His PFC tapped his shoulder. "Sergeant, they already have."
Out on the ocean of sand a lumbering behemoth of a tank approached the town. The main turret on top held two cannons in place, while the body was supported by four separate tracks. The turret also held two missile racks and two machine guns. The mammoth tank was the master of the battlefield. Bazookas and grenades would do nothing against these monsters, they needed something heavier. They immediately broke into action.
"Get me the bazooka shells, a grenade, a landmine and some duct tape. Everyone, fall back to the buggy." They moved off just as the machine guns opened up. Bullets nicked at their heels as they ran to the buggy.
Taggert grabbed the equipment that he had asked for out of the hands of his PFC. Quickly, he used the duct tape to tape together three bazooka rounds, and secure them to a landmine. He then jammed a grenade into the center of the shells. By this time the tank was already in the square and the infantry behind it were fanning out, looking for targets.
"Cover Me!" Shouted Taggert as he ran out from concealment. They GDI troops immediately tracked him with their fire, but a hail of lead coming from his troops made them keep their heads down.
He yanked the pin on his bomb and hurled it at the tank. It landed in front of the tread and the tank rolled over it. The land mine and the grenade went off simultaneously. The nearest soldiers screamed in pain as they were caught in the blast as well.
Taggert dived for cover, firing his AK at the nearest targets. He dived behind a small, crumbling wall, grateful for any protection it could give. He heard the M60 open up. He reached onto his web belt and unhooked two grenades from his web belt. He yanked the pins and tossed them over the wall, then winced at the explosions went off close to him. Several screams cut through the sounds of battle before they were cut off with his AK-47.
He stayed down and only periodically exposed himself to fire a few rounds. The GDI troops were beat and they new it. He stood up and examined his handiwork on the Mammoth Tank. The tank's treads had rolled over the explosives, setting off the landmine just as the grenade exploded.
The tread may have been knocked off, making the tank immobile, but it was still in the fight. Taggert darted out and jumped onto the top of the vehicle. He clamored his way to the crew hatch and pulled it open, dropping in a grenade. He heard several panicked screams as he jumped off, then the explosive went off, sending a geyser of smoke out of the hatch.
The squad regrouped near a building. They had lost or used most of their ammo in the fight. Taggert had one clip left for his AK, and the assault rifles that the GDI troops had been using had been all but destroyed from the flying shrapnel during the fight. They did manage to salvage three Beretta pistols from the bodies along with a single working M16 and three clips of salvaged ammo.
Taggert rounded his troops up after they had salvaged anything that they could use as a weapon. The situation was grim, they had very little ammo or weapons, a grenade blast had taken out the Nod Buggy, and GDI reinforcements would be swarming all over the town in an hour or less. They had to escape, but walking through the desert was a sure way to die. They needed a vehicle of some sort, or a deep hole to crawl into until they could be rescued.
He reached down on his webbing and took a canteen from it and took a long draught. "Search the buildings." He told his men. They spanned out across the square.
Taggert kept his AK, even though he was down to one clip. He walked up to one of the settlements, gripped the doorknob and turned. It was locked of course, the rickety door hardly warranted the waste of ammo, and so he took to kicking the thing down. The door came down and he walked in like he owned the place.
The two people inside looked up from what they were doing. Taggert opened up on them with his AK-47, they hadn't even attempted to help them in the battle, under Nod's rules of engagement, they had already forfeited their lives.
He tossed the empty AK aside and reached for the M9 Berettas holstered on his hips. He moved through the home with an M9 in each hand. The rest of the house was empty, but he went on a hunch and searched it through again. Then he caught sight of the freshly moved dirt around the floor in the main room.
He kicked the dirt away from the wall, revealing some wooden slats that were across something that looked like a root cellar or something like that. He set one of the pistols down and lifted the makeshift door out of the way.
He felt a surge of moisture and dankness wash over his face. He looked down at the stairs cut out of the natural hewn earth. He picked up the other M9 and edged down into the hole. He didn't want to use his flashlight for fear of giving away his position. As he reached the bottom, he came into a large underground chamber. A figure dressed in desert combats jumped up and made a break for the far corner of the chamber. Taggert tracked the man with the pistols, catching the running figure in a hail of gunfire. The Kevlar vest the man was wearing took most of the impact, but he stumbled and went down behind a large tarped object.
Taggert moved around so that he could cover the downed soldier. The man was on his stomach and still moving slightly, his Kevlar vest having taken most of the rounds. He was reaching for his gun, an MP5K. Taggert stepped forward and held the muzzle of the pistol to the man's head and pulled the trigger.
Taggert stood up as several of his men rushed in. Taggert holstered his pistols and picked up the man's MP5K, stripping the clips off the man's body. He then took a quick survey of the underground room.
