September 16th, 1983

Eastern Delos

Rizo Defense Line

88th Armored Battalion

Bravo Company

0830 hours

“The Kitchen Sink”

“Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!” Connor was jolted awake from the cot he had pitched in the back of the maintenance space. Sirens began to blare across the facility, followed by the all too distinct tremors of artillery impacts. People milled about the bay carrying everything from body armor to ammunition; a near-deafening rumble filled the room as tanks began to crank over their engines. Jumping to a sprint, Connor covered the distance to his vehicle in seconds. He was soon catching Grinston mid-way, lowering himself into his hatch.

“And here I was hoping they’d let us leave without a fuss!” He spat, tucking his broad shoulders to fit within the small opening. Connor didn’t hesitate before throwing himself onto the front of the hull, then clambering atop the turret after using the main gun’s barrel as support. The name NOMAD was stenciled against the bore evacuator, unlike the priorly scratched-on word. Wallace was standing on the engine deck with his team, adding fluids to the engine while a pair handed ammunition in through Brooke’s hatch.

Unlatching his cupola, Connor threw his legs over and slid down into his position, donning his Kevlar helmet just after; the leather cushioning of his chair creaked as he sat. He glanced at Brooke’s station from his perch while she stocked the ready rack. For the first time in months, it sat full while she began to load rounds into the hull racks, each projectile sitting snugly in its mount. More blasts echoed above, shaking loose dust and debris through his open hatch.

Grinston huffed after getting comfortable in his seat, “Where the fuck is Wade!?”

Connor’s heart fumbled, and he popped back out of his hatch- just to get a face full of army green trousers. “Shit- fuck!” Wade remarked, her body weight carrying her through Connor’s hatch; he felt the wind leave his lungs as he slammed back down into his seat, suffering a posterior-to-face impact. Wade scrambled out of his lap like a raccoon in a porch light, tossing herself into her position.

“What the fuck is this?” she remarked at the slightly different gunner’s controls.

Connor peered over the woman’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of the somewhat boxier system, a second control panel sitting just below the preexisting one.

Brooke didn't miss a beat while shuttling shells into the rack. “We installed the A3 package on this puppy; you have Night Vision and Infrared now- a laser rangefinder too.”

A smile crossed Wade’s face before she began to tinker with the control panel’s many switches and buttons.

“Is there a manual for this shit?” she muttered; Connor’s heart wavered at the statement.

“Last round!” one of the mechanics screamed. A final shell was thrust through Brooke’s hatch, which she grabbed up, placing it in her lap.

Grinston’s hands danced amongst the myriad of switches and knobs that lined the wall of his station before shouting, “Cranking it over! Clear!” The sounds of clattering boots filled the air as the mechanics made haste to jump off.

“Clear!” Wallace bellowed at the top of his lungs.

The Patton's engine thrummed to life with a short delay and a few mechanical clicks. No longer did it sound like a bucket of bolts in a spin cycle. Connor could feel it in the pit of his stomach; NOMAD’s engine hummed loudly, its many pistons firing evenly and well. He cleared his throat before keying in the intercom on his helmet, “Driver, forward.”

A grin pursed Grinston’s lips as he applied throttle; the fifty-ton behemoth surged forward with a life it had not seen in years. Its steel tracks clicked and whined as the vehicle began to accelerate. Connor popped his head out of his hatch. Other M60s and a handful of M48s were made ready to leave throughout the bay. Ammunition was being carted about en masse, everything from gas cans to linked belts for machine guns.

Grinston maneuvered the vehicle around one of the many concrete pillars, then swung the hull to face the gaping maw of the ramp they had driven down when they first arrived. Other tanks and armored vehicles had already begun the ascent.

“Gods damn,” Wade muttered under her breath at seeing the platoons worth of tanks ahead of them. Infantry struggled to keep pace alongside as they climbed.

Connor crouched back into the vehicle and turned around towards the back of the turret; a pair of short-range radios were nestled into their mounts, each emitting a low hum.

“These get loaded?”

Connor turned to Brooke, who only flashed a curt nod.

