signals the second stage of the attack, the groups armed with RPG's firing the explosive warheads at the APC's tracks to disable them.

Caught by surprise by the violence of the attack, the soviet guards react slowly, too late to prevent stage three: the four assault groups strike with concentrated, close-range gunfire... under the cover of the snipers.

Prime targets are hummer engines and hummer gunners who will try to turn the light machinegun of the vehicle against the assault groups. The assault groups under the command of Tanya, Petra and the two other german commandos have to tangle with the guards on the trucks and the soldiers leaving the APC's.

Annabelle smiles as the explosions go off and stage three begins. The first bullet will be headed towards the center of a Hummer's engine. With a Daredevil's luck, that may be enough to kill it. The next shot, as fast as Annabelle can manage it, will either go towards killing the engine or the unfortunate soul who is manning the gun on top of the Hummer.

It's going to be a very bad day for anyone wearing a Soviet uniform.

Petra waits for the most opportune moment, then signals her troops. They stay quiet until they reach the convoy then pause at the edge of the fight. Calmly and coolly they fire upon the soldiers as they leave the APCs, only a few managing to get out from the targeted vehicle un-dead.

Petra signals her troops to spread out more, and advance to take advantage of cover a few abandoned tanks nearby offer.

Ryan aims for a Hummer engine of his own to destroy. He doesn't rush, merely takes the wind into account and fires twice to be certain the car is dead.

Then he's moving on to the people scurrying about, taking out whoever looks most dangerous first.

He's finding his time at the RED base is proving useful.

It is a bad, bad day to be a Red Soldier.

The environment is target-rich; the only coordinated opposition comes from the armored vehicles and the surviving soldiers from the hummers, and even those can not resist long while under crossfire.

The technicians and drivers, non-commissioned personnel, display an astounding level of strategic awareness and tactical guile, jumping face down to the ground and putting hands behind their heads: survival instincts at its best.

It is over in less than a minute, all the soldiers who tried to fight are dead, perhaps a dozen surrendered and were not shot.

A quick and clean job, Charlie did not come dance the foxtrot, Murphy was not invited to the party and the plan survived enemy contact unscathed.

Pet's group spreads out tying up those who surrendered, making sure the dead are dead, and doing general post-battle mop up. She herself helps, but makes sure to drift by all of her soldiers with a quiet word. Other then that, she says very little.

No reason to make the enemy think she is anything different from what she claims, yes? And that Armenian accent still does not come naturally.

Annabelle grins and says a word or two of thanks to her spotter when the shooting is over. It will take a bit of time to move from her sniping position to where the ground troops are at work.

"Let's go and have a look, shall we?" Ryan says to his own spotter, quickly leading the way towards the convoy. He wouldn't be surprised if one of the troops got off a distress signal. It'd be wise to finish this quickly.

Tanya and the other commandos are already in action. With Petra and her squad doing clean-up, the others are opening the trucks, checking the materiel and supplies, sorting what they will take and what they will blow up. "Feel free to pick anything you want, whatever you do not take we will blow up to nothing."

Petra's knife is wet with blood as she finishes a sweep of the camp. Off of a body she tears a piece of cloth and begins to clean it as she and her squad regroup. They report on their individual sweeps and Pet nods motioning them to help set up the explosives. For herself, she watches first, then goes to set some up herself.

When Annabelle reaches the piles of supplies, she is most interested in rifles, ammunition, and hand grenades. However, that doesn't mean that she won't pick up anything else that's unwanted and looks interesting.

There are plentyof anything one could find at a military surplus store, and then some: guns and ammo, radios, uniforms and gear, armored vests, filter masks... the trucks carry way more of everything than the resistance can haul away.

The combatants gather large packs that will sustain the covert war effort for weeks in the area, but barely scratch the bulk of supplies: plenty of everyhting for everybody.

The real trick, then, is carrying back everything he'd like to keep. Ryan scrounges around for a duffel bag to stuff a couple of rifles, plenty of ammo, an armoured vest or two, quite a few filter masks (silly sensitive nose), and finally more ammo because that's what he has the hardest time keeping himself supplied with.

Once Ryan feels he has all he wants, he slings the bag over his shoulder. He's tempted to grab a box of explosives as well, but he's not sure he's comfortable with being that laden down.

Petra keeps her choices simple. A nice set of pistols to replace that which she lost, quite a bit of ammo, slips a knife into her boot, and then recovers some medical supplies. After a moment of thought she rescues some powerful explosives. She might have a buyer for it. Like Ryan, she finds a bag to put her treasures in.

Her squad finishes rigging the explosives then gathers back with Petra on the edge of the camp.

Annabelle is also looking for a duffel bag. Three sniper rifles, a combat knife, a filter mask, and as much ammunition as she can carry are what Annabelle decides on. Several people are going to be getting very belated Christmas presents.

Tanya and the others are doing about the same: picking up tactical harnesses and big backpacks and bags, and filling them as high as possible. When that part is done, the group can rig the last detonators, send the red army survivors away along the road, take distance...

And watch the fireworks. Detonating the trucks and other vehicles has the side effect of making a long stretch of road unusable, which will slow down soviet supply lines even more..

"And that's it... one more day of war, and a good day with a job well done." Tanya takes point while the people in charge of diversions sets up traps behind the group: any pursuing Reds will have a few unpleasant surprises.

An hour march ahead, Tanya breaks from the main group, telling the others she is taking Ryan, Petra and Annabelle to their extraction point. Which means it is time to seek the door back to Milliways.

This has gone well. Ryan's rather pleased with their success and the others might even be able to tell, what with the faint smile on his face. It took a while to get there, though, since he opted not to take the explosives and the detonation of the trucks set his ears ringing.

"Thank you for having us, Lieutenant," Ryan says as they walk. It's painfully obvious that none of them were needed, seeing as how she has an entire camp at her beck and call, but he appreciates the chance to get out of the bar.

Petra is almost whistling as she goes along, though she does keep her eyes on the ground around her.

"Yes, Thank you Tanya I haven't had as much fun as that in... a great while." Petra will evaluate how screwed up a sentiment that is later. When they are back in the bar.

Annabelle is grinning, despite the amount of gear she's carrying. "Thank you, Tanya. It was nice to be able to lend a hand."

Need them? She did not need, need per se.

Did they help? Heck yes. "No, thank you. This was our best ambush in months... no dead, no wounded, and we had more than we ever expected finding." Tanya smiles to them.

"Thank you."

Its is a good distance to the abandoned village, but they get there in good time. "You all take care, I have to go catch up with my extraction group. Will see you later at the Bar."