Black Horse; November 16th

Austin Powers, groaned deeply, thinking back on his choices since the apocalypse. He wasn't proud of most of them… a lot of blood, maybe they'd been a bit too excessive with the people of Barstow… but they tried demanding our protection, and didn't even offer anything.

He slumped into the seat, glancing at the crew of his Abrams 'Asvab Waiver' he missed his old crew, the ones that hadn't… haven't made it. He sighed as he looked at the downright moronic assholes he was now doomed to die with. We were beyond screwed, not even the surviving chain of command could deny it. Austin smirked, he wouldn't be surprised if they were taking the chance to run for it.

We were soldiers. Once we had all been friends. But for now I was just going to enjoy this little silence in this little war that was going to end in our deaths. God how I wanted a beer. But we'd run out months ago, now all that was left was the questionable stuff they brewed down in Ruba.

I glanced to my left at the only other Abrams remaining in my squadron, poor fucks in that tank, non of that crew were even tankers, just some poor mechanics that got shoved in the tank to make up numbers. We'd been positioned next to the painted rocks, taking up position on either side of the road.

That said we weren't the only soon to be dead schmucks out here. Half a company of infantry were spread around with a combination of strykers and bradleys. Poor guys were trying to dig themselves in, not like it was going to make a lot of difference.

We were the last line before the main gate, back there was essentially all that was left, a single Abrams from 3rd battalion and half a dozen wounded and invalids given a rifle and told to hold the line.

"Sarge, got a heat signature, looks like a humvee." the gunner called out. I snorted. I looked through my optics, watching as the humvee came racing up the road. Probably all that was left of the trip wire set to delay the soviet fucknuts from getting out of the valley. Oh, no there was a second humvee that came racing around the corner. I chuckled for a moment. Soon it would be our turn.

The first indication that the Russians had decided that we were now their next obstacle came from a lone piercing shriek. An explosion landed a few hundred yards ahead of us, throwing up a cloud of dirt. Artillery… great… something we just didn't have, the few M777s we'd… taken from the rotational unit had been sent over to Edwards, command had wanted to start being a larger nuisance to those russian convoys constantly heading north.

The loader frowned, taking a massive drag from a vape. The gunner glared at him. You've been holding out on me?"

A second explosion landed right next to us, silencing everyone. I cursed. "Driver, reverse."

The engine revved and the tank slew to the side. "FUCK! Stop!"

I cursed quietly… that round must have hit close enough to blast a link out of the track… god damnit. "Put us back."

The driver nodded and gently coaxed the Abrams back to its former position as a flurry of shells landed all around us. Damn Russians and their copious artillery! We had no artillery, the last of our helicopters went down last week to a lack of spare parts, and our mortars could never hope to outrange these russian guns. From the accuracy of this fire they had to have a spotter guiding the guns, I stared vainly through my sights when suddenly the whole thing cracked, shattering my clear view slit into thousands of refractal images.

I cursed and slammed my fist into the sight. God damn it! The barrage continued for what felt like forever., I knew deep down that as soon as it lifted it meant that the enemy was going to be charging up the road. Well, with the track blown and the barrage only seeming to intensify I started to wonder where I went wrong? No… I suppose it was because I hadn't put in for leave like I wanted, so now I was here like a retard waiting for my ass to be riddled with holes.

The world had never been fair I supposed, this apocalypse only made it more brutal, more… it doesn't matter anyway. I slumped in my seat, looking at the other schmucks I was going to share my coffin with… was the driver crying down there?

Shit kid… I would too if it would help. No, we were beyond hope now… the number of explosions lessened, by some miracle leaving us alive. I slowly opened my hatch, the mangled wreck of the crow system and .50 cal above me. I slowly poked my head out, squinting against the clouds of dust and hot midday sun.

The dust slowly cleared as it settled back to the earth again, leaving me with a sight that left my stomach to drop. Only four, maybe five hundred yards away was a line of T-72s and T-90s, and behind them, racing across the sandy ground were dozens of BMP3s.

"Well shit." I muttered as the flash of a muzzle of a T-72 brightened my day one last time before everything went black.