[FH] Breaking News - Chronicle of Operation Colossus 4-of-6

Phan Tau Devastated

We limped into a repair centre, Jose working his magic to get us that far. The
dark clouds had brought slushy rain, which made the battle torn plain slippery
and treacherous. Being short one wheel made it all the worse. When a mechanic
finally got his eyes on our tank he said the damage to the wheel supports
meant it'd take a few days to get the tank right again. Normally I think
Irshad would've asked after a replacement tank, to get us moving fast, but
with the carnage of the last fortnight spares of anything were running low and
I think he thought we needed a little rest after what we'd seen.

I left the boys restocking and rebuilding and scouted out a shower and some
good live feeds. By a stroke of luck I ran intoYoshi Sakai in the news tent. I
must have looked a sight as he clucked like an old hen and immediately took me
under his wing. It's not for nothing the old horse is known as a miracle
worker. I don't know where he got it from, but within the hour he'd cooked up
a stir fry, which tasted heavenly after
the last few days of chem-heated reconstituted rations, and I was back
in the news tent relaxing with a full stomach and a glass of whisky. Sakai
approved of the colour that was returning to my cheeks. I found
myself sitting in a pre-fab tent, in the middle of a warzone, alien
invaders a metaphorical stone throw away; young men and women in uniforms with
guns bustled to and fro; mechanics worked across the way on dead truck
engines, busted tanks and VTOL hoses; Euri's scavenged mining bits to hammer
onto their ugly combat vehicles, in hope that would provide extra protection;
ambulances ferried bloodied bodies; a dull roar of activity. That would seem
surreal to many, but sitting there drink in hand with Sakai it seemed like so
many other tents I'd been in during the TSW a life time ago. There was some
tension, but it was negligible compared to what I had felt most of the day. I
eased back into the canvas of the chair and watched the drama play out on the
holo's dominating the centre of the tent.

At first I concentrated on the replays and discussions of the conflict on and
around Lasalle Plains. Seeing how the Euri's under General Liu had capitalised
on the small opening we'd made, I came to appreciate why the General had
prevailed so easily in Nagisa back in 2177. I was commenting to that effect to
Sakai when action around the main projection caught our attention and drew us
in.

Over three days of fighting, the Europian and IC divisions north of Ryótsu
and Phan Tau had been slowly forced back. They were now holding the rocky hill
line marking the northern edge of their defence of the corridor to Kal. If
that line were broken the headquarters to the south, in Kal, would be badly
mauled, the flatter land there bereft of any natural defences. The Krak
obviously saw that too as they threw wave after wave against the Eurpoian
line. In response General Joigny had moved in power armour from the Ferrara,
Pays de la Loire and
Thessaloniki divisions. The big flat topped suits with their over-sized
spherical shoulder joints looking like slightly comical caricatures of padded
groundballers. There was nothing comical about what they achieved though,
turning the tide and pushing the Kraks back off the hills.
Behind them the semi-vacated positions were being secured by IC
infantry, but at enormous cost. The casualty count was ticking over in
the corner of the holo-arena with sickening rapidity. It was running
like the speedometer on a racing-pod not the usual stocatto, few-a-day
counts we had become accustomed to in the last two centuries of
high-tech war.

I picked up a slave-fed on my HUD and zoomed in to an area that had just
been cleared. The down-slope of the hill was striated with hastily
constructed firing emplacements. Indonesian troops in partial armour filthy
with smoke, ash, brick red mud and mashed Martian grass were
building hasty defences. Plasti-sealed parcels of fast setting gel
surrounded and topped by sand bags, the age-old reliable fallback. The
work was hard going, not only for the lifting and pelting rain, but for the
fire that still sporadically tore into them. Their frantic dodging and
dropping for cover churned up the ground even worse and necessitated the
dragging of grimmy fingers over mud caked visors just so they could see.

