The Empire
Quellor Sector, Cato Neimodia System, Cato Neimodia, Cato's Cradle
Primary Objective: Reduce the Bridge City to a burning rubble.
Secondary Objective: Provide armored support to friendly elements.
Friendlies: The Empire | N/A | Open
Hostiles: Local Planetary Defense Force | Galactic Alliance | N/A [Open For Tags]
Directly Engaging: N/A [Open For Tags]
Gear: In Bio
A certain tone of uneasiness settled in shortly after they moved to carry out their orders; the all too familiar apprehension before they inevitably took contact from the enemy.
It hadn’t gotten easier for them yet, as much as this was not their first combat mission.
The closer they got towards the frontline, the chatter between crewmen of the ‘332’ was eventually reduced to nothing but short and sharp commands from the young tank commander to his fellow subordinates, and the confirmation of their orders they received.
”Karkin’ hell…” Hall muttered to himself, frustration laden in the young man’s voice, as he swung his commander’s 360° panoramic sight from one side of the street to the other with sharp vigilance in search of hostile contacts.
He
resented urban combat, through and through. Unlike open plains, it barred the freedom of maneuver for armored movement, and allowed defenders certain opportunities to sneak around their flanks and rear. Coordination with infantry elements and having their support was a
must have for survival.
The fog of war had settled down onto the battered and debris strewn streets of the bridge city long ago; black, oily smoke and clouds of dust blanketed the alleyways and streets alike, and with the bright sunlight from the heavens above, coupled with the already uneasy nature of the crewmen, played tricks to the eye as they shined down upon the war torn urban landscape. The fog that moved with each gust of breeze, looked akin to that of a human-like silhouette, shifting and moving amongst the shadows and rubbles for the young Iron Sun recipient.
Expecting an assault from any direction at any time kept them on their toes at a heightened vigilance.
Only the thermal vision devices of their periscopes and sights offered clearer vision, and helped alleviate their apprehension to a certain extent.
It was not long after they switched to thermals, they began seeing streaks of blaster bolts roughly seventy yards or so in the distance amongst the fog of war. Like a hail, a flurry of bolts zipped from one side of the block to the other; out from windows, doorways and murder-holes alike. They were indistinguishable in color on thermal imaging, as each and every source of heat was highlighted in green, standing out from the colder backdrop, a darker shade of green and black in color depending on their coldness.
A heartbeat later, the
IFF flickered to life above certain silhouettes on the young Tank Commander’s screen, sights and periscopes alike.
”Gather your courage, crew!” Hall’s voice rang sharp over the intercom in an effort to instill encouragement for the moments to come in their very near future. There was no place for apprehension now, as it begets uncertainty in its wake if left unchecked, and that could see them draw their last breath.
”Kale, halt, HALT!” At his command the armored behemoth came to a grinding halt, slightly lurching forward only to rock back and to a standstill after the Driver engaged the brakes.
”Gunner, HEAT, infantry! Target that building,” Hall began, his periscope looking at a high rise apartment building on the other side of the block, where heavy blaster fire rained down upon contacts marked as ‘FRIENDLY’ on their IFF.
The hydraulics of the turret growled as Litzke brought the dreaded L77A4 cannon to bear.
”Fourth storey, second window from the left!” the mechanical growling came to a halt with a sharp hydraulic squeal and whine soon after the young Sergeant’s order.
”On!” he shouted, confirming the gunner had brought the gun to bear at their preferred target to engage.
"Identified!"
”Fire, fire incendiary!”
”On the way!”
With a clamorous metallic
thump the gun breech of the 120mm cannon recoiled back in the fighting compartment, and spat out a spent brass shell casing into the metal basket underneath the breech at the pull of its trigger.
The ferroconcrete bursted, scattered and tore asunder onto the rubble strewn road a heartbeat after the fin stabilized explosive shell darted out the gun barrel.
Muzzles flashed no more from that point of contact thereafter.
”Next target! Gunner, incendiary, infantry! Adjust right!”
Wasting not a moment after the tank bellowed out a shell, Stege had quickly turned around and produced the selected shell type from the munitions rack behind him. Following a series of metallic clinks and clatter, the gun breech closed shut, with the new shell thrusted in.
”Incendiary uuuuuup!”
”Fire!”
The gun roared another time at his command; Litzke, masterfully lobbing the shell through a large murder-hole, blanketed the interior of the building with white, burning phosphorus smoke. The incendiary fumes bellowed out of every crack and crevice possible, slowly seeping out and spilling onto the street.
It was not for long they saw silhouettes amongst the burning white mist, behind windows and murder-holes; gradually they began to spill out of the building, only to be gunned down by the friendly mechanized troops a few moments after they stepped foot on the street.
Some of them walked dazedly with a strange serenity in their motion, as if they lost the ability to make sense of their surroundings and hadn’t had the slightest care in the galaxy, as if certain death was an alien concept to them; and some, shouted and yelped in pain for dear life as they dropped onto the ground in haste. Thrashing, rolling around and about in a very much futile attempt to smother the flames that burned only deeper into their flesh with each passing second.
Dug in deep like ticks on flesh, they had no other choice but to burn them out of their entrenchments.
One shell at a time.
