05-15-2014, 05:48 PM
Legionnaires quickly secured the area west of The Fortress, finding cover behind service vehicles, concrete barriers, and even in the irrigation ditch that ran at the far west edge of the wide concrete lot. Bodies of the dead were quickly swept by Legionnaires too, and were quickly stripped of anything of obvious use.
Designated teams moved up to the heavily reinforced doors of the Fortress, and sappers moved to the front to inspect them. They could be breached, of course, but not without doing harm to anyone within. Since the Fortress was where the survivors they were there to rescue were supposedly holed up, explosive breaching simply wasn't an option. Luckily, they had other means at their disposal; plasma torches were called up, but before it came to that one intrepid sapper glanced at his compatriots with a grin, and boldly thumped a gloved fist against the unyielding steel. "Hello inside! Bonsoir! You lot will sleep sound tonight because we rough men stand ready to do violence on your behalf!"
The African man smirked at his compatriots again and eased back from the door; they formed stacks just off the wall adjacent to each door; should they open and the enemy be within, they would frag-and-clear. And if they were friendly, then whomever opened would be met with a hand to shake.
Elsewhere, on the tarmac, fifty Legionnaires manned mortars and support weapons, while teams searched abandoned aircraft that sat ready to taxi to the various terminal gates and bring their passengers to foreign ports-of-call. The enemy had been there already; there was no signs of violence commited, but it was obvious that at least some of those planes had once housed pilots and crews, likely now held under arms somewhere within the terminal. Or just as likely, lay slaughtered elsewhere. Neither thought sat well with the Legionnaires; partly because the planes would need those pilots, and partly for the fear they had arrived too late to save them.
With the flares lit along the dark runway, Jacques' jet wheeled sharply through the night sky and lined up. The plane landed hard and fast; it was an easy target on the approach to the runway, but his experienced pilots had little trouble putting it down onto the massive runway meant for far larger aircraft. The tires shuddered and the brakes screached as the plane slowed and taxi'd to the final flare, where it was guided off the runway and into the protective bubble of the emplaced crew-served weapons.
The stairs dropped, and Jacques' personal staff dismounted carrying an array of command-and-control equipment. Be the time Jacques had squared away his work space in the interior and darted down the ramp, holo-emitters and radios were set up to form his command post. All he lacked was tables.
He'd gotten changed in the hours waiting for his men to arrive, and now wore the same uniform and armour as his soldiers. Instead of a helmet, he favoured the white Kepi, and a pistol was strapped to his thigh, pouches of pistol mags in a load-bearing rig on his chest, and expensive Landwarriors, the latest military grade model, sat on his face, replacing the latest in civilian designer fashion that he had worn the last time he had seen violence in DV. The hat marked him apart from his men, but if the enemy had drawn close enough for that to be an issue, then there was little a helmet was likely to do for him anyway.
"Mortar crews. Reference grids marked. Lieutenant Purnama, forward those to the assault team. Sergent Potenza, do we have planes identified for the evac?"
The few officers and sergeants in the fire-base approached at a controlled jog as Jacques had dismounted, nodding and responding to his orders in quick order. "Excellent. Set fire to the ones I've marked. We're far too open out here, we need a smoke screen."
The burning planes would draw some unwanted attention, but at the same time it would make them difficult to see, with the flames and smoke between them and the enemy. And would deny their use to the rebels later. There was some unfortunate precedence of what these sorts of folks were willing to do with planes, although they tended to prefer ones with innocents aboard.
The sergeant saw to it that Legionnaires were put to the task of setting flame to some of the planes; fuel tanks were ruptured, the planes carefully chosen that the fuel would run outwards from the fire base, that the smoke would be pushed by the wind away from them rather then choking them out of their position. Everything was planned, and was going accordingly. Which worried Jacques to no end. No plan survived contact with the enemy, after all.
"Capitan Pék. The Vega?"
The senior officer on the ground shook his head; there had been no sign of anyone in the area since their arrival; all the combat seemed to be ongoing around the main terminal, and no one had wandered out to greet them yet.
So that's where the plan would begin to fall apart, was it?
GPS programs were pulled up, displaying static maps of the area with real-time IFF beacons indicating the location of his men. It was an outdated system; there was lag, and the positions were only accurate to within ten meters, but he had gotten surprisingly good at judging the distance error. The arrangement of his men was satisfying; that there was only 199 of them was less so. He was aware the moment he lost Soldat Desta Sizwe. South African. Had been with the Legion less then a year; this was his first major deployment since leaving the South African military for the Legion.
"Toubib Afolayan. Take a team, begin prepping one of these plans as your triage point.
The planes set to be burned were beginning to go up, bathing the fire base in light, but the flames also helped block them from view from afar, while thickening columns of smoke obscured them from the terminal and outlying buildings, and Jacques' men hustled to get things prepared. Mortars were prepped, the supply drops gathered and neatly stacked. Chair pulled from the plane Toubib Afolayan had been granted were used as simple cover for the mortar pits; they'd do little but obscure an enemy's view of the gun crews.
