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ASSAULT ON RATU
BOKO
Outside the Australian command bunker, a buzzing roar drifted
up from the valley floor. A dozen Australian air defense batteries responded by
shedding defensive barrages that rushed down the slopes to meet the oncoming
enemy ordnance. Selangor prep fire began to arrive, its detonations sending
powerful shockwaves in all directions. Within a short time the outer walls of
the command complex lay half visible amongst the debris and craters.
After several minutes of fire and counterfire, Selangor reconnaissance spotted
weak areas in the bunker housing and signaled local ground attack flights.
Within a few milliseconds MGV missiles shrieked from nearby and on toward the
Australian-held ridgeline. More waves of Australian counterfire roared out of
the ground and steadily swatted enemy missiles to the ground, but there were
always more. The survivors signaled target points which were given a last
second pounding by close air support. As the immediate surface of the bunker
was galvanized clear of obstacles, closing bursts of direct fire pried at the
cracks in the strongpoint's surface. Cruising in low through the smoke,
Selangor missiles popped dozens of MGV pods into the air over the exposed
walls. With a gritty sounding "thump" more than half of the pods arrived on the
surface of the bunker. The Selangor MGV assault on Ratu Boko had begun.
Even as the Selangor MGV pods grounded on the surface of the bunkers,
the Australian bunker system moved to repel them. Small deployment ports popped
open, releasing divisions of supporting MGV formations tasked with destroying
the Selangor enemy newly landed in blind zones created by the bombardment.
Enemy MGV pods landing outside blind zones were typically shot away by the
bunker's direct fire defenses. It was up to the defending MGV forces to dispose
of surviving enemy units that might work their way into the command center's
interior.
A frenzy of direct fire erupted as each side's aviation and
ground weapons blasted away at the outside of the bunker in an effort to wipe
out as many of the other side’s MGVs as possible. Other weapons in the
assault and defense layers focused on enemy support systems as the hurricane of
projectiles, shrapnel, dirt and dust whirled up the head of the small canyon.
Dozens of close support ships crashed in smoking ruin and just as many ground
support batteries went silent. Within a few seconds the fire died down for lack
of surviving targets and ordnance whilst thousands of MGVs continued to flow
over the surface of the command complex. The rest of the battle would now be
fought in millimeters as the tiny warfighting machines from each side tore at
each other’s ranks in search of an advantage.
The Selangor MGVs
with their network maps of the bunker's external breaches quickly rushed to
storm the openings before they could be manned by defending Australian MGVs.
Along the top of the exposed command bunker ran a concentric series of
cracks where an explosion had pushed in the thick roof. The largest crack
clearly ran to the interior, and so Selangor engineering units rushed forward
to bridge an intervening joint that was too wide to cross but too shallow to
exploit. Within seconds dozens of bridging filaments had been deployed across
the void and hundreds of Selangor assault units rushed to the other side.
As the assaulting Selangor crossed the last hurdle to their objective,
a small enemy MGV pod careened out of nowhere and smacked down onto the flat
between the attackers and their goal. Instantly the pod's deployment
stabilizers snapped down and from its interior poured hundreds of Australian
MGVs. The Selangor had been discovered.
Neither side hesitated.
Deployment pods targeted the largest groups of enemy units and attempted to cut
through battlefield static in what would have been frantic calls for support
fire – had they been human. But from a human’s large perspective of
the world this battle was nearly invisible, the longest MGVs were only two
millimeters and their maximum firing range was a few puny centimeters. That was
more than enough for them to fulfill their missions; delivering smart
corrosives, toxic agents and mapping weapons or simply looking around. They
could see, they were tiny and they were dangerous – a nearly invisible
enemy that needed to be stopped.
As the first Selangor MGV formations
came within range of the Australians, direct fire flared up as the defenders
tried to hold back the enemy tide at narrow choke points created by sticky,
oily blast residue. Selangor engineering units quickly cleared blocks of the
oily residue and on through the gaps poured more combat units. The Selangor
opened fire as they came within range after crossing the residue barrier and
the battle turned critical. Medium fire from both sides pounded away as the
heavy Australian units backed away, trying to keep their range advantage whilst
maintaining a heavy pace of fire.
But the Selangor were getting around
them. There were not enough Australian units in the one pod that came down, and
as they slowly backed away from the advancing Selangor, they hovered closer to
the wall fracture they had been sent to defend. A quick calculation was made
and out went a request for reinforcements. There were none. The rest of the
bunker’s outer shell was in ruins, and neither side had any more weapons
in the area. This entire sector of the greater battle was now devolving on a
struggle between tiny combat vehicles struggling for control of a one
centimeter wide crack.
The Australians stopped their withdrawal. The
Selangor MGVs moved forward relentlessly and as the range closed the pace of
fire escalated. Selangor units were falling left and right, but they were
occasionally getting a few Australians, and more importantly they were working
their way around both flanks. It wasn’t going to work, the Selangor were
getting through. Inside the local Australian tactical network, a decision was
made, the tipping point was past and now it was a matter of destroying as many
Selangor MGVs so they could not be used later. The Australian MGVs moved
forward into the densest Selangor column and by overdriving their power
transducers, detonated themselves like miniature bombs. Wide gaps were blown in
the Selangor ranks, another thirty percent of them were lost, but they had won.
The surviving Selangor MGVs hovered to the edge of the fracture, tipped around
the sharp, treacherous corner and headed into the bunker. Australian Command
Bunker Number 4 at Ratu Boko had fallen. |
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