CHAPTER 19

            “Sieging 101, The American Edition”

July 22nd, 2040: American Assault, Rudoulf City, The Plusieurs Kingdom

Hiding on the second floor of their home, Elise was sitting in the corner of the bedroom with her young and only child, Zoé. Taking a quick glance outside the window just above them, Elise wished she hadn’t. In the distance, down her street and through the smoke-filled sky from the current and previous bombardments, the last tower on the western wall to survive the American bombardment was finally felled with a deafening crash as tons of stone bricks toppled. Crushing any building beneath. 

“Mommy!” Trying to pull her mother from the window, Zoé couldn’t stop the stream of tears as their house violently shook with each explosion. Elise hastily closed the shutters.  

“Sshhh, all will be fine my dearest.” Hugging her only child tighter than she had ever done before, Elise closed her eyes in an attempt to let go of reality. “Why have the gods forsaken us to such demons?” She thought.

Neither Elise nor Zoé could tell how long it had been, maybe hours? But it was long enough that the Americans had finally created large enough breaches in the walls to push in their armor, followed by their foot soldiers. It wasn’t until the clatter of metal armor and people yelling orders, followed by a high-pitched whine from the far end of the dirt and gravel road, did she finally muster the courage to peek through the cracks in the shutters. Down the street, four American strykers, two dragoons and two infantry transports had turned to face off the medieval footmen. Without a second thought, the lead dragoon stryker in the column ripped over a dozen rounds at the swordsmen with its 30mm chain gun, turning the Plusieur's foot soldiers into minced meat. All the while, a few stray rounds passed clean through the bottom floor of her home, followed by heavy clattering and crashing as whatever was in their path became dust. Returning her focus to the strykers, Elise noticed columns of American soldiers emerging from the back of the two infantry strykers and moving down either side of the street. Each time they came across a door, they kicked it in and a group of four entered. Elise could then only guess if this would be followed by silence, screams or gunfire.

“Mommy, what is going on out there?” Looking back down at Zoé, Elise offered a reassuring smile.  

“Nothing that will harm you my dear.” Once again hugging her daughter. The least she could do was make Zoé comfortable in their final moments. 

Eventually, the loud whine from the strykers closed in just under their window and began turning down another street to penetrate deeper into the city center. Below, Elise could hear footsteps, followed by their door finally being kicked in. 

“United States Army! Announce yourself or you will be considered hostile!” A loud, commanding voice echoed around the two-story house along with the heavy steps of multiple boots entering the bottom floor. 

“Shouldn't we do what they--” Quickly, Elise covered Zoé’s mouth with her hand, praying that the Americans hadn’t heard her. However, the sudden stop of movement from the bottom floor made Elise nearly sick.

“We hear you up there! Come down one at a time, slowly! Or you will be considered the enemy!” The same commanding voice ordered. 

Elise and Zoé, believing that they had been discovered, slowly stood and opened the door to the cramped hallway leading to the staircase. With each step, the floorboards creaked and told their exact position. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Elise knelt down to Zoé’s height and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“I will go first, should anything happen you run to the place we talked about, ok?” Still trying to fight back tears, Zoé nodded and backed away. Elise then slowly walked down the stairs, all the while thinking the next step would be her last. 

But death did not come. Instead, once she had cleared the second floor, she was greeted by a team of four Americans aiming their rifles at her. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and faced them.

“Come forward, raise your arms and turn around.” A man on the side ordered, the same commanding voice she had heard before. Obeying his demands, Elise raised her arms, walked forward a couple of steps and turned around, thinking that she was about to be used for darker purposes before being killed. “Baker, frisk her.”      

“Yes sir.” A woman's voice complied, walking up behind her, the female soldier searched Elise for any weapons. Finding nothing she turned back to her team leader. “Clean sir.” 

“Alright, step to the side civilian. To the other person upstairs! Come down, slowly!” Their leader ordered. However this time, no one came down the staircase.

