FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Hold the port and protect those civilians! The transports will be here! Give them not one inch of ground! Give them every cap and give your life if you must! But! You! Will! Hold! This! PORT!" bellowed the Lieutenant, the last surviving officer of rank. A Capitan and a Sargent were at his side, reduced to pistols while he had his assault rifle set to single fire. If it were not for the flash of muzzles and flying plasma, no one would know where to fire into the darkness of the night.

A Hyena ran up onto a pile of rubble- snarling and babbling- clearly overtaken by the genetic flaw of his species. "Soldier! I order you to get down from there and return to your section of the line!" The Lieutenant shouted over the incoming .50 and .70 calibre rounds ripping through concrete and flesh alike. The Hyena was overtaken by the Red Mist, his vision clouded by the namesake of the affliction, and was spewing what little precious caps remained wildly into the crowd of Clunkers charging forward.

The flash of lights threw an eerie frame-by-frame view to the scene. Just as quickly as he had stood tall amongst the rubble, we was just as quickly eviscerated, gory holes opening up and throwing blood and sinew upon the defenders. An arm flew off, yet he stood unfazed even as his body was vented and hollow. His rifle was now clicking dry, and in his hazed-filled mind, made an attempted to charge the Clunkers, making it about three steps forward before his head exploded in a pink mist.

The Lieutenant simply shook his head and made a note to find those dog tags if anyone of them survived long enough. They had begun the evacuation at 2100 hours the day before, hoping the cover of the late autumn night would enable them to escape by boat to England. Every available craft, from troop transport to dingy up and down the south-eastern coast had some role to play in evacuating as many civilians, troops, and whatever material that could be used towards the war machine that needed a jump start.

They were late by 3 hours, caught in a freak storm over the English Channel. 10,000 civilians, 3,000 soldiers, and hundreds of metric tons of material was piled up in the streets and ports of Dunkirk. Even with the retrofits for military needs during and after The Hundred Year War, The Truly First Great War, a century of peace left them in neglect, and later reconverted into more useful mercantile shipping lanes, wreaked havoc on logistics. The lanes and docks where too low for transports, where cranes loaded and unloaded goods and people crossed lowered ramps to more heavily displacing ships.

Now having to shift a heard of civilians, weary from trekking through forest and hills to avoid capture, the small division of soldiers could barely contain order as Anthros and Humans started throwing accusations at each other. Roads were blocked entirely by trucks and trailers hoping to be loaded into mercantile ships, drivers hearing they would have to load nets and canisters of what was salvaged, blocked the fastest routes to the lower docks for personal crafts.

Then it happened. A .70 caliber round ripped through the skull of 3 Anthros, people screamed and the children of the deceased wailed in anguish. No one could understand the reasons behind the ClunkerNaughts choice of targets. Maybe it was spite, maybe it was blind hatred. What was known is that they always could calculate the best targets to cause the most devastation.

What happened after was a flurry of pink mist, flying limbs, children trampled underfoot and soldiers mobbed in a futile attempted to maintain order. None were spared, civilian or military, Anthro or Human.

The Old, and the purist, dearly Youngest among them.

"BURN! BURN! BURN!" they chanted in mechanical unison from built in laud-hailers.

"BURN! BURN! BURN!" roared louder as they charged the outskirts of the city.

"BURN! BURN! BURN!" screamed loud enough that families could not even hear the wail of their newborns as the flames of the Traitorous Nova Germanians licked at their flesh and drew the air from their lungs.

House by house, street by street, the Iron Tide of hatred and blind ignorance crashed through wood and stone all the same, destroying much and killing so many. The few solders still standing after the initial volley of rounds were horribly out gunned and outnumbered. Scatter and reduced to undermanned squads, those that stood their ground were killed to the man, inflicting little in the way of stemming the Iron Tide.

A retreat was called. Where could they retreat? They were surrounded by hate-filled monstrosities on one side, and the quickly thinning wall of civilian bodies. Behind that was the unforgiving English Channel, thirsting too for blood and bodies as the winds kicked up great torrents onto the docks, plucking those who could not stand.

The bodies pilled, doing little to slow the Iron Tide, blood lubricating joints and servos, those who had cranial augments fought back the rising primal monster fighting against the machine-code to keep them calculated and cold. Some relished in it, while others simply kept on butchering in silence. On they drove into the town, some so frenzied that they had to be put down by other Clunkers lest they destroy them as well. Others were fixed with explosives and set forth to buildings and choke points the few Anthros had fortified. But the number of Traitorus seemed unending, throwing themselves into plasma and bayonet like untrained recruits simply given weapons and told to attack the enemy.

Pushed back to the docks, what few civilians left and even less soldiers, the Anthros and Humans were backed up against the Channel. They made a stand.

Amongst fallen concrete and twisted machinery, the Anthro soldiers spread themselves thin along a section of the port. Flanked to both side by the levelly walls, able to hold a massive cargo ship or 9 transports side by side, they scrounged what caps, gas and weapons they could. Those who could stand and fight where given a spare weapon and manning the rubble. Humans, although they could not see in the dark as well as Anthros' in-ate ability to, took up arms guarding the entrance to the levelly controls, as well as a storehouse where the rest of the civilians were huddled.

