She kept her head on a constant swivel as she raced down the halls of the massive battleship, blasting away at any who dared cross her path with her dwindling ammo. It had been exactly five minutes since she'd landed on the Bismarck, and she'd already expended about half of all her ammunition, not that it wasn't ammo well spent or anything. She'd also taken the liberty to stow explosive charges in all the gun batteries she could find along the way, and hid a few in the boiler room too, just in for good measure. If worst came to pass, she'd blow the entire ship sky high, though if she were being perfectly honest, she'd rather this ship not be her tomb, nor the ocean floor her burial ground.
Pressing herself against the wall, she slowed herself as she approached the bridge of the ship, checking over all her gear as she pressed an ear to the wall as to try to hear what was going on on the other side. There was the distinct sound of someone pumping a shotgun, an MG42 loading, the ping of a Garand, and the nervous breathing of the faunas on the other side, and-
"Wait, what the hell?!. They're loading a bazooka?!. Are they insane?!." Ruby thought to herself, before weighing her options. She could toss a frag inside, and possibly take out the guy with the Bazooka, but the explosive radius wouldn't be enough to kill, or even wound everyone, and they could drop return fire, or throw a grenade right back the moment she ducked back into cover. She'd have to risk getting shot if she charged in after tossing a frag inside. And then there was the flash bang option, but while it would probably throw off most guns, and maybe cause a little friendly fire, there was always the chance that the guy with a bazooka could blindly fire at the door, or at the wall she was behind in general, and if that happened, it was game over for her.
She growled lightly as she looked back at her gear to notice she'd already expended all of her flash bangs, and had no real option save for a frag anyways. Sighing, she crept up to the doorway, and straightened out, pulling her last stick grenade from it's holster, before pulling the cord and beginning a small countdown in her head. Shutting her eyes for the briefest moment, she nodded, before tossing the grenade in and pulling out her own MG42, already ready to fire.
The explosion was accompanied by a cacophony of screams as the White Fang in the Bridge of the Bismarck scrambled to restore their defense despite numerous injured and dead in the wake of the grenade's detonation. Blood was splattered against the walls, ceiling and floor, and numerous instruments were either damaged or soaked in blood, a scene that greeted Ruby as she stepped around the corner and let rip with her Machine Gun, firing indiscriminately into the crowd of White Fang from the hip and sending blood and severed limbs flying about.
A bullet struck her shoulder, but she ignored it as her aura tanked the blow, and she reduced the shooter to bloody ribbons across the floor, before turning to another shooter who'd hit her leg with most of a shotgun's blast, severely damaging her aura, and practically sawing him in half with her stream of bullets. Roaring angrily, she continued to march forward, holding down the trigger and massacring everything in sight with immense abhorrence while using her aura to it's fullest extent to tank anything that struck her in kind. The barrel of her gun was practically white-hot at this point, and had started to melt, though it mattered not as after ten seconds of just holding down the trigger, everyone on the bridge lied dead, in various states of dismemberment.
Tossing the weapon aside, she ignored the more intense screams as the melting barrel dripped onto a Fang still in the process of dying in favor of looking over a console. wiping the blood off of it, she looked the thing over to see if she couldn't figure out a bit more about what was going on...
"let's see... there's documents on this table, labeled as confidential for White Fang officers... What else..." She mused for a few moments, skimming over anything she could find, until eventually coming across two documents, one labeled as "Jammer" and the other as "Armor Factory."
"Jackpot... If I survive, I MUST get this information back to the others..." Ruby mumbled aloud, before checking over her equipment. She'd already expended most of her equipment at this point, and her entrance destroyed her aura, so all she was left with now was her C96, her Sturmgewehr 44, her knife, and her MP40. All her other guns, her ammunition was expended, so she'd discarded...
"Open fire! Open fi- AGH!" She heard a scream from down the hallway echo, alongside the sound of a lot of guns firing. The sound of the guns was unfamiliar to her, but they didn't belong to the White Fang. Though, so suddenly, it seemed that gunfire erupted from all around her, or at least the sound of it. It's like the whole ship had turned into a warzone, were the sound any indication. Cautiously raising her pistol, she listened as screams echoed from all over the ship, hearing shouts from a language she didn't recognize echo down the corridor.
Now shaking, she started to back up while pointing her pistol towards the open doorway. Whoever it was onboard the ship with her, she knew she couldn't count on them being friendly. If there was a third party on the mix of this fight, the last thing she wanted to be was caught off guard, alone and unsupported. Listening closer, she finally managed to make out some English...
