'Othrys'

28-Nov-2030, 0141U

Tyson, Commanding General of Task Force Redeye

Joint Operation with Task Force 101 and Legio XII Fulminata

Mount Tamalpais, California, USA

The infiltration had been easy: with ISR and the guidance of prepositioned reconnaissance teams, we used rugged vehicles and our own two feet to move through the mountains towards Mount Othrys, which sat atop the mountain the mortals call Mount Tamalpais, carrying only lightweight gear to prevent early fatigue. The assault had been easy: mortar squads strategically positioned throughout Mount Tamalpais State Park, with spotting and additional fire support from our Predator UAVs and AC-130U gunship orbiting above, initiated the assault with a precise-yet-powerful bombardment on both the enemy fortress and smaller outposts scattered throughout the AO, right when the assault force in the Mojave Desert kicked off their third of Operation Clairvoyant Trident. Even the breaching of the fortress had been easy, with the assault engineers utilizing the covering fire provided by the snipers, mortarmen, and aircraft to utilize explosive charges, blowing holes in the fortress and allowing the task-organized assault squads to storm the facility.

The tricky part, however, was handling what was underneath the fortress: a vast underground supply depot and a tunnel network. And worse, some parts of the network went extremely far, with one of our fireteams reporting that they'd reached one tunnel's end at Brickyard Cove... which wasn't terribly far from Camp Jupiter or New Rome.

However, Juliet Company and their augmentees were handling the issue just fine. These Torrent Troopers were selected from the larger task force due to their performance in previous operations and training. They were the best to act as stormtroopers: shock troops tasked with breaching and assaulting trenches, tunnels, and other fortifications. One eight-man assault squad took each tunnel: a two-man assault engineering team to handle any breaching tasks or applications of specialized weapons to clear fortified targets (to include white phosphorus grenades, concussion grenades, and thermite charges); a two-man machine gun team with an M60 to lay down suppressive fire; and a four-man infantry fireteam to provide security and be the maneuver element to the gun team's base of fire. It was a very good system.

With the stormtroopers handling the underground enemies, I assisted the outside elements with the other major problem: enemy forces scattered throughout Mount Tamalpais State Park. As the overall commander of the Torrent Troopers, I moved separately from the rest of Juliet Company with my own radioman, combat control team, sniper team, and gun team. Oh, and lest we forget...

"Good girl, Mrs. O'Leary!" I praised as my beloved hellhound companion bit a Laistrygonian's head off, whilst I neutralized a second ogre with my M16. We'd just breached an enemy artillery position, where an onager was carrying out fire missions. I cleared the mini-firebase alongside my radioman, combat controllers, and massive K-9 while receiving cover fire from my snipers and machine gunners. "Clear!"

"Clear!" one CCT called.

"All clear, sir!" the other CCT said.

"Jasper, get the demo charge out of my pack. Dimitrios and Benjamin, is this a suitable OP to take down that bunker?" I asked the CCTs as my RTO rummaged through my rucksack. We were trying to assist a recon team that had eyes on an enemy bunker somewhere in the AO, but its laser designator was inoperable due to a malfunction. We weren't able to find a good position to laze the target until Mrs. O'Leary sniffed out the mini-firebase, allowing us to kill two birds with one stone.

"I have the bunker on my scope, two klicks north," Dimitrios reported. "Line-of-sight, should be able to laze it now, General."

"Okay, get it done."

With a nod, Benjamin initiated the call for fire with his long-range PRC-117 radio. "Bossman 2, this is Redeye 6-Charlie, requesting CAS on Priority Yellow target, over..."

I felt a tap on my shoulder as my RTO handed me one of the shaped charges I kept in my backpack. "Last one, sir. Make it count."

I nodded to Jasper as I moved to set the charge. "Ring up Overlord and inform them of the current position."

"Roger that, sir."

