Chulak March 20th GMT

"Sir. We're picking up movement 10 klicks from our position and its definitely not wildlife," reported Hurst from his position which was nearest to the enemy.

"Copy that. Get ready. Looks like they're coming again," Sanders radioed back.

Unlike previous battles, Sanders was not with his men in their foxholes. Instead, he sat in the turret in one of his remaining Bradleys, with his head and torso exposed. Although he felt like a fucking REMF, an infantryman's worst nightmare, but he knew that he would be able to be more effective if he was right next to a radio coordinating the defense with a better tactical view and outlook as opposed to being right inside the foxhole where one could not see nothing but what was in right front of them.

Changing his radio frequency to the battalion network he radioed, "This is Bravo One to HQ. Come in please. Over."

"HQ to Bravo Company here. What is going on?" radioed back Jenkins.

"The enemy is coming again. ETA five minutes maybe ten minutes at the very max."

"Rodger that. I'll spread the word."

"Are we getting any support?"

"We have an artillery battery assigned to our area. If we're lucky we might get some Apaches."

"Great. Over and out." He switched the frequency back to the Company's Network once again. "What's the situation now?"

"The enemy is now within four klicks from us."

"Are there any vehicles?"

Although Bravo Company had only faced enemy infantry during their first engagement; the Army quickly found out that they enemy had armored vehicles too. Slightly bigger than two M1A3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, the Ori's version of the Infantry Fighting Vehicle, designated by intelligence as the Archangel was formidable opponent. Armed with four heavy energy cannons that could move 90 degrees up and down mounted on top of a turret that was capable of rotating 360 degrees, the Archangel could also double as an anti-aircraft unit and could take down Apaches and anything else Earth could put in the air in seconds. To make things worse, they were near indestructible, requiring around five TOW missiles or multiple shots from the Abrams' main gun. These things were monsters in battle and were responsible to most of the casualties sustained by allied forces. To make things worse, these things had some sort of anti-gravity device that made anti-vehicle mines useless.

Fortunately for the Terran Army, there were few of them around. In addition, the Ori, having not fought an enemy who used mechanized warfare for as long as they remembered were only used to using the vehicles in an infantry suppression role were not used to armored warfare, while the Terrans, having fought in multiple mechanized engagements for over the last seventy years and were extremely experienced in doing so. Thus, making the scales a little more even and possibly for once slightly in favor for Earth.

"Yes sir. Around fifteen."

"Please confirm that," he ordered. If the enemy had fifteen vehicles coming this way, the battalion was going to be in a shit load of trouble.

"Yes sir. Fifteen. One five. Orders?"

Sanders disengaged from the radio for a moment. "Fuck!" he breathed loudly enough to startle everyone inside the vehicle including Ms. Somerville, who he had ordered to stay inside the Bradley for more protection. After getting his mind back on task, he turned the radio back on. "Hit those bastards with every TOW missile and auto cannon we got once we get within one klick from the enemy. All infantry units are to hold fire until the enemy gets within 700 meters."

"Rodger that."

He switched the channel back to battalion frequency. "Sir. I need an artillery barrage in sector bravo four," he requested urgently.

"I'll contact the battery immediately. What's the situation?"

"We are in deep shit sir. Not ankle deep, or even waist deep. We are up to our goddamn eyebrows in shit. I've got fifteen vehicles coming into my sector alone along with two Companies' worth of troops along with it," he reported.

"Fuck. You're getting those damn Apaches, if it's the last fucking thing I do. Over and out."

Sanders put the radio down back into the turret and grabbed his pair of field binoculars. Looking into the distance, he could see the enemy approaching with their vehicles leading the way.

Suddenly the turret of the vehicle of the Bradley began to move and its 25mm auto cannon opened fire along side the rest of the Company. Shortly there after, the Bradleys along with the infantry in their foxholes fired their TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles at the enemy hoping to destroy their vehicles before they got into range.

Sanders watched as they streaked towards the enemy. His platoon commanders had been smart and had ordered their anti-tank teams to concentrate their fire on one or two targets per platoon as opposed to more to increase the chances of destroying the Archangels.

