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Her entire life, Shannon had always wanted to be a doctor. When she got her draft notice, she was hoping she could become a surgeon. What she got instead was the brutal trench warfare of the South African Front in the battle of Bapan. It was one of the most bloody battles of WW3, exceeded in sheer violence and brutality by the Battle Of Paris, and Operation Armored Finale at the South Pole. Sh was the youngest to ever deploy to the battlefield at only 15.

If there was one thing left that Shannon was still sure of, it was that this old army truck was in desperate need of some new shocks. She felt every bump, rock and pothole of the old African dirt road as the Convoy drove along through the silent battlefield. The soldier she was sitting beside was trying not so subtly to shield her eyes from the carnage of the field they were driving through. She didn't care, it wasn't like she'd never seen a dead body before, lately, she felt like that was all she was seeing. Eviscerated remains and the husks of burned tanks. The past ten or eleven weeks had just kind of become a blur of pain and fear. Her mother had a meltdown when they received the draft notice in the mail. Her family had already lost all of her older brothers to the war and left her Dad nearly brain dead, with just enough power left to pull himself through each day. Since arriving at the African front, the soldiers in the company she'd been placed in had eaten who knew how many bullets and some of them made her think there might be some truth to the rumors that Marines drink the blood of their enemy's and save the meat for a later occasion. In someways her allies scared her more than the Africans. Today, despite her fellow soldiers trying to reassure her that this would be a simple mission, she wasn't convinced. Until this point, Major Ingram, the commander of the Firebase she was stationed at, had been pulling rank to keep her out of the line of fire, but today he had no choice but to send her division on a search and destroy mission. Her fellow soldiers were convinced that the objectives were simple enough, traverse and empty valley, cross a bridge, enter the town of Bapan and take it, scrapping the African artillery divisions guns and mortars in the process. Her allies didn't seem entirely convinced that her being here was a good idea.

"Are we seriously sending little girls to die in this war now?", the old grey fox in the passenger's seat asked adjusting his helmet, "man that's fucked something fierce."

"They didn't even give her a modern weapon", the driver, a well weathered, war torn dragon commented, "I haven't seen a Tommy Gun since I left France back in the 40's."

Shannon clutched her sub gun tightly. While the design was older, the M2018 Submachinegun had proven itself to be an excellent trench weapon. Pushing a 900 RPM firerate, it was capable of emptying a 35 round stick magazine or a 70 round drum in a matter of seconds and put the user on a playing field against the African's long Mk40 Self Loading that most other US firearms simply couldn't.

"Hey don't knock it till you see it in action", the dragon sitting next to her said, "I've seen other guys clear trenches full of flame troopers with those things. Those guns are wicked fast and didn't earn term "scale cracker" for nothing you know."

"Perhaps, but I'd still like to argue that the .45ACP is a bit da..."

The driver was cut off when the lead vehicle went up in an inferno of raging orange flame and black smoke. Turning around the corner of one of the many entrenched and fortified foothills leading into Bapan had revealed an African MkVII Landship parked across the road, it's main turret cannon and 127mm side gun was pointed right at the lead MRAP and had taken the shot as soon as the vehicle was fully visible.

"LANDSHIP!", the passenger screamed bloody murder, "BACK IT UP BACK IT UP!"

The driver threw their MRAP into reverse and tried to back away from the advancing African monstrosity, only to back right into another MRAP that had stalled out, the Landship now set it's sights on their vehicle and African troops started swarming down from the hill sides, some occupying the trenches, others assaulting the American convoy directly.

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!", The old fox shouted trying to undo his harness.

"I ain't dying like this, fuck that", the old dragon growled throwing his M4 over his lap. He reached across and cut the foxes seat belt, "get out!"

The occupants of Shannon's MRAP spilled out onto the road, instantly set upon by the charging African forces and weren't even given time to breath before the Landship rang it's mighty bell, shattering the MRAP like a fine wine glass, sending armored razor blades flying through the air at lethal speeds. The Armadillo that had been riding in the back with her took one straight through the side of the head and was dead instantly. He, along with Shannon, were thrown by the shockwave a good 35 feet to the side, only stopping when they slammed into the cliff face. They rolled down into the trench and the dead Armadillo landed atop of Shannon, his blood pouring out of the hole in his skull and running down her face.

"Oh god! Oh God!", Shannon squeaked pushing the dead soldier off her, some of his blood leaking past her lips, causing her to instantly gag and spit, almost vomiting. She wiped her mouth and looked up, her Thompson laying about 10 feet away down the trench line. She pulled herself to her feet and tried to start towards her weapon as the chaos settled in around her. The Landship fired another shot, putting a ring in her ears even through her hearing protection. She fell on her face, covering her ears and trying hard not to start balling in fear. Somehow, she managed to pull herself together and climbed to her feet again, barely managing to stand up when an African soldier came around the corner. Shannon paused in fear, looking at him for only a second before diving for her sub gun. The Lion moved so quickly she hadn't fully realized what had hit her when he put his steel knee pad directly on the front of her muzzle, breaking her nose and sending her spinning to her back. She laid there dazed for a second, reaching out for her Thompson again when the Lion grunted and reared back to spear her with the wicked 20 inch Bayonet on the end of his firearm. Out of instinct, Shannon reached up and grabbed hold of the blade as he thrust it downward. The edge of the blade instantly cut past her Kevlar gloves, through the skin of her hands and to her bones, nearly taking off all of her fingers. She squealed in pain and let go, the Lion reared back up again. Out of panic, she rolled to the side and the African stuck his rifle in the sand with such force he couldn't withdraw it immediately. She fumbled with her Sig M17, ignoring the pain in her bleeding and lacerated fingers, managing to get it out of it's holster just as the African pulled his rifle from the sand.

