Mass Release 4 - AEINC - ch 12.6

Initial Battles (6)

After their first retreat, the joint NUSA-Militech army returns to the battlefield and stays within one hundred yards of the flamethrower array range, with one of the soldiers opening a radio channel requesting parley with the “commander on the base.”

“This is Jackson Colt," a gruff voice responds on the channel, "I am the Senior Security Officer organizing this Mine against miscreants like you. What do you want?”

“This is Colonel Gideon Cross, with the power invested in me, I am ordering you to surrender to the authority of the NUSA," a clear, younger voice speaks to the Mine security, "Lay down your weapons, open your gates, and do not resist. We promise that the NUSA government will be lenient with your attempt at secession from the Union.”

Jackson does a double take on the transmission before answering, “Give us a minute,” he cuts off the video, and exactly sixty seconds later, he opens the channel once more. 

With his best imitation of corporate voice, he gives the Mine's answer, “After convening with my fellow employees, we must respectfully disagree with both the surrender and the implication of secession, as neither Wube Inc.'s office at Night City, nor the office at West Side City is within the absolute dominion of the NUSA's federal government influence, making secession impossible as we never were part of the Union to begin with.”

The Colonel tries to retort to correct the ignorant man, but Jackson interrupts him, “I would also like to inform you that a significant number of our employees wished to answer you with ‘Go Fuck Yourself’ and other variants, but were outvoted. As the Senior Security Leader of this Mine, I decided to be transparent and honest about our feelings on the matter, differently from you. If you have nothing else to say, please leave. This is private property and your presence is upsetting our workers.”

Both men stare at each other over the video, angry at their opposite’s audacity. Eventually, the Colonel sighs, “It’s unfortunate that it came to this, as a veteran of the Unification Wars it always saddens me when fellow Americans fight against each other on the field of battle.”

The Security Leader doesn’t back down. “The dream of the Union died when the Gang of Four took power, and just because the new country calls itself the New United States of America, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a corpse puppeteered by the same people that killed it in the first place. Now either shut the fuck up and get out of here with your gang, or stop pretending you care about Americans or human life in general and start throwing your men’s life away on our walls.”

The Colonel grits his teeth but doesn’t retort, cutting off the connection between the two.

As the Security Leader predicted, the Colonel soon commanded his men to advance, with the ACPAs and Armor providing cover for the infantry.

The fire quickly flew in the air, and the line of ACPAs fired a special gun loaded with flame-retardant foam. Aiming both at the fire and the ground ahead of them, they created a passageway for the armored vehicles. While not all of the fires were extinguished, the flames had a harder time staying active on the ground and extinguishing soon after.

Jackson identified the first targets for his fellow security soldiers, “aim for the ACPA's!”

Taking out their rocket launchers, they aim after the ACPA’s holding the flame retardant guns, with the rockets flying after the power-armored targets. Some of them hit the mark, however, most ACPA’s managed to dodge the initial barrage, but that made the tanks vulnerable to the attacks. Despite their tough armor, with the security forces working together with their Explosive Rockets, soon the armored vehicles fell.

The tanks didn’t stay idle and shot back at the defended position, their powerful cannon shells able to pierce the concrete walls. Fortunately for the workers, the Engineer had expanded the wall coverage, making new layers of walls. The external layer was a double wall “dragon teeth” design meant to stop infantry from directly charging at the Mine, and a four-wall inner layer defended the Mine against powerful attacks, such as opponent’s cannon shells. The construction robots also have several extra walls and repair packs, alongside having over seven thousand construction robots to perform their jobs.

The Engineer calculated that this number of robots could sustain an attrition rate of five robots per minute during a period of 24 hours. A contingency in case the Engineer is unable to provide any aid to the Mine. 

Despite knowing the resources available, Jackson's mood remains grim as he knows they can’t survive the siege for long. The opponent's tanks pierced through four layers of walls with a single shot coming dangerously close to breaching the inner wall. The tank wall noticed it and started to focus fire on individual wall segments.

