Things were not exactly going the way he thought they would all things considered. The world was imploding, everything stopped making sense and when it came down to it, he was about to die… probably. Likely. Maybe?
He had initially joined because of the way NOD was bombing the cities back home, there were lots of good folks in there. Lots of great people that were his friends, lots of people that he considered to be great folks. All of them being hurt, being killed.
He had joined because he didn't want those folks to be hurt anymore, so that there wouldn't be a case where some evil guys who thought they were right and it was ok to bomb everyone that disagreed with them. That wasn't how you have a conversation, that was how you started a war and he had thought that NOD was full of bad people.
So he joined, he joined so that he could fight, so that he could do what was necessary, to save the world. Or at least his little corner of the world that had his family, his friends, and those he cared about in it. They would be able to live in a world without fear if he had his way, he had killed NOD, he had shot at people, he had done all that was asked of him. All of it done because of the promise that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that if he killed and shot his way through the world then it would turn into a better place.
But now here he was sitting in a foxhole while NOD's soldiers were in the one about 50 meters to his right. The GDI and NOD were now allies apparently, allies that were going to fight alongside each other against this new enemy. An enemy that was also called NOD, only this one was different for some reason. Their leader was crazy… and that was it? They had declared war and there had been nothing, everyone was just sitting around their foxholes waiting for whatever was coming next.
And so it was that he was here just sitting in his foxhole and waiting. Something about a possible attack being imminent, which naturally meant everyone had to be on permanent alert no matter if it mattered or not. Whether or not an attack was coming, whether or not they were actually under threat. All of them just sitting here for what seemed like forever, just watching the horizon and seeing the same things in the distance, the little specks that were possibly incoming enemy vehicles, or it was just their own imaginations.
He didn't know anymore he had seen things that shouldn't exist, tanks that looked like little round things, soldiers that faded in and out of the mist, aircraft several hundred meters long. Some of the soldiers had necks that were 15 meters long at the smaller end of the scale, while some tanks were several dozen meters tall.
It was the nature of the job that meant he would be hallucinating really, the way that sitting here in one spot just encouraged delusions being accepted by those in command. Unless a sighting report was substantiated with what felt like the entire frontline, it was ignored. Something that was rather intelligent really now that he thought about it. Things were moving along and maybe there wouldn't be any war so he could get back to making sure NOD didn't try to kill his family and friends. The whole reason that he had signed up in the first place after all, was to stop NOD from doing exactly that .
But now it looked like he had been had. Things were not as easy as he had assumed in the first place, everything was in fact, going very very wrong.
It had started when he had called in what sounded like aircraft in the skies. Many dozens of them from the sounds of it, their loud droning noise filling the air above his head. So loud in fact that he had been able to hold up the radio and that was all the evidence that he needed. But when the pressure wave had hit and knocked the radio out of his hands, well that was when things went very wrong.
The food, the clothing, the wrappers, all of it being blown around along with copious amounts of sand, dirt, and dust, all of it into his eyes it felt like, his mouth a depository for all of it. As if the desert had a long standing grudge against him that it only just was able to fulfil.
Blinded, he wasn't able to do much but sit in his foxhole and try to rub the dirt out of his eyes, the tear ducts dumping out as much liquid as it could to help the process along. At the same time he had lost his hearing temporarily, the deafening roar of the pressure wave had temporarily knocked his hearing off wack and he was now trying so very hard to be able to hear something, anything.
He wasn't asking for much.
Groaning a little he had stood up and his eyes beheld what was very likely to be hell on earth. Quite literal hell on earth from the looks of it. The entire horizon was on fire, the little fiery bursts of explosives mixing with the fire, the heat of what felt like several dozen briquettes of coal bathing his face. It looked like the NOD flametanks that had been stationed over there had all been destroyed. Their fuel depots all ablaze. Looking to the right he could see the tracers that marked gunfire, the ones inbound to friendly positions being many times more in volume than those that the friendlies managed to muster up on their own.