"Fucking Ameri..."

The Lion wasn't able to finish his sentence, stopping in the middle of the word when Shannon put the first bullet in him. He stopped, looking down, the round had impacted right between his neck and the top of his plate carrier. He looked down at Shannon and fell to his knees. Shannon shot him six more times, taking off almost half of his skull by the time he hit the ground. She crawled back, still aiming her side arm towards his head as his brain and blood oozed out onto the sand. Shannon stuttered incoherently as she holstered her sidearm and retrieved her Thompson, her own blood soaking her gloves and sleeves. She stayed there in the trench, not moving and unsure of what to do. Bullets were falling like hail from the heavens flanked by screams of wounded animals and the smell of blood and diesel exhaust. It was overwhelming. She glanced around, searching for a ranking officer, someone to issue her orders. She tried to collect herself, the ringing in her ears fading, she could hear the screaming of her fellow soldiers and the cries of the single tanker that was with their convoy, but couldn't make any actual words out over the gunfire.

"Daar is een!"

Shannon turned just in time to see three more African's rush around the corner, the lead one, a somewhat skinny Southern Lioness, was carrying a Flamethrower. The Lioness clicked the front trigger and lit the weapon with a crack that sounded like the old water dynamites she and her brothers liked to throw into different holes in the ground to see what would happen. Shannon, in a state of pure panic, sprayed an entire 35 round magazine at them, almost all of which the Elephant working her rear security ate. She screamed in terror and tried in panic to back as far away from the approaching Valmsoldaat as she could, scrambling to her feet and running as fast as possible in the other direction, trying unsuccessfully to load another magazine into her weapon. She didn't make it far before she felt the touch of the weapon. She had barely made it through a corner when the Lioness turned the weapon loose, the raging inferno struck the wall of the trench and sent the wood paneling up in smoke. She didn't hang around and kept on sprinting, taking another corner, she stopped in horror as she realized the trench came to an abrupt end. She called on everything she had, took a running start and leapt forward to catch the end of the trench and pull herself up and out so she could rejoin her team, only to slip and crash face first into the wall. Her body seemed to stiffen, she could hear the animal closing in on her, smelling of death and burning diesel. She looked around for an escape, there was none. She took a deep breath and turned around, changing the magazine in her M2018. She changed the fire mode to Semi-Auto, put the weapon into her shoulder and looked through the EoTech sat atop it, putting the reticle right about head level at the point where she figured she'd just see the top of the lioness's head when she turned the corner. Her intuition turned out to be true, she saw the white hot tip of the flamethrower long before she saw her targets head, soon as she turned the corner, Shannon fired a single round, the round split the Lioness' head into two distinct halves and relocated the majority of the target's brain onto the wall. She rushed forward, she knew what she had to do. She threw her Thompson over her back, quickly stripping the Lioness of the flamethrower, getting it over her shoulders at the exact time the Elephant and Lemur had come around the corner.

Shannon absolutely did not hesitate. Igniting the handheld firebreathing dragon and opening the fuel valve as wide as possible, she sprayed down Elephant and Lemur in a six foot wide hissing and snarling inferno that bellowed out into an oily rose and turned the sandy bottom of the trench into coarse glass. The screams of Shannon's targets could be heard even over the chatter of the Landship and allied gunfire for a short time before they collapsed, silently writhing on the ground as they struggled helplessly to extinguish the fury of Chemical 99. She stayed on the old German Flamenwerfer for ten agonizing seconds before the targets finally went still, yet the flames of the African's notorious secret fuel continued to burn with an ever increasing rage. Less than 15 seconds after exposure, nothing was left but ash and charred bone fragments. Shannon set the weapon aside and quickly stripped the Lioness the Valmsoldaat Armor she was wearing under her plate carrier. It wouldn't stop bullets or shrapnel, but if she was going to fight through the trenches wielding a Chemical 99 charged Flamenwerfer, it would protect her from her own flames, in the event of sparks to her own equipment, or even from the fury of another African Valmsoldaat. Shannon quickly dawned the suit over her normal fatigues, extraordinarily hot and somewhat tight, it would work, at least for the time being. She started back up the trench, the African soldiers had to be coming from somewhere, and given all of the machine gun fire from their side, the side of this hill was no doubt littered with MG emplacements that needed to be cleaned up. Of course, she didn't have to look far. About 100 feet up the trench from where she'd had her first ever encounter with an African soldiers was a bunker door, pressed about 3 feet into the side of the hill, she could just barely see it around the corner. She crouched down, approaching the bunker behind the concealment of the trench wall. She hung the Flamenwerfer off her neck, reaching into the side pockets of her vest for a breaching charge, a small, nine volt battery sized shaped charge that could defeat almost any lock out there, a detonator and a flash bang. Making the door, she quietly stuck the charge to the door frame and could hear at least three Madsen-Saetter machine guns on the other side. Backing away from the door only slightly, she set off the charge, the door flew open on it's hinges and she threw the Flashbang inside, waiting for the bang. She reignited the Flamenwerfer and moved inside the bunker, encountering no fewer than 15 African fighters, most of which were gazing haplessly around with wide eyes and paws over their ears, one of which wore the distinctive black multicam Hellfighter uniform, she hadn't been dazed due to her dark tinted goggles, she and her friend both looked ready to rock and roll as they brought their heavily customized Vektor R4s to their shoulders.