“My daughter is the only one remaining here, she is terrified.” Trying to fight back her own tears, she turned to the woman called Baker.

“You think you can get her to cooperate?” Baker looked at Elise then back at her leader who gave a silent nod of agreement. Slowly moving to the foot of the staircase, Elise saw that Zoé was still at the top, frozen in fear.

“It is ok my dear. They will not hurt us.” Even though Elise didn't know this for certain, it seemed better than any other option. Finally, Zoé capitulated and slowly walked down the stairs. 

Not bothering to even raise their rifles at the clearly terrified child as she leaped into her mother's arms, two Americans went upstairs to clear the rest of the building. After finding nothing else of importance or to indicate that Elise or Zoé were enemy combatants, the Americans took a quick glance around the ruined room with gaping holes in the wooden walls caused by the stryker.

“Apologies about all of this, but we have orders to follow. Do you have a cellar or somewhere to hide underground?” The leader questioned. 

“Ye-yes. In the back.” 

“Alright, go and hide in there until you hear an announcement from us. Don’t worry, we will make it very clear that it is from us.” With a smile, the team of Americans left the house and rejoined the soldiers by the strykers. 

“This is fucked up in so many ways…” Baker mumbled, but did it loud enough for her squad leader to hear, First Sergeant Wang.

“Hey I don’t like it either, but I would rather do this than constantly look around for possible targets. Now keep focused.” Wang glanced back at Baker to give his opinion, but his attention quickly returned to the front when someone screamed in agony far down the road. 

Speeding up their pace to locate the origin of the scream, the stryker, and by extension, the army soldiers around it, met up with a platoon’s worth of marines who had hunkered down in a small market, with heavy gunfire still ringing out in the distance. Looking around, First Sergeant Wang found two medics kneeling down next to another, younger marine who had an arrow stuck in their upper right calf. 

“Quit moving so much! You’re gonna do more damage!” One of the medics yelled. 

“Then fucking make the pain stop!” The private screamed back through clenched teeth. Continuing to look around the small area, at least half of the marines had some sort of injury, ranging widely from minor scrapes to severe burns. 

“Who’s in charge here!” From a nearby market stall that had been turned into a command post, an officer marched up to the collum. In response, the top hatch on the lead dragoon stryker opened. 

“I am. First Lieutenant Miller, 27th Stryker Infantry Company, 1st platoon.” Giving a simple head nod, the captain returned it, saluting in an active conflict zone was a great way to get your superiors killed. 

“Captain Lawson, Commanding officer of 1st Platoon “Wolverines”, 3rd company. Where you coming from and where the hell is the rest of your company?” The captain questioned.

“Just doing some door-to-door searching sir. The 2nd and 3rd platoon is doing the same but further behind us. What’s the situation in the city square?” Lieutenant Miller questioned just as an explosion rang out from the direction of the city square. 

“A fucking nightmare is what it is. Bastards are putting up more of a fight than we expected. We can’t call in air support because of the possibility of anti-air still being operational and the cavalry is having a stroke in navigating the breeches and tight streets and getting turned around. You're the first piece of armor I’ve seen this far in. Think I could borrow you to give the marines a bit of a push in the central plaza?”

“I would be more than honored to do so sir.” 

“Outstanding, I will have the message sent to everyone already there, including your commanding officer--wherever they are.” With that, the captain jogged off to radio the message while First Lieutenant Miller got on the radio to the rest of his platoon. “Alright everyone! We’ve got new orders, marines need assistance in the city square, up for the challenge?” A confirmation of “Hell yeah!” from all of the soldiers in his platoon was more than enough.  

“Alright then! Everyone move out!” Miller ordered, but just as he was about to descend back into his stryker, the captain came back.

“Hold it! New information just came in, you need to haul ass! Magical weaponry was just reported and the marines there are nearly out of explosives. Your 2nd Rifle Platoon will be meeting you there.” 