"That Kraut girl that boarded this ship left quite a trail of bodies, командир. At least she made it easy to find her, да?" A first, somewhat lighter voice came through, his accent completely foreign to Ruby. He was shortly followed by another voice, much deeper, yet the accent persisted.
"Да. Будь настороже, она может быть еще жива." The response came, once again in that strange language she could not hope to decipher. Whoever they were, their tone of voice certainly didn't convey that they were friendly... or maybe it did, and the language and accent just made it sound as if it didn't. She honestly couldn't tell.
Though, after a few seconds of waiting, she saw a small canister get tossed into the room. Immediately recognizing it as some sort of grenade, Ruby leapt behind some of the instruments for cover and counted down... only for it to not explode?
Emerging from her cover, Ruby cautiously approached the grenade, slowly inching forward, as if expecting it to blow at any second. But it didn't explode, instead just releasing a very faint hissing noise. She had no idea what this thing was, but she had a faint idea that whatever it must be, it was broken. Groaning, Ruby fell back against a console and rubbed her eyes.
She was tired, not feeling good, and above all else, feeling weak. As if on cue, she started hacking and sputtering as she broke out in sweat. Her knees felt as if they couldn't hold up her own weight anymore, and her vision was starting to blur, and her mind likewise became foggier and foggier with each passing second...
"Ugh... what... what the..." Ruby managed to breathe out, before collapsing on her side. It was hard to breathe, and her breath was coming in and out in short, labored gasps. She had no idea what was going on with her, or why she was so dizzy. It was like her entire world was spinning despite her laying on the floor, and her hearing, just like vision, began to fade, until everything was drowned out, like she was dunked under water. With considerable struggle, she reached over to scratch her exposed wrists, only to find herself completely numb. As if to rub salt in the wound, she could no longer smell a damn thing. Where it once smelled of iron, now it was like she was nose blind, and to top all of it off, the edges of her vision had begun to blacken, and everything looked as if it were becoming darker, like she was suddenly thrown into a world of darkness.
Finally, her arms went limp. She tried to will herself to get up, to at least move, but she couldn't even raise her head. She didn't understand what was going on, was she poisoned? If so, when, and how? She didn't have any open injuries, and she was sure that nobody had stuck a needle into her, so how had..?
And then, her vision affixed onto the canister... the hissing she could no longer hear... was all this that thing's doing? In a few moments, she would lose consciousness, she was sure, though whether it would kill her or not, she was unsure. This feeling that washed over her, being completely blind of all senses save for sight, and even that too would shortly be robbed of her... it was awful. Ruby tried to move her mouth, to speak, but found she couldn't speak either...
"Hah! Now that's what I call effective! Хорошая работа, Толкачёв." The deeper voice praised, not that she could hear. Rolling her eyes to better see who was approaching her, she was vaguely able to make out what looked like a humanoid figure, dressed almost entirely in brown with some funny looking mask over his face, and a hat that held some loose resemblance to her own field visor with a red star surrounded by golden laurels in it's center, before everything blacked out...
"Looks like she's blacked out, Commissar. Your orders?" A lesser dressed man asked after looking Ruby over and disarming her. The older man came over and took a closer look at the girl, scrunching his nose in confusion as he beheld several little bits of her uniform that just didn't add up.
"Strange, this girl is no German... Her uniform is almost correct, but where's the swastika? She looks more like some little girl playing dress-up than anything else... then there's the matter of facial structure, hair, and eyes. You saw them, they were silver..." he mused, before turning back to his subordinate. "Must be with that one town, the one the White Fang are attacking."
"Hmm... wait, that's right! I recognize her, from the scouts' report! She's a tank commander down there, so what's she doing here?" The private questioned, looking her over a bit more, and finding the various bits of information she'd stuffed under her uniform. "Hmm. A Jammer and a Tank Factory... that explains some things. Think we should attempt to finally contact that Jerry and the American?"
"Do you know how to operate a German Radio?" He questioned, receiving a small shake of the head to signal no. "Then shut the hell up. Undress her, tie her up, take her to the bunks. As soon as she comes to, I'll be down to interrogate her myself... And do NOT harm her! If they learn we've mistreated one of their own, we may start conflict with potential allies."
The man nodded, and immediately went to stripping the girl down to nothing but her bare lingerie, and tying her up, and hefting her over his shoulder. The commissar watched impassively, before turning towards another man who'd entered the room, a Lieutenant.
