Into the Great Unknown, Part IV
“Russian, eh?”
“Or Ukrainian. Something,” Ronnie answered. He adjusted the focus of his binoculars. “That’s cyrillic on their unit patches.”
“Get the radio up,” Meyers ordered.
Ronnie leaned over towards Beckett. Beckett promptly lifted the portable radio box, handling it gently to the sergeant. Meyers nodded in thanks.
“Mobius One, this is Vulture. Over.”
The radio sputtered and Beckett lightly slapped the top of the machine. The static cleared up. “-obius One, over.”
“Reading you, Mobius One. Interrogative. Are the enemy tanks heading towards our position from the south? Over.”
“Affirmative, over.”
“Roger. Have the infantry maintained their course? Over.”
“Affirmative, over.”
Meyers sighed. He reached into his pocket and produced a notepad. He flipped a few pages over. “I will need support soon. We will ambush their infantry and make a break for it. I will need Mobius to prioritize heavy armor. Over.”
“Roger that, Vulture. Out.”
With that, Meyers turned back to the radio box. He switched to the unit frequency. “Vulture Actual, this is Vulture One, over.”
* * * * *
Clarkson, upon hearing the voice coming from the radio speaker, picked up the transmitter. “This is Vulture Actual, over.”
“Requesting relief. Russian forces heading to our position. No chance of evasion. Over.”
“Affirmative, One,” he answered. He took a look at his marked up map. The town they were in wasn’t too far off. If he sent a small, simple force, they could be in-and-out while the fixed-wings ran disruption. Too large a force, and too much coordination and footprint. “Interrogative. What is the enemy disposition? Over.”
“Motorized infantry. Four APCs and one tank spotted. One squad for each APC. Over.”
“I am sending Vulture Two, Vulture Three, and a Weapons element. You will proceed north one klick and meet with your reinforcements. They will bring you back. Over.”
“Wilco. Out.”
* * * * *
High above the town, Mobius One reoriented his jet and skirted the town by a large margin. Mobius Two and Three did similar, the three of them tracking a large circle around Vulture One’s position, well out of sight of the enemy forces. On One-One’s call, they were to swoop in and strike the enemy armor, while Vulture took out what infantry they could. Mobius was to then strike targets of opportunity while Vulture navigated their way through the town to friendly forces coming in from the north.
That was the plan, anyway.
One of the APCs had an air defense system installed. Mobius Two and three destroyed their targets, but One was forced off course at the last second by a laser lock warning. Its Air-to-Ground missile, intended for the lumbering T-80 below, had crashed into a building as the line of sight between the jet and the tank changed.
Mobius Three took a fast, wide turn back over the city and destroyed the offending APC. By the time Mobius One had reentered the battlespace and fired his Vulcan rotary cannon, there was already a large plume of dust and a partially destroyed building near Vulture One’s position.
* * * * *
Ronnie fired his rifle from the back of a second floor room, striking a Russian soldier square in the chest. The man fell to the ground as Ronnie’s fireteam continued to fire. Another soldier was hit in the head and a plume of misty blood shot out through the back of his skill. The rest of the Russians found their way to cover and returned fire. One particularly brave soldier dashed out of cover and grabbed a wounded squadmate among the gunfire and dragged him to safety, while the first soldier hit stood up in wonder, feeling around his chest and finding no blood. He was soon yanked into cover by another.
One of the Russians brought a machine gun to bear. Cursing under his breath, Ronnie jumped to the ground as dozens of holes began to appear around the windows.
“Down! Down!” he commanded, and his three Marines followed. “Back to the alley!”
Gun fire flying inches above his head, he crawled to the doorway and out of the room. He began descending the stairs, quickly re-clearing the bottom floor while his teammates followed him down. Rounds began flying into the room around his head and he ducked outside the backdoor, letting his teammates through.
“Mason! Range!” he yelled over the din of the firefight. He opened up his M203 and loaded a M713 Ground Marker into it before snapping it shut. It was technically a signal smoke, but the smoke would obscure the tight alleyway effectively enough. Furthermore, it was a good indicator for the above fighters where enemy infantry was.
