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Welcome to the frontline, comrade Bai. It is once again time for us to strike against imperialists. Our brave marines have already set up themselves in northern Wytrwatosc under permission of the respectable owner of this land. We are ready to strike the Hessies and show them what they have brought upon themselves. Before that, however, a few preparation work would have to be done. The responsibility now lies in you and your comrades’ hands. We have received intelligence report about the presence of several enemy communication towers around us. Destroy them and undo their vicious plans to call up helps against us.
共和国万岁！
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- CHAPTER 1 – ACT 3: “P O I S E D _ T O _ S T R I K E . 4 2 4 - II”
Sino-Teutonian Border
March 12th, 424
The team carefully traversed along the enemy side of the border. The target was not too distant from them. Minutes ago, their ride had dropped them off at a nearby location. In order to minimize risk of early exposure, they proceeded on foot. While they were going after their target, many other special operative teams like them were making their moves, conducting sabotage and reconnaissance activities behind enemy lines.
“Remember, don’t let your guards down.” Eustache reminded. “Those Hessies know better this place than we do.”
Captain Eustache was the leading officer of this squad, a strict but caring superior highly valuing the notion of comradeship. He was the oldest in the team, which bore the name Unit 387, and without doubt also the most experienced soldier. Pavlov highly respects his officer, just as others in the team would, admiring him as a noble patriot and a competent officer.
“Verstanden.” Pavlov answered, speaking Teutonian. Due the nature of their work, foreign languages were a must. On today, surely, these language trainings didn’t go to waste.
While they were not needed to disguise and blend in, being able to speak the language helped fooling unsuspecting Teutonians in occasions that would have otherwise resulted in a confrontation. Nonetheless, they were required to speak in either Euphemian or the local language during operation.
Eustache suddenly raised his fist a little, a gesture for the team to stop, then hid behind the cover of a nearby tree. The team followed suit, entering hiding spots.
“Wie geht es deinem Bruder?” A voice appeared not too far from the hiding spots of the team, accompanied by sound of footsteps. With little doubts, this was a Teutonian patrol.
“Er wird nächste Woche heiraten.”
“Herzliche Glückwünsche.”
“Dankeschön.”
Pavlov carefully turned his head towards Eustache, asking for an order. Deep down inside though, he was impatient.
Eustache carefully observed the patrol. It was a team of eight men heading to another direction, should they stay low, they could just avoid the patrol, but there was no guarantee that the patrol would stay out of the way when they attack the communication station. They would need to take out this patrol. Besides, the advantage of surprise and manpower stood on their side, there were 8 people on their side.
Behind the cover of local vegetations, Eustache quietly assigned orders to his team, quickly designating a kill zone for the ambush.
And so they quietly moved into their respective positions, then patiently waited for their prey to walk into their traps.
As the patrol walked into the perfect spot, Eustache made a gesture of slitting throat, signaling the team to begin. The battle started with the marksman of the team landing a shot onto the head of the leading officer, then the rest of the team started shooting with their suppressed weapon.
“Achtung!” The Teutonian soldiers immediately scattered for cover, though not all of them were fast enough.
Pavlov raised his TJQ-95[1], trying to score some shots but had little luck. The Teutonians trained themselves good. Though the gunfire was enough to keep his enemies suppressed from returning fire.
Damn it! He thought aloud to himself.
As Pavlov adjusted his fire, Kai managed to score a hit, his victim falling to ground after a 5.8mm round flew through his chest.
The ambush had soon turned into a massacre, with all but two men of the patrol left unscratched in the first few seconds of the fire exchange.
“Ich werde Hilfe rufen!” One of them said, running away from the scene while the other soldier desperately fought on. This was, of course, an excuse, they had hand-held radio with them.
“Don’t let him escape!” Eustache ordered.
Kai tried to stop the escapee but missed his shots. What was worse was that his attempt had without a doubt exposed his position to the other person, the Teutonian soldier immediately turned his rifle towards the new target.
“Shit!” Kai hid behind cover as the bullet flew through leaves and branches. By the accuracy of the shots, the guy down there certainly was not the calmest shooter right now.
Pavlov immediately filled in the spot, spraying bullets on the escapee. In the blink of an eye, the soldier was split into two by the impact of bullets.
“Got that son of a bitch!”
The remaining one was a tough and brave soldier, Pavlov would give him that. Despite the desperate situation he was placed in, the sole Teutonian soldier fought on resiliently behind his cover. The Teutonian let out a battle cry, then opened fire against Kai again, this time with much better accuracy. Kai immediately rolled away from the spot. Steadying himself, he could see the dusts raised by the bullets landing on where he stood just seconds ago. Had him been a little bit slower, the bullets would have landed on him.
Kai immediately returned fire, but with little luck. The sole Teutonian soldier stood strong and proud against his adversities. It seemed that he had no interest to run away from battle.
The second round of exchange between the two began, with the Teutonian soldier firing his shots first, but he didn’t hit anything. Kai returned his shots, but failed to hit the Teutonian once again.
“He’s one resilient son of a bitch,” Kai said. “I would give him that.”
Eustache and Pavlov tried to intervene in the firefight, but neither of him scored any hit.
