Gasping for breath, Nonna steadied herself against the thick masonry wall in front of her. While the distance from the crater was located, and where she rested now was even less than she originally thought it would be, it felt like it was far more than she could imagine.
Fortunately for her, it seemed that the majority of the men on both sides were pre-occupied in taking out either those that were either moving straight forward or back. Several rounds whizzed by from either side and a few kicked the debris up by her feet, around half way to cover the buzz saw like sound of a MG42 opened up, cutting down several men ahead of her. Either the German gunner stopped to reload the weapon or switch out the guns red hot barrel for its deadly stream didn't start back up until she was safely under cover with several rounds embedding themselves into the thick masonry walls as she slipped through the closest opening inside.
Feeling her breathing return to a normal pace, she turned to her companion who was panting against the wall next to her.
"Are you doing alright there?"
Fighting between breaths he gave her a simple nod before taking another deep gulp of air to slow down his breathing.
For the first time that day a slight smile came to her face as she faced him. "Come on, we need to keep moving."
"Everyone brace yourselves!"
The grenade hit its mark and with a thunderous blast and a blinding flash of light, the entire cabin shook as its steel shell only amplified the explosive power of the blast.
Maho grasped onto the sides of her head in an iron grasp. All she could possibly make out to any degree was the constant ringing, and the shear unbearable pain that raged in her head as if it was on the verge of shattering like an egg at any moment.
Several moments passed before she forced her burning eyes open and scanned the inside of her tank. Massive black spots plagued her vision, and the intense ringing continued to drown out everything around her; but she was still able to have a slight comprehension of her surroundings. Ahead of her both Markus and Muller seemed to be also experiencing the same effects as her from the blast, in the driver's compartment however Hayden's massive form remained still within a thick cloud of smoke that lingered with his post. Of all the crew Karl apparently was the least affected, for with a sudden jerk at her collar Maho found herself facing the young loader.
"Lieutenant! LIEUTENANT!"
Rushing back to reality with a violent shake from Karl at a rate that almost hurt, she was able to fully make sense of her situation. The Cabin was filled with smoke, and the sound of indiscernible Russian voices could be heard just outside as they advanced past. Hot tears from the pain threatened to break from her eyes, but with what will she could muster she held them back. That was something she was not about to let happen in front of her crew.
"Is-is everyone alright?"
Three sets of grunts and replies sounded out in response. The absence of one wasn't overlooked, and Hayden's still motionless form started to worry the rest of the crew.
"Muller, go check on Hayden."
Muller gave a quick "yes sir", then left his post by the vehicle's dead radio towards the driver's station. Everyone held their breath, the occasional shout of Russian from outside as the enemy passed by prompted everyone else inside to hold where they were as he slipped by the driver.
"Hayden. Pshht! Hey Buddy. Come on man were getting out of here… Hayden w-"
The operator called out to his comrade and tapped his shoulder before yanking him around whenever he was sent to wake him up in the past. Without any form of control by its owner, the driver's head plopped from its previous position right into Muller's face and slumped over onto him. He stuttered to speak without success, and slowly backed up from under his comrade's motionless body into the nearby wall of the compartment as pale as a ghost and both mouth and eyes gaping open.
Maho didn't have much experience with reading human emotion, but she could easily make out the look of pure horror on Muller's face. "Muller?"
He turned towards her slowly without any change in his facial expression before speaking. "It's H-Hayden sir… I-I think he's dead." She could see a large stain of blood on Muller's hands and uniform along with the large pool that formed under Hayden's seat.
She couldn't help but grow frustrated with herself at that stage. They have barely seen action for more than half an hour for the first time, and already she lost one of her crewmembers. Over the time that they have been together as a team since beginning of basic crew training, and despite the normal aloofness that she showed to them at times, they really bonded with each other over the last few months sharing the same tiny compartment for hours on end. Most of all, they all put their faith and trust into her on the field that she will lead them through all this and back home to their families again in one piece, and she failed them.
"Shit Man! He's dead man! Game over man, game over!" Markus began blabbering in the seat right in front of her.
"Alright everyone get themselves together! Muller, destroy that radio and anything else they can use against us with. Karl take this, and take Markus with you down through that hatch." She called while handing the MP-40 to Karl before slipping past Markus into the driver's compartment in front.
