GBOW: Enter Sandman
Apr. 24th, 2010 03:08 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsLogan leads Kane and Kyle behind the lines to sabotage the Indian artillery and logistical train.
Night had always been the ally for the outnumbered. In the darkness, all armies were the same size; one man, alone in the dark, surrounded only by the handful of men next to him. Terror was a weapon that was wielded by night fighters, and the technological investment that had gone into devices to push back the darkness; night sights, infrared, thermo-imaging, spoke to its effectiveness. The X-Men did not normally need to rely on it, as swiftness and power tended to be the key elements in their sudden response and shock tactics. But there was no way to do the kind of damage they needed to without being identified or participating in wholesale slaughter with those tactics.
It had left surprise and the cover of darkness as they only option. Fortunately, the individuals they had available to them were well suited for their combat, and as their friends had engaged the enemy at dusk, they had used the cover to get past the attack line, hole up, and wait as the rest of the Indian advance materialized around them before appearing.
Wolverine squatted effortlessly on his heels, looking at his two companions. "All right." he said finally. "We're behind enemy lines and we've got a job to do. Figure this could go two ways - we stick together, move methodically, trash the arty before it really wrecks somebody's day." he said with a brief grin. "Slow, but safer. Too slow. Or we split up, hit them from three different angles, trash it and bug out to the evac point." he said. "We all got the tools to get it done." he said, glancing over to Garrison. Kyle he wasn't worried about - he was just a kid, full of piss and vinegar, spoiling to do his part. Moral kid, ethical, but when the hammer came down Logan was pretty sure the kid would step up. Garrison, though, knew a little something about war. About being a soldier. And what it cost.
"Wildchild? You got north. Dominion, you take the east. I got the south. You all know the evac point, and you're on your own to get there." he said, pausing to see if either man had anything to add.
"If we split up, Angel and Wasp are only going to be able to cover a couple of us. How are you tasking them?" Kane said, not questioning the orders but clarifying his own operational profile. If he didn't have aerial recon, he'd have to handle his side of the shop a little differently. Fortunately, he's expected this kind of plan from Logan; they'd worked together too long not to have.
"You're the one who can't get around in the dark well." he said with another grin. "You get aerial surveillance. Put Angel up high, keep Wasp down low." he clarified. "They'll spot for you." he said. Personally, he was hoping he'd get a little interference coming his way. "Wildchild, you talk to aerial as well, since you're new at this." he said to the lanky man. "They'll call your targets, you disable as you see fit." he said. While he wasn't sure if Kyle's claws would cut arty steel, they'd do just fine in trashing controls, spiking treads, and putting some hurt on cannon-cockers.
"Yippie. I get to get babysat by my own girlfriend." Kyle grumbled mock-seriously. He shrugged his uniform jacket on over his t-shirt and cracked his neck a few times. He was nervous - scared, even, and he was pretty sure it showed, and he didn't much care about that because he wouldn't have been here if he wasn't up to it. "What'da want us to do if we, uh, lose aerial? I mean, Wasp's tiny but Angel's... those wings are huge. Big targets."
"That's why he's up high. He's got good eyes and we got good scopes for him. We put him a mile or so up, should be fine." he said. "Darken his wings so they don't stand out as much." he suggested. "If he goes low, he's a big fuckin' target just waiting for someone to put a bullet in his brainpan." he said. "Put him way up, small-arms won't reach him." he said with a shrug.
"Angel knows his business, Wildchild. There isn't much light to reflect off the wings, and they're going to be looking for helicopters and planes, not giant birds." Kane said with a grin. He wasn't eager to start a fight, but after hours holed up as the convoy marched around them, he was anxious to do something.
"Yeah, and you didn't answer my question dude. First causality of a battle is the plan, right?" Kyle asked. "What do I do if they go out. Head to evac or make shit up on my own?" He didn't know, that's why he wasn't in charge of things! And he was a lot happier right now if someone older than him, and practically older than dirt was telling him what to do so that he didn't have to think about the worst-cases, like the one where his girlfriend was shot or something
Logan reached over and grabbed Wildchild's collar, almost impaling the kid's eye with an unlit cigar. "You improvise. We have a mission, and we will complete it. Clear?" he growled, sounding scarcely human. "This thing goes sour, I expect you to _take care of business_." he added, then let Kyle go. "You've trained for this. You're ready for this." he said, more kindly now. "Your spotter goes down, you rescue if feasible, but you _continue the mission_."