While Jasper talked to the joint operations center, set the charge on the onager before wedging some of the explosive bronze cannonballs into the machinery, ensuring a chain reaction to maximize damage. Right as I finished, I could hear an explosion two klicks to the north: it sounded like our AC-130 gunship, callsign "Spooky 2," had just destroyed the bunker.

"Sir, the bunker has been neutralized," Benjamin reported. "We still gotta do our BDA."

I nodded as I prepared to move out, radioing my snipers and machine gunners. "Redeye 6-Sierra and Redeye 6-Golf, collapse on me, over."

"Sierra copies," the sniper team leader replied.

"Golf copies," the gun team leader replied.

"Mrs. O'Leary, go north! Go north!" I commanded, with my combat assault dog (or should I say combat assault hellhound) pushing forward off the mini-firebase, advancing through the rugged terrain northward, the rest of us hot on her heels. Once we were 200 meters away, I blew the charge, sending the last enemy artillery position up in smoke and fire. After checking our weapons, having some water, and waiting on the snipers and machine gunners to rendezvous with us, we pressed onwards towards the bunker we just sicced Spooky 2 on.

When we arrived at the blown-out bunker, the snipers and machine gunners immediately set security with assistance from Mrs. O'Leary. The rest of us began to search the rubble for any surviving tangos, with no findings. But Dimitrios the CCT found something else. "General! I've got a sealed door over here!"

Upon arriving alongside Dimitrios, I could see the door in question: a solid Celestial Bronze door, maybe 10 yards deep inside the bunker behind crushed rock, twisted rebar, crumbled concrete, and loosened dirt. We'd have to dig through the debris before we could check out the door, and it was too small to get Mrs. O'Leary to help. I raised my monocular NOD, activating my helmet-mounted white light for greater visibility. "Okay, everyone get your E-tools out... this is going to be a challenge. Alonzo!"

The gun team leader—who was also the assistant gunner, tasked with carrying extra ammo, the tripod, and spare barrels; ensuring the speediest reloading possible; and spotting—got up and jogged over to me. "Sir?"

"Cover us while we dig through. Can Henry man the Pig without you?"

"Henry's a damn good MG (machine gunner), sir. He'll be good."

"Okay, get your gun on the inside of the bunker."

"Yessir," Alonzo replied, watching the sealed door and the rest of the interior for traps and hidden bad guys while we went to work, clearing a path to reach the bronze door. Outside the bunker, Henry the MG worked with the snipers to cover our six, making sure nothing snuck up on us. Mrs. O'Leary, meanwhile, sniffed around looking for bad guys. And after several minutes, we'd cleared a path to the bronze door, which appeared to swing outward and was predictably locked. Unfortunately, we didn't have any slap charges, nor any sort of actual explosive beyond our frags and 40-mm grenades.

"Okay, we'll go mechanical," I decided. "Jasper, get me my Halligan."

Jasper the RTO pulled the Halligan tool secured to the rear of my pack, while Dimitrios pulled out his own extendable sledgehammer. I removed the foam "sheath" from the duckbill, letting it dangle by its 550 cord as I wedged it into the crack between the door and the frame (handle side, of course). Dimitrios stepped up with his sledge, swinging it against the flat end opposite of the duckbill, further wedging it into place. He then stepped back, securing his sledge before bringing up his rifle, getting into the stack behind Jasper and Benjamin.

"Jasper, crash it," I ordered, referring to him tossing in a Flash-Crash once I got the door open. "Three, two, one, execute!" I yanked the Halligan backwards, wedging the door open and stepping aside to give my men room. Jasper threw in a crash, we waited for the flash and bang, and Benjamin made entry, with Dimitrios and Jasper right behind. I followed in as soon as I threw my Halligan back on my back.

