Chapter 4 - The way things are

It was around 1:45 AM that I called Nicole. I wasn’t very sleepy so I was walking around on the deck of the Titan. And every once in a while, saw you this blue glow going over the Titan, which was the shield. And although the Titan was flying at an average speed of about 120 kilometres an hour, you didn’t feel any wind which was held back by the shield. As I stood at the edge, leaning over the railing while smoking a cigarette, I stuck my hand outside the shield. And then I could feel strong winds hitting my hand. I looked at the beautiful scenario that was passing by slowly in the distance, where you could see trees and small villages and even lakes and rivers as you hear the jet engines of the titan below… It was actually very relaxing…



Rico: Evening Sarge…

I looked up and saw Rico standing next to me.



Blain: Evening Rico…
Rico: I got a coffee for you if you want.
Blain: Thanks…

Then he leaned on the rail as well and stared at the scenery that was passing by slowly… I looked at him and offered him a smoke.



Rico: Its really gonna happen now isn’t it Sarge?
Blain: Yeah… Are you nervous?
Rico: Hell, I’ve never seen combat in my life before. Would it be a stupid thing to say that I am nervous?

Blain: Naah… Of course not.
Rico: Were you never afraid sir?
Blain: All the time Rico… The trick is not to show that you’re afraid.
Rico: Why not?
Blain: Fear is like a virus… It spreads out and it infects other people…

Rico: I see…

Jarod/Mace/Shifty/Tavish: Sarge…
Blain: Guys…
Jarod: Sucking up like always Rico?
Rico: Man, frack you…
Jarod: Hehehe…
Shifty: You’re gonna drink that sir?
Blain: I might, why?
Shifty: Because I’ve never see you drink coffee ever since I got on the regiment and I could use an ol’ cup ‘a Joe sir.

Blain: Here, take it before I spill it accidentally on you.
Shifty: Thaaaaaaaaanks… Aw yeah… Hey Rico, how about some cream and sugar?
Jarod: Yeah and while you’re at it, bring a cheese burger for me.

Then Rico sighed reluctant and went inside to get cream and sugar…



Tavish: Why you’re always picking on Rico like that?
Shifty: Cuz, he’s the new guy. New guys always get picked on.
Blain: Like you?
Shifty: Come on sarge, don’t start on that…
Tavish: Tell it to Mace and Jarod, sir!
Mace: Do tell sarge, do tell.
Jarod: Yeah, I never it heard it as well.

Blain: Well this one time, I was barking orders around. Tavish and some other guys pulled off a stunt which I wasn’t too happy about.

Tavish: I learned my lesson sir.
Blain: Damn right you should, you cheeky bugger. Anyway, then all of a sudden, this guy stood next to me, yelling in my ear “PRIVATE SHIFTY REPORTING FOR DUTY SIR!!!”

Jarod/Mace/Tavish: *laughs*
Shifty: …
Blain: Seriously, I was pissed off because of the stunt Tavish pulled out with the others so I wasn’t really in the mood. Shifty gave me a letter saying he got reassigned to my regiment.

Jarod: Then what happened sir?
Blain: I replied to Shifty, “How did an asswipe like you pass selection?” And he responded in a high pitched voice “WITH LOTS OF DEVOTION SIR!!!”

All: *laughs*



Shifty: Hey, I was nervous. I was shootting my pants when I found out this guy was gonna be my commanding officer. You had one hell of a reputation sir.

Blain: Yeah, except I also did something back whenever you guys do something right. But if you frack it up, I’ll make everyone pay for it.

Jarod: Yeah… I remember I had to brush the floors with my toothbrush when I first got to the regiment.

Blain: You got a new one right?
Jarod: Yup. Hehehe…
Blain: If only you used it once in a while. Holy frack, you’re breath stinks.

Jarod: …
All: *laughs*
Mace: Meh, I’m glad I’m not with that Lennox guy though. They say he’s much worse.

Blain: Lennox is a college boy barking out orders. The only reason why he’s a sergeant is because his uncle is some high ranked chief behind a desk. I can’t stand it. He’s never done anything good worth to mention.

Jarod: Don’t say that out loud Sarge. They might get back on you for that. What if someone blabbers it around…? Hmmm…?

Blain: Then I’ll make you do push-ups.
Jarod: … Fair enough. It’s safe with me sir.

It stayed silent for a while as we all looked at the scenery…


Shifty: *sighs* I can’t wait to get home.
Blain: You’ve just been away for a few hours.
Shifty: Yeah I know but… There was always this special scent at home whenever my mom was cooking. And I just miss that already.

