Sgt. Sawabe Tsubaki

Team Kirin Mech. Platoon, 11th Tank Regimental Combat Team

"Good night, chaps."

It's now 2100 hours, and we finally reach Tokuyama area, where we are to meet with our ally, in this case, British and Italian armies.

After hours in the tank, I could see Captain Kawashima disembarked and came face to face with the British officer in charge.

"I am Captain Harry Nicholson. B (Number Two) Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, 1st Strike Brigade, 3rd (United Kingdom) Division. Nice to meet you."

"Captain Urbano Fusaro, 7th Bersaglieri Regiment, Esercito Italiano (Italian Army) - attached to British 1st Strike Brigade"

"Captain Goto Kawashima, Kirin Company, Japanese 11th Tank Regiment, 5th Brigade 1st Mechanized Division."

The British officer continued. "What's the plan here? Just to clarify things, especially with a lot of jamming and cyber attacks going on." His Italian counterpart nodded.

We watched and stood guard, alongside destroyed Chinese armored vehicles strewn on nearby streets as we took that moment to eat dinner.

"Our orders are to rendezvous with the 31st Infantry Regiment, already reinforced with part of the 32nd, and suppress enemy resistance along Tonda River Bank before we can cross there." Kawashima replied darkly.

Out of boredom and curiosity, while eating, we looked at gears of our British and Italian friends. The British were using the brand new L403A2 assault rifle - derived from American design chambered in 6.5x51mm NATO - and AG-36 grenade launchers while the Italians' rifle of choice were their nationally made Beretta ARX160A4 and the same GLX-160 grenade launcher as ours. Like us, both countries used the 7,62mm variant of the Belgian originated-Minimi Mark 3 light machine guns while for company level ones, they got different models; FN MAGs for the British, designated L7, and German designed-MG3 for the Italians.

The Italians used the same Carl Gustav and Panzerfaust 3 as us for anti-armor work while the British preferred the German-Israeli-Singaporean designed MATADOR - short for Man Portable Anti-Tank Anti-Door - single shot recoilless gun and the guided MBT LAW (also known as the NLAW) jointly developed with Sweden. About the latter's case, I have seen it being used by selected regular and National Guard unit as well as the Foreign Volunteer Corps as part of Coalition-wide military aid.

I gazed right and saw one of the parked Italian Freccia (Arrow) wheeled eight by eight troop carrier that had one of it's turret-mounted anti tank missile launcher expended; Israeli Spike model, those things packed the same punch as our own.

Italian Army "Bersaglieri" mechanized infantry with wheeled Freccia infantry fighting vehicle

Captain Kawashima proceeded to refresh our allies' memory on support options, namely artillery and air support, and other codes to authenticate them, as well as the latest update of enemy strength.

"31st Infantry and a company of the 32nd are closing to a contact with at least two tank companies of ZTZ-99 dug in around the Tonda River bank and the industrial district, unit identified as 18th Heavy Combined Arms Brigade... Most bridges had been blown, and the only functional bridge is under Chinese control."

"We're ready to advance to your 31st and 32nd Infantry boys and girls as soon as you are ready. We are counting on your tanks to make the difference!" said the British royal guard officer as what was left of leaves in trees around the university area began to sway from the ceaseless wind.

Outside our meeting;

"Make sure that it's safe, Chen."

"Of course, look at this."

Private Chen repeatedly ranted that he wants a QSZ service pistol since Yuu City. Like all Chinese wares, our high command called for extra caution while dealing with it, but it did not deter the collectors.

From a fallen Chinese officer and his staff we stumbled with on our way to our Euro allies, his wish had come true, and from there, he cannot stop talking about his new toy.

"Down he goes, like a rag doll, and his staff." he bragged at the nearby Private Mizutani.

"Outstanding accuracy, I say" replied the female sharpshooter.

"Which I do, even with nobody out of my family can shoot before." Chen smirked.

