The choppers began sweeping the encampment with machine guns. They didn’t fire their 7.62mm belted ammo indiscriminately, but rather focused their aim on the people near what was guessed to be the headquarters tent as well as the leaders of each unit. The goal of this mission was to make the enemy flee, not to wipe them out. There was no need for senseless killing.
Hundreds─potentially thousands─of enemy soldiers would still lose their lives, but that couldn’t be helped. They were invaders who were storming Dalisson without even calling for war.
And next we have…
Da-da-da-daaaa-da, da-da-da-daaaa!
Music began blasting from the speakers on the helicopters. It was Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
I knew it. The only helicopter anthem known to man. The chopper crews are playing it to intimidate the enemy and encourage them to flee. I doubt they’ve got an R2R deck on board like in the movie. Modern sound systems are compact and don’t consume much electricity or take up much space.
I wonder how the imperial soldiers are reacting to the song. To them, it probably feels less like “Ride of the Valkyries” and more like “Ride of the Ghost Demons.”
The helicopters turned on their searchlights as they played the obscene music. There were no anti-aircraft weapons to worry about, and the dancing lights heightened the soldiers’ panic.
Okay, it’s time…
“Fire the mortars!” Mitsuha commanded.
Shing! Shing! Shing! Shing!
The weapons the Wolf Fang mercenaries had were simple muzzle-loaders that fired as soon as the shells hit the base of the cannons. The cannons were yard-long tubes that, frankly, didn’t look very durable. When launched, they made a barely audible high-pitched whistle. Some larger mortars made a loud pow, but they still sounded like toys compared to howitzers.
Despite their flimsy looks, these mortars had a firing range of about three miles and were easy to shoot successively because all you had to do was drop the bomb into the tube. The cannon and bombs were small and light, making it very convenient for this type of operation.
They were not, however, suited for precision shots. The angle of fire was much too high for that. They were meant more for inducing panic, and less for maximizing kill-per-shot. Still, the mercenaries were firing at a campsite full of people, so each round was taking out some lives.
There’s no use feeling bad about that. This is war, and we’re on the side of the victim who’s being stormed into. We need to bombard the enemy until they flee, or else tens, possibly even hundreds of times more people will die…on both sides.
The enemy was devolving into a state of panic. After a long day’s march, the imperial soldiers were preparing dinner and getting ready to sleep under the starry sky. The next thing they knew, they were surrounded by pillars of fire and explosions. Their comrades left and right were being blown to pieces. All they could hear were deafening booms and cries of agony. It was total pandemonium.
The soldiers weren’t in formation nor were they receiving any orders from their superiors. They had no idea what to do as death rained upon them with blinding brightness.
The mercenaries had mixed a few tracers into their machine gun rounds to help them aim in the dark. The head of a tracer bullet was packed with incendiary substances like yellow phosphorus, red phosphorus, and magnesium. When fired, it burned and emitted a flare, allowing the shooter to trace the trajectory of the bullet and correct their aim. Tracers had some disadvantages like revealing the sniper’s location and having a slightly different trajectory from regular bullets, but the advantage of the frenzy they invoked with their flare was worth it.
When shot from a close enough range, tracers could even be used as incendiary bombs. They still weren’t as effective as actual incendiary bombs or incendiary armor-piercing ammunition, but they were good enough to burn carriages and wagons.
Not that that’s why they brought the tracer bullets…
After a while of scrambling about, the soldiers seemed to realize that the deathly beams were mainly falling in the center of the camp, so they started to retreat toward the outer edges. They likely weren’t acting on orders; they were merely prompted by their instinct to survive.
BOOM!
An explosion quaked the camping ground as the soldiers scattered in all directions like spiders, albeit much slower. It was one of the landmines the Wolf Fang members had laid.
Landmines were economical yet deadly weapons that cost anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. Anti-personnel mines were especially cheap and placed a great burden on the enemy by injuring the targets instead of immediately killing them. There were no downsides to mines…for the ones planting them, that is─unless you laid them on domestic soil or a path you intended to march through in the future, or cared about post-war consequences and ethics.
There was a treaty on Earth banning landmines, but not all countries accepted it. Mines were also easy to obtain on the black market or to make yourself.
Regardless, this wasn’t Earth, and that treaty didn’t apply in this world.
Mitsuha did at least make an effort to avoid the worst consequence of anti-personnel mine use: harming regular civilians long after the war ended. She had the mercenaries lay only a small number of them, precisely record where each was buried, and keep track of how many exploded so they could recover the remainder afterward.
There were landmines that were designed to self-destruct after a preset period, and even ones that could be detonated simultaneously with a radio signal, but those were expensive and difficult to obtain. The same went for bounding landmines─mines that launched into the air before they exploded to maximize damage over a larger radius─or mines that were made to explode after being passed over a certain number of times, killing the high-ranking personnel who walked behind the foot soldiers. The ones being used for this operation were the cheap kind that triggered immediately when stepped on.
Anyway, I will not allow civilians to be harmed or the land to become an exclusion zone after the war. The treaty on Earth might not apply here, but I won’t break my own rules. To do otherwise would be to sacrifice my dignity.
No worries, though. I could simply jump the mines above a volcano on Earth with the snap of a finger. Then I wouldn’t have to fret about the mercenaries miscalculating how many were used or recovered. The reason I made the Wolf Fang guys keep a record was to emphasize that I won’t tolerate any abuse of these weapons, and that I have rigid rules about their use. I don’t want the guys getting used to the idea of incorporating landmines on every mission in this world.
Wolf Fang only set up the mines in front of the campsite in the direction of Dalisson’s capital. There were none at the rear or sides of the camp. If they’d buried any mines at the rear, the enemy would’ve stepped on them already. They were the cheap kind, after all.
The ground force had moved on from firing mortars at the camp’s core to aiming at the sleeping quarters and where the landmines were hidden. The imperial soldiers were sparse in that section, but the goal was to herd them into fleeing back home, not to kill as many as possible. Despite all the blasts at the front of the campsite, the mercenaries were holding back on firing and letting the landmines do most of the work.
Apparently, mortar bombs are expensive. I mean, compared to landmines, which cost less than ten bucks. Howitzer bullets and guided missiles cost an arm and a leg in comparison.
I doubt the enemy can tell the difference between landmine explosions and mortar bomb explosions in the dark anyway. All they need to understand is that heading for the forefront equals explosions, and going backward means safety.
The lights went out in the encampment. The imperial soldiers must’ve extinguished the campfires and lamps to make it harder for the assailants to locate them. Little did they know, the mercenaries had searchlights, infrared thermal scopes, and night vision scopes. Visibility was not an issue.
If anything, turning out the lights only added to the mayhem. The imperial soldiers were unable to find their weapons and armor or work out where their commanding officers were. The soldiers were scattered, and the officers had no way of rallying them.
Imagine being one of those imperial soldiers right now: taking off your armor, getting ready to eat and settle down for the night. Then suddenly, you have to flee into the darkness. No time to re-equip yourself. You’re separated from your comrades, officers, and commanders. You’re a single cog that fell from your designated spot in the machine…and now you’re worthless on your own.
The Wolf Fang members were slowing down their mortar attacks as they steadily readjusted their aim toward the middle of the camp. As if that wasn’t enough, the two helicopter crews continued to ruthlessly chase the soldiers. “Ride of the Valkyries” blared through the speakers and the flailing searchlights intimidated the targets as the machine guns blazed away.