NationStates Jolt Archive

The recon given to the Boozian forces was minimal, at best. A division of Zeon troops had taken a vital defensive position in the desert that was in the form of a massive ruined city. Surrounding the city was hundreds of miles of sand, with no end in clear sight. The Zeon troops had formed bunker positions across the city, and the commanding Dabude-class Land Battleship was nowhere to be seen, which was unnerving to the Boozian high command.

All the Boozians needed to do was oust the ruins from the Zeon clutches, and hold it until Copen defensive forces could form a large field base some fifty miles to the East of the ruins.

It was time. Let the battle begin.

"Ops, are we formed by Kampfgruppe? If so, have all battalion commanders press forward, cautiously."

"Yes, ma'am. Relaying your orders, ma'am."

"Good. Intel, anything new?"

"Not from Pieper's battalion, but there's something you should know. All reports indicate sensor tech on these things is pretty damn good, and while we don't know how much of it the enemy has, artillery good potential be whacking a hornet's nest."

"Then we don't fire until we have a target lock on the queen. Spread everyone out, but keep the kampfgruppe in supporting distance. And have Pieper reporting to me every five minutes, I want to know his status before he does.


Oberst Leutnant Erik Pieper gave his binocular focus knob another twiddle. There was something odd on the horizon...

"Point, anything new?"

The light assigned to the sentinel taking point for the Keine Fraggen division's recon battalion lit up on his display, and a female voice entered the command compartment of his Salamander.

"Getting something, sir. Could be a berm, but... wait, that's a tower, no mistake. Man-made architecture. Looks like being a suburb, maybe five miles away. It was obscured by the dunes."

"Okay. Lemme... yes, that looks like matching a signature we got a while ago for high stone and metal concentration. I'll tell the general."


"Frau General-Leutnant, we have the objective in visual range. In enhanced visual it's as clear as day. Abot five miles behind the sand ridge we just crested, you can get the co-ords from your own maps."

"I know what you mean. Send your dismounts to take a closer look and pull your vehicles back to the crest."

"Affirm."

Unbeknownst to the approaching battalion, a Desert Dom lay in ambush just inside the city. Its yellow and brown paint job allowed it to blend into the sand where it was half burried, and its beam bazooka's barrel was just barely protruding from the sand. If the approaching forces saw it, they'd probably assume that it was wreckage from another war.

Towards the center of the city, a prototype weapon had been deployed. With visual and radar scanning impossible with the high interference, the Hidolfr had to rely on the Dom spotting for it.

"Mary Taylor Henry, this is Darling Daniel," reported the disguised Dom. "I have little children trying to steal the cookies in the kitchen window. A time-out is in order, over."

"Understood, Darling Daniel," replied the crew of the Hidolfr. "We are bending the little children over our knee for their spankings. Over, and out."

With the transmission finished, the Hidolf angled its thirty centimeter cannon at a sixty degree angle, and as soon as it was loaded, the Hidolfr fired its first round into Pieper's approaching forces.

Boom.

It was all over in seconds.

"Sir, the enemy's packing some kind of nasty artillery. I'm the only officer left. The rest... everyone's..."

"Keep calm, keep down, can you trace origin?"

"Somewhere in the main city, not the suburbs. That's the best you're getting."

"Okay."


"Looks like they've hit our hornet's nest first. Everyone disperse assets, I want Reinhardt and Mearcke to take two battalion each and go to the flanks, Schweitenburg take five and go up the centre. All stop and wait for my order before cresting the ridge."

"Children have been punished, over."

"Roger that, Darling Daniel, Mary Taylor Henry is waiting for more children."

"Copy that, Mary Taylor Henry," finished the Dom. The Dom's pilot then switched channels, addressing the nearby Dopp squadrons as the Dom witnessed the maneuvers performed by the Boozian forces.

"Hornet swarm, this is Darling Daniel. The children have hit the nest. Sting them."

"Roger, Darling Daniel. The Hornets are angry."

The Dopp squadrons, which were out of view on the other side of the main city, began deploying, and fifty fighters total took to the skies. Ascending to their max altitude, they used the sun to mask their approach as they descended mercilessly upon the unsuspecting force moving up the center. They fell rapidly upon them, and as they reached weapons range, they barraged the approaching forces with 25mm gatling vulcans with explosive rounds, and with their six-tube missile launchers, each of the fighters firing two missiles blindly into the mass of enemy forces.

