Vehicles lined the road for as far as the eye could see. Refugees, all of them civilian NPCs streamed along the sides of the road, some walking, others riding on bikes, monoscooters and even the odd horse. Burnt-out wrecks and abandoned vehicles littered the sides of the road, shunted out of the way by bulldozers, armoured vehicles or even physically manhandled by troops.

Striding along the roadside, each footstep both heard and felt, mechs kept watch, protecting the retreating ECAF convoy from ChinKor attack.

Hotston struggled to keep pace, deprived of sleep, and hopped up on stims, his body failing to keep going after more than 72 hours of near-continuous physical activity. He sucked on his KamelBak sighing as he failed to get any water. He’d run out of rations two days ago, and his stomach rumbled as he plodded along the road.

'Think we'll get to have a rest at some point?'

Hotston looked at the soldier next to him. She looked terrible, a mixture of blood and dirt caked on her face, eyes red, lips chapped, helmet missing, combat armour ripped and torn. Her shoulder patched marked her as a Wessex Rifleman.

Probably lost her unit like I have mine, he thought. 'God knows. Don't think that HQ know either.' All they did know what that they were to head west into France and keep going until told otherwise.

'Bastards are getting closer,' she said, cocking an ear as the rumble of artillery gave a near-continuous commentary on the rear-guard battle behind them.

The sound of racing engines drew their attention to the side of the road. A battery of multiple missile launchers skidded to halt. Troops immediately started jumping out of the vehicles, carrying out the multitude of tasks required to prepare for firing. The huge launchers on the back of the trucks slowly rose into the air. The troops finished their tasks, then leapt back into their vehicles, seeking shelter from what was to come.

'Shit, they're a bit ...' her words were drowned out as the first of the missiles launched. Each truck carried 30 missiles, the battery had eight vehicles. All 240 missiles were up and away in less than half-a-minute. Smoke billowed across the road, the NPCs coughing, all soldiers that had them dropping their respirators down over their faces. Hotston watched as the last of the missiles faded from sight, shocked at the all-body experience, '... close.' She finished with a laugh.

'Wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that,' he murmured, more to himself than the soldier beside him. The sound of engines coughing into life drew his gaze back to the battery, 'They look like they're in a ...'

Without warning, SteelRain sheeted down from the sky. Kinetic rounds, released from an unseen enemy war head far above them, slammed into the ground at speeds more than six times that of sound. They hit before the sound of their passage through the air could even be heard. Not only the battery was targeted. Explosions rippled along the road, tossing man and machine alike into the air. NPCs screamed in terror, then in agony as the blasts ripped them apart. Without thinking Hotston grabbed hold of the soldier and pulled her with him into the small drainage ditch at the side of the road.

Please miss me, please miss me, he thought over and over as the counter-artillery fire continued to rain down. Abruptly, the bombardment came to an end. Silence filled the air for scant seconds before people recovered enough to draw breath and give voice to their fear and horrendous injuries. Children called for mothers, mothers screamed for children, and the wounded just screamed. It didn’t matter that they were NPCs. The suffering, the sounds, and the smells were all too real.

'Fuck me, you okay?' he shook the Wessex soldier, pulling back as blood ran over his hand. Turning her over, he recoiled from the vision of her face, nothing more than a gaping hole. Dropping her back down, he saw a hole, not larger than a pin on the back of her head. He closed his eyes, hoping that she hadn't been on her last life and would be respawning somewhere further down the line. If he hadn't lost so many lives himself already, he'd have been tempted to end this one there and then, to respawn in a hopefully safer area, meet up with the rest of his regiment and get some actual rest, some real food. But he couldn't. Each life become more precious than the previous the more you lost.

Sighing, he set about stripping her of ammunition and supplies as gently as he could, muttering apologies all of the time. Once that was done, he stood, looked at the carnage about him, pushed it to the back of his mind, and started to walk.

*

Further along, he didn't know how far, as the objective markers kept refreshing, never ending, Hotston checked his tacmap. He didn't even have an idea as to how long it had been since the SteelRain attack. Every moment of his life was now concentrated into taking just one more step. Hotston stumbled into the shell-pocked remains of a village, shambling along with other members of the ECAF who were just as exhausted as he was.

'All new arrivals! Over here! Over here!' A man stood, Hotston's HUD marking him as a Quartermaster, next to a battered-looking truck, 'Ammo and stims. Grab as much of both as you can carry. Once you've done that, move over to there,' a point appeared on Hotston's HUD, 'and see if you can find any members of your units. You’ll get water and food there.'

Hotston grabbed the ammunition as quickly as he could, stuffing it in his backpack, pockets, chest rig, anywhere it would fit. Next, he snatched up a pack of stim pills, popped them and slapped a handful straight into his mouth, chasing it with water he’d managed to scrounge from a ruined dwelling.

'Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!' he roared as the stims started to take almost immediate effect. Gone were the aches and pains. Gone was the bone-deep wearing. Instead, they had been filled by an urge to just run, preferably whilst ripping off his clothes and screaming at the top of his head. Head bowed, fists clenched, he reined the feeling in until it simmered just beneath the surface.

If it came to contact with the enemy, he'd need all the energy he could get.

Somewhat in better control of himself, he walked to the way marker the Quartermaster had added to his HUD. An iMajor, in tattered clothing, a blood-red beret and with a pipe jammed into his mouth, was busy sorting each arrival into groups as they arrived.

'Ah, Coldstream Guards. Bloody good show. Had a friend in the Guards, don't you know?' he was comically stiff-upper-lipped, with a received pronunciation accent straight out of the old black and white movies that had become so popular a few years ago.

'Any of my unit around here sir?' asked Hotston, not really expecting anything.

'Well yes, you're in for a dashed bit of good luck. 1st Battalion, your chappies, are just around the corner. Came in about three hours ago. They should have a nice trench system ready by now.'

Hotston suddenly found swallowing difficult. In the race to the west he thought that his battalion had been wiped out, forced to respawn back in the UK. Especially after so many respawn points were being taken by enemy troops dropped ahead of the retreat. It was a war of attrition that the ECAF couldn't hope to win. Every strategic respawn point lost forced friendly forces to respawn at the nearest strategic respawn point.

Some missions like HOLD AT ALL COSTS gave units tactical respawn points which were only generate for the purpose of the mission or battle at that time.

Nodding his thanks to the officer, too tired to salute, he ambled off in the direction indicated. Everywhere around him, soldiers were preparing for battle. Some continued walking, but even those did so with a renewed sense of purpose about them.

Stims do wonders, he thought. But the crashes were terrible. Usually, after an hour of the last stim, soldiers would find themselves catatonic for hours at an end. Some might even die from a heart attack.

Rounding the corner, he stopped and smiled as he saw the remnants of his battalion entrenched just as the iMajor had said he would. The trench stretched for a good few hundred metres, along the edge of the village, facing north-east.

'You there! What do you think you're going gawping like that!'

'Sorry sergeant Johnson, just feels good to be home,' he said as the NCO stepped out from a freshly built heavy pulser position.

'Bloody hell, Hotston. We thought we'd lost you for sure back in Messincourt. Where the hell have you been? You look like shit.'

Hotston laughed, the first time he could remember doing so for a long time. Most likely since Messincourt now that he thought about it. 'I took the long route. After the ChinKor mechs cut through the line and the 6th Anglian were taken out. I couldn't work out how to rejoin you, and with the ChinKor armour driving through the breach in our lines, I headed north at first, ended up fighting in the battle of La Chapelle,' he paused as the NCO whistled at that. La Chapelle had reached mythic proportions already, 'then just started heading West when we were forced out.'

He shrugged as if that was all there was to it. The NCO nodded, clearly impressed, but hiding it well.

'Well, you'll be chuffed to know that Needsom, and a couple of your squad made it. We've pulled in some of 6th battalion's people after they were lost.'

Hotston gasped, 'Lost?'

'Yeah. They were given a STAND FAST mission. After the battering they'd taken in the retreat, not a lot of them had many lives left. They held out to the very last. Held up the enemy for over three hours. Got a lot of others to safety that did.'

They stood in silence for a few seconds, Hotston trying to parse the information that an entire battalion had been wiped out. None of them would ever be returning home. Over 500 men and women gone forever. 2500 respawns in the relative blink of an eye.

'Right, well. Sorry to piss on your homecoming parade like that. Follow the marker and you'll find the rest of your squad over there,' Johnson said, then patted Hotston awkwardly on the shoulder.

Nodding his thanks, Hotston set off once more.

*

The rapturous welcome he’d been given by his surviving squad mates seemed to be a lifetime away as Hotston, huddled down at the bottom of the trench, screamed as shell after shell pounded their position. His HUD was lit up with calls for medics as the defenders of the village were slowly whittled down. Marker after marker blinked out as the wounded were hit by a follow-on shell.

Situated on a key highway, the village was strategically important for both sides. For the ECAF it meant they could keep it the highway open for as many of their people as possible to escape. For the ChinKor, it meant a nearly direct route to the West coast of France, and the English Channel. At the same time, it would completely bisect the country, and whilst this would mean that the ChinKor line of advance was open to flanking attacks, it would also divert ECAF forces into dealing with the thrust at their heart, whilst the main ChinKor forces kept up the pressure on the broader front.

'They're here! Stand to!' The order came over his earpiece loud and clear, the system compensating for the sound of the bombardment. The order sent a spike of adrenaline through his system, something he didn’t think was possible, thinking he’d reached peak hours ago.

