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Rangkasbitung Regional Court; Ir. H. Juanda Road, Rangkasbitung, 1242 Western Indonesia Time
Pvt. Abraham Goenadi,

"Use your rocket!" barked Sgt. Stephen.

"Clear the backblast, guys," I aimed the RPG-32 against enemy fighters holding up outside the building, protected by improvised cover from cardboards, furniture, and sandbags. None of them are survivable against a rocket launcher. 

"Hurry up, the enemy got an AA gun and they aiming it towards us!" said Cpl. Fujita at our left flank;

And so I squeezed the trigger; the rocket that I chose a thermobaric anti-personnel one, generously supplied by the Russians who manufacture this, the end result was quite horrifying to say at least. The fuel enhanced explosion literally vaporized all enemy fighters in the vicinity of the now-ruined 23mm AA gun. The blast also shatters all glasses from the building.

I told Putu to reload my launcher with HEAT round before I raised my M4. In the meantime Stephen had called for the assault to commence. I pointed my rifle outside when William placed a C4 near the door of the courthouse.

"Fire in the hole!"

"Bang!"

"Breaching!" Stephen moved first through the door and shot dead two rebel fighters. Each fireteam split up, checking separate courtrooms.

I could hear Fujita's team (which Stephen joined) reported the same followed by Widya's. 

The third courtroom was checked by mine. "Agnes, frag and clear" ordered William, who replied with a plunk of 40mm, where we heard the scream of pain. Must be the rebels. And so we charged in with automatic fire blazing, finished off the remaining jihadists.

"Clear!"

Then suddenly a whisper from my fireteam leader "Halt! Tripwires." I looked below; two thin wires were found between the benches used by the audiences of the court. "Leave them to those EOD guys." I said. I later marked the IED tripwires and upon rendezvousing with the Sergeant, I put on a report about that IED we had found.

Outside the courthouse, we decided to take our rest for a while near defensive positions erected by the rest of the platoon while still exchanging fire, including sniper fire, from houses, stores, and light rail station.

"Lieutenant! Captain is on the line for you"

Then with a hand signal, we went to listen to what the LT was about to say.

"The whole company will be regrouped here with cavalry support; we are going to head for the next objective; Husada General Hospital, when we are to link up with the 203rd Mechanized for an assault to liberate the Rangkasbitung Train Station. Further orders will be told after we arrived there. Expect ambushes on the way through."

"We're going now, sir?" asked Rudi, his hand tightly holding his rifle.

"Not yet, private. We are ordered to hold this position until the entire company is assembled. This means, we are resting here for now. Troopers, let's eat!"

We pulled out our energy biscuit, high in protein and fortified with vitamins, which helped us stay full until night time with just one slice. As we're eating, radio traffic kept us updated on how much we progressed.

Then a good news. "Attention all unit this is command. While this city had not yet fully ours and all forces should keep pushing forward, we have a good news. The Mayor of Rangkasbitung, Haryanto, one of the main collaborator of the NII in this city, has been killed in a firefight as 1310 hours Western Indonesia Time with the 201st Battalion in his office in Cipanas Raya Road. This will shatter the morale of the enemy. We have further advantage as the result. Keep up the good fight and this city will once more belong to Indonesia in just 1 or 2 days. Merdeka! (Independence)"

We celebrated that news while continuing the shoot-out against targets of opportunity; enemy fighters that were popping up from houses and apartments nearby. The jubilation mood and higher morale of us was a big contrast to the rebels. While those fighters were generally more fanatical and still giving ferocious resistance, we could see that in their deepest heart, they were losing. It manifested in their tactics that were becoming more suicidal each time passed. For example, the jihadists sent two suicide bombers with motorcycles when we are scouting the roads ahead, but both are quickly neutralized by snipers. Followed by an attempt of a car bomb attack on the courthouse, which was neutralized by my rocket.

"Whoever people or country are paying you, you better curse them as you are burning in hell!" 

"Yeah, baby! No such thing as too much kebab to grill! Sorry, Private Ahmad!" exclaimed Rudi upon I've done with it.

"I understand." the Palestinian short reply was followed by his own fire by the AK-103 he carried. "They are not with my people despite what they professed to. Not much different than the Zionists; those bastards want us to fight each other... I don't care if Sergeant Stephen will punish me. Remember, I am not fighting my ass out in Syria and then fleeing the degenerate West only to encounter Syria 2.0 here in Indonesia."

