Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 185

Instantly, the eyes beneath the short white hair softened considerably. Lilizia sighed helplessly, then pulled out more syringes from her clothes, along with the medicine inside, and haphazardly stuffed them into Griffin's hands.

"They don't want me to answer, and Captain, you'll never want to answer one day either..."

Chapter 228, Section 303: The Insect Plague of Late Autumn

Leaning listlessly against the doorway, watching Griffin and his group's KMF take off and soar into the sky, Colonel Darwin felt nothing but helplessness and sighs.

In fact, he was not a fighter who slacked off. You can see several cuts on his palms. Perhaps some people think he injured himself because of the war? Obviously, they didn't know that the colonel had several medals obtained from Soviet soldiers in his pocket. The red five-pointed stars with different shapes and decorations, along with the unique hammer and sickle insignia, would make him take out the medals and clench them tightly in his hands whenever he was in danger.

He had lost all interest in cleaning and maintaining these spoils of war. His own blood had congealed and rotted on the shiny exteriors of the red stars for a long time. What was the point? With these things in hand, the enemy would likely not allow him to surrender and become a prisoner—given the unique style of warfare of the 45th Division, it would certainly mean certain death.

Then those who call each other comrades will clean these medals a thousand times more thoroughly than the colonel did, and take them back to their homeland to their graves. He, as the "collector," will only be forgotten, and won't even have the right to be despised.

"All units, be on alert around the town. Report any news immediately." After taking a sip of brandy, he stumbled back to his command post.

……

"It's over, this is crazy, the enemies in District 45 are playing us like crazy."

To the people in the room, the circles and dots on the electronic map were like scientists suddenly discovering a reaction formula that had never existed before. The map's black background and pale green coordinate grid were densely covered with purple and red dots, and what was most frightening was that this was not the situation in the surrounding suburbs, but the entire German land south of Berlin.

The purple spots representing the Britannian army and the red spots representing the Soviet army were mixed together, looking like several baskets of grapes and strawberries haphazardly dumped into a rectangular trough. The latter, like an inflating balloon, slowly squeezed the grapes' living space, twisting and deforming them, and slowly crushing them, turning them into charcoal black like the several corpses burned at the entrance of the command post.

The colonel didn't know how many "Grapes" would escape and survive, because his unit no longer had enough air power, or rather, enough air power to adapt to the 45th District for command and control, and the ground troops were completely unable to keep up with the Soviet army's pace. In the sky, there were even "Blueberries" and "Green Grapes" from the West—those American and British warplanes, continuing to sow despair on their desperate retreat and to paint death in the underworld above them, these guests from another world.

With a little effort, he finally located Griffin and his group, along with another air force unit, who swarmed like fruit flies to rescue the grapes—their helpless companions, so close yet so far, could be hunted down by the fighter jets at any moment.

The sounds of artillery fire and tank engines were still far away from the colonel, so he could only smile and call everyone over.

"Everyone, there's nothing else to do yet, let's take a picture first, yes, let's use this map as the background."

"Colonel? You?"

"Being so dedicated is exhausting, kid. Want to relax a bit? Come see how much fruit we've harvested in District 45. Sigh, we thought the fruit would grow well, but in the end, we came up empty-handed..."

……

"Colonel, there are signs of Soviet troop activity detected at the outposts to the southeast."

"Everyone to your positions! Order the nearest troops to be ready for battle at any time!"

Well, the gunpowder drums are about to knock on our door, but surrendering without a fight is clearly not an option.

While waiting for news from the front lines, the colonel quietly connected a communication line to Griffin and his team, watching him navigate the turbulent battle lines on the map, listening to the frenzied sounds of the earth coming from the radio waves outside the city.

……

"This is your new mission, Captain Griffin. The highway through which the garrison of Ann Arbor is retreating north has been attacked by Soviet ground forces. Go and drive them out immediately!"

"Please stop talking! Let me protect these people and get them into the town center of Shrewyn. The two places are more than 20 kilometers apart!"

Ann Arbor is like a willow tree, and Schliben is like a clump of bushes, sitting on opposite banks of a stream. The red rainstorm has arrived, and the torrential rain has swept all the grapes upstream into the riverbed. The branches try to bend down and pick up the fruit in the howling wind, but leave the knights in the air to be blown away like withered leaves.

"Morris Squadron disbanded! Yasla Squadron disbanded! Everyone leave here, disperse and break out northwards, watch out for the steppe eagles in the sky!"

"Engine on fire! Abandon the vehicle!"

……

"Calling, calling! We need support! Can anyone hear us? We're trapped in Hilda village, the Soviets have surrounded us! Ah!... Lieutenant Colonel, the Lieutenant Colonel has fallen! Where are the medicines?"