Shannon coated the room in the oily glue of Chemical 99 without so much as a second thought. The room turned a bright yellow and the cracking of the purgatory the bunker had become was drowned out by the agonized wails and screams for their mothers from Shannon's victims as the flames violently removed the skin and fur from their bones. The only one who hadn't begun screaming in unholy terror was the male Hellfighter, who had somehow manged to mostly avoid the flames. He quickly closed the distance between himself and Shannon, swinging his Vektor like a club and crashed it into the side of Shannon's head, sending her spinning to the ground. Landing on her side, she quickly rolled over to face him, opening the valve of her Flamenwerfer as wide as possible. The soldier ducked out of the way and though the flames mostly passed by harmlessly again she didn't fail completely and set his left arm on fire. The soldier started wailing in panic and fumbling with a pouch on his leg, producing a bottle which he used to extinguish the burning glue. In this time, Shannon had recovered from his attack, closed the distance and swung her Flamenwerfer like a bat, mostly being a length of heavy steel pipe, it hit the African like a sledge hammer. She let her Flamenwerfer fall to the ground, jumped on top of him and started beating on his helmet with the heavy metal Valmsoldaat gloves. Weighing almost two pounds a piece, each impact interrupted his attempts to force her off and cracked his helmet visor by only a small amount. 3, 4,5 and six times she struck him, by now the 15 year old African conscript was seeing stars and had lost control of fine motor functions. He lay there helplessly as Shannon struck him a tenth time, shattering the glass on his visor, revealing his bloodied face to Shannon. The Hyena's pupils were literately rolling around inside his eyes, the whites of which had gone blood red. His nose was pouring blood from the shard of glass that had gone into the skin on his snout in such a way it'd require surgery to remove it and his shredded tongue was hanging out of the side of his bloody muzzle which was lined with several broken and bleeding fangs. She reached yanked his helmet off, reached for her Sig M17, shoved it into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Click.

It was at that time she realized the slide was locked back on an empty magazine. She just sat there for a moment, breathing heavily and the African put his paws up in surrender, the tears flowing through his fur and burned flesh mixed with the blood and spit running from his shattered teeth and lacerated tongue and muzzle.

"Just finish me already!", he sobbed, "I can't take it anymore!"

She stood up, keeping her m17 pointed at his head, wondering if she should reload and finish the job. Gritting her teeth, she reloaded her sidearm. The African fell back, breaking eye contact, waiting for the bullet that would never come. She shoved her handgun into it's holster and crouched down beside him, pulling out her IFAK, helping him sit up, she let him lean up against her. He spit out a wad of blood and spit with the lower half of a fang in it that still had grisly fibers of flesh attached to it.

"That was fun", he panted, "where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"It's called panicking", she answered, trying to smile. She had left this guy in a pretty sorry state. His pupils were rolling around inside of his head, Shannon knew that she'd given him a rather serious concussion and his maw continued to ooze a large amount of blood, he couldn't seem to close his mouth and his tongue looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to it. Shannon dragged him over to the corner of the bunker, shielded from the window of the bunker and put him in a cot, bandaging the wounds on his head, she approached the Madsen-Saetters. The desert had filled with smoke, and over her radio she could hear her allies talking.

"Here they come!", a German shouted, "get ready!"

Shannon looked down the sight of Madsen-Satter, focusing on the pass where the Convoy was sat. She heard the African war cry as the Hellfighters charged forward with bayonet's lowered. It was blind luck that the African's had amassed mostly in front of the of the emplacement. As soon as the smoke cleared, Shannon let the Madsen loose. She'd only been behind a .50 BMG weapon once, in basic training and had almost failed that part of training, being far more comfortable smaller, pistol caliber carbines. She gripped the weapon tightly, bracing herself against the Madsen-Saetter's incredibly heavy recoil compared to the M2 Browning. However, she found herself far more comfortable with the Madsen-Saetter, as if the weapon was more predictable. She was able to fire off a couple hundred rounds within the window of time it took the African's to figure out that their machine guns weren't shooting for them any more and return with a hail of gun fire. In the chaos, a skilled grenadier had thrown a concussion grenade into the bunker. Shannon hadn't seen it land and roll beside her boot and was unaware of it until it detonated. Before she realized what was happening, she was on her back, staring up onto the lose dirt ceiling of bunker, her brain even further rattled in her skull when the Landship let go yet another round and the target vehicle went six feet in the air in a ball of fire. She rolled onto her stomach, covering her ears and trying to tune out the sounds of the destruction falling from the sky like rain all around her.

"ALL UNITS ALL UNITS!", Major Ingram's voice cracked over the radio, "THIS IS BALLROOM! WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE MOTHERFUCK IS HAPPENING ON THE OTHER END OF THIS RADIO! ADVISE!"

"Ballroom this is Vulture!", Shannon screamed into the radio, "The African's ambushed us! They knew we were coming and had Ultra heavy armor ready and waiting! Dragon's teeth are every where and I can't clear these trenches with just a captured flame kit! The convoy's being totaled one truck at a time! I need artillery, air power, armor, Engineers, something! This Landships going to slaughter us all with out backup!"

"Vulture is this Maus 1-6", A German female shouted through the radio, "My convoy is redirecting to support you, ETA in 20 Minutes!"

"I don't have 20 minutes Maus!", Shannon yelled. The Landship let yet another round ring, which pinged helplessly off the last remaining American vehicle, an Abrams M2A1, a near equal of the Landship in weapons and armor, but no where near as quick on the trigger. The two tanks locked teeth in a fire fight to end all firefights, "we're down to just an Abrams!"

"Do whatever you can to survive!", Maus pleaded, "I'm bringing six Landships, 6 Abrams MBT's, four Strykers and 200 foot mobiles!"

"Ballroom, this is Goliath 1", a younger sounding male said over the radio, "I've been listening to the radio from my location, I'm three minutes away from Vulture, I can keep that Landship at bay until Maus can put guns on it."

"Goliath you are a non combat operative", Ingram said.

"It doesn't matter!", the kid shrieked, "those Animals are gonna get lain out and slaughtered if I don't at least try!"