Mason snapped his head around the doorframe for a second before popping back into safety. “Eighty yards!”
Ronnie dialed his sight for seventy five meters. A yard was slightly less than a meter, so he eyeballed an accurate conversion and fired towards the nearest Russian rifleman’s cover. It was a bit long and went just past the target. However, it was a good enough shot and successfully clouded the view of most of the enemy infantry.
Boot slapped him on the shoulder, signalling for him to get moving. He turned and began running down the alleyway, behind the other four Marines. Meyers was up front, Mason right behind covering the right flank, and Beckett third and covering the left. Suddenly Meyers dug his boots into the ground, startling the two behind him, and began to run to the side behind a building, grabbing Mason along the way.
A quarter second later, he saw why: the large treads of a large tank rolling in front of the team. Beckett followed suit, but Ronnie and Boot were not near an open passageway. Acting on instinct, they ran towards the tank, ears covered and mouth open. If the machine gun fired they were screwed no matter what they did, but if the cannon was used they were better off far away from the point of impact, likely the building behind them.
The last thing Ronnie and Boot saw was a blinding white flash. They heard nothing.
“You talk to any of them yet?”
Second Lieutenant James Werner shook his head. “No, Captain.”
“I want to see them before we hand them off to the S2 shop,” the captain said. He leaned back in his folding chair and looked around the bivouac. His company of Marines had set up a few large tents to hide from the sun in, while those on sentry were either wandering the perimeter or posted in a Humvee turret. One particular tent, with two riflemen in front of each entrance, housed the eleven ‘guests’ they had picked up in a nearby town. “Any ideas on them? Personality? Disposition?”
“Guys in armor, five of ‘em, won’t talk it looks like. Few riflemen tried chit-chatting but just got stares. The other five are a bit more,” he explained. He handed a worn notepad to the captain. “Yellow hides behind the others and won’t say shit. Cowgirl’s annoyed with us. Rainbow looks like she’s trying-”
“She?”
“They speak English, sir.”
“I see,” the captain said. “Continue.”
“She looks like she’s barely holding in the urge to hit someone. White keeps staring at our cammies. And pink…”
“Yes?”
“She goes on and on about the most inconsequential bullshit that would give Ronnie from Vulture One-One a headache. Reminds me of my mother.”
The captain began flipping through the notebook, which contained notes casually gathered by the guards. They were called “ponies” (specifically noted in the margin not to call them “horses”), for one. Second, they had some type of monarchy, as the pink one mentioned a princess before being shut up by one of the armored fellows. A few lines down was a few observations of the white one’s “magic”, which was essentially just restrained to basic telekinesis. He would have to make sure any Marines around her were careful.
“Names?”
“Pink’s literally named ‘Pink’ something, for one. Guards shut her up real quick every time she started getting to something revealing. Of course, something gets out before they catch on.”
The captain nodded. “They asking about their number six and twelve?”
Werner nodded. “We’re just telling them that they're on their way. No details.”
“Good.” The captain closed the notebook and gave it back to the lieutenant. There was no large amount of important information on it. You could only gather so much just listening to idle conversation when the talkers know you’re listening. “Status on Vulture One, by the way?”
“Contact with the Russians, sir. Mobius is providing CAS, and Vulture Two and Three are moving in for extract. We should get them back in one piece soon.”
He nodded. “Alright, let’s get the the damn ‘ponies’ now.”
Beckett coughed. “Jesus fuck!” he yelled. Or, at least, he intended to yell. He wasn’t sure what he said. He crawled across the ground to a wall to start helping himself up. He didn’t hear anything but a faint ringing. Anywhere else and he would have been fine. But the alleyway really fucked his hearing, rebounding the sound from the cannon all around him. A second later he heard another dull thud, and a series of quick taps coming from where the tank was. Suddenly Meyers appeared, picking him up to his feet.
As he stepped out into the alleyway he saw the burning husk of the Russian tank and a squad of burnt husks gathered around it. The sound of the additional cannon ammunition was probably what did his hearing in more than the actual weapon use. Machine gun rounds were still cooking, compelling him to crouch back to the ground underneath the level of the top of the hull. The turret was blown clean off as though cut by a knife and lay a few yards away upside down. In the sky above, one of the jets flew by, firing another air-to-ground missile at something.