I could see that William wants to discuss the Ahmad's statement further including about the exact faction he was part with in Syria, only for more vehicle hums to grab every attention. 

"Infidels, it's your time to die!"

It's another assault, and the charging terrorists were smarter by using cover as much as possible and using more drones to scout any openings, only to ran into a minefield that were laid by artillery for us in defense of the court. Those things either shattered limbs and or sprayed lethal fragmentation over a wide area as it went off.

"Allahu akbar!"

It was not the terrorists; it was Widya's exclamation, bewildered by the effectiveness of our landmines in absorbing a great number of their charge for martyrdom. Yet the survivors were still fighting, and reinforcements were there for the bad guys. 

"Cover me, I'm changing barrel!" I could see Handy on the center part of the squad. With his Maximi went red-hot, it will be unavailable for a while. Their ferocity was profound, few managed to vault over debris and sandbag used for cover, only for those with bayonets to put an end to it. However, two rebels managed to close in on Agnes and a barrage of gunfire knocked her down.

"AGNES! YOU SCUM!" William roared and he proceeded to expend a whole magazine to avenge his wounded lover. 

"Rudi, Handy! Cover fire, all squad, regroup on my last position!!" The first two did the same as me and fired short burst while William evacuated Agnes. 

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Cpl. William S. Christopher

"Hold on, Agnes! Say something!"

"Blast, they got me good..." The girl in front of me muttered, before she began coughing blood. Multiple holes were on her delicate body, time was not on our side.

"I'll get you out of here!" 

Calm under fire was what every soldier was trained to be. But inside me, there was an unprecedented chaos that even surpassed the hardest time I ever felt before. With my friends in arms had assumed covering position, I have only one thing to do. 

Before that, I called Putu to stabilize her for sometime, before I lifted her up to a fireman's carry position. I can feel that blood staining my uniform. Her blood.

"Stay with me, Agnes! You won't die yet!"  

It's a miracle that I managed to reach a safer spot, behind a ruined store.

"Medic, where is the medic!??"

10 seconds was almost forever before the company level medical team reached where we were in. Even with Putu's relative success in stopping most of her bleeding Agnes was still hanging on the thread; her face pale and tears were gathering up on her eyes. The pair of gray eyes that I loved so much.

"You're going to be fine!"

"William... I..."

"They will take care of you further. Putu and I must go ahead, okay?"

"Come back... alive... Will."

"It's you that must be alive for me, remember that!"

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Pvt. Abraham Goenadi

Our cover fire worked so well for our corporal to safely reach the company medic, but I know what could happen to Rudi if nobody kept eyes on him, so I closed in, killing one NII with a machine gun in the process who was aiming it at Handy who had just ready to fire.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." I assured Handy, before I went towards Rudi. 

"Rudi, please don't do anything stupid..." His attention was on me even with bullets zinging overhead. 

"But, will Agnes..." He's clearly about to blow and charge ahead, alone... I thought, putting myself on his shoes with the memories of Livia. "...make it alive?"

"She's strong, Rudi. She'll make it. Now, focus in engaging the enemy."

"He's right." On Rudi's left side stood the rest of his fireteam with Widya on the lead. "We have to keep going." Meanwhile Sergeant Stephen could only smile, looking at Rudi. Then, both Rudi and I took several frag grenades left behind from dead rebels and we returned it to the sender. 

"DIE!" roared Rudi as his frag detonated on impact followed by mine. With a couple more hostiles still around, I turned around and saw William returned with vengeance on his own, trailed by Putu. 

"She's save now with the medics." that's what he told us before he raised his SS2 and rejoined the general barrage of fire. 

"Sergeant, don't move!" 

I want to ask Janice about what's going on until she opened fire, aimed right behind our squad leader. But right after, Stephen and I could see from one of the office windows ahead; a near headless corpse hanging around, below the building was the bandit's weapon, a captured SPR sniper rifle. 

The rebels won't quit, and with drone feed indicated yet another wave, we were relieved as rattle of machine gun fire behind us herded away the remaining hostiles still present, as well as the tell-tale popping sound of mortars being fired; the whole company had arrived. It required yet another half an hour clearing the wave before the Captain head for our platoon leader where he stood and fought with the platoon.

