VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

RECON IN FORCE

Knowing well that the only reserve force he had left was his Olisi unit, stationed a kilometer away, he understood that even if he threw that at the IF counter-attack, it would be like throwing a pebble at a brick wall. The only thing that could save him was his artillery, but now another issue came into play.

From the start, they had spared no expense when it came to their ammunition stores, and they were already running out. The smooth all-out advance on a seventy-kilometer front came at the cost of their precious ammo, and with Kursk still in enemy hands, Pedro had begun saving his shells for the assault on the city itself. However, now that he had deciphered the IF’s next move, everything he had left had to be unleashed just for them to survive the incoming onslaught.

“Sir, is anything wrong?”

“Everything…” he sulked like a child desperately trying to come up with a valid counter-measure that did not include the use of his precious shells that were worth their weight in gold now that they lacked them in enough quantities.

“I think you will be happy to know,” his closest attendant stepped closer, oblivious as to what thoughts the Supreme Commander had in such low spirits. But he was sure that any piece of good news would surely lift Pedro back on his feet, so he put on his best smile and reported the transmission that had arrived mere minutes ago. “Captain Simão broadcast this from the left flank…Hill 253.5 is ours now.”

“Is that all?” he asked, still covering his eyes with his hands. “Nothing else?”

“…Actually,” the man said, but this time his smile was gone, and the same look of worry Pedro had displayed on him as well. “Simão is requesting reinforcements; they’re expecting a big counter-attack, and he’s not sure they can hold out. The fight for the hill took a bigger toll on the Mirabilis and Terras than we expected.”

“Of course they are, and of course, it did….”

“Commander-in-chief Rui on the right flank is also requesting back-up. He’s reached the river and even has some units across it, but the IF is amassing to repulse them there as well.

“…Fine, send the fifty thanks from the Olisi Unit to Rui and the infantry to Simão on the left.

“Splitting the Olisi Unit in half, sir?”

“Hill 253.5 is better suited for infantry, and I’m sure the IF will assault with more people than machines. The flat steppes are best suited for armored warfare down south, and I’m sure Rui will give better use to the tanks from the Olisi there than Simão.”

“And the UAT, sir?”

“…Inform them about the priority change, tell them to hunker down and hold the IF at bay, until reinforcements from Simão or Rui arrive.”

The way they pushed deep inside IF territory is a death sentence. No reinforcements will come for them, but they can divert the enemy's attention long enough for my trusted units to repel the IF assaults and resume their advance. At the very least, if we’re lucky, the UAT will be destroyed, but not before they severely diminish the enemy’s combat capability. “…If there’s one thing those war lunatics excel at…is killing,” the words accidentally slipped from his mouth along with a sinful smirk as his rousing composure revived to shine brighter than ever.

Those were the only arrangements he could make to lock down the perimeter they had established; taking a page from Rui’s book, he was more than willing to sacrifice a few pieces to achieve victory on the map.

For now, both sides' tactics had changed dramatically, reversing among them the roles of who did the attacking and who did the defending, something no one could’ve predicted.

In the first stage, Kursk's virtual battle had been defined by an overall Portuguese thrust all along the Iberian Federation’s outer perimeter, a tactic favored by both Supreme Commanders Valentino and Pedro. Meanwhile, the former would rather bleed the Portuguese into sturdy defenses such as those on Hill 253.5 and the Donets river, obliterating the Portuguese forces in a decisive confrontation before they even reached Kursk. Simultaneously, the latter’s unexpected attack power had reduced most of the IF's outer defenses to ashes while receiving very little damage except their left flanking force under the Combined Mirabilis-Terras Units, nullifying Valentino’s initial expectations.

A few hours into the battle, it remained any man's game. Despite having suffered terrible losses in the thousands, the IF’s numerical superiority continued to outnumber Portugal’s. Nullifying this, with the advantage of better equipment, more artillery, and better positioning when the two key objectives on either flank had fallen, Portugal firmly held all the terrain advantage on the battlefield.

And yet, amidst the encroaching counter-offensive the IF was about to unleash, there would be one Portuguese unit not bound to any thought for defense to keep its momentum going, all the way towards their target.

Battleground: Center

UAT’s sector of operations,

30km to Kursk

“The tanks are here,” a sudden call came from the sentry belonging to the 1st Company, alerting everyone else to the presence of someone other than them in that sector.

After waiting for nearly twenty minutes, the armored escort their commanding officer had promised them had finally caught up with them. The orders they had been given were to recon an enemy location bypassed by the Phoenix Unit's main force and avoid combat. Next, in accordance with their instructions, they would radio the information to the UAT’s mobile self-propelled artillery and rain death on the enemy positions. With the 1st Company understrength by half, it was Angelo’s wish to spare them from any further action for the duration of the march towards Kursk.

The pause came at excellent timing for the battered remnants of the 1st, especially for field medic Mara. Her unresolved commitment to saving her comrades without a moment’s rest had left her badly dehydrated and completely exhausted.

Remarkably, even when ordered to rest up and gather back her strength, Mara continued to do her job; she sat by the last man she had last saved. The surgery she had performed in a hurry to remove his leg had sapped much of his strength as well as hers, yet she continued to monitor his condition to make sure no other complications occurred. And each peaceful minute that passed affirmed a slight recovery to the man’s HP, something that nearly brought her to tears.

Shaking off the dust from her hair while arranging it in a ponytail fashion just like the one she had back in the real world, field medic Mara opened her menu with her right hand, doing an ‘S’ shape sign to take a closer look at her inventory. A new window popped up in her vision screen momentarily with several purple box-shaped icons and a number attributed to them. As she had anticipated, the last wounded man she treated had nearly extinguished her stockpile of supplies; she only had a few left, enough to treat a dozen more injured at best.

She knew she had disregarded the orders given to every field medic for the sake of a single person and wasted valuable resources, betting on one and off chance that he would make it. Although her deduction had been correct, it was her skillful technique that made it all possible. The triage skill worked much like any other skill in an RPG game. A person’s level and experience would dictate how the skill would perform. And in Mara’s case, the PXF took her knowledge of human biology and health science into account and applied it to the triage skill, boosting its chances of success.

“All right, people, mount up and move out,” came the order at last from the 1st Company’s Lieutenant Cristina, effectively ending the fleeting respite that seemed to have ended before it began. “Doc, it’s best if you go with the wounded in that half-track. Gizelle, watch their backs.”

Gesturing with her head in an acknowledging sign, both women loaded up the injured with some students' help onto one of the designated vehicles. Naturally, the number of wounded there made it impossible for all to fit a single half-track, so another one had to be requisitioned, and the troops it carried transferred to one of the tanks. Riding on a tank was practical and deadly, especially on open terrain like the steppes they were traversing; it made the riders vulnerable to all sorts of nasty things, ranging from bullets to shrapnel. Nonetheless, with the 1st Company shifting from an attacking role to a supporting one where they were not expecting to be in danger, no complaints were ushered from the tankers or the students riding on top of them.

With their cargo secured and everyone in their respective places, the convoy set off. A whole new dust storm kicked up into the air as their large tracks uniformly stampeded the grass into several lines of pathways, defiling its untouched beauty with human presence for the remainder of the battle.