Chapter Four -

Twelve Years Previous – The Great Desert Bridge of North Africa, the Sinai

Eohelm didn't need to run far after cresting the dune that the T-28 and Matilda ran behind. The dune covered, from Sprinter Lance's sight, several hundred yards of flat land. The T-28 was trying to push his friend forward, the Matilda's poor speed costing the team mobility.

Eohelm was amazed at the willingness of the T-28 to stay with his slow ally, trying push him along even though he knew that they'd be caught. The T-28 was a very fast vehicle considering its size and the punching power of its 57mm cannon, but it didn't have the engine power to push the Matilda with any amount of speed.

The two were only a hundred yards past the dune when Eohlem caught them, holding the two in his cannon's sights.

"Don't you move. You're my prisoners now," he told them both, fighting to keep his voice level. His body was starting to realize that the fight was over, and he was beginning to start fear-shedding, something he couldn't afford to do now.

Fear-shedding was the inescapable post-combat euphoria. The nerves were frayed, the mind and soul stretched to near the breaking point after staring death in the face like he just did. When one knew that the fight was over and they were alive, the body began shaking, violently purging all of the canned anxiety that fueled the body's fight-or-flight reaction. After a large action, the young tanks would try taking in fuel or try cleaning themselves, dressing their tracks or tweaking their guns' actions. But the body wouldn't respond properly, for fear-shedding overcame all ability to act with any amount of dexterity. Older tanks would always chuckle at the young vehicles, knowing from experience that you couldn't make the body stop its quaking once you really started. You had to let it go until it was done.

Eohlem didn't see the T-28 or the Matilda as a threat. If he fired, he'd go clear through both tanks and kill them almost instantly. Because of this, his body was starting to quake, realizing that his trial of life and death was done. He couldn't afford to let it happen, or he'd never be able to effectively keep these two as prisoners.

Fortunately for him, neither of the fourth-tier vehicles noticed his small shakes as he fought to keep his combat-anxiety canned up. The T-28 was trying to look strong, the Matilda weeping. Eohelm only just then noticed that the Matilda had two holes through the front of its chassis, wounds that looked like they were inflicted earlier in the week.

"Get back, you fucking bastard!" The T-28 shouted, leveling his gun toward the Cromwell. Eohelm's 75mm gun panned specifically over the T-28, keeping the young tank frightened and aback. It worked. The small Russian didn't fire, but he didn't move the gun either.

Eohelm also didn't fire. He was too shocked at what he was looking at. The T-28 sounded like a teenager. It's voice was that of a child. What on earth was it doing here? Why was it fighting? Eohelm was simultaneously taken aback by its youth and by the bravery exhibited by it, pointing its gun at something two tiers higher and ten years older than it.

"Put the gun down, boy. What are you doing here? Why were you traveling with an Almohaes Easy-Eight?" He didn't lower his 75mm or shift it to the Matilda. He didn't need to. That tank was silent as the grave, with exception of its low sobbing.

"Why do you think, you fucker? We were defending ourselves! You Dragonaur fuckers came into our land! You killed our people! So we mobilized everyone, even those as young as us!" The T-28's voice was a snarl, its tone made of hatred and, simultaneously, sorrow. "You invaded us! We didn't do anything!"

"We invaded in response to your raids, boy. Put your gun down, you're coming with me." Eohelm didn't lower his, trying to talk the small tank down. He would never forgive himself if he had to kill a teenager.

How old were those tanks we just fought?

It occurred to Eohelm that the reason the Dragonaur forces had been pushed back so harshly is because they were swamped by entire regiments made of tier 4 and 5 tanks. They hardly ever saw a tank over tier 6—those were all either officers or elite units. The Almohaes forces took an extreme amount of casualties in their first few waves of assaults, but their vicious attacks had paid off in the long run, forcing the Dragonaurs tanks back with extreme losses.

The Dragonaurs had been fighting against child soldiers.

Eohelm had been killing child soldiers.

He wanted to be sick.

"Please," he said, trying not to shake. "Put your gun down. I promise, you'll be treated well."

"No!" The T-28 yelled. "We've heard what you do to prisoners! We know! We'll never come with you! Leave us alone!" The Matilda was still weeping beside it. The Cromwell knew that the small medium would need to be pushed, its own post-combat anxieties were reducing it to a blubbering mess.

Eohelm had no idea what these young ones had heard, but he had every intention of keeping these two well-treated as prisoners. Every intention of ensuring their safety. His nerves were stretched as far as they could have been after a week of desperate fighting, one of his friends was dying a few hundred yards behind him, and he wanted to sit and let himself shake and rest. He wanted these two to be safe so he could figure out what the fuck they had been told, and he wanted to forget that he'd been fighting teenagers this entire time.

Eohelm sighed. He was exhausted, and he needed to know what was happening with Tear. His nerves were at their breaking point. "Come on," he said, as gently as he could, positioning himself behind the two youngsters so that he could push the Matilda to his Lance's position.

