Chapter 65

Skirmish to Oblivion

The sound of a multitude of machine guns simultaneously whirring up, and spewing their contents, erupted across the battlefield—my cover fire. As soon as I saw the tumult of Bandits jumping for cover, avoiding the onslaught of lead, I dashed towards my saving grace: the flaming palisade wall of the Community.

I had known it had always been a temporary solution, but I hadn't imagined it would become a burning relic so soon.

A cascade of extremely bright fireballs launched into the sky, blinding any who look in their direction, likely meant to distract the Bandits from firing hewing me down even as I attempted to escape. It only took ten seconds at most, but I launched myself into the protective grasp of the beckoning soldiers manning the sandbag battlements.

I quickly threw myself into a foxhole containing a fireteam of soldiers just as the bandits began picking up their volume of fire. It took me just a moment to catch my bearings, but as soon I refocused on my surroundings I was surprised by the death littered across the ground. Already soldiers had died on our side, and to my surprise, some bandits as well. Others were being taken and treated by combat medics. How had they managed to already break through the wall?

They were dead now though, and nothing else could be done about it. In the corner of my eye, I once again saw movement, but I was too slow to react as two blurs jumped into the now crowded foxhole. I flinched before realizing it was just Kevin, with Rick in tow. Rick was all over his earpiece, constantly shouting orders, while Kevin had a look of pure relief stamped across his face.

"Holy Hell Thomas, we thought we lost you out there!" Kevin shouted, even though we were only a few feet from one another.

"Well, I'm still in one piece at least, can't say the same for Captain Sherman though," I frowned.

Rick stopped for just a moment to give me a stare. "You're one lucky son of a bitch Thomas, by all accounts you should have been blown to shreds just like the Captain."

"It's the System, Rick."

"Right... The System," he trailed off, and then returned to shouting orders.

I turned back to Kevin and asked him, "what's going on man?"

"It all went to shit after Liam went all kamikaze on you! That bastard, I didn't think he hated us quite that much."

"He was forced, Kevin."

Kevin's gaze pierced my own for just a moment, and then he looked away, "cabrón..."

I felt it though, I really did, but that was beside the point, the biggest issue was that I was completely lost as to what was going on. "Focus man, give me the rundown!" I said and shoved his shoulder.

"As soon as Liam went kaboom, the bastards launched that Humvee right at us. Then, once we took it out, they tried flanking us; which, good eye on catching the ones coming from the left. But... We didn't catch the ones coming from the other side until they were on top of us. Luckily that's where Alejandro, Harrison, and the others were at and we got the drop on them, but... some of the guys are pretty shook, but they'll be fine. We're just trying to hold them off at the moment; we did finally make contact with Alex and Dante, and they, along with the eight guys they've got with them, they're going to try and flank the bandits. As soon as that happens we'll move the tanks forward to provide cover. Hopefully, we'll take them out that way."

I nodded. "Well then, let's make these guys regret ever coming here," I said as I turned to stand, until I was suddenly stopped as Kevin threw his hand around my arm, pulling me back down.

"Thomas... There's something you should know," Kevin said as his shoulders slumped and he avoided eye contact.

A chill ran down my body. "Who, Kevin!?"

"It's your Dad and Noah," Kevin paused as a wave of emotions threw themselves at me and my eyes widened in disbelief.

A moment before I was about to delve into a tirade of explicatives, Kevin chose to finish his sentence, "they're still alive, but they got them pretty good. They're treating them right now."

I slumped back down, "you couldn't lead with that? You idiot." I laughed to myself, "I thought you were about to tell me they had died."

Kevin rubbed the back of his head, "yeah, no, sorry..."

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the battlefield. The gunfire had started to taper off just slightly, and Rick was finally off of his coms.

The lieutenant turned towards me, "you best be ready Thomas, we're blitzing this. We have a team in position to flank through the woods. The tanks will lead the push and we'll have Humvees to back us up. We'll just need some firebombs on your end."

"Whatever you need to kill these bastards," I replied.

In response, a slight smile crested his mouth.

I turned back to Kevin, "get everyone ready, when we push I want our fighters directly behind those Humvees while we send over a welcoming present."

Kevin hurried away, while I turned back to my skill list. If this was a blitz, then It was time for my leadership skills to make their appearance.

The moment the Humvees launched forward through the decaying wreck of our wooden palisade, I activated and began stacking my skills. [Leadership], [Paragon's Insight], [Paragon's Charge], and ultimately my most recent powerful skill, [Paragon's Threads of the Magus].

I was overwhelmed by the sensory input for a split moment before I started making sense of it. This was my first time using [Paragon's Insight] and [Paragon's Threads of the Magus] on this scale after all. The former led to a strange additional sense. All at once, like some sort of rudimentary radar, I knew where each of the members of the Community was and I vaguely knew how much health they had remaining. To say it was disorienting would be understating it. The latter skill was also like an additional sense, but not as terrible. It simply formed string-like tethers between myself and those I selected to be influenced by it. Considering it impacted mana-based skills, I skipped connecting the members of our frontline, in preference for connecting to our support unit.

Dozens of soldiers, grouped by their fire teams, rushed forward in unison behind the tanks and Humvees. The Humvee's laid slugs of lead across the bandit positions, while the tanks continued firing onto the bandit's positions, taking out several trucks, and another Humvee.