Turning back, the man set to toggle one of the knobs. A blast of static filled his ear before any intelligible dialogue started to flood in.

“Hitman-1 to all stations, enemy forces are throwing everything they have at the river line, and evacuations are nearly complete. Corsair and Hammer push to point B1 and assist friendly forces in holding until the retreat order is given. Same for you, Doorknocker and Scabbard; you’re at B2.”

Connor listened as the man started to list off units and positions; the light at the end of the passage was growing by the second.

“... Mace, you’re with Goliath-1 at B0; hold the bridge until engineers can hit the charges.”

“Mace copies, Goliath; switch to channel five if you’re here,” a woman’s voice echoed through the radio; Connor absentmindedly twisted a small switch on the Radio’s face until a dull static filled his headset.

“Goliath-1, how many tanks are you with?” Mace’s voice came through a tad static.

Connor frowned before keying in his microphone, “We’re it.”

A short pause followed before the woman spoke: “Damn- well, it's Mace-1 and Mace-2 on my end, so at least there's more than two of us.”

The tank cleared the tunnel's mouth, and Connor shielded his eyes against the sunlight. Many of the tanks split off towards their respective objectives, spare two idling on the road ahead. The camp, or what was left of it, was already stripped bare before the shelling had commenced. Empty tents or just tentpoles sat in heaps near shell craters. The stench of burning plastic lingered in the air. The old infantry positions which had lined the camp lay abandoned and cratered.

“I think I see you, Goliath,” Mace-1 stated; Connor peered forward out of his hatch to see a tank commander waving atop one of the idling Pattons.

Connor returned the wave curtly.

“Oh, you have one of the A7s?” Mace-1 questioned as they neared.

Connor furrowed his brow and switched his headset back to the intercom. “The hell is an A7?”

Brooke sighed and patted the slightly enlarged gun breech. “This is an A7.”

“Ouuh, tell me more!” Wade leaned closer from the other side of the massive hulk of steel, caressing the hunk of hardened steel with her gloved palms.

“It has a longer barrel, fires more potent shells, better handling, dogshit ergonomics for me-”

Brooke was interrupted as Wade held up a gloved hand, “You had me at more potent shells.”

*

Ten minutes later…

“This is Baker 2-6 to any station! We’re being fuckin hammered out here!” a panicked infantryman’s voice filled Connor’s ear just as the tank cleared the last hill. The riverside that they had rolled through a few days ago was a flaming hellscape. Small blasts bracketed both sides of the river while the entrenched KDNA infantry fought for their very existence. Tracer fire lanced wildly out both ways while mortars rained down on the defending side of the embankment. A humvee lay upside down, inflamed on the road, its occupants still trying to clamber out through its shattered windows.

Connor latched his hatch shut and peered out of his periscopes. “Baker 2-6, this is Goliath-1; what's the situation?”

Grinston applied the brakes just short of the clearing that overlooked the river line, adjacent to the position of M48s that tried to kill them the first go around. A short delay followed before the infantryman spoke again, “My CO is fragged, all tanks supporting us got wiped, and we have a fuckin battalion of Euks bearing down on us!”

“Fuck,” Connor swore before keying in his microphone again. “What's the status of the demo charges?”

“The pit with the detonator got fuckin cratered in the mortar barrage; the engineers who were setting up the backup were in that humvee! We’re trying to reline the charges!” The man had to scream over the ambient gunfire that penetrated the Patton's steel walls.

“Shit-” Connor swapped the radio channels before speaking, “Hitman-1, Hitman-1, this is Goliath-1, charges on the bridge have been rendered inop from enemy shellfire, and friendly infantry is attempting to compensate; what's our current prerogative? Over.” A short burst of static greeted him before the man on the other end began to speak, “Goliath-1, this is Hitman-1 Actual, get that bridge downed at all cost, how copy? Over.”

“Goliath-1 copies,” Connor didn't even wait for the man’s response before he swapped channels back. “Fuck,” he spat over the intercom.

Scanning out of his periscopes, he noted that Mace 1 and 2 had pulled alongside, firing their coaxial machine guns and taking up the width of the road. A burst of tracer fire slammed into the turret's face, throwing sparks against the armored cupola glass.