He had looked at it and thought that the foxhole was looking mighty inviting right about now.
Only the radio was squawking and he had a job to do. What it was he didn't know, but no doubt whoever it was on the other side would be able to tell him. That was what they were for after all.
"This is Romeo 92, we are under massive attack from all angles! It looks like… it doesn't look like anything we've ever seen!"
"Oscar 24, under attack, cannot hold, unknown hostiles."
"Bravo 47, under attack, multiple unidentified hostiles, ammunition depleted, requesting reinforcements."
Or maybe not.
Maybe he should just head to the nearest fight and try to help?
Decision made he had picked up his rifle, his equipment and started walking over in the direction of the NOD foxhole, if he was going into a hostile situation, he wanted to do so with someone looking at his back. They might be enemies, but they had bigger things to worry about right now.
Like the fact that everything was burning and chances were high that they would probably be joining them soon.
Crouch walking over to the other foxhole, he peered down and… oh. He was gone. The NOD trooper had gone off already and left him behind.
He felt a little sad at that, why didn't he just wait? They could have both gone together, it wouldn't have been any trouble at all. Just heading off with friends and stuff, fun times for everyone.
Safer times for everyone.
Still, he had a job to do, and he was going to do it.
Heading out over the desert, he walked to the nearest sign of fighting, he should be able to find people that needed his help right?
He ducked underneath the sandbags that had been hastily filled and dumped in a rough semi-circle. Not even full height ones, these barely allowed you to lie down and avoid getting shot. Something that didn't even work half the time since they were throwing grenades and mortars somehow. He wasn't sure how they were doing it, but the explosions were coming in and they were all deadly accurate.
He would need to move in a few seconds or his position was going to get struck as well, the little whistle that came in after the explosion telling him why things were going wrong.
Crouching, he aimed down the sight of his rifle and pulled the trigger. The elusive little shadows that was the enemy. He wasn't sure if he hit them and he didn't want to check, running to the right he got out of the area as soon as he could. When you shot at them, they shot back and they were very good at shooting he had found. The ones that had been with him were dead, he had to climb over their bodies to leg it out of the area.
What felt like dozens of them firing down range, weapons fire that suppressed a position so badly that it might as well not exist after what they did to it. Then came the shells and the grenades, every single position was filled with the dead, the explosions, the bullets.
Trying to stay in one spot was insanity and he had to get out now, while he still had a chance.
There.
The evacuation was underway, the base was being overrun and there was nothing they could do. As he climbed into one of the Humvees, he craned his head to check behind, and they were coming. The .50cal on top was firing at them, sending them down to find cover. It should buy them a few seconds, maybe. If they were lucky.
Only.
Silence, which meant only one thing.
"Go go go! They're setting up the mortars!" He shouted, slamming his fist into the driver's chair.
"Oh fuck." Was the only thing the driver said before jamming his foot on the pedal and taking them out of the depot. There were 7 of them inside, a full complement, all hanging on for dear life as the Humvee hightailed it out of the area. If they wanted to survive they had better start praying because if the enemy had missiles of some kind, well they weren't going to make it out of this one alive.
As the Humvee rode off, the lack of explosions and sudden death told him that they had gotten out of this one alive.
Lucky he supposed. Looking back at the distinct lack of other vehicles following them, he assumed that they were all dead. The Humvee joined the departing convoy, some of them covered in what looked like bullet holes, some of them painted with the blood of the dead. It certainly didn't look like the proud column that had rode in not a week before.
He said back and tried to get some sleep, he was going to need it if they were attacked again.
As one foot pressed into the ground in front of the other, he considered what his life decisions had been at this point to make him a refugee in the place they were meant to be protecting. The vast column of retreating soldiers, tanks, cars, and trucks.
The way the tanks were pushing through, the way they all looked defeated.