"What do you think that Chinese major was doing, with that car, people?" asked Ldg. Private Tachibana.

"I think, shichou, that he wanted to get out from there in a jiffy." laughed Chen.

Done with my chow, my eyes were on my squaddies, and that's when one of them, Private Yazawa aimed the barrel of his rifle to his own chin.

"Hey!"

In the sudden a gunshot broke the silence.

"Let me go, sergeant!"

I had to keep him restrained, but at least he's safe. Tachibana had taken Yazawa's Type 22 rifle away as well as his combat knife while the grenades on his vest were collected by Chen. The rest of the platoon came along; including Lieutenant Kaori and SFC. Nakashima.

"What happened?" Kaori asked.

"Ma'am, I think he want to kill himself!" I answered, Even after all this time, sometimes it's awkward to address your best friend as your superior...

"Why?"

"Leading Private Takasone; in Morishima's squad, that we've lost from the drone attack... was the fiance of his little sister, ma'am." I replied.

"Let go of me!" Yazawa was still screaming when Kaori grabbed him by the collar of his uniform.

"Listen, listen!" Kaori started.

"Yes ma'am..."

Meanwhile Tachibana had passed Yazawa's rifle to me, which I then put it near Kaori.

"I can understand the pain of losing your loved one. But you are a brave Japanese! If you really want to die, kill before you die!" She continued. "Avenge those communists that had destroyed your sister's dream!"

Kaori put back the rifle to Yazawa's hand. "Your rifle and the Gustav are made to kill the enemy, don't ever think to shoot yourself!" Then the Lieutenant shook the grieving private. "Any doubts private?"

"No.. ma'am!"

"I can't hear you! Any doubts?"

"No, ma'am!"

She shook Yazawa again. "ANY. DOUBTS?"

"NO MA'AM!"

"Go!" Kaori and Nakashima left us, and I was the first to hug the squad's designated anti-armor specialist. "Control yourself, soldier. Go ahead if you want to cry."

........................................................

Done with him, I went back to my stroll, and that's when Watari came over.

"Hey!"

"I think you were supposed to be with Lieutenant Kousei and your gunner Kitazawa?" I asked.

"Well, who doesn't wish to see his lover to be alive?" That answer made me blush. Watari then asked. "Anyway, what happened down there with your unit?"

"Kousei doesn't tell you yet?"

"No." answered Watari.

"Well, to begin with... the platoon lost some by drones, one of them was the fiance of the younger sister of Private Yazawa, our AT gunner. He wanted to kill himself after that."

"I suppose that you managed to prevent it, Tsubaki-chan." replied Watari again.

"That's right. Everyone nursed him to be ready and willing to fight again. To avenge those that we lost. The real deal was our Kaori..."

"Lieutenant" corrected him, and as we continued our moment together, looking at my officers with our Euro allies made me repeat Lord Buddha's name in gratitude, as so far there were no "Lieutenant Dike" within the team and especially not Kousei and Kaori nor the team commander.

The temporary halt was intended to restore some of our function, particularly in terms of charging our electronics, as First Sergeant Kashiwagi went on to look after us, updating the roster of the team. He was on us for a little bit longer, as he went on to where Pvt. Yazawa was sitting.

All of these with sporadic automatic fire and anti drone guns in action, as Chinese small drones were still trying to harass us. Then finally, I looked at my wristwatch that showed the pre-planned time to move.

"It's time. Gather on me and gear up, squad! On the double and mind your spacing!"

The British and Italians were also had themselves ready to push forward, vehicles were already started, not counting the always alert air defenses.

With our tracks, or what was left of it we marched into the last known position of our tanks.

The sound of small pops behind us as we march and whirl of propellers following it gave us increased hope of success; suicide drones were up in the air, ready to detonate when it reach it's intended targets, mostly armor but also command position and supply vehicles; if it were still there.

Just as we left the last checkpoint a warning flashed through everyone's headset. "Enemy drones sighted!"

