"Atlantean armor at four o'clock, distance one thousand yards!"
The Atlanteans main form of heavy armor that had been encountered to this point were eight legged walkers with long oval chassis, and a long barrelled weapon of some sort, while the troop carriers were cylindrical, with six legs, and four smaller weapons, one in front, one on eithe side, and one on the back.
Lt. Col. Mark Karnow swung the Palladin's turret to the right and found the target, the guns computer pinged lock, and he pushed the button on his gunnery control module. The vehicle rocked to the left as the one hundred and fifty five millimeter high explosive armor piercing round blasted out of the barrel. It took the speeding projectile just under a second to reach the target, which went up in flames.
"It's a hit!" Mark yelled over his crew intercom. They had been deployed from their base in Germany the day before, in that time, the Atlanteans had pushed as far north as the southern outskirts of Skopje. now Mark and the rest of the crews of the American fourteenth tank brigade were trying to hold five bridges across the Vardar River just south of the Museum of Macedonia. and while they had slowed the enemy down, it seemed like for every armored vehicle they destroyed there was another to replace it.
"We can't keep this up much longer, were down to twenty shells!" Sergent Rasmus Jaylin, the tanks driver said through his microphone.
"We stay on station until we're down to six shells, then we fall back to replenish." Lt Colonel Kat Delia was the only female tank commander in the fourteenth, but she was also one of the best. she had been in tanks since shortly after the Iraq War, all the way through the most recent conflict in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Her crew would follow her to Hell and back again. They had come to refer to her as 'BobKat'.
The tank shook violently.
"What just hit us?" Jaylin asked.
"It's those freaking Stingray lookin' things!" Mark shouted, "Why isn't the HEW engaging them?"
HEW's, or High Energy Weapons were a recent addition to the Paladins. They were high powered lasers that had a built in radar suit to track incoming projectiles and shoot them down, but they were equally effective against enemy aircraft. Or at least they usually were.
"I think they're just to heavily armored." Kat replied a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
Just then the distinct chatter of the twenty-five millimeter chaingun could be felt through the vehicle's armor. that meant that enemy infantry had closed to within the guns automatic targeting range, which was five hundred yards, too close for comfort. Suddenly a voice crackled over the main radio.
"This is Rambler flight calling all units, clear the bridges. We're gonna blow 'em."
just as the last Abrams was clear of the bridges, a flight of six F-22's came in low and fast, each one hitting it's designated bridge with a pair of one thousand pound Joint Direct Assault Munition, or JDAM. when the smoke cleared, huge sections of the bridge were missing and the enemy units were unable to cross.
**********************
Priam smiled, which he did not do often. His enemy was in a fighting retreat, but they were retreating none the less. Another victory was at hand.
"All units! Advance on your appointed vector and cross the river, then we will push north to capture the center of the city."
His Heavy Assault Crawlers were just starting to cross the bridges with infantry in tail, when he heard a distant whine over the thunder of the guns of the Earthmen, and the thud of the Atlanteans own Hypervelocity Mortars.
