StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is a ASVS Denizen fic, meaning that the main characters are based on regulars of ASVS. Ego-stroking at its finest, of course. Recently I have included some denizens of this board, with plans to introduce more as the plot (hahah) thickens.

The previous five chapters can be found at http://daltonator.net/fanfics/stories/suicide.txt.

The response from ASVS has been mostly positive, and I'm anxious to see what this group thinks of it.


[Fanfic] Suicide Squad
6
Bunker Buster

It was night in that particular area of Shelemin Beta, but a full moon and the thick snowfall made it nearly light enough to see. The rifle company and the attached special forces platoon kicked off their march only a few minutes behind schedule.

The enemy positions were estimated to be a mere half-kilometer away from the Imperial forward defenses, on the very edge of the thick Kalkun forest. As this was a company level action, the Imperials would have nothing heavier than their medium 15 centimeter guns to support their advance, and the primary artillery would be the man-portable 62 millimeter mortars. This was lamented by the regular infantry, while Strowbridge's squad was ecstatic. Ordinarily their most powerful support weapon was Spickard's PLX-2M, and they were only allowed to call in artillery fires on important targets. Having a good battery of guns and a handful of mortars was much better than usual.

Therefore the conscripts advanced cringingly, and were only kept in motion by the shame they felt watching the Guards. This was, in fact, the very idea of assigning the Guards to the platoon. Both the Empire and the New Republic recognized that a man's pride was often more powerful than his fear of death.

So all the men of the mixed company managed to keep pace, and they would until they came under fire. Unfortunately, this would happen a bit soon than expected.

Corporal Yates was leading a rifle squad at the very front of the company, and he was the first to see the enemy. The New Republic forces were about 200 meters forward of where they were supposed to be, deployed in trenches that could only have been created with explosives. By the time Nathan had seen the well-concealed positions, they were a mere seventy meters away. The enemy was waiting for their best shot.

"Hit the dirt!" Yates screamed, throwing himself sideways behind a fallen tree. Only of a few of the men in his squad responded immediately, as most of them were the sad-sack retreads. Before they could respond, the Republicans opened up.

From his relatively secure alcove behind the log, Yates listened to the blaster fire. He made it at least two E-Webs, a half-dozen T-21s, and a bunch of the Republican's stupid squad automatic, the S-12. The ripping canvas report of the weapon could scare conscripts, but the canny veterans knew that it was an inaccurate piece of shit that broke and overheated easily.

Within ten seconds, half of the corporal's team had been killed. He didn't feel much sorrow for the poor bastards, as they'd only have slowed him down. He bit down on his mike switch and tried to raise the Lieutenant.

Strowbridge had his own problems. The main body of S-platoon was under fire from both of the E-Webs at the same time, and was thus in quite a bit of trouble. Strowbridge had ducked into what appeared to be a literal fox-hole to try and puzzle out what to do. There was very little cover in the area, and his men were being shot all to shit. He checked his radio, but got nothing but white noise. He switched frequencies once, twice. Still nothing but white noise. Nothing he could do for artillery, then. Even the little 62s were denied to him, as the range was too short and the teams were dead or pinned.

"Bunker down," the officer shouted, "concentrate on not getting hit!" And pray for a miracle, he added silently.

---

Fortunately for the Imperials, their miracle was already in progress. Sanchez cursed silently as he hauled himself upright in the snow. The cold blanket was about two and a quarter meters high were he was. He tried to climb out of the pit, but he slipped on the surface on which he had formerly stood. The snow broke his fall.

"Dalton?" Pablo whispered, "You there?"

"Yeah, I just wish I knew where here is," the gunner answered.

"Must be a creek bed," the corporal guessed, "there's ice on the bottom."

"I noticed."

"Hey, three stooges? What about you?" Sanchez called out.

David was somewhere to Pablo's left, "We're here."

The light machinegun squad had been moving towards a position that Sanchez had picked out on the map. It was elevated, protected, and offered a good field of fire on the area the enemy was supposed to be occupying. It was just like the Rebels to be contrary bastards and muck up a perfectly good plan.

