Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 758: The Fight for Palawan Continues

Captain Konrad von Zehntner sat atop the back of the APC as it churned through tropical dirt, throwing dust and grit into the humid air.

A cigarette rested between his fingers, steadying the tremors that had plagued him ever since the initial landings weeks earlier.

His helmet lay in his lap beside his rifle, the collar of his BDU jacket unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Despite the moisture-wicking jungle equipment designed for heat and humidity, men like Konrad found little comfort even beneath their lighter plate carriers and ripstop uniforms.

He wasn’t the only one perched on the roof. In that heat, the interiors of the vehicles turned into saunas. Many of the men preferred the risk of open exposure to the suffocating stench of sweat and steel.

Next to him, the radio operator hunched over his set, adjusting the dials as static hissed through the receiver.

“ETA to contact… five minutes,” he said, voice raised over the engine. “You’d better tell the boys to get their K-pots on. Sounds like the Americans are giving us hell out there.”

Konrad flicked the cigarette off the side of the APC. It hissed as dew smothered the ember. Then he glanced at his squad lounging across the vehicle roofs, sighing as he pulled his helmet on and racked his rifle’s bolt.

“ETA five minutes!” he barked. “Gear up or get killed! I’m not telling your mothers you died because you couldn’t follow orders!”

The men snapped to life, pulling helmets tight, checking straps, seating magazines. Metal clicked and bolts slammed forward.

The convoy rumbled toward the edge of the village, and soon the sound of battle grew unmistakable, small-arms fire, explosions, and the deep cough of flamethrowers somewhere ahead.

Flashes cut through the tree line. Grenades thumped inside huts. The jungle flickered with light.

Konrad’s attention caught on one of his men loading a peculiar rocket into his Panzerfaust.

It wasn’t the familiar pointed, conical shape of an anti-tank warhead. This one was smooth, cylindrical, wrong in a way that made Konrad’s stomach tighten.

“Hey, Soldat!” he called out. “What the hell is that?”

The young private blinked at him, oblivious to the alarm in the older man’s tone.

“What? You’ve never seen a Panzerfaust before?”

Konrad bit back the urge to smack him. “A Panzerfaust uses a shaped charge, you idiot. That looks like you stuck a mason jar on the end!”

The soldier laughed, suddenly realizing the confusion. “Oh, this isn’t for tanks, sir. It’s a new warhead. I’ll show you in a second.”

Before Konrad could press him further, the 30mm autocannon mounted on the lead APC roared to life, drowning out all other sound.

Airburst shells shredded the treeline ahead. The convoy screeched to a halt.

“Move!” Konrad shouted. The men leapt from the vehicles, rifles ready, diving for cover as they advanced toward the fight.

The young private fired his weapon, and Konrad finally saw what the strange round could do.

The rocket flared through the jungle like a comet. The trench it struck didn’t explode, it imploded.

The earth inhaled and then vomited fire, collapsing inward as pressure cooked everything inside.

The blast left only a smoking crater where men and timber had been.

The private was already reloading. Within seconds, another white-hot bloom tore open the horizon, another trench erased.

Konrad had seen the devastation of thermobaric weapons before, dropped from aircraft or fired from heavy launchers, but never like this.

Never in the hands of a single soldier.

The realization was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

He only smirked, shaking his head as he sprinted forward with his squad, taking cover behind a toppled log.

He sighted down his rifle, exhaled, and squeezed. Bursts of precise fire answered the chaos ahead, methodical and unrelenting.

With the arrival of Konrad’s company, and the rest of the battalion pushing behind them, the battle turned swiftly in their favor.

Flamethrowers roared, grenades burst, and rifle fire rolled through the jungle like thunder.

Within minutes, the American line broke.

Those who weren’t consumed by the flames and gunfire fled deeper into the forest, where artillery began to fall in wide arcs of destruction.

Konrad crouched behind the cover, reloading, the sweat cutting pale streaks down his soot-streaked face.

Around him, the air shimmered with heat and cordite.

The smell of blood, napalm, and burning flesh was heavy enough to taste.

He looked to the private who had fired that awful new weapon. The boy was grinning, loading another warhead into his launcher like a man at a carnival game.

Konrad just muttered under his breath, voice hoarse but even.

“Welcome to the future of war.”

But nobody heard him, immediately thereafter, the rolling steel of Armored Personnel Carriers, Infantry Fighting Vehicles and tanks pressed passed him.

Supported by a Strike Fighters above, they cut what remained of the fleeing American defense down like wheat to the scythe.

The jungle trembled beneath the weight of the advance. Tanks chewed through the mud, their guns swiveling toward the tree line as infantry fanned out between them.

Drones buzzed overhead, scanning for heat signatures, feeding coordinates to the advancing line.

“Push through the village,” Konrad ordered, sliding fresh magazines into his pouches. “No pauses, no prisoners. Sweep and clear until we hit the river.”

“Yes, sir.”

The radio crackled, command relaying that the next objective was already waiting.

Somewhere beyond the smoke, another pocket of resistance was forming.

Konrad could almost hear it before it came: the distant thump of mortars, the faint rattle of a desperate defense trying to hold back the inevitable.

He took one last drag from his cigarette and dropped it into the mud. “Mount up. We’re not done yet.”

The column rolled forward, the sound of engines merging with thunder, until the jungle itself seemed to move with them.

The gunfire would continue until all the enemy forces in the sector had been routed out and destroyed. Or pushed back into another region of conflict entirely.

And when the bullets stopped flying, even the insects remained silent.