"You people are doing an excellent job."

"Thank you, ma'am" replied Rokhim, at a distance and somewhat covered by the armored trucks' body. 

"Give me the casualty count."

"Five wounded, two were seriously; and we lost three."

Damn... I muttered, even with the expected losses on our way to victory, all of us froze upon the announcement was made. Even the loss of one soldier we don't know remained a source of dreadful pain for all of us. I could see that the 2nd Squad leader named Sergeant Adi Tirtayasa went on to gather what was left of his volunteers. 

"Rest in peace." whispered Janice, followed by a same word from Putu, Handy, Rudi, and some others.

"Indeed we belong to God and indeed to Him we shall return..." muttered Widya, then Ramlan, followed by Ahmad.

"Alright people." exclaimed the Lieutenant. "Mount up! We're advancing now! Captain's order!" And so we're back on the truck, and as we're on the way to our next objective, the Cipanas Raya Road the driver turned up the radio listening to the current news.

"...Two NII sympathizers was caught today 1 km near the Balaraja Nuclear Power Plant. According to Andalas Electric spokesman Jaya Suryanata, they were caught carrying 'unusually loaded' rucksack" and after interrogation by South Sumatra Provincial Police, they confessed their plot to bomb the plant but wrong timing prevented their plan to be executed successfully.."

"...Another arson attack occurred today in Palu, Central Sulawesi. Three bottles of Molotov cocktails were thrown into GKST (Central Sulawesi Christian Church) Immanuel church at R.A. Kartini Road, caused considerable damage in the building's facade. According to the security forces this action might be NII-related retaliation or diversionary attacks by its sympathizers after two cells of NII terrorists in the city were exposed and caught. Meanwhile the Operation Tinombala Liberation, aimed in liberating the City of Poso and it's surrounding area was commenced today by airstrikes and heavy artillery barrages..."

"...Security forces announced another success by the destruction of one of the NII main training and base camp somewhere in West to Central Java in Kuningan Regency, which bordering Central Java backed by airstrikes. Estimated 900 fighters were killed and 300 wounded. Security and volunteer forces admitted losses of 27 regular servicemen; consist of 14 army soldier and 5 police officers, and 8 Army volunteers on the operation..."

"...Presidential Spokeperson, Andi Sulaiman, announced that President Basuki Tjandrakusuma are in the stable condition after his third burn surgery has been declared a success. However, he is reconsidering his presidential position in the light of the assassination, and raised possibility for an early resignation..."

"...In economic news, the rupiah in the closing of the morning trading session was appreciated into 4.8 rupiahs per US Dollars. The IDX Composite (Indeks Harga Saham Gabungan) also appreciated to 8.507 points. Finance Minister Indra Widjaja said that the results are promising in the middle of NII and FDNI rebellions in the provinces and the ensuing counter-terrorism operations to eliminate the threat.."

"...In international news, NATO and allied forces had announced the liberation of Amsterdam and Den Haag (The Hague) in the Netherlands. and had installed a provisional government to ensure order and restore the proper governance of the country after 4 years of occupation by the 'Nederlansche Kalifaat' (Caliphate of the Netherlands) part of the terror group Five Pillars...."

"It's everybody's knowledge that NII is Five Pillar's presence here." said Janice. "My cousin was lucky to be out from Europe before everything went down."

"Correct, and I have to keep all of you to remember on how organized those bastards are." replied the sergeant. Stephen then head on for some more. "Corporal Fujita?"

"Hai?" (Yes)

"Well, thank God I understand few Japanese... about the map you found." I remembered that from our left flank, the Japanese corporal had taken something from the enemy but the heat of battle was on the way for me to ask anything. Stephen continued. "It had every NII stronghold in this city; some were already taken or demolished by our airpower and artillery but the others are still standing as well as where they are storing their supplies... Here. All of you should know. Open the file RKS-MAP-010"

We took turn to get ourselves oriented with the new development as our IFS tablet showed at us. Then Putu asked. "Sir, has the Lieutenant know about this?"

"I had passed this information to him and the whole platoon - and he had passed it to the higher chain of command, and we - as well as those intel boys and girls behind - must be fast in analyzing this - otherwise their hackers might be able to reach this system and know that they are in deep trouble."

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A/N: Hope you enjoy!