"Stand down Goliath, that Landship will tear you apart", Ingram barked.

"Vulture, Maus, relay from Big Brother, Goliath one is approaching your position, ETA in 3 minutes!"

"GOLIATH! I ORDER YOU TO STAND DOWN!", Ingram shouted.

"I can't follow that order Major sir", Goliath said, "I can't let these Animals die like Lessers."

Ingram growled, "Kid, you've got balls, I'll give you that. You are cleared for enemy contact."

"Thank you sir! I won't let you down!"

"THREE MINUTES TO BACK UP!", A German in the crowd shouted, "KEEP PRESSING THE FIGHT WE CAN WIN THIS!"

Shannon returned to the Madsen-Saetter. Several dozen African contacts were grouping up in two lines behind the now slowly advancing Landship. The tank was rolling coal on low compression, spewing out billowing clouds of dark black smoke from it's twin side pipes working to conceal the movement of troops behind it. They were taking advantage of the lull in fighting to reload and mend minor injuries. At this point, she had two options. The first was to just cut lose with the Madsen-Saetter, as grouped up as they were, they'd never be able to get to adequate cover in time, the second was to use the tank's exhaust as cover herself, sneak into the line as a Valmsoldaat, then open up with the Flamenwerfer. Neither solution was without risk, using the machine guns, she risked return fire from the Landship, and as torn up as she was already, a single 127mm shell, even if it hit the mountain 60 yards away, the shockwave would be a death sentence. If she engaged with the Flamenwerfer on foot, she would only have seconds to coat every one of the easily 72 plus contacts before, again, facing return fire from the Landship, or other African soldiers.

"Gahh!", Shannon growled, "there's no way out of this situation!"

"The fuck there ain't."

She whipped around, Flamenwerfer ready, only to find that the African kid was now on his feet, leaning against the wall with his Vektor across his chest.

"We never go anywhere without Anti-Tank artillery", he said, "A few M977 shells will punch right through Landship armor, and I know right where the emplacements are at, but you have to trust me."

"Like I'm going to trust you", Shannon hissed.

"Not like you have a choice in the matter, that Landship's putting your friends to the grinder by itself and there's an entire battalion of them waiting across the bridge. We've known you were coming for weeks now, Bapan is a death trap, you can't win without my help."

Shannon lowered the Flamenwerfer slightly, "why are you telling me this?"

"Both my older brothers were executed when they refused to murder innocents", the kid said, "It's called revenge. Surely, you have that in America?"

Shannon thought for a minute, then reached out to shake his paw.

"Yeah, we do. Let's do it."

The kid reached out and accepted, "Rico."

"Shannon."

"What's left in that Flamenwerfer?", Rico asked.

"Gotta be at least three quarters of a tank", she mused checking the gauge on the straps of the Flamenwerfer's tanks.

"Then hold onto it, we'll need it over the next couple of hours."

Rico led her down a tunnel that had been cut into the side of the bunker's wall, down a winding path and into a well light long tunnel.

"This tunnel goes across the road, through another bunker system", he explained, "at the top of one of the taller hills is a Solothurn S220/1500, it'll be more than enough to stop the Landship."

"So this is why you guys are so hard to clean out of area", Shannon sighed.

"These tunnels have tunnels that also have tunnels", Rico said, "they were all dug out during the second world war. Lucky for us I've spent the past month learning them all, unless they've been carving new ones, we should be okay."

Rico lead the duo through a long stretch of tunnel, which ended in a door, he put one ear to it. He flashed a hand signal, the room was hot. He looked at Shannon, who without a word pulled a Flashbang from her vest, holding the spoon so it wouldn't begin to cook. He pushed the door open just a crack, wide enough for her to toss the grenade into. Shannon let the spoon go with faint ping, tossing the flash bang into the room. Rico pulled the door shut. Five, four, three, two one. The grenade went off with a deafening bang, obscuring the sound of Rico body slamming the door all the way open and stepping to the right in a single motion and Shannon flanking in behind him. The room contained 15 African soldiers in various states of dazing and blindness. Despite the Flashbang having affected all of them in some way or another, several soldiers were still combat capable, one of which noticed Rico and immediately shifted his aim from Shannon to him.

"Verraaier!", the soldier shouted, getting off a single round before Rico shot him down. He shifted his aim to a second target while Shannon ignited group of three and then shifted to the two gunners on Madsen-Saetter HMG's who were dazed and reaching out to grab air, looking for their Vektors which were leaning against the wall in the opposite direction. The two of them cleaned out the African resistance in a few seconds. Rico rocked out the magazine on his Vektor, replaced it and reached under his weapon to rock the ride the bolt home.

"U moes lojaal gewees het om aan die begin 'n verraaier te wees", Rico spat at the soldier who had evidently mocked him.

Rico lead Shannon a staired tunnel towards a higher hill top, half way up the staircase, an African solider started screaming

"Ek het vyandelike kontakte in die tonnel! Haal my Amerikaanse granate uit!", she shouted. Four stick grenades rolled into the tunnel, bouncing their way down the staircase.

"Frags wat afkom!", Rico shouted, "Run towards them! Get a flashbang out that exit!"

Rico took off towards the rolling grenades, Shannon realized almost immediately that since the grenades were rolling down hill, running towards them was more liable to see them escape the cave, rather than away from them, and risking being buried alive when they went off. She let the Flamenwerfer fall to her side and pulled the pin off her last flash bang, letting the spoon fly off, starting to cook it as she approached the exit. When Rico was with in arm's reach of the exit, she threw it, right past his head and into the sunlight above.

"Flash out!", she screamed loud as she could.

