Saul
Inactive Member
["Mission 0"] Operation Graduation
Fort Bulwark, Longwatch
0630 hours, local
With its surface catching the light of the eternal sunlight of winter in Longwatch's northern hemisphere, the DeepSix installation and the occasional shuttle or gunship flying around it served as the only sign of life for miles in any direction on the tundra. "Fort Bulwark", as the white paint down the side identified it, stood as the furthest point north on the surface of Longwatch that the Nepleslian military had established themselves. It was so far away from the rest of civilization that most of the landmarks surrounding it hadn't even been given proper and official names beyond simple geographical signifiers.
A curving river, sky-blue and glistening from the sun reflecting off its surface, came with only a quarter of a mile from the tower. Of course winter temperatures made it a less than ideal place for recreation and so most Marines opted to use the swimming pool in the fitness center on the 100th floor. A mountain made a tall and jagged line on the horizon to the northwest, looking almost purple against an unusually clear morning sky.
Other than that it was surrounding by rolling hills with occasional stretches of almost flat and barren land for a mile or more. A keen eye that got close enough would be able to find the sealed doorways for the tunnels for aircraft coming and going from the tower.
The temperature just rising above zero degrees, clear skies, and forecasts predicting nothing but calm weather should have meant that everything was going to be fine for the patrol that was coming up for the men and women of the Crusader Flotilment. Something nice and easy, with a Cuttlefish drogue-drop to get some of the newest members used to it, and some time driving out in the tundra while K4s from went searching through all the passes and behind every hill for an enemy that wasn't anymore likely to be there than they had been the last patrol. Or the one before that. Or the one even before that.
So William shouldn't have been worried, as he burned down the second cigar he'd lite since he woke up that morning, and just - stared at his tank. A Mk.I Maximus, already old according to the bean-counters in admin even though it seemed like last week he'd been in the seat of a K4 about to drop onto the surface of Rok'veru. As the Senior Chief, the flotilment's commanding officer, it was his job to worry. The gunners and the drivers and the loaders of the other tanks, they could affrod to just focus on the more simplistic parts of a mission like security sectors, interlocking fields of fire, and the beaten zone of their guns.
Once you sat down in the commander's seat for the first time, you had more responsibility placed on your shoulders, and it only grew heavier with rank and command. You developed a sense with that, of when you should go through with something or wave off an operation at the last minute. If you didn't develop that sense and refused to listen to it, you could die. Or worse, the men and women under your command could die.
"Thunder Chief" sat in the motor pool, freshly cleaned paint shining under the artificial light of the motor pool while the other three members of his crew worked alongside the mechanics who'd been assigned to help them. Along with the standard loads of HEAP, HE, a smaller number of APFSDS rounds, and even a few HESH rounds they had been given something new. The Armor Penetrating, Plasma Explosive round: APPE. Each tank had been issued only ten of them, at the cost of HEAP and HE stocks.
Being trusted and tasked with testing out the new rounds at the range was an apology from the bean-counters in admin for not being able to get their tanks refitted into MkIIs by the end of the week like he'd been promised would happen - over a month ago. Go out on patrol, come back, set up some static targets at distance, and get the crews' opinions on the new rounds.
It was all supposed to be easy enough. But that didn't shake the feeling in his gut that something was going to go very wrong, verey soon.
The members of Crusader Flotilment's 1st and 2nd Platoons had known they would have patrol duty this day a week in advance, to give no excuses for Marines to be showing up too hung over to work from the weekend. They'd been pulled from their weekend fun a couple of hours early to brief them on some of the broad points of the situation. Though that briefing had mostly been William "The Smokehouse" Parry playing Senior Chief Buzzkill by reminding them all that if they showed up this morning with a different marital status or a change in the number of dependents listed on their files that he would personally defenestrate kill the guilty Marines for their crimes.
With the addition of some new faces to the unit, including but not limited to a too-cocky rockband calling itself a tank crew from the 4th and two former mercanaries who'd found themselves on the wrong side of Nepleslian intelligence services, Chief Parry had felt obligated to make sure the unit roster for the patrol was mailed to every single tank commander to avoid any confusion of call-signs over the radio. After all, even if this was supposed to be a milk-run, he didn't want dumb mistakes getting made in his unit.
Code:
<<SECURE MESSAGE>>
<<FROM:>> Senior Chief Parry, William - 1st EXMF, 1st Reg., Crusader Flotilment
<<TO:>> All vehicle commanders - Crusader 1, Crusader 2
<<SECURITY:>> For Official Use Only (FOUO)
To the new blood and fresh transfers: this is a list of TC's and their call-signs.
- Command
- CO (Me) = Crusader 6, "Thunder Chief"
- XO = Crusader 7
- 1st Platoon
- Corporal Dolphin Pak-Wun Wang = Crusader 1-1, "Pasco's Prom Ride"
- Corporal Ross Mitchell = Crusader 1-2, "Vehicular Manslaughter"
- Private 1st Class Aleksandra Zinoviya Simonova = Crusader 1-3, "Misha"
- Corporal "Wespe" Tittenlieb = Crusader 1-4, "The BONE"
- 2nd Platoon
- Corporal John Battleaxe = Crusader 2-1, "Crush 'N Grind!"
- Corporal Adam Foss = Crusader 2-2, "El Corcel"
- Private 2nd Class Adamask Tyrosian = Crusader 2-3, "Hazardous Material"
- Corporal Mikhail Kostetski = Crusader 2-4
The briefing is on the 50th floor at 0640, and I want us loading into the shuttles for
drop by 0650 after briefing. Be there on time and ready to go, in uniform. I don't
want to bust heads or make Marines miserable. This is supposed to be a milk-run
but you train how you fight.
So show up drunk, married, or drunkenly married and I will smoke you until the
spirit of Lewis Pasco himself has to come back from the dead to order you out of the
front-leaning rest and the whole motor pool has sweat dripping from the walls.
Chief Parry, out.
<<END MESSAGE>>
Glancing at the message on his own datapad once again, the Senior Chief made sure that his crew was good, and had headed for the nearest elevator. It was a long ride up to the 50th floor, but he easily beat the Marines of his unit to the Crusader Flotilment's assigned briefing room. The room itself was spartan, rather poorly decorated, with plain green and white walls, chairs for the troops, and a screen for anything the commander needed to display.
He had lit up another cigar and made himself comfortable at the front of the room by the time the first of the Marines began to trickle in.
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