“Squirt that tree line across the river!” Connor hollered; the turret slewed slowly to the left. The belt-fed machine gun mounted in the turret rattled to life, spitting spent brass into a small box beneath it in short bursts. Connor could barely make out the outlines of enemy foot soldiers as they bounded from tree to tree, almost a football field and a half away.

“Goliath, this is Mace-1; we’re going to cut left and support the infantry,” the tank commander of the adjacent vehicle's voice carried over the radio. Connor grit his teeth, scanning the entrenched positions ahead; nearly three dozen infantrymen bounded up and down the trench lines. Rifle and machine-gun fire lashed out towards the opposite bank, with the Euks returning the favor twofold. Bodies lay strewn out along the battlements while pieces of soldiers littered the surrounding area from artillery hits. A pair of infantrymen hunkered behind another Humvee that was pulled off to the side of the road, seemingly finicking with something.

“Goliath copies.”

“Grinston, take us to the right where those M48s were dug in.”

“You got it, bossman,” Grinston stomped his foot pedals, the Patton surging forward soon after. Connor scanned the M48’s position; a pair of the tanks lay burning in their hull down dugouts. A dead crewman was still smoldering in the grass next to one.

The Patton surged right up the small yet steep hill that lined the perimeter of the clearing that the tanks had sat in. Connor held on for dear life as it crested its lip; the front section of its tracks were suspended in the air momentarily. With a loud metallic bang, fifty tons of steel slammed down onto the soft grass. Grinston floored it; the metal tracks ate up the soil and spat it out behind them in large plumes.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

An RPG landed short of the tank, throwing up a large column of scorched dirt; Connor didn’t even waste his breath to tell Wade to engage as the turret slewed over; the coaxial machine gun resumed barking away.

Swiveling around, he caught a glimpse of the other two M60s who had just made it into the trees to the left of the road. Their 105s barked in near unison, shaking the leaves of the pine trees that they had sheltered amongst. A pair of explosions followed shortly afterward, the tree line on the opposing side of the river disappearing behind a wall of dirt and smoke.

“Pull up behind one of the M48s,” Connor spied out the farthest of the two wrecks. Grinston remained silent as the tank lurched hard to the left, its hull lining up with the lifeless wreck. The gun barrel depressed down over the burning vehicle; its dug-in nature gave NOMAD enough clearance to fire over its turret.

An oversized silhouette moved amongst the smoke ahead, catching Connor’s attention.

“Gunner Sabot PC!” Connor called out, his eyes tracing the outline of the vehicle. The tank gun slewed left and right for a moment before stopping, and elevating slightly.

“Identify!” Wade barked and leaned harder against her scope.

“Fire!”

The woman mashed the firing trigger. “On the way!”

With a split-second metallic clack, the gun jumped back violently in its mount, its recoil system trying its damndest to control the weapon. Connor could feel the tank heave backward a few inches from the concussive blast; it felt as if someone had punched him in the chest even before the breech flew open and chucked the spent casing against the back of the turret; knocking a bit of paint away from the impact.

The sabot round barreled through the air far faster than Connor had seen before, the shell covering a football field and a half in a quarter of a second. With a dull reverberating clunk that seemed to penetrate even the tank’s armor, the round found its mark—ripping a hole through the partly masked BMP. Its forward-mounted engine exploded in gouts of flame; the grates atop it were thrown high in the air as the vehicle lurched to a halt, burning violently from its fuel tanks.

A stolid silence filled the fighting compartment; Connor glanced over to Brooke, frozen in place from shock, still cradling a shell in her lap. The quiet, though, didn't last for long- “Fuck! Let's do that again!” Wade pounded the side of the turret interior excitedly.

With a trio of dull mechanical clacks followed by an exasperated “Up,” Brooke slid another shell into the breech.

“Baker 2-6 to Goliath, we’re trying to re-run a wire to the charges at the foot of the bridge, requesting covering fire!” the infantryman’s voice rasped across the net. Connor peered out of his periscopes to catch a glimpse of two infantrymen attempting to drag a spool of cable in the prone along the road.

