Contract Free Arulco: The Bitch Must Die!

Cambria: Day 40

Gus Tarballs was ready for action, after a week of training the locals of Arulco to execute a guerilla warfare against the Queen’s army, the thrust for Meduna was ready to begin in earnest.

Tixa fell a week earlier but it took his mercenary forces almost a week to heal from the wounds suffered taking that damnable prison.

Kilroy was as good as her word, moving to South to the Cambria SAM site, she crossed her force, consisting of her squad plus Big Al and Hamous while Ira stayed in Cambria to complete the training of the depleted militia in Cambria. Gus was thankful that the attempts by the Queen’s army to take back Cambria had faltered because if she hadn’t then the quagmire that had been Cambria the week before could of easily have gone on for another two of three more weeks.

The word that Gus got from his contacts in Meduna was that the Queen had decided to recoup her losses in Cambria by increasing the Army’s presence in the country side, specifically the road blocks at all of the major road intersection as well as increased patrols out of Alma.

Kilroy’s force waited north of Tixa until midnight before incurring to the prison in the south. Just over two hours later they were able to sneak up to the perimeter fence of the well lit prison. And just as Gus’s information had told her, Kilroy not only found the unguarded Warden’s house, but also the Warden’s disgruntled husband. Mr. Brewster was all to willing to provide what security detail he knew of the prison, a key to the Warden’s office as well as the fact that currently he only saw his dominating wife once a day at 0500 for breakfast.

Armed with this information, Kilroy decided to pull back and wait until 0200 to begin her attack by taking out the head of the prison in the opening volley.

Gus was not happy that it wasn’t until 2230 that evening that the militia of Cambria was back at full strength. Since the next actions of the liberating army depended on the outcome of the battle of Tixa, Gus decided to spend the extra the money to have his squad, which was still spread out in Cambria’s multiple sectors, to start training guerilla squads to hit and run the army in the countryside. He saw this as a futile action, that every militia man and woman he sent on these missions would be in essence sent on a suicide mission but opted for this course as a way to hinder and blunt the army’s own offensive maneuvers.

Kilroy’s ad-hoc plan worked just the way she set it up with her reinforced squad and still they almost lost. Because of a short rain storm on the way that slowed them down by a few minutes, they arrived outside the Warden’s building exactly at 0500, just as the Warden herself was entering her door.

The fact that they were executing someone in front of her own children did not give pause to the first of Kilroy’s force that saw her. Big Al, fired three times with his Groza but missed twice, thankfully his 7.62x39mm bullets hit harmlessly into the window sill that he was trying to shoot through to hit his target.

Igor fired next, unhappy that he was not allowed to burst fire his Vintorez; his snap shot hit the Warden square in the torso, unfortunately the right side and not the left, so it was not a kill shot.

Kilroy rushed forward to be able to acquire a lock on the shocked and wounded Warden with her Vikhr SR-3. She aimed for the Warden’s head but missed, instead striking her in the throat but that was equally good enough for her heavy 9mm round to blow through the Warden’s larynx and neck bones before exiting out the back of her neck and impaling the door frame behind her as the lifeless Warden crumpled to the ground.

Kilroy was hoping that the Queen could be taken down quietly to move to the second portion of her plan. Mr. Brewster had informed them about the Queen’s dual levers, the first to sound a specific alarm and the second to release tear gas in the prison facility. The specific alarm told her guards to put their gas masks on for the pending gas release. No alarm meant that the guards or at least some of them could be neutralized by their very own defensive mechanism.

So Kilroy ordered Terror, Gillie and Maddog to rush the Warden’s personal entrance with her. Grunty and Igor was to follow to provide support; the same with Big Al and Hamous who climbed on top of the Warden’s house for a higher view of fire. Kilroy was not above stacking the deck whenever possible and this case, one of the guerilla squads that was patrolling the area next to Tixa was ordered in to give her squad even more support.

Igor was shot just as Maddog saw his attacker and returned fire. Kilroy and Terror were ignoring the sudden firefight that erupted around them as they rushed the Warden’s door. Gillie ran up to the wall south of the doors entrance and next to the window that weapons fire was coming from with the intention of lobbing a grenade or two into the window but he never got the chance.

Before Terror and Kilroy could get to the door, a guard inside the Warden’s office opened the door and shot Kilroy. Terror and Big Al dropped him quick enough but then two more guards came around the southern side of the building and Gillie had to put his HK-G11 to good use, killing the first and wounding the second.

Terror ran inside the Warden’s office, straight for the dual switches when a long automatic burst stopped her in her tracks. Her Spectra vest with ceramic plates stopped most of the rounds but still three rounds punch through and she immediately spits blood.