"Clear, sir. Looks like we've got another tunnel. We should switch to NODs," Jasper said, lowering his monocular NOD and switching his helmet-mounted flashlight from white to IR, the rest of us following suit. The IR floodlights would allow our NODs to work, even in total darkness, and we were certain that our enemies couldn't see them. But comms would be tricky, and we didn't have Through-the-Earth equipment, nor did we have repeaters to properly extend our radios' range. So we'd have to improvise and shuffle the team.

I turned back to call out to the augmenting AG. "Alonzo, give Henry any kit you don't need for CQB! You're with us!" I then turned to speak to my combat control team. "Benjamin, you stay out here to maintain comms with other friendly forces in the AO. Dimitrios, you stick with us. Once we get deep enough, you'll remain stationary while Alonzo, Jasper, and I keep pushing. We don't know how deep this thing goes."

"Yessir!" the three Torrent Troopers acknowledged. Thirty seconds later, we formed up and made entry into the tunnel. Alonzo took point, I was the number two man, Jasper was the number three man, and Dimitrios held rear security. At that moment, I wished we'd taken some of the CAR-15s instead of the M16s from the armory—longer barrels are worse in tighter spaces—but we had prepared for mountain warfare only. Juliet Company had the stormtroopers.

But there was no time to call on one of Juliet's assault squads. It was on us to get the job done. We continued to move through the tunnel, watching out for booby traps. In the time since I'd stood up Task Force Redeye, one of the key skills I was eager to learn was explosive ordnance disposal. I studied a variety of military and law enforcement EOD units to see how they worked, particularly the Navy's EOD program: the only ones, apart from the occasional Marine Corps EOD, that could handle underwater ordnance. Additionally, Navy EOD appeared to double as CBRN specialists, which was equally fascinating.

Now, to be clear, I wasn't as good as some of the bonafide EOD techs within TF Redeye—some of Torrent Troopers had been specifically focusing on that—but I did decently well in our training sessions. I searched for telltale signs: pressure plates, tripwires, even motion sensors. But the tunnel seemed to be perfectly clean.

Perhaps we are walking into a trap, I thought to myself. Or this entire tunnel is rigged with explosives packed behind the rock and dirt.

But after a while, I began to hear voices. Alonzo held up his left arm, bringing the stack to a halt as we listened to the conversations further down the tunnel—which, based on the echos, ended in a larger cavern.

"Who are those filthy cyclopes?" a hoarse voice rasped.

"They must be the ones who report to Neptune," a deeper voice replied, his words dripping with disgust.

"Oh, so the weaker versions of your species. And what are those weapons they use? They breached our fortifications as if they were paper!"

"Damned lapdogs of the wretched sea god!"

"So uncivilized..." murmured a female voice.

"Silence, wench! Nobody asked for your opinion!" the horse voice hissed.

"Oh, like yours is any better, you mangy cur!"

"You insufferable—"

"Enough, all of you!" a new voice thundered, interrupting the argument. "General Damasen has initiated the counterattack in the desert, and the twins' assault on the accursed Roman valley should be beginning any moment!"

"But we are still being overrun, damn it!" the hoarse voice cursed. "Othrys is falling. We must retreat and regroup!"

"We shall not retreat, you cowardly telekhine!" the cyclops roared. "We shall crush our foes! Anyways, it does not matter, as long as the twins' attack is complete!"

"Twins' attack?" Wait a minute, if my memory of history serves me correctly...

And then it hit me: the twins were the banes of Dionysus: Otis and Ephialtes. I turned to Jasper, grabbing the handset off his backpack-borne PRC-117, hailing the JOC instead of Bossman 2: I needed this message to the highest level of command as fast as possible. Praying that the signal would successfully be able to propagate through Benjamin's gear, I began to whisper into the microphone. "Overlord, this is Redeye 6-Actual, transmitting in the blind. Attack imminent on Purple Valley. I say again, attack imminent on Purple Valley. Otis and Ephialtes are leading it. I say again, Otis and Ephialtes are leading it, over."

