Chapter 18: Leapfrog

"Target hit, Lieutenant!" Scarface came back down and dropped the rocket launcher onto the ground like it was nothing but a lump of scrap iron.

"Good work, Sergeant!" As if the verbal praise was not enough, Lieutenant Bulgers added a thumbs up to go with it.

It was true that the tension of the battle had not let up, but that news gave me a fresh breath of air, and probably everyone else on our side too. We were not here to wipe out an enemy unit that outnumbered us anyway, that was never going to happen. So now the question was how we were going to get out of all this mess.

"Caspian! Any word from the other side!?" Lieutenant Bulgers' head swiveled fast toward our radio operator.

"They just made it, Lieutenant! Already waiting for us at the rally point!"

"Alright, time to get our feet moving. Hey, you two on the machine gun going first!" Lieutenant Bulgers tapped Philipe and Nira on the shoulder, cutting the machine gun fire short on the spot. "Lise! You're with them! Ashton, stay with her! Don't worry about the wounded, I'll have Horgan carry him in the next wave!"

There was no way I was turning down a chance to get out of this hellhole. With Ashton's help I climbed out of the crater, Nira gathering up the remaining ammunition belt as her father pushed himself up from his firing position with the light machine gun still hanging in his grip.

"Come on, come on, move it, kids!"

"Everybody keep firing! Give them all you got! That's right, Troopers!"

Ashton and I fell in behind the two of them, running again but in the opposite direction. Several rounds snapped past from behind us, and while the surrounding vegetation acted as a barrier for some of them, a few still slipped through with ease. All we could do was hope none of those rounds found our back.

The shouts of Lieutenant Bulgers and Scarface still rang out loud behind us even as we pushed deeper into the plantation, they were really giving them hell to keep the enemy from fully realizing we were pulling back from the fight.

"Here's will do," Philipe stopped, bringing the rest of us to a halt.

After running at least fifty meters back, we reached a fallen tree trunk and immediately took position behind it as cover.

This was all part of a tactical retreat, and even Philipe beside me seemed to understand it perfectly. He set his machine gun across the trunk, worked the action several times, and got back into position, ready to feed through the remaining belt still draped across Nira who stood alongside him.

They're really good at this. It seemed they had far more combat experience than any of us.

"What are they waiting for!?" Ashton beside me grumbled.

Come on, come on. The moment we had taken position, the others should have followed within a few seconds of our retreat. Lieutenant Bulgers himself had surely already calculated when we would be in position. The problem was they were not showing up, and both Ashton and I were growing more anxious by the second.

"Haha, you guys worry too much," Philipe, who had just caught up with us, was far more confident about it. "You have a competent leader. Even the Dretonians would have a hard time laying a finger on them."

Can't argue with that. Lieutenant Bulgers was leadership material, there's no question about it. But the problem was the sound of gunfire from their previous position was also beginning to thin out, and that was sending my mind to places I did not want it to go.

"Philipe! Covering fire!" Right at our two o'clock a cluster of familiar figures began to emerge. It was Lieutenant Bulgers leading the retreat, with Horgan beside him carrying Rick on his back. "Keep moving! We're almost there! Don't slack off!"

"See?" Philipe said simply.

Without hesitation Philipe opened up with the machine gun again, not giving the weapon even a moment to cool down, he keep forcing every mechanism inside to work nonstop without any compromise whatsoever. The sound it produced was absolutely deafening, and no matter how hard I pressed both hands over my ears, the waves of sound still punched straight through.

Several Dretonian soldiers tried to tail the rest of our squad, as though unwilling to let a single one of us slip out of their grasp. While running, they also fired their bolt-actions toward my squadmates backs who were running.

Philipe of course was not about to let any of that happen, within the careful act for purpose not to hit his own allies, he directed that stream of fire toward anyone with bad intentions toward us, making every enemy attempt to give chase was immediately cut short into a desperate scramble for cover, hitting the ground or ducking behind tree trunks.

"There! There, Pops!" Ashton pointed repeatedly from behind the tree. "Three of them still chasing, Pops!"

"Nice catch, boys," Philipe happily redirected his line of fire toward the three Dretonians who had been pushing through while their comrades were busy getting torn apart. It did not last long, since all three of them dropped to the ground in near succession as the burst found them. "Phew, those three really stubborn, haha."

Fortunately the enemy halftracks were nowhere to be seen here, perhaps because the hedgerows had likely blocked their movement, leaving their infantry pushing in without any meaningful support, and their return fire was no match for the fury of our own gun.

Honestly, it was a little surprising to me. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, because even though we were showing our backs to the enemy, we were still holding onto the momentum and not letting it get taken from us.

It felt cruel to call it perfect though, since in the end one of us had been left behind with his body still laying on the ground. We don't have choice, It went without saying that we could not carry the body, as that would have crippled our mobility entirely.

