Chapter 16: Call for Help

Aware of the emergency being relayed through that radio, Lieutenant Bulgers made a beeline straight for it and I hurried after him.

Lieutenant Bulgers snatched up the radio handset without missing a beat. "Blue Heron! Blue Heron! This nearest squad responding, over!"

"--Oh! Colonel, someone's.....responding! Thank you....zztt..thank you.....Goddes...zzzt...Zildria!" A cry of relief broke through the static.

"Then....ask them for.....zzzt..help, you idiot!" A different voice, still buried in static, cut through. "We can't hold them much longer!"

Even so the sound of gunfire and explosions on the other end showed no sign of stopping just because Lieutenant Bulgers had responded.

"I need your exact location! Which part of Sector 3-Bravo!? Give me your surroundings!" Lieutenant Bulgers pressed firmly. "Pat! Take this map, pin down where they are!"

"Yes, sir!" Pat pushed through the crowd that had packed itself around the radio.

Taking the map from Lieutenant Bulgers, Pat spread it flat across the nearest table surface, immediately slipping into his usual navigation mode and reaching for the pencil he had tucked in his chest pocket.

"--Uhmm," the radio operator did not answer immediately, leaving Pat already poised with his pencil growing more tense by the second. "We're pinned between some goddamn hedgerows, and behind us there's a river cutting off our escape route! We're completely surrounded! Enemy is pushing from the direction of the highway, they're still advancing!"

"River, open field, highway..." seizing on that detail, Pat began moving the tip of his pencil across the map while his eyes worked through every possibility. It did not take long before he circled a point. "Here! I've got the coordinates, Lieutenant! No more than 700 meters north of our position!"

"I know that area, I will lead you there by the fastest route!" Philipe beside me volunteered without hesitation.

"Alright, everyone move! Move! Move!" Lieutenant Bulgers' order rippled to every corner of the bunker.

Everyone inside moved fast, weapons already in hand. Truth was, most of us had already finished getting ready the moment the radio had crackled to life. The only thing that had held them in place was waiting for Lieutenant Bulgers' order.

Despite how rushed it all looked, our movement was orderly and not a single person collided with another or threw the mobilization into chaos.

"C'mon! Move your ass! C'mon!" The Staff Sergeant became the engine pushing everyone's speed.

Our first obstacle was the ladder leading up, and being a single lane I worried it would bottleneck our response time in getting to our allies. But that concern turned out to be unnecessary because the ladder's construction was solid enough that even four people climbing at once showed no sign of the structure complaining about the load.

"Hey, you don't have to come along," in the brief moment while a few of us were still waiting at the bottom of the ladder, Lieutenant Bulgers addressed Philipe who was already ready with a Varexil light machine gun. "Having Pat is already enough. At the end of the day you are a civilian. There is no need for you to get involved."

"That won't work, Lieutenant. As I said, I know the fastest route," Philipe said it casually enough, but after that his face hardened and he racked the machine gun. "Besides, I never pass up a single chance to reduce the number of these occupiers."

Realizing it would be pointless and a waste of time to push him any further, Lieutenant Bulgers could only exhale as a sign of resignation, giving Philipe nothing more than a reluctant nod.

It was not long before our turn came to climb the ladder. I gripped each cold iron rung carefully as it met the skin of my palms.

Until finally I was back on the surface. Every trace of warmth from the bunker vanished in an instant, and as the last one out I helped Philipe pull the trapdoor shut behind us. Up here, every member of the squad was already standing on alert in combat positions, waiting in a gripping silence beneath a pre-sunrise sky.

Scarface looked around and his expression said something was wrong. "Wait, wait, where's Raylan?"

"Huh? Where is my daughter as well?" Philipe beside me asked the same kind of question.

"We're here!" From behind the bushes Raylan emerged with Nira at his side. "W-we were just taking turns keeping watch outside, Sergeant!"

Scarface did not take long to see through that flimsy excuse. His eyes narrowed, moving back and forth between the two of them. At the same moment they both walked toward me.

Philipe, on the other hand, did not look as angry as Scarface, but his expression shifted into something unmistakably protective. He pulled Nira to his side with one hand while the other still gripped his Varexil light machine gun.

"Watching my ass--"

"Enough, we've already wasted too much time," Lieutenant Bulgers took over, keeping the more pressing situation in mind. "Whatever that is, we deal with it later."

"Yes, sir."

Not wanting to waste any more time, everyone fell into their assigned positions under the Lieutenant's direction, all of us refocusing on the objective and leaving our squad member's affairs behind. I could see as Raylan made his way toward the forward position alongside Philipe, the people around him could not help giving him a hard time.

Seriously, what is happening with this company?