Five seconds passed. Then ten. Then fifteen. And eventually, thirty seconds later when my watch showed "02:17," I had my reply. "Redeye 6-Actual, this is Overlord. We have troops in contact in the valley. Defensive forces are engaged, with forces led by the banes of Bacchus, over."

I mentally kicked myself: I was too late. But I trusted my Torrent Troopers. I trusted the contingents of Task Forces Purple, Orange, and Green. Most of all, I trusted Nico di Angelo, who Percy had set as one of the valley's defenders. If my elder brother trusted him to fight with all his might, I did too. The best thing we could do here, in the enemy's sprawling tunnel network, was to cut them down and make sure they couldn't reinforce the attack on the valley, nor could they escape and live to fight another day.

"Solid copy, Overlord. We'll do what we can here. Out," I signed off, before squeezing Alonzo's shoulder. We crept forward towards the cavern, hoping to catch the enemy off-guard. Once we were close enough, I whispered to my radioman without taking my eyes or rifle off the entrance. "Frag them."

Jasper prepped a grenade right when the monsters inside started to get suspicious. "What was that noise?" the cyclops asked as Jasper pulled the pin and threw the grenade frag inside. "WHAT THE—"

The explosion consumed the collection of monsters as we made entry into the massive underground cave: not as big as the supply depot directly underneath Mount Othrys, but quite large. Alonzo and Jasper went left while Dimitrios and I went right, blasting the surviving enemies with 5.56. When I expended all the rounds in my rifle's magazine, I was forced to switch to my sidearm—a Heckler and Koch MK23 (I liked it better than the M9)—as I assaulted forward, dropping two more Laistrygonians with the so-called "Mozambique drill..." or as one Torrent Trooper more knowledgeable about mortal warfare jokingly called it, "a SEAL or Ranger's version of 'hearts and minds.'"

I should ask Percy about that... or perhaps use the Internet.

"Clear!" Jasper shouted once the gunfire ceased.

"All clear!" I confirmed as I raised my NOD and switched to white light: everything in this cave had been neutralized... but there was a tunnel on the other side of the cave, and that needed to be checked too. "SSE quickly, men! Find anything that can help us out here, the valley, or the desert!"

We tore the depot apart, breaking open crates, rummaging through piles of equipment, and even digging through exposed dirt with our bare hands. There were plenty of weapons, but nothing of strategic importance... or so we thought.

"Sir! I've got two maps here! Looks like they tried to burn them!" Alonzo shouted, bringing me the scrolls he'd found. One was obviously of the valley in which Camp Jupiter and New Rome resided, though the part with all the real information had already been burned away... barring a few annotations. The other was of Mount Tamalpais State Park, marking everything: the fortress, outposts scattered throughout the park, ammo dumps, firebases, and so on... but most important were the red lines that appeared to show the entire underground network. The tunnels that extended beyond the park were labeled with their endpoints: Brickyard Cove, Alameda Creek, Kennedy Grove, Tiburon, and so on. But there were three names that caught my eye.

"Caldecott Tunnel... East Oakland... what the—Field of Mars?" I exclaimed, utterly astounded at the fact that they'd not only tunneled all the way towards the Roman valley's main and side entrances, but into the Romans' practice battlefield itself. Then my epiphany hit me: that was how Otis and Ephialtes had been able to assault the valley with such surprise: they'd used the earth to their advantage. "We need to relay this out. Can the ATAK transmit this out?"

"It will need to go through Benjamin, just like any radio transmissions, sir," Dimitrios answered.

"Very well, change of plan. Transmit the information and prepare to keep going. Alonzo, grab the jars of Greek Fire on the wall and see if you can fashion IEDs out of them. We want to torch the enemy materiel, not collapse the cave. I'll help you with that. Jasper, gather up any remaining SSE material and prepare to move out."