A hand on his shoulder brought his attention away from the fire. “You alright?” he half-heard. His hearing must be getting better, he thought. He could have sworn he had ear- He did. His cheap, but effective electronic ear mufflers were firmly attached to his head. They were designed to block all sound and only transmit at the safe threshold of human hearing, but that apparently didn’t work with thirty plus tank rounds going off ten yards from you in a tightly packed, hard-walled alleyway.
“You alright, Beckett?”
Better. He quickly nodded, and turned back to the back of the alleyway. The building they were just in was utterly demolished. A high explosive round from the tank had thoroughly assured that. He then saw Mason rushing towards the rubble. He began digging through it, then suddenly reached in and pulled out the limp form of one of the Marines.
“Fuck!”
He started scrambling towards them, making sure to keep his head low for fear of the cooking rounds behind him. Mason then drug him out of the rubble pile, and grabbed the other unconscious form with this other hand, and started bringing them back with no visible exertion.
“Jesus, Mason, go deadlift a car.”
He then heard voices behind him. They were muffled and barely audible, but intelligible. He turned to find Charlie Team. “We heard the boom,” Lewis said. “Hey, they alright?”
Meyers shrugged. “They got fucked hard. We need to get them to the extract. Find something to carry them with.”
“Roger,” Lewis said before running back into the street.
“My name is Captain Ronald Forge,” he said to the pony across from his desk. The armored pony looked identical to the other four. Perhaps the armor itself had some kind of “magic” working in it, making them look similar. That, or there was just some freak coincidence. “Now, let me help you. I can’t do anything without knowing what’s going on. Obviously you came here for a specific reason, however you did that. It seems odd to have a guard detachment for a group of civilians in a different situation. Why are you here?”
“I will only speak to a representative of your government,” the pony simply said.
Forge sighed through his nose in annoyance at the damn thing’s stubbornness. Although, he wouldn’t expect his Marines to open up about everything when questioned, either. “I am the highest ranking officer in this area. I am the commander of Kilo Company of Third Battalion, Third Marine Regiment. The next highest ranked person allowed to know of your existence is in another continent, eight and a half thousand miles away. Almost a third of the world away. I am the closest thing you have to what you want.”
The pony looked around, as if searching for his words. Then he looked back at Forge. “I am not at liberty to say very much. My commanding officer is not present, so you will not get a lot of information.”
Forge leaned forward, interested. “So what can you say?”
“Only that it is a mission of cooperation and friendly relations. It is very important that we establish peaceful and mutually beneficial partnership between our nations.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“So, about our two missing…”
“They’re close,” Forge informed. “The team handling them is on their way back now.”
“Gently, now,” Meyers said. “Don’t hit his head.”
“Oh Celestia, what happened!?” a voice from the interior of the Humvee yelled.
“Make room, Twilight,” commanded Meyers.
Beckett ran to the driver seat of the Humvee and started the engine. “It’s related to the huge boom you heard earlier. Just shut up and let them get loaded.” He turned back to the Marines. “Mason, get the turret!”
Becket swiveled his neck to watch the other Humvees get loaded. As Ronnie was being loaded into his vehicle, Boot was loaded into the third Humvee which was not occupied by a pony passenger. Meyers hopped into the passenger seat once Ronnie was secure and smacked on the dashboard, signalling for Beckett to go. He pulled out of the back-end parking lot the trucks were hidden in and onto the main road. So far, no Russians.
He gradually picked up speed, making sure to give obstacles a wide berth and not to make any sudden jerks in an effort to safeguard the unconscious passenger.
“Two klicks to extract,” Meyers informed, before grabbing the radio and contacting the lieutenant.
Beckett sighed. He almost wished Ronnie was awake, shittily singing some old rock song or whatever.
Almost.
* * * * *
“I see them, sir.”
“Alright. Fan out and cover them. Hey, isn’t that Stafher guy usually in the turret?”
