Chapter 6

The smell of spaghetti Bolognese filled my nostrils. The taste is not so bad for an MRE. The orange juice that comes with it is also quite delicious.

"Hmmm... That witch info is quite good. All the details of patrol routes, the time they change their patrols, detail information on the base itself and look at this, Comms Jamming Facility. No wonder we cannot contact commands or the rest of the platoon.l."

Currently, Rio, Tori, Whiskey and I are planning on how we are going to bust out the Valkyries from the Imperial temporary holding cell. Going in guns blazing from the front door were instantly rejected. Whiskey looks extremely upset after the rejection.

I look attentively at the map provided. We have the detention center at the middle, some trucks maintenance facilities and even a fuel depot for the trucks.

"Hmmm... If you look at the west, there is about half an hour window during the guard change, we can infiltrate during that time. But how can we break them out of their cells?"

As all of us think of the best way to do it, Whiskey slowly raised her hand.

"I have some ideas."

All three of us look at her waiting for her to speak.

"What if we blow up the fuel depot to create a distraction? Then we can help them escape during the chaos."

"... That doesn't sound like a bad idea. We can blow up the jammer too at the same time but how do we escape after saving them?"

Rio observes the map for a moment then points towards the north side of the base.

"There is a cliff towards this side of the base I think we can jump down there to avoid the enemies pursuit."

"Are you sure you're not going to turn to scrap metal dropping that high?"

"Probably."

"That does not sound convincing."

"Well we jumped from a tall building before so I figured we might be able to pull this off."

"Okay, I'll trust you."

So that's the plan. Sneak in through the lightly patrol west side of the base, blow up the fuel depot and the jammer. Saves the Valkyries during the chaos and jumps off a cliff to avoid capture. That sounds like the craziest plans that we came out with but with what limited resources that we have, that is the best plan that we can come up with.

***

Before the morning sun can shine its light, our squad already begins to walk towards the base, I plan to move there last night but our squad medic Tina insists for me to get well night rest to help my injury fully heal. I do not have any medical knowledge, so I can't really say no to her. Well now I feel much more refreshed after a night's rest, so I feel more calm now.

"How's your shoulder Sergeant?"

"It feels as good as new. I think I can shoot my rifle without a problem now."

"Well that's good. If you ever feel weird just tell me, we will do small check ups to make sure everything is fine."

We walk for a bit when suddenly—

TATATATA—

BOOMM—

The sound of gunshots and explosives can be heard not far in front. I quickly give my squad a signal to move quietly. If gunshots can be heard that means someone from our platoon manages to survive the ambush.

We walked slowly and quietly peeked and saw some Federal soldiers in a fire fight against a large number of Imperial soldiers.

"Alright everyone we need to provide assistance to them and eliminate all those Imperials. Let's move to the side and ambush them."

We slowly move to the Imperial lines and from their blindspot—

"OPEN FIRE!!!"

TATATATATA—

TATATATA—

TATATATATA—

The Imperial soldiers did not expect an ambush, quickly panicking trying their best to counter our ambushes. But Rena and Tori liberal use of LMG causing them unable to return fire. The other squads who realized our support start to shoot as many of the Imperials as they can.

One of the Imperials that looks like they were the officer quickly tried to request a reinforcement but their head quickly blew into small bits when Whiskey shot them with her .50 cal rifle.

The battle lasted for about half an hour. We quickly kill all of the Imperial soldiers that we can see, maybe some of them managed to escape but we can worry about them later. Now we need to greet our fellow survivors. A girl with dark blue hair comes to greet us.

"Sergeant Hyun-woo, it's a pleasure to see you. Thank you for your assistance. I thought we were the only survivors but now I'm quite happy to be proven wrong."

"Don't worry about it, I'm also quite happy to see other squads survive. You're an android right?"

"Yes, I'm currently filled in for my Sergeant. He is currently injured and we lost our medic during the ambush. So we can only provide first aid."

"Alright let's go to your officer, our medic can give him some treatment."

"Thank you Sir."

The squad led towards a cave, not too far from the firefight. We walked for a few minutes into the cave and saw some light inside. As we arrive one android soldier can be seen tending to their officer that laying with their stomach covered with a thick bandage. I wonder who is th...

"Javi!!!"

It's Javier, he looks pale and weak. Shivering as if he was cold and sweating bullets.

"Shit! Looks like he's going sepsis!"

Tina looks at Javi quickly comes to his side and brings out her medical equipment. He pricked his arm with IV fluids to stabilize his conditions and quickly opened up his bandage. She quickly wears gloves and doused it with antiseptic. She looked at him for a moment and quickly brought out some spray, scalpel and stitching tools.

"Good thing that the bullets go through instead of lodging inside but I still need to cut the area a bit to administer Aerosolized Anti-Infections Nanobots (AAIN) to help fight the infections."

She makes a small cut at the front and back and spray the area with AAIN. She quickly stitched it back up and brought out the med-stims and gave it to Javi.

"It's going to take about a day or two for it to heal, so we don't need to worry about septic shock but he still needs to rest for a week for full recovery."

Javi's second-in-command bow to me as she hears her squad leader in good condition.

"Thank you for your assistance."

***

"Guh... My stomach hurts."

Javi wakes up after about an hour. He looks around confused and stares at me for a couple of minutes.

"...hehehe, looks like I owe you one."

"I expect to get a first class rescue next time."

After our small exchange Javi slowly got up and took a seat.

"I guess you know our situation right now."

"Yep, we lost contact with everyone and the best case scenario is that all of them were either dead or captured."

"I don't know about the others but I do know that the Valkyries are still alive."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, according to the info I got they will start to transport them to some lab off world in a few days."

"Where did you get that info?"

"Well, a witch gave me this info."

"A witch? Don't tell me that you trust them."

"We don't really have much of a choice but to trust her."

"So what are you going to save the Valkyries?"

"Saving them more like secondary objectives, our main objective is this..."

I bring out the map that the witch gave me and show Javi the Comms Jammer.

"According to the info the holding base is where the jammer that has disrupted our comms is located. We take this out, save the Valkyries, get out and then evac. Simple right?"

"Well sounds simple, when are we going?"

"My squad is heading there and you need to head to the LZ and wait there until the jammer's down."

"Ah! Don't worry about me I can go in no problem."

Javi tried to stand but could only hold it for a few minutes and fell back to the ground.

"You can barely stand, man. Head to the LZ, once the comms return back to normal, call in evacuation."

"Sorry that I can't help man."

"Just focus on recuperate. Once we are back, you better buy me some wagyu steak."

"Just don't pick the expensive one."

Me and my squad leave the cave to continue our rescue mission, while Javi and his squad head to the LZ. I want both of us to go but he is just going to be dead weight so I have no choice but to send him to a safer place.

***

By evening we have safely arrived at the holding base.

"Just like in the info, this place is heavily defended."

Currently I am observing the base from a vantage point a few kilometers away from the base, locating all the points of interest before we conduct our mission.

"Most of the place marks in the map do exist, sir. At least we know that the witch gives us somewhat useful info."

"Alright let's review all of our roles. Whiskey and Ronda, both of you focus on setting up explosives to the fuel depot. Wait for my signal, detonate the explosive and escape. Tori and Rena on the other hand focus on destroying the jammer. Just like the other two both of you wait for my signal, destroy the target and escape. The rest of us will get inside and save the Valkyries. Alright, everyone understands each other roles?"

"Yes sir."

"Very well, we commence the mission at 0000 hours."

"Sir, yes sir."