                                      * * *

With Philipe leading from the front alongside our two pointmen, we pushed our hearts to keep up the pace, and without room for a single mistake I placed each step with care, watching for anything that could catch my feet like the uneven roots snaking across the ground.

I kept at it nonstop without any break, made harder by the fact that I had to do my best to match my pace with my squadmates, which honestly felt like a real struggle given the body I was working with.

I had lost count of how many hundreds of meters I had already run, but somewhere in my head was the reminder that two hundred meters generally passes quickly enough, and it is around five hundred that you start losing steam. On top of that I was carrying the weight of the bag on my back as well. I genuinely hoped we would arrive soon.

"Get ready! Target is close!" Lieutenant Bulgers shouted, giving us the latest update.

Ironically I actually started to feel a sense of relief the moment the sounds of battle began reaching my ears, as though it was promising that this running session was almost over.

In the distance, bursts of automatic fire began spilling toward where we were, all of it pointing us directly to the source. And not just that, as we drew closer, unclear shouting began to layer on top of it.

As we closed in, the column that had begun to slow and lose its rhythm found its energy again, like Olympic sprinters spotting the finish line growing larger ahead of them, all of us picking up speed.

Right at the far edge of the plantation, the thick mass of hedgerows began to replace the bleak view of the fields. But what was unsettling was the black smoke spreading from behind them. There was no need to guess what that meant. We had entered the combat zone.

"Take your positions!"

The moment we broke out of the plantation Lieutenant Bulgers directed us to take cover along the hedgerows. We did not stop running until finally everything halted as we nearly simultaneously formed a horizontal line and threw ourselves down, the hedgerows becoming our cover.

The moment I hit the ground on that sloping earth, my body went completely limp, breath coming in ragged gasps from running without a single break. Hell, if such a thing were possible, I might have fallen dead asleep right then and there, pretending the grass beneath me was a warm set of bedsheets.

But yeah, with the chaos unfolding on the other side of these hedgerows, that was not happening. Through the wall of leaves, our eyes fixed on a glider that had been nearly torn in two, abandoned like the carcass of a dead bird in the middle of a field of wild grass.

"Holy shit, that's a whole motorized company!" Pisger burst out, taking in the situation.

Scattered around the glider were troops in Dretonian uniforms, advancing slowly and steadily with two halftracks alongside them, each mounted with a machine gun that kept spitting bursts of fire toward whatever they were trying to erase from this field.

To the side sat two more halftracks, though neither was going anywhere, both burnt out and being consumed by hungry flames. Several charred bodies lay scattered near the tracks themselves.

"There, Lieutenant!" One of our men from the other unit pointed. "That's the Colonel! I'm sure that's our Colonel Dinks!"

In the direction he was pointing, at least a dozen men were hunched low, using a ridge of earth as cover against every round the enemy was sending their way. Just as they said, right behind them there is a river that acts as a natural barricade for themself, if they force to crossed it, it's will make them an easy target.

"Cas! Radio!"

"I'm coming, Letnan!"

Thanks to Caspian moving fast, Lieutenant Bulgers did not have to wait long for him to arrive, as he always kept himself within reach.

The Lieutenant raised his head slightly higher while still keeping careful enough that the enemy could not catch a glimpse of him, using the thick foliage as cover as he gripped the radio handset and surveyed the trapped allies.

"Blue Heron, Blue Heron! Respond immediately!" He called out firmly to make himself clear. "We are already near your position! We have a clear visual on you from here! Over!"

"Operator here! What took you so long!? Over!"

"We apologize for that, but there's no time! Pass the radio to the Colonel! Over!"

No further answer came through the radio channel, only the sound of gunfire from ahead that matched perfectly with what was coming out of Caspian's radio. I peeked again and watched one of the figures at the dirt mound crawling under obvious pressure just to pass the handset to another figure.

"Yeah!?" The voice was heavy, raspy, and full of authority forced out through the whine of passing bullets. From here I could also see him holding the radio handset on the other end.

"Colonel! We are right behind the hedgerows at your three o'clock! I don't know if you can see us! But we have a clear visual on you!" Lieutenant Bulgers shouted into the handset. "Here's the plan, sir! We have a Varexil rocket launcher with two rounds, I'll order my men to put them straight into their halftracks as the opening move! I want you to immediately make a run for the hedgerows on the opposite side! Don't come toward us! That's too far! There's a small village not far to the south of here, wait for us there! Is that good, sir!? Over!"

"Boy! We are desperate out here, whatever you want to do, just do it!" The Colonel shot back by trying to be firm and avoid letting panic taint his voice. "But, one more thing! Over!"

"What is it, Colonel? Over!"

