The year is 1971, the Neuroi War has taken a turn for the worse, the aliens launched a massive counterattack in Western Europe overrunning Allied forces causing the fall of Britannia in 1946. Fuso was next to fall from a large Neuroi invasion forcing the Fuso government and thousands of refugees to flee to Australis. In 1947 the US decided to unveil its secret weapon, the atomic bomb. The US Air Force and Royal Air Force managed to destroy a couple Neuroi hives in Europe and Asia but most of the B-29s sent were shot down enroute even with heavy witch and jet fighter support. Sometime around 1949-50 the US lost communication with the outside world so the Liberion government began building defenses and enlarged it's military to prepare for a future Neuroi invasion. Part of the added defense was the annexation of Mexica and Farawayland and the forced incorparation of all Allied forces in Liberion and the in new land the US has "conquored" into the US military, those that didn't cooperate simply "disappeared" with the exception of witches who were held for research if they didn't join. During 1951-54 scientists (mostly former Karlslander scientists) created a new drug that extends the magical lifespan of witches into their 50's allowing them to serve longer and become more powerful. Technology advanced rapidly, with the introduction of more effective jet strikers such as the F4 Phantom, new smallarms such as the M-16A1 and Minigun, and the helicopter in the form of the UH-1 and AH-1, Liberion felt pretty secure until the Neuroi assault began in 1966. The invasion started in Alaska when Neuroi flew over from former Fuso and Asia and they setup a hive there. The US government panicked and sent B-52s loaded with atomic bombs to destroy the hive before it can create more Neuroi, F4 Phantoms and witches escourted the bombers wiping out any flying Neuroi that came near and destroying anti-aircraft Neuroi along the way. 10 of the 15 bombers sent got through to drop their payload but to no effect. The hive was protected by an energy shield that can withstand multiple nuclear explosions. A couple of the witches after the failed bombing reported that they flew through where the shield appeared, they concluded that the shield only protects against ballistic threats. With that knowledge they came up with a plan to carry an atomic bomb to the hive and remote detonate it, destroy the hive and going around it's shields. Many witches and helicopters were lost when the Neuroi deployed a new infantry type in the final defense of the Alaska hive, but the bomb was planted and successfully detonated, engulfing the hive and surrounding area in nuclear fire. But the victory was shortlived, for another, larger wave of Neuori invaded from Europe and made hives all along former Northeastern Farawayland and this time the Neuroi struck first. They sent hundreds of flying Neuroi to burn every city or military base they could find, thousands of lives were lost in a manner of hours along with much of the Liberion's means of making war. The US government declared a national emergency, ordering everyone to fallback to underground military installations scattered throughout the country. The US military went from a mighty worldbeating force to a ragtag resistance movement in a couple days when a large portion that survived the first wave of attacks was destroyed in the Northeastern US in an attempted counterattack against the Neuroi hives. The military was handing everyone it can get its hands on a gun to fight the Neuroi, anyone with even the smallest hint of magical ability was thrown (in some cases literally) into witch training. Liberion was mostly reduced to only using regular infantry, with a relative handful of tanks and helicopters. The only striker units left were a couple hundred M-60 Patton Tank strikers with some M4 Shermans taken out of storage. The handful of jet fighters and jet strikers were saved for missions of extreme importance. The US used all the atomic bombs they had stored in their underground facilities, they bagan to lose hope until one of installations in Mexica claimed they've had radio contact with Orussia (now calling itself the "Soviet Union") and Australis but the Mexica installation didn't have any means of answering the Soviet or Australis radio calls. So the US military devised a plan to send a force to San Diego to prepare the USS Missouri (a battleship, but modified with Neuori technology such as shields) for departure to meet with the Allies and ask for aid.
Chapter 1
At a military installation in Texas everyone that can deploy was getting ready for a trip to San Diego to fix up an abandoned battleship to meet some people who might help Liberion, or so the higherups say anyway. No flying for the witches, not since the last F4 Phantom striker finally broke down after so much use. The only things left that can fly are eight UH-1 Hueys for transport and two AH-1 Cobras for ground attack. The base's seven M-60 Patton strikers are ready to go along with four regular M-60 tanks. The rest of the witchs who couldn't claim a striker have been converted to infantry, not as powerful without their strikers but still more dangerous than the regular infantry thats going with them on the trip. 2nd Lt. George Anders, 19, shaggy blonde hair stuck his M1911A1 into his leather shoulder holster that went over his flakvest (the vest is to protect from friendly fire, not Neuroi lasers) and grabbed his M-16A1 from the weapons locker. George just closed the locker when somebody came up behind him and pulled his steel pot helmet down over his eyes and started to choke him.
"Guess who?" the choker said in a female voice.
"Rabbit...stop...choking...me...or I'll...pistolwhip...you." said George between gasps.
"You're no fun G." she let George go.
G is George's nickname to most in the unit, that or Georgie. Rabbit is Private Sarah Langley's nickname because she can run the fastest in the unit and has a rabbit familiar .Sarah is 18 with shoulder length black and green eyes.
"You're gear all ready to go, we're not coming back if you forgot anything."
"I got my stuff, see a clean M-60 machinegun" as Sarah holds up said weapon.