“Copy that Baker, Goliath engaging,” Connor unlatched his hatch locks from the inside. “Wade, cover those guys to our right; they're trying to rewire the charges!”

“Copy!” Wade barked and started to lay into the opposite bank with the coaxial machine gun; tracers cut from left to right along the tree line, shredding trees and anyone unlucky to be caught in the open.

Connor peaked out from the lip of his cupola, binoculars in hand. Enemy infantry was bunkered down and firing sporadically from the remaining trees, which were still standing.

“Gunner! Up two! You’re low!” he barked, watching the coaxial gun’s tracers hit the dirt just in front of many of the pinned Euks. Just then, the gun elevated slightly, its tornado of bullets soon finding its mark; Connor watched as many of the enemies were torn to bloody ribbons by the mantlet-mounted machine gun.

Onwards the two infantrymen crawled towards their objective, bullets smashing into the ground all around them as they steadily inched forward. A rifle grenade landed just ahead of the two, showering them in debris and torn-up pavement.

“Shit! They’re zeroing in!” Connor spat and threw himself up onto the roof-mounted fifty cal. Racking the weapon twice to chamber and ready it, he thumbed the trigger with a fire in his heart. The heavy machine gun roared to life, shitting brass and spitting lead. Trees exploded from the impact, some toppling over as he worked the enemy positions with his 12.7mm chainsaw. One man was struck in the midsection by one of the stray rounds, his torso hitting the grass before his lower half.

A burst of autocannon threw dirt in front of the tank as its shells detonated upon impact. Connor slewed the fifty with all his might, his biceps shouting at him in pain as the weapon lurched to face its unseen foe. “Gunner Sabot PC! Follow my tracers!” Jabbing the paddle between his gloved hands, the fifty continued its symphony of death, its rounds finding home two bullets in. Sparks flashed out through the wall of smoke and dust as they struck metal.

The turret beneath Connor slewed hard to the right; the man was fighting hard to keep the weapon on target while he fired off bursts. A boxy silhouette of a BMP-2 materialized as it continued to roll forward, it's 30mm autocannon barking away as it moved, temporarily parting the smoke with each salvo.

“Identify!” Wade screamed at the top of her lungs.

Connor braced hard before shouting, “Fire!”

With a thunderous roar, the main gun jumped backward in its recoil mount, the heat warming Connor’s face as the business end of the weapon exploded. A ten-pound projectile broke through the morning air past the speed of sound. The tungsten-cored dart smashed dead center into the IFV’s lower hull; its rear troop doors followed the round, flying outwards into the grassy field behind it before an explosion ripped through the wall of smoke. Shells cooked off violently within the vehicle in a chorus of blasts, sparks, and shrapnel raining down on any infantry unlucky enough to be caught in the secondary explosions.

In the corner of Connor’s eye, he watched the two infantrymen continue to creep forward. The bridge was within fifty meters of the pair while they dragged a cable spool.

‘Come on…’ Connor’s eyes strained as he continued to spot out targets across the river in a desperate bid to relive the two from the onslaught of incoming fire-

One of the men recoiled to the side as a bullet tore through his head, tearing everything from the jaw up clean off- his helmet rolling to the side of the road. Connor spat and brought the fifty to bear on what he could only guess was the source of the fire. The muzzle flash between the armored plates fought to blind him as he fired away. An occasional bullet smashed into the gun shield, creating a slight dent through the back.

‘Come on,’ Connor watched the remaining infantryman lay motionless as his comrade's rapidly growing pool of blood reached him. More bullets slammed into the gun shield; the enemy soldiers began gathering their footing. RPGs flew wildly from the trees on the opposite bank.

“Baker 2-6! Baker 2-6! This is Goliath! Get your man moving; we’re under heavy RPG fire!” Connor keyed in his microphone; a dull burst of static echoed through the headset. “Donald! Donald! Get your ass moving!” came through a slightly muffled and staticy voice. It became apparent that the man on the other end had keyed in the radio but was shouting in the background.

Connor scanned the trench line until his eyes settled on a man standing up and shouting toward the motionless soldier. With a heart-wrenching clack, the fifty cal chewed through the remainder of its belt, its bolt locking forward.

