Hellerian Heroes: The Armored Goliath

Chapter I: The departure

As the sun slowly creeped up the mountains, marking the cold morning of January 4th, Captain Nemo rose the flag up high in front of the Armored depot, starting the first shift of many new tankers. With smiles on their faces they saluted the flag as it fluttered in the morning breeze of the Alpine mountain, the chilly wind didn't bother the new young recruits as they stood at attention. But unlike the new young recruits with the long career ahead of them, the Captain wasn't very pleased with the freezing cold that hit them on that morning, as he had to finish a lot of his duties outside the cozy and warm covers of his bed. Captain Nemo led the new recruits into the depot for a briefing, it turns out they weren't called for a normal day to day shift, the partisan revolutionaries struck the populous of a nearby village and they claimed it their own.
The recruits were briefed on the actions they should take to neutralize the partisan movement in that said city, oh was it a relief from boring station duties the new recruits were expecting.
As Nemo tried briefing them on the plan, Major Charles walked out of the meeting room followed by Colonel Lazarus and Lieutenant Colonel Fegel, as they stood aside observing the briefing take place, Lieutenant Otto charged into the room, all red in face and out of breath as he ran as fast as he could to deliver the news.
"What is it Otto? Late to work again?" Captain Nemo chuckled as he looked at otto, awaiting for his anwser.
"Not at all, sir." Otto said struggling to get his words out "The partisans seem to be planning on moving towards the village of Caglio, that's just 55 kilometers from Milan" he finally sat back on a chair nearby, resting his head in his hands as he took his peaked cap off and put it down on a coffee table next to him.
Nemo looked towards Lazarus, but the look on Lazarus's face just confirmed that he got the news already, he looked down for few seconds before lifting his finger toward the map behind him.
"If it is like they said, we don't really have much time, gentlemen" Nemo said, looking towards a Sergeant that stood near him, "Take them to the depot, i want to get a move on right away".
The cadets stood up in an orderly fashion before saluting their captain and heading to the depot, grabbing their gear along the way.
"What do you think will happen now?" The private asked his friend
"I don't know...we'll see once we get there".
In less than half an hour, the tank colum consisting of 4 pumas and 6 Panzers were on the move towards the Stronghold gates, leading the colum was Captain Dark in his Jaguar, he knew the tank platoon was at a disadvantage for the lack of jaguars, they mostly consisted of Panzer IV Js, and they were quite useful, but it lacked heavy armor.
As they arrived at the border, those two pumas up front stopped at the border, the border overseer, Lieutenant Colonel Erik, walked down to the command vehicle with two of his MPs,
"Heading out to front, i assume" said Erik as he looked at the Captain
"Of course not, we are heading for a fucking picnic"
said the captain sarcastically
"No shit Sherlock, we are heading to a damn front".
Erik smirked as he signaled to his MPs on gate to open it, allowing the Armored column to pass.
As the column went down the road, parked by the side of it were multiple halftracks belonging to the 4th Mechanized Infantry, handling the formation was Major Loir who observed every move of the Armored Platoon, following them with his eyes before turning his head away to say something to one of his Personnel before the colum passed through the tunnel and out of the range of curious Infantrymen.
As they passed through the tunnel, a tanker thought about what'll await them at the front...maybe it was better to not think about it.

[End of Chapter I]