In biblical scale of things, that's how the swarm were actively hunting our column, and they hit hard with multiple small bombs.

We know what to do.

"Take cover, stay down!"

Soon our defenses hit back hard; High angle cannons went upward spewing it's load of destruction. Later came an order to push forward - a sense of urgency, especially for the higher ranked commanders.

"Eagle 6 to all units. Be advised, we detected mines on your axis of advance... we had a bulldozer and an engineer squad dispatched. Watch out for booby traps..."

"Great" I growled, Along with that, multiple heat signatures inside houses and shops as well as multiple drone feeds showed how much Chinese forces still holed up in houses and shops.

"They must be using the safe part of this city's sewer for that. Not everything can be sealed anyway."

Run and gun, rinse and repeat, and a number of door kicking and breaking into shops; others were either subjected to tear gas, or burned with rocket flamethrowers by our attached engineer squad augmented by their robotic comrades, all in cover of the armored bulldozer sent to our area, trackable by our drones.

One interesting target was a small book store; when we blasted our way in after detonating a wall connecting it with a small alley - itself already covered by a grenade launcher deployed-curtain to obscure enemy snipers - there were two unarmed women inside.

"They are probably employees that were trapped." Tachibana reported.

"We are Japanese Army." I went closer to the two frightened, disheveled young women. "You're safe."

"Onee-san, we have some others in the basement. We're down to one cup of ramen per day and water is scarce here. Thank you for coming!" said what could be the eldest in charge, a pig-tailed bespectacled fellow in her thirties; old enough to be my sister.

Tachibana had linked his portable radio and body camera to call for help, and within minutes we let an arriving National Guard squad to evacuate the civilians, and a couple of foreign volunteers.

Without a need for proper call, civil affairs folks had also sent their drones to our position; here those little things carried loudspeakers, briefing civilians on where they could get aid as well as other safety precautions.

Despite multiple reports of dead bodies found in the same fashion as what we found during liberation of the nearby Kudamatsu continued to came in, but our mandate was not to deal with it. That's what Colonel Okazaki repeatedly said over the radio.

"Go, go!" One Italian squad leader passed through my squad, who had stopped in a shop, our presence was ready in case of any counterattacks, which did come.

No orders, just trigger-pulling when a group of Chicoms were in range. They supposed to try to flank our Italian allies only to fell by our guns.

"Look, they are using our guns!"

Sure enough, the camo used by the group attacking the Italians - recognizable with the feathers on their helmets in respect to the tradition of their speciality of the infantry branch hailed back to the day of their country reunification whose name means "sharpshooters" in their language - were supposed to be effective in fooling us, only for one detail to betray their disguise; their red bands, while the Japanese wore none except if you are the Guards partisans, and SOPs ordered those people to use Hinomaru or blue armbands.

"Splat!"

I would never forget that head shot I scored, at a tall Chinese man who must be their leader; they clearly resigned themselves to their fate and our tanks after some difficulty did a short work on them.

Then the headset crackled.

"Eagle 6 to all units" It continued. "32nd Infantry and foreign volunteers confirmed that they found more bodies... fresh... unarmed civilians."

"Damn them to hell." I growled and shuddered. Never did I imagine during the times I was angry with Watari when we were younger that we would see things like this.

We thought that individual massacres were troubling enough, and we have enough apologies on our past mistakes as a state.

I found myself gripping my rifle for dear life just as 31st Infantry on the net reported multiple breaches of enemy defenses alongside Tonda River bank. Their times were numbered.

"Be advised" now the Captain wanted to speak from his tank. "There was too much rubble in the streets on the way to Tonda River - the bulldozers had been called but it will take some time."

Only UGVs; medium Type 23 and wheeled Type 24s that could be used as backup for a time being, great.

While negotiating the bombed out street and avenues our platoon rendezvoused with what turned out to be a company worth of British soldiers. A swarm of British recce-attack quadcopters boosted our confidence overhead, just in time as the man that turned to be Captain Nicholson signaled a "halt" and then "take cover" followed by Kaori's own signal.