“Fuck!” screamed Connor before he whipped around, scanning the gear bustle that was attached to the exterior of the rear turret. With a labored grunt, the man snatched up one of a pair of large ammo cans. Connor turned around, opened the machine gun’s upper receiver, and pushed the spent box out of its mount. Bursts of stray bullets slammed into the gun shield just as he fed the new belt of linked rounds into the receiver, slamming it closed and cycling the charging handle. An RPG whizzed overhead and landed in the tree line to the rear, showering Connor in dirt and wood chips.

Connor thumbed the triggers on the fifty, the weapon thundering to life, “Keep blastin!” Just then, the tank’s coax shuttered to a stop.

“Reload!” Barked Wade; Brooke then set to replacing the ammo can for the internally mounted machine gun.

Only momentarily taking a hand off the fifty’s grips, Connor swapped his headset back to the short-range channel.

“Donald! You have to keep movin- Wait! What the fuck!” Connor’s eyes darted back to the prone soldier who now rose to his feet in a sprint- the cable spool being left in the dust. Bullets zipped past the man in nearly all directions as he barreled down the downward sloping road.

“Get back here, damn you! Don't you fucking run-” the infantryman who still had the radio keyed bellowed; Connor could only watch as the wire runner continued his dash. ‘He’s running away- no.’ the thought drifted across his mind before another burst of rifle fire peppered the gun shield. The world seemed to move slower and slower as the man in the distance continued to charge onward, no rifle, no sidearm… just clutching something in his fist.

“Donald! I swear to the gods! Don't you- no…” the breath seemed to leave the radioman's lungs as the man’s true intentions dawned on him. With a short roll, the running infantryman ducked and smashed into one of the metal trusses of the still-standing bridge, fishing his bayonet from its holster before setting to cut something.

“Baker 2-6 to all units! Take cover! I repeat, take cover-” Connor’s eyes widened as he grasped what was about to happen ‘He’s going to detonate it from there-’

His thought couldn't finish before the infantryman’s gloved hand smashed the clackers he nestled close to his chest.

An earth-shattering boom tore through the morning air as a couple of hundred pounds of demolition blocks went off simultaneously. The bridge disappeared behind a massive column of dust. Debris littered the area, followed by the sound of steel giving way, its wails drowning out the ambient gunfire.

The shockwave smashed into Connor like a wall, throwing him against his cupola lip. His ribs screamed out for a moment before he grabbed ahold of the fifty’s grips and resumed firing. After a moment, the dust shrouding the bridge beyond parted, revealing a hulk of twisted steel and concrete that now rested partially submerged in the river. The infantryman was nowhere to be seen, most likely vaporized in the blast.

“Hitman, this is Goliath! The bridge is down! I say again; Bridge is down!” Connor keyed in his headset. A dull static answered him near instantly, “Goliath, this is Hitman; all forces are to withdraw as far west as possible to the FDL-”

“What the hell is the FDL-“ Connor was interrupted as a rattle of explosions erupted just shy of the infantry line, showing their position in dust and shrapnel. A pair of large blasts bracketed the tank; Connor braced against the fifty mounts as the heat from the explosions hit him.

“Air contact! Take cover!” Mace-1’s voice came over the net. A high-pitched whine droned in from a distance; Connor’s eyes darted in a frenzy about the early morning skies.

‘Where!?’ he thought; another chain of blasts tore through the treeline where Mace had taken refuge, trees being torn down to their roots from the explosions. The friendly infantry ahead had begun to retreat from their positions en-mass under the onslaught of enemy gunfire. Some stumbled and fell as they began their mad dash, some of which were not rising. “I see it! Bearing thirty and dropping fast!” Mace-2 screamed over the radio; Connor brought his fifty to bear against the growing silhouette which was diving upon them like a bird of prey.

