The battle for Guamlumpeiron begins...
Four days. That is the length of time the Panooly counterattack persisted for. Templeton managed to amass a force of roughly 120,000 soldiers in the northern region of his country and ordered these men to overrun Navitek's contractors on Jumanota. Their artillery positioned along the front rained cold steel and explosives onto the contractors' positions, forcing them into their impromptu bunkers, exposed foxholes, and the occasional trench. For three hours the barrage went without response, because the weather made Navitek's hired aerial assets relatively ineffective. But, when the clouds opened up, the Blue Jays struck the offenders with a vengeance. Navitek's quick disposal of Holy Panooly's air force facilitated the defense of Jumanota, although the occasional Blue Jay did fall prey to a Panooly surface-to-air missile. When the artillery fell silent, however, Panooly's other forces erupted, flowing north in bulk and with the intention to break through and annihilate the private defense agencies which separated Templeton from reconquering the land he had lost to an upstart Macabee construction firm.
Templeton, the brutal Panooly dictator, ordered his military to reinforce the northern front with roughly 150 Cougar main battle tanks, whatever the cost. While deploying heavy equipment was now very difficult for the Panooly military, because of the utter devastation of the country's transportation infrastructure, they nonetheless managed to meet their dear leader's request.
[The Doc Evilonavich Blue Jay. Click to enlarge.]
For four days, the Holy Panooly army carved a path towards the Jumanota isthmus, encircling small pockets of resisting contractor forces. Slower moving Panooly infantry were placed in charge of breaking these pockets down, although all too often they found that they simply couldn't do so very quickly — the contractors were simply better fighters: far more disciplined, far better trained, far better led, and far better armed. In this context, the Panooly counteroffensive had quite a bit of merit. Had Holy Panooly been ruled by a sane person, interested in building institutions of governance that foster growth and material well-being, perhaps Navitek's attempt to wrestle control of an entire territory from a sovereign government would have been less successful. But, Panooly's inability to retake the skies was its death knell.
When the Panooly counterattack crumbled, it crumbled hard. Its defeated soldiers melted away Navitek's contractors reorganized and launched a counterstrike of their own. Armored and mechanized columns of mercenaries surged forth, re-taking lost ground within hours. Various pockets of defending contractors re-linked with their larger units. These were brought to the rear and rested, because the following day they would be back on the front again. Their failure to retake Jumanota had disheartened Templeton's men, and now the Panooly military offered almost no resistance. Remnants of the attacking forces redeployed around 80 kilometers west of Guamlumpeiron, which just happened to be Navitek's next target.
Navitek's move for Guamlumpeiron was limited by some factors worth considering, despite the near lack of resistance for much of the distance covered. First, there were still only around 700 Ordenite soldiers on the isthmus, thus Navitek was forced to maintain a sizable occupational force on Jumanota. These were needed to secure the peace against the locals. Not only did they often the resist the occupation (and the forced eviction that often came with it — to make room for the canal being constructed), there was also growing ethnic violence between the whites, which once curried political favor with the regime, and the darks, who suffered from centuries of oppression. The contractors could sometimes have more trouble with these than with the Panooly military! Second, the poor roads was as much of an obstacle for the private defense agencies than it had been for the attacking Panooly forces days earlier. The poor infrastructure limited the rate of flow. Third, the longer the distance covered, the more resistance stiffened. The Panooly forces were gradually gaining confidence, as retreating forces were consolidated, and they were digging in.
That is the situaton Anton Didorov found himself, as the Guigna he commanded rolled over the fickle mud of the Panooly road. Thick jungle foliage decorated the unreasonably narrow pathway, and behind these trees, flowers, and shrubs advanced vigilant scouts. These warned the mechanized forces quickly traveling down the road of any forces stumbled upon; it was a practical method of uncovering ambushes. Didorov's Guigna was a magnificent piece of equipment. The armored car was armed with a 25mm L/70 cannon, able of penetrating most of Panooly's light armor and more than capable of tearing into the lightly protected bodies of the Panooly infantry foolish enough to challenge the advancing contractors. The Mekugian company responsible for the design had come up with quite the killing machine.
Didorov's driver, André Obregón — of Zarbian descent —, was looking at a map of the region, his finger following the very road they were on. Looking back at the co-pilot, Obregón's face opened in shock. "What the fuck! The map says this is a goddamn highway!" Crumpling the map into a ball and throwing at the floor, by his feet, he pointed at a display screen in front of him which was showing an electronic map of the same area. "The battle map says exactly the same shit."
Scowling, Didorov slammed his fist down on the display board in front of him. "Those fuggin' ELINTs are worthless, just worthless!," he exclaimed in anger. Blackjester aircraft were circulating above, updating a live digital map that was communicated to the advancing units below. This battlefield control bird was usually indispensable, but the thick jungle made seeing anything very difficult, even for the various detection devices the Blackjester made use of.
"They should have given us some Jaguars," said Obregón, referring to the 120 ton tanks that had been used to take Jumanota.
His commanding officer shook his head. "They're too fuggin' heavy. They probably would have gotten stuck on these roads. Where the hell is the asphalt, concrete, or just fuggin' pavement stones? I don't like this. I don't like this, at all." If the scouts failed to uncover ambushing soldiers, a well placed rocket propelled grenade could do a lot of damage to Didorov's lightly armored MV101.
"We need some armor here, man. We hit any resistance, and we're going to have problems. You're the commander here, but that's just my feeling." Obregon's face was burdened by worries.