To his delight, five Archangels exploded violently sending debris everywhere with a sixth heavily damaged. Almost immediately after being fired upon, the Ori returned fire where Bravo Company had revealed their positions where the men and now women of his Company were preparing to launch a second volley of Javelin anti-tank missiles.

His mood dampened as he saw one of his Bradley's being cut up by enemy fire and then exploded, killing all on board. After fighting the Terrans for almost two weeks, the Ori had finally wised up and realized that the Terran's Bradleys and other armored vehicles were their most effective weapon and were responsible for over 60 of their casualties alone. Well at least we had that much time to take as many of those motherfuckers to hell as we could he thought grimly.

Picking up his radio and switching to battalion frequency once again he radioed, "Where the hell is that damn artillery barrage?"

"Mike. The battery's has just fired. The shells should be incoming right at any moment."

As if the Colonel was psychic and according to the junior enlisted personnel in the battalion, he was. The shells began to rain down on the enemy exploding in midair, killing tens maybe a hundred enemy soldiers. Sanders frowned. The artillery battery was using air burst shells, specially designed to kill enemy infantry and unarmored targets. Although he was glad that the battery had wiped out some of the enemy's troops, the barrage had not put a scratch on the Archangels, which were the biggest threat to his Company at the moment. "Colonel. What's the frequency of that cannon cocker (1) battery?"

"355000.1. Why?"

"Sir. Those cannon cockers fucked up. I'll tell you the details later," he told the Colonel urgently.

"Fine," replied Jenkins. He had known Sanders for long enough to know that by his tone of voice, it was really pressing and he could know the details later.

Working with the radio, the switched frequencies to that of the artillery battery. "This is Captain Sanders of Bravo Company, Second of the Ninth. I need to speak with your commanding office immediately."

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Smythe. Can I help you Captain?" an irritated voice responded back, emphasizing the last word.

"Yes you can sir. Tell your men to stop using air burst and switch to some good old fashioned high explosive. We're facing a heavy armor attack and to be frank, the barrage did jack shit. I've got nine archangels bearing down on my position and if we don't get that barrage soon, we'll be up shit creek."

"You're the Captain of that Company. My boys and I will get our howitzers reloaded with the right ammunition in a jiffy."

"Great. Thank you sir."

"Not problem. Oh and one more thing. Kill the fuckers for us."

"Oh we will. Rodger wilco."

Turing his attention back to the battle, he saw that his Company had intensified their fire now that the enemy was well within the range of their carbines and machine guns. However, the missile volleys had slackened after using up the majority in their inventory, with the many anti-vehicle teams switching to their small arms.

Now that the enemy infantry was close enough to use their own weapons against Bravo Company, energy fire began to whiz through the air with increasing fury and frequency. A few bolts flew by his head, nearly taking his head off in the process.

He grinned. Ironically in armored warfare, a vehicle was most protected when its commander was exposed to enemy fire. Although it sounded like an oxymoron at first, it was actually quite logical. When a Commander was exposed to enemy fire, he or she was able to get a clear, uncluttered view of the battle and was able to identify enemy targets easier, thus allowing their vehicle to engage the enemy before the enemy did the same to them and as a result increasing their prospects of survivability.

Just as promised, the second artillery barrage came and impacted detonating 40 high explosive shells in rapid succession, destroying two more Archangels and killing more infantry. Turnabout was fair play. Those monstrosities had been responsible for the destruction of at least three quarters of his vehicle losses and he was glad to see them getting destroyed.

As the smoke cleared, a nagging feeling told him that something was not right. That feeling had saved his life more than once; the first time, causing him to duck mere seconds before a sniper's bullet would have blown his head off and the second halting his convoy before an IED exploded, saving the lives of many.

Looking around the battlefield to see the cause of his concern, he saw that one of the surviving Archangels was rotating its turret to face his Bradley. "Fuck!" he yelled as he quickly dropped back down the Bradley's hatch down into the interior, startling everyone inside. "Listen up everyone, we're bailing out ASAP."

"Sir?" the Sergeant in command of the Bradley asked puzzled.

Suddenly without any warning, the hull of the Bradley shook violently as an energy bolt from the Archangel hit it. Mentally, he thanked God or whoever the hell was out there that the Archangel was heavily damaged and could only fire one cannon at a time. If the Archangel had been fully functional, he and everyone aboard the Bradley would have been dead. "Does that answer your question?" the told the Sergeant.