“Understood Captain. Scratch last! Everyone mount up!” With the rear doors on the infantry strykers opening. The two rifle squadrons crawled inside. “Alright Specialist Lewy, put your foot down!” Situated inside the stryker, Lewy complied and sped off with the rest of the platoon following. “Lead to all, the 2nd Rifle Platoon will be meeting us at the city plaza to provide assistance, over.”

“Solid copy lead.” The sergeant in the wingman dragoon stryker replied back with similar responses from the other two infantry strykers.   

With Specialist Lewy doing near drifts around corners and the rest of the collum following in a similar fashion. The army soldiers inside the third stryker checked their weapons, with Baker checking her under-barrel grenade launcher and Private First Class Nicholas checking his disposable AT4 anti-tank weapon.

“you sure it’s ok for me to use this on people, First Sergeant Wang?” Nicholas looked up at Wang, still a bit shaken by the fact they were assaulting a medieval-style city.

“Rules of war change private, we need to get with the times. Though in saying that, it won’t stop us from trying to create rules for both sides to follow. Can I trust you to follow through with an order to fire on a person?” Sergeant Wang directed his trademark piercing stare at the private.

“Absolutely sir!”

“Good.” With that cleared up, Wang radioed to the commanding dragoon stryker. “Lieutenant Miller! How far are we from the plaza?” 

“Wait one Wang.” Switching his radio from external to internal communication Miller fiddled with his headset microphone. “Lewy, ETA?” 

“Not much further, just a few more streets and we--oh shit!” In a matter of seconds, the lead dragoon stryker violently veered right then left akin to going through a road vehicle chicane course, with the other strykers following the pattern and just barely missing a blue ball of light. 

“Damn that was close!” Wiping sweat from his forehead, Lewy regained control of the stryker.

“The fuck was that about specialist!” Anger filled Miller's voice as he tried to get into a more secure position in his commander seat. However, his anger quickly dissipated when he looked through his optic to see a lone figure ahead of them standing on the street. Soon enough, a white and blue rune circle materialized before the figure.

“Contact dead ahead! Magical weaponry!” Lieutenant Miller shouted, and without a second thought, the gunner opened fire with the chaingun creating a sound ringing through the air akin to someone taking a jackhammer to a crystal as the rounds hit the rune circle. With the sudden counter-attack, the mage was forced into a defensive stance. Not willing to stop, the lead stryker used all of its eighteen tons to smash through the rune circle and crush the mage under its weight.  

“Yeah, try to launch weird blue balls of light at me again you bitch!” Lewy spat. “Apologies Lieutenant, damn wizard.” 

“Well at least we’re still alive… So what is the ETA?” As Miller asked, the stryker turned and the street merged from dirt and gravel into cobblestone.

“Final turn sir!” 

“Lead to all, final turn, prepare to dismount into a hot zone!” Securing himself better on his commander seat, Miller readied himself for a fight.  

With all four strykers speeding down one of the few cobblestoned streets in the city, it didn’t take long for the noise of gunfire to grow louder as they drew nearer to its center. Finally, the street began to widen, with market stalls becoming more common albeit heavily damaged from precious fighting. 

“Contact, ten o'clock!” Miller reported. Looking through his optic to the left side of the plaza that went towards the castle he noticed that a group of younger-looking mages with blue gem tipped staffs seemed to be struggling to keep their shield circle up. All the while behind them a group of foot soldiers seemed to be arguing over a course of action, a few of them already injured. On the exact opposite side of the plaza, a squadron of American marines, hiding behind anything solid was consistently firing bullets at the mages in an alternating pattern.

“Lead to all, halt convoy, dismount and engage. Gunner, open fire!” Handing out orders in rapid succession Miller started operating the remote-controlled 50.cal and began hammering the mage's shield. 

