Index: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 4
Flipping tanks
Though military hardware was different in size and weaponry, its purpose was to destroy the enemy. It did not matter if said vehicles were designed with specialized internal systems or sported some unique type of weapon, their job was to win battles. Oftentimes, misguided armchair strategists forced otherwise sensible engineers to design outright ludicrous in their features machines. These would be lauded as do all kill all, capable of traversing any terrain and dealing with all enemies in existence.
It was either a plot for corrupted bureaucrats and politicians to line their pockets or a product of delusional minds. Silver-tongued grifters oftentimes jumped on the bandwagon of idiots chasing “the future of warfare” and farmed countless billions off their naivety. That was often the case with large stellar kingdoms or massive states like the Taz’aran Imperium. Once in a long while, their army would be outfitted with brand new and much hyped artillery piece, armored fighting vehicle, or a grav-tank.
Manufactured in their millions, these tested only on holo-simulator machines would then be deployed on the battlefield. For the army bureaucrats, if it moved, had armor, and a functioning cannon, then everything was good. Manufacturing defects and design flaws? These would be taken care of by the troops in the field... eventually.
Though they were one of the regional powers here on the Fringe of the galaxy, the Taz’arans sported an army beyond massive. Trillions of troopers maintained order on over three hundred thousand conquered planetary bodies, and Universe knew how many military orbital installations, terraformed moon bases, or millions of tiny asteroid bases.
Said troopers cursed as soon as their noble commanders outfitted them with a new shuttle, grav-vehicle, or “marvelous” prototype weapons. More often than not, these items were nothing more than shiny death traps and cost a number of them their lives. Those among them who were furtive than most, they however saw all of these otherwise ineptly designed or manufactured by cutting all corners of a round table vehicles, a godsend. Accidents were hard to investigate on the Fringe of the Taz’aran border, and especially in the deep, bloody mud of a battlefield.
There was always some fart-sniffing rich fop who purchased his or her officer commission in need of premature... discharging.
“You can always rely on them soddin’ Tazzie nobles.” – Mice mumbled over the comms as they watched the live feed of Sacky’s holo-optics on their faceplates.
Three charred bodies lay beside a ripped asunder, heavily-armored tank. It did look quite new this one, with much thicker armor-plating, a long-range plasma main cannon, and its rear armor was fitted with bigger heatsinks. Those who designed it had even augmented its point defenses, adding two extra turrets on the back, making it twice as hard to hit with RPGs, guided missiles or attack with infantry. Sacky followed a couple of officers and their Sec-Nav executioner retinue who were engaged in an obvious argument, shaking fists in each other’s faces, pointing fingers, screaming profanities to high heavens.
“Bruh, this ain’t even real. A heckin’ ‘Inferno Mk3’? I only saw it on holo-slides and evan those were some artist’s representation.” – exclaimed the snickering Potatski as he sent them a tiny info-file – “This thing was not even supposed to be in mass production!”
“Obviously someone with connections decided that it would be a capital idea to glide this untested heap of junk straight into our railgun or laser fire.” – Sacky elaborated as he followed the violently gesticulating officers and their indifferent retinue – “Good for us.”
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – said Mice and made sure to compile detailed holo-slides of the new tank, adding more targeting data for Potatski’s reconnaissance info-file.
“Potatski, how many of these Tazzie model tanks you have in your collection?” – asked Sacky as he observed the Sec-Nav executioners fail their scans on purpose, and exchange specific Taz’aran hand signs which clearly signified to him that whatever the malfunction or accident, it happened thanks to somebody’s quite generous, gentle “nudge”.
Potatski rearranged his info-file, pairing Mice’s high-resolutuon holo photos with his long-range passive scan – “Six, and I evan have a rare polyplastic kit of the infamous ‘Crusher FX2’.”
“Where the heck did you get this one?!” – asked Sacky, while the two Taz’aran officers finally gave up with their investigation and an engineering vehicle began to tractor beam the wrecked tank away.
“Looted it from that ruined toy store on our last mission.” – Potatski said as they began sneaking forth, their intent to follow the engineering vehicle.
No one just left their damaged machines to rust on the battlefield. Everything was diligently towed back to the rear or in this case, the nearest field repair depot to be refurbished. A new crew would then be assigned to said vehicle and it, attached to another combat unit. Of course, one had to be in control of the battlefield or all recovery operations would be pure suicide.
“Wait one sniper minute!” – said Sacky as he zoomed in closer, snapping holo-slides of the two officers’ unit insignias, ranks, and gear – “I though you nabbed that brownish box because it was full of ammo!”
“Bruh, I haff’ta expand muh cultural horizons somehow.” – Potatski sniggered as he sent his teammates a series of slides from his mancave back on Cav colony.
They saw about one hundred polyplastic modes of enemy tanks, AFVs, various GAVs, towed and mobile artillery pieces. Though most of these were predominantly Taz’aran, there were Jaern, Vaugn, and even a couple of handmade models of rare Alduri military vehicles.
Sacky sighed, his eyes swiping through the holo-slide collection – “And now we know why you are such a tank nerd.”
Potatski replied following a quiet whistle imitating the flight of the Wire anti-material missile – “Gotta know ‘em to blast ‘em, bud.”
Mice sent a snap of the local area’s holo-map on their faceplates, adding the constantly updated atmo data, snickering in their comms – “Alright, cut the chatter boyos! Time to find their field depot.”