The entire GDI army retreating from the area, maybe there would be attackers, maybe they would have some kind of defences around, maybe they would have anything at all, anything to make it so this was not some kind of hell that they were stuck in.
The retreat was a disorganised mess, the infantry, all moving like ants in a general direction that amounted to "away from here".
What they would do from this point forward, he didn't know. He just knew that it was going to be including him in some way shape or form… hopefully.
If the airstrikes that the others were talking about didn't affect them in some way. The overall fear that pervaded them, the need for something to make sense so they could feel like people was invading their every waking thought.
They were afraid, they were tense, they were useless. There was nothing that they could do.
He sighed and kept putting one more foot in front of the other. Always heading forward, always following the dust trails of the vehicles in front of him.
The Humvee had been knocked out the day before, an airstrike flipping it over and killing half of those still inside of it. It had been horrific, it had been expected. It was not as if they had any recourse but to pick up their weapons, and equipment and then move on.
No time to bury the dead, no time to do anything but walk.
Just walking, one foot in front of the other.
After Activation 1167 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1128 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 140-32M - 40k Universe
AD 1999 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
They inside of the Stealth Tank using technology given by the generosity of the Prophet Kane and his desire that there be better weapons among those of his chosen had resulted in some of the most powerful units in the war. Each tank was able to go invisible even when moving through rough terrain, the four independent tracks allowing it to go into places that even conventional tanks were unable to.
Each of their missiles was able to penetrate and destroy any other GDI equivalent and the crew of this tank were in themselves veterans of the war, surviving multiple battles up to this point. Each of them able to do their jobs with extreme reliability. Something that had to be expected for just how long that they had been doing this for. A bad crew was a dead crew, especially for a vehicle that had armour that was so thin that it might as well not exist.
They didn't use their names, it was easier to just use their roles when trying to identify who was doing what, it certainly made things such as identifying who was dead much easier, a trick they had learnt from the training officers.
While they weren't as good as the Black Hand when it came to invading and destroying the enemy, that didn't bother them so much. They were after all in a Stealth Tank, what was the point of being inside of one when you were going to expose yourself and make a massive target of yourself in the first place? That was just crazy.
The Stealth Tank was the best little piece of technology that NOD had and they were going to show the world why that was the case.
As for the crew, there was the Driver, the one tasked with making sure the tank reached its destination intact and still invisible, there was no point trying to reach an area if they were just going to be shot when they got there. It was his job to make sure that zigged and they zagged in the right ways so that when the enemy was firing on them, there wasn't going to be pieces of shrapnel and spall inside because they were hit.
There was the Gunner, his task was to fire the Dragon TOW missiles, and make sure that they tracked to the target correctly before disengaging the manual controls and allowing for its limited autonomous capabilities to take over after that. His was an important job, what with him being the only means they had of actually doing anything offensively, the tank didn't have a machine gun or even a secondary gun for that matter.
There was the Loader whose job it was to make sure that the Dragon missiles were loaded into the barrels after firing, and then wired correctly so that the onboard computer knew there was a missile inside. The Gunner would be alerting him to the fact that it was in correctly or if it was in wrong. His was the most physical of work, having to load the missile of the left side before changing over to the right side and loading that one after a successful fire. Not that firing 2 of them at the same time was the usual means of doing it. One at a time was necessary to make sure that they hit their targets and to not waste missiles. They only had 20 of them inside of the tank and 2 in the barrels when starting out after all.
There was the Commander, he whose job it was to direct the driver, to read the map, to listen to the radio, to make sure that each of their missiles actually hit the target from his periscope, who had to activate the camouflage again after the missiles had been fired, the one that chose the targets and more. All the odds and ends were his job.
Each missile had a 1000 meter spool of wire training behind it. The same wire that allowed for the Gunner in the first place to track where the missile was going, after that was played out the camera view he had would cut and it would be up to the Commander to track the missile the rest of the way.
As to what they were doing at this moment in time?