All five soldiers had been a bit to the right of the main force of the company, and they had moved for cover in that direction. For good or bad, they had been precluded in that attempt by the presence of a previously unknown ditch. They had thus escaped notice by the mass of the enemy fire and were not in such a position that they could be shot at anyway.

Sanchez listened. There were a lot of small arms on the Republican side, but no artillery larger than medium mortars. They were either in dire straits or conserving their efforts for a general offensive. The corporal sighed, then, because it was none of his business which problem it was. His business was getting that T-21 into action and making at least an attempt to preserve the lives of the other four men on the way.

"See if you guys can dig your way towards the trees we were sprinting for," he ordered.

The other four men began to rustle through the thick pillow of snow. Dalton because of his stature and load, the three conscripts because of inexperience. By comparison, Sanchez was ghostly. The enlisted men made it to the edge of their little gully and lay prone on the lip.

"What do you make of it, Dalton?" Sanchez asked.

"Two E-Webs, five T-21s, and at least eight S-12s, none of it coming this way," the experienced soldier responded.

Sanchez assessed the light and noise of the fusillade for a few moments before coming to a decision, "We're going for the trees. If we crawl, they'll cut us up, so run your asses off. On three."

This particular stand of trees was sturdy and about twenty meters distant. It could have been one hundred meters, for all the good it would have done them. Sanchez started to count.

"Wait, wait!" Private Bean interrupted, "Do you mean one-two-three-go or one-two-go?"

Sanchez shook his head.

"Just GO!" he shouted, leaping up. Before he had gotten ten steps he heard the whine and crackle of blaster bolts nearby, several times he felt warmth on his face as he passed through their contrails. Luckily the enemy had dedicated only one or two of the shoddy S-12s to that area. Sanchez threw himself into shelter behind one of the massive trees.

"Fancy meeting you here," a voice said from only a meter away. Pablo jerked his E-11 up.

Kynes laughed, "What are you going to do with that? Stab me?"

Sanchez looked down at his blaster. The entire barrel forward of the magazine had been shorn away. The corporal didn't waste time on pissing his pants at that moment, that could be saved for later. He tossed the piece of metal aside and drew his DL-44. The pistol was no match for a rifle, but it was a reassuring weight and would tear anyone's head from their shoulders… provided that it hit them.

"What are you doing here?" Pablo asked the sergeant.

"Reconnoitering the enemy position is my stock answer," Kynes replied, "but since we're both good NCOs, I'll tell you that I was skipping off to the right flank for a wee nip of the creature."

Sanchez nodded sympathetically, but not without a trace of hunger in his eyes, "Gimme."

"I got the same shitty trick as you. Fuckers shot the bottle right out of my hand," Liet said mournfully.

Sanchez shrugged and rolled over onto his other shoulder. Dalton and the three guys were waiting.

"So, what's the good word, sergeant?" Sanchez asked.

"Well, I think our best options are to sit tight and let the whole company get massacred, and then we get killed by the rebel mop-up, or we can rush the enemy guns and probably end up dead," Kynes replied.

"What do you think, Dalton?" Pablo consulted.

"Why not?"

Kynes nodded, "Get ready, then." He produced a bottle from behind his back and finished it off.

"You fucker!" Pablo howled, "Lying cunt-rag!"

"Man's gotta look after his own," Kynes justified, "Now do want a count or just go?"

Bean broke in, "Just going seems to work pretty well."

At that, Sanchez leapt to his feet and moved. Once again, fiery red bolts whistled towards and around him. This time, though, he fired his pistol on the run. He didn't hit anyone, but it made him feel more comfortable. The fire from one gun crawled dangerous close to him, then stopped abruptly. Presently he reached the edge of the trench, at a point where two Republic soldiers were trying to fix a broken S-12. He shot them both with his blaster from about three meters away, then hopped into the trench.