Rico dove to his stomach, the flash going right over him and exploding outside. He scrambled out of the tunnel to put rounds on targets and Shannon joined him briefly afterwords. She found Rico locked in a gunfight with two other Hellfighters and two Artillery guys, while a single lioness lay on the ground with a bullet through her head. Shannon brought her Thompson up to her shoulder at the same time that the artillery guy noticed her and shifted the aim of his Mk-40 towards her. Shannon was slightly faster, the artillery collapsed to the ground atop his rifle, screaming violently in an oily inferno only a second before going still. Rico quickly dispatched the other two contacts and crouched down by the Solothurn emplacement. Shannon had only seen pictures of the huge, light cannons on the internet, and they were on the model prior to WW2. The new, African take on the weapons utilized ammunition that, while it wouldn't kill the tank itself, was designed to punch through the armor and ricochet inside of the cabin. There wasn't much that could defeat kinetic strike armor, but Tungsten Carbide was on the list of things that could. The Solothurn S220 utilized either standard 20x152mm slugs, or a more exotic, much more powerful accelerator ammunition in the form of a saboted .45 caliber projectile inside of a 20x152mm casing. The pressure inside of the direct impingement, semi-automatic light cannon imparted a speed of 22 thousand feet per second, the force of which Shannon had seen literally stop US Landships traveling in excess of seventy miles an hour dead in their tracks.

"No fucking wonder we can't push through to Bapan", Shannon sighed, "how many these things you got dug in like this?"

"Four that I know of", Rico said, "counting this one. They're all over these hills, they'll tear whatever your friend Goliath is bringing apart, we've gotta deal with them before then, can your fruity ass handle a Solothurn S220?"

"You better believe it", Shannon stated.

"I'll call targets as I spot them", Rico said swapping the specialized accelerator ammo already loaded into the weapon for standard slugs. He picked up a pair of high tech looking binoculars, "the cannons are in relatively open positions, all things considered, so they shouldn't be too hard to spot."

"By the same token neither would we", Shannon said taking the mono pod off the stock of the Solothurn, giving her more flexibility in aiming, "Goliath, this is Vulture, gimme an ETA on your arrival."

"Should be able to see my exhaust column by now", Goliath said, "ETA in 20 seconds. Honey Badger, this is Goliath, need you to pull back and let me clean up the mess the African's have made."

"Rodger that Goliath", a female said as the Landship's backup alarm sounded, "pulling back now."

The African MkVII tried to press it's attack. It put two rounds on the retreating American tank as it attempted to back behind the corner from which the ambush had started, slowly moving forward as it lurched through it's ten speeds. The ground began to shake, which caused the driver of the Landship to cease his advance. The Landship idled in the road, troops gathering in the trenches behind it and taking advantage of the lull in tank on tank combat to catch their breath and reload their firearms. From around the same corner that African's had lain their trap, everyone on both sides knew that a monster was approaching, they could see the cloud of black soot and feel the Earth trembling on it's axis. Shannon's mind was running wild, even up close, the biggest tanks couldn't rattle the bones of the planet the way the approaching behemoth was. She looked up from the scope, observing a billowing cloud of black smoke arcing out into a large half circle as Goliath approached their position, the wail of what must have been an absolutely enormous supercharger was audible over even the two clashing Landship's 20 feet below them. Soon, Goliath came around the corner, starring daggers at the Landship through it's slanted, amber daytime running lights. Goliath was no tank, rather, an absolutely massive, armored bulldozer. The machine was the size of a mobile home and had in letters visible to the naked eye, "Camarillo Armored Solutions", across the front grille. The blade was nine feet high and some 30 or so feet long and lined with wicked looking teeth that looked like ax heads. The dozer was stacked with Kinetic strike armor at every possible angle. The aggressive welds holding the machine together gave it an appearance as if it was scarred from conflict, which may not be as far fetched as one might think. Even with no throttle, moving by idle power alone the dozer was spewing black, foul smelling exhaust into the air through it's twin, heat sinked exhaust pipes.

"Holy shit", Shannon stuttered when she lay eyes on the desert tan monstrosity. She couldn't even see windows, leading her to believe that the thing was driven by cameras.

The ground shook when the machine up shifted, belching a planet sized ball of fire and smoke into the air, digging it's blade into the soft Earth below it and shoving aside anything in it's way as it made a death march straight for the African Landship, which wasted no time in hammering Goliath with one of the wicked double taps that Landships were known for. However, against this enemy, the even the mighty Landship appeared helpless. The Landship's 127mm guns slammed into Goliath's blade and flattened into the size of large coffee cans, succeeding in little other than forcing the hulking monstrosity back on it's treads mere inches, somehow managing to stall it.

"Target! 1300 yards! 15 degrees right, six degrees up!", Rico called, "I got four animals setting up a small artillery piece!"

Shannon looked through the scope of the Solothurn, adjusting her point of aim to what Rico had called out. Zooming in far as she could, she could see animals that through the scope were the size of action figures quickly setting up a fairly sized artillery piece. It was no 127mm Landship cannon, but that didn't mean it couldn't put a hurting on Goliath. She dialed the scope in for 1300, adjusting the focus so she could see clearly. At that range, she'd have to take the Coriolis effect into account, something she had never been good at. She thought for a moment, at 100 yards, each mill dot was one inch? Or was it a foot? She couldn't remember, having barely passed that portion of training. She wasn't sure what applied at 1300 yards, so fuck it. She held off to the point where the torso of the commanding officer of the artillery crew was just at the edge of the optic and sent the round. She watched the round fly 1300 rounds down range in under a second, nailing the artillery commander in the chest and blowing a basketball sized hole through him. The recoil of the cannon hardly disrupted her aim, much to her surprise. She looked up slightly from the scope and refocused on the artillery crew, who were quickly looking for something to hide behind, one of them running to another Solothurn. Shannon acted quickly, sending a series of seven shots towards the enemy combatants. Only one of the seven rounds struck a target, the Solothurn itself, sending the gunner flying back with a bloody face and pained screams. The remaining animals took their disabled ally into a cave system and Shannon put three rounds on the artillery piece itself, completely scrapping it.