Seeing this, Jack calls out to his people, “Tank Boys and Panzer Girls, you’re up!”

The few tanks reared their engines and left from the armored gate entrances, treading slowly at first before quickly accelerating toward their targets. Utilizing Uranium Cannon Shells, the tanks shot at the opponent's armor, piercing through them with ease and hitting several other secondary targets as the powerful ammo mowed down the lesser armored escort. Some of the tanks were armed with Explosive Uranium Cannon Shells, taking even more escorts with each shell.

The ACPA’s tried to take down the precious tanks defending the Mine but were stopped by the lasers and gun turrets acting as point defense for the armored vehicles. After completing an entire circuit on the perimeter the tanks retreated back into the Mine for resupply and reassessment of the situation.

Jackson Colt checks the reports of current supplies and the damage on the Mine, finding the results within acceptable parameters. “How are you doing everyone?”

Echoes of, “still good,” and their variants sound on the Mine and the chat group making the Senior Security Leader sign in relief. “What about you, Tank Boys and Panzer Girls?”

“We’re still good for ammo,” one of the drivers answers, “but the vehicle acceleration is a bit tricky to handle. I will draw the vector of our pathway around the perimeter, and you can expect the enemy will likely reach the same conclusion as we did.”

Jackson thanks the driver, pondering their current situation. Since they’re on the defensive, the longer the siege lasts, the more their hand is revealed to the opponent.

The Senior Security Leader sends a message to Mark with his concern, receiving a response soon after.

"Sorry, I am being held up here and can't spare the time to send reinforcements to the Mine," the image of the Engineer on the screen sounded apologetic, "but expect the effectiveness of your weapons to quickly increase in the next few hours. Starting with ballistic, then explosives, and finally, laser weapons will deal more damage to their targets. The flamethrowers should be strong enough as is. Once things settle down I will send a fast runner with more supplies and a new turret type to help against ACPA’s and full-borgs.”

"Can't you send automated vehicles to hit them from behind?" Jackson almost breaks his composure and begs the Engineer, "Our numbers are extremely limited, and they sent a brigade after us."

The Engineer curses, "They're going all out from the start there too, huh? I am authorizing you to use the manual artillery remote. It has twice the range for the Artillery Turret automatic targeting systems. Keep it as a trump card since I'm sure Militech has a few tricks up their sleeve."

Jackson nods in relief, "Thank you, boss, I will make good use of it."

"Good luck Jackson, and take care," with a final encouragement, the Engineer cuts off the connection and returns his attention elsewhere. Jackson hopes he can match the trust his boss gave to him, or else they will all be dead.

Taking a deep breath, Jackson Colt addresses the Mine, “Alright choombatta! The boss said he can’t pick us up from kindergarten yet, but he will send new goodies to us later! Meanwhile, we should be grateful for our toys since they will take good care of us!” 

There was a pause as the other employees processed what their leader said. “Your guns will get better as time passes, dumbasses!”

“Why didn't you say that earlier, asshole!” Another employee answered, the man being Jackson's close friend, Hunter Sheridan.

“Shut up assholes," Jackson smiles at the familiar banter with his people, "go read a book instead of watching thirty seconds BDs from the Net!”

The mood inside the Mine lightens with the banter, dispelling some of the building tension, until the anti-air resumed shooting. A rain of small debris and guts falls on the ground, quickly swept away by the construction bots.

Shaking his head at the foolishness of Militech trying to insert Paratroopers in their position, the Senior Security Leader calls out to the others, “Ignore the idiots killing themselves! The more they try to bypass the wall, the more corpses will rain on us! That means we’re winning!”

“Yeah!”

