I was very bored at work today, (yes it's fan fiction.)

I avent read this before so busy with other stuff but as Ive been downloading stuff I started reading it.....................

WAY awsome,, Ive recently finished reading the Philip Pullman novels and your style of writing is similar, very easy to relate to the characters with just enough action but also you feel for the main character, get involved so to speak........ Luv it keep it up.


Only think i wondered bout "3 yrs later"" omg what happened ??????? you mention the rebel book then forget bout it?





PS i dont care bout the grammar or spelling jus the story so carry on the good work.........

 

Next part will be going up shortly. Still not happy but since it's the only thing I'm writing at the moment I thought I might as well say 'screw it, it's finished' and move onto part four, I might even one day finish the entire story.

For those who enjoy formatting there is a word document available here

http://www.geocities.com/nitrax/

Which contains all three chapters.

Which is exactly what I do, except I use Open Office as I can no longer con free software off my uni.

Will be explained.

Will be back later in the story.

Now, time to spam the forums with large blocks of unformatted text.

 

Chapter Three
Present Day

The factory, for which hundreds if not thousands of men had already died for was a unimpressive building. Small, cramped with machinery there wasn’t even enough room to establish a proper dressing station, but with typical stubbornness General Blaise had established his entire HQ and most of the 2nd Guards Brigades supporting troops inside.
Power was limited, as was light and clean air and the entire building had a claustrophobic feeling about it. Scores of soldiers were pressed into corridors and rooms, wounded mostly, and those engineers who worked ceaseless to patch them up. Huanted eyes gazed out of the dark recesses of store rooms and offices, waiting for orders to return to the front.
Other rear-echelon personal, or those who had slipped away from the fighting to find safer ground tried to look busy as Alexander pushed his way through them. He nodded to one or two of the soldiers he recognised on his way past.
“Any news sir” A voice asked from one passageway.
“We're buggered.” He responded and pushed forward.
General Blaise had entrenched himself behind a pile of papers in what had once been the factory's foreman's office. Maps and intelligence reports lay scattered around in a vain attempt to convince people that Blaise was busy. With all of his battalions deployed, and no other supporting units within the city, there was little for him to actually do except occasionally organise a shipment of there rapidly diminishing supplies to the embattled battalions.
Blaise himself was a tall, bone thin man approaching middle age. He was humourless and pessimistic, but at times a decent enough commander to keep the majority of his troops alive and fed. He was staring at a map of the city as Alexander marched into the office and gave a quick salute.
“Take a seat.” Blaise ordered and passed Alexander the map. “We’re in a tricky situation. Surrounded and that’s not a good situation to be in.”
Alexander resisted the urge to tell the General that he was fully aware of that, and kept his mouth shut. “We weren’t meant to be in this situation, the 4th and 8th armoured brigades were supposed to be holding our flanks, but everything with a working engine has been sent to fight up north to Erico, there saying it’s going to be one of the largest tank battles of the war.”
Again Alexander held his tongue, everyone had heard the rumours of that battle, fifteen miles too the north where two Northern armoured brigades had blundered into a Brenodi army. The two brigades hadn’t been able to extricate themselves as the Brenodi poured more and more armour into the area in an attempt to cut them off, and slowly more of the Northerners own precious armour had been sent into to extricate the trapped brigades until now rumours suggested over a thousand tanks were blasting the hell out of each other and the 2nd Brigade had been abandoned in Tylis.
Alexander could hear the sound of gunfire rattling around the buildings outside and Blaise paused to listen for a moment before turning his attention back to Alexander, his face had turned pale. The mere idea that the Blaise would be anywhere near actual combat terrified the General.
“What we need is something to take the pressure off us. A small force that can distract an enemy company or two long enough for the 4th and 8th to finish the job at Erico and get back to us.” Blaise said.
“So you want a couple of company's lead by a decent officer to attempt a break out? Strike out of Tylis and hit there supply lines and hope you win so you can revive us all afterwards?” Alexander said, already seeing where this was going.
“Not quite. I want you and fifty men to take some of the abandoned sewers under the city and deploy behind Brenodi lines in the town to harass them a little.”
“And who’s going to be the officer in charge of this suicide mission.”
“Alex.” Blaise said in a warning tone.
“This is suicide, what we need to do is dig in and pray we are reinforced, 50 men will get themselves slaughtered the moment they appear behind the Brenodi.”
“Not if they are well lead.” More guns joined in the cacophony outside, beneath them Alexander could just about make out the sound of engines and men, of screams and the faint thudding of bullets striking flesh. Blaise visibly shuddered at the sound.
“Colonel Agrippa then, he’s be your best bet for this, it's just so insane he'll enjoy the challenge.” Alexander suggest, wondering if it would make any difference if he just bolted out of the door here and now.
“I need Aggripa here.” Of course, Alexander realised. Aggripa was Blaises second in command, and the General needed the Colonel to run his battle for him.”You will lead them General.” Blaise said using Alexander's old rank. Alexander sighed, knowing he was trapped, he couldn't run, not again, not when there was no where else to run too.
“I would like to remind you that the Northern Faction has decided that my services as a officer are no longer needed.” Alexander said, pointing to his sergeants stripes. “And that you yourself testified at my court-martial.” Blaise smiled, knowing he had won.
“We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