Needing no further bidding, the crew threw open the hatch in the back and began to run as far as they could from the Bradley, knowing that it would explode in any minute. Just as Sanders was about to exit the hatch after the crew he noticed that Chelsea was still sitting inside the vehicle shaking and frozen with fright.

"Christ," he muttered. She was a reporter, not a goddamn soldier. She wasn't psychologically trained for this and the relentless combat over the last several days must have gotten to her. She was probably suffering from shell shock or some other combat related stress disorder.

Realizing that there was no time to waste, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder like a rag doll, his adrenalin providing the extra strength that he would not normally have and ran out the hatch like a bat out of hell.

Sanders quickly dropped her on to the ground and threw his body on top of her to shield her from the blast to come.

Mere moments after exiting the vehicle, the Infantry Fighting Vehicle that had served as Sanders' Command Post exploded sending shrapnel and debris everywhere.

"Ugh," she moaned hoarsely, now conscious. The full weight of Sanders body and his armor pressing against hers was constricting her airflow.

Sanders quickly got off of her, stood up and helped her to her feet. "Chelsea, I'm going to pat you down to check if there's any wounds," he told her gently in a manner that he often took when he took care of his sisters.

He patted her down starting with her head and progressing down to her feet swiftly but deliberately trying to find any wounds. When he moved up to her right shoulder, his hands became wet with sticky crimson blood that was gushing out of the top of her arm. A stray piece of shrapnel from the Bradley had lodged itself in her deltoid and by the looks of it; it was going to be a bitch to get out.

From the looks of it, Chelsea had disregarded his advice to keep her vest and helmet on at all times and had chosen to just wear her ACU and a patrol cap, thinking that because she was inside the Bradley, she would be immune to enemy fire. Although she was right in one respect, tankers and those who crewed Armored Fighting Vehicles often did not wear body armor due to its cumbersome nature which restricted their movements even more in their cramped interior of their vehicles. In battle however, when their vehicles exploded there was little or nothing left of their remains, nearly one hundred percent of the time being unrecognizable to identify and those lucky enough to bail out of their smoking vehicles often suffered severe injuries.

Checking himself for wounds, Sanders found that he had suffered no major injury with a couple of trifling cuts and bruises that would heal eventually. However his body armor was completely ruined, the shrapnel from the vehicle had cracked the armored plate in the back of his vest, making it completely worthless, having completed its purpose by protecting Sanders' body from harm.

Sanders quickly discarded his vest, now that the once valuable object was now only a hindrance and began to speak through the microphone embedded in his helmet. "Lieutenant Roberts, this is Captain Sanders come in please," he radioed.

Although the radio that he had used earlier was destroyed along with everything inside the Bradley, like every NCO and officer in his Company Sanders had a personal man portable radio that enabled him to communicate with elements of his company at all times. However they only had half the power and range of those used by vehicle crews, making him unable to communicate with HQ and any support units. Coupled with the horrible position he was in, it made him unable to command his company effectively.

"Sir? I thought you were dead! I saw Bravo One explode with my own eyes!" exclaimed Roberts in disbelief.

"We bailed out right before it exploded and are taking cover behind the wreckage. You're in tactical command until I can get into a position where I can take charge. Don't let this Company down. IS that understood?"

"Sir, yes sir."

He then turned to Sergeant Jones and his men who had now clustered around him waiting for orders. "Are you men alright?" he asked.

"Sir. Other than some minor scratches we're fine."

"Are you men armed?" he asked.

"Yes sir. As per your orders," Jones replied, gesturing to the holstered MP-7s that every crewman had. Sanders had ordered every Bradley crew to be armed at all times and although many had objected at the time, right now the three men were grateful that they had their weapons on them.

"Orders sir?" asked one of the crewmen, not knowing what to do.

"First Private, we're going to make a plan. We're not going to stay here until the skirmish is over. Ms. Somerville here needs some medical attention fast." He pointed to a foxhole occupied by their fellow members of Bravo Company twenty meters away from where they were. "See that foxhole over there?"

"Yes sir."

"In one minute we are going to run as fast as our feet can take us to that foxhole."