"Lieutenant, get the naval crews onboard. We'll do our land-bound comrades a solid, though. Might as well disable the artillery pounding them, right?" He told, with the man giving a swift salute, and sprinting off. Now alone once more, the Commissar took out a pair of binoculars and looked down towards the battlefield.
They were getting pounded, that was certain... but if they successfully held the line, the backbone of the White Fang's fighting force would be utterly destroyed. They likely wouldn't even have the manpower to hold what positions they did have from there to the coast. It would be a major win for them, to be sure, and with a little fire support, they might even be able to punch a hole from there to the coast, and make it to the docks... not that they weren't currently under siege from his own forces. Rallying displaced townspeople to his cause was easy. They were desperate, dirty, beaten up, vengeful, looking and willing for any way to fight back, and he was willing to offer them that chance. Men, women, children, if they could hold a gun, they could fight back.
Though he only had about 20 real Red Army soldiers with him, it was more than enough to train these people for the intended purposes, and throw them against the targets that needed to be taken. That being said, if the USSR flags raised over the small dock-based towns scattered shortly across the coast were any indication, he'd say that his forces were more than a little successful.
Indeed, quantity held a sort of quality in of itself.
Now, with that out of the way, it was just a matter of getting the new crew made up of willing volunteers aboard and getting that girl to translate everything for them. An entire ship, and not a single word on anything was in a language other than German? Unless they could bring those men waging war kilometres away into the mix, that redhead tank commander was the only one among their entire force that understood a lick of the language this ship was made with in mind...
"No..." Rommel gasped, looking out his binoculars at the Bismarck, the flag of the White Fang flying away in the wind in favor of a flag he'd hoped he'd never see again in his life, not here of all places. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was here, or at least an element of them was. This world did NOT need the spread of communism to infect it, and if his pupil was still alive aboard that ship, he didn't need them filling her head with their damnable propaganda! He was about to get out of the tank and march right down to that dock and give them a piece of his mind, but then remembered that they were being shot at, and their armor partially compromised.
The Maus was still advancing... slowly, and menacingly... Patton had already reported serious damage to both his Sherman, and the Panther Rommel had left in his charge, and the commando tank-hunter squads in the forests that made up the combat zone had all reported casualties. Not to mention, enemy infantry were still encroaching from all around the town, and all resources not being directed to the armored battle were being diverted to battle the enemy foot soldiers in the forest directly... and finally, there was the enemy artillery. They still didn't know where those guns had fired from, but they'd already laid waste to a lot of the town and caused catastrophic damage to their fighting force.
The entire forest had turned into a chaotic warzone, all they were missing was the presence of aircraft, though simply on account of not wanting to jinx anything, nobody dared say anything in regards to that tidbit. This attack had turned this icy, tranquil, heavily defended area into hell, or at least a tiny slice of it... but if there was one bright side, the mass of enemy armor had almost been dissolved. Between them crossing into the battlements' effective range, their own tanks tearing through their ranks, the commando squads in the mountains, magnetic anti-tank mines, and the T28's gun being able to one-shot anything short of a Tiger II, the enemy armored force had effectively run headlong into a deathtrap... a testament to why tanks don't operate alone in such operations.
They'd suffered horrible casualties, with now over 60% of their own fighting force injured, about 18% dead, and about half of those injured unable to fight, they were effectively down 48% of their total fighting force. That being said, sporadic reports seemed to suggest that the artillery fire had come to a halt, something no doubt the USSR had a hand in to some extent, and that they were slowly but surely regaining the upper hand.
"Kommandant..." Yang gasped, struggling to so much as lift the shell, and barely managing to reload the gun within an acceptable time. "I can barely lift these things now... I can't even feel my arms anymore..." Looking down at her canteen, he saw the item, empty, open on the floor. Sighing, he grabbed her and pushed her up to the cupola as soon as they'd gotten back into cover, and tossed her out.
"Your skin is clammy, you're lightheaded, exhausted, and most importantly, dehydrated. Stuff your face with snow and get back in the tank, I'll reload in your place in the meantime." He ordered, getting a weak nod out of the buxom blonde. Looking back down, he saw the gun fire, and eject it's used shell. Nodding, he snatched a new round and loaded it in. "Mercury, you're good to fire, make it count."
Looking over to Weiss, he saw the girl's hands twitching painfully. All the driving must've started taking it's toll on her hands, as she was actively hissing any time she had to move something. Looking to Mercury, he saw blood trickle down from his forehead as a round struck their turret, making his slam his forehead into a crease of the interior structure. They were all at their limit, and he himself was finding it difficult to bark orders, his voice was straining and he was feeling a level of exhaustion he hadn't felt in some time set on him.
