Chapter Two:

Putting Up a Fight to Remember

And so we moved out, the tanks were trying to remain as quiet as possible. Drake was in on the side to the left of us and the single goliath was on the right side. The infantry muttered to each other as they marched behind the tanks. Guns over their shoulders, Conrad and Winters laughed as they told different stories.

"Yea, wacky stuff goes on all the time man." Winters was saying after he gets finished with a story about Basic Training. He pulled out a cigar and lit it with a spark from his flamethrower. Conrad nodded.

"Yea man…." Conrad was thinking about the first time he ever took up his machine gun, when he was in Basic. He shook his head as he could see the enemy fortress come into view. He smirked and checked his weapon to make sure it wouldn't jam. He stopped as the tanks deployed and fired at the same time, breaking the front gate.

There was a gate with a ledge atop where cannons stood and guards stood with them. The tanks blew part of the gate and one of the cannons, three more cannons to go. The cannons required a person sitting down at the controls and to aim, then hit fire to launch a large rocket out. The tanks fired all at once and a deafening explosion is heard and if you looked at the tanks, you could see red all around the mouth of it. One cannon fired back and destroyed one tank, five now remaining. As soon as the gate was destroyed, the infantry charged.

Conrad and Winters both charged at the gate while enemy infantry got to the entrance and hid behind buildings in the base, firing at the charging men. Conrad kept his weapon slanted as he ran and got through the broken gate, fire all around broken pieces of metal. Smoke filled the air all around soon and Conrad crouched low behind a bunch of high crates.

Conrad could see a few people getting hit and then falling or try to keep on charging, not a pretty site. He saw his buddy, Winters, charge and try to keep charging before a few bullets pierced his body armor by his chest and he dropped. A puff of red smoke filled the air before he went down as Conrad yelled, "NOOOO!" He leapt out and threw a grenade while shooting, slowly advancing to the body. He took a hit to the shoulder, luckily, the bullet didn't pierce. He grabbed Winters and lifted him up, bringing him back to his cover spot.

He looked at the wound, but he was already dead. Conrad looked down and soon looked around. He found a good flanking position and moved around many crates and barrels until seeing the enemy machine gunning positions. They had a line of sandbags with machine guns deployed all over and they were firing, just barely not over heating. Conrad lifted his machinegun up and looked down the site, careful not to alert them.

He fired at them, a line of bullets going all over the place. He yelled at the top of his lungs as he fired, the recoil barely even noticeable by him. He made the bullets last, driving them up and down a bunch of soldiers. He pulled the trigger back, but soon he was out of ammunition in the clip. The enemy marines fired back, shocked and stunned by this maneuver. They didn't cover their flanks very well.

Conrad lunged backward, falling on his back as he desperately grabbed a clip and put it into his gun. He aimed at the top of the metal box he was hiding behind, wondering if they were coming after him. He slowly sat up and peeked around the corner, they had set a machine gun on the flanks now and as soon as they saw his head bullets hit the metal and dented it, the sound screeching through the battlefield.

Another sound made its way through the other noises of the battle. The convoy of tanks was rolling in, four left. They were rolling in and firing at the enemy positions, but the battlecruiser came from the airfield behind the base. The battlecruiser had repairs on it now and it fired the cannon, destroying two of the tanks. Its machineguns rained down on the infantry like rain, murdering them, tearing them up. Conrad crouched down low and held his head down to keep from being seen. The other two tanks fired up at the cruiser, breaking off two of its machine guns on the left side. The cruiser responded by blowing up the two tanks.

The single goliath fired up at it, breaking its cannon off and then the twin machine guns of the goliath broke off the other two machineguns on the right side. The goliath was torn up though; it had battled too many infantry behind the sandbags. The battlecruiser was in flames, smoking a lot. Conrad looked up at it, it crashed down in the middle, sending infantry, the goliath, and even Captain Drake went flying off of his bike. Conrad managed to stay on the ground, but the boxes he was hiding behind went flying away. The goliath was smashed up now and so was the bike, luckily Drake was still alive. Half the infantry was gone and Conrad could see the enemy positions were still intact. The crashed goliath barely helped…