Grudziadz, Poland. European federation. November 2034
Kozak barely glanced my way as I wandered through his cozy bookstore, totally absorbed in perusing his eclectic collection. Kozak was a towering figure, a veteran of the 25th Air Cavalry Brigade, but right now, he seemed more preoccupied with rearranging the shelves than with anything else.
He'd just finished up with a group of primary schoolers who had swung by on a field trip, and now he was deep in the trenches of organizing the chaos they'd left behind. Standing at a solid 6'3" and weighing in at a hefty 110 kilos, you'd think he'd command the space with an iron fist. But nope, turns out, he was just trying to dodge his wife's wrath. He confessed to me in passing that he didn't fancy facing her fury if she caught wind of the disarray in the store.
"It felt like déjà vu all over again, must've been our fourth refuelling and resupply of the day. From the crack of dawn till well into the night, we were up in the air, no breaks in sight. Our only pit stops were for a quick refuel and rearm. Those precious few minutes on the ground were spent darting to the nearest porta potty and scarfing down whatever food we could grab, all while catching up on orders from our squadron commander.
They were advancing without rest. All our defensive lines were overrun. The general evacuation order for Gdansk had been called. In less than a week they were threatening Warsaw, Minsk and Tallin no mattered how many bodies we threw at them. Our orders had stayed the same, respond to call for fires near Wyszkow. It’s a city north east of Warsaw. We had ten thousand men there using everything from MBT’s, artillery, assault rifles, swords and sledgehammers to stop their advance. That city was not supposed to hold, just give time for the capital to prepare for the never ending tide of crabs.
Down there, it was a scene straight out of a Stalinist great war movie. Word was, we had more volunteers than rifles. Trucks packed with civilians from Warsaw had been rolling in all afternoon, dropped off to lend a hand. Their mission? Dig trenches, shore up buildings — anything to fortify our defenses. The capital had practically run dry of cement as they scrambled to throw together makeshift bunkers in every direction north of the city.
Everything from special forces to fire brigade units were put on a line that stretched as far as the eye could see north of Warsaw. The Sikorsky line we ended up calling it. We had nearly all men above 17 years on it. When they were not digging they were learning how to use rifles and antitank weapons.
We had done well preparing for ww3. We had warehouses full of cold war weapons and modern weaponry. It just wasn’t enough. As my AH64 took off in unison with my two other wing men. Our computer had given us a course to Wyszkow and we were there in less than an hour.
My copilot was tasked with using our last hellfire missiles on the big beatles. Our 30mm cannon would do the rest of the work against the tripods and we saved our rockets for column of infantry.
Sure enough we saw the city thanks to the never ending gunfire that flew tracer rounds north. That and the explosion from artillery barrages. We hovered stationary south of it, at an attitude of 500m. Us and our wingmens coordinated who would hit what when an emergency call for support blared on the radio. We didn’t need the unfortunate infantry man guidance as we saw the beetle spit fire on a group of houses at north in the outskirts of the town. My copilot fired a missile and after 20 seconds in the air it hit the beetle right in its small neck. We had learned in a few days where the weak spots were. For the guys on the ground it was the kneecaps and the mouth. For us it was the top of the neck. It decapitated the beast before it was engulfed by its own hell fire. The explosion that followed temporarily blinded me through my night vision goggles, but I couldn't help but grin as the radio chatter shifted from desperate pleas for help to gratitude from the infantryman coordonitang the airstrikes below, insisting he owed us one.
We got closer to target some platoons of crabs moving on foot into the city. The lads on the ground fired a red signal flare above. It was our signal to target the crowd of crabs when they were to overrun a position. Still hovering at a steady height, my copilot switched to thermals. Thanks to the helmet mounted display, a great piece of American technology that costed more than the house I grew up in. I saw what he saw, with the thermals we could see atleast fifty of them crossing some sort of scrapyard. My copilot didn’t waste any time, only when he was absolutely sure those were crabs thanks to their weird movements and height differences between them he opened fire. Our 30mm cannon fired HE shells at them, Didn’t take too long for us to make quick work of them. When that 30mm chain gun starts firing, it's like the very thunder of the gods unleashed. You pull that trigger, and suddenly you're riding a storm, each round roaring out with the fury of a hundred storms. The recoil shakes the bird, but you hold on tight, because every impact is like the hand of justice itself coming down on the target. It's precision and power, wrapped up in the symphony of war. And when it's all said and done, you know you've made your mark when you see the dismembered remains of the target through the thermals.
