A single flight of thirty C-130s was almost unheard of in peacetime. Representing a capacity of more than six hundred tons worth of cargo and equipment, the last time so many cargo aircraft had been flown simultaneously together in wartime was in 1995, fifteen years ago. This was a dangerous operation. The transports were extremely vulnerable to any kind of anti air, be it surface to air or air to air. Correspondingly that was what the escort squadron was for. Or more accurately, the two escort squadrons.

Sitting snugly in the cargo bay of one of the forward C-130s, tank commander Sergeant Andrew Court was seated underneath the commander's hatch waiting for the drop. This wasn't his first combat drop - a month earlier he had participated in retaking a small Pacific island - but he knew for a fact this was likely to be the bloodiest battle he would be participating in. He and thirty other M21B1 Mattis light tanks of 6th Light Tank Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, were being dropped on the west end of the Bastok Peninsula in order to establish a blocking force against Yuktobanian reinforcements.

"All green, Sarge." Specialist Bradley Cooper, Court's gunner and the other man in the M21's turret, reported. All of the vehicle's optical and weapon systems were up and functional. Court activated the M21's CITV and swung the independent thermal imager around. It worked and all three vision modes worked. He was going to particularly need the thermal imager. Visibility around the area was absolutely miserable with the rain.

"Red light! Red light!" The loadmaster of their C-130 called via the intercom. Court made sure the hatch was secured and that the engine was idling. He heard the faint wooshing of air rushing over the roof of the tank as the Herc's cargo bay door opened. A quick look at the Mattis' GPS indicated that they were feet dry.

"Green light, green light!"

Court leant back in his seat and held onto the handles either side as the Mattis was yanked out of the Herc and into the slipstream. Like the brick it was, the M21 lost all of its forward airspeed, but before the nose tipped down towards the floor a ring of parachutes deployed from the platform it was bolted onto. From there it was a rough fall to the ground. The wind and rain buffeted the eighteen ton light tank violently. The deployment system was rated for wind forces just short of those produced by a hurricane, but even so it wasn't a pleasant ride.

The moment they hit the ground, they were rolling. Private First Class Jeremy Leonard, the driver, slammed the gas and they went shooting off the platform onto the dirt. Court scanned around for any signs of the enemy on the CITV. No joy.

"All Ironside callsigns, Ironside Actual. Push south over the hill trail. Weapons free on any enemy contacts." Directions came in over the radio from the company commander.

"Driver, hard left turn, follow the road." Court instructed Leonard.

"Rollin'." Leonard replied in his west coast drawl. The high pitched whine of the M21's turbine was audible through the thin bulkhead that separated the engine compartment from the fighting compartment. Mud kicked up from the tracks as they rolled up. Out of the thirty Mattis light tanks that had been landed, Ironside 2-2, Court's tank, ended up near the front of the armoured column.

"The fu- tank! Sixteen hundred!" Cooper called out a contact. Court looked through the gunner extension sight to look at what Cooper was seeing.

"Lead, Ironside 2-2, enemy tank, three o'clock relative, sixteen hundred!" Court reported the contact on the radio.

"All Ironside callsigns, Ironside Actual, engage enemy targets at will." The company commander gave the company the all clear to engage.

"Gunner, sabot, tank!" Court shouted. "On!"

"Identified!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!" BOOM! The breech of the tank's one-twenty mike main gun recoiled back violently. The autoloader mechanism engaged and picked a round out from the magazine as the APFSDS round they had fired flew across the battlefield at over five thousand feet per second and slammed into the hull of a Yuktobanian tank. There was a flash of flame that looked like a giant green bloom on the thermal imager before the entire tank exploded. The turret went flying.

"Target!" Court yelled, indicating to cease their current engagement. "Ironside 2-2, one tank destroyed- wait out. Gunner, sabot, tank! Traverse right!"

The turret swung around and then ground to a halt as Cooper found the target. "Identified! Sixteen hundred!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!"

BOOM! Another dart flew across the battlefield and into the upper glacis of the second tank. There was a bright spark that emitted from the tank they had just hit, but the vehicle kept rolling forward.

"Doubtful!" Court decided. "Reengage!"

"On the way!"

As the round left the breech, the autoloader mechanism swung into action, pulling a round from the magazine, swinging it around inside the confines of the vehicle and slamming it home into the breech. Court looked through the gunner's extension sight. This time there was a large fireball very visible on thermals.

"Target." The tacky vehicle commander ended the engagement with the destruction of the enemy tank. "Ironside 2-2, two enemy tanks destroyed."