In conjunction with Alex and Dante's push into the Bandit's position, we effectively caught them completely off guard.

I formed up with Rachel, Priscilla, and the newer community members. All at once, they began launching brilliantly chaotic fireballs—all ramped up in power by the leyline's influence—over the heads of our barreling soldiers and frontline.

On my part, I spun together a spell construct that utilized both air and fire mana. The air mana circulated within the fire mana, allowing it to burn hotter, and more chaotic, while I weaved the spell into a spear-like projectile. As soon as I poured a sufficient amount of fire mana, I poured in even more air mana, but this time, I circulated it like a funnel around the fire projectile. With the air funnel completed, the spell elongated, and inflamed. The color morphing into its usual yellow-hot hue.

I propelled it forward, both the funneling air and fiery spear. Arcing it was difficult, considering the amount of power I was utilizing. I attempted to maintain a connection with my mana, hoping to remain in control of the spell's trajectory. I failed—clearly something to be experimented on later. However, to my pleasant surprise, it sailed past the bandit positions and still managed to impact their fleeing men, causing an explosion reminiscent of an artillery strike. We were routing them, and they were clearly panicking.

Calling it a massacre was a fitting description.

Once their retreat became apparent, I rushed in behind the troops that were continuing their advance, leading my support group as we continued to launch spell after spell into their midst. Most failed to hit or cause any real damage. However, just the hysteria we caused was sufficient enough. As long as they were panicking, they weren't firing at us with any tangible cohesion. The battle was effectively over. But the costs would only become apparent afterward.

The Bandits flew from the area. Pursuing on foot would have been futile l, considering the speed of their flight, while pursuing with the Humvee's and Tanks would have been... Ill-advised. Our reconnaissance had been hampered during the battle, and we were in the process of flying a drone into the air. But otherwise, nobody opted to pursue an enemy that could just as likely be baiting us. The memories of the IED attacks on previous convoys were still fresh in many of the soldier's minds. I didn't argue. We had managed to fight them off, but the western part of the Community had been extensively damaged.

There was no way I would have left the community in such a state—leaving behind the wounded, children, and other non-combatants to fend for themselves. If it was a ploy to draw our forces away and attack the heart of the community... Well, we'd have our opportunity to take revenge. But, once again, information was restricting our ability to respond.

Without Captain Sherman, the chain of command had become a bit messy.

Luckily, professionalism took over, and while Sergeants took command of their squads for the clean-up and recovery operations. The Second-Lieutenants, including Rick, all met under the command tent. As representatives of the Community, both Kevin and I were invited to attend.

Granted, professionalism may have been an exaggeration. There was plenty of arguing to go around. The loss of a higher-ranking military officer was quite the blow to Camp Edward, and none were too happy sitting and waiting for the Colonol's response.

There were only four Second Lieutenants including Rick, each in command of their own Platoon. Tension was permeable, and the lieutenants were belting into tirades in a clear attempt to assign blame for the debacle—or at least to vent their frustrations.

"We should have requested a helo, or at least an airstrike! Missile supply be damned" one of them yelled.

Another responded, "you know we didn't have the resources to coordinate an airstrike! How were we supposed to launch any aerial response!? Eyeball it!? "

"We could have at least done a deeper reconnaissance. Had even one drone been launched, we would have noticed the additional forces as soon as they made a heading for the area!"

"Launching a drone would have taken just as long as getting jets overhead! At that point, they would have already been here! That's ignoring the fact that our communications range has been continuously limited by god knows what!"

The debate continued. Excuses, blaming-casting, arguments. Then Rick stood, interrupting the exchange. "We can't change the past. What we can do is focus on our response. And there's no question that a massive, retaliatory attack, is warranted. They will regret making enemies of us."

Every other officer in the room quieted down. For the first time during the meeting, they were in agreement.

At that moment, one of the communication officers standing to the side finally reported that contact had been established with the Colonel.

The ensuing conversation was handled succinctly. While the Colonel was clearly unhappy with the outcomes of the battle, he didn't dwell on the unfortunate results and instead decided to focus on the steps remaining for moving forward.

Reports were given, in total, eight soldiers had lost their lives, including Captain Sherman. Seventeen other individuals—soldiers and community members—had been injured in some way, with five in critical condition. It wasn't an ideal outcome, but considering the casualties hoisted upon the bandits, it was still considered a decisive defense, just the outcome had not been as well as we had hoped. Losing highly-trained soldiers, to bandits of all people, was mortifying. In total, twenty-three bandits had been killed, and nine, which had been too wounded to flee, were captured. It was a bittersweet victory.

Rick received a battlefield promotion, advancing to a first lieutenant, taking command of the company. His platoon assimilated into the other three platoons, buffering up their forces until whatever reinforcements could be spared by Camp Edward arrived.

As soon as the call ended, Rick made the decision to grant additional battlefield promotions to several other men within the company, as two fire teams no longer had sergeants.

The entire company quickly fell into step behind Rick. He had always been a moderating force, and the other lieutenants didn't grumble or complain regarding his promotion. In fact, in my eyes, it seemed like the other three lieutenants had been relieved they hadn't been selected to replace Captain Sherman as head of the company.

Granted, the weight of that newfound responsibility would surely weigh on Rick. On my part, I was happy that at least Rick and I could continue to work closely together.