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"Hoplite Alphas, this is Ajax three-seven, over!"

"Send message. Three-Alpha-zero."

"We're coming up against automatic weapon fire from entrenched enemy positions, requesting fire support, coordinates to follow!"

I half expected to hear something like this. Our tank platoon, consisting of five Urbanes, was bumping along on the open Altama plain. The infantry platoon with which we intended to rendezvous, Ajax, with was too far ahead of us, about a mile, and now they were under fire. My headset was connected to both the tank's intercom and to the radio, allowing me to communicate with the tank crew, and hear any incoming radio transmissions.

"Three-alpha-eight, three-alpha-six, three-alpha-five, three-alpha-four, halt and standby for firing," said the radio. I recognized the voice as that of our platoon commander. I lifted my foot from the accelerator, engaged the brakes, and pulled the gearshift lever back into neutral.

More voices came through my headset, and I set the handbrake. I heard the low whine of the hydraulic turret traverse, the clang of the breechblock, and finally, the loud thud of the gun firing, which reverberated through the tank. The pattern repeated for a long time; clang, thud, clang, thud. Since we were stopped, I sat back in the seat and concentrated on listening. I got to the point where I could predict just when I would hear the sounds, down to split seconds.

Just before I was expecting to hear the clang, I instead heard an explosive impact, and the tank buckled on its suspension. Then there came only the beginning of the clang, as if it had consciousness, and hadn't registered that the pattern had been interrupted yet. It was accompanied by a high pitched canine yelp, which caused me to jump, even as my brain was still processing the other unexpected noise.

A full two seconds later, Sgt. Kent's voice found its way to my headset. "Get us out of here," He ordered. "Move!"

It took a few seconds for me to get the tank in gear and all that, but I started us off just as Kent loudly informed everyone on the radio that we were taking fire.

I was just about to ask Kent where he wanted me to go, but another impact buffeted the vehicle, and the engine spluttered, causing me to cringe. About a half dozen lights on the dashboard flicked on, and I cussed under my breath as I realized our engine had just been knocked out.

"Engine's hit!" I hollered, more into the air than into my headset. Hit by what, though? I wondered. It didn't seem to have penetrated the armor, though I couldn't be sure, because of the heavy bulkhead seperating the engine from the fighting compartment.

"Status, three-alpha-eight? three-alpha-zero. Over"

"Engine knocked out, loader wounded!" Kent shouted. I could hear him through both the radio and the turret floor. "Give us some fucking cover!"

Another impact jolted our vehicle, much closer to me. I knew for a fact that this one hadn't penetrated - I briefly saw a small explosion on the glacis through my scopes.

Something from training popped into my head; something about explosive rounds knocking pieces of metal off the interior side of an armor plate, "spalling" I believe it was called. I was thankful that the Urbane had spaced frontal armor, as flecks of metal in my face didn't sound too appealing. The sides had no such protection, so I was able to draw a conclusion as to what had knocked out our engine.

But those thoughts were only at the front of my mind for a moment, as Kent's voice sounded through my headphones. "Stokes is down! We need a hand!" Before I could ask for it, the turret traversed to the forward position, allowing me to open the hatch connecting my compartment with the turret's interior. As I opened the hatch, a few drops of blood spilled out, from a small puddle that had already accumulated on the turret basket.

I looked up to see Kent's lower face, the upper part inside the cupola, and with his left hand up there too, holding the radio earpiece. Scott was in the front, trying to pull a semi-conscious Stokes out of his seat. I promptly noticed that two of the Rottweiler's fingers were missing, bloody nubs in their place.

"Take over!" Scott barked to me. I assumed that the nondescript order indicated that he wanted me load the gun. Adrenaline was now kicking in; I squeezed through the hatch, ignoring the blood that I got on myself, and hauled myself into the turret. I pulled a shell out of the ready rack, and heaved it to the breech, pushing it in with my fist. I pulled my hand back as the breechblock closed automatically, noticing that the sharp upper edge was marked with a blood stain.

"Up!" I yelled to indicate the shell was loaded, and stood back, away from where I guessed the gun would recoil to.

"Got him!" Kent hollered. A split second later, another impact buffeted the tank. "Sixty degrees left of my position. Three-alpha-eight, over."

"Let's get this sunofabitch!" Scott hooted, and pushed the traverse lever forward. The turret jolted, turning to face our attacker. Scott pressed his face to the gun sight, and soon took his hand from the traverse lever, switching to the manual handwheel.

"Fire!" He shouted, not an order, but an announcement. He pulled the manual trigger I knew was mounted under the breech, and the 4.5 inch howitzer fired. I covered my ears, so the report was muffled. The whole gun recoiled back about a foot, and a safe distance from where I stood. I had heard the firing plenty, but I hadn't ever been in the turret when it happened - I was properly stunned.