By this time, Goliath had reignited his engines and restarted his death march towards the enemy Landship, which was now in full retreat. Goliath pressed his attack, driving right up and attempting to flip over the Mark Seven on the massive hill of dirt, bodies and scrap metal he had accumulated. Despite the Super Dozer's nearly 2700 plus horsepower advantage and possessing nearly six times the torque as the Mark Seven at the tracks, the Mark Seven outweighed it by a not insignificant margin, but, unable to properly aim it's 127mm cannons in any meaningful way, the Mark Seven was unable to deal Goliath a fatal strike, so now the ball was contested. The battlefield filled with burning diesel ash and angry particles of flying sand and burnt fibers as two of the worlds most powerful military vehicles warred for supremacy over a dirt road. A radio call said that Maus had been pinned by more enemy Landships and that they couldn't get to them now. Shannon and Rico stayed on the Solothurn for nearly four hours after that call, doing combat with at least 14 other operators at ranges exceeding two and a half miles. By the beginning of the fifth hour, Shannon's fur had become caked with mud, resulting from the desert heat cooking her inside the Valmsoldaat armor. She could no longer feel her legs, was fairly certain her feet were beginning to decay and her head was pounding from focusing on the scope for so long, not to mention her ears were fried from wearing her Ear Pro for so long. The worst part of this, however, was the fact that the Solothurn was beginning to drag behind. They had used the quality slugs first, then the accelerator ammunition, and now were down to the mass produced, anti-material slugs made with materials inferior in every possible way to the standardized ammunition. The fouling in the weapon was so bad that a puddle of black oil had formed on Shannon's gloves and collected at the bottom of the hide.

"They just keep coming", Shannon said to Rico, rubbing her eyes, letting the stock of the Solothurn slide from her shoulder.

Rico looked up from the scope of his Mk-40 Self Loading, rubbing his eyes as well, "They're using the cover of Goliath's and the Mark Seven's dust to switch out and resupply. We can kill until the Solothurn is dry or explodes, it's not going to matter."

And then, everything changed.

"Vulture One this is Ballroom, how copy?", Ingram asked over the radio, "gimme a sit rep."

"Goliath's keeping the African Mk seven busy, but we're losing ground Ballroom", Shannon said, "Goliath is running on fumes! That Mark Seven is going to bleed us dry and Maus never showed! We NEED backup yesterday!"

"Vulture, Maus' ground units have dealt with enemy contacts and are gathering supplies, ETA in 3 minutes, however, I've got one heavy hitter in your immediate AO, patching you through to callsign Thunder."

"Vulture Thunder 1-1. Heard there was ultra heavy armor in the area and sounded like you kids were up against it. How many in your unit have IR flares? My plane is sealed completely, so I need you to put on one hell of a light show, gonna need as many flares on that target as you can get. I'm going to give that Mark Seven the what for."

She groped her vest.

"Fuck! I've only got three."

"Vulture!" a random Female shouted, "I have four!"

"I've got a pack of six!", a male shouted.

"I've got a set too!

Three or four animals rattled off a flare count.

"That'll do quite nicely, you've got thirty seconds! Don't worry about hitting it head on, just make sure it lands closer to them than you. Lemme see a show!"

"FLARES!", a German male shouted throwing the lit IR flare towards the Landship.

"IR FLARE!", a female shouted.

"FLARE OUT!", Shannon shouted, struggling against the pain in her fingers, managed to pull the pin off the flare and threw it as hard as she could towards the Landship. The canister hit it's mark, landing right in the equipment rack of the tank.

"IR FLARE!", another male shouted.

"Vulture, Thunder 1-1 is inbound from the North. Visual on friendly forces and tally on targets, all units pull back to a safe distance, Time to weapons in ten."

Goliath, who all this time had been locked in a war of powertrain attrition with the African Mark Seven, now ceased his attack and began to pull back. The Mark Seven, seeing his enemy was vulnerable, threw his tank into first and climbed atop the hill of scrap vehicles and dirt, delivering another violent double tap against Goliath. The 127mm rounds burrowed deep into Goliath's skin, however, didn't phase the pilot, or the machine itself, other than causing another stall out. By this time, Thunder 1-1 had entered the AO.

The mere presence of Thunder 1-1, even though she couldn't see it yet, made Shannon feel like her fur was retreating into her skin. The air seemed like it was shaking, fearing the monster that lived under it's bed that everyone said wasn't real, but the growls and scraping from the hardwood floors at midnight on the button were hard to ignore. In the distance, behind the hazy desert sky, Thunder 1-1 began to come into view. Descending from what seemed like low earth orbit, the sleek aircraft reminded Shannon of a B-52 stratofortress, except on a heavy steroid regiment. As the aircraft came into view, Shannon now truly understood it's nickname of "Black Hole Eater." The aircraft had no windows and was painted such a dark black it almost looked like a void in the sky, like the textures never loaded in. The only color anywhere on the plane were the tips of the wings, where white strobes would quickly flash twice in succession, pause a moment, then flash again. The wail of the planes 12 turbine engines is what many of the soldiers on both sides imagined as the screams of the demons that hid in the bottom of the darkest wells in the deepest parts of the Black Forest. The knees of every solider on that battlefield buckled under fear. Fear of what was coming.

"Ballroom this is Thunder 1-1, I've got the Mark Seven in my sights."