"Watch that thing, I need to be able to see to go fuck shit up." Kyle said. "So if they go down, I make shit up and keep on. Gotcha." Despite the flash of rage that had boiled up when Logan had grabbed him, he managed to sound calmer than he felt, and the anger was dissolving. He knew what to do, that's all he'd needed.
"Oh yeah, I hate this already." Kane muttered, and stood up. He'd augmented his X-Man outfit with the camo paint, covering his face and dulling the piping and the epaulettes. They'd considered non-descript military garb, but the protection the suit offered outweighed the dangers of identification. However, with the touch ups, they'd be like moving shadows in the twilight. "Alright, see you guys at Point Vegas."
"Good hunting." Logan told his two partners and disappeared into the night.
***
IOB M46 FG was the technical description in their briefs. It looked much like the movies had; a big, squat, long barreled artillery piece, sitting backwards on a truck bed. In a few hours, they'd be deployed, dug into the dirt and capable of hurling a 155mm shell accurately enough to hit an individual car in a parking lot. A complex laser guidance system was wired into the operational system, and perversely, it looked a little like a sound system in a club as opposed to a command panel for a gun that could fire low grade nuclear projectiles if needed. There were guards, gun crews waiting down beside idle trucks, pausing in order to avoid getting too far ahead with the tanks. Behind them were the logistical teams, who were shoring up roads, lying miles of pipe for diesel fuel, and clearing the way for the massive amounts of supplies a modern army needed.
Kane waited for the truck to come to a stop, and the driver to get out for a smoke. The gun was heavy, but not too heavy for Kane's strength, and he flipped it up, sending it in an arc that smashed it barrel down on the truck. The weight shattered the engine and smoke began to pour out. The sound had draw all eyes to the truck, and Kane slipped away at inhuman speeds, moving up the line. In some cases, he'd rip away whole electronic boxes, parts of engines, with great effort even bend the barrels of the guns enough that a shell would explode in the middle of firing. Each effort caused more confusion in the darkness, and guards began to fan out, unaware that they were under attack as of now.
***
Running in the dirt, Kyle was silent. He'd gone to all fours, to keep a low profile, and for the very reason he hated doing it - it made him look totally inhuman. Anyone who saw him wouldn't see a man heading to cause some destruction, they'd see a big dog looking for food. Or a tiger, or lion, or whatever the fuck lived in India, Kyle didn't know. Maybe they'd shoot at him anyway but he'd have extra time. And that was hopefully totally unnecessary in the first place because he was trying like hell not to be seen.
Once inside the line, he slowed, to weave around the vehicles. He slid under some to cut brake lines and air hoses and wires and whatever else he could get his claws on, sliding out from underneath inches ahead of rolling tires. The towed artillery vehicles had their towlines severed or ripped out entirely as he darted between the big gun and the truck pulling it. 'Can't use artillery that can't be fucking towed', he'd decided.
The sudden brake failures and ruined cables caused a chain reaction, vehicles colliding into each other, disabling trucks and guns and ammo trucks that Kyle hadn't even touched.
***
Logan was a little more circumspect than Garrison. He used his claws to vent artillery barrels, making incisions in the metal a few inches long, in places that wouldn't show to a visual inspection right away. But if the guns were fired, they'd likely detonate in-place instead and really wreck someone's day. If someone came close to where he crouched in the darkness, if it looked like he might be discovered, he expertly disabled them without a second thought. Mentally, he was grinning like a maniac.
This felt _right_. Felt _good_. Like this is what he was made to do. What he loved. For the first time in a long time, Logan was truly happy.
It also helped his cause that Garrison and Kyle were wreaking holy hell in their sectors. Arty flipped over, runaway pieces smashing into the motor pool, all of it. Pure chaos, and in pure chaos, the Wolverine thrived.
He was making his way to the next cluster of arty when a better target suggested itself.