Court braced himself for Cooper to call out a third tank as he finished the contact report, but mercifully nothing appeared. He couldn't tell if that was a blessing or a curse as they and the rest of the company continued to roll as one giant armoured fist south. Overhead and to the west Court could see C-17s peeling away from Yuktobanian-held ground as what had to have been at least a thousand parachutes descended towards the ground. It was like seeing an angry swarm of bees, a statement ironically not too far off the truth. The parachutes belonged to soldiers of an infantry battalion of the 82nd Airborne, Court's parent unit. There had been a slight delay getting the Globemasters in but now they were here.

While Ironside Company cleared their landing zone, Wardog Squadron cleared the skies above. Or more accurately, Grimm cleared the skies above. While the senior three members of the squadron were carrying a handful of missiles for self-defense, they were also laden with several tons worth of ordinance and in any case they were all tasked with close air support anyway. Grimm, in his lighter F-16C, was lugging along a load of six AMRAAMs and two Sidewinders, all destined for Yuktobanian fighters.

"Wardog 4, two bandits at 244 for 300, Angels 10, hot." Thunderhead gave Grimm a direction, distance and altitude call. "Most likely Flankers."

"Copy." Grimm replied, sending the throttle forward and moving like hell towards the enemy. The radar on his Viper was anaemic and small compared to that of the APG-82 sets on Wardog's Mudhen complement, so Grimm didn't see the contacts on his own radar until he was just barely outside of missile range. His RWR indicated that they were scanning with their own radars and that the two bandits were most certainly Su-35 Flankers.

"Tally bandits." Grimm called the contacts at one-fifty klicks as he saw them. Grimm closed the distance to one hundred while remaining ten thousand feet above the two fighters. He was perplexed. He was almost certain the Flankers had spotted him, but they were continuing their bearing and maintaining their altitude. Knowing that correcting the enemy when they made a mistake was in itself a mistake, Grimm locked both targets up and launched a pair of missiles.

"Archer, fox 3, fox 3." Grimm let two AMRAAMs off the rail, cranking out to the edge of his radar's gimbal limits. Finally the two Flankers took notice of the threat right in front of them and hastily returned fire before turning away. Grimm pulled back on the stick and climbed at a sharp angle, climbing from twenty to thirty thousand feet in a heartbeat. His RWR went quiet. Hoping that the sudden silence was the missiles losing track, Grimm banked and flew perpendicular to the Flanker's flight path to get out of the way of any R-77s that were flying along a last known bearing.

"Archer, how are things looking?" Blaze checked up on him.

"Occupied." Grimm grunted under strain of gee forces, turning back in towards the Flankers. The two parties were closing and right now it was a one on one fight. Grimm had shot down one of the two Flankers. He was about to lob a third AMRAAM when the second Flanker disappeared from datalink, RWR and radar at the same time.

"Archer, splash two, returning to pattern." Grimm declared, turning away from the furball and heading back towards the peninsula.

"Sabot, tank! Traverse right! Steady! On!"

"Identified, thirteen hundred!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!"

"Target! Driver back, driver back!"

As Ironside 2-2 reversed off a slope and back behind the protection of defilade, Court found himself thanking his lucky stars that they had M829A3 armour piercing rounds in their magazine instead of the older M829A2 rounds. Nobody had known for certain wherever the newer rounds could effectively penetrate the newest Yuktobanian tanks like the T-80Ms. Now that they knew, Court's confidence in taking engagements against Yuke armour had skyrocketed.

Having the confidence was a good thing because right now Court and his platoon of four M21s were thoroughly engaged with enemy armour. About a kilometre in front of them opposite a valley on top of a mountain was a larger element of T-80 tanks. Cooper had just nailed one with a sabot round and another had been knocked out by a different M21, but that still left at least three tanks up there and possibly other unseen forces.

Searching for targets via the CITV, Court spotted a T-80 rolling out of cover and into a firing position.

"Sabot, tank, traverse left!" Court made the call. The turret spun around. "On!"

"Identified, twelve hundred!"

"Fire!"

"On the way!"

Cooper pulled the trigger, sending a giant metal dart down range. Court watched as the dart whizzed through the air, slamming into the lower half of the T-80's hull and ricocheting across into the track, smashing through a retaining pin and severing the track into one long piece. The T-80 rolled to one side as it reversed, exposing the tank's flat side to the Oseans.

"Doubtful." Court said. The T-80 might have been mobility killed but its gun was very much still a real threat. He was going to issue a reengage command when the tank went up in a fireball, catastrophically penetrated. One of the other tanks in the platoon had nailed it. Three tanks down, still another two to go, and with the destruction of more than half of their platoon those last two became very hesitant to pop out of cover. Court swung the CITV around in a wide arc, looking for any additional signs of contact.

"Come on, you bastards." Court muttered to himself. "Show yourselves."

"Don't think you'll get much luck." Cooper retorted, earning a chuckle out of Court.