"Man up, guy. Enjoy the war! I hope those fuggers try to ambush us. Let me worry about them. You just do the driving." His hands loosely held what looked like a video game controller. It was really the controls to the machinery, namely the 25mm L/70 cannon under Didorov's command.
Suddenly, radio chatter came to life. A tiny earpiece in his right ear transmitted informational updates from aerial and ground-based reconnaissance. "Echo-Six to all advancing ground units. Ambush eminent. 102 clicks west of Guamlumpeiron."
Didorov and Obregón were approaching the initial defensive lines of the recomposed Panooly forces. Although the remnants of their attacking forces had positioned themselves along a line running north to south about 80 kilometers west of Guamlumpeiron, there were quite of them still even west of that, organizing themselves in small teams designed to peck away at Navitek's hired personnel and equipment. They were actually not there to ambush the advancing forces, at first at least. Instead, once their intended targets engaged with Panooly's defensive line, these small teams would strike to the rear. Because they were scattered about, they could also often coordinate to eliminate groups of scouts the defense agencies had deployed along their flanks. It was an ingenious plan capable of wreaking havoc.
The platoon of MV101's continued moving eastwards. Within the hour they had already reached and passed the supposed location of a probable ambush. It, of course, never occurred, and that confused the hell out of Didorov and his driver. But, it was not soon afterward that these hit the leading Panooly defenses. The roads were littered with obstacles that the MV101 had to drive around, often requiring clearing the edge of the jungle. This could be a complicated process, especially when there were enemy infantrymen firing at you with small arms, rockets, and missiles. Occasionally, some stretches of road were peppered with anti-personnel mines that could kill the unaware mercenary. This was the mercenary life — they dealt with the armies that no one else wanted to deal with.
Didorov's MV101 soon stumbled upon a burning truck, placed horizontally across the road. "Obstacle. Keep a look out." Toggling the option to speak to all of the vehicles in his platoon, Didorov repeated the warning, "Okay, we're in Comanche territory. Keep your head on a swivel. Take your eye off the ball and you're dead. That's on you."
"Roger that, kapitán," someone responded over the radio.
Another soldier followed with, "PA" — Panooly Army — "inbound." This time it was a scout warning of a Panooly presence.
The five MV101s pushed around the obstacle, carefully weaving through something of an opening in the jungle. Gunfire erupted from their left flank, tickling the MV101's armored sides. Didorov's hands tightened, as the foliage around him limited the traverse of the turret. The kapitán began to fire indiscriminately, attempting to construct a makeshift pathway to quicken their bypassing of the burning obstacles. "Shit, shit, pick it up!"
"I'm trying, I'm trying," retorted Obregón, frantically.
They could hear a swoosh behind them, as a rocket flew across their rear. It hit an innocent tree truck beside one of the MV101s, causing it to crack and collapse on the ground below it. Another rocket streamed past, this time impacting the rear of one of the mercenary's armored vehicles. It managed to penetrate the armor and do quite a bit of damage to the rear of the hull, but the wheeled vehicle managed to make it onto the road once again nevertheless. It however was not able to move much farther, finally coming to a stop as the engine sputtered out. The same Guigna had been hit again by a rocket, and then once more. It had been thoroughly knocked-out, although its turret still swiveled about firing into treeline. The other MV101s had come to a stop to, circulating about their immobilized platoon member to protect it.
Up above, Blue Jays had finally joined the fray. They lit up the jungle with their advanced rockets and missiles, tearing into anything that moved down below. By this time, the ELINT aircraft flying above had transmitted the coordinates of thousands of Panooly targets to the contractor's artillery to the rear of the moving front. These gums, small and large alike, erupted into a storm, shells flying over the trees and then crashing back down through the leaves and branches unto the helpless Panooly men down below. The dirt churned and spouted in the shape of a fountain, down and up the Panooly defensive line.
Didorov was screaming over his radio, "Whiskey Six, get your asses to Whiskey Four. We need to move." He was ordering the crew of the knocked-out MV101 to abandon their vehicle and join the crew of another of them wheeled lightly armored vehicles. He wanted to keep moving east, hoping to breakthrough the defenses and into their rear. That was one reason why Navitek's hired private military contractors had agreed to use their light armor to simply bypass the defenses, followed up by more heavily armored mechanized units. These would tie down the defending Panooly units, allowing the light armor to turn back around to their rear and encircle them. It was a diabolical plan that would no doubt open the road to Guamlumpeiron.
Under intense fire, the crew of the mobility killed MV101 loaded into one of the other armored cars. All the while, the long 25mm cannons these vehicles carried tore into the vast expanse of the jungle. They cut down scores of men, their round even penetrating some of the makeshift fortified defenses employed by the defenders. Within minutes, the platoon — now one vehicle short — continued moving east. The battle carried out more-or-less as planned, although the MV101s suffered more casualties than expected. Heavily protected infantry slowly rolled up unto the defensive line behind the forwards scouts soon thereafter, and it was at this point that the defensive line collapsed. Morale and discipline clearly did not flow in the bloodline of these soldiers.
The battle raged on for some time. By the end of the day, the resistance had broken down and the approach to Guamlumpeiron was opened. By the next morning, the first mercenaries would enter the city. They were hoping to take the large urban expanse within two to three days, although they were well aware that taking the city would be no easy feat. But, these mercenaries were selected amongst international militaries; they were the best of the best. If there was a group of men capable of taking a city like Guamlumpeiron, it was Navitek's hired guns. Once Guamlumpeiron fell, they could strike for Panooly — where Templeton resided. Navitek's war against Holy Panooly was progressing in its favor.