“I think so. New guy, Boot, right?”
“Yeah. Shit.”
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A couple suggestions. For one, use more varied callsigns. Mobius and Vulture I've heard a hundred times (and in a certain video game). For the second, I would suggest including a couple more technical details, like what type of missile the air unit fired. Using more descriptive language in the story builds it up.
I would also like to make a suggestion that chapters come a bit more often, but it's still best to write at your own pace.
All in all, good chapter.
3721216
When you say "a hundred times" do you mean in the story, or at all?
Because in the story, Vulture is the platoon callsign and I haven't really branched too much into any other units. For example, First Platoon is "Hawk" and Third is "Osprey". If you don't mean in the story, then I'm curious where you've heard it elsewhere.
As for Mobius it's a complete coincidence I totally did not just find my old copy of Ace Combat 04 and beat it again why would you even ask I mean that's a silly suggestion.
Honestly, I don't want to get caught up in the technical details and either make readers just read just to get through it, or make them cut out mid-story to look things up on Wikipedia or whatever to
3721234
For the technical details parts, I simply describe what it is, IE Kh-59 missile, and have a link to Wikipedia set on the words. I also use descriptive terms, IE, "The twenty kilograms of (compound) in the warhead detonated, blasting out much of the 2nd floor."
The "Vulture" one? I've heard that in half a dozen video games, ranging from a group of helicopters to, well, another group of helicopters. And in one it was a group of aircraft. Not to mention how many books (not fanfics, books) I've seen it used in. It's a bit cliché, like "Bravo squadron" is for those less informed on military callsigns.
Use the call signs from Generation Kill, lol. Cause that's what this story kind of feels like to me, Generation kill with ponies.
3721342
So... where did you hear it? I've never come across any type of small unit with "vulture" as the name or callsign, and it's not like I stay away from video games or books. A google search of "vulture squadron" brings up Dastardly and Muttley, and "vulture squad" brings up a page in the professional wrestling wiki.
And again, I don't want to bring people out of what immersion they have just so they can know what the hell I'm talking about. And if I go too far into the gun porn, that's liable to turn a lot of people off. Not to mention how fitting names and technical details, that aren't strictly needed in the first place, can slow a story down and make it awkward to read if I do it a lot.
3721961
I... may or may not have had inspiration.
3721234
Callsign Ideas:
Viper
Serpent
Vigil
Evo
Fleece
Noose
Flame
Dusk
Pretty much any kind of name (as long as it sounds cool) can be a callsign.
3725052
...I have the callsigns figured out. Thanks for the ideas, though.
3722259 I for one, found it better you were inspecific to what type of aircraft it was- helped with story flow. Yet, at the same time, there was enough detail to figure out exactly what was going on.
Okay, good action. Personally, I don't need uber-specific details, just enough for the flow. Also, am I really rotten for hoping Pinkie gets yelled at and I mean REALLY yelled at?
This is one of the better militaristic fics I've read. I can't wait for more!
REALISM!
3747817 whered u get that profile pic bro?
Every time I see this story, I can't help but gawk at how low-tech the cover art is.
3999279
Well I didn't want to use someone else's photography for my cover art, especially when it's a picture of a real person instead of just a drawing.
And I'm not exactly an artist.
3999279 The question is why you're looking at the cover art instead of reading the fic.
Faving even though I doubt it will be updated soon.
4574675
It'll be updated before my other stories...
New chapter of this before the new year?
5421092
Probably not. Although I leave for basic training (19K) early February for the Army. I want to get in one last chapter that will at least be a nice ending point that I can bridge into part II later
pls moar
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/acecombat/images/c/c8/Hasegawa_Mobius1_F22.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131007020631
You thought I wouldn't notice that Ace Combat reference. You were obviously mistaken.
Either dead or alive.
RIP.
I'm grounded for the next week because I woke up everyone in the house by laughing so hard at your profile pic, worth it XD
Will this update?
R.I.P.
https://coub-attachments.akamaized.net/coub_storage/coub/simple/cw_timeline_pic/93d6ada9054/2410e7eb2a9c015d9a3f8/med_1632758925_image.jpg