Sergeant Harald, Gallian Militia
His anger somewhat lessened, Harald's tone was nevertheless irritable as he replied to Hunt's question.
'Fucked if I know. Imp patrols are normally squad strength and Imp squads are smaller than ours; eight maybe?' With the casualties reported, that left five unaccounted for, assuming the Imperials were playing by the same rules as usual. Never a safe assumption to make. The Sergeant double-checked his weapon as the others formed up behind him before signalling for Hunt and Sykora to lead the way.
Private Bons, Gallian Militia
Still sitting in the driver's seat of the APC, Alonso's face was buried in his hands as it burned in shame. There was no pussyfooting around it, he had flat out panicked upon hearing those shots and had tried to throw the vehicle into top gear to escape. Once again the Imperial gearbox had foiled a Gallian driver and he had accidentally thrown the damn thing into reverse... He hadn't even meant to brake after the engine stalled, but somehow his foot had found the break pedal at just the right instant. Shame prevented him from passing it off as intentional. Alonso cringed as Carn yelled down at him, sinking further into the seat as if trying to disappear.
'S-sorry... I thought, I...' He didn't bother to finish the sentence, instead pulling himself from the driver's cabin with difficulty and reclaiming his rifle from the back of the vehicle. As the rest of the squad took off into the woods, he inched over toward the girl they others had picked up.
'Hey... You uh, you ok?' She looked shattered, whether from the fighting or from shock he couldn't tell. She didn't
look like an infiltrator, or an Imp like some of the others seemed to have suggested... In a rare moment of compassion, Alonso cast a blanket over Durandal's shoulders as he remembered what it had been like to dodge snipers and tanks during the escape from Rinneheim after his first squad had been wiped out. The Valks only knew what had happened in those woods, but the results were clear enough.
'There's water behind you... in the glass bottles there.' He didn't try to converse much more, except to offer a ration bar just as the shooting began in the woods. It went on for some time, the crack of rifles giving way to short bursts of SMG fire. A muffled crump signalled the detonation of a grenade somewhere and suddenly, the woods were silent. Alonso watched the trees nervously, gripping his rifle like a vice, ready to fire upon the slightest movement. It was a strange miracle that he hadn't flicked the safety on his ZM-Kar, or else Fina would have had an extra air hole in her head as the squad re-emerged from the woods...
Sergeant Harald, Gallian Militia
Finally out of the danger area and with a fair certainty that the enemy had been defeated, Harald allowed his shoulders to slump in relief. He sat down heavily on the rear ramp of the APC and sparked up a cigarette as the adrenaline slowly emptied from his system. They had been lucky for once; the Imperial patrol had been digging a grave for one of their own when Squad Four had stumbled upon them, their weapons safely stowed. Even caught flat-footed the Imperials had fought like lions, diving into cover before the Gallians could shoot them all. Eventually numbers had prevailed, as the shocktroopers did their thing and flanked them. Harald wasn't entirely sure who had done what if he was honest; fighting in woodlands was almost as difficult for commanders as in urban terrain, as trees and fallen logs prevented them from spotting their own subordinates, let alone the enemy. Nevertheless the squad had acquitted themselves well in what, he realised, was their first real taste of combat since Rinneheim. It had all happened so quickly that it hadn't occurred to him to be scared until afterwards, but now that Harald had a chance to
think about it... The significance of the event would not be lost on the others, he hoped. Squad 4 had met the enemy on the field of battle and defeated him soundly. The first victory of many perhaps.
He pulled himself up with a weary sigh. Hunt had picked up the stray lance while they were picking over the remains of the ambushed Gallian squad and Harald had been busying himself with collecting dogtags from each corpse, along with a handful of unsent personal correspondences. He would give them to her, he decided. As the sole surviving member of Squad 11, Durandal had both the right and responsibility to carry them back to Fort Breda. The Sergeant flicked away the dead cigarette butt and climbed aboard the APC.
'Mount up kids, time to move on.' It pained him to leave the bodies of his countrymen but they simply couldn't afford to spend the day digging proper grave, not with the rest of the regiment counting on them. He sat opposite Durandal and gave her a grimly sympathetic nod.
'I'm sorry Private, but for the time being I'm adding you to my squad. When things calm down, well... maybe Company Command will work something out. In the meantime... Welcome to Squad 4.' He reached into his breast pocket, producing a pair of letters, a bloodstained diary and a dozen steel dogtags.
'I am truly sorry for what happened to your squad, Private, but you know that there's little we can do for them now. Hold on to these, for their sake.' The engine roared once more and within seconds the squad was once again rolling down the dirt track, heading for Le Haye Sainte.
