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Verto
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With England standing on the brink of outright collapse, reduced to the status of a puppet
in the hands of Russia, America and Germany steeled themselves against the coming onslaught. With
France swept away, with Egypt brought under control of Babylon, America and Germany scrambled to
regain their footing in the scramble that had followed the collapse of English resistance.
With hundreds of thousands of Russians nearing the port city of New Nottingham, the
remaining American troops had made a desperate attempt to escape the closing fist of Russia and
flee the English isle. Leaving behind weapons, wounded, even their fellow soldiers, roughly fifty
thousand American personnel were able to return to America, from a dispatched force of nearly
three times that.
Germany was sharing a similar fate. Devastating air and naval casualties at the beginning
of the war had crippled it's ability to provide aid to Egypt, and now left it unable to provide
aid to it's beleaguered troops pinned down at the southern end of the isle, or withdraw them.
Lieutenant Wade winced as another gust of wind blew sand into his eyes. He turned his
head, vainly wiping his face on his tattered sleeve. He blinked several times before looking up.
Past the hastily constructed barbed wire fence, the arid field stretched out for miles. Before
the war, the island's southern tip had been sparsely populated. Now, thirty thousand American,
English, and German soldiers were trapped between the approaching Russian army and the coastline
twenty miles south.
Looking up at the peaceful sky above, it almost seemed like the war was just a bad memory,
a nightmare that vanished with the first traces of dawn. Wade watched the clouds above, serene,
untouched by the war. A loud explosion drew his attention away from the sky. column of dust was
rising from a hilltop at the other end of the trench. A group of dark uniformed men - engineers -
was inspecting the gaping pit that now marred the hilltop.
Wade leaned his shovel against the wall of the trench and slung his rifle over his
shoulder. Signaling to the man waiting at the top to come down and take his place, he climbed up
the rudimentary ladder.
The town of New Champagne, a remnant of France's expansion to the English island centuries
ago, was a ghost town. It's streets had been mined, it's houses rigged. All but the northeast
corner of the city was a no mans land, a trap set for the Russians.
The entire countryside was being rigged with explosives, with tunnels packed with
everything from TNT to nerve gas. Each man fully realized what their fate would be when the
Russians attacked. Supplies had been cut off for weeks; men were only given five clips of ammo.
The twelve howitzers that had survived the repeated withdrawals were useless as they had no
shells. The great guns had been disabled and rigged to be destroyed before the Russians could capture them.
"I hear tell the Babylonian fleet is less than three days away."
"Hope they don't get too excited; I doubt there'll be much to do in three days," Wade said. He turned to the short, slim man that had walked up beside him. "How've you been doing?" Wade asked.
"As well as can be expected, when one spends his day as I do," Lieutenant Clarke replied. He took off his green and yellow helmet and peered up at Wade. "Think Op C will work?"
Wade was silent for a moment. Operation Castaway, or Op C, was the commandeering and construction of rafts, boats, yachts, anything that floats on water, in a desperate attempt for key personnel and documents to escape.
"I don't think it was ever meant to," Wade finally responded. "Just something to keep people busy as they await the inevitable." Morale was understandably low. The American, German and English defenders were only a handful when compared to the number of Russian and Babylonian troops ready to crush them, the final resistance on the island. Communications with Washington and Berlin had been cut off for two days, and there was little hope for any naval or aerial
support from either country.
"Still," Clarke said, almost to himself. "It is some consolation that-"
Gunfire cut him off in midsentence, and both men hurriedly turned to the source of the noise. Men were scrambling into the trenches as machine guns, rifles and pistols opened fire. A blanket of parachutes now blotted out the sun. In the distance, three planes could be seen heading away, as more appeared from the east. Wade and Clarke both ran toward the trenches as the paratroopers, many of them now landed, returned fire. Explosions now joined the foray as bombs fell from Russian fighters that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Officers were yelling orders down the line, trying to get the men fighting with a semblance of order. Grey parachutes now littered what had quickly become a battlefield. Wade steadied his rifle on the firm ground and joined the other defenders in firing into the mass of paratroopers. He emptied his first clip, barely noticing until Clarke dropped another clip in front of him.
He reloaded, every action a replication of the tedious training he'd received. It took a brief moment to find a target, aim, and fire. It was a cycle he went through without thinking.
It seemed like an eternity before the firing died down. The paratroopers all lied still, dead or dying. Had the corpses not been there as proof, the whole fighting might have been a hallucination. His ears were still ringing from the gunfire when the first mortar shell hit. Three hundred yards away, an explosion shook the earth. Men flew into the air, thrown like dolls.
The second hit a few moments later, then another.
"The explosives!" Clarke shouted. He grabbed Wade, trying to pull him up the trenches.
At first, Wade didn't understand what Clarke meant. Than it hit him. It was only a matter of time before one of the mortars hit the buried explosives and nerve gas, igniting the entire network.
They scrambled out of the trench, but their effort was in vain. As soon as they reached the top, the entire field erupted in fire. Both were thrown into the air, engulfed in flames. The fires and explosions spread, incinerating everything it came in contact with.
The mortars continued to fall long after their deaths.
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19-03-2003 03:50
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