"Thunder 1-1 gimme a sit rep", Ingram said.

"Tank's tearing it up down there boss", the pilot said.

"Thunder 1-1 you are cleared for weapons."

"Y35K! EVERYONE GET DOWN!", one of the Germans shouted at the top of his lungs.

The African foot soldiers began running in the other direction as fast as they could, some even discarding their firearms. The Mark Seven, however, was not so easily frightened and was turning it's main gun to make the monstrous black aircraft it's next victim. She heard a low thump in the distance, a sound like whistling mortars and then six rapid detonations that split the sky in two rocked the planet on it's axis. The blasts kicked up boulders and clouds of fine dust the size of football fields. The battlefield fell silent. Shannon cautiously peeked up from her spot in the trench, for five agonizing minutes, the dust swirled in the air. It settled somewhat after a moment, she could see the orange haze of the purgatory the Landship had become burning through the thick dust. Some of her allies began to appear from behind their vehicles, as the dust cleared, the Landship lay as noting more than burning scrap metal, the African soldiers quickly retreating into their trenches.

"Ballroom, Thunder 1-1, target area suppressed", the pilot said, "Thanks for the work."

"Thunder 1-1, Big Brother, that was one hell of a show, could see it up here."

"Thanks for the compliment", the pilot laughed.

"Hey Thunder where you going!?", the commander of the American Mark Seven laughed.

"Yeah! We need you Thunder!", another female laughed.

"Back upstairs", the pilot said, "Ballroom this is Thunder 1-1, am I cleared for Afterburners?"

"You are cleared for Afterburners", Ingram said, "try not to scorch all those Animals you just rescued."

"Never", the pilot said, "hit it."

What happened next, She couldn't really describe. The Y35 seemed to lose power for a single second, before jets of blue fire erupted from the back of all 12 turbines, launching the aircraft upwards. Mere seconds passed before the massive plane triggered a sonic boom, the shockwave felt by every allied soldier on the ground.

"Thunder 1-1 exiting AO."

"Vulture this is Maus, my convoy is inbound from the south, ETA in 30 seconds."

"What the fuck kept you Maus?", someone asked angrily.

"Had to stop to get some coffee and doughnuts, and there was this one asshole who owed me five dollars."

"Good answer", the male said.

"All units regroup on Honey Badger", the German ordered.

Shannon rose up from her spot on the Solothurn. She discarded the Flamenwerfer and the Valmsoldaat armor, she doubted she'd need it further. With Rico's help, they dismantled the Solothurn and moved down range towards Honey Badger and Goliath. Goliath was even more intimidating up close, Shannon barely came up to the halfway point on the blade. Heat was radiating off of the massive 36 cylinder engine, there was probably a fifty percent or so increase in the temperature within . Goliath's pilot was leaning against one of Honey Badger's 127mm guns, wearing only fatigues, a plate carrier and a helmet. Shannon and Rico were approached by Honey Badger's commanding officer, along with the German Captain who'd been leading the convoy, and the old dragon.

"Knew you had it in ya kid", the old dragon smiled.

"Thank you sir", Shannon saluted.

"At ease", the German said, "whose this?"

"This is Rico", Shannon said, "he helped me provide over watch for Goliath while he was keeping the Mark Seven busy. He could be a valuable addition to the mission, he knows where the Africans have set up all of their artillery."

"It's all focused on Bapan", Rico said, "if you try and roll in, it'll destroy you. I can give you the maps, and if you send two Mark Sevens into the hills with some kind of over watch, while the rest of the convoy pushes towards Bapan, it'll be a cakewalk compared to the last six hours."

The German looked to Shannon, then to Rico, then back at her, "Good. Honey Badger's down crew, so Private Hatfield, you take your new African friend and shore up our Mark Seven's crew. Honey B, you take Maus and head into the hills to deal with the African artillery."

"Yes sir", Honey Badger's commander said saluting.

"The rest of you, resupply and form up on Maus 2! We're pushing towards the bridge!"

Allied forces began scurrying about, preparing for the assault on the bridge. Rico and Shannon were approached by Honey Badger's driver and instructed to change into desert tan jumpsuits. They weren't exactly normal jumpsuits, being reinforced in the most literal sense of the word, with black leather and carbon fiber on all high wear points. They had gloves, boots and balaclavas built in. The helmets they were wearing fit right over the hood and had all the radio equipment already built in. Like the suits themselves, the helmets were actively cooled by chilled water.

"Why the chilled water cooling?", Rico asked Honey Badger's commander.

"Save's space", the commander explained, "Landship's are huge tanks, and the 127mm guns are pretty big as well, need some place to store ammunition, so they decided to have a chiller in the back of the tank and just pump chilled water through the jumpsuits to keep us cool. And it buys us precious seconds to escape a burning tank, which, when you pilot a Mark Seven, is an inevitably."

The commander motioned for them to follow. Shannon and Rico climbed atop the Landship and inside. The cabin wasn't quite as cramped as she had been told, but was a tight fit. That may have been due to the heart of the Mark Seven, 18 liters of W36 fury, sitting right in the middle of the floor. The tank was currently home to 5 other animals, the gunner and loader for the side 127mm cannon, the driver and the engineer, who was tinkering with something on a tablet hooked to the engine. Shannon heard the door lock behind her, turning, she saw the commander climbing over the engine.

"We go for start up Nolan?"

"Yes mam", the falcon flashed a thumbs up.

"Let's get her going!", The commander said taking her seat and strapping in, "thanks to our friends, here , we 've got artillery to kill."

"Finally, something to do", the other gunner said putting her helmet back on.

With a flick of his wrist, the driver awoke the slumbering Mark Seven. Shannon had heard the tanks start before, but inside the tank, the engine sounded even more powerful. Soon the Landship was rolling out.