Perhaps the Teutonian soldier had a change of mind, rising up from cover, he made his move retreating from the fighting scene. That gave the team a chance, Pavlov, Kai and Eustache opened fire at the same time, making sure he wouldn’t be able to make it out alive tonight. The decision of running away had proved a bad decision for the soldier, as bullets entered his body, the Teutonian deities had landed their verdicts on the unsoldierly choice of the man.
“This is quite a mess to clear up,” Eustache said. “Clean up quick. No one knows if the noises we made had attracted any undesirable attention.”
The team quickly hid the bodies in the woods, cleared up objects on the path that would expose them and proceeded on their mission. The stray bullet from earlier managed to hit someone in their team, thankfully, it was mere flesh wound.
The security checkpoint of the tower stood within sight. The only thing left to do was to take it out, then proceed to destroy the communication station ahead.
The team carefully approached the checkpoint in their disguises.
“Identifizieren Sie sich!” the guard at the security kiosk said.
Eustache handed the guard a piece of paper. Just as the guard was looking on the paper, the squad had suddenly drew out their weapons, firing at the security details of the checkpoint. The guard, startled, quickly rose his head up reaching for his rifle, only to have his head splattered by Eustache’s pistol.
Kai charged forward, pushing his bayonet deep into the chest of a guard, then violently pulled it out, letting out a fountain of blood splattering the place. The guard limped backward for a few steps and fell, lifelessly leaning against the wall of the kiosk.
“All’s clear!” A certain soldier of the Unit reported.
“Set up the jammer.” Eustache took out his binocular and looked toward the direction of the communication tower to ensure that any reaction from the tower facility itself would be noticed early on. There were stronger jammer platforms secretly deployed on the Sinican side of the border, but it was not the time for them to be revealed yet.
Like what any other competent military would do in such scenario, market-grade electronics were used in these jammers. They were not only chosen to avoid exposure through source-tracing, but also, in this case, to avoid high-end electronics from falling into the hands of Hesslerists. The cost efficiency of these components were also higher when they were already sufficient to fill in the role.
“Our job is done here,” Eustache said. “the tower now stands in vicinity, you know what to do.”
The little noises at the checkpoint went unnoticed by the communication facility. Yet the team were still presented with a challenge, the communication facility was rather well-guarded, with 18 soldiers present within the area of the facility along with a pair of technicals, one of them being the officer, Oberst Oliver Neuman. Their number was in disadvantage, Eustache would need to maneuver carefully and quickly, for the time where their element of surprise would still apply was slowly running out.
Eustache looked at their surroundings, luckily, the environment was good for an ambush. The station was surrounded by vegetations, a good enough concealment for them combined with the darkness of night, there were also enough spots for them to effectively move and encircle the site. Thus, he began assigning his combat teams into positions.
Pavlov and Kai, along with their team, moved to a nearby slope. The slope was not a very tall one, but it was good enough to overlook the facility.
“Do you think we can take them down?” Kai asked.
“We will.” Pavlov said. “It is our duty.”
Eustache gave the gesture to fire. In an instant, gunfire erupted from the woods, bullets landing on the unprepared soldiers guarding the station. Within the first few seconds, half of the garrison had fallen dead, that included their commanding officer, who was outside of the administrative building when the ambush occurred.
The crews of the technical hurried to their ride, trying to fight back.
“Don’t let them reach these technicals!” Pavlov ordered.
The two other soldiers of the combat team took their shots, one downing the gunner of the first technical, while the other missed his shots. Kai shot dead the other gunner, then moved on to his next target. The two drivers of their vehicle carried on their way to the technicals, but one was soon cut in half by the gunfire of Pavlov.
The other driver tried to fight back firing his pistol, but accidentally dropped it off his hand in panic. Kai seized the chance and fired at the driver, killing him.
“Bitte um Verstärkung!” One of the Teutonian soldiers told his comrades while returning fire against the Sinican attackers. One of them then rushed towards the administrative building. Kai tried to take him out, but the shots once again missed.
“What the fuck,” Pavlov complained. “what is with your accuracy today!”
“Just bad luck!” Kai replied, taking another attempt. This time, the bullet went through the head of the running soldier, sending him onto the ground.
As the firefight continued, two more out of the four guards left were put down by bullets. The outcome of the fight was apparent.
Kai took aim at one of the remaining two, who was trying to run away, and opened fire. This time the bullets landed on his target’s lower body, the soldier fell down letting out a cry in agony, but he was very well alive, less so after a few stray bullets landed on him.
“One left!” Pavlov said. Kai moved his aim towards his next target and opened fire, finishing the last man standing.
“Set the explosives and check the casualties, we are going home.” Eustache said. “The army will deal with the rest.”
As the squad left the communication station behind. Faint engine sound of helicopters and artillery fire could be heard from distant, soon to be covered by the explosion of the communication facilities. The Sinican offensive has begun. Within weeks, Sinican ground forces would be securing more grounds near the Sino-Teutonian border with support from the marines on their flank, expanding their zones of control in the north in hope of connecting with their Velikossiyan comrades soon, while the marines would move southward to secure what used to be the city of Galadheim, establishing a stronger foothold in the region.
Context Notes
[1] - TJQ-96 - A Sinican general-purpose machine gun design.
