Saledale
“The Prime Minister is ready for you.” smiled a pretty blonde receptionist, leading George Ambrose into a simple office.
“Mr. Prime Minster…” began Ambrose, shaking Prime Minister John Belt’s hand. The Premier of a fledgling revolutionary government was dressed simply, in not much more than a day laborer’s clothes, a stark contrast to the neat and well pressed dark gray suit, blue shirt, and red tie of Ambrose.
“Please sit.” said Belt, gesturing towards a chair, which Ambrose promptly sat in, “Forgive me, but I do not see the purpose of this meeting, given that Victoria has yet to recognize my government.”
“Well such a lack of recognition need not be permanent, but recognition of course would be subject to your government’s control over your claimed territory.”
Shifting in his chair, Belt said “Ah yes, we are having some difficulty in that regard.”
“We know Mr. Prime Minister. And we can help in that regard. Firstly, we can sell you weapons.”
That gathered the Prime Minister’s attention, and he said “Oh?” and gestured for Ambrose to continue.
“Well we can give you a standard Expeditionary Unit Package,” said Ambrose, removing a folder of pictures and handing it to the Prime Minister, who opened it and removed a picture of a tank.
“An M23C?”
“Templar MBT. 120 millimeter gun, 160 miles of off road range, composite reactive armor capable of repelling armor piercing rounds, crew of four. First models rolled off the production line back in ‘98. A fine machine, and one purchase comes with 15 units.”
“Excellent. And this?” said the Prime Minister holding up a picture of a rifle and a basic set of body armor.
“Aldrin 3 assault rifle, effective firing range of nearly 1500 feet, 5.56mm round capable of piercing common body armor. Along side that you’ll get a standard MP vest, enough to equip 2500 men, and you get cheap deals for resupply.”
“MPs? Not even standard infantry?”
“It’ll stop a smaller caliber weapon and shrapnel. If you want infantry models it’ll cost you.”
“Nevermind. What’ll it cost now?”
“75 million dollars. Cheap price, but we can add on some upgraded vehicles, armor, or more units as you see fit. This is barebones. I’d offer you more but seeing how you’re a revolutionary government…”
The Prime Minister bristled underneath at that comment before realizing that the Logonian was right. Logon had the privilege of domestic peace for most of the last century, a thriving democratic system, and a wealthy tax base. His government had none of that.
“We’ll take two of those to try, 150 million?”
“Yes. Now, there is another matter of interest to my government of course.”
“And that is?”
Ambrose slid a map across the desk and pointed to a coastal village. “We want to help you take this town.”
“Altown?”
“Yes. Linchpin of the Loyalist defenses. Anti-air and resupply depot means that if it falls defeating the Loyalists gets a lot less hard. We have a patrol that can be there within the hour, far faster than any Gagium or Prussian forces can. A gesture of good faith, we’re asking your permission before we land troops.”
“Invasion?”
“No, a raid. Marines will land and move through the town and disable hostile anti-air guns and supply storage, and leave.”
“Very well. Do as necessary.”
UDS Gozon
Five littoral combat ships and a amphibious assault ship glided through the smooth blue water of the COT Corp shoreline.
Weapons Officer First Class Sarah Lester looked over the map of Altown, a small village on the shore. The captain of the ship, Captain Berkoski, was pointing at the display with a finger at a dock section, formerly used for fishing boats.
“Here is the marine landing site. Under no circumstances will you fire directly on the site once the landing craft disembark, but you are free to engage everywhere else, outside of grid square Blue 17.” said Berkoski, pointing at what appeared to be a compound (local governor, perhaps?) towards the eastern end of the town.
“Why not fire on Blue 17?” asked a young gunner, junior grade.
“Because you were ordered not to. We believe there are possible civilians left in the compound. Now, continuing on, once our troops begin advancing you are to hold your fire only when you know for a fact there are no friendly forces or whenever ordered to fire by ground forces. Clear?”
“Yes sir Captain!” rang a chorus of gunners.
Thirty Six Minutes Later...
A dulled vibration rang through the ship as the
Gozon fired her 45mm cannon towards Altown.