Tools adorned the walls, most with a fair amount of rust on them. The dank smell was thick in the air and a feeble amount of light filtered down from the spaces in the wooden slats above them. The back of the room was dug into a type of a ramp, leading to the surface as an emergency exit or something. It didn't look like it was made for individual soldiers, more like a vehicle of some sort.
Taggert gripped the edge of the tarp and threw it off whatever was beneath it. The billowing tarp revealed a GDI humvee, just sitting there. They all stepped back, studying their prize.
The hummer was a low vehicle, very stable. It ran off diesel and there was practically nothing short of a tank that would stop it. The hard plastic shell that served as a cab protected them from the elements, while a hatch allowed any member of the hummer's crew to man the fifty caliber machine gun mounted on top.
They checked the back and found that they had an amount of extra gas as well as some fifty-caliber ammunition. Corporal Henderson looked into the vehicle and said, "tank registers full, and there's an M-16 in the back."
"Good" stated Taggert. "Corporal Henderson, get our salvaged weapons and bring them down. Johnson, get as much water as you can carry. Thompson, help him on that. The rest of you, bring food and whatever weapons that you can find."
As his soldiers left, Taggert climbed into the hummer and up into the gunner's station. He fed the fifty-caliber rounds into the gun. They wouldn't do much against tanks, but they would be something.
His troops got back, carrying the water and supplies that he wanted. They threw them into the box and secured the there with some light chains that were included in the hummer's tool kit.
Taggert got one of his corporals to drive the hummer. The engine roared to life and the vehicle lurched forward, up through the wooden slats that served as an entrance and out into the desert.
Taggert opened up the gunner's hatch and took his command position at the fifty-caliber gun.
As the wind rushed passed him he spotted a rising column of dust about five miles off. He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and peered at it. There were a few hummers and two APC's that he could see, all in GDI colors. Apparently GDI wanted him even more than he thought. He leaned down into the cab and told his Corporal to put on some speed.
Colonel Eric Thorsen Velcroed his Kevlar vest onto his chest and threw on a helmet to match. He stepped out of his seat in the command hummer to take a look at the town that they had just seized. The townsfolk had been detained by his crack troopers and were being held at gunpoint. They all had been bound and were all laying or sitting on the ground, some being searched.
Thorsen made sure that the Thompson submachine gun in his hands was loaded and then began to walk towards the buildings.
Being somewhat of a World War Two buff, he enjoyed carrying his old Thompson and his father's M1911, which had been used in the Pacific in world war two, when his father was a young second lieutenant. His father had gave it to him when he had entered training in the marines and he had taken it with him ever since, to the Gulf as a Sergeant and now to the war in Africa.
The Thompson had been bought from a workshop in Seattle before it was destroyed. The obvious choice to pair with his M1911.
He stepped up to one of the doorsteps when a private stopped him. "Sir, you shouldn't be here, we haven't cleared the area totally."
Thorsen nodded and walked in anyway. He held his Thompson ready as he moved through the house and down into a root cellar. Inside was a large empty area. Tire marks led up to a hole through the wooden hatchway leading outside. In the far corner of the structure was a bundle. Thorsen opened it up, revealing one of his soldier's body's. He rolled the body over and studied the pattern of bullet holes in the back of his Kevlar vest.
He stood up and backed away from the corpse, rigor mortis had just barley set in. This man had been dead for no more than two hours.
He ran back up the steps and out of the house he walked fast towards the humvee that was his vehicle. He opened the glove box and pulled out several maps.
"God Damn It!!" he said, studying the maps.
He reached into his pocket and took out a cigar from one of the protective tubes that held it securely. He bit off the end and spat it out onto the ground. He pulled out his US Army lighter and lit it up, puffing on the end.
He jumped out of the humvee and waved his 2IC, Captain Jeffery Stark, over. The man jogged over to him. "They got one of our hummers, Jeff. Its one of the spares that that damned Morewell stored here fro a push into Nod territory."
Jeff took the map out of his hand and looked at it. "Looks like they'll try to head north to this town here." He said, punching his finger on the map at the decided point.
Thorsen looked at the point where Stark's finger was. "'Course they will, it's the only thing on this map. Call HQ and have them fly recon over their suspected path of travel. Stop them if you can, but don't kill them, I want that bastard Taggert alive!"
"Sir, what do you want done with all these people." Asked Stark, motioning towards the fifteen or so people that the GDI forces had taken prisoner.
"Kill the people and burn the settlement. They were collaborators." Said Thorsen plainly.
"Sir, I thought these people resisted them." Said Stark nervously.
Thorsen looked directly at Stark. Stark stared back at his own reflection in Torsen's sunglasses. "Had they done it properly, either Taggert would have been stopped or the villagers would be dead by his hand. Follow your orders, Captain."
"Yes sir."
Thorsen sat back and watched as the civilians were burned down with automatic fire, blood spilled onto the desert sand. A private sloshed a small amount of gasoline on each of the buildings, and then threw a match on it, setting the whole village aflame. Thorsen ignored the waves of heat as his hummer roared off.