Hayden body laid still against the compartment wall as several streaks of blood coagulated on the smooth surface he leaned against. Like what Muller had done before, she reached around his shoulder, she flinched. Much of the skin above his shoulders was cracking and burned with several large pieces of twisted metal logged along his face deep into his flesh. She slowly reached into his collar, and drew out his tag before breaking off the bottom half. Muller was bashing the radio set with a spent shell after setting a match to the code book; and Markus was already down the hatch with Karl halfway through the small opening.
"Muller. Your turn to go down, I'll be right behind you."
The operator gave a small nod in reply before starting over towards the hatch. She began to follow suit back towards the main compartment when the sound the clanging metal caused her to freeze as she was. The Russians where breaking in to finish off the job.
"Move!"
Muller quickly picked up his pace past the loaders seats and started through the bottom hatch with Maho not far behind. Suddenly the gunner's hatch gave way, and the barrel of a PPSH protruded through the opening right at her general direction.
The dark interior of the tank lit up and a burning pain shot up her right arm. She landed onto the floor clinging onto the damaged limb as the Soviet gunner continued firing until the magazine went dry.
She let go of her upper arm, and sure enough the hand she used to grab her arm was covered with blood. Her upper sleeve contained a small but jagged rip into it, and a stream of dark crimson starting down her arm. It appeared to have been only a ricochet off of one of the many instruments and pieces of equipment that was in front of her.
"Lieutenant!?" She looked over towards the hatch where Muller's voice came out from in concern to see his making his way back up to her aid.
"Don't come up here! I'm making my way over." She yelled out before crawling towards the hatch.
Maho reached the edge of the small opening to see both Muller and Markus waiting for her below. She then had something else catch her eye and looked over to see a small grey duffle bag resting right under the commander's seat. She silently cursed herself for almost leaving it, then reached over to grab it before turning back towards the task at hand.
Her legs were both through the opening, and she was sitting on the edge ready to start nudging through the tight space when a loud pang came from behind. She quickly turned in a flash to spot a Russian grenade lying right out of arm's reach. 'Shit'. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the small explosive device, and quickly slipped through in one fluid motion onto the broken road surface just as the compartment above her was engulfed in a hail of hot shrapnel.
Just as she used her good arm to secure the hatch above, both Muller and Markus were already at her side while Karl was keeping watch over either opening in the front and back with her MP-40 in hand. The younger radio operator looked over her and held genuine concern as he saw her right arm.
"Lieutenant, you're bleeding."
Muller reached for his first aid kit but she immediately waved it off. "No. That's alright. It isn't serious, and we don't have time for that anyway."
He placed the small package back into his pocket. And Maho made the mental note to have her arm checked out if she gets the chance.
"What's the plan ma'am?" Karl inquired as he continued to keep watch.
"Judging by what I can make out, they appear to have push forward past us. That might actually be a good thing for us as there's most likely only a few stragglers in the immediate area. All we need to do is take out whoever's above us, then we might actually have a chance at slipping through to our lines." She started. "I'll go first at the front with the smoke as cover to get their attention. Karl you then go out the back and clear them out from behind with the others, then move for the buildings to the left before anyone else have the chance to react."
The whole tank then shook above them as several heavy shells landed among the buildings nearby. The sound of debris smashing onto the tank above them seemed to be the breaking point for the crew's gunner.
"Ah! I don't want to die!" Markus yelled out before starting towards the front opening on the tanks undercarriage.
"Markus get back here this instant, that's an order." Maho made in a heated whisper at him before both she and Karl crawled forward after him.
Markus didn't answer her as she continued towards the light ahead of him. "I have to get out of here."
"Markus you idiot get back here, they'll kill you out there." Karl implored to get some sense back into his comrade.
Markus didn't even look back, the stresses of both a gunner who has just drew his first kill, and as a man on the edge of death seemed to have taken its toll in such a short amount of time. And as a result he swung out from under the tank and into the light, before a pair of gun shots rang out and into the dazed gunner before he fell back to the ground into a pool of blood.
Two Russian soldiers then jumped down in front of them to inspect the body with rifles in hand. Karl instantly mowed them down before they had the chance to move any closer to his friend.
"Everyone out!" Maho yelled out before leaping to her feet from under the crippled panzer.
Karl and Muller followed suit after their commander out of the open. The same submachine gunner that clipped Maho climbed out the commander's cupola weapon drawn to inspect the commotion only to be shot back down with a burst of Karl's MP.