The sewers were old, dark and stank. The architecture suggested they had been built before Tylis. It was a town that had been built on the ruins of another and very few people knew the sewers existed. Blaise and a few of the officers of the 2nd Brigade had known, one of the local pro-northerner architects had informed him of them before fleeing the town and Alexander desperately prayed that no one had told the Brenodi. The tunnels were low enough to be out of the range of the Brenodi on the surface, but a single camera, or hidden scout and his entire force of two platoons would be trapped like rats.
Most of his force were ten meters behind him, each member simply focusing on following the man in front and trying to keep there footing. The sewers were flooded and the sickly dark water rose to there knees as they inches forward.
Cartwight was beside Alexander, trying to use his flash light to search for mines hidden below the water. Alexander himself was focusing on the sounds echoing through the sewers. He forced himself to ignore the gunfire above, and the sloshing of those behind him, he had to listen for the quiet breathing, the slow almost silent heart-beat of a hidden enemy scout.
No one spoke, not even when they found a sudden drop in the sewers floor and the water rose to there wastes. Alexander cursed under his breath and consulted the mini-map in his helmets heads up display. Another two hundred meters, or ten minutes of sneaking through the sewers and they would be there.
There were no hidden mines, and they found no camera’s, which ultimately didn't mean much to Alexander, but as they reached the old rusted ladder that would take them to the surface Alexander began to hope that the Brenodi had missed them. With one hand he motioned Cartwight to stay where he was and then knelt in the water, waiting for his bodies and uniforms adaptive camouflage to kick in before starting his long crawl upwards. He had to keep is body crunched up, as if he was kneeling. The stealth field generators could only cover a area so large, if anything let it, be it part of a body, or a gun or even a bullet it would break.
Keeping a eye out for mines Alexander peaked his head topside and came face to face with a Brenodi camera. Someone had spotted the sewers entrance, and had guarded it well. He inched out of the ladder, staying crouched and praying that the combination of sensor jamming and camouflaged implants would keep him hidden. He would have no idea if they would or not, not until the Brenodi decided to investigate.
They were near the edge of the town, where the buildings were slightly more intact, the camera was pressed up against a wall and Alexander quickly glanced around to see if there was any other surprises waiting for him.
But the camera was enough.
Had all fifty of his men been scouts, they could have slipped passed and the Brenodi would never had known, but then the first APC they ran in to would have gutted them. His two platoons were a mixture of troops, all hand-picked volunteers who Alexander had fought with before, and there advance was blocked by a single camera.
He had to destroy it, and hope that the engineer who built it was too dead to notice. The metal was tough, but the optics inside broke easily after a few hard blows from his SMG.
“Everyone, up the ladder as soon as you can.”
They climbed quickly and began to spread out through the ruined buildings.

 

