Point 89
Point 89 - A investigative story into high fantasy high modern cross fiction.
This is an expierment into a world I'm trying to develop where high fantasty worlds themes and characters are mixed up in our slightly more modern world with not so friendly results. It's an interesting idea I believe to fairly unique and I've had fun working on it. Hope you have fun reading it.
Goddamn. It was the only thought running though 2nd Lieutenant Harriet's mind as he sat within the giant roaring and rolling piece of steel known only as an M1A2 Abrams tank. The vehicle was fresh out of the factory, as shown by it's factory set olive green paint in full, rather than most of the other vehicles in the battalion, all painted in forest blackgreens.
The tank was on the run, ducking and weaving behind buildings as only an armoured vehicle only could, nearly plowing right through them. Scrapes and dents pocket marked all over it's armour. Inside it was cramped and Harriet had just enough room to spread his wings to get his grey scaled hide comfortable in the gunner's chair. Of course every time the driver, who only went by Lunatic thanks to his classic crazied manner and ideas, put the tank into a hard turn by locking the right track up to avoid being hit, either by accident or design, plowed the 67 tonnes of armoured steel through the sides of the streetside houses, sending debris everywhere.
The insides of the tank plain white, almost like the shade you'd expect in an doctor's office inside the tank, very calming. Harriet shook his mind out it's wandering, that could get them killed. His paws flexed on the twin joysticks that controlled the tank's turret and it's massive 120mm smoothbore cannon, not to mention it's 7.62 millimetre co-axial machine gun, it was a good thing they were reinforced, he was holding them so tight his talons had made inprints in the sides of them. Right next to him on his left, close enough that he could feel the body heat in the cramped conditions was the tank's loader, his paws sitting ready on another of the tank's powerful cannon shells, behind him, Captain Hain, the tank commander, who also had remote control of the tank's two top M2HB .50 cal machine guns.
Harriet swung the turret to the left, the crew's whole position rotating with it as he pressed a green eye against the gunner's sight, being his only connection to the outside world in here, apart from the few, scattered camera screen points within the tank, giving them some situational awareness. In here, it was almost hard to remember there was a war going on out there. The sky was black with fire as the city around them burned from a conflict that had been raging for several days now. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were just fighting-
"Infantry, ahead front!" Came the call from the Lunatic, and Harriet swung the turret back forwards, slapping himself mentally, it was his job to spot the targets, not for the wolf driver. He flicked the camera to it's thermal view, and still- No wait, there they were, seven of them, hiding in a blown apart house. He zoomed in, and blessed the man who made these cameras as clear as they were. Pointy, long ears, with bows and arrows. He almost grinned. Almost.
"Enemy infanty, Front, three-hundred metres!" He called back as was required, already knowing what was coming next.
"Open fire!" Hain ordered and Harriet was quick to comply. He flipped the switch on the left joystick, bringing it to co-ax and adjusted up a notch for the bullet drop and pulled on the trigger. The rumble of the engine and the silence of everything else was shattered as the tank vibrated with the sound of a large machine gun rattling off rounds. Harriet was oddly disconnected as the yellow tracers floated all over the elves position, the bullets punching large holes in the wall behind them, leaving them nowhere to go as the next salvo reached them, cutting them to shreds. He zoomed out as the bodies hit the ground. The rumble of the engine returned.
"Target!" he called, signalling that he'd hit his mark as usual, then grinned as another Abrams tank pulled up ahead of them and to the left, "Friendly, 11 o'clock!"
He could have sworn he felt his loader smile before the whole tank rocked from side to side as something exploded right beside them, pings could be heard as pieces of debris bounced off the armoured side. The lights in inside dimmed a little. Suddenly, the twin top machine guns started firing, the gunfire only a dull bangbangbang within the armoured shell.
"Get us out of here, NOW!!" Hain shouted, panicked, his finger holding down on the triggers for the fifty-cals up top, when burst firing was proceedure. Lunatic stepped on the gas and the tank lurched forward. Harriet swung the turret hard to the left, the electronic whirring sounding as he brought the main gun to bear, and he damn near wish he hadn't looked.