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Sitting up there we wondering why we were losing the war. We always were brought back to reality when we were low on ammunition. As my copilot took care of the last ones another wave of them pushed from a forest north west of the scrap yard.
My wingmen, who was itching all evening for more kills took the lead on those, he made his way towards them and at about 3km away he used his rockets. When those hydra rockets leave the rails, it was like unleashing a dragon's breath. You feel the Apache tremble as those rockets scream into the sky, leaving a trail of fire and smoke behind. The entire forest lit up with the explosions of the high explosive shells.
Had it not been for the deafening noise of the two T700-GE-701C turboshaft engines, I guarantee you we could have heard the cheers of the infantryman, cops and volunteers under us.
Barely had time to celebrate that we had an urgent call for fire coming in, some tripods had breached a line, they had just walked over our guys and were tailing it south. Those were a real danger, their speed and mobility were nothing to scoff at. They also managed to make our guys rout easier than the crabs, guntrucks. We tailed it to their position. Despite their height they were easy to miss from a far in the night. Our tactic to hunt them was to fly low and hope to see their shape break the horizon. It was a dangerous as it sounded. We were flying south east maybe at 200m high.
As we took to the night sky, the darkness enveloped us like a cloak, our Apaches poised for action. Low and fast, we wove through the terrain, feeling the rush of air against our frames. The glow of our instrument panels cast a faint light in the cockpit. I was praying we wouldn’t encounter strong winds. At that altitude and speed any mistake could be our last.
We relied on our instruments, trusting in our training as we skimmed over the landscape, vigilant for any sign of movement.
A column of police and national guard vehicles came face to face with the tripods as they tried to cross a stretch of highway. We zeroed in on their position and made our way there. We didn’t need their guidance anymore as we saw police sirens and the tracers of gunfire. The guys on the ground lit up the position of one of the tripods with a searchlight. As we started to see the silhouettes we all gained altitude and started to hover at a distance. With precision honed through countless hours of training, I locked onto the target, my focus unyielding. The Hellfire missile armed, I felt the weight of its potential destruction in my hands. With a calm but determined demeanor, my copilot squeezed the trigger, unleashing the missile into the night.
As it streaked from the rail, a trail of smoke and fire marked its path through the darkness. Then came the impact, a thunderous explosion that lit up the night sky,. The tripod imploded, only then I realized that beast must have been two hundred meters tall. The top shell exploded and lightened up the entire surrounding area. It must have been a sight for the guys on the ground to see that thing explode. My other wingmen took care of the others with another volley of hellfire missiles and the 30mm autocannon. The surviving tripods tried to take us out with their cannons but we were too far, too small and too fast for them to hit us. Those things had a low fire rate. Maybe two a minute.
They all collapsed one after another as we made swift work of them. We radioed that we took care of them, scanned the surroundings for any other possible contact and waited for a response from our squadron commander. As one of my wingmen took lead infront of me as we flew back to the city. I noticed a smallll speck in the distance. I only saw it because of its dark silhouette appearing infront of the distant lights and fires. I asked my wingmen if he saw it aswell. After a few seconds he noticed it. It appeared to come closer to us. As I radiod our commander, asking if there were any jets in our area the shape flew right through my wingmen. The apache didn’t even explode at first, it just seemed to be cut in half right under the engine by that jet. Time in my head seemed to freeze as I saw the jet be engulfed by fire as it crashed. The fast mover, we ended up calling them Banshees or "Sling shots" because of the way the crabs fired them from the ground circled back. Me and my surviving wing men instinctively turned towards it. Our copilots started firing their 30mm cannons at it in a vain attempt to take it down or scare it. It went straight for my wingmen. I heard the cry on the radio from it as the banshee hit it head on.
It too was cut nearly in half before it exploded from the ordonnance and gasoline burning.
It circled back again as my commander was shouting on the radio asking me to explain what was happening.
As it closed in on us, I swerved to our left as my copilot was firing everything at it. It had lost most of its velocity and was bound to crash whether or not it hit me. As I swerved the thing missed me by a hair. My copilot didn’t, one of the 30mm shells hit it and made it lose its balance. As I saw it pass us it was nearly as big as us, just one bulky and long dark shape. It swirved and crashed in the hill behind us. It must have borrowed into the ground before exploding. Its explosion lifted tons of dirt into the air.
The one advantage we had over these things was lost that night as reports of those banshees came from all over the frontline.