Tracking back along the incoming fire I found the power armour clearing the
adjacent hills, pushing the Krak back over the crests. I realised the fire
wasn't really aimed at the IC for now, just spilling over from this clash.
Mostly the Europians were opting for assaults via short range firefights, but
the occasional squad would launch itself forward sliding through the cloying
mud into combat with small units of frenzied aliens. On the whole such actions
saw the Euro's clear another few metres, but it wasn't all their way and suits
with missing limbs and smashed helmets were adding to the treacherous footing.

I panned back to the first hill where the IC were still shoring up their
defences. You could see why the Indonesians were making the bunkers, they
needed to secure the location and get some place they could fire from, give
the PA some real support. The cost was equally obvious as, knots of bodies,
mostly human, were scattered thickly about. One mortar team in particular
caught my eye. They were about 5 metres short of a
sturdy looking dug-out. Four of them had been cut up fairly badly by
whatever munitions had ended their run, a grenade I guessed. Their bodies lay
at odd angles, bits of bone and muscle obvious at the breaks. The other two
team members were splayed face down as if they had been diving for cover when
they fell. The mortars themselves looked largely untouched having rolled a
small way before being caught by small rocks. They now acted as a small dam
for red rivulets, mixtures of muddy rain water and blood, snaking down that
patch of slope.

It wasn't long after that the coverage started to drop out. At first it was a
flickering in the image and then complete losses for increasingly long
periods. The Krak were damn good at blocking our comms. I was pretty sure we
weren't as good at breaking up their's. We hadn't seen it as badly on Lasalle
as we'd been focused on things in our immediate area. Irshad had been zoomed
in on the patch we could detect with our
own sensors; the tank's own AI doing the holo-projection calcs for us.
Fuzziness on the edge of the picture and the lack of extrapolation had been
the only hint of problems with comms at higher levels. Thankfully that hadn't
been crucial that time around. This time though it was our only link to the
action so the cut was beginning to aggravate. A young tech, blonde, confident
and maybe nineteen declared he cleared an audio channel, but that would be the
best we could hope for. It was frustrating having to listen rather than watch,
being fixed to the one thread rather than wandering off into the corner of the
image that interested you most. Then for a while it became unsettling as my
imagination filled in what my eyes couldn't see. I marvelled at all those
people who had listened their way through much of the wars of the twentieth
century, caught between the week old ignorance of the news service of the
century before and the immediacy of the reporting that would follow in the
century plus after. How had they tolerated being on the edge without really
being immersed? Guess the old saying is true, about not missing what you never
had.

Sakai and I commentated our way through the afternoon, mellowing on coffee and
the last of his whisky. My watch said it was about18:00 MMT when even the
audio lines started dropping out. The reports that were making it through
suggested the Europians were finding the going a little easier now, the Kraks
in smaller pockets. These reports had a relieved, even proud tone. Then they
became more broken and panicked as the senders realised the implications of an
opposition that was apparently just melting away. The line squealed with
static around 18:13 when the first Krak nuke was dropped. I could only imagine
the bright flashes that must have accompanied each warhead, but the screeching
of the audio channel affected our nerves like a match to raw skin. Beyond the
initial sick feeling and dislocation at the fact the monsters had actually
used nukes, killed 1000s just like that, we each started evaluating what it
really meant for our survival. Luckily for us these were tactical nukes, and
we were on the upwind end of the weather. We wouldn't have to personally worry
about radioactive fallout, just the strategic fallout of the loss of seven
divisions and the contamination of our reserves and command posts in the east.
The weather helped a lot. The rain brought airborne material down quickly and
washed a lot of it clear of the area, though I wouldn't want to eat anything
from the Himera Delta for a long long time to come. It was a mighty blow
however, the eastern armies were now in severe threat of being overrun by any
Krak attack that might flow through after the blasts.

