“Sometimes, I wished that they were here…” Jin thought of the times when his Orcs were fiercely slamming the artillery fire onto the enemies. This lack of support and being a lone squad forced him to rethink that he took for granted that he had such a powerful force aiding him in both his defence and offence.
“Commander, we are here!” Diaz said as if she was happy there were able to complete their assigned tasks and that made Jin felt even more suspicious how this ‘other’ Jin had made life so difficult for this group of Mechanoids.
But fate did not give them any respite as the rebels had determined that their enemies had congregrated near their artillery position. They knew what had happened previously with their ambush but this was now different.
The rebels learnt their lesson and did a sweep of the town to ensure that they did not have the same thing happening to them again. A quick door to door with minimal manpower to make sure that they did not lose so many at one time. Since they knew how sneaky this particular Empire Squad was.
However, it initially boggled the rebel commanders that this particular Empire Squad competency rate increased drastically in less than a day. They were having a field day putting them in place and even killing two of their Mechanoids plus supposedly wounding their commander. And yet, they were now being pinned by this very same squad with their remaining numbers.
Not to mention, there was recent footage of their commander working extra hard by coming into the frontlines and even showing his skills by defeating one of the rebel’s best sniper in less than a minute upon contact.
There was even optical camouflage to ensure that their sniper did not get discovered but she was quickly annihilated with just one shot. This was also the first time they have seen an Empire Commander despite him being a young one moving into the fray.
That was why they were not going to give any quarters and had decided to throw almost what they have against the enemy. But things does not seem to bore well for them once the rebel commanders found out that the Empire Squad had holed up at at their artillery position.
What was more frightening was their overwatch from the church’s tower telling them that the guns were being aimed at their direction. They did not expect the Empire Squad to make use of the Rebel’s own weapons against them. Usually, their commander would be too proud to do that and rather prefer confrontational tactics.
In short, this squad was throwing curveballs at the Rebel Commanders that they were at a loss. These commanders thought that catching Artbridge a few days was one of the best decision they could ever achieve since they needed a foothold, a forward supply base to man their operations against the Empire.
And Artbridge being a frontier village of the Empire had little defences up for protection. Even their walls were tattered and not maintained at all, which goes to show they do not have the expense to have proper defence force to protect the village.<.com>
Thus, to be able to get the village this easily seemed to be the right decision and other several Empire Squads who tried to intercept had been met with swift death with their artillery attacks. And for some reason, the Empire had only been sending squads against the village and not a proper attacking force which allowed the rebels to gain even more confidence to operate here and to gather their numbers.
This particular Empire Squad was supposed to be that way as well. Kill them with overarching destructive artillery fire and sweep up the remnants with both veteran and fresh recruits. This way, the newer Mechanoids can have fresh combat experience as data.
All of this was to anticipate a large expedition Empire force so that the rebels could relay their higher ups to proceed with certain operations. This was also to gauge whether the Empire had anything new in their sleeves or at least increase their losses so that the rebel commanders could earn more points fr the annual review done by the Synthesis World’s network of servers.
But everything went moot when Jin and his Grey Bear Squad did the impossible by doing unconventional tactics. The moment Yinn spotted the first rebel emerging from the row of houses that were within their sight, Jin signalled everyone to fire their howitzers before commanding everyone to hold their ground to handle just one particular artillery gun.
“What the hell? They really aimed the church?” One of the rebel commanders said as he could hear the poundings of the artillery shell while he was hiding underground.
“What benefits do they have to shell the church? They should have already noticed that our main force are out there. Shouldn’t they be worried that than shelling this place already” Another commander grumbled as he felt the barrage of attacks.
“Also, they confirmed that there’s only one squad here? Why does it seem that we have a volley of artillery fire right at our heels.” The other commander questioned their scouts and they said they were there was only a squad out there. In fact, it was only three Empire War Maidens and one commander that they had detected, similar to the reports from the failed ambush.
The Rebel Commanders did not know that the Grey Bears were keeping Tellie as their overwatch and had been rather effective in hiding that fact. As the rebels tried to force their way to the artillery field, Tellie took the opportunity. Using the artillery fire as a cover as well as to take the confusion of the current battlefield, Tellie made sure that she snipe to kill at erratic intervals so that the Mechanoids were having trouble identifying if it was a stray fire or if there was really someone aiding them from somewhere else.
But the Grey Bear Squad was prepared to hold their ground no matter what. With the additional gear they had lugged through the town and some spares lying around near the artillery position, they had enough ammunition for one hell of a fierce firefight while Yinn fired off the artillery consistently towards the church.
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