“On the way!” The gunner yelled. Pulling the trigger, the chaingun unleashed a stream of large-caliber bullets. For the first time, the Americans got to see in real-time the magic shield begin to slowly crack and fizzle under the volume of fire and the orange gemstones started to grow dimmer.

Seeing that another two squadrons of American soldiers along with armor had come to reinforce the marines, the mages looked back at their own comrades then at the Americans with most understanding of what was written on the wall. 

“W-we surrender!” Unfortunately for them, their words were not heard through the gunfire. But, through his optic, Lieutenant Miller realized the young mages were clearly terrified of what was going to happen once the shield broke and was yelling something at them. Getting off the remote gun, he grabbed the radio attached to the stryker and by extension, an outside speaker system.

“All units! Hold your fire!” In response, his platoon immediately stopped firing but only a few marines across the plaza listened. “Marines cease-fire goddammit!” Finally, the firing stopped. “Attention to our enemy, drop your weapons and lay flat on the ground!” Miller's voice echoed around the plaza.

Seeing that a simple sneeze could break the shield, the mages were the first to drop their staffs and lay on their stomachs, with the foot soldiers in the rear throwing away their swords and doing the same. 

“Do not move a muscle!” With his rifle still raised, Sergeant Wang cautiously approached the mages along with the other squadrons. Retrieving zip ties from one of his vest pouches, he tied their hands behind their backs. Looking back at Miller's stryker, Wang gave a thumbs up.

“Alright then. 1st Platoon to command.” Switching the radio to external, Miller breathed a sigh of relief.

“Go ahead 1st Platoon.” 

“City Plaza is secure. Multiple POW’s, requesting transport. What's the situation with the rest of the city?” 

“Affirmative on transport 1st Platoon. Got some good news from the 25th and 26th Rifle Company. The majority of the castle has been taken. You should look at the front of it when you get the chance. Command out.” His curiosity piqued, Miller opened his hatch and focused his binoculars on the castle to his left.

“Well I’ll be a monkey's uncle. That is a sight I never expected to see.” He gave a low chuckle and the rest of his platoon looked towards the castle to see an American flag had been draped over the main gatehouse.

“Hell of a sight indeed sir. What do you think will happen now?” Sergeant Wang questioned.

“Not a damn clue Sergeant. What I do know is I need something alcoholic after this.” Miller smirked, with quite a few Americans joining in.

In the process of rounding up all the prisoners and 2nd Platoon joining up to secure the area, gunfire around the city started to die down. Soon enough the sound of helicopters replaced the infrequent silence. Apaches flying parallel to streets to conduct cleanup as Blackhawks with more soldiers landed in open areas.

“Could have used their help a while ago.” One marine shook his head. 

“Eh, I’m on the side of command on this one. No point in sending in Apaches if they're going to get shot down with magic. I really doubt flares are going to do anything against magic.” Miller replied. Looking up as a Blackhawk flew over with its doors open and speakers attached, it began playing a message. Not to the Americans, but to the city itself. 

“Attention citizens and soldiers of The Plusieurs Kingdom. This city is under the full control of The United States Armed Forces. As such, the city has been placed under martial law, meaning that the military is in charge until further notice. In the pursuit of protecting the civilians of this city, and American lives, the city is now in lockdown. All civilians must stay inside their homes unless told otherwise. Anyone caught outside during the lockdown will be arrested. If you require food, medicine, or anything important to your well-being, place a table outside your front door. We will be patrolling the streets at all times, so do not worry that we won’t see you. To any soldiers that still fight for the kingdom, the battle is over. Drop your weapons and head straight for the city center. President Dresden of The United States of America has personally guaranteed the lives of anyone who surrenders peacefully and they will be treated with respect, as a soldier should be. There is no reason for more blood to be spilled for this city.” With the message going on to be repeated Lieutenant Miller looked around at the smoke-filled sky and damaged buildings from the pre-assault bombardment. 

“I wonder how far we are willing to go in the name of protecting America…”