Dimensional Travels: World at War-Chapter 59: Over-ran

"Alright, we need to take it out. And we need to take it out no-"

Milano’s words cut off. The air stiffened. The room quaked. The buildings shook. Jessica screamed in pain as she felt like tiny needles were cutting into her body. Eric stiffened himself, a pained groan escaping his lips as he sucked in his teeth.

"They’re using it! They’re using it right now!" Jessica moaned. She attempted to reign herself in, but the pain was unbearable. It felt like her body was ripping itself apart.

"Stop circulating mana." Eric commanded, walking over to the girl. "Remember what I said, Mana is not the only tool you have." Jessica did so, finally letting her mana go as she finally relaxed.

Milano looked out at the mountain, and his eyes widened. For the first time since seeing an entire corps heading towards them, he couldn’t imagine the scene he was looking at.

The entire mountain range was on fire.

"Mayday, Mayday! We are surrounded on all fronts! Our mages are down. I repeat! All of our mages are down. I need reinforcements!"

Calls for reinforcements came from Esponia, and Milano narrowed his eyes. "Send every mission capable Apache into those mountains. Rescue our people. And make sure to send the Empire a message while doing it."

Suddenly, another call came over the net. This one from the unit from Vegas. "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. We are surrounded! A large empire force with Llrathel’s are attacking our front. We can’t hold! I repeat! We cannot hold!"

Milano sucked in his breath as he heard those words. "We cannot hold" Almost had the same meaning as broken arrow.

"Dryer."

Eric nodded. "Yes sir."

Eric pulled Mia into his arms, looking into her eyes as he stroked her hair. "I’ll be back." His wife smiled back. "I know." They kissed briefly before Eric looked at Jessica.

"Come on kid, we got a job to do."

Eric raced to his truck with Jessica now on the turrent. Over the last few days she had learned to man and fire the .50 cal. The rest of the QRF joined him, and they peeled out. Each soldier knew time was of the essence. Squealing tires broke the stillness of the night air while fires spewed in the background.

"Thunk!" Large explosions began to split apart the night sky as calls over the net began to echo in the Humvee. One paladin after the other began to engage targets twenty miles away.

Jessica covered her ears as more explosions followed the first. She saw the apaches scream overhead before they were out of her line of sight. The pain had subsided enough for her to function as she scanned her sections. The QRF sped at top speed to Vegas, the road clunky and seemingly pushing against them as they drove.

"This is madness!" The girl screamed, losing her grip on reality as she watched tanks start to move. They would be coming along behind the QRF. Right now Eric knew they had to act fast. If not... thousands of civilians might die. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"FOCUS JESSICA." Eric yelled. "If we are not at the top of our game here, people die. And a lot of them at that. There are only four tanks against who knows how many Llrathels. We need to be ready. Can you do it? I need to know right now. Can you fight?"

Jessica looked down at her hands, they shook. She had the urge to throw up, and she couldn’t stand still in the turrent. Every bump in the world seemed to accelerate her heartbeat. Every beat of the paladins drums seemed to race her thoughts down a track. "I’m not a soldier! I don’t know if I can do this!"

Eric sighed. He thought of himself during his first combat tour, and how he had almost vomited himself. "You need to. If you want to build the life you want to, you need to fight. If they make it past us...they make it to the town. They make it to Hood Hill...

And...

They make it to Mia."

Jessica felt a painful stab at her heart as Eric said those last few words. In the last week she had been here, Mia had been so kind. She had treated her like Jessica was her child, making her feel like she had family. She remembered feeling the small flutters of the baby kicking, and nodded. Her body shook as she steadied herself.

"Okay." She responded, looking forward. Her hands trembled while she took hold of the deuce, aiming it forward. "Tell me where."

Calls came out on the radio as Battalion forces engaged with the Empire forces. They came through a clearing, and Jessica finally saw them...

The Llathrels. Her breath hitched as the sheer number of units marching towards the Vegas strip shorted out her brain. She immediately began firing at the enemy machines. She knew hesitation meant death.

Eric observed the battle with a somber face. He counted a minimum of twenty machines. They had ten tanks. "Ten versus twenty?" Eric said grimly.

"Fuck it, why not?"

He had a job to do.

"Alright, maneuver around them. Armor, engage by flanks." He drove around a Llrathel as he noticed it stopping to shoot. Jessica made mincemeat of the vehicle by shooting into it. The vehicle exploded as the Mana engine blew up.

"Humvee’s, support them. Break those barriers. And remember, if you stop, you die."

Eric drove to the side, avoiding a Llrathel round. He didn’t want to find out if they could penetrate the armor of an up-armored Humvee.

The fires from the city lit up his face as he stared down the wall of llrathels beginning to move in their direction.

"Go."

And then he heard it. He felt it. The air seemed to breathe in on itself. The atmosphere pushing down as gravity itself began to bend and break.

"MOVE." Eric shouted into the mic. He drove the Humvee as fast as it would go. Llrathel shells began to bounce off the road behind him, each round a near miss as he raced away from the site. Jessica kept firing, reloading the deuce after each belt.

"Sir! There is a Brios here! I repeat, there is a Brios here!"

Eric called into the radio. He could feel the air getting heavier as it got ready to fire. He searched frantically for it.

"Jessica, if you see a cannon larger than most houses, do not hesitate. Fire into it as fast as you can."

She heard the word "Brios" and almost dropped to her knees. "WHY IS THAT HERE TOO?"

She was almost at her breaking point. The near death calls with Llrathel rounds firing at them, and the pressure waves firing off of the Abrams as they destroyed Llrathel’s had her dry heaving. She gasped for breath as she scanned the tree line, each inhale burned like she had just drank liquid fire.

"I can’t. Im sorry... I just can’t do it."

Eric smacked her leg. "JESSICA. SNAP OUT OF IT. The battle has not been lost. You’re gonna go far kid, just keep it together."

Jessica looked forward, and saw a black outline. "I SEE IT!" She yelled back. Her legs were weak, tears streamed from her eyes, and her hands shook as she grasped the .50 cal triggers like they were her lifeline.

"Two hundred feet out and to the left!" An image of Mia holding her hand, comforting her after a bad day of training.

"I’ll do it." She said shakily. She aimed the .50 cal in the direction of the cannon and began to fire. Eric drove towards the direction she pointed at and growled as he saw it. "I need a tank to fire at the treeline, two hundred meters from our previous location. Fifty meters west. You will see the mana signature in thermal optics. Destroy that cannon!"

Animals fled in all directions as Eric did a U turn. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the site of cannon fire meeting Abrams fire. The air hummed as the preparations were being finalized. The mages manning the brios ignored the .50 cal rounds as a barrier held. "Come on, push through, goddamnit." He growled.

The tank commander finally answered. "Copy last transmission."

Jessica continued shooting the .50 cal, ignoring the fact that her bullets were repelled. "Break!" She yelled, desperately pushing her body against the deuce.

Color seemed to fade from the atmosphere as a ball of coalesced mana collected in front of the Brios.

"Its too late."

The explosion that followed lit up the entire field.

"Good hit." The tank commander said.

But the Brios still fired.

In the next moment, a large part of the field became a crater. Tanks, Llrathels, and a chunk of the Vegas strip fell into the hole. Eric looked down at the bottom as he saw the wreckage of multiple tanks, and the destroyed Brios.

"Report! Who is still up."

Jessica sobbed at the gun turrent, her knees collapsing as she fell silently into the back seat of the humvee. Eric tallied the survivors and the ammo count.

They lost four tanks.

"Sir, its time to use it."