Designated teams moved up to the heavily reinforced doors of the Fortress, and sappers moved to the front to inspect them. They could be breached, of course, but not without doing harm to anyone within. Since the Fortress was where the survivors they were there to rescue were supposedly holed up, explosive breaching simply wasn't an option. Luckily, they had other means at their disposal; plasma torches were called up, but before it came to that one intrepid sapper glanced at his compatriots with a grin, and boldly thumped a gloved fist against the unyielding steel. "Hello inside! Bonsoir! You lot will sleep sound tonight because we rough men stand ready to do violence on your behalf!"
The African man smirked at his compatriots again and eased back from the door; they formed stacks just off the wall adjacent to each door; should they open and the enemy be within, they would frag-and-clear. And if they were friendly, then whomever opened would be met with a hand to shake.
Elsewhere, on the tarmac, fifty Legionnaires manned mortars and support weapons, while teams searched abandoned aircraft that sat ready to taxi to the various terminal gates and bring their passengers to foreign ports-of-call. The enemy had been there already; there was no signs of violence commited, but it was obvious that at least some of those planes had once housed pilots and crews, likely now held under arms somewhere within the terminal. Or just as likely, lay slaughtered elsewhere. Neither thought sat well with the Legionnaires; partly because the planes would need those pilots, and partly for the fear they had arrived too late to save them.
With the flares lit along the dark runway, Jacques' jet wheeled sharply through the night sky and lined up. The plane landed hard and fast; it was an easy target on the approach to the runway, but his experienced pilots had little trouble putting it down onto the massive runway meant for far larger aircraft. The tires shuddered and the brakes screached as the plane slowed and taxi'd to the final flare, where it was guided off the runway and into the protective bubble of the emplaced crew-served weapons.
The stairs dropped, and Jacques' personal staff dismounted carrying an array of command-and-control equipment. Be the time Jacques had squared away his work space in the interior and darted down the ramp, holo-emitters and radios were set up to form his command post. All he lacked was tables.
He'd gotten changed in the hours waiting for his men to arrive, and now wore the same uniform and armour as his soldiers. Instead of a helmet, he favoured the white Kepi, and a pistol was strapped to his thigh, pouches of pistol mags in a load-bearing rig on his chest, and expensive Landwarriors, the latest military grade model, sat on his face, replacing the latest in civilian designer fashion that he had worn the last time he had seen violence in DV. The hat marked him apart from his men, but if the enemy had drawn close enough for that to be an issue, then there was little a helmet was likely to do for him anyway.
"Mortar crews. Reference grids marked. Lieutenant Purnama, forward those to the assault team. Sergent Potenza, do we have planes identified for the evac?"
The few officers and sergeants in the fire-base approached at a controlled jog as Jacques had dismounted, nodding and responding to his orders in quick order. "Excellent. Set fire to the ones I've marked. We're far too open out here, we need a smoke screen."
The burning planes would draw some unwanted attention, but at the same time it would make them difficult to see, with the flames and smoke between them and the enemy. And would deny their use to the rebels later. There was some unfortunate precedence of what these sorts of folks were willing to do with planes, although they tended to prefer ones with innocents aboard.
The sergeant saw to it that Legionnaires were put to the task of setting flame to some of the planes; fuel tanks were ruptured, the planes carefully chosen that the fuel would run outwards from the fire base, that the smoke would be pushed by the wind away from them rather then choking them out of their position. Everything was planned, and was going accordingly. Which worried Jacques to no end. No plan survived contact with the enemy, after all.
"Capitan Pék. The Vega?"
The senior officer on the ground shook his head; there had been no sign of anyone in the area since their arrival; all the combat seemed to be ongoing around the main terminal, and no one had wandered out to greet them yet.
So that's where the plan would begin to fall apart, was it?
GPS programs were pulled up, displaying static maps of the area with real-time IFF beacons indicating the location of his men. It was an outdated system; there was lag, and the positions were only accurate to within ten meters, but he had gotten surprisingly good at judging the distance error. The arrangement of his men was satisfying; that there was only 199 of them was less so. He was aware the moment he lost Soldat Desta Sizwe. South African. Had been with the Legion less then a year; this was his first major deployment since leaving the South African military for the Legion.
"Toubib Afolayan. Take a team, begin prepping one of these plans as your triage point.
The planes set to be burned were beginning to go up, bathing the fire base in light, but the flames also helped block them from view from afar, while thickening columns of smoke obscured them from the terminal and outlying buildings, and Jacques' men hustled to get things prepared. Mortars were prepped, the supply drops gathered and neatly stacked. Chair pulled from the plane Toubib Afolayan had been granted were used as simple cover for the mortar pits; they'd do little but obscure an enemy's view of the gun crews.