Suddenly three gunshots rang out and Muller stumbled over mid stride. A searing pain unlike any other he has ever experienced shot up his leg. He was expecting to hit the rough ground and be left behind to the fate of a bayonet thrust from behind; but instead of feeling the hard cold ground, he felt the warmth of a pair of arms wrapping around him. "Hang on there, I got you." He looked over to see Maho starting to carry him along as she placed his arm over her shoulder.
Karl fired several more rounds into the Russian officer that shot Muller while he was still in the process of reloading his TT-33 behind the Panzer III. He found that Markus was already dead as he quickly kneeled down beside him and collected his bottom tag.
"Keep moving!" Maho yelled as she readjusted Muller's arm over her shoulder. "We probably woke up the whole neighborhood by now."
Sticking her head through the doorway, Nonna scanned the outside surroundings for any signs of movement. She made several sweeps of the empty hallway before feeling confident to move forward and motion her companion to follow suit. With the sounds of battle raging around them from the outside, they opted to navigate through the shattered buildings keeping out of the open, but their progress was slow.
Nonna slowly made her way through a large open room over the remnants of the floor above. On the far side of the room was a closed wooden door without any obstructions on the floor around it.
With great caution she approached the small door, and began to reach for the worn handle holding her rifle as best she could for the event that she would need it on a moment's notice.
Crash! "OW!"
She turned to see her young comrade pulling his foot from a newly turned mound of rubble.
"Hallo…!? Hey Herman, ich glaube ich gehört etwas."
"Shh! Ruhig Albert!"
They both froze as they were for a good few moments until the sound of footsteps stated to come from beyond the doorway. Nonna motion the boy behind her and slowly backed away with her rifle at the ready.
"Fertig machen…"
The wooden door swung open and two gray clad German soldiers came into view.
Nonna fired her rifle and caught the first one in the leg causing him to fall over in pain across the doorway, the second one returned fire with his Kar 98 just as the two of them fell into cover behind the large pile of rubble before he turned to his wounded comrade's aid.
Several more foreign voices and heavy sets of footsteps sounded from in front of them following the two gunshots. She fired again at the doorway just as the other German rounded the corner sending him ducking back for cover. 'Now or never.'
Grabbing her companion firmly by the sleeve, she got up and quickly covered the short distance back to the opening that they came through before. Another rifle shot came from behind, but simply passed overhead into the tiled wall in front of them.
Passing through the door, down the hallway and around the nearest corner, Nonna was practically dragging him along with the sound of shouts in German and heavy footsteps remained behind them. They were probably clearing out the whole building with a fine tooth comb; she needed to find a way out of the building. Now.
To her right a giant missing section of the wall opened up into an adjacent street with several wooden houses lined up on the other side.
She abruptly tugged him into a right angle through the large breach in the wall back into the open. Like much of the rest of the city, the wide street was littered by large piles of debris, and varying sized bomb craters that have heaved out large quantities of materiel all around them. The small wooden homes along the other side all showed the scars of battle to a degree: from a few broken windows, to those that were almost completely razed to the ground or engulfed in the aftermath of a passing bomber or artillery strike. Nonna did not pay any heed to those tiny details, as she mealy continued to pace her way across the wide city avenue before her. It has been but a few hours since her first experience in combat, but she has seen quite enough already to know that those that stayed in the open, didn't last long.
She was just passing several turned over vehicles near the center of the road when suddenly from around the nearest corner, the sound of a revving engine and the cluttering of metal tracks sounded and started to become louder. Several load shouts in Russian came from down the street in the same direction as well before the distinctive buzz of a German MG-42 cut them short mid breath.
They both picked up their pace across the open street towards the nearest doorway; before it was turned into a pile of rubble right in front of them and engulfing them in a thick cloud of dust. Nonna quickly covered her eyes from the flying debris. She slowly opened them, and was met by one of the most terrifying sights she could imagine. Behind a quickly dissipating veil of smoke, the half obscured silhouette of a Panzer IV F loomed in the middle of the street with its long barrel facing towards them like a great beast staring down its prey right before the kill.
"Move!"
The secondary machine gun in the turret open up as the concealing cloud of dust cleared away tearing up the concrete pavement just to the right of them. Somehow still in one piece they barged right through the next door in line and slammed it shut behind them.
The house next door from the first in line didn't seem that bad; a nice intact kitchenette, a couple beds and dressers, no other door out and only a single high up window not leading back onto the street…
Behind from where they were the sound of the steady purr of an engine and metal tracks picking up again. Without giving him any warning, she quickly hoisted her companion right onto her shoulders facing the small windowsill on the far side.
