The CV-33 was moving toward the trench. Pepperoni was pretty sure it could make the jump, given a ramp, but the dirt piled up beside the trench was no longer looking like a viable ramp. She'd have to make a better one. She ran ahead and dropped into the trench next to a pair of the Italian soldiers. One of her girls was there as well, but she'd clearly been through so much that Pepperoni couldn't tell who she was.
The young soldier's hair was scorched, her face blackened with smoke and dirt. Her clothes were ruined, covered in the dirt of the battle, with tears and holes clearly burned into the uniform all over. Her entire left sleeve was hanging off in a shredded mass. Still, her hands were gripping her weapon, holding it steady. Her eyes were angry, but she was taking deep breaths to keep herself calm.
Pepperoni grimaced at the sight, but put her focus on her mission. She addressed the two men. "I need to make a ramp in ten seconds! What do you have?"
They pointed over at the end of the trench where it went into a building, the entrance to the ruined tower. Sure enough, there was a ramp inside the building. She rushed over, keeping her head down on the way. The ramp was stuck into the ground pretty well, so she thought she would have to struggle with it, costing her precious time. To her surprise, when she wrapped her fingers around either side of the ramp and pulled, the seemingly sturdy metal bent up and came free. She held it up and ran back, keeping it between her and the hospital. She could hear several shots hit the ramp, some bouncing off and some going right through. She could feel their impacts, numbing her hands.
"Help me!" She shouted at the three soldiers once she made it back, ramming the end of the ramp into the dirt up on the near side of the trench. Without question they piled in under the ramp and held it up, bracing for the CV-33. They didn't have long to wait. It felt like an elephant stepped on her back, for the second it was there, and then the CV-33 was soaring through the air at an impressive altitude. She could hear Amaretto shouting over all the gunfire.
She wanted to collapse. To fall into the mud face first and stay there until someone brought her a twenty inch pizza. But her mission wasn't over yet. She had to take the hospital. They dropped the ramp, and it fell across the trench, making a bridge. It occurred to her that a bridge would have been easier. Disregarding it, she patted her unidentifiable soldier on the back.
"I'm ready to support them, ma'am."
"Then let's go!"
They clamored out of the trench and were greeted with a hail of bullets. Pepperoni felt something hit her, like someone had just punched her in the chest. She fell forward, just barely catching herself with her hands. The hit had winded her, whatever it was. Her chest felt wet. She lifted one hand and put it into her uniform. Bringing it back out, she could see dark red dripping between her fingers.
"Shit…" She could feel the hole in her body now. No, that wasn't right. She could feel three. Her arm started shaking, suddenly giving out and letting her fall into the dirt. It felt like her energy, her life, was draining out of her body.
That couldn't be all. She wasn't done yet. One hand on the ground, pushing her back up. One foot, then the other. Finger on the trigger. Eyes on the hospital. Don't forget to breathe. Get through this night. Do your job. Survive the battle. Pull the trigger. Kill them.
Her body felt beyond exhausted, but she could still move. She just had to ignore the draining feeling, the pain, and how hungry she was becoming. Half charging, half stumbling, she caught up to her comrades at the side of the hospital. They were working out a way to get the CV-33 up into the building. The hole was indeed large enough to easily fit the vehicle, and it could make its way through the halls with a little difficulty, but the way up was another question. Pepperoni ran up beside them just as they were starting to decide there must be another way to win the fight.
"Ma'am! I thought I saw you get hit!"
Pepperoni couldn't dwell on it. She would collapse all over again. She looked up at the hole in the wall. There was practically a ramp up to it made out of rubble. She could already see it was too steep for the CV-33 to manage all on its own. "Get behind and start pushing."
"Uh… oh! Yes ma'am!" The young soldier ran around behind the CV-33 and started pushing.
Pepperoni moved to join her, calling up to Amaretto. "Get down here and help us!"
"Si!" She rolled off, landing on her good leg. Pepperoni could see her driver limping over to join them.
Pepperoni waited until they were ready. Then she shouted the order. "Go!"