Our worst fairs were confirmed when General Laterino of Kal command finally
broke through the static. The line still crackled horribly and I don't think a
single sentence got through intact. Nevertheless we pieced together the grim
events he was witnessing. The alien armour had reappeared from what ever hidey
holes they'd withdrawn to while the nukes flew; and more streamed in from the
sea north of Phan Tau. He had decided to take as many sealed units (I presume
he meant vehicles and power armour) as he could and move up to block the
coastal road from Kal to Phan Tau. He also reported that there were few if any
survivors to be found. In the 40km he had already covered the only obstacles
had found were charred remains and advancing Krak. In all he'd found one human
tank unit that was still intact enough to be actively defending their
position.

The theatre command sent UAVs over Laterino's position so that they could
judge the situation in preparation for the dispatch of armed drones. The recon
was useless. The combination of high EM environment, atrocious weather and
alien jamming meant the UAVs went silent quickly. I'm not even sure we got
them back. Manned fighters had a slightly better run. We heard five fighters
were sent to sweep the area. The poor visibility forced them in low. One was
lost to a sheer cliff face that loomed up out of the clouds and lightning;
another was lost to Krak
anti-air; a third to nervous friendly anti-air. The other two couldn't
cut through the static to report until they were back on the ground, one
missing a large chunk from a central wing panel. They painted an apocalyptic
picture of near pitch black landscapes, low and active thunderheads, sheeting
rain, advancing Krak sweeping down from the north and northeast. Against this
was Laterino on the east flank of a crazy mix of IFed, Europian, IC, and
Japanese armour, spread like a pencil thin line from Ryótsu to Kal. There
were even some OU heavy grav tanks in Laterino's personal command, those
smooth profile ones with the tapered rear lifting wing.

The news of Laterino's advance deteriorated through the night. He was against
heavier and heavier alien assaults and it was unlikely he would hold much
longer. There was word of a massive airlift of reserves to
secure Kal and back-up Laterino, but no-one knew how much voracity could
be associated with something that may well be the murmurings of someone's
blind hope. In the end it was confirmed that the airlift had taken place and
that they had arrived in time to secure Kal and contain the Krak offensive
there. An ashen faced Major also conveyed that the reserves had arrived too
late for Laterino, whose command had been
overrun in mid-report. The General had been advising command of the fate
of anyone lost to the Krak. The Major spared us the details, but my minds eye
returned to Lasalle and what I had witnessed there. I felt the urge to leave
then, to get some fresh air, try and exorcise the images with a light jog.

When I finally wandered back into the tent in the early hours of the
17th of January someone had managed to re-establish a fairly clear audio
feed and there was even the odd scratchy projection to accompany it. Sakai
explained we were watching an AI reconstruction of airship and drone scans.
While the airborne reserves had been reinforcing Kal there had been a major
Krak break through southwest of Phan Tau. The Indonesians had made retaking
the area the first priority for their
still-mobilizing reserves. In a herculean effort they had covered the
intervening 60 km in five hours, largely on foot and through torrential rain
and hazardous terrain. They had apparently managed this unnoticed as the Krak
did not repsond to their flanking attack until it was well underway. Initial
pushes across the Krak columns cut off pockets which were disposed off via
artillery strikes. These were the most successful strikes of the conflict so
far. Some savant amongst the Indonesians had hit upon an idea for overcoming
the comms blocks, at least in the dark. They used series of coloured lights to
coordinate and direct the fire. It put the designating units under direct
threat, but given the alternatives none seemed to shy away from the potential
sacrifice. Once the IC had reinforced the line and had time to fully assess
the field they reported over 400 Krak tanks, 3200 power armour and 53 alien
fighters destroyed by artillery and missile fire on the night of the
16th/17th of January. This was in addition to the 349 tanks and 179
fighters reported as kills by the L'Astromarine.