Maddog finally finishes his target with his M-21 Tactical Sniper Rifle adjusts his fire at the next tango who enters the hallway he can peer down; he does not see the guard shooting Terror, nor does he care.

Terror threw her self forward and reaching up she was able to pull the lever that released the tear gas into the prison proper but it was ineffective because the ongoing fire fight had alerted most of the guards to the attack.

Igor joined Kilroy along the southeastern wall with Gillie, both pulling out their medkits to staunch their bleeding. Gillie heard a noise about and climbed the roof to investigate, fearful of death from above.

Grunty launched three mostly ineffective grenades succinctly, the screams that accompanied their explosions told them he was hitting them, but the 40mm grenades fired from his HK79 grenade launcher did not have enough power to kill. Kilroy stepped out and back twice to make the suffering guards lying on the burnt grass damage terminal. Gillie finished off a third.

Hamous, not seeing anything through his sniper scope because it was too dark at 0500 in the morning, climbed down to flank to the south, while instructing the militia guerilla squad to hold their position and watch the rear flank.

Kilroy moved forward tentatively, when no targets were insight, she moved to the window that showed the guard that had severely wounded Terror and was laying in wait; laying in wait for Terror in the Warden’s office and not Kilroy from the window behind him. Maddog was doing his part firing at any guards who were stupid enough to enter the main hallway, having killed the first and wounded two others. That same fire also pinned the hiding guard who had shot Terror.

A burst of auto fire from her Vikhr ended that guards life but her standing in front of the lit window made her stand out enough so that a guard sniper near the main gate was able to target and successfully wound her. Falling to the ground and hopefully out of the sight of the sniper in the early morning darkness, Kilroy called for assistance from above.

Gillie spotted a guard but not the sniper, instead he spotted the guard that he had heard moving above and hit him with three quick shots, critically wounding him. The guard feebly fired back before a fourth shot from Gillie terminated him.

Kilroy quickly and very painfully joined Igor on the roof with Gillie while Maddog continued to watch the long hallway. Terror was able to stabilize herself and staunch her bleeding but Kilroy ordered her to fall back and she opted to join Hamous in flanking to the south.

Slowly moving across the roof, looking for targets of opportunity both on the roof and on the ground, Gillie dropped on more guard before a second guard got the drop on him and let his presence be known by putting a bullet into Gillie’s bicep. Gillie’s return fire was ineffective as was Kilroy’s and Igor’s, whom couldn’t see the guard in the early morning darkness and was firing blindly for support.

The guard fired a five round burst with his Diemaco C7A2, hitting with three, but Gillie’s Twaron armored vest was able to stop most of their damage and Gillie in a bit of frustration, let out a long burst from the HK-G11. Of the eight rounds of 4.7mm ammo that he fired, only three hit the guard, but two of the hit the prone man in his head and his Kevlar helmet could not stop the ultra potent rounds from turning his brains into mush.

Again time slowed to a crawl as Kilroy ordered her squad to move slowly and meticulously. They knew there was at least one sniper around the main gate, but that sniper was smart enough to stay out of the main gates flood lights. Gillie and Igor sniped at two guards inside from lit windows, Igor cursed because he missed every head shot he attempted. Maddog started to move down the hallway that he had been terrorizing with his M-21 as Terror and Hamous reached the front gate.

Terror replied that noone was in sight so Kilroy stood to lob a night light into the prison courtyard. Two guards were immediately seen and then dispatched from above before finally the third guard, who was the sniper that had wounded Kilroy.

Kilroy ordered Maddog to continue to clear out that wing of the prison before moving to the actual prisoner wing. Gillie moved above the prison wing to support. Maddog was shot twice when he open the door to the prisoners wing, grunting and firing back with his MC 51 before moving out of the doorway; his Nato 7.62mm was more effective against their armor then the guards WP 7.62mm against his.

Pausing to see if the two guards inside would attack him, he laid in wait until Terror said she saw movement out the door at the end of the prisoner wing and Gillie went to investigate from the roof above. Maddog agreed and when he went back to the door way he saw and shot fatally the second guard while above the door, Gillie rained bullets down on the first guard.

The guard that Gillie killed had run out into a fenced in area that held the ‘hot boxes’, where prisoners were kept in isolation suffering from the heat with poor ventilation. As Gillie climbed down a guard climbed up the farthest hot box and if not for Maddog screaming in anger at the guard, a man that he recognized from his previous stay at Tixa, the guard would have killed Gillie. Instead they played a game of cat and mouse with Gillie and Maddog alternating when they would stick their head and gun around the corner to fire, mostly ineffectually at the confused guard who couldn’t decide on which mercenary to target, but it was Kilroy, who laid down with her PSG-1 and firing blindly in the dark from five hundreds meters whose shot blew the overwhelmed guard off the hotbox and to his death.