There was no respite from the wicked. What little time they had, was up as the ringing of high-calibre rounds ripped through the air and bodies alike. Plasma and muzzle flashes lit up the night, screaming in static and blood-clogged lungs filled the mist red night. The Lieutenant stood for most at the line, bellowing orders and words of encouragement, just as he had seen The Great Orator, Vandal Salvo, do so on the battlefield.

Still his men and women died in scores as they struggled to avoid hand-to-hand combat. With so little troops, they would be easily overrun if the Tratorius breeched their lines. A grenade landed in front of him, and threw splinters of concrete into his face. Thrown back, he grappled desperately for his rifle, blood seeping down into his eyes. He instinctively made to lick it out of the way, spitting it out and wiping his muzzle as he lumbered onto his feet. He collapsed, his chest burring as he struggled to breathe, now realizing a chunk of concrete had buried itself into his chest and logging in his lung.

He fell to a knee and struggled to raise his rifle, a blatant breech in the ramshackle barriers they had made, and waited to gun down the monstrosities that craved his and the death of others like him. Smoke grenades popped and billowed, blinding even those who could see in the dark, but brought a lull in the fighting. His troops took the time to gather what caps and canisters they could scavenge, helping wounded soldiers and collecting the dog-tags of those who couldn't be saved. Those few of the civilians offered to give their lives for the defence of the ones they loved, and where handed everything from a rifle to a piece of rebar.

They stood together and sided by side, ready to die standing on their feet.

Once more it began, a guttural war cry unleashed with new fury, a pitch so loud it threatened to burst augments and optics, just as much as it made Anthro's bleed from their ears and collapse in agony. A storm of rounds ripped through them once more, joining those who convulsed on the ground in agony.

Then they were on top of them, silver knifes through the pitch black smoke.

The Lieutenant opened fire, plasma burring through the first Clunker, who was pushed aside, collapsing in a fit of spasms as he felt his organs being slowly dissolved. That one too fell as his arm then his head was shot off. The rifle clicked empty, the spark flickering in the chamber. Still, they charged.

He dropped his rifle, his heart pounding in his ears as adrenalin flooded his system, struggling to keep him alive long enough for the civilian's to escape. He made for his dagger, drawing the serrated titanium blade awarded to him for his actions in the Defence and Retreat from Paris. He muttered a soft prayer to Darwin, and maybe Goddess as Vandal did, for a little extra luck, promising that it will be slick with blood and hydraulics before his life`s end.

He pushed off his leg with all his might, ramming his head and dagger in the abdomen of the next Clunker to charge through the smoke. Completely caught unaware, the_Traitorus_ screamed in agony as the Lieutenant found a fleshy spot. The Anthro twisted and yanked the dagger out, striking again and again as his muscle begged him to stop, deprived of oxygen as his one lung began to fill with blood.

He pushed off the dying Clunker and lunged at the next metal man to charge through. This one was ready, bashing the Lieutenant in the gut, the shard of concrete moving and shredding more of his lung. He coughed up blood and spat it in the Clunker`s face, who snarled and recoiled in disgust. One could always count on the monstrosities' overreaction to having been touched by "filth." Inhaling what little air he could, the Anthro threw himself against the Clunker, pinning him down and driving his dagger into his skull.

An eye came out with the first strike, then blood and brain matter with the next. Wires ad metal fell apart beneath his rage-filled strikes, ignoring the world around him as he felt The Curse well up inside him. He growled and babbled incoherent, spite-filled words as he turned the Clunker's head into mush. Jumping up, the frenzied Anthro saw three more Clunkers standing before him, stunned to have witnessed such a barbaric act.

"Traitors..." was The Lieutenant's last comprehensible word, before he unleashed a primal war cry and charged head long into their guns, his abdomen blown open, yet still clinging onto and stabbing the middle Clunker. When his dagger arm was shot off, he resorted to gnawing at the Clunker's face. He shattered an optic and ripped the cranial implant out, brain tissue and blood dripping from dangling wires.

The two compatriots of the Clunker had given him up for dead and aimed their rifles point blank at the snarling creature before them. The .50 caliber rounds ripped the last of the manic beast apart, and sailed on through into the ground beneath their now brain-dead comrade.

The Lieutenant's last sight was the rising dawn. His last sound the call of a siren, signaling the transports arrival.

From the rising sun came the Eagles and Hawks, talons glittering in the new-born light as they punctured through flesh and metal, dragging the Clunkers off to great heights before dropping them to their deaths. Others made to rescue embittered Anthros and reposition them in a safer area, startled but on their feet and reforming around the storehouse, keeping the civilians safe.

The transports landed, 9 across at the port, disgorging reinforcements to aid the embittered combatants, hurrying to usher the civilians out to the safe confines of the synth-metal hulls.

The last thought of The Lieutenant was how he had completed his duty to his people, fulfilling his battle prayer. He thought he felt the welcoming touch of an angel of Goddess and Darwin. Why was it so cold then?

The angel then pulled the trigger.