Hellerian Heroes: The Armored Goliath

Chapter IV: Blazes of the Alps [Act 2]

As the night lasted for an eternity, as it seemed to a Captain, the time to move has come with all the tankers slowly finishing their breakfast and morning coffee.
The spirits were high and morale was even higher, with many tankers chatting around their tanks, some going to the HQ with intention to phone their families back home, parents and their husbands or wives.
Overall mood was quite positive, but Captain Dark was not in such good mood, afraid of not coming back home to see his daughters, his beloved wife and family that are waiting for him to come back.
The young officer looked older than he actually was, as the stress is the big deciding factor in that, at the age of 28 having plenty of grey hair already.
With the scar defining his face, reaching from his left ear to the chin and his sunglasses that he wore during the sunny days, his peaked cap always sitting on his lap while he was sitting and pair of tanker headphones always on his head while in tank.
He slowly stood up from the front of the tank he sat on near the driver's hatch, walking over to Alora that was promoted recently to a 1st Lieutenant.
She seemed to be in good mood, smiling and chatting away with Lieutenant Sigrid, exchanging smiles and giggles as they talked out of Captain's range.
Their hair was messy as they just got up, drinking coffee leaned on the HQ, before turning to face the captain with smiles on their faces.
"Good Morning, Captain!" said Alora "I hope you slept well",
"Yeah...sure, did you get any other info about the enemy movements?",
"We just got up, Captain, i don't think we have".
Captain sighed as he nodded and walked away to his tank, slowly going up and sliding down the commander's hatch, keeping it open.
"We'll head off in an hour, get your gear ready" rang out the radio as the captain rested his head back for a nap before they got to move on.
An hour has passed in silence, with tankers preparing for a move and phoning back home, Captain was napping in his tank and Lieutenants slowly got their gear and moved to their tanks.
With the command vehicle of General Austin moving up first as his Panther tanks slowly moved to the left, over the mountain to catch up with his Heavy Armored Column, and with him went Colonel Lazarus and slowly behind them went Lieutenant Colonel Fegel.
Major Charles was still in his tent, taking a nap as they were ordered to move behind captain's column, as they needed to move up at 1 pm, and Captain was moving his column at 9 am, they could relax. As 9 am slowly creeped closer, with only few minutes before the move, Captain got up and slid up the hatch, resting his hand on it before putting on his headphones.
"Let's get a move on, we've been sitting here long enough" the radio sounded off,
"Understood" said the Sergeant in the leading vehicle as the engines slowly started up and steamed forward.
As hours passed and tanks only got closer and closer to the Alpine Valley, Captain Dark was growing increasingly uneasy, looking around the roads and mountains they passed very closely, looking for movements.
The road was empty, and the silence was eerie, with only engine noises filling out the silence that mountains held.
"Something is really wrong, man, the silence is chilling" said Lieutenant Sigrid as she was peeking out of her tank hatch,
"I know, i can tell that too" the captain added as he was looking through his binoculars.
Unexpectedly the Alemannic car appeared around the corner and stepped on the gas before noticing the tanks and stepping on the break. As the car scratched to halt, leading tank opened fire from a coax machine gun, hitting the driver's side of the car multiple times.
With blood splashing all over the windows of the car, and no further movements happened.
"What the fuck just happened" asked the captain shocked at what he just saw, as everything happened in less than few seconds.
"That was the Alemannic scout car, i suppose they knew we were coming" said the Sergeant in the leading tank that neutralized the car,
"Then let's move on, we can't afford to lose this little surprise we have".
With tanks slowly creeping up the mountainous roads to get a better look on the Valley,
"Go back, we can't go any further" said the leading tank,
"What?",
"They have tank barricades, we can't go any further" said the tank as it started to slowly go in reverse, with tanks switching their direction and going down, directly towards the valley.
As the leading tank got on the valley front, the projectile zoomed past the leading vehicle and hit the mountain on its left,
"Move up!" yelled the captain "They fucking knew".
The tanks steamed forward and started firing on the Alemannic bunkers that were stationed ahead of them, hitting the bunker on the far left, neutralizing it.
As the captain yelled for a column to move to the left, the projectile from a hostile tank whizzed by and hit the trailing tank head on, but it bounced.
As they maneuvered around they saw multiple hostile Shermans.
They had Alemannic markings, so at the first glance, Captain ordered them to fire.
Cannons rang out in the valley as multiple Shermans were hit, some catching fire and some blowing up.
The Shermans were in chaotic state, scrambling to cover, but not being fast enough, resulting them to face the same fate as their other friends.
As Hellerian tanks steamed forward, the leading tank suddenly got hit head on, catching fire and slowly moved forward and off to the side, hitting the wall.
"Leading tank is down, there's something behind that fucking wall!" yelled out Lieutenant Sigrid,
as the tanks shot a smoke shell on the road ahead, they heard a heavy tank slowly start to move forward, and they immediately moved back their tank, throwing them in reverse and waiting for whatever was in the smoke to come out.
As they moved their tanks around the corner to surprise the tank, a Tiger tank slowly appeared from smoke, shooting down a Puma that was going in reverse.
As the tiger moved forward, Captain ordered the tank behind the corner to shoot at its back, with a panzer IV quickly shifting gears and moving forward, blocking its way and putting a shell in the back of a tiger.
With the tiger's engine catching fire, but still being able to turn its turret and hit one of the Army Halftracks that were coming down the road.
As tiger started to turn its turret again, the panzer hit it again, and caused it to catch fire.
With a tank column moving behind it and into the Alemannic FOB, slowly going forward towards the makeshift garages, as the captain led the way, grinding forward to catch up with the Alemannic armor, the captain's tank was hit.
Captain fell from the commander's hatch he was sitting on, falling down into his seat, as he could barely hear anything because of the loud ringing in his ears.
With the fade noise of a heavy firefight, and a lot of tracer rounds he could see in spite of his blurry vision,
He could feel the sharp pain in his chest as he leaned back and looked down, as he saw blood on his hands, desperately holding onto his stomach trying to stop the bleeding.
As the firefight continued on, the tank driver reached out to the captain, calling out his name as he tried to put on a bandage.
With the feeling of sharp pain, he slowly started to pass out, thinking about what's gonna happen, he slowly lowered his head and many memories of his family flashed through his mind.
The only time will tell what'll happen next...

[End of Chapter IV and Season 1]