"Sir!" they acknowledged, moving to take care of their tasks. As Dimitrios photographed the maps and transmitted the images, I helped Alonzo prepare the IEDs. We didn't have any thermite grenades, so this would be the next best thing. Jasper, meanwhile, gathered any other useful items into a bag before posting up on the opposite tunnel, ready to move. Once the images were transmitted and the charges were set, we stacked up on Jasper: him, myself, Dimitrios, and Alonzo. We lowered our NODs once more and switched on our IR floodlights.

"Burn it," I ordered Alonzo, who lit an improvised fuse. We entered the tunnel, getting maybe fifty yards in before I could hear a small explosion as the Greek Fire IEDs burned the enemy supplies. Good.

We continued to search the tunnel as the minutes ticked by. There were no booby traps, no IEDs. And even stranger, we weren't encountering as many enemies. But things began to look up when Dimitrios and Jasper's PRC-117s began to function properly again, indicating that we were close to the tunnel's end. Alonzo took point while Jasper got on the radio.

"Bossman 2, this is Redeye 6. Radio check, over," Jasper said into the handset's microphone, hailing the Mount Tamalpais AO's forces' airborne command post. And after receiving a message, he gave his reply. "A-firm, we think we're getting closer to the tunnel's end. Blue Force Tracker should regain a fix on us, over."

"Forward, Troopers," I ordered, squeezing Alonzo's shoulder and making the AG-turned-point-man continue forward. Before long, we began to feel a draft. Soon after, we could see the tunnel's end and the outside world. And based on the chatter, it appeared that now, everything with signals was now working properly: radios, ATAKs and Blue Force Trackers. We exited the cave, stepping onto a flat rocky surface no more than 20 yards square. However, after that, it was either a sheer drop off a vertical cliff, a trail that would scare a satyr, or 60-degree declines that would be a very, very bad fall. A glance forward or left revealed more mountains and trees, creating something of a bowl in the mountains, while a glance right revealed a foggy Bolinas Bay, and the eventual Gulf of the Farallones.

"Well... this is anticlimactic," Alonzo grumbled as he set security.

"6-Charlie-2, this is 6-Charlie-1. Just reached the end of the tunnel. Torched a supply depot and are currently two klicks northwest of the start point, bearing 2-8-0, over," Dimitrios radioed Benjamin, the two CCTs catching each other up while I checked my ATAK to see our coordinates. Not only could I see our coordinates, we were 600 feet up... so falling wouldn't be too good for our health.

While Dimitrios got SITREPs from Benjamin, Jasper was getting SITREPs from Bossman 2. My RTO turned to me with a grin on his face. "General, just got a report from Juliet's commander. The intel we found paid off: all enemy reinforcements have been neutralized. Assault engineers are collapsing the tunnel network as we speak."

"Excellent," I replied. "Dimitrios, what's the status on the other half of our element?"

"They had to abandon the entry to the tunnel. They're currently assisting some troops in contact to the northeast... looks like they had to shadow-travel with Mrs. O'Leary's help. And if they're as discombobulated as I was the first time I tried that, they must be very loopy at the moment," the CCT replied. "Which wouldn't help them with the TIC they're running into. One of Juliet's assault squads cleared a tunnel all the way to Cataract Falls, where they were ambushed by enemy nature spirits and cyclopes. It's pretty bad... similar to that American operation we studied... what was it called, 'Red Wings?'"

I nodded, remembering the multitude of operations we studied from a number of different countries in the formation of Task Force Redeye... to include the ill-fated Operation Red Wings. "Yes, the team ambushed in the mountains... however, the enemy does not possess rocket-propelled grenades, and that assault squad has the advantage of additional knowledge, manpower, and air support. They'll win their firefight, especially with AC-130 support."

"Yes... Spooky 2 has already maneuvered in that direction. So we should—"

"Incoming, get down!" Alonzo shouted, tackling the three of us to the ground right after he heard a number of small explosions: not like gunfire, but more akin to fireworks... or a multiple launch rocket system. As arrows began impacting the rocks all around us, we quickly realized that the MLRS in question was a hwacha... or rather, several of them.