It was a rather rough construction, apparently blasted from the frozen earth by explosives. As such it twisted and curved quite a bit. This was enough to save Pablo's life, so he appreciated the shoddy workmanship. Someone came around a curve. Sanchez popped him once in the chest, the massive bolt actually pulling the charred contents of his cardiovascular cavity out of the exit wound. That wasn't something that one saw every day, but the corporal was too occupied to do anything about it. He moved forward towards the curve. Another man came around the corner, and this time the bolt tore his entire shoulder away, leaving the arm to flop to the ground.

The rebel screamed terribly, so Sanchez put one in his head. Above the roar of machineguns, the corporal heard movement around the corner. He selected an impact grenade from the array of bombs on his belt and pulled the pin out. He tossed it over into where he thought the enemy was. A flash of thunder, then screams. Pablo dashed around the corner, pumping quick shots into the five dead or wounded that laid there.

This had once been the other S-12 emplacement, now it was a heap of twisted metal and flesh. Sanchez moved towards the enemy center slowly, wondering where his comrades had gone. The trench once again curved sharply away from the machinegun emplacement, providing the corporal another nice advantage. This time two men dashed around the curve. The first one caught two bolts in his chest, and Pablo caught the other in his sights and pulled the trigger.

Nothing came out. The rebel started to line his big rifle up. The imperial had only one option. He threw his heavy DL-44 straight into the enemy soldier's face, sending the rifle bolt far out of line. Within a moment, Sanchez was on top of him, and the combat vibroblade was buried in the area of the jugular.

Even before the man hit the ground, Pablo had taken the rifle. As the soon-to-be corpse thrashed on the ground, Sanchez took its ammunition belt. The weapon was a Blastech A-280, with a grenade launcher beneath the barrel. The A-280 had once been the standard weapon of both the Empire and New Republic armies, supplemented by the E-11 and others. The A-280 was a brutally powerful weapon--too powerful, in fact, to remain in general usage. A well-trained, professional soldier could handle it. The soldiers at this stage of the war were neither of these things, and thus the venerable A-280 was replaced by less demanding weapons. The "bastard," as it was known to front-line troops, could punch holes in light armor at five hundred meters, and cut a man in half at twice that. It had recoil to match, of course.

Sanchez was almost drooling; he was damn lucky to catch hold of such a weapon, even if it was more cumbersome than his carbine.

After he had finished inspecting his new rifle, he retrieved and reloaded his pistol, finally slipping it back into its holster. He was now the commander of truly tremendous firepower. It was time to get moving again. He heard a scraping noise behind him, so Sanchez spun around and pulled his rifle into line.

"Whoa!"

It was just David.

"Where's the other four?" the corporal asked.

"Sheridan took one in the leg, Dalton's guarding him. I don't know about the other guys."

"Good enough for me. Follow my lead, and keep quiet," Pablo ordered.

David coughed, "Uh, sir… he's staring at me."

"Who?" Sanchez asked he turned around again. The bleeding NR had his glassy eyes fixed directly on David. Sanchez rolled his own eyes in disgust. He shot the near-dead man right between his eyes. He noted with professional satisfaction that the A-280 had destroyed the soldier's entire head.

Sanchez looked up at the Imperial private, "Better? Good."

David had already puked his guts out a few hours ago, so he was forced to settle for dry heaves. Pablo gave him a few seconds before they both moved out.

---

At this same time Strowbridge was still lying in his little animal dugout, blaster bolts cracking in at him from all directions. Without his radio, he had no way to tally his losses, but he guessed that they had to be significant.

One emotion overrode the fear of death, as it always did. He felt nothing but indignation, that /he/ would be pinned down in a hole by monkeys behind the triggers of machineguns. He was Lieutenant C.S. Strowbridge, and he didn't deserve this shit. It was thus with little surprise that he noticed the enemy fire stopping abruptly from their left flank, and a number of grenade blasts. Within moments, the enemy fire had all but ceased. The lieutenant poked his head up.