"Can I turn off the radio, Angelie? Why are there so many distress signals from 10 or 20 kilometers away? I'm going crazy! I don't want to listen to this anymore!"

The knights on this side were like a mountain valley, while the village on the other side was like a precipice. The crimson disaster still followed closely behind them, faintly heard in the heart-wrenching radio waves, as if the precipice had vanished without a trace in the devastating collapse like an earthquake.

"Soldiers of the Holy Britannian Empire! This village is surrounded by Soviet troops. Lay down your weapons and surrender immediately, or our tanks will not care about the safety of your corpses!"

……

"Hello? Is anyone there? This is a radio from 2 kilometers west of Gerson. Our transport vehicle is carrying a Canterbury tank, and the escorting unit has just been wiped out. Can anyone help us keep watch?"

The howling hurricane whipped up towering waves that crashed against the small boat adrift on the valley peak. Only the cries for help remained frozen in the cold, dark distance. Beyond the fields and beyond the woods, one could hear the sounds of more adrift boats being crushed by red lightning.

"Huh? A communication from the Knights of Agincourt?"

“I can help you. Griffin Squadron is approaching from the southeast... All squad members, conserve fuel, discard your flight wings upon landing, and escort Canterbury by land.”

……

Back in Wiesenberg, a ray of twilight sunlight fell on the table.

"Colonel Darwin, it seems the attacking Soviet troops have been driven back? They don't look like they're feinting at all."

"Oh? So you mean it's not too late?"

"Yes, there is hope. We still have hope of staying here."

"Please give my words of encouragement to the warriors. I'll report the situation to Berlin immediately." The colonel finally breathed a sigh of relief. After Berlin confirmed his words, he returned to the command post and put his ear to something dozens or even hundreds of kilometers away.

"Captain Griffin, things won't be too bad for you, keep it up..."

……

"Oh no!" Something was wrong. The knight squad on the other end of the radio heard surprise and fear coming through the communication channel. "Attention everyone! Soviet infantry from the south are being coordinated by Minotaur forces! Repeat! The Minotaur are approaching the battlefield from the south. Abandon all positions and retreat to the rear to await air support!"

"Wh-what?" This was already the umpteenth bucket of icy water that had been poured over Griffin's head. "Angelica and Juliet, you two protect the transport vehicle and retreat. Lilizia and I will cover the rear!"

Oh no! I was just thinking of stopping by this village for a while, but I never expected that I would lose it all, and then I even welcomed a big guest.

Oh no, there were two. Two IS-3 tanks followed several squads of Soviet soldiers, but one of them seemed to have stopped far away in the open field for some reason, leaving the other one to drive towards the village without any hesitation. It seemed that the tank crews all understood that these KMFs and assault guns had nothing that could destroy them. The only thing that could stop the tracks was the sky, and only bombs and rockets falling from the sky would have a chance to destroy it.

This is also an eternal rule in the hearts of Britannian soldiers: encounter the Minotaur → hinder its advance → retreat and call for air support, don't try to be a hero.

"We've already left the village, Captain. Are you all preparing to follow?"

"I know, we're leaving now!" Griffin shouted in a panic, only to find that Lilizia did not move. The Minotaur's 122mm main gun hit a Sunderland not far from her, almost destroying her as well.

"Hey! What are you doing! Have you gone crazy again?!"

Griffin used his grappling hook to knock her down as a warning, but was slapped away by Lily just before landing. The captain stood there, stunned, and watched helplessly as the warrant officer picked up the recoilless rifle left behind by Sunderland.

……

"Her Highness Elizabeth said that the Minotaur is unstoppable on land..." Lilycia's voice, trembling in the cold wind, came through the radio, "Today, I'm going to tell her she's wrong..."

"Come back!" Unable to stop the dark-skinned Vincent, Griffin watched the girl's figure rush away, countless terrified words lingering between his trembling lips.

The IS-3 spotted the approaching figure in the empty village square and was about to stop and rotate its turret when Lilizia's aircraft launched its grappling hook, which bit into the tank's tracks. Pulling on the steel cable behind the grappling hook, and using the centripetal force, it spun sideways like a short track speed skater cornering, rapidly circling the tank in an arc, and launched her high into the air onto a mound of earth.

At that moment, Vincent raised the recoilless rifle he had been holding under his arm and aimed it at the roof armor under the IS-3 tank turret.

After the trigger was pulled, Griffin, who arrived late, recorded the scene for Lilizia, who was leaving quickly.