Well, word had gone out that there had been an attack from the false NOD on the other side of the universe. They had dared to launch a surprise attack and were even dishonourable enough to strike at the depot in which this tank was located. The crew were rightly angered by this and were preparing their tank, all of them contributing to readying the machine from fueling it up, to loading its arsenal, to checking the stealth generator to make sure that it was functioning properly, to checking the vehicle for readiness in general.
One that was over they all loaded in and were now setting out. The enemy would pay dearly for underestimating NOD.
As for the base, it was lost, they understood that, the mortars that were slamming into their structures being far more than they could defend against, not when there weren't even any tanks for them to shoot at.
They were tank hunters, after all, not soldier killers.
It was better for them to do their work where the tank's arsenal could be used properly. If that meant leaving behind a base to the mercy of the enemy so be it, it wasn't as if they could do anything but maybe ram a few and break the cloak then die.
And so they had set off to where reports had been coming in of tanks attacking them from the ceasefire zone. The exact numbers were unknown exactly and the exact wheres were unknown, but the crew reasoned that if they just headed in the general direction of the Universal Portal, they should at least find a target of some kind.
"Waiit. Waiiit. Waiiiiit." The Commander was breathing hard. They had found the enemy, only there were far too many of them to actually do anything right now. What was 1 Stealth Tank could not fight against a convoy of 50 tanks, that was just crazy talk. For a brief moment after they fired the Dragon missiles they would be going visible, however, that meant that they would be vulnerable to counterfire. Even if they couldn't see them, the second time where they would be preparing for it, would mark them as nothing but targets.
No. They had to pick their moment. Finding the leader perhaps and ending them. There had to be a commander of some kind in that mess and if they managed to destroy them, that would be as good as destroying half of them.
And so they waited, all of the crew breathing hard, trailing after a convoy such as this was dangerous in its own right. While they were invisible, the dust trail behind them was not. They could only move in burst, slow then fast, trying to keep themselves hidden from the enemy lest one look behind.
The danger was high and each of them was feeling the heightened tension, clenching their muscles in anticipation.
A radio call had gone out stating the presence of their being a column in the first place, but the only response was that columns like this were all over the region, the enemy was launching a full scale assault.
Thankfully it was dark and they were riding on the opposite side of the moon, if anyone looked back the chances of them being discovered was much less.
There was no real other option now that they thought about it. There had to be an attack and it had to be before the night was over. They had to do their part, if they could destroy 10 tanks, then there would be 10 less that would be threatening the other NOD forces.
The column had engaged with what looked to be a GDI column of equal size.
The Commander nodded to himself. Now was the time.
"Gunner target the one to the right most side." He called out over the vehicle's internal communications system, intercom one might call it.
"Driver take us behind it, once we fire, wait for the recloak then move to the left."
"Roger!"
"Roger!"
"Ok. On my mark."
They all grinned, it was time. They had been trailing this particular prey for hours now, the entire time clenching their buttholes over the idea that they would be discovered and destroyed before they could do anything.
Not the best end when they had put in all that effort in the first place.
"Ready!" Called the Gunner, having sighted his target.
"Ok. Wait for it." The Driver was manoeuvring them into position.
"Stopping!"
"Fire!"
"Firing!"
The small flap on the launch tube dropped down and the missile was launched shortly after, its ignition taking it straight at a speed that was several times the speed of sound towards the tanks not even a kilometer away. The missiles were designed properly, there would be no visible exhaust to give them away. The small dark vehicle would be ignored as was proper.
An exploding tank was a matter of course in a battle like this one, tank versus tank. If they survived, then maybe they could try to see the damage done to the rear, but that wasn't going to be anytime soon.
The only difficult part was that all the tanks were moving in a confusing mess, trying to throw off the aim of the other side, making it just a little bit harder to target them down. Which in turn meant they had to remain uncloaked so long as the flap was down, trying to recloak while it wasn't in place would only leave a hole in their anti-radar defences, exposing them regardless. Visibly it was dark enough that nobody was going to see them as it was, what with them being to the rear of the battle.