That was the last guard that could be found on the ground level but Maddog made it clear that he had business with the guards who resided in the lower level.

What Kilroy saw of the jail disgusted her; the prison was a smaller one with more space allocated for torturing the prisoners than housing them. For such a busy prison, they were able to only find six prisoners alive. The back of the prison held a small grave yard but the last body to be interned there was in 1956. Gus’s informant had told him that the bodies were burned in the furnace in the lower level of the prison. Which meant the prison had a furnace that was constantly in use and numerous family members who had no clue what happened to their loved ones that were sent to Tixa would never find out because the only remains of their loved ones were a large pile of ash. But that was soon to be a thing off the past as Kilroy readied her assault of the lower level.

After regrouping, Kilroy decided to lead her squad of Maddog, Big Al, Hamous with one of the six surviving prisoners. Dynamo was a large beaten man who still had a spark of life left in him, something the other five prisoners did not. Dynamo also had a thirst for vengeance and asked to join Kilroy in liberating the prisoners in the basement, even with Maddog as part of her squad. The fact that they knew each other was obvious to Kilroy but neither would comment on it.

Entering the basement, the first room they came to was a staging office with two doors, one to the south and one to the east. The door to the south was a prison bar door with two windows on either side. Sure that their presence was known, Kilroy ordered Hamous to join her in watching the south door while Big Al, Maddog and Dynamo watched the eastern door.

Kilroy was the first to see a target of opportunity through the windows and in two quick shots removed it; but her firing prompted the guards behind the eastern door to act. Opening up, they fired, hitting Maddog who only too gladly returned the fire. As did Dynamo who had picked up the ultra new FN P-90 PDW that the head guard upstairs used to possess. Unused to the super swift weapon, Dynamo emptied over half of the helix driven 50 round clip at the door way with only three bullets hitting but those three were more than enough to end that guard’s life.

A second guard fired from behind the first one’s position and Maddog, going prone gleefully decided to trade shots. Big Al found himself being hit by attacker whom he couldn’t see and decided to lob two VOG-25P’s into the hallway while Kilroy dropped two more guards to the south.

Maddog wasn’t happy that Big Al had taken away his play toys but was certain that he heard another scream of pain and rushed the door way. Inside the eastern doorway was a short hall with three file cabinets that then opened up to a medical room. Looking into the medical room and the exit way to the south, Maddog did not see the wounded guard hiding behind the three medical cabinets until the guard shot him with a three round burst from his FNC at point blank range. Screaming, Maddog leaped on to the wounded guard and with his thumb, ripped the guard’s left carotid artery.

Dynamo was given medical detail while everyone else maintained their vigilance. When Dynamo got to Maddog, he just shook his head as the deranged local was finger painting with the dead man’s blood while he waited for the rest of his squad mates to move forward, ignoring that fact that he too was bleeding.

The medical room opened up to a set of pens for prisoners before opening to the morgue area where every single table was occupied with a dead prisoner awaiting their turn in the prison furnace. Next to the morgue were the furnace room and another torture chamber that connected to the southern hallway that Kilroy and Hamous had been covering. That hallway also contained six more cells. Inside the torture chamber was the man Maddog was looking for, the most sadistic guard at the prison, a French man by the name of Jacques Sol whose torturous exploits were only eclipsed by the now dead Warden. Luckily for Maddog and not so much for Mssr. Sol, Mssr. Sol was facing the main entrance to the main hall with his FAMAS G2 and not the direction of the morgue where and Dynamo were quietly skulking. Seeing the hated prison guard Maddog went ballistic and after empting the clip of his MC 51 pounded on to the surprised prison guard and repeatedly bludgeoned the back of his skull in.

It was only after Maddog relieved himself on the nefarious prison guard that Maddog unlocked the prison bar door so the rest of Kilroy’s squad could join them. Dynamo simply kept his distance.

Embolden by the success Maddog was granting to his former captors, he carelessly walked into the last room of the underground facility; the guards berthing area. Off in the corner was the last guard remaining who fired round after round into the objectionless Maddog. Maddog for his part did not die and collapsed against the doorway, blocking it so that no one could follow him into the room.

But the door way, like the one to the north of it, had two windows next to it and Kilroy moving to the window was just able to see the guard. A three round burst hit the guard but did not kill, so she fell back and Dynamo took her place, firing a short but extremely effective burst ending the siege.

Gus was not happy when Kilroy contacted him. They were only able to rescue nine prisoners, one of which was catatonic. The mercenary in him was pleased that of the nine, two were eager to join his band of soldiers for hire. Dynamo, whose brother was the head miner in Alma had many upsides to him, the man just needed to recover from his month long ordeal at Tixa, the only man to last longer at Tixa was Maddog and now both of them were free.