Division command. Nothing fancy, just a cluster of tents out here in the bush. It looked just like any other bivouac, but most arty bivouacs didn't come equipped with a preponderance of high noncoms and officers. Grinning, he made his way towards the central structure. While he didn't speak any of the dialects of Indian, he could probably collect a good chunk of intel, get it back to McCoy or Ramsey or someone who spoke the language.
Could be useful.
***
By now, the entire convoy was up and alert, searching for the cause of the sudden chaos that gripped it. Units of riflemen were being clustered around cannons and command tracks, trying to guard them from sabotage while other units roamed the darkness, looking for the saboteurs. In under an hour, they had managed to grind the logistics train to a halt, each minute widening the distance between them and the armor that was rushing ahead expecting the support to follow.
Kane crept carefully towards the rally point. He'd been careful to use misdirection in his attacks, leaving a sector just as the results of his work should up. He'd still drawn fire from the military units, and his suit had prevented at least a couple of ricochets from wounding him. Crouched up in the rocky hill, he waited for the others to arrive.
Kyle's hair and face were smeared with oil and dirt as he limped up the hill. The limp was nearly gone by the time he reached Garrison, but the cause was obvious - one foot had a long healing cut running from the ankle to nearly his toes, the skin still inflamed and red. He said nothing, just made his presence known, took out what appeared to be Fig Newtons and began eating them, practically not even chewing as he ate.
Logan was running late. He finally showed up after ten minutes, bearing an Indian Army duffel stuffed to the brim with hard drives, loose papers, and manila file folders absolutely stuffed to bursting with documents of all kinds. "Made a little side-trip." he said with a grin. "You both all right?" he asked, sniffing the air. Exertion, excitement, wariness, and in Kyle's case, blood. Faint, but blood still.
"I'm running around in the middle of a warzone fucking up artillery and possibly getting people killed. Yeah, I'm pretty fucking far from alright." Garrison said, without rancor. "What's next?"
"This is the fun part. Enjoy it." Logan said with a grin. Damn, he felt _alive_ just then in ways he normally didn't. The blood was pumping, the adrenaline making his nerves sing, and everything was possible. It was glorious. Taking out a cigar, he stuck it in his mouth but left it unlit for the time being. Then he hopped on the comms to go radio their success in and to get new orders.
Night had always been the ally for the outnumbered. In the darkness, all armies were the same size; one man, alone in the dark, surrounded only by the handful of men next to him. Terror was a weapon that was wielded by night fighters, and the technological investment that had gone into devices to push back the darkness; night sights, infrared, thermo-imaging, spoke to its effectiveness. The X-Men did not normally need to rely on it, as swiftness and power tended to be the key elements in their sudden response and shock tactics. But there was no way to do the kind of damage they needed to without being identified or participating in wholesale slaughter with those tactics.
It had left surprise and the cover of darkness as they only option. Fortunately, the individuals they had available to them were well suited for their combat, and as their friends had engaged the enemy at dusk, they had used the cover to get past the attack line, hole up, and wait as the rest of the Indian advance materialized around them before appearing.
Wolverine squatted effortlessly on his heels, looking at his two companions. "All right." he said finally. "We're behind enemy lines and we've got a job to do. Figure this could go two ways - we stick together, move methodically, trash the arty before it really wrecks somebody's day." he said with a brief grin. "Slow, but safer. Too slow. Or we split up, hit them from three different angles, trash it and bug out to the evac point." he said. "We all got the tools to get it done." he said, glancing over to Garrison. Kyle he wasn't worried about - he was just a kid, full of piss and vinegar, spoiling to do his part. Moral kid, ethical, but when the hammer came down Logan was pretty sure the kid would step up. Garrison, though, knew a little something about war. About being a soldier. And what it cost.
"Wildchild? You got north. Dominion, you take the east. I got the south. You all know the evac point, and you're on your own to get there." he said, pausing to see if either man had anything to add.
"If we split up, Angel and Wasp are only going to be able to cover a couple of us. How are you tasking them?" Kane said, not questioning the orders but clarifying his own operational profile. If he didn't have aerial recon, he'd have to handle his side of the shop a little differently. Fortunately, he's expected this kind of plan from Logan; they'd worked together too long not to have.
