-<DUSK>-

Chapter 3: Battle of Crosswind

After saying your last goodbyes, you spend the last few hours at the base, and enjoy your time in your country, you embark to the army departure station. It takes you a few hours to arrive there, and once you do, you look at how huge it is. You climb aboard one of the jump ships, and strap yourself in. Rifle in hand. You are sat with 11 others at  the back of the ship. She's an old ship as well. "Launching in T-10 seconds" a female robotic voice mentions.
"9" you look around to see Josh, but you're outta luck. He'll be on the other one then.

One more soldier climbs aboard the ship. "Evening, gents. I'm your squad leader, Sgt. Emery Williams. We have our orders. Inserting at LZ Epsilon. Down and dirty just like we taught you. Everyone knows what's goin' on? Everybody know where they're going?!" He shouts in a very arrogant manner. "OORAH!" You all cry.
"Everybody ready!?" He yells.
"OORAH!" You shout as a group.
"Let's do this. What we're dealing with is a huge threat to the Galaxy. We're fighting an enemy that we can only identify as 'The Black
Tusk. These soldiers don't fuck around. They are as dangerous as you say you are. We need to smoke these assholes, help our allies, and defend our nation!" He gets into his seat and straps in.

"3, 2,1" and then you hear a huge rumble as the ships shoot through the air. Right next to yours is a huge mothership. That's the base of operations and where most troops will stay. You notice that the ship is approaching 350,000 mph. You also see crumbled planets and debris fly past you. Even whole, intact ships that have been left to rot are just floating across the atmosphere.

It has been 3 hours now, and still not landing or anything. But you do hear this: "Okay, soldiers we are now leaving the Milky Way Galaxy and will be approaching the Galaxy of Orion in the next 4 hours. "Ah, fuck it." You say to yourself as you fall asleep on the ship.

————————<5 hours later>————————

*BANG*
Your whole team wakes up to an alarm
"Shit, what was that?!" One of the soldiers yell.
You look out the window to notice a bright sky, and explosions mid-air. "ALL UNITS, BE ADVISED, WE ARE TAKING FIRE FROM THE GROUND! MARINES, PREPARE TO JUMP!" Your pilot yells, panicking. The hatch opens as you all stand up to prepare. You each jump out, one at a time. You are last to jump. As you lift your feet off the floor, the ship explodes behind you, knocking you forward, no scratches on you though. The debris of the ship falls in front of you as you swerve to avoid it. Usually, it kills falling soldiers. You are approaching 2,000 feet so you have to engage your jump pack. You form a standing pose so you start to fall more slowly. As you approach the ground, you prep your rifle and start moving. You pray that Josh is alive. But you can't move back to find out. You need to find safety immediately. "Move, move, move!" Williams yells. You are all wearing helmets with visors covering your face, so you don't know who's who- which is a problem as you don't know if Josh is alive or not, as you saw your men die along the way down to the ground.

Your squad takes fire from the enemy, but luckily none hit you. You run under a destroyed tank, but it looks like the cannon works. "Miller, take a look at that cannon, see if it works! We'll provide covering fire!" You listen to him, so you climb upward, onto the top of the tank. You just know you're in sight of the enemy. But your men are laying down some firepower on them. You turn on the tank's computer and are greeted with this message:

*****MAIN ENGINE: MALFUNCTION*****
***PRIMARY CANNON: OPERATIONAL***

Luckily, the cannon is working. "Sarge, the cannon is working. Permission to engage?" You inquire. "Don't need permission to engage. LIGHT THOSE FUCKERS UP!" He replies with fury. You turn the cannon to the bell tower 150 meters away. But the controls are not familiar with you. This is not a KORP tank. This is a Black Tusk tank. "Biometric Verification required." The tank says. You place your hand on the screen to in attempt to bypass the security. "Access denied." You try again. "Access denied." It's obvious that it's not going to work. So now it's useless.
"Sarge, this isn't a KORP tank. It doesn't recognise me." You worry.