The Carro Veloce's engine roared as it began crawling upward. The three girls planted their feet anywhere that felt sturdy and shoved the vehicle with all their might. They were used to tipping their vehicles back onto their treads, and even flipping them over, but pushing one up a steep grade was a whole different task. Still, with all their efforts, the CV-33 began to move up towards the wall. Every few inches, they would have to step up further to regain their footing. Their feet would slip down through the rubble, threatening to cost them the progress they'd made. It was an uphill battle, in almost every sense.
The last remaining piece of the uphill battle arrived when they were halfway up. Three enemy combatants appeared in the hole, firing down upon the CV-33. Inside, Ravioli manned the gun and fired back. One of the men took a shot to the head and fell back out of sight. The other two took cover to avoid suffering the same fate.
Pepperoni shouted again. "Keep pushing!"
The enemy kept firing, bullets bouncing off the Carro Veloce's reinforced armor. Amaretto's shoulder was bleeding from where a shot had clipped her. Ravioli was struggling to aim and fire back. Pepperoni could feel the blood from her chest wounds running down her legs and into her boots.
The other girl turned around, pushing with her back. She smiled through her grimace. "We're doing pretty well for our first mission, ma'am!"
"Tell that to the ones we lost! After you dig Gnocchi and Risotto out of that pile of rubble!"
"…Ma'am, I'm Risotto."
"Oh. Really?"
"Pretty sure."
The CV-33 hatch opened up and Ravioli climbed out. "Fuck this, seriously." She pulled the pin on her incendiary grenade and tossed it up into the breach. She ducked back into the hatch just as the grenade detonated in a bright flash, setting the breach on fire and burning the enemies to death in an instant.
Pepperoni felt the blast of heat from the grenade, and she knew what it meant. For now, it meant it was time to push. "Go! Earn your next meal!"
The CV-33 crested at the top of the ramp of rubble, its nose sticking up into the air, its treads losing purchase and its belly becoming exposed for a brief moment. Then, it dropped onto the floor and lurched forward. Pepperoni and Amaretto jumped up on top of the vehicle, aiming their weapons around the hallway they had found themselves in. It was clear for now, but that likely wasn't going to last.
Pepperoni waved back at Risotto. "Stay out here and cover our backs! Amaretto, you're up front with me! Salami, stay close! Ravioli, blast anything that isn't us!"
"Si!" They chorused together. That's what she wanted to hear.
Amaretto ran up to the first door, ignoring her leg wound entirely, and kicked it in. Whoever was inside the room opened fire the moment she was in sight. The hot lead punched right through her and into the wall on the other side of the hall. She half leaped, half collapsed out of the way to where Pepperoni caught her.
"That could have been better. How many?"
"Fuck. Lieutenant, it looked like three piles of dirty laundry."
She wasn't sure where Amaretto was hit, so she couldn't do anything right now that wouldn't put them at risk. She hoisted her subordinate onto the CV-33 and climbed over behind the vehicle. She hauled Amaretto down just as two men rushed out of the room, and Ravioli cut them down effortlessly.
Pepperoni set Amaretto down next to Risotto. "Hold on. We'll get you out of here and you'll be fine."
"I feel terrible." Amaretto coughed a bit, but surprisingly there wasn't any blood coming from her mouth. "But I think I'll be fine. Eventually."
Ravioli called back to her commander. "They're doing something. Enemies mobilizing! Lieutenant!"
Pepperoni winked at Amaretto. "Time for some thrilling heroics." She turned and crawled over the top of the CV-33, aiming down the hallway ahead of them. She could see movement, but not any of the things moving. She knocked on the hatch, waiting until Ravioli opened up a little. "I'm going in ahead. Please don't shoot me."
"Si."
Pepperoni climbed down the front of the tankette, keeping her eyes on the dark hall in front of them. She could hear them whispering through the constant noise of gunfire. Moving up, one step at a time, Pepperoni passed the first room, then another on the other side. The first had just been emptied, and the other would have anyone in it since it was an internal room with no windows. It would have no use for them. Her attention was on the next pair of doors. The door to the inside room in this pair was shut. She could afford to ignore it until she heard the sound of the door opening, so her attention turned exclusively to the open that would lead to a room with windows overlooking the trench outside.
