Author Notes:
UmU
I am back! Been a bit busy, hence the delayed release of this RM chapter. I have been patching myself up and helping with fixing the house, again, because our home is gradually deteriorating: sinking floor and leaky roof and all that jazz.
Good news is, mom is not in pain as she used to be, and that really is a load off my chest. I have been able to source more nutritious food and supplements for her, all thanks to you chads. Although mom doesn't really like to take supplements lol. Anyway, a friendly reminder for you all to enjoy the story, the picture, and don't forget about the recruitment drive~! And once more, do ping me if I somehow jot down a plothole due to my scatterbrain state. Please let me know before it's blow up! Thanks, and ka-ciao~!
Yuki Royal 5: https://postimg.cc/479HfBs6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLAMBLAMBLAM
"Belkan Marines, open up!" Shout a Marine Sergeant after a few good smacks on a heavy wooden door. This is the main entry to a three-story building with marbled walls and a private yard. "Last warning! Open the doors, or we'll do it our way!"
It's clear that the Belkan Marines are posted right outside the property of an Erusean noble, or at least someone who is very wealthy in the Shoebury neighborhood. The Marines, after seeing no one complying with their repeated, generous request, lose their patience. Heedless of the stubborn occupants on the other side, the Marine Sergeant signals for a Marine equipped with a shotgun to step up. This Marine then switches his G1 rifle for a modified S-12G shotgun with no buttstock, a reduced capacity, and a shorter barrel length. Pumping the shotgun, the Marine chambers a breaching round before aligning the muzzle of his firearm down and into the wooden door's locking mechanism. Holding the shotgun at a 45-degree upward angle out from the door, the breacher of the team gives the Marine Sergeant a look. Only when he receives a nod in return does he pull the trigger, and the shotgun generates a loud bang in an otherwise chaotic night. Once the door is blown out of its lock, the breacher kicks out with his left leg to push the door open. Right afterward, another marine tosses a flashbang inside. For expediency, the breacher immediately steps aside, not even chambering a new round into his breaching shotgun, instead switching back to his rifle directly. As the number one man in the Marine Squad goes in after the flashbang detonated, so does the rest of the unit; the breacher follows right behind them.
"Belkan Marines! Get down on the ground! Down on the ground, and put your hands up!"
"Down on the ground! Hands! Show me your hands!"
"Gun!"
BANGBANGBANG
"Hostile down!"
"Secure that body and firearm!"
"Hey! Do not move! Do not fucking move!"
"Ground floor clear! Securing the first floor!"
"Zip tie all compliance and get them ready for trailers."
After the initial breach, the Marines execute a flawless house-clearing maneuver, securing several persons of interest and gathering enough paper trails to fill a carton box for ONI to sift through. As one of the many places to be hit tonight, this manor is surprisingly underprotected, with only one armed hostile to be accounted for. That very hostile person didn't even do anything before being perforated by three 8 mm Mauser bullets to the chest. Ultimately, a small convoy of three vehicles, two Humvees and a HX tactical truck, comes to a stop inside the yard to recover the Marine unit.
As the Marines are loading up their captured prisoners and intelligence, yet another Belkan convoy travels down the road they used to come from. This convoy is much more heavily armed, coming out from the beachhead in a mechanized convoy of Puma IFVs decked out with either 57 mm or 30 mm autocannons. Whoever the convoy is after in the Shoebury municipal region, the chance of them coming out intact is next to none. That's not all, however. Overhead, an Osprey circles in a languid manner, and from its set of mounted external speakers, a broadcast in Erusean can be heard playing on repeat for the civilians below.
A part of the broadcast starts with.
"Citizens of Erusea, we are soldiers of the Belkan Reich. You are being liberated. Please do not resist."
Whereas others will hear this as the Osprey circles. "Citizens are advised to cooperate with our Belkan soldiers carrying out their duty. Unless asked, citizens are urged to stay indoors. Those with urgent matters are allowed to contact the nearest Belkan patrol to seek aid."
"A soup kitchen will be set up at 5:30 AM sharp in the town square. There will be meat and vegetables in the stew. Each citizen will be given a big bowl of soup alongside a hefty and soft bread for breakfast. Participation is strictly voluntary. Citizens can represent their entire family to receive multiple food portions, provided you cooperate with our Belkan soldiers to conduct a headcount." It can be imagined that, in the current Erusean economy where the poor grow poorer, this may be the best news possible to some downtrodden families.
"Erusean Citizens are expected to maintain proper sensibility as civilized people. Obstruction of Belkan soldiers' duty, looting, illicit gatherings, and presenting harm to other citizens... All will be judged and treated according to the Geneva Convention or by Belkan laws, should the circumstances develop beyond the purview of the international treaties." Of course, with the carrots so willingly given, the sticks must not fall too far behind.
Such broadcasts, when blasted on repeat by the Osprey, force the troubled Eruseans to memorize every syllable. Even though Shoebury's representative pronounced the municipality's surrender, not everyone can console themselves with the fact that Erusea, for the first time in a long time, is occupied by a foreign state. Yet, what can these people do now but accept their fate and hope for the best? Most of the strong men either perished or were captured in the European mainland, and the few that remained were scooped up by the government and nobles who kept asking for more. With just pregnant widows and sickly grandmas, what can these people truly do, indeed?
While the Belkan Military Police and Civil Affairs Troops start getting to know the lay of the land, interacting with the civilians where needed, and the Marines as a whole are setting up a logistical base in Shoebury, the invasion force is also taking stock of the recently seized RAF Rochford, now FOB Rochford.
"Oi! I need that runway checked for foreign objects, and mark any pothole you manage to find. And I don't care how you do it, but widen that gateway for our bulldozers to come in! By morning, I need everything ready so that we can start receiving the motherloads! Oh, and prop up additional tents while you're at it!"