Jarod: Well I can’t wait to get home to my girlfriend…
Shifty: I thought the sarge was you’re girlfriend, Jarod.
Blain: Hehehe…
Jarod: You got a girl at home Tavish?

Tavish: Eeh… No, I don’t have a girlfriend. I don’t want one either. You’re spending six hours in a shopping mall only to be returned to the first shop where she visited first. She gets first dibs on everything and all… Like food for example. I dont like that.

Shifty: That’s called manners, dumbass! Your supposed to give your girlfriend first dibs on everything.

Tavish: Well. I don’t have manners. Some people say manners are needed to eat properly, or in socializing, but I’ll tell you one thing. I never learned anything about manners and I’ve been eating and talking my whole life.

All: *Laughs*

Jarod: Naah. You gotta choose you’re words carefully if you wanna impress a girl.

Shifty: Yeah, like saying the right things. Like… Sensitive stuff ya know? They got a sensitive spot when it comes to that.

Tavish: Yeah that’s called her thingly.
All: *laughs*
Jarod: … I remember when I was on exercise in Mesa Grandá. frackin’ hell…
Blain: What happened?
Jarod: Well it was some exotic place filled with hot girls ya know. I was talking to one of them, and she was pretty hot. Then all of a sudden, she cracked a smile, and then I was like, holy frack!!

Mace: What, yellow rotten teeth?!
Jarod: frack no, I wished. Her teeth were split like a tsunami was wreaking havoc there man, I swear!! Could fit a motherfracking whale in there!!

All: *laughs*
Jarod: Then I stared at her tits, and I swear, the moment I looked, I heard a “TOING!!! TOING!!!” and I was staring at her nipples that looked like frackin’ toothpicks man!! Geez!! What the hell!!

All: *laughs*
Shifty: Then what?!
Jarod: Haha, she told me she was home alone!! So I knew what was coming! But she so was damn hot!! Except those teeth and those nipples man!! They kept haunting me!!

All: *laughs*

Jarod: And then she was like-
Then all of a sudden, we heard a loud explosion. As soon as we looked over the railing to the front, we saw one of the gunships on fire and going down.



Jarod: What the frack was that?!

More and more people ran up and down the Titan to see the gunship going down in flames. I think the pilots were killed instantly because no one was ejecting… Then a lot more explosions were heard…



Shifty: Are we under attack?!!
Tavish: Get down!!!!

Just in a nick of time, we got down as debris from a gunship flew over us. Some guys we didn’t know got hit by it and got knocked off the Titan. As we looked over the railing, we saw a few guys falling down a long way with no signs of life… Then Rico ran towards us…



Mace: frackin’ hell!!
Rico: All of the gunships got shot down!!
Blain: What?!!
Jarod: All of them?!!
Tavish: Where did it come from?!!

Looking down over the railing to see if there was something down there didn’t help either… It was too dark to see anything. Then all of a sudden, I saw a smoke trail in the distance and not long after that, another explosion was heard. You could see the blue glow of the shield spreading out over the Titan like a shockwave…



Shifty: Oh frack, oh frack, oh frack, oh frack, this isn’t good!!
Rico: Ya think?!! Their trying to bring down the motherfrackin’ shield here!!
Tavish: What should we do sir?!!

All I could do was to stare at the scenery… I heard the pulse cannons charging up underneath the Titan, and not long after that, an ear deafening noise was heard as some blue plasma like ball got shot out of the cannons. It hit the forest below and everything that was underneath it was annihilated. Trees shattered like toothpicks and we could hear people scream down there…



Tavish: Sir?!!
Blain: Get to the far end of the Titan-!!

And more explosions were heard… Then all of a sudden, the blue glow of the Titan flickered and died out…



Jarod: Oh no…
Tavish: What?!!
Jarod: Titan shield is down!! Get moving!! Go!!

We all ran to the far end of the Titan as more explosions were heard. You saw smoke trails in the distance and massive explosion after explosion occurred. There was this huge blazing fire as black thick smoke was floating upwards in the middle of the ship. And as I took a look to see what the damage was, it was enormous. Huge gaping holes and chunks out of the Titan could be seen, and you saw people falling down. It was then we realized the Titan was lost. And the missiles kept on coming… At some point, the front of the Titan started to tear apart and broke lose. And the only thing we could do was to firmly hang on to something. Escape pods were launched, and we also heard gunfire on the ground. Then the back of Titan started to go down… The front of it made a one eighty turn and crashed at the back, and then it got separated from the rest as it plummeted to the ground… The back of the Titan started to capsize and we could barely hold on. Then the last thing I could remember was that as soon the Titan hit the ground at around 120 kilometres an hour, we fell off…