"Sniper" whispered Tachibana when I asked him on what the British had seen. "and a couple of machine gun nest protecting that bastard"

Meanwhile Kaori had turned and gave a few hand signals to Captain Nicholson who nodded and signaled to his royal guards. A team of snipers took aim with their nationally made Accuracy International AXMC and AX50, well concealed to the point that even thermal sight would have trouble finding them, took aim.

Multiple shots echoed down the street that penetrated the wall the PLA machine gunners and sniper were hiding behind.

One of the snipers muttered in a noticeable Irish accent "Goodbye" before slipping out of sight.

"Fa shi!" (Fire) shouted a man somewhere ahead. Suddenly the street ahead was alive with gunshots.

"Open fire, lads and lasses!"

"Open fire!" Kaori commanded.

"More drones, incoming!" called a British soldier, this time a burly black man.

Same as always, they have their own small drones that immediately gathered into a swarm that would immediately took action when things go south.

"Protect our officers!"

I aimed the Type 22 at the muzzle flashes of Chinese guns and fired first. It was as intense as before thanks to their dogged determination to buy time as much as possible. Kaori soon ordered Uesaka to began calling for fire support thanks to the quick response from the Reds including armored vehicles, made clear by drone feed.

To be exact, precision fire support.

"This is Warpath 8, precision unmanned strike inbound, stand by," said a Welsh-accented man in response to Uesaka's request for support.

"This is Misato 8, mortar strike inbound"

With the British drone coverage was deployed to neutralize Chinese swarms, it's our own swarm that did the blowing up stuff job, targeting enemies inside buildings as well as oncoming reinforcement of Dongfeng SUVs. Some were shot down however particularly by a single Dongfeng equipped with a laser system. Coupled with a short Japanese 81mm mortar barrage and our machine guns in particular two teams of British medium machine guns under company command who took care on any infantry that tried to advance, it reduced the incoming fire somewhat but it was still coming in and heavy.

"Strike was moderately affective Misato 8 and Warpath 8, need heavy firepower," said Uesaka on his radio.

"Roger that... stand by." Warpath 8 replied

"Standing by." answered Misato 8.

A much louder rain of mortars was raining down on the PLA lines; this time our tracked God's Hammers launched it's 120mm shells. Coupled with a fresh friendly swarm returned overhead and proceeded to engage yet another of the enemy's counterpart. The body cameras showed further destruction of Chinese vehicles in the area, mostly lighter armored ones and silenced firing position thanks to several drones on our own swarm were acting as spotters and target designators.

We began to advance only for a loud bang interrupted us. One British soldier fell from a shot to the head.

"Sniper! Take cover!"

"They must be more of them." I growled as I found myself curled myself behind a damaged wall, just in time for a second shot landed just 4 inch from my position. Meanwhile one of our Type 24s moved forward, executing suppressive fire from it's miniguns before being relieved by our organic machine gunners.

"Crack!"

"Target down..." As long as the British (and Italian) snipers were around, there will always be revenge.

Covered by short burst from the said drone and the British MMG team, we moved into an empty lot where it turned out that, after several more Reds went down - to the point of shooting themselves instead of surrender - alongside wrecked Dongfeng jeeps the area turned out to once contained upgraded Type 87 mortars that could launch suicide or small swarming UAVs, just like our own, plus two units of copied towed Oerlikon 35mm AA guns that the Chicoms called the Type 90, not to be confused with the specialized recon version of our troop carrier nor the tank one.

"Stay low, minna" I whispered, There might still be stragglers. Turned out to be true, as a nearby British squad opened fire.

Satisfied on the result, Nicholson ordered "Fall in, company!" Kaori also signaled us the same, ready to follow the British move. It's already midnight and we're only advanced two kilometers.

.........................................................

A/N: The action still goes!