Post by legios on Dec 16, 2010 20:55:57 GMT
Mirrors
by
Karl Thurgood
Smokescreen picked up another mine, to add to the pile already clutched in his arms. Sideswipe's hand descended on his shoulder,
“We need those,” Sideswipe pointed out.
“Yes, I know. But I need them more than you do if this is going to work,” Smokescreen observed, “a handful of these planted at random out there aren't even going to slow them down. They have to be emplaced very carefully if they are going to be of any use to us.”
“And I suppose that you are suddenly an expert on the employment of Command Detonated Mines?”
“For today, yes I know what needs to be done with these.” Sideswipe looked at him for a moment before he turned and walked abrubptly away. Smokescreen knew he was probably supposed to be offended by that, but he had other things on his mind. He nodded to Fallback, who had been trying to blend into the storage racks in the armoury and not be seen during that little exchange. “Right, you know where you need to put these?”
“Yes, deploy them in the pattern we talked about and set them up on the remote detonator,” Fallback replied, taking the large pile of mines from Smokescreen, “you sure that you can't....”
“Sorry, I'd help if I could but there are other things that I have to setup if this is going to work,” Smokescreen replied, “and don't forget to switch them over to channel 46#alpha.”
Gutcruncher sat back against the wall and tried to fight of the boredom that had become an almost constant companion. This sort of duty wasn't by any means his idea of a good time. Not that he thought Take-off would be having much more fun, given that they had just changed roles and it was Take-off's turn to be on watch. Gutcruncher tuned his comm's to the Autobot command frequency – channel 45#beta , recently provided by Decepticon intelligence.
“What are they doing?” he asked Take-off. The other Decepticon had been watching a red and brown Autobot carefully picking his way amongst the debris and rubble, describing an arc in front of the Autobot Firebase. He moved carefully across no-mans land between the front lines, from the remains of a shattered defence bunker past a huge storage cylinder – long-empty – for fuel for Autobot aero-forms, and over to the remains of a shattered skyway on-ramp. He seemed to be stopping every so often, bending down as if placing something carefully.
“Planting mines I think. I'll make a note of where they are so that we can go around'em,” Take-off looked up towards the wall of the Firebase. There was an Autobot standing on top of the wall, and from his posture he seemed to be carefully scrutinising features of the battlefield, “Red and blue Autobot on the wall. Not sure if he is a watch'bot or....
“Nope.” Gutcruncher interrupted, “that's that officer 'bot, Smokescrum or whatever. He's up on the command channel talking to some of their airsupport element.”
Smokescreen was indeed broadcasting on Channel 45#beta, and thanks to the Autobot's compromised communications security Gutcruncher could hear every word he was saying.
“You sure you can't get us cover any sooner?” Smokescreen asked.
“Five hours, four and a half at the soonest, all my squadron are on other taskings and they are going to need time to repair and rearm once they are released from those,” the other Autobot replied.
“OK Delta Seeker. I know you are doing your best and I guess we will have to hold out as best we can until you can get to us,” Smokescreen's voice was matter-of-fact, “I'm still going to set up some reference points for you anyway so you can pass them on when someone does become available. There is a ruined bunker at 0.45 positive polewards of the forward reference line, lets call that hole-in-the-ground. Right on the forward reference line there is a disused fuel storage tank, lets call that tinhead.”
“Look,” Gutcruncher told the rest of the platoon, “we know that the Autobots are out of ammunition for a lot of their support weapons, they have no air support for the next few hours. If we are going to do this then we need to do it now.”
“Shouldn't we soften them up a bit more before we charge?” Hailstorm asked.
“I've covered this,” Gutcruncher snarled, “fire-support squad will lay down covering fire as we advance, the rest of us will storm the firebase and kill all the Autobots. We take the Firebase and dig in and hold it till reserves arrive. Simple and effective, what part of it don't you understand?” Hailstorm and Gutcruncher locked optics but not for very long, Hailstorm was very quickly the one who backed down first. Gutcruncher looked around at the assembled Decepticons,
“Right then, can we get on with it then?” Take-Off asked.
“Yeah, lets do this,” Gutcruncher replied, “and remember, we saw them laying out mines spinward of that old bunker, so bear anti-spinward and try to use the bunker for cover so you don't get caught out in the open. They've no support weapons so we won't have to worry about them lobbing Plasma Mortar rounds or high-arc rockets over their parapet at us. When you get a shot at an Autobot pour it on. I want as many of them slagged as possible before we reach the walls.”
Sideswipe looked over the parapet, and down the sights of his rifle. He could see the Decepticons moving about behind their own defenses and he'd seen enough combat to be able to interpret the pattern of movement with fairly decent accuracy. He turned to Smokescreen who was crouching by the defensive wall nearby.
“Ok, that's it. They are coming any time now,” Sideswipe told him, “this had better work Smokescreen or we are going to be well and truly overrun.”