Sitting in the rubble of a three story building, was a full blown four legged dragon, at least forty foot long. He might have noticed it's elven rider, had it not been closer than three metres, yellow tracers and sparks bouncing off it's scaled hide as the fifty cals offered nothing more than an annoyance to the much bigger and four legged version of the modern anthro. Harriet reacted much in the same way as the tank's commander, mainly by pulling the trigger and never letting go, the dull bangbangbang of the twin fifties up top muffled completely by the sound of the co-ax 7.62 millimetre roaring.
"STAFF! Load STAFF!!" He shouted, and his loader responded instantly, opening the breach of the 120mm cannon and pulling out the SABOT round and reaching for one of the five STAFF rounds, a self guided, self correcting high explosive round which could be locked onto a target and then fired without the need for correction on the gunner's part.
The other Abrams on the left of Harriet's own tank was quicker to react, the turret swinging around and firing it's main cannon, it suddenly disappearing in the dust cloud that formed as the round left the barrel with a tremendous boom. The ground shook, the tank shook, everyone within a square mile heard the shot as the elven rider upon the dragon swung a magical barrier as the tank fired, the high explosive anti tank round smacking against it and fireballing, picking up pieces of debris on the ground and sending them flying as a smokecloud formed, obsecuring the dragon from sight as Lunatic pushed the tank hard, almost jump ramping it off a small garden median strip in the road ahead.
"They nailed it! What a shot!" Hain shouted in victory, his gun barrels cooling before the smoke swirled around rapidly and a thick red beam shot out from the middle, punching a hole clean through the other tank before fading out of existance. The tank kept driving for a moment, seemingly unaffected by the blast, short of the massive hole through and through it's hull.
Then it caught fire, thick smoke pouring from the wound, white fire spiting from the turret before it exploded with a dull thump, the white flames engulfing it.
"Up!" The loader replied, the breach shut, the STAFF round in the cannon. The smoke cloud disappeared, the dragon giving but a mere flap of it's powerful wings to clear it, the elven rider casting his own spell, a smaller, green beam shooting from her hands, smacking the tank in the turret, one of the explosive reaction armour blocks detonating as it got hit, disappating the impact force of the spell, the tank shuddering madly.
"HIT! Check for hull damage!" Hain shouted over the noise, lighting the dragon up again with his fifty cals while Harriet flicked the switch on his left joystick to flick off co-ax, locking on with the STAFF round. With a soft beep of the computer, he pulled the trigger.
The 120mm smoothbore cannon fired hard, with the turret point hard right the tank leapt up onto it's side with the recoil, driving on one tread for a second, everything within being thrown to the left as it kicked, the dust cloud blinding the tank for a moment. The loader already had the breach open and was loading another STAFF round as the tank thumped back on the deck, everyone's ears still ringing.
But the dragon was still standing. And looking quite pissed.
"Target! It's still standing!" Harriet shouted, just a little fear filling his voice as the loader slapped the new STAFF round in there annouced it with a shout of his own. There were pings on the hull again, like someone firing arrows at them from the left right before the tank must have blown their ears out as Harrier pulled on the trigger for the main cannon again, sending it rocking once more. At the same time, the dust swirled up in a storm, the returning the favour with the massive red beam from before with an earth shattering roar. His life flashed before his eyes in slow motion, his wife, his kids, friends, hobbies, everything, this was the end.
The red beam and the STAFF round collided midair, the round detonating less than halfway before it's target, disrupting the beam, but not destroying it completely. The beam struck the right rear section of the right track, blowing it and the drive train apart. The beam continued through the Gas turbine engine and then into the ground while the tank skidded to the right, out of contro, at full speed. Hain was still firing the twin machine guns up top even as the engine exploded and the tank plowed into a house with a basement, rolling into it on it's side, JP-8 jet fuel spilling out everywhere as the steel beast growled and grinded to a halt, the sound of metal scraping and grinding against other metal filling the compartment of the tank.