"You're the one who can't get around in the dark well." he said with another grin. "You get aerial surveillance. Put Angel up high, keep Wasp down low." he clarified. "They'll spot for you." he said. Personally, he was hoping he'd get a little interference coming his way. "Wildchild, you talk to aerial as well, since you're new at this." he said to the lanky man. "They'll call your targets, you disable as you see fit." he said. While he wasn't sure if Kyle's claws would cut arty steel, they'd do just fine in trashing controls, spiking treads, and putting some hurt on cannon-cockers.
"Yippie. I get to get babysat by my own girlfriend." Kyle grumbled mock-seriously. He shrugged his uniform jacket on over his t-shirt and cracked his neck a few times. He was nervous - scared, even, and he was pretty sure it showed, and he didn't much care about that because he wouldn't have been here if he wasn't up to it. "What'da want us to do if we, uh, lose aerial? I mean, Wasp's tiny but Angel's... those wings are huge. Big targets."
"That's why he's up high. He's got good eyes and we got good scopes for him. We put him a mile or so up, should be fine." he said. "Darken his wings so they don't stand out as much." he suggested. "If he goes low, he's a big fuckin' target just waiting for someone to put a bullet in his brainpan." he said. "Put him way up, small-arms won't reach him." he said with a shrug.
"Angel knows his business, Wildchild. There isn't much light to reflect off the wings, and they're going to be looking for helicopters and planes, not giant birds." Kane said with a grin. He wasn't eager to start a fight, but after hours holed up as the convoy marched around them, he was anxious to do something.
"Yeah, and you didn't answer my question dude. First causality of a battle is the plan, right?" Kyle asked. "What do I do if they go out. Head to evac or make shit up on my own?" He didn't know, that's why he wasn't in charge of things! And he was a lot happier right now if someone older than him, and practically older than dirt was telling him what to do so that he didn't have to think about the worst-cases, like the one where his girlfriend was shot or something
Logan reached over and grabbed Wildchild's collar, almost impaling the kid's eye with an unlit cigar. "You improvise. We have a mission, and we will complete it. Clear?" he growled, sounding scarcely human. "This thing goes sour, I expect you to _take care of business_." he added, then let Kyle go. "You've trained for this. You're ready for this." he said, more kindly now. "Your spotter goes down, you rescue if feasible, but you _continue the mission_."
"Watch that thing, I need to be able to see to go fuck shit up." Kyle said. "So if they go down, I make shit up and keep on. Gotcha." Despite the flash of rage that had boiled up when Logan had grabbed him, he managed to sound calmer than he felt, and the anger was dissolving. He knew what to do, that's all he'd needed.
"Oh yeah, I hate this already." Kane muttered, and stood up. He'd augmented his X-Man outfit with the camo paint, covering his face and dulling the piping and the epaulettes. They'd considered non-descript military garb, but the protection the suit offered outweighed the dangers of identification. However, with the touch ups, they'd be like moving shadows in the twilight. "Alright, see you guys at Point Vegas."
"Good hunting." Logan told his two partners and disappeared into the night.
***
IOB M46 FG was the technical description in their briefs. It looked much like the movies had; a big, squat, long barreled artillery piece, sitting backwards on a truck bed. In a few hours, they'd be deployed, dug into the dirt and capable of hurling a 155mm shell accurately enough to hit an individual car in a parking lot. A complex laser guidance system was wired into the operational system, and perversely, it looked a little like a sound system in a club as opposed to a command panel for a gun that could fire low grade nuclear projectiles if needed. There were guards, gun crews waiting down beside idle trucks, pausing in order to avoid getting too far ahead with the tanks. Behind them were the logistical teams, who were shoring up roads, lying miles of pipe for diesel fuel, and clearing the way for the massive amounts of supplies a modern army needed.
Kane waited for the truck to come to a stop, and the driver to get out for a smoke. The gun was heavy, but not too heavy for Kane's strength, and he flipped it up, sending it in an arc that smashed it barrel down on the truck. The weight shattered the engine and smoke began to pour out. The sound had draw all eyes to the truck, and Kane slipped away at inhuman speeds, moving up the line. In some cases, he'd rip away whole electronic boxes, parts of engines, with great effort even bend the barrels of the guns enough that a shell would explode in the middle of firing. Each effort caused more confusion in the darkness, and guards began to fan out, unaware that they were under attack as of now.