The enemy line was buzzing with activity. He could see a number of republican soldiers fleeing to their rear. He didn't know what was going on, but he accepted it temporarily as the effect of divine provenance on his behalf. More logical explanations could wait for later.

He yelled, "Charge!"

Besides himself, the limited numbers of his guards and a few conscripts got to their feet and moved. The rest of the men, physically and psychologically suppressed, took longer. Inspired or shamed by the performance of their braver comrades, they reluctantly joined the charge.

A brutal infantry charge was something seldom seen in that day and age, and it made Strowbridge very proud to have ordered it. There was only one enemy E-Web in action, and it appeared that the rest of the enemies were in full flight.

But that wouldn't be enough to save Strowbridge, it seemed. The single operating enemy gun downed the three men nearest to him and swept towards him. Now he was pissed again.

Then there was a flash and a boom, and an enemy prefabricated bunker was briefly illuminated from within. Flames poured out from the firing slit and the machinegun bolts stopped.

Strowbridge hit the trench among cluster groups of riflemen. The Imperials enthusiastically fired into the defeated and demoralized republican infantry. The conscripts, until a moment ago to afraid to even move, now whooped with victory. Strowbridge did not deign to fire on fleeing troops, but he still watched with satisfaction as light machineguns set up and scythed across the enemy. They had left better than half a rifle company dead in the snow, with more dying or incapacitated. As the last of the enemy faded away, the lieutenant dropped to the ground with a sigh of relief. His ego had once again been justified.

With the retreat of the republican infantry, Strowbridge's radio finally resumed function. He reported to regiment that he would not be able to advance through the woods to the bridge that day. The lieutenant tallied the total losses as more than a quarter of the company, including the late, unlamented, and mostly unnamed captain. More troubling were the losses in the cadre of guards.

Spickard was dead, caught full in the chest by the first machinegun bursts. Sergeant Kynes had taken one in the thigh and a number of the new replacements had been wounded. They would be evacuated to the rear. (In all likelihood, Kynes would recover and be reassigned to one of the hundreds of thousands of guards detachments in the army, never to be seen again by his old platoon)

Strowbridge, now nominally in command of a reduced rifle company, had a few concerns. Besides the business of holding the trenches until reinforced, he also had to promote men to replace NCO losses and come up with good citations. Obviously he would put himself up for the Distinguished Leader Medallion (among others), and he would sadly be forced to nominate the whole light machinegun squad and Kynes for whatever decoration associated with bravery seemed most appropriate. Probably the Imperial Daring Assault Cross, with red star clusters representing heavy casualties inflicted on the enemy.

The promotions were a more difficult decision. Strowbridge hated Edam even more than he hated other people (no mean feat), but one had to respect his competence. This left a lower sergeant empty, which would be filled by a corporal. He didn't know Yates well enough to put him in charge of anything, and the two new corporals he had received from the conscripts were far worse. Sanchez he knew better, but it was still with a measure of disgust that he decided to make the corporal a brevet buck sergeant. Dalton would replace him.

By the time he had this all decided it was almost morning. With the assistance of the dim rising sun, Strowbridge informed the various persons concerned, repeatedly insulting them just to prove his dominance. It began to snow heavily.

At about 0800, he heard noises coming from within the woods; noises that every infantryman feared to the depths of his soul. Visceral terror poured out from every synapse.

Tanks.




Next Chapter:
Panzerangriff, Panzerfurcht

*Shep takes a look at the fic.......and nods his head in approval*

"This is very good, Sanchez.....TOO good in fact! I must not be
denied the Ground Combat GSDA this year!"

*Sheppard then pulls out an E-11 and starts hunting down Pablo*

Enough jokery aside, this is a hell of a good fic. I must now get
started on DIVISION and outdo you.

PS - Mocking the MG-42 are you now?

MKSheppard wrote:*Shep takes a look at the fic.......and nods his head in approval*

"This is very good, Sanchez.....TOO good in fact! I must not be
denied the Ground Combat GSDA this year!"