"Mercury, the M4 in the center, destroy it." Rommel ordered, with the boy following suit and taking the shot... only to miss entirely. The boy let his head roll back, and released a long, exasperated sigh.
"Crap... I was sure that would hit..." He groaned, rolling his neck. "Sorry about that, sir. Almost at my limit here..."
"It's fine, boy, just focus on the battle." He ordered, loading a new round in and nodding to him. He straightened out and realigned the gun, taking the shot and this time successfully destroying his target. "Good job." Rommel complimented, before realizing that Yang hadn't returned.
Poking out of the tank, Rommel looked around a bit, before finally locating her laying face-down in the snow, perfectly still. Jumping out, he scooped up the blonde under his command and checked her pulse, sighing in relief to find she'd only passed out. Even still, that meant that they were totally down a man on their tank... not a good situation to be in. Climbing back into the tank with Yang in tow, he set the girl down on the floor of the tank, tucking a pillow under her head before loading in a new round and giving the order to fire...
Patton puffed out a small cloud of smoke as he pulled the last unconscious man out of the Panther. It'd been hit pretty bad, and caught fire. He'd managed to set it out, but the tank was dead in the water, and with it's entire crew knocked out, nothing was protecting them from getting blown to bits. Now, with the men pulled out and set in the snow with a few blankets over them, Patton returned to his tank, itching to see his men's progress...
Only to see his Sherman's tread was blown off, the turret ring jammed, and the gun itself had a hole blasted down it from around the front and exiting near the back of the barrel. As if on cue, the tank was struck and caught fire, with the crew bailing out just moments before the tank went up in a ball of flames, throwing everyone off their feet. He grumbled angrily as he rose to his feet and took a look at the battlefield, grimacing as the enemy still advanced, the Maus yet unharmed...
"Dammit... that thing is getting too close for comfort..." He mused, before looking over to his pupils' tank, and watching it get slammed by a large round, smoke blowing out from the impact and almost completely obscuring the tank. A look of horror crossed his face, before turning to Peterson. "Peterson, the SCR 300, now!"
The boy nodded, and swiftly made a dash for the radio pack, bringing it back to his general within a few short minutes. "Good work, now..." Calling up Rommel, he opened the line and got an earful of yelling...
"Dammit, Weiss, I know it hurts, just stay still!" He heard, the first thing over the radio, and it was their driver screaming her head off.
"Well... that doesn't sound good..."
"Shut up, Peterson. Rommel, what the hell is your status there!?" Patton yelled into the microphone, receiving a few groans in response at first, until finally Rommel was able to reply.
"Apologies, General." It was Mercury answering, how peculiar. "It's down to just me and the Field Marshal in here... there's a lot of blood... we took a direct hit from the Panzer VIII's main gun, Weiss's left hand has been reduced to... not existing, her eyes have been cut, she can't see... Rommel said it looks shallow enough to recover, though... and she's sustained multiple shrapnel wounds, he's moving her out of the tank right now, and a medical team is on it's way... in the meantime, I've managed to move the tank out of the line of fire."
"Lord have mercy... And what about you, Yang and Rommel?" He inquired, genuinely worried about the crew they'd personally tutored's state.
"I have a few cuts a bit too deep for my aura to quickly heal, but nothing serious. Yang's unconscious, and had a piece of shrapnel lodged in her thigh. I've done what I can, but she'll probably require medical help as well. Rommel looks a bit dazed, but otherwise seems unharmed... that being said, our armor is now totally compromised... but it looks like Blake finally managed to knock out the Maus's tracks... wait... nevermind, it's just running over another tank's blown out tracks..." He informed, grunting at the end as it sounded like he was lifting something, probably Yang.
"Is your gun still operational?" Patton inquired, at least hoping for that much.
"No sir, our panzer can barely move. Any more actual damage, and this old girl is gonna blow."
"Damnit..." He looked up at the ridge where Belladonna's T28 still fired, completely unbothered by the guns laying down on her. Quietly, he said a silent prayer, praying for the girl to win the day. With all other serious weapons down for the count, she was the last line in the stand, the last defense against the Maus's onslaught...
