For a moment, the lead UGV slowed down, its enormous wheels crawling gingerly across the fallen tree, branches snapping as it pushed forward, and it might have seemed that it would get through. But that was an illusion. There was a woosh, as an RPG rocket impacted into the vehicle's side. Seated aboard one of the trucks, Captain Schilling could not help but admire the rebels' ingeniuity. A MRAP of that kind could have withstood an enormous explosion, but a simple tree log to slow it down and an RPG rocket were something that its' armor could not protect against at all.
The lead BTR received an impact to its front, its driver instantly torn to shreds the RPG round pierced the vehicle's flimsy steel armor and showered the men within in shrapnel and fire. The man seated behind the driver was instantly killed as well, and flames began to spread through the motor compartment. The squad's commander swore awfully as he began to extract himself from the flaming machine. There was a terrible, stabbing pain in the left side of his faсe and chest. Yet he was alive still. He continued to move through the cramped confines of the vehicle. As the infantrymen jumped out of the BTR's narrow hatches, the commander saw that one of the soldiers could not escape on his own – blood was flowing down the man's face, soaking his shirt. He probably had some kind of awful injury, but now was not the time to figure out which. First order of business was to get him out.
It would be then that the rebels would discover Captain Schilling's first trick. The thirty tons of food and medication that the Allaneans mentioned were spread over three of the trucks. The other three trucks did not have any food on them at all.
And there was a clattering sound.
Firing from the rear of one of the trucks was a ZU-23 gun. Its first burst was training rounds – that's to say, enormous, steel-core, 23mm bullets. As they raked the edge of the woods, tree branches and entire trees fell, brought low by the oversized munitions. And if some rebel was unlucky enough to catch a quarter-pound of steel in the chest, that would likely cut short the man's plans of uprising.
Thump. Thump. Thump. – firing from the second truck was an automatic grenade launcher. The very term seemed ludicrous – a machinegun firing grenades! Tiny explosions boiled up among the trees.
There was a third heavy weapon in another truck – but, Schilling had to be giving the rebels credit, it was almost useless here.
The most terrible weapon, however, was one that could be useful anywhere. Jumping out of the BTRs, leaming from the platforms of the three weapon trucks, were soldiers – and those soldiers were well-trained, agile-looking men and women in brand-new digital camouflage. They formed a perimeter around the food trucks. To the front, they used the trees the YDB soldiers had felled as cover. To the sides, they formed a ring, their weapons – rifles, grenade launchers, RPGs – spitting forth precise shots at anything that looked like an enemy muzzle flash or an enemy soldier. These were definitely not the thirty bottom-of-the-barrel local troops that the 'intelligence leak' had promised – they weren't local, they weren't the bottom of anyone's barrel, and there were about sixty of them.
As Captain Schilling raised his own carbine, he grinned sadistically. "Seems like someone betrayed the wrong Emperor," – the intelligence officer chuckled.
The lead BTR received an impact to its front, its driver instantly torn to shreds the RPG round pierced the vehicle's flimsy steel armor and showered the men within in shrapnel and fire. The man seated behind the driver was instantly killed as well, and flames began to spread through the motor compartment. The squad's commander swore awfully as he began to extract himself from the flaming machine. There was a terrible, stabbing pain in the left side of his faсe and chest. Yet he was alive still. He continued to move through the cramped confines of the vehicle. As the infantrymen jumped out of the BTR's narrow hatches, the commander saw that one of the soldiers could not escape on his own – blood was flowing down the man's face, soaking his shirt. He probably had some kind of awful injury, but now was not the time to figure out which. First order of business was to get him out.
It would be then that the rebels would discover Captain Schilling's first trick. The thirty tons of food and medication that the Allaneans mentioned were spread over three of the trucks. The other three trucks did not have any food on them at all.
And there was a clattering sound.
Firing from the rear of one of the trucks was a ZU-23 gun. Its first burst was training rounds – that's to say, enormous, steel-core, 23mm bullets. As they raked the edge of the woods, tree branches and entire trees fell, brought low by the oversized munitions. And if some rebel was unlucky enough to catch a quarter-pound of steel in the chest, that would likely cut short the man's plans of uprising.
Thump. Thump. Thump. – firing from the second truck was an automatic grenade launcher. The very term seemed ludicrous – a machinegun firing grenades! Tiny explosions boiled up among the trees.
There was a third heavy weapon in another truck – but, Schilling had to be giving the rebels credit, it was almost useless here.
The most terrible weapon, however, was one that could be useful anywhere. Jumping out of the BTRs, leaming from the platforms of the three weapon trucks, were soldiers – and those soldiers were well-trained, agile-looking men and women in brand-new digital camouflage. They formed a perimeter around the food trucks. To the front, they used the trees the YDB soldiers had felled as cover. To the sides, they formed a ring, their weapons – rifles, grenade launchers, RPGs – spitting forth precise shots at anything that looked like an enemy muzzle flash or an enemy soldier. These were definitely not the thirty bottom-of-the-barrel local troops that the 'intelligence leak' had promised – they weren't local, they weren't the bottom of anyone's barrel, and there were about sixty of them.
As Captain Schilling raised his own carbine, he grinned sadistically. "Seems like someone betrayed the wrong Emperor," – the intelligence officer chuckled.
