So many years, so many countries conquered, the victories, the immense kill counts ! Now we knew only defeat after defeat, counting our missing comrades by the silence of their radios or a smoke plume from their position. Ever backwards, until we had nowhere else to go, nowhere to run. Backs against the wall, in our home city, the last city, the final battle.
Surrounded, defence is all we could offer, there would be no more victories, no more medals or mentions of us at home as we rolled across foreign lands smashing all before us. It was our turn to be smashed as we were pushed ever deeper into our shattered capital, us remaining few who would try and give anyone left some time to escape this hell we had brought with us.
A constant barrage made communication impossible as we crawled along, we had been fighting together so long that we didn't need to talk anymore. A shoulder nudge, a tap on the head, a quick barked shout..we worked as one in the confines of the steel beast.
We could pick out an enemy tank in any sort of terrain, any slight movement could mean death awaiting, it had become more than second nature. It is what we were, a killing machine, we knew nothing else. Find the target, kill the target, move.
Look again, confirm the death, look for more. There was always more.
It didn't matter how many we killed this time, just how much time we could buy before we to succumbed. It wasn't spoken of but we all knew this was our last stand. Reload.
Fire.
We don't even notch them up on the inside of our machine anymore, that time has passed.
We just wait for the next one to come into reach of our gun.
Let another go in search of glory, we have had our fill.
They are surging forward eagerly looking for us, we do not need to go to them. It will all be over soon enough, there is no need to rush our finish.
Still, even now at the end, we find a moment that can surprise us.
We look at each other briefly, knowing the instant hell we just unleashed in the enemy tank. A quick death, we can only hope for the same.
Still they come.
Fighting across a shattered wasteland, this dying city will be there victory, a city no more.
The final push was on, we could feel it, the enemy tanks were rolling across the wasted earth with confidence despite their losses. We knew we couldn't halt their rush, just continue to feed the machine of war..a voracious mouth that never closed.
Even this close to victory they still came across open ground, offering themselves to our beast.
Then it became our turn to move, this was it, i looked at my crew for what i knew would be the last time. We pushed forward.
It wouldn't be long now.
We would go down defiant, one last kill before we were no more.
The hit that we had been waiting for, one last round rammed in the breech, one last shot and then...
...just another wreck among many. Maybe one day our story would be told, it didn't matter to us.