Star Wars Episode I: The Knight Awakens

Chapter 8: A lost battle

A/N: Welcome back! Chapter 8 is up. Chapter 9 will be released either tomorrow or Friday. Enjoy y'all!!

Upon landing, Kory and Mick understood none too soon what predicament they were in. They were in the eastern reaches of Romania, with evergreen forest beneath them. Intelligence suggested that the mercenaries were using this section of forest to hide their piracy activities, and that became abundantly clear when they started taking anti aircraft fire.

As soon as they approached their objective point, unidentified mercenaries were firing on their helicopters from the forest canopy. An RPG rocket missed their helo by an inch, when the pilot attempted to abort the mission.

Enraged, Mikaylah leaned into the cockpit, shouting into the pilots ear. "Get this bird into that LZ now, you fucking coward! Then I want you to mow down every last one of those hostiles at ground level, and clear the landing zone to medevac these civilians out of here! Now put this bird down before we get shot out of the sky! DO IT NOW!!" She screamed.

Begrudgingly, the pilot complied. He descended to an altitude where Mick and Kory could fast rope in, then ascended to squirt the tree line, which was concealing the majority of the hostiles, with minigun fire and rocket barrages. The other helicopters followed suit, once their operators had been deployed.

Down on the ground, Mick found a decent amount of cover and contacted her commander over her wristband mounted comm link. "Commander Greene, this is Gauntlet! I'm on station and engaging the enemy alongside agent Red Recluse and 3rd platoon. Please advise!"

Commander Greene came back in a curt tone. "Listen carefully, agent. Here's the situation. About a klick northeast of your position, there is an abandoned village that was once a timber town. Our intelligence indicates that this mercenary syndicate is headquartered there, at an abandoned church. We have reason to believe that they have corralled the captive villagers of a neighboring church inside a nearby train station, in the northern sector. The priority is the Merc HQ, but I have instructed the helo flight commander to assist with hostage rescue. I leave the tactical situation to your discretion, agent. Proceed with caution, and good luck."

They were pinned down in a lumber yard, adjacent to a sawmill. Mikaylah looked around, observing the scenario that was taking place. Ahead of her, mercenaries were dug into the tree line of evergreens that formed into a small, but elongated hill that stretched from behind the sawmill to the left, all the way down to the end of the lumber yard on the right, where a dirt road ran parallel to the tree line, presumably leading to the village where her objective was located. The tree line was fortified at the base of the hill by milled tree trunks, where the mercenaries had strategically placed machine gun nests and mortar pits.

Mikaylah quickly prepared her kit, pulling two pieces of AR500 armor out of her jump bag and inserting them into her plate carrier. She then discarded the bag, and readied her primary weapon, an H&K UMP-45 with a holographic EOtech sight coupled with a magnifier. She then sprinted behind a toppled tree where the 3rd platoon sergeant was issuing commands to his squad leaders.

Kory was keeping himself busy by swinging through trees, creating diversions along the tree line length. Fellow SDC military operatives were returning fire where they could, trying desperately to open up choke points in the gaps of the fortified tree line.

After forming a hasty plan with the platoon sergeant, Mick rolled out of cover and sprinted for the saw mill, where she would try to open up an individual choke point.

Kory stealthily made his way through the tree tops, sending armed frag grenades coated in sticky webbing into mortar pits and machine gun nests. It was seeming to be effective at first, but mercenary fighters continued to reinforce the front, pouring out of the woods and laying down their rifles on the fortified battle line, sending unrelenting small arms fire in the SDCs direction.