//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 // Story: The Emergency // by Wheller //------------------------------// Chapter 15 This was it. The moment that Summer had been dreading. Patrols were starting up again. Technically speaking, they had never ended, and small groups would go out and walk around the firebase's perimeter to keep an eye out for trouble, but they were never more than a shout away. B Coy simply hadn’t had enough numbers to send anyone out any further. Now Wolsey had gotten the company into some form of organisation. They numbered at about fifty, enough for two rump platoons. These were rump because of the fact that they lacked real corporals for the infantry sections, and only the first platoon's platoon sergeant was actually a sergeant. The situation was desperate enough that newly appointed lance corporals were placed in charge of their sections. Including Summer. Technically speaking, Corporal Wheatley was still a corporal and in charge of an infantry section. Unlike the lance corporals, which were created by appointment from the commanding officers, corporal was a full rank, and Wheatley could only be knocked down by court martial. Wolsey didn't trust Wheatley, which is why she had stuck Summer with him, and by her reckoning, it was Summer that was in charge. Summer realised that it was petty, and had already worked out an arrangement with the corporal. They would lead their infantry section together. Each section was organised into a group of eight, and then subdivided again into two fire teams of four. Each fire team was outfitted according to the standard model. With the Team Leader, which would be either Summer or Cereal, armed with an E85 assault rifle, in her case, or the W1A1 in the case of Wheatley. Two other soldiers were issued E85s alongside them, while the last member of each team was issued the mighty E86 Light Support Weapon for use in providing long range fire support at a high rate of fire. Each section in a rifle platoon was lightly armed on its’ own. At the platoon level, however, units were far better equipped, sporting a three pony E7 General Purpose Machine Gun team, and a two pony anti-tank team armed with a 88mm Gustav recoilless rifle. Summer was just glad she wasn’t one of those lugs. She already carried around her own weight in gear. The GPMG and rocket teams carried twice theirs. Summer had yet to learn the names of her section mates. Apart from Joker, they were all hoofers who’d already been here when the Thunderchild had arrived in theatre. Wolsey had assembled a rump platoon and had taken them out into the jungle on their first patrol. Summer had to admit, she was a little nervous, but after the first hour went by with no contact, she started to ease up a little. She found it disconcerting at just how quiet the jungle was. The wild life had to have run off from all the fighting or something. Summer glanced back around, behind her were the lieutenant and Colour Gunmetal, sticking close to the front, and stumbling along behind them was the GPMG team, doing their best to lug around that gun and it’s tripod mount. General Purpose Machine Guns, and really all belt fed weapons weren’t used on storm harnesses like the rest of the army’s weapons for several reasons. High rate of fire and large calibre meant that they produced a lot of recoil when shooting, and they could be used far more efficiently on a bipod or tripod mount, as a result, each crew member of the GPMG team carried an E4 survival weapon strapped to their foreleg instead of a regularly issued E85. The survival weapon was originally created for pilots during the Great Patriotic War. A traditional pistol mounted on a storm harness would be too big and bulky to carry around on a pilot’s person in a cockpit, so the weapon was designed specifically to be used without one. Firing a standard 12.7x33mm round, it gave the user a powerful short range weapon for defence, made particularly famous by Group Captain Soarin' during his aerial duel with Podpolkovnik Spitfire of the Praesidium Air Forces. The Anti-tank crew was a little better off. The Gustav 88mm rocket launcher fit on a storm harness, so they were issued pistols, giving them slightly better range over their machine gun toting brethren with their survival weapons. Summer turned and glanced over her shoulder to discover that Joker was looking around in every direction. The pegasi private was looking for something. 'What is it Joker?' Summer asked, raising an eyebrow at his odd behaviour. 'Do you not hear that?' Joker asked. Summer did not get a chance to respond. Joker's head exploded. There was a loud crack, it was a few seconds before Summer realised that they were under fire. 'TAKE COVER!' Summer cried out as she dived to the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible. The sounds of automatic fire filled the air; those who weren't able to get down in time were cut down by the hail of bullets. Summer glanced around, and to her horror, her smart targeting goggles weren't picking out targets. The only targeting boxes that had been formed were green ones. 'What do we do?!' one of the privates cried out. 'I don't see them!' another one said. 'There are no targets!' Lieutenant Wolsey cried out. 'Enough! Hoofers! Shift your fire to the east!' said the booming voice of Colour Sergeant Gunmetal. The colour sergeant bit down on Summer's mane and pulled her to her hooves. 'That means you lance corporal!' Summer had hunkered down behind a tree, doing her best to keep herself in cover. She watched as the GPMG crew struggled to get the gun set up behind a fallen log before turning her eyes to the east. She trained her rifle down range and began scanning for targets. She saw none. 'Colour! My smart targeting goggles aren't calling out targets!' she cried out. 'Neither are mine! Shoot anyway!' Colour Gunmetal said as the earth pony soldier bit down hard on the control yoke for his storm harness, letting out a long burst of fire. 'But colour... in training you said...' Summer began before being interrupted. 