"What about covering fire?"

"We are not open fire at the enemy. Right now, the enemy thinks that we're dead and I want it to stay that way for as long as possible. If we open fire, we'll reveal our position to the enemy and will only attract unwanted attention to us. In addition, the enemy is still by the looks of it, around 400 meters from our position. Our MP-7s have a maximum range of only half of that. We'd be wasting precious ammo."

"And of Ms. Somerville?"

"I can run," Chelsea said, gritting her teeth and clutching her shoulder.

"Bullshit," replied Sanders, getting the attention of everyone. "From what I saw, that piece of shrapnel hit a major artery. Right now, you've lost a lot of blood and most likely are feeling light headed, dizzy and a little weak from the blood loss. I am I correct?"

"Yes," she replied. Right now, she was struggling to stay upright.

"I'll carry her," offered one of the crewmen.

"Negative Private. You will do no such thing. Right now, you three still have your body armor on you and don't need another burden to tie you down. Since my own armor was destroyed and don't have any major limitations on my person, she'll be my responsibility."

Sanders gently held her and threw her over his shoulder so that the top of her chest was in direct contact with his clavicle bone with his hands and arms supporting the lower part of her torso, particularly her posterior to keep her from slipping from his grasp. With his other hand, he looked at his watch. "Ten seconds," he told his men quietly, not trying to attract anyone's attention.

The four soldiers got ready to run the race of their lives, the muscles on their legs tensed, and adrenalin began to roar through their veins. "Let's move," he said somberly, knowing that this might be their moments in their lives.

Running for their lives depended on it, the four soldiers and one civilian ran to the foxhole. Remarkably, since the enemy presumed that any inhabitants of the Bradley that they just destroyed were dead did not notice the five until it was too late.

Sanders and the three crewmen jumped into the foxhole, surprising the inhabitants. "Who's in charge here?" he demanded.

"I am," a man wearing the insignia of Sergeant First Class replied patronizingly. Suddenly recognizing the man before him he saluted and asked, "Captain Sanders?"

"At ease Sergeant Carmella. Do you have a medic with you? She needs medical attention fast," he gestured to Chelsea who he was still carrying.

"We did sir," he pointed to a headless corpse of what used to be one of Sanders' men lying right next to Sanders.

Fuck. This day was going from bad to worse. "Pass me his first aid kit will you?"

"Sure thing sir," he said and reached over the medic's corpse, grabbed the kit and handed it to Sanders.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Anything else sir?" he asked eager to return to the fighting.

"Assign these three to what ever positions you need filled," he pointed to the former crew of the Bradley. "I'll take command once I patch up Ms. Somerville."

"Yes sir. You three man that machine gun! I want that M312 firing yesterday!" he ordered, pointing to the unmanned machine gun, its former operators lying dead beside it.

Sanders gently put her down into the bottom of the foxhole. Sitting down beside her, he told her slowly. "Chelsea, I'm going to draw my knife so I can cut away your sleeve to get a better look at your wound."

Slowly reaching down to his thigh, he grabbed his knife that was clipped on to the tactical holster on his thigh that was always on his person. Like his M1911 Pistol, his knife was not standard Army issue. Upon graduation from NMMI, his grandfather gave him an Emerson Commander. In addition to being a world-renowned knife used by elite Special Operations Forces such as the Navy Seals, it was the last thing he received from the old man before he died.

Sanders unfolded his knife and began to slowly cut off the right sleeve of her ACU. When he was done, he took the sleeve before it fell to the ground and put it in one of his chest pockets for he would need it later.

Opening the medical kit, he grabbed a pair of tweezers and started to probe her wound, looking for the foreign object. Once it was located, he removed the object, dropped the offending object to the ground and proceeded to dress the wound with antibiotic ointment to prevent the chances of infection in the open wound.

Once the ointment was applied, Sanders grabbed what used to be her right sleeve, placed it right over her wound and tied it tightly across her arm, creating an ad hoc bandage. "Stay right here and sit tight. There's nothing more you can do. And if this foxhole gets overrun, well you've got your pistol."

Chelsea nodded numbly as she did her best to make herself comfortable and went into the fetal position, wishing that that this were all a dream.

