310 Operation Firestorm (1/2)
Orwell's Point, Airfield
The heavy rumble of the twin engined Mariners drowned out all noise at the runways. The ground crew made last minutes urgent checks to the two aircraft lined up on the runway before a green flag was raised for each of the planes.
The pilots of both Mariners acknowledged the salutes of the ground crew and pushed the throttle of their engines to the max and released their brakes. Soon both planes took off into the skies with a belly full of napalm.
As they formed up in the air, a squadron of Cobras joined them as escorts as they headed towards the North Front.
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Secondary Alpha Two
Mills forgot how many times he had reloaded and fired his carbine. His shoulder had long gone numb from the recoil of his rifle as he fired at the Imperials that kept crawling into the trenches.
A sudden yell jerked Mills's head up and he saw a shadow fall over him. He reflexly stabbed upwards with his carbine equipped with his sword bayonet and impaled the squirming Imperial in the chest.
Sticky blood flowed down from the stab wound of the wild eyed Imperial who screamed like a girl. Mills grunted with effort to dislodge the full weight of the Imperial from his bayonet and the weeping Imperial collapsed to join the heap of dead bodies on the trench floor.
”They keep coming!” Mills's radioman yelled as he fired at another wave of Imperials popping up like rabbits over the trench line.
”USE YOUR GRENADES!” Mills yelled and he dropped his carbine to its sling and pulled out one of his last grenades. ”READY? THROW!”
Those Marines still having grenades, threw them over the trenches on Mills's command. A couple of seconds later, several dull thuds popped loudly and Mills felt the air in his chest compress by the explosions of the grenades.
Screams and cries of pain followed after the explosions, Mills roared out, ”Clear them out!”
The fighting had turned ugly when scores of Imperials reached the trench lines. The 'Terminators' were mostly stuck in the trenches by the bulk of their armor and those that exposed themselves in the open were gleefully gunned down by the .50 cal machine gun nests.
The common Imperials soldiers could only crawl into the forward trenches abandoned by the Marines and they tried to navigate their way in the tunnels only to meet gunfire at intersections.
The close quarter fighting had rendered spear and halbert armed soldiers useless. Even the Battlemages couldn't focus enough or had enough space to cast their spells efficiently.
The Imperials abandoned their polearms and grabbed whatever swords they could find among the fallen. Some even broke their shafts of their polearms to shorten their spears for use in the narrow confines of the trench tunnels.
Mills watched another group of Imperials attempting to breach his checkpoint by using human wave tactics, in this case, more like elf wave tactics.
His mouth was parched from the yelling and screaming. His surroundings were hot and the warm blood of the Imperials over his body didn't help either. Mills growled at the charging Imperials and snapped fired his carbine, his shots toppling the leader of the Imperials and suddenly his carbine locked back.
He automatically reached for his ammo pouches only to feel them empty. ”Shit!”
The first Imperial slammed into the chest high makeshift barrier of bodies and the Imperial started to climb over the gory barricade. Mills without a thought thrust his bayonet tipped carbine at the face of the scrambling Imperial.
The high carbon steel gouged the cheek of the screaming Imperial before it cut upwards and punctured the right eye of the soldier.
The Imperial screamed and half stood on top of the barrier and clutched his ruined face in pain. Mills retracted back his carbine and poised to thrust again when his radioman appeared next to him and shot the blue jacketed Imperial in the chest.
With the support of other Marines, they beat off the rest of the Imperial charge, their bodies collecting at the bottom of the trench, seemingly turning into a part of the terrain.
”Fuckers never stop coming!” Mills took a quick swirl of his water canteen. ”Any more ammo? I'm out!”
His radioman shook his head. ”Everyone is running out, Sarge!”
”Where are the ammo runners?” Mills cursed. ”Without any ammo, we will be overrun!”
”You two,” Mills quickly pointed to two Marines, ”Hand over all your remaining ammo and go back the lines and grab more over. The rest keep holding here!”
The two passed the scant remains of their ammunition before running off down the line. The rest of the Marines gathered the dropped Imperial weapons and guarding the trench that leads deeper into their lines.
Overhead, lines of tracers could be seen as the MG nests denied the enemy the chance to cross, forcing the Imperial to crawl on their bellies or move along the trenches.
”Mills?” Lt Silverstar suddenly appeared with several men. ”What's your situation here?”
”Sir?” Mills greeted his OC and gave a brief rundown of their position. ”We need more ammo and any rifles you can spare!”
”Those are on its way,” Lt Silverstar assured the men. ”You just need to hold here a bit longer!”
”What the hell is going on?” Mills asked Silverstar out of hearing from the rest of the men. ”First we lost mortar support, then we gave ground and now this?”
”HQ got some plans,” Silverstar said. ”We are letting the Imperials think that they had successfully breached our lines.”
”Once that happens, they will pull off all their forces and focus all their attention to the breach,” Silverstar said. ”In that extent, HQ wanted the Imperials to think that they are taking ground from us and our mortars are depleted.”
”Which we do have a limited store of mortar shells,” Silverstar added. ”HQ wants every fish to be in the barrel before they launch a counter attack.”
”What? Why didn't you notified us at the start?” Mills frowned and hissed angrily. ”You know how many casualties we took from the breach?”
”Calm down soldier!” Silverstar sighed. ”I know and I too was just informed of this operation by HQ.”
”Those damn pencil pushers!” Mills growled. ”Wait till I get out of here, I'll show them what a pencil can do up their ass!”
”This op has the CO's full endorsement!” Silverstar sternly said. ”It's his direct order!”
”What the hell?” Mills cursed. ”FUCK!”
”Calm down!” Silverstar said again. ”I brought some men and flamers along with me to reinforce you. Once the bombardment starts and the command is given, we will push through to reclaim the forward trenches and clear all Imperial elements in this sector!”
”Fuck!” Mills cursed again and spat to the side. ”Damn it, playing with our lives like some kind of chess game here.”