Tracer fire spat out below its nose as its gun spoke, and a group of fleeing infantrymen was reduced to a fine maroon mist as the high explosive rounds detonated on contact with the ground. Connor thumbed the triggers of his fifty, the weapon’s barrel reciprocating into its receiver with each shot while it thundered away on the fast-approaching aircraft. Its whine became more of a scream as it neared. A pair of unguided rockets landed high behind the tank, the shockwaves once again throwing Connor forward against the cupola ring.

The other M60s joined in the mad minute of machine-gun fire, all of which found that their mantlet-mounted MGs had just enough elevation to engage the low-flying aircraft. More and more, the guns ate up their belts with a fiery hunger.

Soon enough, their assailant was upon them- with a thundering roar, the two-engined ground attack aircraft barreled overhead; its EAF roundels stood out proudly beneath its high-mounted wings. Connor’s eyes widened as he recognized the aircraft’s silhouette from many battles in the past, ‘A Frogfoot….’

“Goliath, this is Mace! Pull back with the infantry; they're mounting up behind the hill!” Mace-1’s voice shook unsteadily. Connor watched as the straggling friendly soldiers started to disappear into the forest behind the vehicle “Grinston! Get us the fuck out of here!”

Grinston didn't reply though the revving of the engine behind him made it readily apparent that he had heard the command.

The M60 lurched backward away from the still burning hulk of the long-gone M48. Connor flashed a slight nod to the steel coffin just before Grinston peeled the tank hard to the left and smashed the accelerator. Wade had kept the turret trained on the opposite bank the whole time, still barking away with the coaxial machine gun. Reaching down into the turret, Connor thumbed a small switch, “Deploying smoke!” A quad of small canisters shot out from their respective mounts on either cheek of the turret, detonating in mid-air and showering the area to the vehicle’s flank in a thick cloud of dull white smog.

The enemy fire did not let up as tracers began to slice through the smoke. “Mother fuckers!” Connor spat and let off a long burst blindly into the cloud; he whipped his head around quickly to catch sight of the pair of M60s beating a hasty retreat back onto the road. A thunderclap echoed through the air as one of the tanks let rip with its main gun; its barrel depressed backward over its engine deck—the distance between NOMAD and the friendly vehicles closed by the second.

“Mace’s, don’t wait up-” Connor keyed in his headset but found himself being thrown back against his cupola ring- his back screaming out. The nearest Patton erupted into a ball of deathly flame; its couple-ton turret was tossed aside into the grass like a child’s ball when an unguided rocket tore through its turret roof.

“Mace 2 is down-” Connor heard the remaining M60’s commander wail. Another flurry of rockets peppered the ground ahead, shrouding Mace-1 in dust and debris. With a heave, Connor brought the fifty to bear on the low-flying assailant, just in time to catch it as it screamed overhead. The aircraft’s engines caused his teeth to rattle. Punching through the wall of smoke, he was greeted by the sight of Mace-1, who was relatively intact- spare its nearest track which was laid out across the road.

“Grinston, halt here! Wade, lay it on em!”

Connor’s orders were dutifully obeyed as the Patton lurched to a halt and the main gun spoke; the shockwave threatened to toss him again against his hatch. A blast in the distance followed as the high explosive round smashed into the opposite bank.

“Mace-1, this is Goliath! Abandon your vehicle and retreat on foot! We’ll cover you!” Connor barked; a pair of RPGs slammed into the ground just short of the vehicle, knocking the wind out of the man. No response was garnered from the tank, which was still blazing away with its guns.

“Mace-1! This is Goliath-” Connor was interrupted as another RPG landed close by, the heat washing across him nearly as fast as the shockwave. The man grit his teeth and resumed firing, more bullets smashing into the armored gun shield with a cascade of metallic clangs. “Mace-1! Retreat-” Connor tried again, though this time his radio failed to emit the low beep of him keying in his microphone.

“Goliath, this is Mace-1,” the woman’s tone shed any trace of tremble or fear. “Withdraw at once; we’ll hold the line as long as we can to buy time.”

Connor’s heart twisted, and his already numbing hands from the rattling of the fifty suddenly grew warm. “Negative Mace-1, Fall back-” Another RPG soared overhead, cratering the dirt next to the road.

“This is not a debate. Withdraw. God's speed Goliath... Mace-1, out.”