In the following days, the Krak forces continued pushing through Phan Tau,
Ojika Jima onto the northern outskirts of Kal. From there they could shell the
eastern command posts and our reserves along the roads to Landon. The Krak
onslaught continued on down the coast and between the 19th and 21st they
overran not only Kal but much of Yokaichi and Tsuru too. Initially the human
forces in and around the southern Japanese settlements were protected from
Krak aerial attacks by a protective umbrella of almost 200 ZAM37 launchers.
Then the advancing alien troops wrought havoc amongst the supply lines and the
missile launchers ran dry. Soon after, the city's resistance crumbled in the
face of intensive bombing and grav-assisted Krak troop drops.

By January 22 the alien forces had destroyed all the local defence forces. The
southernmost suburbs of Ojika Jima, Yokaichi and Tsuru were only holding out
because of the committed resistance of remnant IFed and Euri units. The two
groups withstanding the heavy pounding by artillery and ground attack craft
with equal tenacity despite their contrasting attitudes and styles.

The Euri's had a dark humour and appeared quite resigned to their position
amongst the rubble. Their padded jackets taking on that
curiously cherry-coloured tinge all Euri jackets go on Mars, the local
dusts and mud mixing into and staining the weave. As a result of which, even
the Euri's refer to themselves as Reds, a play on the name given to
the original Soviet Euro-asian Communist Empire by their western
opponents. I was told later by an Indian media representative, after I'd
returned to Nirgal, that the 'Reds' joke wasn't particularly appreciated
amongst the Euri political officers. He went on with a chuckle to point out
there were far fewer of those these days though, as their high peaked caps
attracted a lot of Krak fire.

There was less rumbling laughter amongst the IFeds, and more overt religion,
but no less humour, acceptance or conviction. The IFed clamshell armour kept
its form and colour a lot better than the Euri kit, and their rifles were
usually in better condition too. Moreover, whereas many Euri's spent their
'quiet hours' singing and making the most of any liquor they could scrounge;
the IFeds regaled each other
with stories of heroes from centuries past or played hand-made games on
maps drawn in the dirt. While I was wrapping up my Arda reports in Nirgal I
sort out IFed reporters for their take on the campaign. It was during one of
these discussions that a correspondent from the Al'Jornaan News Service
recounted one of the most hopeful events of the war. After Tsuru was encircled
the IFed forces attempted a coordinated withdrawal. Unfortunately just as they
were clearing the edge of the city the operation ran into a convoy of Krak
reinforcements (the leading alien units deciding to bypass the cities and push
down the Yokaichi corridor
days before). During the ensuing confusion an IFed squad was cut-off and
left stranded back within the city walls. Their comms and much of their nav
equipment had been lost when they'd encountered the convoy, so they were
running blind. They soon realised they were surrounded and their CO, Mulazim
Thunayyan, instructed them to prepare for a last stand on what remained of the
roof of the local suburban police station (the station's ammo lockers used to
supplemented their own limited supplies). In the next five hours they did not
get more than two minutes continuous break, their rifles ran so hot they could
track the glowing mark of the
bullet as it flew down the barrel. Thunayyan had given sit-reps every
quarter hour, describing their location, the number of their opponents and the
size of their ammunition stocks. He had not received a single reply, the
channels as dead as most under Krak jamming. He had kept reporting for his
troop's morale, to give them the hope of rescue, not
b!
 ecause h
e expected a response. His troops had realised his ruse early on, but
appreciated the gesture. With their situation increasingly desperate they
detected the deep vibration that signified the approach of VTOLs. Thunayyan
ordered that their two remaining rockets be broken out and prepared. Then he
recognised the silhouettes and shock stilled his hand. A New Israeli troop
carrier settled on the far end of the roof. A hard suited NI load sergeant
waved them on board as two NI gunships circled overhead spraying the Krak in
neighbouring buildings. As Thunayyan stammered out his thanks, the pilot
welcomed him aboard as one man of the book to another. The Al'Jornaan
correspondent and I agreed that acts like that suggested that we may have
finally matured to the point we can work together long enough to overcome the
Krak invasion forces.

<Continued in Part Five>