*Sheppard then pulls out an E-11 and starts hunting down Pablo*

Enough jokery aside, this is a hell of a good fic. I must now get
started on DIVISION and outdo you.

PS - Mocking the MG-42 are you now?

Assuming I actually get around to one of the chapters with ground combat in time, I shall very much be in competition with the likes of you two.

*Opens bomb bay doors and readies seismic charges in hopes of getting them both*



Not bad work.

The long awaited CHAPTER SIX! It was waiting so long that I actually forgot it was really chapter SEVEN! Stunning.



Suicide Squad
6
Panzerangriff, Panzerfurcht

Within moments, Lieutenant Strowbridge was on the radio back to regimental. As the commander of a mixed, and rather weak, infantry force which was about to face down an unidentifiable number of enemy tanks, he was ill disposed to bother with the direct chain of command.

The first person he spoke to was Captain Sheppard. The conversation was short and to the point, as both men were fighting officers.

Sheppard growled, "What's your fucking problem, fucker?"

To which Strowbridge replied, "Fucking tanks. Put me up to fucking regimental, Captain Fucker."

Within moments, the lieutenant was speaking to Major Anomaly.

"What's the problem, Lieutenant?" Major Anomaly asked.

"Tanks moving towards us. We have no weapons heavier than disposables, I'm understrength, and most of my men are fuckups. Reinforcements are necessary," Strowbridge responded.

"Just hang on a moment, C.S.," Deimos said. At this, soothing jizz muzak poured from the radio. After fifteen full seconds the tank noises were growing quite loud and sweat began to trickle down Strowbridge's spine.

"It's been a fucking moment, you asshole," he whispered, "get back to me."

After a further five seconds of anxiety, the Major finally came back on, "Just hold tight, son. We'll get something together just as soon as we can. Oh, and by the way, we're going to have to withhold your fifteen centimeter gun support."

The radio clicked off, and Strowbridge stared at the speaker.

Finally he shouted, "You're worse than useless, you fuck!"

He clicked the radio over to S platoon's frequency and gave his plan of action.

----

"Major Anomaly's doing some crazy shit and leaving us to bleed out in the snow. Guards, I want you to collect as many disposable rockets as you can. I don't really trust you to hit jack shit with them, but I can't trust the conscripts in any way, shape or form. Then, sit your ass down and bleed out in the snow--but try and take some of them with you. Nobody fire until fired upon, or until I give the code click," the lieutenant said.

Yates yawned, momentarily drowning out the sound of tank engines. The few conscripts of his squad that had survived the previous night's activities were alternatively apalled and impressed at their leader's impenetrable aura of calm. He stretched out his shoulders and cleared his throat.

"I'm gonna need those," he ordered, indicated the conscript's UGATM-D's.

The Unguided Anti-Tank Munition-Disposable (inevitably nicknamed the 'you got'em, dude') was the only effective armor-defeating weapon in the conscript's pack. It was a short durasteel tube with a primitive glassine sight. Within the tube was a rocket. The device would fly straight and true out to one hundred yards providing that the winds were light, and on striking a vehicle, it could blast neat holes in all but the heaviest tanks. It was an old and simply weapon, having made its name in the brutal battle of Coruscant; Vader Youth members would ride speederbikes through machinegun fire in order to get one golden shot at an enemy vehicle. This story always conjured up distressing shadows in Yates' mind, and it was with no small amount of pleasure that he recalled that the founder of the Vader Youth had been shot for this practice.

Within moments, the corporal was loaded down with five of the disposable rocket launchers, and he settled back into the snow. Absently, he picked up a handful of snow and stuffed it into his mouth. Presently his mouth was cold enough that his breath produced nearly no visible vapor. This was unlikely to be noticed by the Republican forces, but it was still a worthy precaution.