*Pop!*
She sucked the bubblegum back in and started blowing another bubble as she took another shot, claiming another tank for her body-count, which by her count was exactly 222 tanks now... not only with this tank of course, but it had to be mentioned. She felt like a lean, mean killing machine, and was somewhat relaxed with the pace set by this tank's gun. She was able to just click on tanks in peace with nothing capable of really damaging her. Of course, she was taking this battle very seriously, failure meant death, not just for her, but for everyone.
Adjusting the gun, she waited another few seconds for the crew to finish loading, before pulling the trigger and erasing that tank from existence...
"Ironhide, come in!" A voice came over the radio, with a young boy taking the radio...
"This is Private Caleb, sir, do you require something?" he answered, immediately getting barked at.
"All other tanks are down for the count, our commandos can take out the few remaining lighter tanks, but you MUST take down that Maus! Disable or destroy, we're out of time!" Patton yelled desperately, waving dramatically at their location to emphasize his point...
"Sir, we're down to our last round now, I don't think-" he was about to finish, but was cut off by the gunner in question...
"Tell him he doesn't gotta worry, would ya?" Blake told the Private, still looking down the sights. "I've got this big boy right where I want him..." and as if on cue, with the pull of a trigger, the gun fired their last round, with the fate of the whole battle banking on this shot...
"Boom." Blake breathed, with everyone's eyes lighting up as the Maus went up in flames, the turret being blown clean off the chassis. The flames were quickly extinguished, but with just a little annoyance, Blake moved up to the .50 caliber Browning up top and peppered them with bullets, tearing the surviving crew to ribbons as they tried to flee after setting out the tank...
They all watched with awe as the Maus finally went quiet, and the armored front of battle reciprocated the quiet. with the White Fang's super weapon out, they couldn't hope to sustain the attack. It was as if it was just natural, following the destruction of the Maus, the other tanks seemed to lose heart, turned around, and began fleeing. None managed to escape the commando squads that intercepted them.
Now, stepping out from cover to observe the battlefield, Patton breathed a sigh of relief as the sun finally began to rise, and the storm began to settle over the battlefield stained with blood and oil, littered with bodies and steel husks. Cracking his neck, he looked back to the other fronts of battle with his binoculars, watching the enemy retreat with their tails between their legs. No smile formed on his face at the prospect of this victory, for it was indeed a bitter one... but it would guarantee their safety for some time now... well, unless the USSR decided they didn't wanna play nice, of course. He didn't let their presence distract him for the battle, but their presence was disturbing nonetheless... and Rose was on that ship, too, dressed in a Wehrmacht Uniform no less...
To say he was concerned would be an understatement... for her sake, he hoped that either the Russians didn't want future conflict, or that she was already dead. He wasn't blind to the reasons the Germans were surrendering to the West and not the East.
Sighing loudly, he puffed out a cloud of smoke as he turned to his men and the Germans finally regaining consciousness, nodding for them to all fall in. He grabbed the radio and, after checking in with every other defensive force and getting word costly victories on all fronts, brought Vertediger up, this time getting the Field Marshal on the line...
"Rommel, what's Schnee's status?" He inquired, genuinely concerned for the girl's health.
"We've given her enough painkillers so that she's not in pain, the medics have removed all the bits of shrapnel still lodged in her and performed first aid for all her wounds, but they're moving her down to the bunker's hospital for surgery, she won't survive without it." Came the grim response he was expecting. Grunting, he gestured for his troops to get back down to the town, and see to helping people out of the bunker.
"Dammit... and her hand? Her eyes?"
"Her eyes were wounded worse than we thought, but fortunately it seems this planet has medical treatments capable of healing such wounds fully... as for her hand... well, she mentioned her home has cybernetic prosthetic limbs available. Hopefully, that can help... eventually." he could hear some coughing over on Rommel's side of the radio, but decided he'd leave it at that. After all, with the USSR's newly confirmed presence, there was a lot of discussion to be had, and little time to have it...
A/N: Hey guys, long time no see, huh?
Just a heads up, I have NOT forgotten about this story, but schoolwork (and other projects) had bogged me down on this one for awhile... but I do hope you enjoy this end-product!
That being said, this chapter obviously isn't my best work, and I feel it shows, but I feel satisfied with what was produced (for now). I may revise, update or clean up this chapter in the future, but for now I feel the writing reflects the intended chaotic nature of the battle, I dunno.
If you enjoyed this and haven't followed or favorite the story, go ahead and do that if you feel so inclined to do so, and reviews with helpful, constructive criticism are always appreciated.
Thank you everyone for reading, and remember to stay Dank & Sexy!
This is Commander Boreale, signing off!