Recovery: Part 2

I opened the hatch to the tank to see what we were up against. I could see 3 tanks coming at us. I got back into the tank and began driving forward. The other squadrons were following, or leading this cavalry. I had 3 other men inside of the tank. They were my squad-mates, and I was the squad leader. Jeremy told me that the tower was directly ahead of us. All we had to do was shoot it with the tanks in the right places to cause the tower to collapse. Sounded easy enough, let's do this.

XANA's jets were approaching in a short time, but we'd have anti-air squads on the ground before that happened. I started aiming at the oncoming enemy tanks, had to be accurate or else we'd be dead in a second. I zoomed in to see not three, but five tanks in the distance. "Watch out, XANA's infantry is up ahead," I warned, "I want direct fire on them." They all created different formations and started an assault.

The opposing tanks had been moving up towards our positions. They were going to try and stop us. We had to move in offense and defend ourselves from them. We kept rolling in formation, making sure we didn't separate. The rolling of the treads created what sounded like thunder in the sky.

I took one shot into a tank and destroyed, not realizing what was coming at us. I heard jets flying right behind us. No, it couldn't be, he couldn't have been able to attain his jets so quickly. At that moment, jets were blowing our tanks up; I had to get out, one of my squad-mates screamed that we had to get out. He opened the hatch and I crawled out. The hostile jets shot rockets into our tank, blowing us off of it.

I took some damage from the blast, but, I had a healing perk Jeremy gave me, so all I had to do was wait until I was back on my feet. The problem was, we were getting shot and needed to find cover. The only way of cover we had were a few rocks. "Griff?" Jeremy questioned, "You still with me?" I replied with, "Yeah, but I need some recovery time." I was laid up against a rock. I felt pain all over my body.

I saw blasts from rockets hit the ground, and groups of soldiers were being devirtualized by numerous hits. One of my squad members radioed for support. "We are losing men quicker than we're gaining ground! We need anti-air support, and we need it now!" The jets were creating suppressive fire around all positions, I guess XANA likes to prove he can be unfair in fights.

"Griff," one of my squad-mates yelled, "We need to get out of here, come on!" He pulled me up and we started running towards another section of cover. I put my hand on the rock and slid behind it. I pulled out my SMG, and lay it against my chest in case XANA started rushing in enemy troops.

"Okay, so, the defense tower is still a click away from our position. We need to get a tank and get to that tower." I drew with my knife in the sand. "So, we're going to risk our lives t get a tank from an enemy?" Squad-mate "Hard-Iron" asked. "They're going to try and get into our barracks and stop any incoming reinforcements." I replied. "We'll get behind one of them and take them out." I loaded an magazine into the SMG.

We waited for the jets to move away from our destroyed tanks and head back to the defense tower for restocking their ammunition. The tanks were on their way. I signed for my squad-mates to stay back until the tanks had moved near our position. I heard the treads moving towards. "Jeremy," I said into my mic, "I need you to disable a tank for us, can you do that?" I heard tapping of keys in my headset. "Okay, I'll activate a deactivation code for one of them; it'll only last for a good 10 seconds, so use them wisely." That wouldn't be a problem at all for us. We just needed some time to get the tank.

In just a little over a minute, the tanks had been driving by us. Once most of them had moved, one of the straggles had stopped moving, Jeremy took it down. "Okay, let's do this!" We ran to the tank and opened the hatch. I shot my pistol at the driver and the passengers and jumped into the tank.

"Okay, let's get over to that tower." I said, starting up the tank, and turning it around heading for the opposite tower. The tank had been loaded with corrosive shells, perfect; we'd be able to take that tower down in a cinch. I told them to damage the tank a bit so it'd look like we needed to get back for repairs. That would be a good diversion to take with us.

3 jets flew over, demanding why we were heading over the opposite direction. "We need repairs," I explained. "Our hull got hit hard by some shells and rockets. I'd be cautious, they have anti-air missiles." They gave us a "thank you" for alerting them on it. Idiots, they don't know what's about to hit them.

Now, it was time to take down this defense tower. "Griff," Jeremy said over the mic, "Everyone's at the tower, we need you to take down the defenses, and we need it done now!" I engaged the boost on the tank. I started messing around with the tanks audio players. I had been able to make the tank play "Love Is War" by Hatsune Miku. Funny how I was able to do such a thing, but that is beside the point.

"All right, let's do this! Red Arrow, you're on the mounted gun, Hard Iron and Black Mark, you two are on the sides and will fire at the tower on my signal!" They jumped out while Red Arrow got on the mounted gun. We had been asked for clearance to enter the building. "Here's your clearance!" I yelled into the microphone. "Eat this!" As the music blared through the tank, and the bullets and rockets were being shot at the tower, we didn't notice we were going to get shot from behind.

Once we did, we bailed from the tank. Now I knew we were going to get killed."Shit, shit, shit!" Red Arrow screamed, Hard Iron got shot in the right arm. "Goddamn it!" I screamed. "Someone give me the rocket, we still have a chance to take down the tower, what's the integrity of it!" I commanded. "About 22%, that rocket might do it!" Red Arrow replied. "Aw, shit, he's coming around again!" The jet was aimed directly at us.

"Not today, pal!" I shot the rocket at the tower as soon as it locked on. The tower began to collapse. "I don't think XANA is gonna be too happy about that one!" Black Mark said. "This is how we do it back home." I said. I then heard Jeremy say that we were returning to the past.

That day was the same. Boring, but I still loved the fact I got to drive a tank a little while earlier. Jeremy said he was going to find out about Miku for me, so I decided to head with him. I went through the sewers. I didn't run this time; I decided to take it slow. My feet hit the muddy cement as I went through the wet section of area in the wet underground. But then I found something.

I called Jeremy. "Hey, yeah," I said to him. "I found something, actually someone. I'll bring them over to ya." I closed the phone and walked over to them. I knew EXACTLY who they were.