"Back to firing positions! Don't let them close in!" As though stamina was a fictional concept to him, Lieutenant Bulgers kept shouting to his men without letting up.

No, this isn't the time for that. What mattered more right now was that the rest of the squad had reached our three o'clock, forming a solid improvised defensive line on the spot. With that, those who had previously been turning their backs to the enemy swung around and began returning fire at the remaining pursuers, sending a clear message that we were not going to be caught so easily.

"Alright, guys! Your turn again! Start adding more gap, Philipe!"

"Lafoy, Lieutenant!" Philipe confirmed, hoisting his machine gun. "Let's move out, kids!"

We immediately understood what the Lieutenant meant. Just like before, we broke from cover and rotated ourselves rearward, handing off the suppressing fire like a relay baton back to the Lieutenant's squad.

What was different this time was that, as Lieutenant Bulgers had ordered, we pushed the gap further than before. Even after reaching fifty meters, slowing down the way we had previously was no longer relevant.

As my stamina started to drain, Nira casually overtook me, the soft rattling of the rounds filling her body cutting through the air around her, not to mention the two ammunition boxes hanging from both hands. I was genuinely envious of her endurance.

At least eighty meters had been covered, we stopped now at a section of the plantation where an irrigation channel cut through. It was not perfect, but it was good enough to serve as another piece of cover, and we threw ourselves down into it.

There was no hellish training that could erase a human being's thirst after all of that, so I took the opportunity to grab my canteen and take a long drink, letting it wash over a throat that had gone completely dry. There was nothing special about what was inside, but it tasted like the best water I had ever drunk in my entire life.

"Is it really that good?" Philipe asked with curiosity, and I immediately read it as nothing more than his way of saying he was thirsty, so I passed it over to him. "Haha, I change my mind, you can keep it. I am sure you need it more."

"I insist," I pushed the canteen toward him stubbornly. "Besides, you worked very hard up there."

"Alright then," this time he accepted it, since there was no reason for your pride to take a hit just from quenching your thirst. I had already shown I did not mind the trouble, and even so he was careful enough to take only small sips. "Nira, do you want some as well?"

Nira shook her head. "No need, the young man already gave me before."

"I'm not 'the young man,' I'm Ashton," Ashton said with mild irritation, but Nira only responded with her signature small laugh.

"Alright, here you go," Philipe, satisfied, handed the canteen back to me. "Thanks, little one."

"No problem."

"Burst 'em again!"

With only the different timing, Lieutenant Bulgers' squad finally appeared from the same direction, the situation nearly identical, with fragments of Dretonian units stubbornly tailing us still.

Even though they had already pushed past the effective support range of their motorized vehicles, they genuinely did not care, as though they intended to chase us to the ends of the earth if that was what it took.

"Holy fuck! How long are they going to keep chasing us!?"

"Keep running, Ashton," for the third time I pushed myself up and started running again. "Look at them, I think they just want to kiss you, hahaha...."

"Yeah yeah, very funny, queen of comedy over here!"

But still, are the Dretonians really that thick? Don't they realize we might be luring them into a trap right now? If that was the case, then their reputation as Varexil's mad dogs was not just a dismissive nickname after all.

Of course we were no less stubborn than they were. Only people as hardheaded as us would voluntarily jump out of a plane knowing the enemy was already waiting to receive us. That's how we are.

This leapfrog game went on for quite a while, since we also had to make sure our backs were completely clear of the enemy's reach. Can't lie, this was the most nerve-wracking game of leapfrog of my entire life.

Our fifth checkpoint was an old well standing in the middle of the plantation, its damp smell hitting my nose sharply. Inside sat still water covered in patches of thriving green moss floating across the surface, making me a little nostalgic for my previous life, where I would read quietly beside the well on the farm.

The moment we had just stopped there, I caught Ashton pulling out his canteen. "Great timing!"

"Are you that retarded!?" I furiously threw my arm out to stop him before he could do it. "This could be poisoned!"

"Look, this seems abandoned to me. There's no way they poisoned thousands of wells in Lorvaine, right?" Ashton tried to argue, turning to Philipe for validation.

"The health minister is correct, you cannot take that risk. You still have a long road ahead," not quite what he had hoped for, Philipe sided with me instead.

"Thank you."

"Alright, alright, you guys win," Ashton conceded his argument.

Along with Ashton's quiet grumbling, Lieutenant Bulgers appeared again after a short while, and thankfully this time they came without the urgency of before. The trail behind them looked relatively calm, it seemed the Dretonian units had finally decided the chase was no longer worth it, presumably because they had more important things to deal with.

With that, Lieutenant Bulgers gave the order to resume the march as normal, putting an end to the leapfrog game. What we had to do now was link up with Colonel Dinks' group at the predetermined rally point.

On the march I still could not get the fallen soldier out of my head. I regretted not having at least grabbed his dog tag.