With morale reestablished, the defenders return to their duties. Despite their apparent armament superiority, the opponent's numerical advantage couldn’t be underestimated. Despite culling the number of ACPAs and armored vehicles in the first run, soon more came to replace them. As the tanks went on their patrols outside the walls, the enemy infantry came closer to shoot their rocket launchers, hitting the Tanks with clear shots. However, the enemy infantry noticed too late the faint shimmer of energy shields upon impact, their curses at the high command loud enough for the defenders to hear.

Unknown to the rank-and-file, the armored vehicles from Wube Inc. came dangerously close to being destroyed, as the massed attacks managed to pierce through the shield resistance and hit the armor underneath. Taking a deep breath, Jackson checks the Mine's resources once more and realizes the amount of reserve walls is far lesser than initially thought, the same with the number of construction bots.

“Fucking snipers,” Jackson growls under his breath. 

Looking at the few artillery shells in stock, he manually targets the sniper's position. After a brief moment, the Artillery buildings finish turning their turrets and fire their deadly payload, hitting the sniper's hidden area. Immediately, the enemy air support did strafing runs at the edge of the Mine's anti-air weapon range, hitting a couple of security officers.

Someone at the Mine yells, “Medic!”

Rushing at the downed man, the nearby employees quickly apply a medical kit, bringing most of the injured back from the brink of death, yet some of them perished before medical treatment arrived. Differently from the sieging army, the besieged can’t replenish their numbers, and each loss is felt more heavily. With a heavy heart, Jackson orders the fallen comrades's equipment to be retrieved while the bodies are carried to an improvised morgue.

Thankfully, Jackon's friend Sheridan rallied the rest, “Don’t get disheartened everyone! All we have to do is to keep faith and we will pull through!”

In the following hours, the defenders' resolve will be tested as casualties will mount. Eventually, Sheridan approaches his friend to relieve him from wall duty, “How are things going, Jax?”

The Senior Security Leader can't hide his grimace, “We’re doing better than the guys outside, but they keep coming from everywhere. With each soldier we kill, three more come back. Only the Armor and ACPA’s take longer to come back, but I swear we already went through a brigade's armor by now.”

“Fuck,” his friend curses, “Militech and NUSA really want our ass this time, don't they?”

Jackson agrees, “Our orders are to hold on for now, since cavalry is on the way from BN2 Complex.”

His friend nods, before looking outside, “We can’t stay inside forever,” Sheridan confesses, “The survivors are nearly breaking, and we need to go on the offensive beyond using the tanks to clear the perimeter. We have to go outside and fight!”

Jackson grits his teeth because he knows his friend is right, "It's not that simple, we will risk ourselves outside the walls-"

“-but we're already dying here!" Sheridan reminds his friend of the reality of the situation, "If we were on Night City or in the BN2 Complex we might have lasted indefinitely, but we’re cut off from everything else! If we can’t deal with them here, we’re done for! Remember Reach!”

The last words shake the Senior Security Leader out of his current mental state, as he remembers the simulation. The final stage was an impossible mission fighting against a never-ending army while outnumbered and outgunned. The point of the exercise was to train the resilience and courage of the soldiers and to find new tactics and strategies to deal with overwhelming odds.

“Thank you, I need that reminder,” Taking a deep breath, Jackson sends a message to all his fellow employees, comrade in arms, and friends, “Alright everyone, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, our situation is fucked! If we don’t bring the fight to them, the enemy will keep throwing men and armor at us forever! However, we all survived those odds before, on the hellish simulation of the bloodstained plains of Reach! Compared with the hell of that planet, this is nothing! We will overcome those odds, and we will survive!”

“Urraaah!”

“Everyone, form up Attack Wave Alpha, Beta, and Gamma! We’re going to fuck! Them! Up!”

“Urraaah!”

Post Chapter Notes

The fourth chapter of the mass release. Unfortunately, since Grammarly is lagging I will post the fifth chapter later today. The next chapter concludes the initial battles segment. Afterward, I will work on Nier: Revengeance, and then start working on the main fights occurring on Night City.