Shadows among shadows, the three commandos leapt from their elevated observation positions. Energized, their chameleo-cloaks swiftly transformed into small gliders by the push of their neck attachment buttons. Nano-programmable tubes sewn within assumed the shapes of bird wings and in broad daylight, they glided over Taz’aran perimeter defenses. Enemy scanning rays did not pick up their armored suits made from advanced stealth composites, nor the eyes of the scouts and soldiers see through active thermal optic shroud and chameleo-cloaks.
With sparing movements, they darted across the cloudy sky and over enemy entrenchments. Though the Taz’arans were not known to heavily rely on defense in depth, but against the Terrans and on this battlefield, their commanders decided otherwise. The three bunnies noticed concealed pillboxes, interconnected trenches, drone turrets and mines, all ready to halt an inevitable Terran counterattack. Since the Tazzies had orbital superiority, they were not afraid of high-altitude bombardment, therefore there were no portable energy shields.
Mice made sure to map every little thing and even did a passive scan just in case they or Sirius command needed that later.
In a few minutes, they landed atop the ruined tank and like sneaky bugs crawled inside. Under thermal optic shroud, they remained there silent, observing everything around them. Mice spent the time wisely and conducted a number of detailed passive scans of the tank, while Potatski made sure to search the vehicle with his own paws. Sacky employed his holo-scope to acquire visual reconnaissance of the Taz’aran rear.
“Now I know how they did kill that officer.” – whispering Potatski motioned at the tank’s elaborately designed and prudently sabotaged auto-loader – “The main plasma cannon’s shells are only activated half-a-second before they get fired, not as they get loaded in the rail-breach.”
Mice took a 360 degree holo-vid of the slightly bigger that the usual crew space for a Taz’aran vehicle – “This is why half the crew compartment is slag now.”
Sacky sent them more footage and they noticed concealed artillery entrenchments. Such were not build so close to the front unless one planned an offensive and since these appeared to be quite freshly dug, said attack could come soon. The holo-optics of Sacky’s sniper rifle gave them great view of their next target – the field maintenance depot. Surrounded by phased under cloaking shields entrenched tanks and armored fighting vehicles, it did indeed look like a mobile fortress.
Potatski pointed at a unit holo-sign as he and Mice crawled out of the slagged tank and, followed by Sacky, the three slinked behind a mobile nano-machining truck nearby – “I think I know why they installed a plasma cannon instead of a particle-beam gun on this thing.”
The sign, which was customary for all deployed Taz’aran Imperial units, and especially if they operated a field supply&maintenance depots read:
“2045th Assault tank battalion”
Sacky snapped more holo-slides with his optics while Mice took another passive scan, noting exactly how many tanks and mobile artillery pieces were parked here. Potatski made sure to upload a bundle of viruses into the truck’s mainframe. Anyone who attempted to manufacture spare parts from salvage would produce defective ones. Planting demolition packs would not serve their purpose.
The three moved around, using the maintenance vehicles which drove parts, ammo, and mechanics about the camp. Tired from constant work, Taz’aran support teams were basically dozing off the very star-second their butts hit the seats. Just before they snuck under a tank the techs had fixed the turret of, Mice recorded an intriguing convo:
“Do we even know what’s the endgame here?” – grumbled one of the yawning female techs.
“Not sure,” – began a man, who sneaked a flask smelling of something alcoholic before he whispered – “but we ain’t conquering to stay... if ye know what I mean.”
“Ooooh,” – exclaimed the woman and snatched a glug from her colleague’s flask, shoving half-a-sandwich in his tired hand – “then we are raiding them, eh?”
The tech loafed the food faster than malfunctioning hyperdrive – “Mmmgrf... cough... you can bet your hidden pension fund that we are!”
More the commandos could not hear since this vehicle stopped to offload said techs and the bunnies had to sabotage an entire base. They exchanged hand signs and began their swift lurk from one row of enemy machines to the other. All in all, there were about seventy nine fully operational grav-vehicles here, and twenty two under maintenance. Most had been hit either by anti-tank lasers, RPGs, or long-range railgun cannons, but there were a couple slagged by grenade bundles.
While Sacky crept around and over the bigger vehicles, making sure to keep all patrols in his sniper’s targeting reticule, Mice uploaded the electronic sabotage packs, and Potatski, fiddled with grav-engines. Sure to miss half their shots targeting protocols, fake sensor recalibrating subroutines, and rougher driving control codes, all of these would turn the day of tankers a living nightmare.
Potatski did not break anything when he opened the engine compartments. Since these were standardized and installed as blocks, one only need connect them to the vehicle. There was a single piece of short tube wiring, responsible for anti-grav field orientation. So simple and yet, genius this engine design was! However, if one shoved a tiny piece of metal inside said tube, at one point the engine would “think” up was down and down was up.
Very easy for debris to find their way inside a vehicle during repair, just as it was oh-so-easy for tired mechanics to fudge system uploads. Just to be extra sure that they did the most amount of delayed damage, the three snuck inside the barracks. There they discovered a bunch of sleeping techs and made sure to replace all drivers on their maintenance system data-crystals with Mice’s fake stuff.
Until they discovered it, the mechanics would make sure that every single vehicle which passed through this depot was thoroughly sabotaged. The three did not kill anyone nor did they blow up anything. There was no need. Specialists like them often made it so that their enemies did their job for them.
Of course, to make sure that no one suspected a thing, they had to wait for a long while before another opportunity to exfiltrate the field base presented itself. Potatski, Mice, and Sacky left the place stealing a ride on a transport shuttle, which they left mid-flight, gliding over the same hidden enemy positions the flew over earlier this day...
Love the idea that he collects little toy tanks!
Great stuff!