"Hit!"
A grin and a pressing of the recloak button, the Commander got to issuing new orders.
"New target! Enemy tank rearmost position, 11 O'Clock!" He called out.
"Gunner acknowledges!"
"Driver get us behind that tank, tangential position."
"Driver acknowledges!"
"Loader you know what you need to do!"
"Loader acknowledges!"
"Ok, let's get going!"
The attack had been successful, the enemy convoy had been destroyed, what with the Stealth Tank accounting for 15 of those kills. A significant number of them no longer existing and being able to destroy the GDI vehicles.
It was unfortunate therefore that the GDI column had been wiped out. These new vehicles were very clearly superior and it was going to take some unorthodox tactics if they were going to want to come out on top. When considering that they had 7 missiles left, it was very little that they were going to be able to do when it came down to it.
The crew of the Stealth Tank had debated as to what they would be doing from this point forward. Just what they could do that was going to work at all. The best answer being that they would find and join another NOD detachment, one that was going to be able to help them resupply and provide the anvil for their hammer.
It would be difficult, none of NOD's vehicles were really capable of countering the new ones, being what was mainly a guerilla force was displaying its downsides they could see.
The other option was to join with a GDI force but how could they trust them to not stab them in the back? It was not that long ago after all that the two of them had been engaged in a battle to the death, one that had seen this particular tank reap more than a few GDI tanks.
It was unfortunate, but the place that they would be able to best display their strengths was with the GDI. The lack of ammunition was a concern to be sure, but it was not as if they had any way of rectifying that unless they met a NOD detachment, that was going to want them to join up regardless, a surefire way to get killed in this environment that was for sure.
The Stealth Tank crew set themselves into gear, find the nearest NOD crew, syphon some fuel from the destroyed GDI tanks first to give them enough mileage to get anywhere in the first place.
Then it was back to hunting.
"Overlord Tank Reporting" Captain Chen said through his microphone, grinning widely at the sound of his voice as it transmitted over the radio. The Overlord tank was after all a tank deserving of the deep voice treatment, a rolling behemoth that allowed its driver to crush smaller tanks under its tracks, a monstrosity that crushed any and all who wanted to get in the way, a beast of steel and iron, the steel of the chassis, the iron of the blood of its crew.
The massive vehicle had a crew of a great deal of soldiers, the cannons each requiring 2 loaders and a gunner, the engines a full time dedicated technician to keep them running properly, the driver, the commander, the full time radio operator, the machine-gun turret above the driver's cupola, the machine-gun built into the turret itself, a machine gun at the rear of the turret, and the soldiers in the bunker on top if it had one built on. A staggering 12 crew members at the very least, more depending upon which addon was chosen for their particular vehicle.
The tanks were being used in a… 'smash everything in front of me' manner. The enemy armour that was in front of them, the enemy infantry, the enemy buildings, the enemy countries, all of them would be crushed underneath the Overlord's treads. The massive chassis could blunt any attack, any attempt by the puny enemy to breach their interior.
Whatever it was the enemy wished to field against the Overlord, they would be sending to their deaths, the Overlord could promise them that much. Each gun firing their cannons independently, each tread ready to smash, the emplacement above ready to rain death upon the enemy, the hull gunners ready to bring to bear the might of the Chinese rotary 7.62mm heavy machine gun. There would be no mercy when facing the Overlord, Chen could promise them that much.
Not like those fucking ugly Sentinel tanks. The Soviets had deployed them and were acting like they were really amazing or some shit. Their 220mm gun was all they could talk about. Who gave a shit? So what if it could kill an Overlord with a single shot, the Overlord could kill their shitty little tank with one shot too. Stupid Soviets, did they not understand that the Overlord was a tank to inspire the peoples?
A beautiful tank just like the people of the Peoples Republic of China.
