The Last Day of the War - Part 2

"You’re with me Tetyana." The Sergeant Major called needlessly over his shoulder as again he nearly carried me toward the tank. The armored vehicle’s turret traversed for another deadly salvo as he helped me onto the rear deck. He pulled himself up and then moved quickly to the turret. After depressing a small panel on the upper surface of the turret he pivoted a thick bar to an upright position and locked it into place. He then grabbed my rifle and slid it on to the top of the bar and the power indicators lit up. He then set me on top of the turret with an almost gentle sounding "Up you go now."

There was a hatch beneath me that I hoped would not open while I was sitting on it, but I gave it little thought as I set the sights for their widest view. The screen was still nearly filled by the charging masses. I thumbed the fire selection switch to rapid fire and began sweeping arcs of energy in the direction opposite to the traversing turret. The enemy was slowed, but still pressed in on our position. It was looking like I was going to have a very bad day.

The air was unexpectedly cut by the shrill war song of cluster bombs dropped by a Lancer jet and soon after I felt the pounding roar of the jet’s engines throbbing against my eardrums. A jagged curtain of fire ripped across the battlefield and the Lancer looped back for a second pass with quad mounted inertia cannon. The charge was broken and our enemies’ courage, or desperation, failed them at last. They turned and ran, trampling their officers to the ground as they fled. The dull roar of exploding artillery shells chased them across the valley and over the far rise as Nicia circled overhead in her Lancer.

"Angel! You saved us again!"

"How did you know they would be coming Angel?"

The twins beamed up at me from beside the tank and the other children began a ragged cheer. The Sergeant Major looked up at me from the back deck of the tank and rubbed his chin.

"Or did they know where you would be going? That’s the question. Tetyana, you might want to get off of the main hatch before…"

There was a sharp hiss as the hatch irised open beneath me and a most undignified squeak escaped my lips as I fell inside the tank. I was not able to fall far as one of the tank’s crewmembers was trying to exit through the hatch at the same time. I found myself eye to eye with Captain Serle with his arms wrapped tightly around me to prevent me from falling further into the tank.

"Irisa!" His eyes were wide and a dark smoky gray that reminded me of pattern welded steel.

"You could have knocked or something before you opened the hatch Gavin. You nearly scared me to death." I punched his shoulder as best I could in the tight confines of the hatch.

"Kaarl sends an army after her and it’s the little fall through a hatch that scares her…by the Gate and the Path, whoever said the Galines were all mad was a master of understatement…" The Sergeant Major shook his head slowly and then hopped down from the tank.

Kaarl sent his waves of troops crashing futilely against our defenses day and night for the next three weeks. The hills and plains before us had become churned mounds of earth and shattered rock in which nothing grew for long. Sometimes it rained and valley became a quagmire of muddy pools, but still Kaarl’s army pressed us with their mass attacks. Our artillery reigned unchallenged over the battlefield and once I asked the Sergeant Major why the enemy never seemed to field artillery of his own.

"Kaarl has all of his artillery tied up in the heavy fighting on Pales. He could send his light artillery forward, but it would be suicide for the artillery. My guess is he has it set up to cover his beachhead on the isthmus."