02: Le Debut de L'Extremite
Will, listened to the tape over and over and over. The Russian accent engraved in his mind. What could they want? Had they not suffered the consequences of the meteors? Do they not know what the world went through? Will tried to listen for details in the person's voice. He guessed they had to be young, no older than thirty-five. His voice was low, with an eerie rasp. He also listened for background noise and ambience, but there was nothing – nothing except the shred of tank treads.
Whoever this person was they were on the field, but had to have a high rank that was designated to them by the Anti-Apocalyptic Peace Keepers, a group that had been formed to keep all militaries under control and help establish diplomatic solutions to issues between nations. The population had rose to over five-hundred million now, and individual nations and militaries had begun to form, some rouge some not. Whoever these people were they had access to the AAPK encrypted radio channel. This meant they had extremely great hacking skills, or a branch of the AAPK was corrupt – or worse the entire corporation.
Will was just speculating though, he had no way of confirming any of this and his head was still ringing from the last exchange between the groups. Will's door barged open and smashes the wall leaving a notable dent. "Sir! Sir! More units have been spotted North of here in the mountains. Artillery units have already hit and killed three of our soldiers sir, this just happened about thirty seconds ago sir," said the soldier out of breath. He was young, Will wondered how long he'd been serving then considered his age and thought when he joined he must have been too young to enlist.
"Why didn't I hear these soldier," asked Will almost accusingly.
"Sir, when the shells land they're silent. Same about the same blast radius as ours but no sound. Makes it hard to detect were they're coming from."
"Intel on the units soldier?"
"Sir, three artillery squads about seventy-five meters apart with three tanks guarding each. They're in a triangular formation which means that each side is covered by artillery and tanks. We're not going to be able to attack without taking a couple of. . .uh hits sir."
"Very well soldier, prepare our units, the mechs and the recon right?"
"Actually sir, the AAPK just sent us that squad of Md. Tanks Mark II, they haven't been fully loaded yet but there main cannons are online, they're at half ammo is what I'm trying to say sir."
"Excellent, deploy them as well."
"Yes sir!"
"And soldier," asked Will.
"Yes sir?"
"What's your name?"
"It's Dave sir, Dave Thomas."
"Very well."
The Md. Tanks came storming out of the armoury. They fired a few warning shots with their machine guns into the mountains. One of the artillery squads was exposed from the side, and one of the Md. Tanks fired, smashing into one of the artilleries head on. There was a plume of fire sent into the sky followed by raining rock and debris. The tanks charged the Md. Tanks almost like jousting or a sword fight. The tank on the right fired at one of the Md. Tanks, the one that was closest to it, ripping hole into its hull and igniting the inside of the tank. One of the soldiers came pouring out, with no chance.
The other four Md. Tanks quickly made short work of the hostile tank and set out toward the artillery. By now the artillery were reloaded and ready for combat. They fired a hailstorm of bullets at the Md. Tanks, one of the shots caught the end of one and severely damaged the backside exposing the troops to small arms fire. The infantry in the mountains took out there machine guns and blasted away, killing a soldier inside but not the soldiers operating the cannon or the tank.
Two of the tanks fired at the artillery, one landed straight on completely disabling the artillery and killing everyone inside. The other shot missed the artillery, but the splash damage caught it and eventually made its way to the gas tank sending the artillery over the edge of the mountain, leaving a trail of metal on its way down. The other five artillery units sent another hailstorm of rocket down. Another shot hit the damaged tank on the back end, landing on the inside and sending the soldiers flying out the back on fire. The tank came to a slowing halt as the driver had been killed from the shrapnel. That left two tanks against the artillery. They were almost too close for the artillery to fire on them, or for them to fire back but they fired the last of their ammunition anyway destroying two more artillery units.
The soldiers ditched their tanks and sprinted the last fifty meters towards the artillery units. They made quick work of the ground, opened the hatches on the top and made short work of the soldiers inside. Will sat at his desk examining the battle from his UAV Drone. His link buzzed and he quickly accepted. "There is nothing you can do to stop us." It was the same voice, which meant that that officer had not been on the battlefield for this battle.
In total Will had lost eight soldiers. They all died in the two Md. Tanks that were destroyed. Will also wondered why he had not been radioed back yet about the victory with a status report. His UAV had also gone offline as well. Alarms suddenly went off in the HQ signalling a high level of gas in the vicinity.
Was this the beginning of the end? Had the hydroporium missile struck?