"Alright bro, time to show where your loyalties lie", the commander said, "where we going and what we dealing with?"

"A mile up this road is an access trail, you'll miss it if you aren't looking. Watch for a burned out tiger tank, the road is hidden right behind that tank. We'll want to follow that road for roughly 7 miles, it'll take us straight through the front door of the artillery base. All the African Landship's are getting switched out and resupplied from that base, and there's a big enough cache of fuel and munitions that if we level that base, Bapan is all but won."

"My day just got way more interesting", the gunner said.

"Can't wait to get hoed by another African prison guard huh.

"Hey Nolan, fuck you", the gunner said.

"Fuck you too", the Eagle replied waving his comrade off.

"Cut the chatters dumb asses, stay frosty", the commander ordered.

Within, 20 minutes of setting out, the two Mark Sevens had arrived at the African base, catching everyone of them completely off guard. Only three of the dozen or so tanks on base had crew near by and not a single one was running. The 155mm artillery guns were aimed in two different directions, four each, some at Bapan and some at the bridge, the only ones who had seen Honey Badger and Maus pull in was the crew of a single gun, and they hadn't realized they were American tanks until it was too late.

"This is it! Weapons free!", Honey Badger's commander barked.

The fight that ensued following their intrusion lasted for an additional six hours, only ending when Honey Badger parked itself atop a hill in Bapan, holding it for 30 minutes against swarms of African tanks and infantry. By the time Bapan was considered secured, Honey Badger was completely wrecked and had to be towed back to the base on a fat bed truck. At the gates of Firebase Charlie, Ingram greeted the crew of badger.

"Fantastic job Honey Badger, word of how you brought down Bapan is going out to armored unit in the country, so get outta that gear, get some chow and some rest, you've earned it."

Some weeks later, Shannon found herself back home in Oklahoma. It would be a long drive home from the airport, and a few animals she'd grown up with were texting her, congratulating her on her return, in specific, her childhood friend Morgan.

"Great that your back sister", She texted, "we should all get together at Mike's house to celebrate."

"Every time you guys come out to my place I end up in the county jail getting grilled on why I've got six drunk animals in my house, with the worst two being female minors."

"We'll go easy this time, smiley face", Morgan texted, "don't be such a wet rag Mike. It's not exactly illegal. We have parental permission. We'll go easy on you."

"You say that every time, and then you empty my liquor cabinet."

"Mike, mike,mike, mike, mike", Shannon texted, "guess what day it is."

"Shannon and Morgan stay out of my liquor cabinet day", Mike answered, "I'll buy pizza or something. But with you having just come back from Africa if you start drinking you'll bankrupt me."

"Aw, I'm not that bad", Shannon smirked.

"I'll pay for the booze", John texted, "we'll throw on Hollywood undead and get fucked right up."

"John, you and Hollywood undead don't mix", Morgan said, "you are the number one reason we ALWAYS get the cops called on us."

"Shut up", John texted, "welcome home Shannon!"

"Yeah sister! Great to have you back!", Mike said.

"Aw, thanks guys", Shannon smiled answering back, "mind if I bring someone along?"

"Who?", Morgan asked.

"My new boyfriend Rico", She texted.

"Leave for four weeks and come back with a male huh?", Morhgan teased, "have to pry him out of some trench and brainwash him?"

Shannon showed Rico the text, "well you did hoe me with that Flamenwerfer."

She giggled, "not quite. I'll be back home in a few hours. See you guys then."

She put away her phone, she and Rico grabbed their things from the baggage claim and started towards the car, when, in the middle of the airport lobby, Rico stopped them.

"Wait, Shannon, I wanted to ask you something."

"Sure, what's up?"

"I've been doing some thinking, over these past couple of months, and on the plane and hell, when we were still on the front", Rico said, nervously rubbing the back of his neck, "I already know the answer to this question, but it's not gonna stop me from asking anyway."

Rico got down both knees, taking a small black box from his fatigue pocket. Shannon's heart skipped a few beats, she had to hold her muzzle shut to keep from cutting him off.

"Shannon Hatfield, will you marry me?"

"YES!", Shannon squealed, by now, everyone in the airport was watching them, "OH MY GOD YES!"

She jumped into his arms when he stood up,pulling him into a deep kiss. Onlookers began clapping and cheering. Then, just like that, everything was shattered. There was a loud BANG in the distance, Shannon turned her gaze from Rico out the window. There, she could see seven bombers, all flying in formation, mushroom clouds billowed in the distance. Every animal in the airport began screaming and running for their lives. Rico took Shannon and dove behind one of the receptionist counters, shielding her with his own body.

"You'll be okay!", he assured, "I love y..."

Rico was unable to finish his sentence, Nuclear fire poured in through the windows, shattering the thick airport glass like fine china. The shockwave ripped the airport apart around them, in time, taking their cover. The fire stripped the clothes, skin and fur from Rico's back, his body burst into flames. The look of agony in his eyes broke Shannon's soul. Rico screamed in African. She didn't speak it, but she knew he was crying for his mother. The flesh melted from his back and dripped onto the ground around them, pooling in a foul smelling paste of browns, blacks and reds. Shards of glass and steel tore trough through him like bullets, radiation cooking what of his body wasn't scoured by flame into a material that resembled half melted, bloody rubber. For thirty seconds, Rico endured the flames, when they subsided, he rolled off her, still conscious.

By now, Shannon was covered in Rico's melted flesh and blood, she could feel the sting of the radiation. She didn't care. She rolled over, placing her head on his chest, sobbing bitterly at the rapidly approaching end.

"Don't waste it", Rico said, planting one final kiss on her forehead, "don't waste your life, don't die here."

Rico took a ragged breath, and went still.