I didn’t how long I’ve been unconscious… I heard all people screaming in my mind and it just didn’t stop. As I slowly opened my eyes, it was all blurry and I felt really dizzy… My legs hurt a lot and I noticed a deep cut in my left leg. The shootty thing was that I had no idea where I was, and I had no weapons whatsoever. I didn’t know where everybody was, and yet I heard everyone scream as gunfire was heard in the distance. I got up with a lot of pain and effort and tried to find the others. Walking around hurt a lot but I had to…



Blain: Jarod!! Shifty!! Tavish!! Ma-

Then I stepped on something. As I looked down, I couldn’t see what it was I stepped on, but as I took a closer look, I notice it was a hand. I removed the debris that was lying near it, and I saw it was Mace. I felt his wrist and checked if he was still breathing, but he wasn’t. I closed his eyelids and yanked his dogtags from his neck… I grabbed his backpack, opened it and ripped the isolation material to use as a bandage. I tied it to stop the bleeding on my leg, but it didn’t really help at all. Then all of a sudden, I could hear something terrifying… The sounds of artillery shells coming down… It makes that particular whistle noise and the scary thing is that you don’t know where it will land… I knew I had to get away fast, which I did…



The first artillery barrage was expected… I could hear it from a distance and everyone yelled to take cover… I heard familiar voices but I couldn’t see them. As soon as the first explosion was heard, I jumped in the nearest crater I saw, making myself as small as possible… Then I just looked around and saw trees exploding… It was like every sound in the world died off and that I could only see… Then I realized I had a smile on my face… It reminded me of how we used to celebrate New Years Eve back home, and that one time, Cody blacked out the entire village by an EMP grenade… Even my arm wasn’t functional anymore when he pulled that stunt… I snapped out of my daydream by loud voices, and noticed the artillery barrage stopped… Everyone yelled to find each other and calling for medics… And as I looked up, I noticed Jarod not too far from me.



???: I cant get up!! … I cant get up!!!
Jarod: Is that Ezran?!
Blain: Stay down!! Stay in the craters!!

I climbed out of the crater and ran towards the place where I heard the voice, and noticed I got followed by Vaux. And as soon as we arrived, we noticed that Ezran’s legs got blown off… Vaux grabbed him under his armpits and lifts him up…



Vaux: I got ya Ezran!! you’re gonna be ok!!
Ezran: My-My weapon!! I forgot my weapon!!
Vaux: It’s ok!! Leave it!! Don’t worry about it!!


Suddenly, without warning, the second artillery barrage was raining down on us… We all ran and shouted to take cover in those craters again… Vaux ran away with Ezran, and he was yelling his lungs out… They went east to a near by crater, but got hit by a shell… They both died instantly…



As I was running, I was overwhelmed by the ear deafening noise and exploding trees… I saw guys flying through the air, shortly after being followed by a limb… At that same time, I saw Forza and Hershey in a crater, yelling to me to hurry up… A few hundred meters behind me, was another explosion. It knocked me down, and as I looked up, I saw Forza and Hershey being annihilated by an artillery shell… They just went up in smoke… Just like that… I quickly recovered, and saw Tavish hiding in a crater. I dove down, and I got pulled down by him.



During that second barrage, I wasn’t laughing anymore. A dead guy landed not to far from us, while half of his body got blown off. The artillery fire only lasted for about 10 minutes… But it seem like it was taking forever. It died down… We saw an artillery shell hitting our crater, but didn’t explode… It was smoking and sizzling, as Tavish and I were shaking severly… The two of us stared at it as I got my pack of smokes out from under my jacket and gave Tavish one as well… We lighted up the cigs with shaky hands as the gunfire died down… We stayed there for the rest of the night, and as dawn broke, we looked for survivors…



As the sun came up, it showed the devastation that was caused during that fight. Everywhere you looked, you saw wrecks of our tanks, battlewalkers and there was fire everywhere. Every now and then, you still hear explosions caused by ammunition and fuel. The body count was enormous… The only way I can describe it is that it was just one massive slaughter… And everywhere you looked, you saw dead, maimed furries. Some were incinerated by the blazing fires as they couldn’t escape and just burned to death. I remember the smell of gunpowder and death that was in the air… Seeing all those dead bodies and wrecks made me realize how lucky I was that I escaped with my life…



Out of the 568,231 people on board the “Soraya” Titan, only 36 people survived the attack… Walking out of the forests with only Tavish, Jarod, Shifty, Rico and me as the only survivors of the 506^th regiment was a colossal loss… But… I guess it’s just war… It’s all part of it… No one is to blame… It’s just the way things are…

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