"Wha-wha-wha"
"You're probably going to want to put some distance between you and this building when you hit the ground."
"W-wait, what!? I'm not-"
"You'll hopefully run into some friendly units not far away. Good luck."
"But I'm not goin-" Bash!
The fall sounded a little higher than she originally thought, but it didn't seem to hurt him for she hear him getting up and even apparently starting to shift some things around behind the house to help her out.
"Get going."
"I'm not leaving you in there."
"No! Get going before you get killed as well. It's too late for me already."
"But…"
She looked back towards the front window to see the German medium tank rolling forward towards the house she was in.
"I'm sorry. But you need to go, now. Before we both die"
He didn't say anything else before turning away down an unseen path. She just hoped at that moment that he would be able to find his way to safety. She was never really good at meeting new people; living in such a small village where everyone knew each other for years didn't really give her much help in helping her with that small problem of her's, hell she just realized that she didn't even know his name after saving him at least a half dozen times that day.
She looked back and through the blinds of the front window the panzer lurched on its suspension to a halt, and the massive turret began to turn towards her direction. Her thought turned towards her only family left, and the thought of never seeing her again.
'Katyusha: I'm sorry… It doesn't look like I'll be able to keep my promise after all.'
With a deafening roar, the panzer's 75 mm gun fired through the flimsy structure above, causing much of the roof to collapse on top of her. Nonna didn't any time to react before a large falling support beam struck her in the back of the head and plunged the world around her into darkness.
Authors Notes:
Well this took a little longer than I expected it to at first. This was actually the chapter that I was going to be a piece of cake, since this was the chapter that I have been spending months just re-tweaking in my mind over and over in my mind; I initially wrote it down exactly as I recalled it in my mind… then I completely scraped it, and re wrote it twice.
The hardest part I had was actually the last part with Nonna since I wanted something not too long after the Maho's escape scene, but still something enjoyable. Nonna's unnamed companion was another major obstacle that caused numerous hours trying to figure out how to figure out; mainly for the fact that he was initially a completely new addition that I added on the fly when I found that there was just something that felt missing in the previous first draft. While I didn't want him to stick around too long which would only cause me further problems to overcome, and I definitely couldn't just kill him off on a whim, that part took me at least four completely different drafts to get final product that I felt confident with. I also really wanted to separate the pair because I have something somewhat similar planned out for Maho and her remaining crewmembers the beginning of next chapter, (I was originally planning on adding it to this chapter, but decided against it as I felt this one long enough already).
I think that's enough blabbering from me today on why this took as long as it did and what I had to do to make it, so I think it's a good time for me to just shut on this part.
Reader's recommendation of the day:
Well Since my last update on this story, I have been doing way too many things to properly recommend one thing today. Among other's I finally found out that Dynasty Reader has the completed first season manga for GuP in English after waiting for the last several months for my usual hits to bump past chapter 12, didn't even get the chance yet to read it, but I'm looking forward to it.
Well anyways, back to the point, since so much has accrued within the GuP category in Fanfiction over the past few months, I decided to focus on the one writer that I have the read the most from in that time and plan to for as long as new works are available.
Overwatch Trooper 12 has been a very active fanfiction writer with many noteworthy stories over the last several months that I have really enjoyed reading. Mainly writing fics based in or around Kuromorimine girls high school, and many of the students and other characters from the school (primarily Maho); in varying situations whether it be practically at war with an entirely male school along with Pravda, in the alternate event of the school winning the finals and the ensuing consequences towards the entire Japanese Sensha-do League, the young Nishizumi heiress being forced to face her promises, obligations, and personal choices the night before the finals through a dream, and my personal favorite involving a long forgotten school ship and the entire campus becoming contaminated with a disease so bad, it makes Ebola look like the common cold (I always was a fan for serious stories and horror genre fics).
I first came along his works a good year back with his first version of Trouble on the Homefront, back then I really liked it, but then again that was the point in time the the number of GuP stories really began to really skyrocket so as one among many others, I didn't think much about it, I think It was probably with the introduction of Grave Encounters that he really began to stick out towards me as a writer that I really enjoyed to read from. And I still do today.
Well I guess that's it for this time, I hope to be able to make the chapter that many of you have been waiting for: first contact, along with maybe a few other updates with the upcoming break, but then again, I have made similar promises that I was not able to keep, so yeah… I hope I can make it happen at least.
Until next time… have a lovely day, and hope to see you again soon.