"Can you see it!? Can you see it!?" Jasper asked, yelling over the explosive arrows' airbursts as they joined the onslaught. "Damn, watch out!"

My eyes scanned the wilderness around us as we crawled for whatever cover we could find without bunching up too much. My eyes locked onto some small bursts of fire to the southeast. I picked up my rifle, shining my M16-mounted PEQ-2 IR laser on the source. "Contact, half a mile southeast! Enemy bunker, at least twelve hundred feet altitude!"

Alonzo, after digging in, had raised his NOD and pulled out the spotting scope he used as an AG. "I see them! Appears to be a camouflaged bunker! I estimate fourteen hundred feet altitude, seven hundred eighty meters from our pos!" We began to return fire. But while the bunker was inside the 800-meter area target effective range of our M16s, the fact of the matter was that 5.56 wasn't much against a bunker... it may have been a still, singular target, but we didn't exactly have the weapons to destroy it. I had an underslung M203 that could've helped somewhat against the hardened target, but it couldn't send forty mike-mike that far.

Not to mention, they had the high ground.

"Sir, no hwacha has ever had a range this great!" Jasper noted, his technical mind at work as he analyzed the situation under heavy fire.

"Well, those onagers we destroyed earlier certainly had more than one hundred thirty meters' range, didn't they?! They must have been modified! Dimitrios, we need CAS!" I shouted.

"Bossman 2, this is Redeye 6-Charlie-1! Requesting emergency close air support, over!" the CCT called, relaying my request up the chain. After a few moments, his face contorted to one of frustration as he communicated with the airborne TOC, after which he turned to me. "General, all air support is already engaged!"

I was in disbelief. Here we were, trapped on the side of a mountain, and despite the fact that a majority of our assault force was underground, we still didn't have any air. "Even the Chinooks?"

"Even the Chinooks. We've got Cobalt 5 pushing our way to provide ISR, but they're out of Hellfires." For those of you who may not recall, the two Predator UAVs had spent all their air-to-ground missiles in the initial phase of the assault. Simply put, our AC-130U couldn't cover the whole AO, and we didn't have enough mortar tubes either... so Cobalt 5 and 6 helped to kick in the door and clear the way for the stormtroopers.

"Hang on, sir, what about the ARG?" Jasper asked, referencing one of the special projects within Task Force Redeye.

I shook my head. "Negative on the ARG! They're still working on getting the PHIBRON up and running! Philip told me that it won't be ready for two more days!"

"Well, it's worth a shot, right? I've got the satphone!"

"Damnation, just give it here!"

Jasper tossed me the satphone before refocusing on the enemy bunker. I dialed the number of the Leophone that Philip used—yes, we're the mysterious purchasers of hundreds of the 2nd-Gen Leophones (I'm fairly certain that Dux Valdez does not know it's us)—and after a few moments, he picked up. "COMPHIBRON-Actual."

"COMPHIBRON-Actual, this is Redeye 6-Actual. What's the status on your project?" I asked.

"BHR ARG is operational: PHIBRON is underway with partial LF plus FST, TACRON, EOD, and HSC dets. ACB, ACU, and BMU were foregone to get us moving quicker. We're currently pushing into the Gulf of the Farallones to set up outside of Bolinas Bay, ETA two mikes."

Now, I have no idea how in Father's name Philip managed to mobilize his ARG project so fast, but then I remembered: on December 7th, 1941, when Pearl Harbor came under attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy. Despite being labeled "a date which will live in infamy," the American sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines did their nation proud when they fought back with great ferocity. One of the many testaments to this ferocity was when the crew of the USS Nevada successfully got her underway during the attack, even as her sisters failed. Not only that, but they got her up and running in under 45 minutes, when it should have taken several hours.

In other words, if those men could awaken a battleship for war with lightning speed under heavy enemy fire, the Torrent Troopers could fire up the BHR ARG two days ahead of schedule when they weren't being shot at.