The second recruit and only one of three found alive in the lower level was a young pot head punk from Balime whose ideal life as the son of one of the privileged was shattered when his parents took offense to his declaration that the only good thing in life he could do was grow weed. The boy professed to owning skill with the throwing knife but Kilroy like most everyone in Gus’s employ believed the age old adage that you didn’t take a knife to a gun fight. Still, the kid seemed smart and though weak had potential that Kilroy and Gus was willing to nurse along, if only for a short time.

The rescue of the local prisoners was not the main thing that displeased Gus, it was the butcher’s bill. Not including the two injured prisoners, Kilroy, Terror, Gillie, Igor and Maddog needed substantial down time to recover from their wounds and were essentially stuck at Tixa until they recovered from the worst of their wounds.

This is what prompted Gus to institute the guerilla warfare campaign. He had the militia limit the size of their local garrison for numerous reasons, including easier supply and command issues with fielding a militia force. But when the call to reinforce Cambria went out, tens of volunteers showed up. Mostly farmers from the country side; harvest time was a month or more away but all aching to see the dreadful queen removed.

Now Gus was going to put those excess volunteers to work. He did not plan much success but he thought it would give Cambria and Tixa a reprise and more importantly allow his wounded time to heal.

So the word went out. No actions other than training of militia for the next week. It was not cheap but went fairly quickly, with each cell being trained in only eleven hours or so. When Sierra and Robber exited the hospital, they were to add their skill in the training of the guerilla cells.

Day 38 In Country brought news of the guerillas first major victory. There were numerous skirmishes with the guerillas winning a couple and losing a lot but on Day 38 word came of a major ambush by the guerillas. A force of three cells of 15 guerillas attacked and defeated a superior force of 22 red shirt army soldiers. While the guerillas celebrated in this home grown victory, Gus pondered other implications of the victory.

The Queen was running out of manpower. Allegiances in Arulco mimic a reversed United States during its Civil War in the 1860’s. The northern portion of Arulco was mainly agriculture based while the southern portions were very industrialized. Without outside help, the north had no hope to withstand the productive might of the south but in Arulco, if the Queen wanted her factories running, she could only take so many men from those factories. To compensate for this the Queen was bringing any and all mercenaries through Meduna’s airport. But this was expensive. Her stop gap measure was something that Gus was expecting and had seen before in Africa. Children.

The Queen was rounding up the children of Meduna and Grumm and training them to be soldier-boys; something that Africa in the last four decades had proven was a viable option.

Gus was not surprised that when Big Al found out about the Queen using children as soldiers the young African vehemently expressed his displeasure having seen the very same thing growing up in Africa. Yet another member of Gus’s group who personally wanted to ring the Queen’s neck.

Viable option children soldiers may have been, but Gus was willing to exploit that decision of the Queen and though it meant the killing of children; those same children would not think about emptying their AK clips into Gus or anyone else their controllers told them to, this worked into Gus’s guerilla warfare plans advantage. Numerous battles occurred and more often than not, the older guerilla’s came out ahead of the children warriors.

The week was up and Gus called Kilroy’s inflated squad back to Cambria. After another refit, the mercenaries would begin the liberation of Arulco anew. First was the reallocating of members. There would be three squads of six. Gus was still going to maintain the support squad that would be responsible for relieving the other two attack squads as well as making continued supply runs to Drassen and San Mona.

Sierra’s Squad would consist of Sierra, Robber, Big Al, Ira, Hamous and MD.

Kilroy’s Squad would consist of Kilroy, Terror, Gillie, Grunty, Igor and Maddog.

Which left Gus Biff, Flo, Red, Dynamo and Shank.

Sierra and Kilroy was reminded that Maddog and Ira were to be their point men while Shank’s weak strength, it astounded Gus that the frail Flo was stronger than the pot head Shank, was detrimental about how long Gus would allow the kid to stay with them. He was sure that the kid would get himself killed going to Balime to try to kill his parents.

Which left Gus with the decision on what course of action to take next. If he wanted to increase his legendary status in AIM, he would send Sierra to take Grumm and Kilroy to take Alma while his squad took Balime. But while that route gave the most back it also had the highest chance of failure and at the least meant casualties. Deaths that Gus would prefer to omit, at least certain deaths, including his own.

The tactical option would be to send both Sierra and Kilroy’s squads to Alma to take out the army training base there. The strategic option would be to send them to Balime, to smash the Queens rich support base and to send the Chalice back to Chitzena.

The suicide option would be to send his forces to Estoni and than on to Meduna. Suicidal because that would allow the Queen to send for reinforcements from Grumm and the army base in Alma.

The one positive in planning the next stage for Gus was the continued success of the guerilla warfare campaign. Currently there was a two small armies of 14 and 22 guerilla member cells defending the country side with numerous of five and six man cells as well.