Major Mendel smiled as her chaingun tore up the Brenodi squad. The half dozen survivors from her company's sudden attack had dug themselves in behind a low wall, content to throw the occasional grenade over the top. Unlike the rest of her company Mendal wasn't going to simply wait for them to grow bored and surrender. So she had skirted her light tank around the wall before unloading the chainguns magazine into the gaggle of stray soldiers. One of them threw his gun down and tried to raise his hands, but the chain gun didn't stop hammering into his body until it stopped twitching. Mendal heard a audible sigh from above her and she glanced up at her tanks turret and gave Corporal Saik a annoyed look.
“I really don't have the patients for your moralising today.” She told him before twisting the tank away from the blood stained wall.
“You never do.” The other said dryly. She ignored him as she weaved her tank between the wreckage of Brenodi vehicles. It was a pleasant sight, after three days of bashing her battalion into the flank of the Brenodi they were finally collapsing.
Her battalion.
It had been less than seventy-hours since her promotion and she still couldn't get used that idea. Her first truly independent command.
She smiled again as her tank left the grave yard of Brenodi vehicles. With practised eyes she scanned the horizon, two hundred meters ahead of her was her first company, three of her heaviest tanks cruised slowly across the horizon, shells and missiles arching from the turret as they chased down the survivors of a Brenodi armoured column.. Four hundred meters to her left a collection of medium and lighter tanks swarmed over a stranded Brenodi heavy. A quick glance at her HUD showed her third company's light tanks swinging into formation behind her.
She felt her command complete, but a moment later she heard the nervous voice of Taren over her radio.
“Erm, Major, where do you want us?”
Bloody Taren. She thought to her self. She would be happy with just the three armoured company's, but the 7th Battalion had always included a fourth and in her mind completely superfluous addition.
“Taren, are your APC's still alive?”
“Er... yeah... were all here Major. Haven't need to move anywhere.” She cursed again and heard Saik stifle a laugh. Everyone knew what she thought of the infantry that she had been saddled with, everyone it seamed, except Taren. “Where do you need us?” He asked again.
“Form up behind me, the 3rd Battalion might need us, I'll use your APC's to ferry out the wounded.”
“Er..yes...ok, of course sir.” Bloody infantry. They were all pointless, even when mechanised in APC's they could barely keep up with her light tank, and they didn't even have the advantage of being particularly destructive.
She had been a tanker since she'd volunteered for front-line duty, and in those eight years she'd never seen any infantry achieve something that her tanks couldn't do better, with the possible exception of being killed.
It wasn't there fault really, but she would have preferred it if Taren and all the others would just stay away from her and leave her to do her job. Now she was in command of the 7th she would eventually have to find something for the fourth company to do, but she'd decided that they could wait until the end of at least that battle. After that she'd sit down with Taren and try to figure out how to make them useful.
In the mean time she would use Tarens troops on all the unimportant tasks that were below the dignity of a proper tanker. Latrine duty would be next, followed by courier duty and then she'd think up of something really vindictive for them.
“All company's, form up on me, we're going to flank the last of the Brenodi, company commanders give me ammunition and hull status reports.” Uselessly even Taren gave his report, even though she hadn't let any of his APC's or soldiers anywhere near the fight.
The rest of her commanders checked in and she spent the next couple of moments studying her map, plotting out the probably locations of the withdrawing Brenodi's rearguard, and what would be the best way to to hook around there flank.
“Major Mendal?” A voice called over her radio and she sighed. Yet another interruption, probably some other idiot from command foisting another bunch of infantry on her.
“Mendal here.” She answered wearily.
“Your to break off you pursuit of the enemy and head down south. Command needs you to rescue some infantry who are trapped in Tylis.” She smashed her fist against the side of her tank harder than she meant to, and Sikes glanced down at her with a worried look.
“Let me guess, the Brigade they left down there can't handle a couple of AFV's so they need us to do there work for them.” She said.
“Negative, the Brigades holding, but a company was somehow isolated by the Bernodi and could do with some help.” The voice responded.
“Fine, if that's what our orders are, that's what we will do.” That was always the problem, no matter how high up you got in the army, there were always someone out there who out ranked you, and at the end of the day an army only functioned if everyone followed there orders.
Which meant her new battalion was being pulled out of the fight to save a bunch of foot-sloggers who couldn't be trusted not to die on there own.
“Confirmed Major, here are there coordinates. The commander of the force is Master Sergeant Crane, I'll give him your radio frequency if you need it.” Mendal cursed again and this time she deliberately smacked the side of her tank with her full strength.
“Major?” Sikes said.
“Battalion, form on me as soon as possible, we have a traitor to rescue.”

Alexander loved running, there was a sense of freedom to it. He enjoyed testing himself with it, testing his speed , endurance and most importantly testing whether he could reach the far side of the Brenodi Heavy tank before someone killed him.
Bullets ripped past his head, the Heavy fired shells behind him and all he could think about was getting to the tanks far side.
He had discarded his usual scouts equipment and equipped himself with the rifle and body armour of a normal soldier. The heavy tank rolled forward, intent on crushing him but Alexander was expecting that, screaming half in terror and half in excitement he reached the front of the tank and leaped onto it's hull.
Scrambling forward he forced himself not to duck as the tanks mounted machine gun tried to track him, but he was too close and already rushing forward towards it's turret.
He pulled himself over the turret and smashed the sticky grenade on it's far side. Then he came to a halt. His plan to ambush the tank had been going so well he'd forgotten to plan his escape.
He swore loudly as he tried to roll off the tank, but the Brenodi infantry squad who had been escorting the tank had finally spotted him and bullets whipped about the top of the tank pinning him in place.
The tank's crew finally realised where he was and suddenly the tank was surging forward. The sudden momentum rolled him over the tanks turret and dropped him the other side. He caught a quick glimpse of his sticky bomb, a even quicker glimpse of the the rear of the tank and then found himself sprawled on his back, staring up at the sky a moment before the tanks turret exploded.
He'd done it. He'd taken the bastard out who had been ripping through his small assault force with impunity. Around him the Brenodi infantry were training his weapons on Alexander and he realised that it had been yet another mistake as his troops would have to fight on without him.
Alexander was laughing as the hail of bullets tore into his body.