Perhaps it comes as no surprise when the understaffed RAF Rochford immediately capitulated upon seeing dozens of Ospreys and more than one hundred soldiers who rappelled or jumped right on top of their heads. RAF Rochford, being nothing more than an understrength perimeter air station for the scant few, obsolete fighter aircraft, had no way to react to such a daring home invasion. Of course, a foolish few of the more rowdy Erusean recruits tried to put up a show.
They have been real silence when some heavily armored soldiers stomped them flat and squishy, literally.
Still, trying to convert a dirt strip airbase into something that can receive things like VTOL aircraft in multiple configurations in just a few hours? If anything, that's time aplenty for the miracle workers that are the Belkan Combat Engineers and Combat Logistics Battalions.
"And someone get that fucking Hurricane out of my hangar!"
"Where should we leave it, sir?"
"I don't freaking know, dump it anywhere but in my FOB!"
"Sir. Yes, Sir!"
Well, such work will take some elbow grease, but nothing these spirited men and women can't handle.
As for the Belkan elite troops that stormed and captured Rochford in a mostly anti-climactic manner, they are now making ready to depart for the secondary objectives around FOB Rochford. They are raid targets, places like a radio station, a traveller's inn, a pub, and even a nursery school... Places that exist beyond the surrendered Shoebury municipal area, yet are still under the unitary authority area of Southend-on-Sea. It's not wrong to say the sites of these secondary objectives belong in the badland, where threats, however small, still linger in corners unseen by the throne and unnoticed by embedded ONI agents. A great many things can go wrong when intruding on objectives surrounded by populated neighborhoods. It's why the Belkans' elites are tasked with the raids, for only their iron discipline and reflex may prevent any unforeseen surprise from cascading into something truly regrettable.
If anything, the Reich Marshal wouldn't want her crisp white sheet to be trampled, if she could help it.
Due to the need for expediency, a combination of Ospreys and VECTOR commando jeeps is used to ferry the Belkan special forces to their destinations. If the previous commotion on the coast wasn't enough for the heavy sleepers in the Southend-on-Sea region, then the searchlight of the low-flying Ospreys and the roaring engines of the VECTOR speeding through the criss-crossing streets should be. After all, the Belkans aren't faraway anymore. They're closed enough for the Eruseans to see the white in their eyes, and the matte finish of their weapons. Against smaller targets in densely packed neighborhoods, the VECTOR commando jeeps arrive near or right outside the target areas, where their occupants dismount with guns raised and eyes peeled. The Belkan Marine Force Recon and 141st Rapid Reaction Force are the troops assigned to raid areas with limited room to maneuver. As unfortunate as it sounds, the Ravens have a certain degree of bulkiness that makes them unfit to meander for intelligence in shabby Erusean homes. In fact, their weight and height may even bring about a collapse of the poor house.
"Lock down these streets while we head inside. And everyone, be mighty careful of the booby trap lest we trigger a total collapse on our heads. And if it does occur, pray that you're close to one of us with power armor."
As the gunners on the jeeps and the sentries align their guns on avenues of approach and high grounds, the rest of the troops start securing their entries upon the objectives. The commotions generated by the raiding parties attracted some curious onlookers and emergency services. Scared citizens are swift to be deterred back into their homes, while actual Erusean policemen are apprehended, disarmed, and detained in a corner. Some raided buildings have occupants as well, yet not all are armed, with many being innocent bystanders staying inside dens of snakes, being unwitting cover for the manipulators behind the scenes. The ones who do have weapons, however, find themselves unable to bring them to bear as the 141st soldiers are already upon them with disarming fists and kicks. They may have suffered from a few broken bones, but they're alive for interrogation.
Further away from these densely packed residential areas, however, are the Ravens and the rest of the 141st special operations soldiers. Upon arriving at the objectives that are safe for low-altitude hovering, the Ospreys form stationary diamond formations above the targets to facilitate force deployment with widespread coverage. An example will be the main radio station of Southend-on-Sea, where four Ospreys hover above it in four cardinal directions. Without even a need for a rappel line, the armored Ravens and 141st soldiers jump from what can only be described as fatal fall altitude before landing loudly, yet safely on their two feet, surrounding their objective areas. Leaving behind cracked pavements and shallow holes in the ground, ONI special forces advance methodically and fluidly as if they're all uniformed cogs in a machine. Above them all, VTOL-borne snipers act as an additional layer of early warning system, and are readily available for fire support and interception, should the need arise. And while objectives like the nursery school soon prove to be lackluster in combat action, but lucrative in gathered intelligence, the radio station is a different story altogether.
With the radio waves jammed by means of 24/7 electronic warfare, to find a radio station that is both staffed and still active in the night is not just confusing, it's also downright dubious in the eyes of these ONI operatives. Things, however, make perfect sense when this station is known to be a front for an Erusean Military Intelligence, Section 5 operation, and one that is made compromised by not just ONI but also the faction-of-interest that is all the rage these days. Hence, it's sticking out like a sore thumb in Erusea's downward spiral. While it's laughable to see how utterly ineffective MI5 is at actually rooting out infiltrators among their own ranks these days, it has to be noted that the radio station is still a nominal part of a military agency. As such, those supposed broadcasters inside are expected to be armed and dangerous.
But then the Belkans come up, literally crashing through red brick walls with their two-meter-tall, faceless men-in-armor and wielding weapons capable of outputting more lead than all of their pistols and submachine guns combined... The Erusean agents are made to face their mortality in abject horror and instinct.
"Boo!"
It doesn't have to be said that not a small number of these Erusean agents immediately toss away their weapons when a skull mask gazes at them with malign intent.