Sure enough, as I peered to my right, the fog began to clear just enough to make out four silhouettes on the water: a zombie variant of the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group, composed of the landing helicopter dock USS Bonhomme Richard, the landing platform dock USS Ponce, the dock landing ship USS Anchorage, and as a bonus, the guided missile cruiser USS Yorktown. Of the four revived ships, the Anchorage was the only one retrieved from the bottom of the ocean (she'd been sunk as target practice), while the other three had been scrapped... until now.

Philip, a great admirer of modern naval warfare, had begged for me to authorize this pet project of his when I first began standing up Task Force Redeye. I designated him as Commander, Amphibious Squadron (hence, "COMPHIBRON") and let him carry out the project, despite being more focused on land warfare (as I understood less about it than naval warfare at the time). He and the Torrent Troopers under his command worked day and night to execute their own version of the ARG/MEU concept. Complete with a partial landing force—a reinforced rifle company, a reinforced medium helicopter squadron, and proportional command and logistics combat elements—fleet surgical team, tactical air control squadron, explosive ordnance disposal platoon, and helicopter sea combat squadron detachments. Like he said, the ARG (which he'd named the BHR ARG, as per US Department of the Navy convention) lacked the amphibious combat battalion, assault craft unit, and beachmaster unit detachments for the sake of time (oh, and because a land-based offensive at this current moment didn't make much sense), but those didn't matter: we needed firepower, and Philip had it floating just 10 miles off the coast.

"Roger that, COMPHIBRON-Actual. We're troops in contact and pinned. Requesting emergency naval gunfire support," I said.

"Copy your last. Yorktown is ready for tasking with their 5-inch guns. Contact them on the fires net. Bossman 2 is hooking them up now," Philip replied. "You need a QRF?"

"Hopefully not. If your boys can shoot straight, we ought to be fine. Get the entire ARG linked into comms with Bossman 2, and ask them where assistance is needed."

"We'll get it done. COMPHIBRON-Actual out."

When Philip hung up, I turned to shout towards a reloading Dimitrios. "Hey! The cruiser's got two 5-inch guns! Do you remember how to work naval gunfires?"

"Yessir! What frequency do I contact them on?" Dimitrios replied as he crawled to avoid another hwacha barrage.

"Call them on the fires net! And make it fast!"

"Yorktown, Yorktown, this is Redeye 6-Charlie-1! Radio check, over!"

Suddenly, a new sound joined the fray as a larger enemy munition impacted a short distance from the mouth of the cave. Based on the sound, the enemy had a ballista. But right before I could call it, another bolt impacted on the opposite side: there wasn't enough time to reload, meaning we had yet another problem. "That bunker has two ballistae, two ballistae!"

"At nearly eight hundred meters?!" Alonzo exclaimed.

"Modified weapons, Alonzo!"

"They're responding, they're responding!" Dimitrios happily announced, right as another ballista bolt exploded, flying into the cave before detonating.

"We're running out of places to take cover! Do it fast!" I ordered.

Dimitrios began with calling for fire.

"Yorktown, this is Redeye 6-Charlie-1! Fire mission, over!"

He then gave the target's grid coordinates, altitude (meters), direction from our position (mils), description, approximate size (radius, meters), how many guns and salvos he wanted, and the method of engagement.

"Grid 10-Sierra-Echo-Golf-3-1-9-0-8-9-6-0-2-4, altitude 430, direction 2400, dug in enemy bunker, radius 20, 2 guns 5 salvos, fire for effect, over!

After the ship repeated back the call for fire and determined firing data, a prefiring report was sent—including the firing direction (mils) and time of flight (seconds)—which Dimitrios repeated.

"Gun-target line 800, ready 8, break..."

And finally, what you were all waiting for.

"Fire, over!"

We heard the rounds and the explosions before the actual gunfires, with two 5-inch shells slamming directly into the enemy bunker: a perfect scenario for the revitalized cruiser.