As the tank noises grew louder Yates folded the stock of his E-11 and slid it into the snow next to him. He set one UGATM on his shoulder and tensed himself. Just then a white block roared through the snow at him. It was enormous; he immediately identified it as a Republican 'Successor' heavy tank. Its turret swiveled menacing left and right, and at least a squad of infantry could be seen immediately behind it. From where he was he could only strike it's turret and glacis plate, and he might as well fling a snowball. A PLX-2M could have blasted it, but Spickard was dead and his weapon was trashed. Meanwhile the tank grew ever closer.

Yates was a snowdrift, he was not afraid, nor did he move. His conscripts, by way of comparison, were cowering.

"Don't move, damn it," he whispered.

By this time, the tank was a mere thirty meters distant. At the corners of his vision, Yates could see more tanks. They were positioned very close to one another, probably in order to maintain cohesion in the forest. It was the best decision they could have made, but it was still a mistake.

Now the tank was only twenty meters away, and something odd happed. It encountered a sudden steep inclined, shifted down a gear, and began to climb. As it did this, it's belly became momentarily exposed. Yates silently wished for Strowbridge to give the code.

This he did. Yates' radio earpiece clicked twice in rapid succession, then again. At this, the corporal reared up onto his knees, swiftly laid his rocket in line, and triggered it. A short length of metal rode a tongue of flame the twenty meters to the target and struck beautifully on the thinnest armor of the Successor. Yates imagined that at that moment the fighting compartment of the tank filled with fire and the crew roasted. At the same moment, a number of other unfortunate tankers were suffering the same fate on the opposite end of the Imperial line, struck from the flank.

Yates dropped down and readied his next attack as his abruptly emboldened conscripts rocked and rolled onto the enemy infantry. They hit very little, but their targets were no more experienced and merely scattered. The corporal heard something hit the snow next to him as he shouldered his next launcher. He looked over, saw the frag grenade, and took it in hand. Being something an expert at this activity, he tossed it directly back whence it came and was unsurprised to view it glance off a rebel's helmet even as it detonated. A direct hit. He made a mental note to tell his comrades about it, if and when he escaped from this.

Abruptly he noticed a second tank, nosing around the carcass of the now burning Successor. This new threat was a mere Foxhound, a medium tank that would have been imposing had it not been within rocket range. Yates again rose, fired, and dropped. He was rewarded with a flash of warmth as the Foxhound brewed up violently, bathing nearby infantry in flame. With more consternation he regarded a shriek of pain from behind him. He rotated a bit to see one of his conscripts with a flame sliding up his sleeve. The young fool had blundered into the backblast of the rocket and had paid the penalty. Yates paid no more attention, merely assuming that the soldier would be able to extinguish himself. Yates' view being momentarily exhausted of hard targets, he retrieved his E-11 and fired short, accurate bursts at whatever person was unfortunate enough to expose himself.

----

At the same time, Sanchez was in considerably more distress. Before him lay three scorched tanks, and behind him were the empty tubes of his rocket stockpile. A fourth tank rolled around the minor traffic jam, and Sanchez noted with a bit of professional disgust that it was, in fact, a mere light tank. It did not seem to befit such a person as himself to die because of such a vehicle.

"Fuck you, Reb!" he shouted, though the enemy could not hear him. He had just been advanced in rank, and these bastards wanted him dead? He flipped the grenade sights up and lined up his shot. The round arced up and out, zipping neatly downrange and striking the tank in the turret, with no effect whatsoever on the armor. It did, however, cause the republican infantry to cower a bit more cravenly.

Sanchez didn't consider this too long before selecting another grenade at random from his bandoleer and loading it into the breach. He repeated the process of aiming, even easier as the tank had closed from fifty meters to forty, and shot off the round. He was much surprised by the result.

A flaming cloud materialized at the point of impact, just where the turret met the hull, and expanded at considerable speed. It expanded so fast and so far, in fact, that Sanchez was stunned by the passage of its shockwave, and he imagined that it would have been visible from miles away. Pablo gaped at the destruction. The light tank had actually been melted, the main gun's barrel still flowing like thick jelly, and the turret barely hanging onto the hull. The trees in the immediate area were all burning, and much of the surrounding snowfield had become a sea of boiling mud. The sergeant slid the launcher's breach open and ejected the casing. On inspection, he found that he had fired a 'red,' a thermal detonator. He had not even been aware that he possessed such a grenade. He examined what remained of his grenades and cursed. He had wasted his only 'little nuke' on a light tank.