She took a deep breath and paused. She could hear the breathing in the room just ahead of her, two men taking a break from peppering her allies with lead so that they could focus on her. She knew where they were in the room. One in the far corner from the door, gun no doubt trained on where they expected she would appear. The other was crouched down in front of the windows, closer to the middle of the outside wall. The door was a bad place to be, so it occurred to her to go through the wall. Or to get them to aim at the wall.
Pepperoni rushed back to the CV-33 and grabbed a screwdriver that was fastened onto the outside. She stabbed it into the wall, punching through the brittle material, and then dived to the side. Enemy fire shredded the wall, showering her with dust and rubble. Behind her, Ravioli popped out of the CV-33 and started blasting away with her rifle, drawing further fire. Taking advantage of the extra distraction, Pepperoni rounded the corner. She held the trigger down before she could even see anyone. She felt a rush through her head as the air filled with smoke and dirt so much she couldn't see her enemy even when she was fully inside the room. Her finger lifted off the trigger. The dust settled and the smoke cleared.
They were dead. There was no way for Pepperoni to tell if she'd got them or if Ravioli had gunned them down through the wall. Speaking of the wall, it was all but gone now. Pepperoni's mind paused for all of a second, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do now. The answer was find the rest of them and kill them. She turned back to the hall, motioning to Ravioli to duck back inside the tankette.
Three or four more of the enemy soldiers, though they could hardly be called soldiers, tried shooting her in the hall, but most of them stayed in the rooms until she got to them. One by one, Pepperoni and Ravioli killed most of them. Pepperoni took a few more shots herself, mostly just grazing her but one went through her leg and slowed her down for a moment, but by the time she reached the end of the hallway she couldn't even feel it anymore. There was no time to worry about that, as there was still one room with enemies inside.
She turned into the room, seeing her target standing in the corner. Just where they all went. But this one was a little bit different. He wasn't holding a gun, which caused her to pause a second. In that second, she realized what he was holding. It was a detonator. Before Pepperoni could wonder what it was supposed to detonate, the man shouted something she couldn't make out, and the next instant all her senses blacked out.
Ravioli saw her lieutenant turn into the room, and then everything turned to a cloud of dust as the room's walls were blown out. Whatever was in there, it had exploded as soon as Pepperoni went in. Pushing the hatch open, Ravioli jumped out of the CV-33 and ran to the lieutenant's side, only to see she was still standing.
Pepperoni let out a cough. Her senses were still returning bit by bit, but she was pretty sure she'd be fine. She managed to croak out a complaint. "That was unnecessary." She reached for her radio, only to find a piece of shrapnel bisecting it. "Ah shit. Ravioli, give me your radio."
"Si!" She obediently handed it over. "Did we finish in here?"
"We'll see." With one hand Pepperoni used the radio while pulling the shrapnel out of her own radio with the other hand. "Captain, you still out there? I think we cleared them out."
There was a few seconds of silence, and then the captain's voice came back. "Understood. We'll clean up. Your colonel called. She wants you back right away."
"Aww. No time for mingling. Tell your men you can treat us next time."
The one CV-33 was a little beat up, but nothing they couldn't fix themselves, let alone the experts in the army. Preparing to leave, Pepperoni took a moment to count her soldiers. She had to count several times because, first of all, they kept moving around and many of them were covered in so much dirt it was hard to tell where one Anzio girl ended and another began. But more than that, she had to recount because she was sure there was no way she hadn't lost any.
She tapped one that she thought might be Gnocchi on the shoulder. "Hey, didn't a building fall on you?"
Gnocchi took a moment to think about it, then answered simply. "Yeah, I guess so."
Pepperoni grimaced. That did it. It was obvious that they were invincible. She raised her voice. "Okay, Anzio! Let's head home and celebrate with a feast!" They responded with a resounding cheer.