Phagocytosis

Prague, European Federation, July 2037

"DON'T THINK ABOUT HUNGER, OR EXHAUSTION, THINK ABOUT REMOVING THIS SCUM FROM OUR LAND! THE SOONER THEY'RE ALL DEAD THE SOONER WE'LL ALL GO HOME, DON'T BOTHER WITH PRISONERS, THEY DIDN'T SHOW OUR COMRADES OUR FAMILIES ANY REPRIEVE, NOW ITS OUR TIME TO SHOW OUR TEETH!"

I barely could hear the officer over the thunder of artillery landing just a few hundred meters ahead, the noise of FPV's flying overhead and hitting the crabs that were fleeing, the Abrams tanks firing over our heads from their position. It all was too much, and the day hadn't even started. The moment the artillery stopped landing, we were tasked with climbing the ladders over the trenches and attack that austrian town who's name I couldn't even pronounce. We were promised, assured that we weren't just there to draw fire. That our task today was to capture the last village before the Czech border, before what was once home for all of us. I looked around. Everyone seemed scare one way or another. Daniel to my left, some 50 year old who once was the head of a bank seemed to lose it. He was looking at the nail on the ladder in front of him as iuf he was more scared of cutting himself on that than a miss aimed artillery shot. Jan to my right was shaking his head, one moment he went over his eyes as if he was drying tears. Couldn't blame him, no one wanted to be the first one going atop the ladder. I cursed when someone grabbed the back of my vest, I know it was to make sure I wouldn't fall back in that aweful moment we'd get the order to attack, but at that moment it felt more like being ushered than anything else.

The artillery began to ease, explosions came less frequently, but my shaking only got worse. My body was so flooded with adrenaline I swear I could've turned around and fought the entire platoon with my bare hands and not felt a single hit.

Znojmo along with the forest to its left had been turned to ashes by rail gun strikes just the day before. That was one stone toss away. We'd been awaken by the blast and the momentary flash that turned the night sky crisp white. Three of our guys were being treated for retinal burns. We knew there wouldn't be allot of crabs left. But that didn't run through my mind at that point.

I glanced over at our officer. He had the radio pressed tightly to his ear, straining to catch the one word we were all waiting for: ATTACK.

Then it came, from all directions, the sound of whistles, the cries of men climbing over the top, and the harsh bark of machine guns opening up. There's no real way to describe that moment. It was like watching hundreds of men silently accept their fate… and charge headlong into it.

I hip-fired my C7 as I sprinted forward. Someone was shouting my name.

"Adleman!"

I was moving too fast,the rest couldn't keep up. But there was no way in hell I was stopping, not in that open field barely a hundred meters from what was left of the village.

Though calling it an "open field" felt generous. Maybe it used to be, once. Now it was torn apart—littered with craters, splintered trees, a wrecked tractor here, the charred hull of a Leopard tank farther ahead.

My magazine ran dry, and I took the chance to dive into a nearby crater. Only then did the exhaustion hit me. Whether it was the adrenaline wearing off or my body finally catching up to reality, I could barely get a fresh mag out of my vest.

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The rest of the squad came tumbling in beside me, throwing themselves into cover. We hadn't seen a single crab in what was left of that bombed-out village, but you'd think otherwise, everyone was firing like there was a prize for who could run out of ammo first.

I glanced at Jan. He was slumped down, staring blankly into the mud like he was trying to fall asleep. Poor kid looked terrified, pale, frozen.

I kicked him.

"GET YOUR THUMB OUT OF YOUR ASS AND START SHOOTING!" I yelled.

"THE REST OF YOU OUT! WE'RE NOT HERE FOR A PICNIC MOVE YOUR ASSES!" I shouted, chambering a round as I struggled to climb out of the crater.

Some brave bastard from another platoon was sprinting ahead, hip-firing his Minimi. I glanced back to check if the rest were following, and caught sight of three Mi-24s hovering above the trench we'd just cleared. They surged toward the village, unleashing rockets.

They were more than late. That rocket strike should've happened minutes ago, not while two hundred men were charging into the open.

I threw myself to the ground as the village, an odd two hundred meters away, rockets tore through what was left of shattered buildings, sending up clouds of smoke and debris. When I turned back, I didn't see the platoon that was just ahead of us.

"STOP FIRING THERE'S MEN OUT THERE!" I yelled at Daniel who was firing his weapon into the mist where they'd been running earlier.

We had formed a line, slowed down as we walked towards the village. Few men, injured in craters, the others just dead at the outskirts of the village thanks to our brothers flying overhead. We tried our best to ignore them. Couldn't do anything for them.

As we crossed into the village, the air was thick with dust and smoke. Buildings stood like shattered skeletons, blacken<ed and crumbling, their roofs caved in or torn apart by artillery. Streets were littered with debris, twisted metal, broken wood, and shattered glass crunching beneath our boots. The silence was eerie, broken only by the occasional creak of unstable walls and the distant drip of water from ruptured pipes.

I was just as worried about taking a blaster round as I was about friendly artillery landing again and turning me into mush. The courtyard was cleared, the house or what was left of it searched. Three dead crabs lay where they fell. A quick bayonet to each of their backs confirmed they were truly dead. Daniel turned a corner and pointed his gun at me. The look on my face was enough to send my message without words. By the time I stepped out, columns had already advanced through the village street. An odd drone hovered nearby, eyeing us before flying off as I tried my best not to get run over by a platoon of Abrams tanks.

The frontline was moving faster than anything I had seen in years. After so long of static, grinding trench warfare, it felt almost unreal to see whole columns pushing forward, seizing ground with a speed that made your head spin. The bombing campaigns had done their work—crab hives and their strongholds in cities reduced to rubble. Every strike, be it surgical or carpet bombings of entire areas, precise, guided by satellite technology that could spot even the smallest details. Banshees had their refueling pools targeted relentlessly. Without fuel, their raids grew weaker and less frequent.

The lads that landed in Northern Germany and Poland were tearing through the country side. Just making mince meat of crab territories and held areas by locking them in and letting everything from railgun strikes to nerves gas do the job. It threw the crab forces into chaos, there were no more endless cohorts of crab armies flowing south, stretching their already strained defenses thin. The whole war was turning into a fast-moving nightmare for them, and a glimpse of hope for us. It used to be that you'd kill a platoon of them, and there'd be one just around the corner to keep up the pressure. None of that, it fucked with our minds at first, thinking that the slow flow of reinforcements was deliberate to bait us into counter attacking. Nothing.

As the village streets filled with advancing troops and roaring tanks, it was clear this was no longer just a battle for territory. It was a race to end a war that had dragged on for far too long. And for us on the ground it wasn't jsut about winning, it was about seeing the end, seeing the end of the war and being able to go back home.

As I was ripping into Daniel, explaining to him why pointing a loaded gun in my direction next time would warrant me shooting him that point went across through him. He saw it in my eyes. I saw it in his. Didn't want to sell him hope, but the light at the end of the tunnel was there. And it would be a shame to die before seeing it because of an accident.