“It'll work,” Smokescreen assured him, “look on the bright side, if it doesn't neither of us will be in any state to worry about it.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Gutcruncher double-checked his preparations. His Particle Beam rifle was fully charged, and he had a couple of shrapnel grenades to hand. In terms of weapons he felt that he was ready. He adjusted his communications settings, switching the Autobot communications channel to a sub-channel – he wanted to be able to hear the Autobots calling desperately for help that would never come. He watched his chrono-display counting down. At zero he stood up and gave the signal,
“Decepticons, attack!” A flight of missiles from Hailstorm streaked across the battlefield. Despite the orders to fire in waves it was clear that Hailstorm had launched everything he had as a single barrage. As Gutcruncher charged forwards he saw that barely half of the missiles had fallen in or near the Autobot lines. On the other hand at least none of them seemed to be falling amongst the advancing Decepticons. Gutcruncher's forces leapfrogged from cover-to cover, laying down a constant hail of fire at the Autobot fortification. Return fire was desultory, clearly the Autobots were being forced to keep their heads down. Gutcruncher could hear the panic in their command frequency.
'Command, this is Sideswipe, Firebase Eight-Four. We are under heavy Decepticon attack and need urgent support. Repeat, we need urgent support. We are being overrun.' Gutcruncher smiled, this time they were going to succeed and he was finally going to get to show these Autobots why standing up to the Decepticon war-machine was a losing proposition.
“Keep going Decepticons. We'll tear the Autobots to shreds,” he told his troops. His advance troops were over halfway to the Autobot lines, almost at the abandoned bunker left over from a previous front line. They were leapfrogging from cover to cover, trying to move in their alt-modes wherever possible to take advantage of their lower profile. As one group of Decepticons moved another would keep up a stream of fire at the Autobot firebase, forcing the Autobots to keep undercover and reducing their opportunities to fire back at the Decepticons. “Keep going. Advance Decepticons!” Gutcruncher ducked into cover, watching as the advance guard of his troops fell into cover around the abandoned bunker. He was about to signal the rest of the main platoon to move up and join them when he heard something unexpected over the Autobots #46beta Channel.
Sideswipe snapped off another couple of shots before ducking back down below the level of the wall. He doubted that he had hit anything, but then the enemy fire was a little bit too intense for real precision marksmanship. He glared at Smokescreen,
“Any time would be a good time.” Smokescreen just nodded.
Gutcruncher listened in surprise, this was absolutely not supposed to be happening,
'Firebase Eight-Four, this is Flaredown. We are running a little bit ahead of schedule and have a delivery for you. Where would you like it?' The Autobot on the command channel said.
'Flaredown, this is Smokescreen. What are you and what have you got?'
'Smokescreen, Flaredown, we are two aerodyne forms carrying Striker missiles and heavy free-fall bombs. We have your reference points and I can see the Firebase and Hole-in-the-ground.'
'That's great Flaredown. If you have Hole-in-the-ground then we could do with a heavy bomb on that anytime that you feel ready, we are taking fire from a group of Decepticons in that location.'
'Setting up for our run now, on target in one minute.'
“First Squad, get back. Get back from the bunker,” Gutcruncher ordered, “incoming Autobot air.” How was this happening, they were supposed to have hours before the Autobots got any air cover.
Smokescreen watched the numbers tick down on his chronometer display. He held the command detonator in his hand as the last few seconds ticked away. As they reached zero he pressed the button and a signal was sent to a cluster of carefully placed mines.
Gutcruncher watched his First Squad fall back from the bunker. Take-off was lagging behind, still firing at the Autobot firebase. If Take-off didn't start moving faster he would probably be scrapped when the bomb fell, but Gutcruncher figured that was up to him. When the blast came it caught Gutcruncher by surprise. Instead of ahead of him there was an audio-sensor shattering blast from behind him as a tremendous explosion tore the tall abandoned fuel silo to pieces. Take-off's squad stopped in confusion, not sure whether to advance or to fall back.
Smokescreen switched his communications system back to Channel #46beta,
'Uh, thanks for that Flaredown but that seems to have been tinhead'
'Sorry about that Smokescreen. There's more where that came from, we'll come around again and see if we can do a bit better next time.'
'Roger that Flaredown, the Decepticons are still pressing us hard so your assistance is much appreciated.'
Gutcruncher looked skywards, he couldn't see the Autobots, but that didn't mean anything, at the high speed that aerodyne forms were capable of they could be overhead in no time at all and current low observable technology meant that he would be lucky to pick them out on sensors before they were in optic range. The flagging fire from the Autobot firebase seemed to be picking up as well, as if the presence of aerial support had emboldened them. He knew what the odds of taking the firebase were, and the odds of any of his platoon – including himself – surviving to enjoy it. The outcome was inevitable,
“Decepticons, fall back! Fall back!”
'Flaredown, Smokescreen,' Smokescreen transmitted, 'The Decepticons seem to be pulling back, maybe you should hold that thought for the moment.'
'Roger that Smokescreen,' came the reply, 'we'll take up a holding pattern in case you need us again. Just say the word and we can be with you in no time.'
'Thanks for that Flaredown, the help is appreciated. It can get mighty lonely right out here on the sharp end.'
Fallback edged his way along the wall, careful not to expose himself to fire from any Decepticon who might fancy a parting shot at one of the defenders. He watched the Decepticons retreat towards their own lines, carefully skirting around the minefield he had previously planted with such apparent care. He switched away from inter-Autobot radio and back to his vocoder for the first time since the attack began,
“Er, so..... Was that alright?” He asked.
“You did fine,” Smokescreen assured him.
“I think you even managed to sell it to me,” Sideswipe admitted grudgingly, he asked Smokescreen, “where do you come up with these things?”
“All in the job description,” Smokescreen replied. It was true, he reflected, sometimes his job was all about making it look good.
END.