Sanders grabbed the dead medic's M4 Carbine and his remaining ammunition. After checking to see if the medic's vest was intact, he removed the vest from the body and placed it on himself, knowing that it wouldn't be doing the medic any good and the dead man would have probably wanted someone to make use of it.

"Roberts this is Sanders. Come in please," he radioed.

"Sir. I hear you over."

"What's the tactical situation at the moment?"

"Not good sir. We've taken heavy looses. We only have three Bradleys left and our infantry platoons are down to forty percent of our total strength."

Sanders stared at the battlefield. While he noticed that the majority of the enemy's infantry and Armored Fighting Vehicles were dead or destroyed, there were still three Archangels active and the enemy still had a force of around three Companies worth of troops, three times the Bravo Company at full strength, which Sanders did not have.

While his men were fighting and dying like the heroes they were, he knew that they alone could not stop the enemy from advancing. There were too many of them and too few of his men lest. If they were to stop them, something had to give.

Something did.

One of the surviving Archangels exploded in a hail of missile fire and enemy infantrymen began to drop like flies.

What the fuck? After briefly looking at the remaining arsenal in this foxhole, he knew that there weren't any Javelins left and was 100 percent sure that the others didn't have any more either.

Looking into the direction of the blasts he saw 11 AH-64D Apache Longbow Attack Helicopters flying in loose formation, maximizing their weapons spread and ability to hit targets, while still close enough to support one another.

Sanders' radio came to life. "Sorry we're late. We just came back from another sortie when your request came and had to refuel and rearm before we came," radioed the Squadron Commander.

"Well its better to be late than never," Sanders replied back, glad to have the presence of the Apaches and especially their weaponry.

With the addition of the Apaches, the fight had now shifted in their favor. The enemy, knowing that the fight was now lost began to retreat. However, the Apache Squadron, intent on extracting vengeance for their fallen comrades pursued the enemy firing AGM-114N Hellfire II Missiles, 2.75 inch rockets and 30mm cannon rounds intent on killing every enemy soldier who dared attack their brethren in on the ground. Within minutes of their arrival, all the Ori soldiers who were once part of the force sent to overrun Bravo Company were dead, dying or wounded.

Once barrage stopped and it became apparent that all resistance had faded, Sanders activated his radio once again. "All right Bravo Company listen up. Although we knocked those bastards back, we still got work to do. First and Second Platoons are going to scour the battlefield. The R and D boys back home have asked us to retrieve any enemy weapons on the battlefield for further study. In addition Intel has requested that we obtain prisoners for interrogation purposes if possible. However, be careful. Intel reports that the enemy has a short ranged secondary weapon embedded in their armor at the wrist. Third platoon orders are to clean up the area around our foxholes. Medics, I want a triage set up two minutes ago. Lets move people!"

Sanders turned his attention to Chelsea, who was shaking uncontrollably. "Are you all right?" he asked concerned. She was exhibiting some signs of shell shock, also known to psychiatrists as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD for short.

"Yes. I'm fine," she replied, trying to keep from shaking.

"Okay lets get you to some proper medical treatment," he said as he helped her up to her feet.

"I thought that you already did so?" she asked as they began to walk to one of the surviving Bradleys, where the Medics were to set up a place to take care of the wounded.

"What I did was a patch up. I stopped the bleeding and cleaned up the wound. I did that all the time with my sisters when I was kid," he told her trying to start a conversation with her in order to keep her mind off of the hellish surroundings around her.

"Sisters?"

"I'm the third of six children, of which the remainder are girls. When you live in a cattle ranch in the middle of Nebraska, the nearest hospital is pretty far away. One has to be able to look after themselves."

"What is Nebraska like?" she asked, curiously. Although she and her family traveled across the continent during their summer holidays, she never had the opportunity to travel across the pond and was curious to know what the States were like. (2)

"Its very nice. Thick, grassy, and lush plains surround the whole state and the best part is that there's plenty of open space for everyone. You could yell at the top of your lungs at midday and no one would hear you. It was the best place a person could grow up in."

"If you seemed to love it so much, why did you leave?"

He smiled sadly, "The reason why I loved it so much was the reason why I chose to leave. How many people do you think live in Nebraska?"