For months, the wedge-shaped turret they had seen as impregnable, the imposing flattened turret they had seen as awe-inspiring, and the merciless muzzle of the tank in their eyes suddenly spewed billowing black smoke like a steam locomotive. A blinding flash followed, and a blaze of light, no less impressive than the setting sun, rose from the square, hurling the heavy turret high into the sky with a deafening roar. Finally, with the tolling of bells, it fell back to the ground. This bulwark, so solid and reliable in the eyes of its comrades, this unstoppable monster in the eyes of the enemy, for the first time became scrap metal burning on the earth, never to awaken again.

Chapter 229, Section 304: Tenderness

"This bottle of water is yours. Here, this is yours, take it."

After a humiliating escape with the Allied forces, Griffin and his men finally returned to a familiar yet unfamiliar place after sunset.

The central headquarters of the Knights of Agincourt had long since become a pile of abandoned equipment, with assault guns and KMFs lying side by side like rotten cabinets and tattered clothes, respectively. The shattered armed transport planes were also left there—whether they were shot down from the air or swept away by enemy aircraft on the ground, there was no real difference.

Once inside, the wings lay on the ground, the engines pointed skyward, the fuselage rotted at one end, and the tail was broken at the other. The soldiers in charge of guarding the aircraft had no intention of tidying up the corpses of these enormous creatures in a respectable manner.

Because this is District 45, a place where even toilets and outhouses are not safe, and the piled-up debris could be disturbed again in the next second—in that case, let's take a look at the knights' encampment.

The Knights' banner, perched on a slightly bent flagpole, had lost all its vigor, barely able to sway in the wind. Like the passing soldiers, it was immersed in fear and unease. No one could sleep peacefully, and naturally, no one needed an overly comfortable bed. The enemy in District 45 clearly understood their thoughts, so they had taken away most of their tents early on with aerial bombs and rockets.

……

"Still like this?" Griffin tossed the empty bottle aside dejectedly, watching Angelina and Julia still clinging to Lilizia's side, sitting beside a box and wrapping her coat tightly around her as she collapsed on the floor.

Helpless, the captain could only sigh, sit back down on the ground where his backside had just warmed up, and pick up a large iron box from the side.

Tents used as garrison positions are easily targeted and destroyed by enemy aircraft. So what happens to everyone's cherished personal belongings? Perhaps they are entrusted to special personnel for safekeeping in basements or wine cellars? I don't know if every soldier has such a perk, but at least as members of the Knights, they have relatively complete sets of belongings to send home.

The metal box in front of me belongs to Lily. It contains her medal certificate, her own photo, remnants of a Soviet soldier salvaged from the battlefield, and several storybooks—all belonging to a veteran adorned with countless battle honors. What's rather strange, however, is the presence of a small corgi plush toy, embroidered with Lily's name.

However, that's not the point. Griffin is more concerned about the storybook on display, "The Wanderer of the Demons." In his memory and in Angelina's daily glances, this book has always been Lilizia's favorite: a down-on-his-luck medieval knight who, even after days without food or water, always sharpens his sword to the point of being razor-sharp, and whose armor always shines brightly. Through changing times and the vicissitudes of life, the villagers of that land can always see this familiar figure, forever toiling in the mountains and plains to slay demons.

I don't know why Lilizia has always been fond of these kinds of characters and stories. The knights in these stories face a variety of opponents: some are possessed by ghosts, some are poisoned by potions, and some are manipulated by spells from a distance; there are innocent and cute children, loyal and brave soldiers, and even nobles with noble blood.

Loneliness, monsters, and the dignity of battle—perhaps these are the things this young lady is striving for. She even specially prepared a bookmark shaped like a lance for this book.

Griffin glanced at the marks on the pages where the bookmarks had distorted them, then looked helplessly at Lilizia's current state: lying there with a blank stare and a wooden expression, tears and snot streaming down her face, her lips opening and closing mechanically, with strands of saliva flowing down her chin and dripping into her heart.

The prolonged, intense battle, coupled with withdrawal symptoms from the medication, meant no one had time to consider how to save her. Angelina and Juliet could only helplessly place their hands in Lilizia's palms, letting her clench them tightly like the levers of the KMF—who knew if this was a reaction to her internal pain, or a gradual onset of symptoms from the whispers of the drug?

My heart was racing, my pupils were dilating, my legs were twitching slightly, and cold sweat was still pouring down my face. The medals hanging on my headband were more terrifying than the inscriptions on my tombstone.

……

"Can we set off, Captain?" Griffin's superior arrived at this moment. "The usual place, over at Colonel Darwin's place. Go help them drive the Soviet troops back a few times, do your best."

"Me? What can I do?" The captain forced a smile. "None of my men can come back to me. We're leaving? What are we going to do?"