Forcing himself up on legs that felt like rubber, stomach churning from the near continuous shockwaves that his body had been absorbing, he scanned the open ground before his position. Whilst he could have used his tacmap, he much preferred seeing where his enemy was. And just putting his rifle over the lip of the trench and using the sight’s link to his HUD didn’t do it for him either. It wasn’t something he could explain, he just preferred using the Mark 1 eyeball.

'Fuck me sideways,' he breathed. The enemy force rushing towards them was massive. Tanks and mechs led the way, whilst infantry fighting vehicles followed them up. The bombardment had shifted, the shells falling into the centre of the village, acting as a walking wall of death to prevent the defenders being able to orient themselves before the attackers were in their midst.

'Firing!' There was a whoosh off to his left, as an anti-armour launcher sent a missile burning its way through the air. Grimacing, he rubbed at his teeth as an anti-mech laser powered up, then burned the air as it fired, the smell of ozone filling the air. His HUD showed the beam as a line of green light. If he’d been looking for it with his naked eye, he would have only seen the superheated air shimmering.

It hit a tank, the vehicle’s armour flash boiling explosively, even though it had fired an anti-laser spray. Flames roared out of the hatches like those from a blow torch, reaching a good ten metres or so in the air for a few seconds before dying down. There would have been no escape for the crew.

The enemy tanks opened fire at a distance of 1000m, their gunners better able to pick out targets than the infantry they were attacking. Lasers, shells, flechettes and pulses smashed into the Coldstream Guards' positions. There was nothing that Hotston could do at the moment until the enemy infantry were out of their vehicles. A helpless bystander, he did what he could by tagging every vehicle he could, helping build up a clear picture of enemy locations.

They weren't bothering with smoke, but his HUD reticle danced over some of the mechs and armoured vehicles as their stealth systems became active. Not all of them had it, the ChinKor preferring to spend the Command Points on quantity over quality. Generally, the rule of thinking was that the more experienced – and therefore better – units, had more CPs spent on them. Which meant that ECAF forces concentrated their fire on those units with better protection.

Still, the ChinKor had so many Command Points they could flood the battle with low-level units and hide the better units amongst them. Target rich environment was something which looked cool on paper, but in reality was absolute hell.

At 500 meters, the heavy pulser and heavy machine guns in his trenches opened fire, their heavy calibre shots large enough to damage the lighter vehicles if there was a lucky shot. As the enemy closed the distance even further, the odd vehicle would grind to a halt. Some would brew up, known as hard kills, others simply stopped, mobility kills. Some would then disgorge troops. The rest of the advance just continued to roll forward.

As soon as the range dropped to less than 150 metres, Hotston popped up, selected an IFV and fired a grenade at its tracks. The explosion blew pieces of link clean off, the vehicle's momentum stripping the track clean off causing the IFV to slew to one side, exposing its weaker side armour. DPs popped up onto his HUD, the first he'd seen in a long time.

MOBILITY KILL! – +10DP

+1SP – UNDERSLUNG GRENADE LAUNCHER

Its rear door opened, ChinKor infantry leaping from it, fanning out to both sides, laying down a torrent of covering fire in the hope that they would force Hotston and his friends to duck back into cover.

Not today you fuckers, thought Hotston as he sent three-round bursts into the bodies of the first two, killing them outright.

KILL! +20DP

+2SP – BATTLE RIFLE

He didn't even bother checking his progress bars. So far, despite his squad’s successful first mission, he'd been an appalling soldier, losing life after life without making an impression on the war effort, bar giving ChinKor soldiers the opportunity to score points themselves.

A loud roaring was the only warning he had as an IFV ploughed straight over the trench, mere centimetres from his head. Gunports blazing, the IFV raced on a few more metres before skidding to a halt. Spinning, Hotston laid his sight over the rear of the IFV, trying to calm his breathing and stop the sight from dancing all over. The door opened rapidly, making him twitch in surprise, sending a grenade flying straight into its interior. With a huge explosion, its force contained by the confines of the IFV, the grenade detonated.

SQUAD WIPE - 120DP

VEHICLE KILL - 10DP

TANK KILLER - 50DP

All appeared rapidly on his HUD, even as the individual kill notifications were still popping up on his HUD.

'Fuck yeah!' Turning back to face the rest of the enemy attack he was faced with a ChinKor infantryman, bayonet thrusting straight into his face. Pain, worse than any he'd suffered before, exploded in his head, a loud crunching sound filling his skull. Vision dimming, he tried to scream as the enemy soldier twisted the bayonet before withdrawing it with a slopping sound but found he couldn't summon the strength to do so. Falling to his knees, he watched as blood poured out the wound, pooling on the ground before him.

Fuck, fuck, fu....

LIVES LEFT - 25 PREPARE TO RESPAWN