Spectre of the Sinner - Chapter 1 part 1: An unexpected disaster

POV: An Nguyễn, 0922 UTC -03:00, somewhere in South America
“Conserve your ammo! I repeat, conserve your ammo!”

Frantic shouting, or should I say, roaring echoed across the makeshift trenches. Of course, the one who issued such orders was this operative, who had just returned a couple of 6.5 Grendel towards the opposite trench, roughly 450m away. From the looks of it, it seemed that the other side was much more generous with their offering, as a hail of 6.8 Fury, 762 NATO, and Fitty could be heard whizzing past our positions, sometimes telegraphing their trajectory with bright tracer rounds in broad daylight.

An officer hunkering down with his subordinates gestured to me, looking somewhat irritated at the muddy ground as he constantly adjusted his posture to not sink into the ground. From the looks of it, their fatigues were different from mine, signifying that they belonged to the regular formations. A glance at his buddy confirmed that he could only offer me an apologetic shrug before going back to vigilantly observing the frontline, not wanting to endure his buddy’s attitude any further. I moved to their position while crouching low, not being keen to receive a hole in my head for my blunders.

“How long do we have to wait for the rest of your unit, Mister Cyborg? What’s the point of your”, he sneered in my direction while standing up, “[Sotnik-2] suit when all you do is get stuck in the trenches like my great-great granddad once fought?”

A sigh almost audibly escaped my soul, exasperated at that officer’s remarks. Stealing a glance at the numbers in the place of a wristwatch on my left hand, just as I was about to remind him about the reality, a small explosion occurred, and matters showered upon me. More specifically, brain matters and helmet fragments from that officer. It seemed that a [Raufoss] round found its mark being that hot head’s helmet, a deadly reminder of the reality of a modern battlefield: covers save lives. His headless body naturally collapsed on its own, forcing me to sidestep it to avoid being pinned down.

“NO! [ALAN]!”

Another aborted child of war had left the playing field, leaving his fellow mate alone in this harsh forbidden land. Desperately flipping the guy over, the First-class Lieutenant cradled the headless corpse while softly muttering.

“I’m… so sorry… please forgive me… madam [Mortimer]…”

Forcing myself to ignore them, I turned the shooting end of my Kalashnikov to the opposite trench line. A storm of 6.8 Fury and Fitty, with the occasional 762 NATO peppered in, roared in my direction, all too eager to separate this operator’s head from his body. By combining the live feed from one of the many UAVs circling the battleground, I managed to acquire the target despite the dust storm furiously dancing around my LOS. There, at a much further distance of over 800m, a group of reinforcements marched toward the frontline, spewing a rain of lead, and trying to suppress our line as they slogged through the somewhat muddy battlefield. Their somewhat awkward gait, combined with the fact that some of them also had to occasionally lend a push to the resupplying robotic mules to get out of the sticky ground, made them the perfect duck to shoot at.

A quick dial to the nearest [Super Hind] hovering a short distance away, and a thick Guangdong accent voice answered my request.

“[Black Viper Five Two], this is [Able Bloodhound Zero One], over.”

“Go ahead, [Able Bloodhound Zero One], over.”

“[Black Viper Five Two], enemy tracked 800 meters Northwest, break, request fire support immediately, read back, over.”

A bright tracer round glanced at my helmet, almost knocking me back. I almost let out a groan at the impact yet managed to hold it in, partly thanks to the hormone controller in my system, to not disrupt the ongoing transmission. Well, at least their time was being counted by minutes, if not seconds, so let’s be patient, shall we? Such thoughts raced through my mind as I continued to paint the intended targets with the loitering UAV’s laser designator while letting out occasional Grendel rounds toward entrenching enemy troops.

“I read back: enemy tracked 800 meters Northwest. Request fire support immediately, over.”

“Correct, over.”

“Wilco, over.”

“Roger, out.”

Swiftly withdrawing myself from the rage of war just after finishing designating targets, and letting one of the choppers do its job, I decided to give a quick check on the surviving child of war. Empty, lifeless eyes, gazing toward his slain brother. A husk of a broken man, slumping down, not caring that he may sink into the mud, grieving his comrade in silence.
As a fellow child of war, what the grieving child needed right now was some comforting gestures. Thus, I crouched down to his level, then a shoulder pat of solidarity was offered.

“Sorry for your loss, comrade [Vilkas]…”

Banshee-like screeches engulfed the whole battlefield, soon accompanied by intense earthquake-like shaking, interrupting my attempt to console the guy. It seemed that my previous fire support request was a bit on the… err, superfluous side, yeah. At the very least, even if the reinforcement column somehow still managed to get through the fury of the supporting [Super Hind], then the missile barrage would end them rightly then and there. And at the corner of my eyesight, the numbers on the holographic display in lieu of the wristwatch signified the next phase of the operation.
A quick observation of the dust-filled battlefield through the drones’ live feed revealed the rather familiar scene straight out of Hell as if the whole previous engagements up until that point was child’s play: that an altar of a rather messy sacrifice ceremony to the [High Patriarch of War] was erected on this very battlefield. Visibly projected into my brain was the sorry state of the enemy troops: aside from the dead ones, whose parts were either blown away meters from their corpse or completely disappeared into the dust of blood and flesh, the dying ones were weakly begging for whatever came to their dying mind, perhaps begging for their mother to heal them the ugly scars of this cursed long-running war. The state of the surviving troops was also not that much better: some broke down from the stress of combat or the death of their dear friend, while the remaining few still valiantly fought on, even much more furiously than previously. Silent whispering of hatred, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams from the scores of smoldering wreckages, both new and old alike, littered around the battlefield.

Just as I was contemplating the aftermath of the missile barrage, familiar whirring arrived at the provisional HQ. The radio traffics became much livelier due to the influx of incoming reinforcements on our side, which soon transmitted a sense of relief to our tired children. The still-abled souls rushed to maintain vigilance, watching the front line while trying to not get hit with any stray shots from the opposite. Under the cover of such sentries, a flow of fresh supplies and manpower was poured into our line, revitalizing the troops’ spirit. The wounded were treated and evacuated, the demoralized got relieved from their posts, fresh troops poured in and manned the positions, ammo got resupplied, and brand-new combat drones rolled into ready positions.

As for the grieving child, as I was looking at him with a hint of awkwardness, a savior descended just in time. Nay, I should say that an angel had descended upon this Hell of a warzone. Even with the standard-issued fatigue and medical gears in the way, her appearance was strangely captivating. The gentleness of her reaching out to the grieving soldier was more akin to an elder sibling consoling her younger brother over the loss of a friend. Then with some gentle coaxing, the grieving deputy was finally relieved from his duty, or I should say this man-made Hell.