"Yeah, that I cleaned because you were sleeping from a hangover" replied George.
Sarah stuck her tongue out at George. "At least I don't backtalk officers."
"You're doing it right now, remember I'm an L.T. and that was that one time."
"Well you do have a point, that dumbass captain tried to get use to charge a Neuroi tank like it was one of their infantry squads, good thing you made him go 'missing'."
"Yeah...uh, don't mention that ever again." By "missing" Sarah means that George arranged a little "friendly fire accident" in which the captain was killed so the rest of the unit could live and not get killed doing something foolish.
"Gotcha boss" as she salutes.
"Hold on, forgot to check one more thing" George steps forward and grabs Sarah's chest.
"What are you doing?" asked Sarah in an angry voice.
"Checking to see if you got your plates in your flakvest" that was partially true.
"You liar, you just wanted an excuse to grope me."
"...No." said George as he tried but failed to keep a straight face.
"Surrrre, well lets go, the others are pretty much ready."
George and Sarah walked into the large hanger housing the helicopters and tanks to get ready to leave. People were starting up the M-60s' engines and opening up the hanger doors. As the doors were opened the helicopters were rolled out for takeoff.
"Everyone got your lie pills?" asked SGT Todd Downer, a hefty African-Liberion. Lie pills are tablets that supposedly protect you from radiation when taken but in truth they don't do anything. No one needed to actually check, Todd was just making a joke of sorts.
The tanks and tank strikers are suppose to leave first with the helos following behind them and the Cobras are scouts.
"Lets hop on a Huey before they leave without us" suggested George.
George and Sarah got on the number 2 bird with their usual squad. There was Private Mike Rutger, formerly a jet striker mechanic, he was forced into the infantry when the last F4 broke down. Corporal Emily Holland, the squad sniper, has long red hair and blue eyes, her familiar is a German Sheperd. Private First Class Eliza Kennedy (no relation to the president), was born without vocal cords so can't speak has medium length light brown hair that blocks her brown eyes, her familiar is a greyhound, she carries the squad's Starlight scope (a nightvision scope) on her M-16A1. And lastly Private Thomas (or Tommy) Lewis, one of the few people that actually volunteered because he has a deepseated hatred towards the Neuroi.
"Hey G where's that money you owe me?" said Mike as he was rubbing his thumb, index finger, and middle finger together.
"I got it right here you cheater" George handed Mike the $45 dollars owed. Mike has been accused of cheating at cards for awhile but no one can prove it yet.
"Maybe you should stop playing cards with Mike" said Emily, not looking away from the adjustments she was making with her scope. Eliza nodded in agreement to Emily's statement.
"Quiet both of you, I'm just lucky" said Mike as he counted and pocketed the money.
"Not lucky enough to avoid this though" said Thomas as he loaded a 30 round magazine into his old M1928 Thompson.
"You're crazy if you want to do this, I just want to sit in the hanger and not get shot at" replied Mike.
"Enough of your banter, we're taking off" shouted the co-pilot of the UH-1.
After the tanks and tank witches drove past down the innerstate the helicopters engines came alive filling the runway with noise and dust. First the Cobras took off to cover the Hueys as they got into the air. It didn't take long for the choppers to find the tanks which had a cloud of dust following behind them. The Hueys stayed pace with the tanks while the Cobras went further ahead to see what the force might run into.
"I always thought tank strikers were steel coffins" said Thomas, putting to one of the said strikers down below.
"How come?" asked Sarah with a curious look on her face.
"Because they can't move fast enough to dodge and the armor won't stop a laser blast" said Thomas.
"But they have shields to protect them too" replied Sarah.
"Yeah but they don't last forever, I've seen enough of them blow over the past couple years, even their infantry can kill them if there's enough of them." said Thomas.
"Well its what we got so we'll just have to make do." said George.
Everybody was just going along until one of the Cobras reported a city ahead that the unit would have to pass through.
Chapter 2
The Cobras were flying just fine until a red beam lashed out from one of the collasped buildings destroying one of the AH-1s when the heat of the beam set off the rocket pods. The other Cobra sprayed the building with rockets and machinegun fire until the gunner felt the Neuroi was killed. The pilot then radioed the loss of the other Cobra to the rest of unit.
"Goddamnit" cursed George in a low voice. At this rate we won't have any airsupport when combat actually starts.
When the force got farther into the city the buildings came alive with laser fire. Hueys began to fall out of the sky and either crash or blew up in flight. The tanks and tank witches faired no better, Neuroi tanks came out of side streets to fire on them, wiping them all out within minutes.
"What the fuck! They were waiting for use!" Shouted Thomas as the UH-1 jerked to dodge a Neuroi beam.
Then the number 2 bird took a hit to the tail rotor causing it to spin away from the battle.
"We're going down, brace for impact!" said the pilot as he braced himself for the crash.
The Huey crashed into a grocery store and came to a stop against a shelf of canned food. The pilot and copilot died in the crash when the Huey's nose smashed into the shelf. The rest were stunned for a few minutes after the crash.
"Wha? What happened? Huh?" said Emily as she discovered she was on top of Eliza with her face a couple inches away from her's. Both blushed and Emily got off Eliza as fast as she could.