***
Running in the dirt, Kyle was silent. He'd gone to all fours, to keep a low profile, and for the very reason he hated doing it - it made him look totally inhuman. Anyone who saw him wouldn't see a man heading to cause some destruction, they'd see a big dog looking for food. Or a tiger, or lion, or whatever the fuck lived in India, Kyle didn't know. Maybe they'd shoot at him anyway but he'd have extra time. And that was hopefully totally unnecessary in the first place because he was trying like hell not to be seen.
Once inside the line, he slowed, to weave around the vehicles. He slid under some to cut brake lines and air hoses and wires and whatever else he could get his claws on, sliding out from underneath inches ahead of rolling tires. The towed artillery vehicles had their towlines severed or ripped out entirely as he darted between the big gun and the truck pulling it. 'Can't use artillery that can't be fucking towed', he'd decided.
The sudden brake failures and ruined cables caused a chain reaction, vehicles colliding into each other, disabling trucks and guns and ammo trucks that Kyle hadn't even touched.
***
Logan was a little more circumspect than Garrison. He used his claws to vent artillery barrels, making incisions in the metal a few inches long, in places that wouldn't show to a visual inspection right away. But if the guns were fired, they'd likely detonate in-place instead and really wreck someone's day. If someone came close to where he crouched in the darkness, if it looked like he might be discovered, he expertly disabled them without a second thought. Mentally, he was grinning like a maniac.
This felt _right_. Felt _good_. Like this is what he was made to do. What he loved. For the first time in a long time, Logan was truly happy.
It also helped his cause that Garrison and Kyle were wreaking holy hell in their sectors. Arty flipped over, runaway pieces smashing into the motor pool, all of it. Pure chaos, and in pure chaos, the Wolverine thrived.
He was making his way to the next cluster of arty when a better target suggested itself.
Division command. Nothing fancy, just a cluster of tents out here in the bush. It looked just like any other bivouac, but most arty bivouacs didn't come equipped with a preponderance of high noncoms and officers. Grinning, he made his way towards the central structure. While he didn't speak any of the dialects of Indian, he could probably collect a good chunk of intel, get it back to McCoy or Ramsey or someone who spoke the language.
Could be useful.
***
By now, the entire convoy was up and alert, searching for the cause of the sudden chaos that gripped it. Units of riflemen were being clustered around cannons and command tracks, trying to guard them from sabotage while other units roamed the darkness, looking for the saboteurs. In under an hour, they had managed to grind the logistics train to a halt, each minute widening the distance between them and the armor that was rushing ahead expecting the support to follow.
Kane crept carefully towards the rally point. He'd been careful to use misdirection in his attacks, leaving a sector just as the results of his work should up. He'd still drawn fire from the military units, and his suit had prevented at least a couple of ricochets from wounding him. Crouched up in the rocky hill, he waited for the others to arrive.
Kyle's hair and face were smeared with oil and dirt as he limped up the hill. The limp was nearly gone by the time he reached Garrison, but the cause was obvious - one foot had a long healing cut running from the ankle to nearly his toes, the skin still inflamed and red. He said nothing, just made his presence known, took out what appeared to be Fig Newtons and began eating them, practically not even chewing as he ate.
Logan was running late. He finally showed up after ten minutes, bearing an Indian Army duffel stuffed to the brim with hard drives, loose papers, and manila file folders absolutely stuffed to bursting with documents of all kinds. "Made a little side-trip." he said with a grin. "You both all right?" he asked, sniffing the air. Exertion, excitement, wariness, and in Kyle's case, blood. Faint, but blood still.
"I'm running around in the middle of a warzone fucking up artillery and possibly getting people killed. Yeah, I'm pretty fucking far from alright." Garrison said, without rancor. "What's next?"
"This is the fun part. Enjoy it." Logan said with a grin. Damn, he felt _alive_ just then in ways he normally didn't. The blood was pumping, the adrenaline making his nerves sing, and everything was possible. It was glorious. Taking out a cigar, he stuck it in his mouth but left it unlit for the time being. Then he hopped on the comms to go radio their success in and to get new orders.
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