As they came into range of FDC vehicles, it would be the hornets who were surprised. Locks were established and the quad-guns of the hydra's demonstrated that even children pack a punch when the enemy is insects. Casualties were taken, but the dispersal of assets prevented a major disaster.


"Air attack, you want fighters launched?"

"No, but have the gunships up and advancing."


Vulture gunships weren't manouvrable enough for dogfighting, but the missiles they fired were. Right now, they were staying low as they moved up to cover the tracks, but they could pop up as necessary.

The Dopps were pounded by the flak they received, and those who survived were lucky enough to get back to the safety of the city. Those that were taken down were sent spiralling out of control to crash in various places, and some fighters were just outright obliterated mid-air.

The fleeing Dopps barely made a handfull.

"Darling Daniel, the hornets have confirmed that the children have very big fly swatters. We are disengaging."

"Copy that, hornets. Return to base. Mary Taylor Henry, what's your status?"

"Mary Taylor Henry reporting that her boyfriend Xavier has just arrived." Xavier happened to be Xamel artillery mobile armour with a bigger gun than the Hidolfr's. Not only that, but it also had a medium range eight-tube MRLS and a twenty milimeter machine gun turret.

"This is Xavier reporting. My muscle is yours to command."

"Roger that. Mary Taylor Henry, Xavier, begin punishing the children. Slap them around for a bit."

And as if they were the same machine, the Hidolfr and the Xamel both angled their weapons at a fifty five degree angle, and with both using HEAT rounds (the Hidolfr's being 30cm while the Xamels being 68cm), the massive weapons platforms began shelling the still-approaching enemy force, repeatedly.

"Artillery's pummeling us. We're losing guys, but there aren't many of them."

"I copy that."

"Me too."

General-Leutnant Dethmar grimaced. Oversized artillery. Was there an end to the stuff?

"Intel, do we have origin locks?"

"Not very solid, but yes."

"Then everyone pop up your gunships with missiles programmed to aim for big stuff and get the hell back down! And my ridge order is now void. Just roll over it. Fast."


The massive shells had not been too hard to trace, and the Copen-supplied database had given them a list of things to look for. They were all very big. Fortunately for the Vulture gunners "very big" was a button on their aiming controls.

"Christ! Gunships! Hidolfr! Xamel! Cease fire and fall back!"

"Understood, moving back..."

The two massive beasts began rolling back, their cannons sliding back into a transportation position right as the gunship's missiles began hitting the general area of where they thought the artillery fire was coming from. Buildings were impacted, and several of them collapsed under the constant duress of multiple explosions.

"This is the Hidolfr, we're falling back to head quarters. You boys are on your own, Desert boys."

"Copy that, Hidolfr. Alright, Desert Doms, hit-and-run. Make it quick. Don't stay in one place."

Almost as if they were programmed, the four Desert Doms burst from their hiding places, forcing sand into the air for a couple hundred feet, masking what was about to attack the Boozian army. The Doms started by launching a barrage from their ninety milimeter four-tube mortar launchers, before using their hover locomotion and their boosters to move out of the sand and up the flanks of the main force, with two on each side.

"We're not hitting them much, but they look like falling back."

"Good. Get news missiles and pop up every now and again to keep on their toes."

Karin Dethmar glanced around the HQ, a hive of activity as staff officers from all the various departments attempted to co-ordinate their work into actual orders for regimental and battalion leaders.

"Ma'am! We're reading heavy sand disturbances... looks like burrowers!"

"This is Schweitenburg, we're taking fire! Looks unguided, but it needs stopping!"

"Everybody concentrate fire on the nearest one to your battalion! Paint them for fire by the Manticores!"

What the tanks couldn't account for was that Doms were abnormally fast, outrunning even your average high-speed sports car. Coupled with the fact that they had impossibly thick armour, and it made for one helluva migrain for the enemy forces to deal with.

As the Doms moved in, they used their blinding flash emitters to distract the enemies as they moved in, and then the real fun began. Two Doms would stay on the outside and pummel the forces with their beam bazookas whilst strafing back and forth to avoid enemy fire, while the other two would move in and use their beam spears to hack at the enemy's armour, the intense heat from the concentrated energy enough to cleave even a mighty baneblade in two without much problem.