- OOC:
- Introducing Platoon Sergeant Dartri Elan
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“You sunsabitches better hold or I’ll kick all your asses so hard you’ll be chewing on your own balls!” Dartri roared, his voice carrying from his helmet mic directly into the ears of the nearby stormtroopers.
“I don’t have any balls,” one of the female troopers hollered in response.
“You will when I get done with you,” Dartri retorted. “Now lay down some decent goddamned suppressing fire!”
There was a chorus of snickers and a few complaints, and more than a few rather lewd suggestions of just how Dartri could entertain himself during their next stretch of relative quiet. Sighting down the barrel of his rifle, Dartri grinned slightly beneath his helmet as he resumed his methodical fire, contributing his own blaster bolts to the mass of suppressing fire that was the only thing keeping the enemy at bay. His troops had been on the line for days without relief and with minimal supplies, but somehow their morale was still decent.
Dartri wasn’t a young man, not by the standards of the Corps, but he was still in the prime of life. Almost halfway through his third decade, he had been a soldier for almost fifteen years. He had risen to the rank of platoon sergeant, and had been enjoying a rather cushy posting to the
Dominion before everything had went to absolute shit.
Now he found himself commanding a “platoon”—at almost half strength, the troops that he commanded amounted to little more than two squads, although the order of battle still called it a platoon. They had no officer (not that a young lieutenant, most likely green and unblooded, would have proved any help in their current situation). In fact Dartri had lost all contact even with his superior officers. His last orders had come directly from Division and had included a very general directive to assume their current position on the perimeter and hold it at all cost. Since then, radio silence. Their short-range comlinks kept them in touch with units on either side of them, and with a few nearby support units, but other than that Dartri’s team was blind to events beyond their little section of hell.
The fact that orders came directly from Division seemed to indicate that whole echelons within the chain of command were getting wiped out, and Dartri had been a soldier long enough to know just how big of a cluster
that was. But so far his platoon, and the units on either side of them, had managed to hold the line with minimal casualties.
Most of their success was due to their fortified position. Dartri’s stretch of the line included several multi-story buildings, most of which were missing various bits. He had his platoon stationed throughout the buildings and on multiple floors, covering a stretch of the defensive perimeter over a hundred meters long. This part of the city had once been a middle-class haven, mostly residential, but now it was a smoking ruin. The two or three hundred meters in front of Dartri’s troops had been reduced by previous bombings, artillery, and blaster fire to little more than rubble—a veritable no-man’s-land. The result was excellent cover with wide fields of fire for Dartri’s troops and a prime defensive killing field full of obstacles that the enemy soldiers had to push through in order to reach the platoon’s position. So far, the terrain advantage had won the day, but Dartri feared that was about to change.
This most recent enemy assault was the most fierce yet, the sheer amount of enemy troops threatened to overwhelm the position. Dartri and his men kept firing, making sure that the enemy paid for every inch of ground they took, but the enemy clearly had more troops to spend than Dartri and his men could kill. Slowly they began to advance through the killing field, paying for each meter with tens of lives.
“Get on those repeaters!” Dartri ordered, and one of the troopers on his floor hustled off and took the stairs two at a time, heading to the roof. Dartri and his platoon had placed several heavy repeating blasters throughout the buildings, but had until now avoided using them for fear of drawing too much attention to the valuable weapons. Now, however, there was no other choice.
“In position, Sarge,” a voice crackled on the comlink. Three other voices followed suit.
“Open up, soak the bastards!” Dartri shouted. After a brief second delay, he heard the rhythmic
thumpthumpthump that indicated a heavy blaster at work. Thick green bolts of energy lanced out across the field, and where they struck there was a mini explosion as the high-energy envelopes made contact. The enemy advanced soon stalled, and after several more seconds of withering fire from the heavy repeaters the enemy troopers began to scramble back across the field, threatening to quit the field entirely.
“Well done platoon,” Dartri said after a minute. “Repeaters, stand down and secure your positions. Reload and cooldown. Everyone else, keep firing, we don’t—“
There was a loud shriek that cut Dartri off midsentence, and then a sudden rumble shook the building he was in. Dartri felt his heart drop—he knew that sound. Tanks.
“Take cover!” he ordered. “Get those repeaters below deck.” But he was too late. Slowly a heavy repulser tank materialized through the smoke. It was still several hundred meters away, but it didn’t have to be any closer for its main gun to be devastatingly effective. And the tanks heavy repulser engines meant that it wouldn’t be slowed very long by the rubble, either.
There was another screech, but this time Dartri saw the muzzle flash from the tank. This round also went high, grazing the top of one of the neighboring buildings (one that hadn’t hosted a repeater, luckily), but Dartri still felt the energy of the shot as an electric current on his skin. If they gave it a chance, that tank would tear them apart, and Dartri’s squad did not have weapons sufficient to deal with it.