There was a moment of silence. "I think we got 'em." Kent said at last. I heard something come through his and Scott's headphones - mine had been left in the driver's compartment. Kent dipped his head back down and looked at us. Scott tore off his headset, then his mosh cap, and mopped his brow with it, letting out a sigh of relief. I remembered Stokes all of the sudden. I found him on the turret floor, in the pool of his own blood. His eyes were closed, and he was softly whimpering. I looked at his mangled hand; obviously, it was the breechblock that had cut through his fingers, right through the bone. But how did it happen? Even I knew you were supposed to push the shells in with your fist, not with your fingers.

"He musta spooked and opened his hand right at the wrong time." Scott ventured, as if he had read my thoughts.

I felt pretty bad for him. This was his first combat mission, and he'd gotten a permanent injury. Beginner's bad luck. I was afraid to grab him by his arm, so I put my hands under his chest and tried to haul him to a standing position. Man, was that dog heavy. It was odd - He was a big guy, but I'd never thought I'd have any diffuculty lifting him - Stokes, the 200 pound rag doll.

"You all right, Admiral?" Kent said softly, using Stokes's recently-christened nickname. It came about because Stokes had once told us that his father wanted him to join the Coast Guard. Old man Stokes had apparently been quite the sea dog, and had attained a decent rank.

"Hey, Kenneth, can you hear us?" I said, when he didn't respond to Kent. He muttered something, probably because I had been speaking right into his ear.

Kent adjusted his headset, and called for a medic on the radio. In the meantime though, we were stuck in that tank, sitting dead - one of the hits we took earlier had busted the loader's hatch. That left mine and the commander's, mine was blocked because of the direction the turret was facing, and with the engine knocked out, we could only manually traverse it. Lastly, the cupola hatch was narrow, and only really intended for someone's head to fit through.

Kent could wriggle through it, but he opted to stay in, so we would look the part of knocked out tank, and not worth wasting further ammunition on. Besides, rebel snipers were far more dangerous than their improvised antitank weapons - we would be safer inside.

The other tanks that had been in our convoy had moved on to rendezvous with the infantry, who had requested close support shortly after we had come under attack. Our platoon commander had apparently judged the welfare of the infantry platoon to be of more importance than ourselves.

We were alone on the open plain. It seemed like the rebels would still be around, and it would be like them to examine our apparently knocked-out tank closely, maybe even try to salvage it for their own use. For that reason, we stayed silent, and with our weapons ready. Kent stayed at his post in the Cupola, on the lookout. Scott clutched his AL7 submachine gun, and had one hand on the pistol port's locking lever. That left me to stop Stokes from crying out and revealing our position.

I held him, with one hand, close to me, maybe hoping that my presence would calm him. He was still in a sort of daze, drifting between consciousness and shocked sleep. Every once in a while he would whimper in pain and mutter something unintelligible. I reckoned he must've hit his head on something, as I didn't think getting your fingers chopped off had such soporific effects.

As the minutes turned into hours inside that cramped, steel prison, I realized we might have to spend the night in the tank. Without an explanation, Kent flipped a switch on the side of the turret, and the internal lights shut off. The only light came from the cupola vision blocks, and even that was dim, indicating dusk.

It was not long after that when I heard the voices. They were muffled, murmuring indistinct nothings. Collectively, Scott, Kent, and I breathed in, and held it. The only sound inside was the raspy breathing of our Rottweiler companion, which was somewhere between a light snore and a pant. I put my hand over his muzzle, and unconsciously held him tighter to my chest.

I could make out some of the words they were saying. I heard "blow it" and "ammo" mentioned quite a few times. After a few minutes of not moving, not seeing, and only barely breathing, the voices outside faded away, and that was the last we heard of them. For a time we were still, until we all sighed in relief, except for Stokes, obviously. We soon began to settle into more comfortable positions; getting into positions that hopefully wouldn't cause us to have back pains in the morning. I shared the Loader's chair with Stokes, so that I could quickly clap a hand over his mouth should he make more noise. The stress of that day seemed to have sapped any will I might've had to stay awake, and I soon fell into a light sleep, Stokes leaning on my shoulder.

Only a short time later, I detected something on my face. The first thing I realized was that it was wet. The next thing I realized was that it was a tongue. Stokes was licking my cheek, just like a feral dog would. I pulled away a bit, before I noticed he was murmuring something, talking in his sleep.

"Wake up admiral, you're just dreaming!" I hissed. I couldn't see him, but I could feel his presence in every other way, down to the smell.

I was very surprised when he spoke clearly in response to me. "Oh, but I wish I wasn't." He crooned, in a tone I have trouble defining.

"What?" I snapped.

"You saved me. I am grateful." He said plainly.

"What are you-" I began, but I found myself saying something very different. "You're dead! You've been dead!"

He pulled away from me, as if it were some revelation.

"And it was my fault!" I cried, embracing his invisible presence. "It was all my fault!"