"Shot, out!" Dimitrios called, confirming to the Yorktown that the guns had fired.

And as the Yorktown hammered the mountaintop bunker with her twin 5-inch guns, we could breathe a sigh of relief as the bunker, its troops, and its artillery were silenced. Alonzo had some rock shards in his skin, Jasper had a flesh wound from a hwacha's arrows, I had enough dust in my eye to send the Great Plains of the US back to the 1930s, and Dimitrios's helmet had caved in after a particularly large piece of debris fell on his head... but the CCT was unfazed, continuing to direct the cruiser's gunfires.

Before long, the five salvos were finished, along with the enemy bunker. As I washed my eye out with some water, alongside my fellow Torrent Troopers performing self-aid, Dimitrios made sure to thank the ship that had saved our skins. "Yorktown, this is Redeye 6-Charlie-1... great guns! You've got a beautiful ship... keep her fighting! Out!"

"Damnation, I can't believe Philip actually did it," I chuckled as I stowed away my canteen and checked my equipment.

"Sir, I've got good news from Juliet!" Jasper exclaimed after getting off his PRC-117. "The entire enemy tunnel network has been sealed off. We're just mopping up the stragglers now. Juliet 6 estimates that we can blow Mount Othrys, and everything else in it, to Tartarus in just thirty minutes!"

"Good work, Jasper, but I'll believe the thirty minutes when I see it," I replied as I checked my watch. The time was 0253. Somehow, I felt as though more time had passed... but it had only been a little over 70 minutes since we took down that mini-firebase with the onager. I wondered how my brother was doing in the Mojave Desert when Jasper held out his radio's handset to me.

"Sir... it's Overlord-Actual. Something's wrong."

Frowning, I took the handset. Something had gone horribly wrong if Chad, my XO and the commander of the JOC, was calling me. "Overlord-Actual, this is Redeye 6-Actual. Send traffic."

"Redeye 6-Actual, we have a Broken Arrow in Purple Valley, over."

His message was brief, but the words were heavier than an aircraft carrier. "Say again your last, over."

"Broken Arrow in Purple Valley. I say again, Broken Arrow in Purple Valley."

As explained in Chapters 52 and 54, "Broken Arrow" in this context means "troops in contact and in danger of being overrun, send everything," as seen in We Were Soldiers. I don't know when, but this code phrase went from meaning "HELP GIMME CAS" to meaning "oopsie poopsie, issue with a nukesie."

And now, please excuse me while I reevaluate my life after writing that idiotic phrase.

Hope you enjoyed the adventures of Juliet Company (ft. Tyson) in their quest to DESTROY Mount Othrys with BOMBS and BULLETS. I had a lot of fun writing this, especially in researching the whole naval gunfires bit. Special thanks to the United States Marine Corps for making their training manuals publicly available... I wonder what my NSA intelligence collector thinks of my search history. He's probably got some good stories to tell my FBI agent, CIA officer, and maybe a random ISA SIGINT interceptor.

And yes, all four of the mentioned ships were either scrapped or sunk. And in all honesty, considering the fact that we're dealing with Greco-Roman mythological being here, the Torrent Troopers'—all of whom are literal CYCLOPES that have the respect of fucking VULCAN—reassembly of three scrapped ships, along with the retrieval of one more from the bottom of the ocean doesn't seem too far-fetched.

But as always, let me know what you think in the comments below (or to the right, I guess)! Unlike the EU/UK, I won't try to get you extradited and arrested for mean comments. Seriously, what're the British going to do now? Send the SAS and SBS after American shitposters?

Remember to stay happy, stay hydrated, and stay frosty!

Until next time,

- ADF-2

https://youtu.be/_soIcrXCJ90

https://youtu.be/EmbREAkkb30

https://youtu.be/vO2hFG-WnhA

https://youtu.be/V6pigjVPdAc