“We’ll arrange for someone to take care of you. Also, don’t think you’re the only ones in this situation.” After a pause, the other person stuffed a bloodstained photo into their breast pocket. “Right now, we don’t have any extra wingmen to provide for you. A team of helicopters on their way to provide support will come and take you there.”

"Do you think the three of us are enough?" Griffin questioned his order.

"The three of you were cobbled together, just like everyone else, that's it."

……

"OK, Colonel, news from the front lines is that the Soviet troops are retreating and abandoning their offensive. We've held our ground!"

Colonel Darwin, who was struggling to support the cause in Wiesenberg, unexpectedly received some good news.

Previously, on a whim, they listened to an officer's plan to have some soldiers walk alongside KMFs and tanks to participate in the counterattack, carrying rocket launchers. In the end, these two-legged flesh and blood became the last straw that broke the camel's back, trapping them in the Soviet army's spearhead.

This gave the newcomers some ample time—and coincidentally, the new anti-tank gun that had been withdrawn from Magdeburg was staying with the colonel, so why not put it to use? While the troops were holding the enemy back, the anti-tank gun was deployed, and then it was time to fire at the Soviet T-34s one by one.

"What do we do now, sir? KMF reinforcements have already joined the pursuit via airborne deployment. Should we rest where we are or press our advantage?"

"We've suffered considerable losses, haven't we? Let's treat the wounded first."

Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, the communications officer discovered something bad.

"Oh no, sir, the pursuing troops are in trouble! The Soviets have ambushed armored units on their retreat route, and they're getting beaten up on the ground! ...Communications have been established."

"Calling the garrison in Wiesenberg, this is Captain Griffin of the Griffin Squadron of the Knights of Agincourt! This is a trap!" The radio could even echo with the sound of countless flares being launched into the sky. "Support, we need support, there's the sound of treads everywhere!"

"Oh no, what do we do now..." The colonel hesitated for a moment. "Calm down, Captain. I'll call some helicopters to help you get out of this predicament."

……

"You guys on the right, keep backing up, don't let the bison charge in front of you... Ah!—"

One after another, the multicolored KMF tanks fell amidst the interplay of light—the muzzle flashes, the eerie trails of tracer rounds, and several T-34 tanks, headlights on, horns blaring, engines roaring to full throttle, surrounding Griffin and his men with a desperate air. What were they trying to tell? Did they think they had an advantage at night, so they were going to give them a taste of their own medicine and make them sweat?

"Oh God... If only Lily were here, or even if it were Ipel." Griffin and Angelina didn't have recoilless rifles, so they could only use machine guns to maneuver through the dense network of T-34s and Soviet infantry. Juliet, on the other hand, was still the same as always, adhering to the principle of protection, trying her best to survive the firepower of anti-tank guns and heavy machine guns.

“If…if we die here tonight…” Griffin kept asking.

"You can't die in front of me, you can't..." Angelie's reply on the other end of the radio seemed unable to even utter a breath of fear on the verge of collapse, "Hey? Watch out ahead!"

"Damn it!" The captain didn't expect there to be a T-34 tank in front of him that had just been hit, and he didn't expect that this tank, with its tilted turret and a hull covered in flames, would accelerate to its maximum speed and then suddenly drift sideways towards them—it was practically going to make a big loop and smash them both to death!

"No!"

It wasn't Griffin who shouted, but Juliet. Her machine swiftly pushed Griffin aside, then unleashed the full power of its remaining shields, blocking the tank's path as it drifted towards Angelie. With a dull thud like an anvil hitting a water pipe, Juliet's dark green figure was flung far away by the kinetic energy of the Bison's 30-ton weight, like a dummy thrown by a car.

"Oh, oh no..." The captain's heart froze to the extreme, fearing that yet another familiar face would leave him.

The hatch in front of the drifting T-34 tank opened, and the driver, with a PPSh-45 rifle between his legs, climbed out. The first thing he did was point his gun at the nose of his aircraft and pull the trigger without any hesitation.

As for Juliet's Gloucester lying on the ground, it was gradually surrounded by Soviet soldiers who set up anti-tank rifles, preparing to set it on fire.

……

"An air strike is imminent. Ground personnel, please prepare to take evasive action!"

Suddenly, the electronic map lit up, followed by a barrage of rockets raining down from the sky and landing around the KMFs. All the crimson monsters that were about to devour them vanished in an instant.

"I...I'm alright?" Griffin hesitated for a moment, then checked himself over. "Angelina? Angelina, are you alright?"

"Safe. I'm opening the door to Juliet's plane... Okay, I've found her. She has a head injury, but a heartbeat."

"My God..."