It was better than being dead, though, and it fully suppressed the enemy infantry on a physical and moral level. One of Sanchez's accompanying infantry found his courage and whooped in victory.

"Nice one, Sarge!"

Pablo flipped the kid the bird and turned back to what was important: killing people he didn't know. In this way he ensured that he would never have to know them, which was good because it was his firm belief that everyone was an asshole, especially himself. He clicked the grenade sights down in favor of the standard pieces. He saw one infantryman attempting to crawl into some snowy bushes. With a simple pull of the trigger, the man discovered that his lungs had been replaced by a gaping hole. With an experienced marksman, a range of only a score of meters, and snowy conditions to inhibit the movement of a soldier, a firefight was more of a turkey shoot. Scattered return fire came his way, but Pablo's enemies had neither the skill nor the luck to strike him.

Or so he hoped. A burst of blaster fired burned past him at a distance far too close for comfort. Sanchez traced the red lines back to their source and pumped a few rounds into it. A small explosion of red mist was the happy result.

Then again, republican infantry was the least of his problems. Yet another armored vehicle navigated the mud pool and field of tank carcasses towards him. Sanchez watched it's turret rotate around and come to bear on him. He grabbed the nearby infantryman by the collar and yanked him to his feet. The pair then sprinted several meters toward the trench. As Sanchez reached the fortification, a vast red explosion blossomed behind him, and he tumbled into the hole.

The unfortunate private next to him landed rather hard upon his neck, dead instantly. Of his squad of ten, there were four remaining--if he counted himself twice. This he did, because he felt better afterwards.

----

Dalton was more or less in the center of the imperial defence, with his T-21 resting on the lip of the formerly republican trench. He had fired about twice as many shots in the last minute as his weapon was rated to withstand, and only the large cooling sheath prevented his sights from being obscured by rising waves of heat. Rob imagined that, within the solid black casing, the barrel was getting very close to the limit.

"David! I need a barrel, and I want it two minutes ago," he yelled at his assistant.

The private dropped his E-11 into the snow next to his body, and crawled to the gun. Dalton hefted the heavy repeater back into the trench. Even as the bipod hit the ground, he was releasing the catches that held the barrel in the gun. David grabbed the carrying handle and pulled the barrel free. As Rob had expected, it was red hot. The private set it down in a snowdrift, releasing a cloud of steam, then slid a fresh unit into the piece.

Dalton picked the T-21 up and turned back it to the battle. He cut loose at cyclic for a moment, resuppressing any republicans who had been able to muster up the courage to move forward. Afterwards he shot the standard three to five round bursts to keep them on the ground and kill some of them.

A tank directly ahead of him roared forward. A burst from the T-21 sent its supporting soldiers scattering, and Dalton saw two rockets stab out at it; one took a small nick out of the turret, the other penetrated the engine compartment and ignited its fuel. The vehicle simply came apart, the turret flying several meters into the air, and the hull fragmenting into dozens of pieces.

He heard Yates' voice over his radio earpiece, "Does anybody have any rockets left, over."

"I AIN'T GOT SHIT!" Sanchez replied, before he was drowned out by an explosion.

Sergeant Fromage then got on, "Keep the channgel clear, assholes. Lieutenant, we are out of anti-tank rockets, and they're right on top of us. What's the plan?"

"Major Anomaly says to sit tight, so we sit tight," Strowbridge replied, "is that so hard to understand?"

Edam made a strangled noise of rage, "Yes, it is! We're all going to fucking die, and--HEY! Get the fuck back here!"

"What'd you say, Sergeant?" C.S. asked.

"My squad is booking it out of here," Edam said, before loud gunfire over his radio cut him off, "correction, my squad has been liquidated by enemy action. How long do we have to last?"