 

“The bugger's going to be a bastard to revive now.” Nate muttered under his breath as he watched Alexander die. He suppressed a slight shudder and ducked back from the buildings window. Alexander had been good to his word and killed the heavy, but it left his entire task force leaderless.
Not that any of them really needed a leader. Until the heavy had suddenly burst onto the scene with it's dual high explosive cannons no one had really needed to be told what to do. They'd left the sewer entrance and rushed to one off the many two story office buildings that had lined the main road where they had spent a good ten minutes digging themselves into the building.
Nate didn't know if the first convoy they had ambushed had been sent to investigate them, or sent as reinforcements to the front, nor did he care, he had been happy just to have so many easy targets.
Ever since that first ambush Brenodi resistance had been steadily increasing, but Alexander had positioned his troops well, and it looked like they could have held on for days, until the Heavy had arrived. The tank had demolished half the building and killed most of Alexander's troops before he'd begun his suicidal charge at the monster.
Alexander hadn't even waited long enough to put anyone else in charge.
It was too little too late of course. More and more Brenodi were arriving every minute from all side. They were advancing in short disciplined rushes, machine guns covering each window, grenades hurtling through the air, men screaming as they died.
Nate pressed himself into the window frame and fired off two quick shots with his sniper rifle. He missed both times, there was simply too much fire being directed at him for him to aim properly.
“I need some ammo!” He shouted to no one. It was a lie, he still had a few rounds left, but it was an excuse to stay back from the windows edge and not die.
It wouldn't help in the long run, they would be over run soon, and then it would be the final death. No chance to be rescued and revived, the Brenodi would bury the bodies deep down where no one could ever find them. They would mutilate them first just in case someone pulled off a miracle and dug them up before decomposition set it, but Nate doubted they needed to bother.
“Stick together, we can do this.” Nate heard Cartwright shout from somewhere in the building. He risked a quick glance out of the window and saw three more APC's trundle down the road.
The bullet had been hastily fired at the window by a terrified Brenodi sniper, but it still did it's job and Nate's head jerked back even as the force of the bullet spun his body round. He died before he even hit the floor.

The rifle spluttered to silence in his hand and out of sheer desperation Cartwight threw the weapon at the advancing Brenodi. He shouted a guttural screech at the Brenodi and tried to run but terror had gripped his legs. They reached the buildings walls and began swarming inside, dark black uniformed swarming over the dust red of dead Northern soldiers.
Cartwight couldn't hear anything but his breathing, couldn't think any further ahead than the next second. He tried to run for one of the buildings exists, only a small party of his mind was even aware that there were Brenodi pouring through it.
He clawed at them as he tried to reach the doorway but they pushed him to the ground. Too many, he thought to himself. Far to many.
He tried to climb back to his feet but a boot pressed down on his chest, then as he tried to struggle harder kicked him in the face. Blood blinded him and he heard a Brenodi voice shouting orders to the others. He couldn't make out what they said, it didn't matter to him, he simply had to get away.
They dragged him to his feet and then shoved him outside. He was still dimly trying to struggle free as the soldiers dropped him on the ground, the formed a crude ring around him, shouting and jeering at his futile attempts to escape.
“Silence.” A authoritarian voice shouted and the Brenodi duly obeyed the order. A tall officer stepped into the circle and gazed down at Cartwight. Theatrically he pulled off his black groves then knelt down to him and cleared the blood away from Cartwights eyes. “Who are you?” He asked with a smile.
Cartwight forced himself to think, then tried to mutter his name but the words came out as gibberish. The smile faded from the officers face.
“Who are you? What unit are you from?” Again Cartwight tried to answer, but the words simply wouldn't come. His heart was pounding, his arms were shaking and all he could see was the officers face staring into his as he replaced the gloves.
“Who is your commander, what are his intentions?” Cartwight whimpered and sank to the ground. The officer stood and removed his side arm from it's holster. He aimed at Cartwights face and stood for a moment. Cartwight new he was trying to give him once last chance, but he couldn't even understand the last questions. What the hell was a commander?
The Brenodi smiled slightly, and released the safety on the weapon. Cartwight shrieked in terror, to scared to even move.
And the Brenodi officer vomited blood.

To be continued...


Remember, formatted version available here http://www.geocities.com/nitrax