"I don't know."

"A little over a million and a half."

"That's less than the a quarter London's population!"

"Keep your voice down. But yes, there are few people in Montana. The land is good for the soul, but not for the body. There's hardly anyone out there and thus, not very much economic opportunity and because of this, many are leaving the state in droves."

"Where are they going?"

"Anywhere. Nebraska and the other states in the Northwest were one of the US Military's biggest providers in personnel, you know."

"Why did you and your fellow," she paused in thought. "Nebraskans decide to join the Military? With the Iraq War going on before the Ori attack, weren't you afraid to get killed?"

"Yes. However remember this, Nebraska is literally in the middle of nowhere. If people don't get out the state when they're young, then they'll be stuck there for the rest of their lives. To us, it seemed like the US Military was our best ticket out of there."

"Stuck there for the rest of your lives? Is that a little extreme?"

"Not at all. When I meant that it was in the middle of nowhere, it was in the middle of nowhere. The largest city, Omaha has less than 400,00 people. The nearest major metropolitan areas is two days drive which is Chicago away all the way in Illinois. There is little or nothing to do all day except for operating a plow or a tractor and herding cattle. Because of this, a lot of people tend to have families a younger age, all of my sisters are married and have at least one child except for my youngest sister and she's engaged. If you want to leave Nebraska, you have to do it when you're young when you only have to support yourself, once you have a family its near impossible to move again."

"What about getting a scholarship to a college or university? Surely they had those available to you?" she asked.

At that question Sanders began to chuckle. Soon it turned into a full-blown laugh. "You've never been to America have you?"

"What is so bloody funny?" she asked indignantly.

"Chelsea, I'm white, male and am technically a redneck. There was no way hell that I could have gotten a scholarship. That's three strikes. Believe me I tired. I graduated a year early from High School and had a 3.9 GPA and they still rejected me."

"Did you get accepted into any Universities?"

"I got into my first choice Purdue, and Ohio State. However without the scholarship money, I couldn't afford it. Call me stupid, stubborn or prideful but where I come from being in debt is heavily looked down upon."

"Why is that?"

"Where did you live before the war?"

"Ashford of Kent."

"Alright let me explain. When you lived in Ashford, you bought a lot of stuff right?"

"No. I went to a boarding school."

"Fine, did your parents buy stuff?"

"Yes."

"You see in a vastly populated area, money gets circulated a lot. You get your paycheck, you save some of it. However you spend most of it on food, housing and other goods. Money gets transferred to one person to another. You have money, spend money and you get more money. Economics 101. Am I correct?"

"Certainly."

"You see where I lived in far western Nebraska, the nearest neighbor was fifteen miles away. The local general store was forty miles away. Money does not flow as quickly as in the UK. If you spend money, you won't have any more until the next payday. And due to the nature of my family's business, we only get paid once a year for the heads of our cattle. So we have to be frugal with what we spend our money on."

"You mean that you weren't …" she paused not wanting to say the word poor. "Well off?"

"We always had food on the table and had some sort of meat, mostly beef sometimes chicken every night. We were pretty well off. We had electricity, running water and a truck. Just because we didn't have a lot of money didn't mean that we didn't live well. We just didn't have as many commercial goods as you did." Sanders saw that they had reached the triage that Bravo Company was setting up. "Well Ms. Somerville, it was nice talking to you," he said as he left her with the safe and trusting hands of the medics.

Sanders entered the Bradley and searched for the radio. Upon finding it, he turned it on. "This is Bravo Company reporting in," he radioed to battalion HQ.

"Jesus Christ Mike! Where the fuck have you been?" asked Jenkins worriedly.

"One of the motherfuckers hit my Bradley as I was calling in an artillery barrage. I was incommunicado until now," he answered.

"Well its good to hear your voice again. What's the status on your company?"

"I've got two surviving Bradleys and an over strength platoon's worth of infantry. The rest are incapacitated, dead or dying. Give me every single unused file clerk, MP, and idiot doing nothing behind the lines on this planet. I need reinforcements immediately and I don't know how much longer we can hold on much longer."


Authors Note's

(1)- Cannon Cocker, infantry slang for artillery.

(2)- Across the pond. This is Brit slang for in America