Clear Sky

“Where the hell are those tanks!?” I hear someone shout over the racket of SMG fire. “They’re coming! Hold just a little longer!” I manage to pick out over twelve other responses; I hear someone else cursing as he’s hit, and another claim that “Jerry is fucking everywhere!” which somehow raises a smile from me. I dare a peek out of the window, over the shoulder of the Machine gunner currently laying down a very inaccurate and uncaring salvo of suppression fire. I make out the shape of a German Sdkfz 232 sat about a kilometer away, happily spraying his MGs down the street next to the building we’re in, and with almost dramatic timing I see a squad full of soldats unload next to it from a Halftrack, the Machine gunner next to me rakes fire across the squad as they scatter for cover and I decide I’ve seen enough of that.

I lean back around the corner and watch a high command officer, resplendid in his dress uniform is surrounded by two other officers, all three of them staring blankly at their hand held flip maps, occasionally shouting out a new enemy contact as they confirm the valididty of contact report from the poor sods closer to the front. Our squad has been held back, under special order from these high command officers to provide close support for the armour that should have been here ten minutes ago, we’re under orders to defend ourselves if needed, but not to engage unless we have to.

Then we hear it, a slow rumbling at first, then unmistakable grinding and squeaking of armoured vehicles coming from behind our building, then a sickening moment as everything goes quiet, a sudden loud “Thoom” and then an explosion. Was our lead tank just taken out? One of the officers pokes his head out the window then leans back in moments before rifle fire stitches up the wall next to him.  He opens his mic again “They’re in the capture building! We gotta go! Move!” He shouts as the squad and I burst from cover toward the capture building, srapying everything we have,  the shape of two friendly tanks roll alongside our little group, their Mg’s blazing, their occasional cannon fire is deafening.

After hours of hard fighting I hit the Escape key “You can De-spawn in 10 seconds. RTB – Army Base” I made it… alive and well, with an impressive kill record,  and only a minor wound. I tug the now sweat soaked microphone from my head and realise I’m shaking from adrenaline, and that I was in that one little town for nearly 4 hours. I don’t think any of the officers survived and our little team has been scattered across the village. What started out as a quaint little town is now a smoldering pile of rubble and corpses, charred tanks sit every few hundred meters and one of the tanks that came to support us earlier is all that remains of a group of 8, it’s treads blown clean off on one side, yet all it’s crew alive and well. How they managed to keep the enemy at bay right in the middle of the street is beyond me…

And then it hits me: I havn’t had this much fun in an MMO, OR a shooter in a looong time. As I work my way back out through the menus to the exit button I stop and wonder: Why did I ever quit WW2 Online?

To be continued.