It was too bad they were assigned to break through the enemy armour with a Sentinel division. It was like Command was trying to get them together or something, or maybe they hoped for a few friendly fire incidents.
"Sentinel Ready" Captain Isayeva said, her voice tired. The Sentinel tank took a ridiculous amount of effort to keep it maintained, the fact that they needed the entire fucking crew to lift up the armoured skirts and then to check the track and recalibrate it for tension was fucking ridiculous. The fact that you needed the entire crew at all for anything was fucking ridiculous.
Sure it had a big gun that could kill anything from 10 kilometers of range, but the everything else about it. Ugh. The fact that it was so big, making it a massive target, that it was so slow compared to the Golems, that every time it fired its main gun she needed to make sure her ears weren't bleeding… ugh.
Isayeva considered briefly defecting so she wouldn't need to maintain her tank anymore. It would be totally worth it.
Still, it was better than those shit Overlords. She had seen them trying to maintenance yesterday, foolish. Did they not understand that if they were operating anywhere that they didn't have their little supply column trundling after them, that they were going to be shit out of luck?
They couldn't even change a tyre on the fucking things without a full maintenance team working on it. At least she knew each and every part of her tank like the back of her hand, every single piece of maintenance carried out was either by her or her crew. No fucking workers were touching Vasili unless he was damaged in action or had catastrophic damage.
Those shitty Overlords were just so fucking massive that it was a shame that they had not all been targeted down by this point, they certainly made it easy enough.
Isayeva thought her tank was an ass, but at least it wasn't an Overlord.
The city of Berlin stood before them. A very big city, the kind of city that was there and very concrete, and bricky. Mainly because it was made out of the two materials.
As for what the Heavy Tank division formed by melding Sentinel and the Overlord units together, their goal was very simple. Move in, crush the enemy, crush any and all resistance that they might be offering, crush them again just to make sure then leave.
As for what they were doing inside of the city in the first place, well it was going to be difficult, there were far too many roads that were too small for the tanks to be navigating through, they just didn't fit. The obvious answer therefore was to make to make the roads wider so that they would fit. A simple enough matter, all it required was a large amount of firepower and the Sentinel's bulldozers after the fact.
Captain Chen grinned as he sighted the first target before him. An apartment complex of some kind, he didn't care, they were targets and needed to be dealt with. Calling out the range he watched as the massive cannons on either side of his cupola lifted into the air and ranged themselves to match the lower levels of the building.
BOOM
What? He hadn't given the order to fire, what was going… oh no. That fucking Sentinel had beaten him to it. The one with that woman in it, the woman who had been the bane of his existence since she had first shown up with her shitty tank and called his tank, the glorious Overlord tank "shit".
He had disliked her then, he despised her now. She had stolen the march on him, had gotten off the first shot and dammit, she had destroyed the building on the first strike.
His Face had been impugned, he would need to destroy twice as many buildings to get back at her.
The bitch!
The Rhine river was an important one. One that cut through Germany and made it so that trying to fight through it would make any on the other side massive targets as they tried to cross.
Isayeva had been sent to reinforce it, a possible enemy counter-attack coming through the bridges. They needed the bridges intact if they wanted to keep the link between the rest of Europe. The Coalition had swung through Africa and like the Africans of their home, had swung up and uppercutted Europe in the vulnerable belly.
Now was the time to sweep East and take the rest of the world and to see what the Motherland was like in this universe. It would be amazing of course, it was the Motherland, anything except Glorious was not possible.
The Division would be holding the area from the counter-attack to the East from the other side of the river. An amusing turn if events since the Coalition were on the other side the last time this had happened.
Only now they had the glorious Sentinel to assist with the defence. Their pitiful attempts to dislodge the might of the Soviet army not having and impact at all on the defenders. Their puny aircraft and artillery could not hope in their wildest and most immature of dreams to defeat the might of the Soviet Arena System or the Warden Missile System. They smashed themselves ineffectually against the might of Soviet Armour and it was nothing but glorious.