“Cannon reloaded.” said the automated female voice on the computer, reporting that the autoloader had finished its job.
Weapons Officer Lester pulled the trigger again and watched on the camera has a clocktower exploded, due to concern regarding snipers. She looked at the other side of her interface, showing her real time footage and a GPS map of the battlefield, several green dots, friendlies, were moving down the main street.Suddenly, a transmission came over the Communications Officer Gideon’s comm, saying, in a static filled transmission;
”This is Yankee 1 actual, we are pinned down in grid square Green 02, I repeat we are-Grid Square Green 02
“-pinned down by hostile machine gun fire in grid square Green 02, how copy?”
“Yankee 1 actual this is Gozon, we are receiving your targeting laser. Computers are starting a firing solution right now, hold tight, bringing the rain in thirty seconds.”
“Copy. Sir!” said private Hawthorne, calling for Captain Groves. “Sir, Gozon is going to bring the rain in thirty!”
Captain Groves looked around. Several marines were down while the others were pinned down by machine gun fire. One of the APCs was destroyed. With most of the marines mounted on trucks, the heavy machine gun would shred the convoy. A private nearby screamed for his mother while corpsmen bent over him, treating a nasty wound that left blood visible against the pale green and brown camouflage of the Logonian Marines standard issue fatigues.
A boom in the distance sounded and not a second later the building housing the machine gun exploded into dust and began to collapse, to the cheering of the marines. Moving up, several trucks began to split off from the designated route.
“Uh Captain, who are those guys? The hell kinda rifles are they carrying?” asked Private Hawthorne.
Groves looked and indeed the soldiers carried AGR-12s, as opposed to the standard issue Aldrin-3.
“Probably spec-ops. They usually care those.”
“You think they’re SWORD sir?”
SWORD was a legendary, near mythical unit, in the Logonian Armed Forces. Many rumors had been spread about SWORD in the past, most contradicting others. There however were a few constants, if the unit really existed:
-SWORD was a part of the now defunct
Special
World
Operations, a military command sect that was founded in the 1960s and folded into the Strategic Defense Council in 1978. SWORD was their Reconnaissance Division, hence the name
Special
World
Operations,
Reconnaissance
Division.
-SWORD was small and hyper-elite, made up of the best of the best of Tier One units, and was sometimes dubbed “Tier Zero”.
-SWORD units existed outside of the main chain of command and conventional military, reporting directly to the Chancellor, Strategic Defense Council, and Secretary of Defense, and carrying out missions only those entities authorized.
“Of course not, private. SWORD doesn’t really exist if you ask me, just a dumb rumor. Even if they did, what the hell would make them come out here? My bet is that they’re just a part of the 72nd.”, said Groves, referencing the Marines elite 72nd regiment.
Grid Square Blue 17
SWORD Operative Major
****** picked up a radio and called the chairman of the Strategic Defense Council and Secretary of Defense, John Rhodes.
“Mr. Secretary?”
“Ah, good to hear from you Sapphire One. Do you have the target?”
“Yes sir.” replied
******, glancing over at a blindfolded man in a suit. While the operative didn’t know it, the man had been COT Corp’s unofficial ambassador to Logon, and served as middleman for illegal arms dealing between the United Duchies and the COT Corp. He had the only data able to prove it, and terrorist and insurgent connections to the COT Corp gave Logon plausible deniability of having sent arms in the first place. After all, Logon had sold weapons and vehicles to
legal buyers in the past, it wasn’t crazy to think that perhaps these legal buyers had “misplaced” equipment. Either way, this man held the key to implicating the Logonian government.
“Good job Sapphire. The Marines are mopping up, they’ve destroyed the supply caches and AA guns and are getting the hell out of dodge before more Loyalists show up. I advise you to do the same. Burn everything, we have a Cormorant (OOC: V22 Osprey) en route for evac.”
“
Everything?”
“Yes. Everything. The
HVI is now an
HVT.”
“Yes sir.” sighed the major, pulling his service pistol out of its holster. He took aim at the man’s head and shot once. The man promptly fell over.
“Alright team let’s go! Burn this place and let’s move out.”