"2-X callsigns, 2-1, turret down and hold position. Friendly CAS inbound." Ironside 2-1, the platoon leader, called to the three M21s under his command. Court made sure the hatch above his head was locked and sealed.

"Driver, jockey back." He ordered. Not a second later the Mattis's turbine whined as the reverse gear engaged, dragging the vehicle back into defilade cover.

"Echo Papa 0167-0071, marked by laser, attack with four GBU-39s. Friendlies one kilometre east, egress 090, no remarks." As fate would have it, Wardog had been assigned the tasking. Zoomer was handling the radio coordination and data entry.

"Wardog 2, Dagger, all correct. Cleared hot, call yours shots."

"Wardog 2." Zoomer replied, punching in the targeting information. "We're good, stack them up and knock them down."

"Your wish is my command. Wardog 2, in." Chopper took them out of formation and towards the target area. Their target, enemy armour entrenched on a mountain out of line of sight of friendly armour and anti-tank teams, was towards the ass end of the area of operations. Chopper flew high, above ten thousand feet to keep them out of range of any MANPADS teams. They had heard reports of more potent AA on the western end of the peninsula, but with the droves of electronic warfare and SEAD aircraft flying around, anything that hadn't been mailed a HARM was playing it smart and keeping their radars off.

"Tally target." Zoomer spotted their target area via their underslung LITENING pod. A drone under the control of the JTAC controlling their engagement was casting a laser onto their targets. The Mudhen tilted up into a ten degree climb. Zoomer leant back into his seat. "SDBs are hot."

"Wardog 2, pickle, pickle, pickle and pickle!" Chopper rattled off the brevity code for a bomb drop as each two-fifty pound bomb came off their rack and glided away from the Mudhen. Chopper rolled and banked from a westerly heading to an easterly heading. Zoomer lost visual track of the target as they turned in the opposite direction but he was confident the outcome was set in stone.

"Come on Havoc, come on…" Zoomer was waiting on the radio for a bomb damage assessment. He didn't have to wait long.

"Wardog 2, Dagger, good effect, good effect on targets. Multiple vehicles and personnel eliminated." Havoc made her BDA. "Thanks for the assist, you're clear to return to holding pattern."

"Copy, Dagger. Good hunting." Zoomer signed off the air to ground net as Chopper took them out and back to Wardog.

"Hey kid, in on your right." Chopper said to Blaze as he linked back up with the squadron.

"Tally." Blaze looked off to her right. Sure enough, Chopper had slotted in next to her.

"Wardog, Thunderhead." Thunderhead lined them up for another tasking. "Ground forces are requesting close air support inland. Be advised, this will be a two-ship tasking. Connecting you with TACP, callsign Dagger."

"Copy, tasking myself and Wardog 3." Blaze heard the radio click in her headset. "Dagger, Wardog 1 and 3 on net, where do you need us?"

"Wardog 1, Dagger, gameplan. Friendly forces pushing on enemy static positions. Type 2, bombs on coordinates. This will be a danger close sortie, I say again, danger close."

"Got that, Edge?" Blaze asked Nagase as she wrote down the information herself.

"Crystal clear." Nagase replied.

"Dagger, Wardog 1. Friendly forces assaulting enemy static positions, type 2 control, BOC. Danger close, danger close." Blaze repeated the gameplan.

"All correct. Report when ready for nine line, I require readbacks from both callsigns."

Blaze flipped over a page on her kneeboard. "Wardog 1, ready."

"Wardog 2, ready."

"Wardog callsigns, Dagger, nine line as follows. Ingress 230 from Anvil for 25 klicks. Elevation 311 feet, target is enemy static positions. Echo Papa 0162-0105 marked with laser, attack with four times GBU-39. Friendlies four hundred metres east-south-east. Egress 090, remain above ten thousand feet to avoid MANPADS." Dagger gave Blaze and Nagase the tasking. Blaze could barely recognise her own handwriting.

"Dagger, Wardog 1. Ingress 230 for 25 from Anvil. Target elevation 311 feet, enemy static positions. Echo Papa 0162-0105 marked with laser, attack with four GBU-39. Foxtrot Papa four hundred metres east-south-east. Egress 090, hard deck Angels 10." Blaze read back the nine line.

"Wardog 1, correct. Wardog 3, go."

"Dagger, Wardog 2, tasking as follows. Ingress 230 from Anvil for 25 klicks. Elevation 3-1-1 feet, enemy static positions located 0162-0105, marked with laser. Four times GBU-39 Bravo. Friendlies east-south-east for four hundred. Egress 090, remain above ten thousand feet." Nagase read back the same information.