That was his plan at least, until the T-28 howled "NO!" and shot Eohelm in the side.

The Cromwell's snap-reaction was to pan his turret over as quickly as he could and return fire. He was exhausted and his instincts kicked in before he could stop himself, his 75mm shell cutting the T-28 open below the turret. It blew through the T-28s left-hand armor and, with smoke and fire, ripped a massive hole out of the right-hand armor as the warped shell came clean through and dug itself into the sand behind the T-28s smoking body.

The small Russian died less than a second after Eohelm fired, and its body was still burning when Eohelm realized what he'd done. The Cromwell got sick, vomiting old oil, a small bit of radiator fluid, and hydraulic fluid in disgust. His fear-purging kicked in then and he couldn't stop it, his chassis vibrating violently as the Matilda continued weeping beside him.

Tear had been slow dying.

It took Eohelm five minutes to get himself under control, letting himself shake and rattle until he could finally do more than drive. During this time he nudged the small Matilda forward, asking its name as he tried to protect it from the sight of it friend's corpse.

"Stone," she replied between sobs. She also proffered her brave companion's name, Mall.

Try as he might to shield Stone from seeing Mall's body, Eohelm could do nothing about the graveyard of her old team that they had to pass to reach his Lance again.

She saw the Panzer IV(H)s, each burning and trying to protect a dead member—one of them in front of a T-34 that was mostly a blackened wreck, the sand around it also darkened with the intensity of its ammunition exploding; the other Panzer IV was in front of a headless Covenanter, both tanks twisted macabre imitations of their former selves. In the center of it all was the E8, a monument to their heroism. His death-blow could still be seen clearly, a small entrance hole on his lower-left turret that turned into a ghastly exit-wound the size of a large stone.

Eohelm had trouble moving Stone before. It took him more than a few minutes to move her through what was left of her team.

He didn't ask how old they were. He knew that the E8 was in its twenties, like him. But the rest? Tier fives generally ranged from their late teenage years to their early twenties, all old enough. But the Covenanter was likely a child as well.

Eohelm hardened himself as much as he could, pushing Stone to his Lance. Sprinter did what it had to do. In taking out this group, Sprinter had not only defended itself but also likely protected their column. These could have been stragglers, but they also could have been scouts. And that could have turned into disaster. Sprinter had also been acting on orders. Take prisoners if possible. The weeping Matilda was not the kind of prisoner that Eohelm would have picked, but it was what they had.

Whisper met Eohelm about seventy yards from Tear's position. The T20 had a haggard look on his face when he approached the Cromwell. Whisper gave Stone a nasty look.

"Where's the other?" He asked.

"He fought back. Instinct took over."

Whisper sighed. "Borris won't like this. His mood is the worst its ever been. Tear couldn't tell us how bad it was. The first hit took out his radio. He's got something like eight or ten penetrating hits that he hadn't reported. Three in the engine deck, he's got a shell lodged in his turret ring, and the others tore up his insides. I have no idea how he fought through it. He hasn't actually passed yet." He paused and sighed.

"I'll watch this one," Whisper motioned to Stone, "you go see Tear before he goes. There's no way we can fix him and still get home without being cut off by other scouting parties."

Eohelm left the Matilda and made for Tear's position. He turned the corner of the dune and saw Borris there with his dyas-half. Whisper hadn't been exaggerating.

Tear's dying was nasty. There were holes everywhere. Fluids leaked from them and the sand around Tear was as black as the smoke that was pouring from two of the wounds in his engine deck. His side-skirts were ragged and torn everywhere, and the exit holes on many of his wounds were horrendously large compared to their entries.

The shell that lodged itself into his turret ring had scraped a nasty gash into the side of his gun doing it, rendering the piece unusable. How long had he been unable to fire? Was it a recent hit, or did it put him out of action for most of the fight? The base of fire was intense, but the action happened so quickly that Eohelm hadn't had time to notice if Tear's end had slackened at all.

Somehow, the tank was still alive. Borris was standing track to track with him, waiting with him while he died. Eohelm rolled up to the Panzer, and Borris didn't say anything. Tear wheezed out a ragged breath between the horrid sounds that his engine was making, straining to stay alive for as long as it could despite the fact that its essence bled all over the accursed desert.

"Why the long face, mate?"

Eohem tried not to cry, but the gesture of Tear asking him why he looked upset was too much to bear. He tried to blubber out an apology. A kind word to send Tear on his way. But he couldn't manage, the lump in his throat was too big. Between Tear's wheezing, there was something of a chuckle.

"You need to learn to cheer up, man. I'm going to paradise! I went down shooting and I've lived through this shit way longer than I should have. I just wanted to say goodbye to all of you."

Eohelm still couldn't think of what to say. Tear was a virtual manifestation of valor to him, to be smiling at death the way he was.

Tear panned his turret as much as he could, looking sideways at Borris. "You guys need to get a move on. You don't want to get cut off or left behind."

Before his dying engine finally coughed its last, Tear managed one ragged sigh. "Today was a good day."