'I don't care what I said in training! Do what I'm telling you now!' the colour sergeant said as he continued to yell out orders to the other members of the platoon. Summer nodded her head in understanding and pulled the trigger with her telekinesis. The 'spray and pray' tactic in shooting was frowned upon in the Equestrian Republican Army, because the likelihood of hitting anything was incredibly low. Summer let out a long burst with her rifle before pulling back around the tree. She glanced over to the GPMG team. They'd finally gotten the gun set up on its' tripod and were opening fire in short bursts on the east. Summer wasn't a religious mare, but she was hoping to the Nephite God that they'd hit something. She watched the gunner bit down on the gun's chomp trigger, firing off bursts of roughly five into the east. The machine gun seemed to be doing its' job, because bullets stopped whizzing by her. 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' Colour Gunmetal cried out. All noise ceased, the machine gun crew eased up and looked over at the colour sergeant. 'Did we get them?!' one of the gunners asked in confusion. Three shots rang out simultaneously, dropping each member of the GPMG crew. Summer leaned back out and let out another burst from her rifle. That was when she saw it, for a glimpse she was able to see one of the hostile contacts as they shifted firing positions. ‘They’re not harimau!’ Summer cried out. The hostile contacts charged forward from their cover, opening up on them with their assault rifles as they charged. ‘Præsidium Spetsnaz! Open fire!’ Colour Sergeant Gunmetal cried out. He exposed himself from cover and bit down on his chomp trigger and took a hit to the chest, knocking him down to the ground. Colour Sergeant Gunmetal, the toughest, bravest soldier of them all was done. A look of horror appeared on Summer’s face. It was at that moment that she knew it. They were going to die. Wolsey turned her head and discovered that the colour sergeant had been hit. ‘Retreat!’ she cried out. ‘All units fall back! Repeat! Fall back!’ Their lines fell into a panic, and many of the hoofers abandoned their gear and ran, only to be cut down by the Spetsnaz troopers as they ran. Summer moved to pull Gunmetal to safety before Wolsey stopped her. ‘Lightfall! Move it! There’s nothing you can do for him! He’s dead!’ Wolsey said as she pulled her away. Summer turned back, and swore that she could see the colour sergeant moving slightly, but as a bullet whizzed by her head, Summer went into self preservation mode. She ran as fast as she could alongside Wolsey for what felt like hours before tripping over a branch and falling face first into a pit, knocking her cold. ... It took a moment for her to remember what had happened. Summer couldn’t see anything but a blank white over her eyes. That was when she remembered that the flash grenade had gone off. She was blinded, and had fallen on her back; it had felt like her entire life had just flashed before her eyes. She let out a cough and looked down to discover that there was a bullet wound in her stomach. She was bleeding pretty badly. She looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. The KV-74 she’d been using was lying on the ground next to her. The magazine was ejected, and there were thirty or so spent casings littering the slit trench. The kangaroo, Walter Berger was gone, nowhere to be found. She glanced around looking for any signs of him. There were no foot prints in the mud that matched kangaroo feet. She hadn’t imagined the kangaroo... did she? To her despair, Cereal Wheatley lay next to her, slumped over his W1A1 self loading rifle, bleeding profusely, he was unconscious. Still breathing... but unconscious. She turned her head to the right, and discovered Lieutenant Wolsey lying next to her as well. Her eyes wide open, cold and dead. She let out a small smile, at least in this way the lieutenant got exactly what she had deserved. The retreat action she ordered... it got everyone killed. She’d ordered everyone to abandon their cover and flee for their lives, making them easy targets for the Spetsnaz troopers hunting them. Wolsey was dead. Those pointless deaths avenged and... Summer stopped. Wolsey’s chest had just moved. That bitch! She wasn’t dead! She was just pretending to be dead. ‘Wolsey!’ Summer hissed. No response. ‘Wolsey!’ Summer hissed again as she struggled to get up. ‘I know you can hear me... this... this is your fault! You got us all killed!’ No response. ‘You killed everyone... you didn’t even return fire on the enemy!’ Summer said with a cough as she used her telekinesis to pull up the KV-74 she had been using. Sliding in a new magazine and pulling the cocking handle. ‘You... deserve to die, and I’m going to make it happen’, Summer said, as she pointed the weapon at her commanding officer. New voices, these ones were unfamiliar to her, it was the Spetsnaz soldiers, had to have been. ‘Yuri! Look!’ one of the voices said as two ponies clad in jungle camouflage climbed into the slit trench alongside them. Summer looked up as a grey coated Cossack pony with shimmering green eyes, his mane slicked back climbed on top of her, looking her over. She dropped the KV-74, and he pushed it away from her. ‘I see them Oleg... and I see this one here... this one will do!’ the Cossack pony called Yuri said simply as he picked Summer up and put her on his back. She looked up and watched as the other Cossack pony, a bastard with amber eyes and a spiky mane dug through Cereal’s barding, looking for anything good. ‘Nothing’, the pony called Oleg said with a shrug. ‘Still breathing too...’ ‘Correct that. We have what come for, no survivors’, the pony called Yuri said as he turned to look at Wolsey as she lie on the ground, continuing to play dead. ‘Would have preferred two unicorns... ah but I guess it can’t be helped! Oleg! Hurry up! We leaving!’ ‘Dah! Dah!’ the pony called Oleg said with a nod as he drew his pistol and pressed it to Cereal’s head. He bit down on the control yoke of his storm harness, and Summer could only watch helplessly as Cereal Wheatley’s head exploded. ‘You... bastards!’ Summer said weakly as she felt her eyes grow heavy. Her blood loss was getting worse now that she’d been moved. ‘Ah! She speaks! Don’t you worry pretty head! We have plans for you!’ the pony called Yuri said with a grin as he climbed out of the slit trench. Summer was too tired to put up a struggle. She gave Wolsey one last look as she left the lieutenant behind. She vowed to herself that the death of all those in her platoon would be avenged... some day. Summer closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.