Keying his comlink, Dartri tried to reach one of the support units stationed behind the main line of defense. Communications that far out had been spotty, but all he could do was hope the message got through.
“Cobra 3-2, Cobra 3-2, this is Jester Actual, respond. Over.” Dartri spat into the comlink, but only static returned his message. Another round went racing over their heads, but it didn’t seem to make contact. The enemy tank must have had trouble with its sighting.
“Cobra 3-2, Cobra 3-2, this is Jester Actual,” Dartri tried again. “Respond, damnit. Over.”
Again, nothing. Seconds stretched into moments and Dartri began to realize that no help was coming. There was nothing that his platoon could do to take out that tank except die trying, and there was nowhere to retreat. But just when Dartri’s thoughts began to turn dark, his helmet comlink crackled to life.
“Jester Actual, this is Cobra 3-2. We read you. Ready for fire mission. Over.”
“Cobra 3-2, this is Jester Actual,” Dartri returned, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. “Requesting ordnance package Helix. Over.”
“Ordnance package Helix confirmed, Jester Actual. Over.”
“Grid 9992-1743-3321,” Dartri recited carefully, recalling the grid coordinates he had memorized upon taking command of this section of the line. He kept an eye on the tank, but it appeared to be held up navigating through a particular difficult stretch of the no-man’s-land and couldn’t bring it’s main gun to bear. They had bought a little time, it seemed.
Pulling a set of macrobinoculars off his utility belt, Dartri listened as Cobra recited the grid coordinates back to him. He ranged the tank, then relayed the necessary targeting adjustments over the comlink.
“Push 28.66 left, 236.84 downrange. Over.”
“Push 28.66 left, 236.84 downrange. Over.” Cobra confirmed.
Dartri put the macrobinoculars away, letting them clip back to his utility belt. “Enemy repulser tank and enemy infantry advancing on the line. Targets in the open. Danger close. Fire for maximum effect. Over.”
Another round went soaring over Dartri’s head, closer but still several meters above the building. The veteran sergeant didn’t know what the tank was shooting at, but all he could do was thank every deity he could think of that the tank’s gunners seemed to be incompetent.
“Roger, Jester Actual. Enemy tank in the open. Danger Close,” Cobra responded, the fire control operator’s voice a slow drawl. Dartri understood the necessity of fire discipline, but goddamnit that tank would figure out its aiming troubles sooner rather than later. Fire control, however, continued on unfazed as if reading from the manual. “Firing for maximum effect, grid 9992-1743-3321, push 28.66 left, push 236.84 downrange. Over.”
“Fire mission confirmed,” Dartri bit off, growing more and more impatient. “Jester Actual out.”
There was another screech, the sound of tearing aluminum, and this time the tank didn’t miss. This round took out the building next to Dartri’s, destroying the top floor of the structure. Dartri had stationed several troopers in that building—he only hoped that they had managed to get to cover, but he couldn’t spare time worrying about them now. There was a long second of delay, and then the comlink cackled to life again.
“Jester Actual, this is Cobra 3-2. Rounds out. I say again, rounds out. Six seconds, over.”
Dartri counted the seconds in his head, forcing himself to do so as slowly as possible. When he got to three, he heard the fire package approaching.
“Take cover! Rounds incoming!” he relayed to his men, then hit the dirt.
The rounds impacted with such tremendous force that Dartri had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering in the shockwave. Then the follow-up shells hit, and Dartri felt those as dull thuds that vibrated through his very bones.
Ordnance package Helix was the standard anti-armor indirect fire package of the Vast Empire military. It was a multi-munitions package. The first wave consisted of a high-energy salvo that released an intense ion blast. This temporarily disabled the electronics, shields, and repulsers of the target (and killed any unshielded enemy troopers who were unlucky enough to be in the blast radius). The second wave was a salvo of guided smart munitions. Slower than the ion shells, these were the real killers, designed to penetrate heavy armor and then explode the target from the inside out.
Dartri had seen the effects of a Helix strike before, but it was always impressive. As he slowly made his way to his feet and peered across no-man’s-land at where the tank had been, he was impressed yet again. Where the enemy repulser tank had seemed unstoppable before, now it was a twisted hunk of steel at the bottom of a brand new crater. Dartri couldn’t help but grin.
Keying the comlink, Dartri confirmed the rounds impact for fire control. “Cobra 2-3, this is Jester Actual. Round splash on target. Thanks for the assist. Out.”
“Roger, Jester Actual,” Cobra responded. “Happy hunting. Out.”
“Take that ya bastards,” Dartri whispered to himself as he surveyed the no-man’s-land in front of him, elation swiftly growing in his chest as he watched the rest of the enemy troopers turn tail in full retreat. “Run on back to whatever ass crack you crawled out of.”
Dartri’s elation was short lived, however. Over the comlink, a voice he recognized called out the one word that a platoon leader never wants to hear.
“MEDIC!”