Harriet woke to the sounds of a loud damage siren within the tank, as well as a fire alarm and he groaned as he realised he was no logner in the gunner's seat, but on the left side wall of the tank, at the bottom of the rolled vehicle, laying on the SABOT rounds. He could feel sharp pains in several points in his left wing, that was broken for sure, He blinked the haziness out of his eyes, he freshly conscious mind finally realising the danger of being in a tank that was rolled, on fire and in all certainly gushing fuel.
He patted down around on the ground, looking for his radio headset, which he found over in the HEAT rounds, which he promptly grabbed and put back on, before looking to the loader. Dead, there was blood all over the breach door and all over the back of his head and out of his muzzle. The seriousness of the alarms eclipsed his thoughts as he quickly grabbed the M4 carbine off the rack and slung it over his back. There was blood dripping on it, Hain was also dead, he was slumped over the commander's control, and there was blood dripping down from that to the floor. Those beasts would surely make a make out of their kill, the reports had said, there was nothing he could do for them. He tried to make them as comfortable in death as possible before grabbing their Barettas and grabbing their spare magazines and pocketing them in his vest.
And then without another thought he climbed over his old station and forced open the commander's hatch and climbed out through it, his broken wing hanging loosely at his back, cringing every time he banged it against something. The sky was black, if it was night or that was just smoke he couldn't tell. The destroyed tank sat at the bottom of a basement on half on it's side, the huge hole in it's right rear side giving Harriet pause for how lucky he was that it wasn't more centred.
More or less falling out of the tank with a thud and a groan, he let out a deep breath, half to check if he had any broken ribs and to try and let the tension out of his body without success. The tank was actually on fire, flames flickering underneath it and he shuffled back, not having noticed that before. A roar sounded overhead and a dragon flew overhead, only adding to the thoughts in his head telling him he needed to get out of here. Then, over the sound of fire crackling, his headset came to life, the voice on the other end an urgent whisper.
"Harriet! Get your grey hide upstairs! We gotta move!"
He looked around and sure enough, through the hole in the basement room, Lunatic the wolf was looking down at him, Baretta drawn and throwing looks over his shoulder. He remembered in the final moments elves were firing arrows at them as well as the dragon and suddenly he realised they were still 20 ways to screwed. He hauled himself up off the ground, gripped the M4 tightly and hurried up the stairs on the other side of the burning tank and slid in beside Lunatic up against an upturned table, looking out at a hole in the brick wall at the street outside through a small garden of trees.
"How bad?" Harriet asked multiple questions with just two words, getting the spare clips out of his vest and handing them to Lunatic, who looked a lot better at just the sight of them.
"Lots of elves, a few wolves in plate armour with giant swords, that. Goddamn. Dragon, Two Griffons and nothing but smoke. You?" Lunatic responded, shaking his head in disgust at their situation.
"4 for the Barretta, 3 for the Carbine, including in the guns. Supplies?"
"None, the green beam blew the backpacks in the turret. I've got what didn't break in the medkit, which is bandages and about it."
"We won't have them for long," Harriet motioned to his limp left wing, "Musta got shaken loose and landed hard on the ammo." Lunatic gathered the bandage roll and took a quick look at Harriet's wing, doing his best to keep a good feel about himself while doing so to keep hopes up, but failing. Proping his wing into it's folded state so they could bandage it up so it could heal was a different matter altogether, it was all Harriet had to stop from yelling out in pain, even when Lunatic finished he could still his wing throbbing painfully. He had to hiss lowly, it offered preicous little relief.
"That's it for our medicals then." Lunatic pressed his back up against the table and sighed, sitting down heavily.
"Well... we're proper stuffed, aren't we?" Harriet replied with a bit of black humour.
"We could always take the fifties off the tank and go down in a blaze of glory and bullets." Lunatic chuckled and Harriet joined him, then it descended into knowing silence, both trying to think of a serious way out of this mess.
"Nearest allied forces?" Lunatic asked
"5th Armoured and 22nd Air Cav, two days from the west, last count."
"All we gotta do is survive for two days then, huh? Sounds easy enough."
"They'll probably set up a village or something here as soon they think the area is secure. How many do you think we lost?"
"I don't want to say..."