"Wardog 3, correct." Dagger cleared both Mudhens. "Wardog, cleared hot, call when weapons away."

"Edge, follow my lead, we'll attack at the same time. Drop on my mark." Blaze said to Nagase as she pulled out of formation to follow the attack heading. Nagase trailed her by maybe three or four seconds.

"Copy wilco." Nagase replied. The two dark grey F-15Es came screaming in towards the battlefield with their afterburners lit and roaring. Even at ten thousand feet, the clouds were well above them. Blaze could see streaks of water hitting the canopy and then immediately being ripped off by the wind blasting over the aircraft at almost supersonic speeds.

"Check pod." Samurai said. "Tally targets."

Blaze looked down at the MFD on her panel set to show her what the LITENING pod was looking at. Seeing the laser being cast down on their target, Blaze pitched up slightly and cued her remaining SDBs to her trigger.

"Edge, fire on my mark." Blaze bit her lip. "Three. Two. One. Mark."

"Wardog 3, pickle four!" Nagase got out her SDBs. Blaze pressed the trigger four times in quick succession. Her payload separated and pitched down towards the target bunkers.

"Wardog 1, pickle four." Blaze reported, turning around and following closely on Nagase's heels away from the tasking area. The bombs got over the targets and dived down on top of the bunkers, punching through their thin roofs and detonating within.

"Wardog, Dagger, good hits, targets destroyed." Dagger reported a positive BDA. "Return to holding pattern. Good hunting."

"Roger Dagger, likewise." Blaze quipped. She took a look at her stores management system, the page on one of her MFDs that let her know what weapons and stores the Mudhen had on its various pylons. Out of the sixteen SDBs that she had flown in with, she only had four left. Nagase had done the same number of sorties as her, Chopper had only done the initial strike and one tasking afterwards, and Grimm only had four SDBs to begin with, all of which had been used on that lead-in strike. That left the entire squadron with sixteen Small Diametre Bombs total. After those were expended, they would be winchester air to ground.

Brak-brak-brak-brak-brak-brak-brak-brakka!

"Gunner hold fire, targets destroyed."

"Holdin'."

With an ugly black smoke stack wafting up into the air from the cratered roof of a concrete bunker, the Mattis light tanks of Ironside 2 Platoon were providing suppressing fire and overwatch for infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division as they charged into the still smoking Yuktobanian trenches and bunkers. Disorganised resistance was quickly squashed by the M240 coaxial machine guns of the four tanks.

"Weaps tight." Court ordered. "Friendlies in the trenches.

"Copy." Cooper removed his hands from the trigger and gunnery controls, his eyes still placed firmly on the gunner's primary sight, scanning for any signs of hostiles on the horizon. Even while scanning around using the thermal optic on ten times magnification, he didn't see anything worth pointing out in his line of sight.

The four tanks found themselves sitting there for ten minutes protecting the troops in the trenches. Court found himself scanning the skies for aircraft or drones. He hadn't heard anything over the radio about the enemy shelling their positions, but he was still mildly paranoid that an Orlan-10 UAV was pointing a laser at them and that an artillery round mailed expressly to them was on its way.

Fortunately that reality never came. Once the infantry had secured the trenches, Court's platoon, along with two other platoons, received orders to push forward and reinforce a highway pass against Yuktobanian reinforcements. As the second tank in the platoon, Ironside 2-2 was the second tank in the line at the very front of the formation. A pair of Marine Corps AH-1Z Vipers shadowed them, escorting them and providing early warning for the tanks.

After a brief fifteen minute drive over the mountain tops, the twelve-strong group arrived at the terminating section of a highway backing a train line. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but endless grass plains and infinite ocean. The lack of any towns, cities or other significant urban structures was so odd to Court. Nowhere in Osea would find such a large stretch of land unoccupied by civilians.

Court's line of thought was interrupted by one of the overhead helicopters firing an ATGM down range. He dipped down into the fighting compartment and scanned around for the enemy through the CITV. He didn't see shit.

"Index sabot." Court ordered. Cooper flicked a switch. The autoloader pulled a round out from the breech, stored it in the magazine and replaced that round with an APFSDS round.

"Sabot indexed." Cooper reported.

"Driver, park us up at this berm."

The Mattis dipped down into a drainage channel next to the highway. The CITV just barely stuck up above the highway so that Court could see anything approaching via the road or train line.

"All Ironside 2-X callsigns, Ironside 2-1. Recon indicates that a mechanised element of at least company strength is pushing up on this highway towards our position. Dig in and hold your ground. The enemy does not break this line. 2-1 out."

Court took a deep breath and looked through the CITV. On the horizon he saw the thermal signatures of vehicles. A mix of BMPs and T-series tanks. They were in for a slugfest.

"Driver, forward!"