TSD Fiction #3 [Nod] Part 1

Ackron · Commander **Joined**: 19 May 2004

It was another grey day, not that you expected anything else these days, maybe some days the sky would be more green than grey, but grey was the standard. Sector KR-004 might have had a name once but if it did it had long since been forgotten, but when you were likely to die any day at any time such trivial things didn’t exactly prey on your mind.

Dragon tanks were top of the line, all new technology, all but immune to most conventional weaponry and with a sensor suite that could make a mobile sensor array go green with envy, but that wasn’t worth a great lot when you were five hundred feet in the air.

Tank commander Artemis was not in a good mood, he had a headache since he had woken up and had barely had three hours sleep; he sighed and pressed the intercom button.

“Pilot?” he asked the intercom
“Sir?” came a reply from the intercom
“If you’ll forgive the cliché, are we there yet?” asked Artemis
“Actually we are sir, also we are dropping you rather than landing, just so you know” said the voice from the intercom
“Ugh, fine whatever” said Artemis closing the intercom.

He and his crew along with five other dragons were headed to intercept an advancing GDI armour column that an advanced scout had sighted. Tick tanks had been sent ahead and were already deployed at the intercept point, with any luck the GDI forces would assume it was a previously established defensive point and wouldn’t be expecting heavy units.

“Right, you two, wake up. We have battle to not die in” said Artemis to his crew
“Plasma reactor is already online” said a figure barely visible for equipment and wires, it was Vaut the driver.
“And I’ve been staring at this screen since we took off” said a voice from the turret, it was Joel the gunner and also the newbie.

The previous gunner had died when an Air to surface missile had blown off the turret in an earlier battle. It had taken a week to fix the turret, plasma leakage could do some real damage if it wasn’t controlled quickly, and when an orca is shooting at you what your turret is doing isn’t your biggest problem.

The intercom crackled and opened, it was the pilot of the carryall.
“We are dropping you now, just thought you should know” said the pilot
“Oh great thanks for the warning” said Artemis sarcastically.

There was a Dull clunk and the tank lurched slightly as it dropped through the air before it‘s parachute opened. On the ground six tick tanks were dug into the ground at the entrance to the canyon that the GDI armour would pass through. The Dragon’s external camera swivelled around to look at the ground below there the six tick tanks sat, turrets pointed towards the canyon, Artemis twiddled the joystick that controlled the camera and turned it to look at the other dragons, and they no doubt were doing the same. He opened the intercom with the other dragons.

“Everyone alive out there?” he asked
“Dragon one is alive” came a reply
“Dragon two is too” came another
“And Dragon Three” another
“Dragon five alive and well” came a fourth
There was a long pause and an air of apprehension.
“Dragon six?” asked Artemis
There was a crackling of static and a sharp whine.
“Sorry Dragon Four, radio troubles” came a rather late response from dragon six
“Good good, thought we had lost you for a second there dragon six” chuckled Artemis
“You should be so lucky” replied the commander of six.

There was a Thump, then another, and another in total there were six thumps, the Dragons had touched down, soon after there was the characteristic roar of engines and the grinding of tracks as the dragons drove forwards towards the tick tank line away from their discarded parachutes.

Once again a voice came over the intercom.

“Tank commander Abel here, we are expecting contact shortly so get into position dragons” said the voice
“You heard the man dragons, one to three take the left side four to six will take the right” said Artemis

The dragons took up their positions with the tick tanks on each side of the canyon road. Joel was staring into the screen that displayed the fixed turret camera feed. The turret pointed down into the canyon, dust slowly started to rise in the canyon. Joel the gunner flipped the three sequential switches that armed the plasma cannon and then opened the intercom.

“Contact at five hundred meters!”
“You don’t need to yell, we are in the same freaking tank” mumbled Vaut from the driver’s seat.
Artemis opened the intercom to the other dragons.
“Anyone got ID on the enemy” he asked
“I see four MLRS and four titans…..and a mammy as well” replied the gunner of dragon three.

Artemis Sighed, it had been a bad day already, he had been woken up early because it apparently doesn’t occur to people that you might want to know you were going into a fight BEFORE you go to sleep, then he had to go through the big, noisy, fume filled machine shop to sign the release for his tank because god forbid someone should bring the papers to him, and now he was about to fight the largest land based unit in the entire GDI army. His mother had told him that a military career was dangerous and that he would end up like his father, but that was a long time ago, looking back it might have been a better idea to go into hydroponic farming, but then the intercom crackled again.

“Dragon four?” said the commander of dragon two.
“I hear you” replied Artemis
“we are to hang back and give support while the ticks engage the titans, once they are dealt with one through three will engage the MLRS and four through six will engage the mammoth.” directed dragon two.
“Sounds fair, good luck Brothers” replied Artemis who was rubbing his throbbing temples with gloved fingers.

The MLRS were nearly within range and were slowing down, they probably intended to engage from outside of the dragons’ range, no doubt they had seen the dragons the same time the dragons had seen them and had formulated a battle plan, probably nothing complicated knowing the GDI infidels, their plans tended to be simple but well executed, although that said the brass at HQ tended to give them too little credit and that had lost the brotherhood a fair few battles.

“Ok Vaut, get us behind the ticks, use them as a proverbial meat shield, Joel fire over them, and in the name of Kane don’t miss, I very much want to leave this battlefield with my innards on the inside.” commanded Artemis.

-end part 1-

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