Dalton spied some enemies attempting to move forward, so he put a burst at them and went back to listening to the conversation.

Strowbridge continued, "--maybe six minutes. He didn't say."

"I'm not going to last six FUCKING SECONDS! Get that cumrag back on the wire!" Sanchez yelled.

Edam growled, "Keep the fucking line clear!"

Finally, Yates came back over the radio, voice still cool. "Quiet. Does anybody else hear that?"

Dalton momentarily held his fire and pricked up his ears. In the brief spaces between bursts of gunfire, he could hear a distant mechanical grinding. More tanks--but this time coming from behind their position.

"We're being flanked!" Edam said, "Now we're really fucked."

As if on cue, explosions began to spring up around the encircled Imperials. After a moment, Dalton heard the shriek of shells' supersonic flight, and he decided to passively wait for the end. There was no point in dragging people to hell with him. Then, a most curious and fortunate thing occurred. The artillery fire began to crawl toward the enemy, until it finally settled in several hundred yards away from Dalton. This was a nice turn of events.

Dalton then turned to his rear, spotting a dozen or more tanks moving towards him. As they drew nearer, he realized that they were imperial tanks, with a large force of infantry. Another excellent occurrence. The enemy began to fade away, and the Imperial tanks roared off in pursuit. Dalton stood up from the snow and waved at a nearby tank commander, who was riding through unbuttoned. The man turned and saluted, and did not turn back in time to notice the low branch his vehicle was driving under. That was definitely, Rob thought, the best thing he had seen all day, easily topping the part where his life had been saved.

----

Strowbridge stood and trotted towards the tank commander as the unfortunate fellow stumbled out of his vehicle. He tripped over an antenna and tumbled down into a snowdrift as the lieutenant approached.

"Lieutenant Strowbridge, 501st infantry," C.S. announced as he strolled up to the prostrate tanker.

The fellow struggled to his feet with a cough and shook his head clear, "I'm Captain Skimmer, One Thousand and Twenty-Fourth independent heavy armor brigade. Your relief will be along presently."

Strowbridge belatedly saluted his 'superior,' "Well, I suppose I should thank you for saving our lives, and whatnot."

Skimmer looked at the multiple tank carcasses that dotted the terrain forward of the Imperial position and said, "Looks like you were handling yourself rather well."

"I suppose, but we were out of rockets. You're lucky you came along when you did. Any earlier and we might have greased one of you, any later and we'd've been dead."

The Captain frowned, "Whaddya mean, greased one of us?"

"Well, we weren't exactly informed that a bunch of friendly tanks would be along. In fact, we were told absolutely nothing by our commander, except that we were to hold position."

"So, your commander is a dick?"

"In essence."

S Platoon's relief arrived presently, and Strowbridge tabulated his losses during the march back to Imperial lines. He had lost better (or worse) than fifty percent of his strength during the whole two-day fuckup, but on the upside he had gained a lot of prestige, some medals, and would certainly be recommended for promotion. The freezing corpse of some young jackoff from the central rim, newly conscripted and now dead, was of no concern to him. He would soon be a captain, so fuck you, Private First Class Murat Miksiyov, the galaxy was made for the /living/, he thought as he strode past a battle-torn body bearing that very nametag.

The enlisted men were not at all pleased by Major Anomaly's command decisions, and Sanchez was in fact already earnestly planning to 'terminate the Major's command' (this was his phrase, the men called it simple fragging). C.S. was of a different opinion. He was glad that the army was saturated with people like Deimos. As far as Lieutenant (soon captain) C.S. Strowbridge was concerned, such officers existed just to make him look good.

Sanchez gazed sourly at his commanding officer, "Look at that smug bastard. I should add him to the list."

"List?" Dalton asked politely.

"The list of people who're going to die," Sanchez said absently, "some for good reasons, some for simple revenge. But I'll leave him off. He's not evil or incompetent, just a towering scumbag of an egotist. The list is long enough already."

My tanks make rebel scum go squish.