"You see that glider!?" he said, drawing my eyes and everyone else's toward the glider that had become a nest for the Dretonians. "I want your men to do it's blow that shit up first! I'll be damned if they get those documents inside to use as intel against us! Over!"

To that Lieutenant Bulgers could not help furrowing his brow. "But Colonel! Their two machine guns will respond directly toward us!"

"By the Goddess Zildria! You have hedgerows! If we've managed to hold on with what we have until now, you sure as hell can too!"

"Crazy... he's absolutely crazy," Lieutenant Bulgers muttered under his breath before finally pressing the radio button. "Understood, Colonel. We'll get it done. Out!"

He shoved the handset back toward Caspian and spun around to face us with a look that could have set the grass on fire. We could only meet his fury in silence, waiting to find out what needed to be done next.

"You heard that? Priority has changed! We need to burn that damn glider while saving their ass!"

He immediately broke down assignments rapidly to each person he had designated. The two soldiers from the other unit would be the rocket men, positioned at the highest point of the dirt mound to get the widest possible field of view.

"Lafey! Lafey! Lieutenant! Vive la Lonfre!" Philipe was the most fired up person here.

Philipe and Nira were ordered to have their machine guns ready, while Freddy, Horgan, and Pisger holding Varexil bolt-action rifles took position alongside them.

"Everyone else hold your weapons until further order from me!" Lieutenant Bulgers said firmly. I had no idea what he was planning, but he seemed confident enough about something.

In a proud horizontal line, every armed member raised their weapons concealed well behind the hedgerow foliage. At least even if we were outnumbered, the terrain cover was on our side.

At the far right of our line, the two men handling the rocket launcher were busy loading their rockets, all of which they had taken from the bunker earlier.

"Round ready!"

"Now! Fire!"

Whoooosh!

The gunner boldly planted his foot on the dirt mound and launched the first rocket, the shockwave strong enough to send the surrounding leaves flying violently. The rocket itself left a beautiful trail of smoke along its path before dispersing in the surrounding area, creating a haze that stung my eyes from the gas it produced.

"Oh fuck! I missed!"

But instead of hitting the designated target, the rocket passed clean over it and detonated on the other side of the hedgerows, carving out a crater that did absolutely nothing for us. Damn it, they clearly were not used to the weight and sighting of that weapon yet.

Despite the result falling short of expectations, Philipe pulled the trigger on his machine gun anyway, followed immediately by Freddy and the others, all four of them raining fire down on the enemy without mercy.

But something was strange about the Dretonian soldiers' reaction. They did immediately hit the ground to avoid the rounds coming from our direction, but instead of returning fire they only shouted toward us in a language none of us could understand, and many of them were actually waving their hands, whatever that was supposed to mean.

​"ᚺᛖᛃᛏ, ᛁᚺᚱ ᛞᛖᛗᛖᛚ! ᚺᛟ̈ᚱᛏ ᚨᚦᚠ ᛉᚢ ᛋᚲᚺᛁᛖᛋᛋᛖᚾ!"

​"ᛋᛏᛟᛈᛈ! ᛖᛋ ᛋᛁᚾᛞ ᚹᛁᚲᚺᛏᛁᚲᛖ ᛞᛟᚲᚢᛗᛖ᛾ᛏᛖ ᚺᛁᛖᚱ! ᛋᛖᛁᛞ ᛁᚺᚱ ᛒᛖᛋᚺᛖᚢᛖᚱᛏ!?"

The Dretonian forces around the wreckage of the glider looked genuinely panicked and completely swallowed by the fog of battle. One of them even stood half crouched, waving his arms wildly and taking a few steps toward our hedgerows before he finally collapsed face down the moment one of Philipe's machine gun rounds found him.

"This is your chance!" Lieutenant Bulgers called out, reading the enemy's confusion. He immediately snatched the radio from Caspian's hands. "Blue Heron! Now! Run as fast as you can! Move!"

Oh! I understand now! God, how stupid of me! They had all reacted that way because they thought we were their own allies. With weapons taken straight from Varexil manufacturers, the Dretonian soldiers had assumed they were taking friendly fire.

Colonel Dinks' group wasted no time. Seeing the enemy distracted and not returning fire in our direction, they leapt from cover and ran as hard as they could toward the hedgerows on the opposite side. But the illusion only held for a few seconds. The moment they saw their pinned down enemies making a run for it, the Dretonians snapped back to reality and realized that the Varexil rounds raining down on them were not a friendly fire mistake.

"ᛋᛁᛖ ᚺᚨᛒᛖᚾ ᚢᚾᛋ ᛒᛖᛚᛟᚷᛖᚾ! ᚠᛖᚢᛖᚱ ᚠᚱᛖᛁ!"