Seeing the wrecks of their aircraft falling from the sky, seeing the fragments of their missiles, their artillery harmlessly detonated in the skies, seeing the complete and utter wreck of everything they had, all of it was glorious.
Now that the artillery had shown how ineffective it was, and that the armour and the infantry would be making their way forward to try and push into the bridges. To come forward and die to the might of Soviet armour.
And possibly the Chinese but who cared about them.
Captain Isayeva grinned as she heard the massive 220mm shell being loaded. At that size for the shell they were shooting, the enemy vehicles would be turned to scrap under the sheer weight of the shell let alone its payload. Which was why it had been loaded with HE, the shockwaves would pulverize the crews inside of their targets while also tearing apart all those who were around them as well.
The perfect weapon.
She grinned.
There.
The fools were trying to advance forward, trying to make the most of their situation, walking directly into the path of Vasili's main gun.
"Wait." She murmured softly, her eyes staring intently forward. There would be no mistakes, not today. Not if they wanted to show those damned Chinese just who was the best.
"N…" She never finished her word, the target going up in flame.
Those fucking Chinese.
They were in Australia, they were again competing and this time Isayeva was going to come out on top, damn the Chinese if they thought otherwise. The enemy had brought up their vehicles, some new tank with a twin gun design like the Overlord and the Chinese had been very pissed off about that. It was glorious hearing them swear and bitch and moan about the fact that the enemy had stolen their ideas.
It didn't matter to her, it was a bigger tank, it was a bigger target.
"Load AP!" She called out over the tank intercom.
"Loading!" Came the reply as the Gunner cycled the auto-loaded to shove in the shell. Not like those Chinese tanks that still relied on human labour to load their tanks.
"Loaded!" He called out to her, head no doubt already shoved into the telescope that would mark targets.
"Engage twin-barreled tank! 1000 meters. 11 O'Clock! Lead Tank!" She called out as her eyes were pressed into the periscope.
"Engaging!"
BOOM
The entire tank jerked backwards slightly in response to the massive amount of recoil that the main gun produced. It was something that inspired awe no matter where it was. This was no exception, she could even see the massive base of the shell arc through the air and no so much penetrate the target, but instead smash into it, caving in the front of the tank before the entire thing erupted into flame. The turret bursting off from the amount ammunition that was cooking off in response to the sheer size of the detonation. Isayeva grinned in response, damned idiots, did they think that those puny little things were sufficient to face the might of the Sentinel Tank? They were barely longer than a Paladin and they wanted to play? Hah!
Did they not remember that the Sentinel Tank was the greatest tank in the world?
As the autoloaded shoved in another shell she could see little puffs of smoke from the barrels of the other guns of the tanks in the enemy fleet.
"Brace for impact!" She called out, her voice sharp. There was no getting through her armour but still… it was better if she took precautions… just in case.
As the shells slammed into her frontal armour, Isayeva grinned widely. No penetrations if the lack of screaming was any indication. Her grin grew even wider as the radio operator who was also in charge of the damage control systems called out "no pen!".
She grinned, oh yes, this was the way it should be.
"Casualties!?" She asked her radio operator
"None!" Came her reply.
Oh yes. This was the life.
"Engage at will! Crush them beneath the might of Soviet Armour!" She roared, "Driver full forward! Demonstrate to them the glory that is the Sentinel Tank!" Her voice rose at that, she was truly getting into this in a big way.
It wasn't like the war where the enemy had air support that could destroy her tank from beyond radar range, this was an inferior enemy and it was glorious.
"Targets sighted!"
"Firing!"
"Loading!"
"Target destroyed!"
"No Casualties!"
As Isayeva heard the voices of her crew as they did their work, she smiled widely with excitement, there was going to be a celebration at the depot tonight! The good thing about a tank as big as the Sentinel was that it had plenty of places to hide the Vodka!