Robin, still in a state of complete shock, staggered around to the front of the bunker and saw into the trench lines hit by the incendiary rockets. The bodies of the men that hadn't been shredded by the high-explosive bombs had been reduced to skeletons, the bones charred black. Robin was terrified, all she could think about now was how long would it be until the fighter-bombers came back and reduced her to a charred skeleton as well.

Incapable of action for a further few moments, she once again shook herself and looked around. She had no gun, her uniform was scorched and tattered. The morphine cocktail given to her earlier by the medic was wearing off, leaving her trembling and shattered with pain. The sun created a harsh glare through all the smoke and dust making it hard for her to focus on anything. Two soldiers appeared next to her and knelt, trying to figure out some kind of plan with her. No officers were visible and any other visible men were running away in complete disorder.

Another man appeared who was armed with a bazooka, he had the firing mechanism, but only two rockets which he held like prize rabbits. The sound of tank movement was rising and falling in the distance as enemy armour approached along a sunken road, out of sight. The two men who knelt next to Robin concluded they were going to fall back, the bunkers were destroyed and it would be senseless to stay and fight. The man with the bazooka however insisted that he was going to stay and fire his projectiles.

"As soon as our armour regroups and counter-attacks, we'll be heroes if we destroy the coming tanks," he said. "These rockets can destroy any UEF tank at 200 metres."

Robin realized he had to be mentally confused, but she was also still bewildered and had suddenly entered a state where she wasn't scared for the future. For this reason, as the two men retreated out of the zone, Robin stayed to act as the bazooka man's loader. Taking a rifle and what spare magazines she could find on the ground, the two took up a position between two wrecked vehicles behind a concrete slab, near the crashed fighter-bomber. The smoke from its flames blowing away from the two, giving them a good line of sight along the road at the flooded fields.

The bazooka gunner told Robin how to load the launcher with a rocket, she loaded one of the two rounds and then rolled away, flattening herself to the ground to not be hit by the coming blast. Watching the roadway, she could see the outline of a tank coming onto the road from a burning tree line. The tank had a large and obvious UEF insignia on the front plate. Robin, in her confused mental state, viewed the lumbering tank like a tin pot target at a carnival shooting stall, a simple target to knock over.

The range was roughly 200 metres, and the bazooka gunner got excited. "It's a titan, we can finish it!"

Before she could respond, a large number of sparks and flame shot from the back of the bazooka, burning Robin's face with the heat, despite her distance from the jet. She saw the projectile streak towards the titan and watched it impact on the front plate, just above the tracks. The explosion was not large, but she saw many fragments burst off the vehicle and the tracks stopped moving immediately. The bow machinegun was silent, Robin figured its operator was dead. The turret machine gun however began firing, ripping apart the damaged vehicles and concrete slab.

Robin loaded the final rocket into the bazooka and the two waited for a short time. The titan had stopped firing, prompting them both to take a quick look. A fire had started inside the vehicle and the surviving crew were climbing from the hatches. Robin saw one had a submachinegun and fired on him, killing him instantly. The other two men quickly got down from the deck and scattered for the back of the tank.

Quickly rolling away upon seeing the bazooka man raise the tube over his shoulder, he fired his final round. She watched the projectile scream towards the enemy and to her surprise, strike another titan. The track was blown completely off, she couldn't believe they had disabled two tanks with two rockets, she felt a sensation of great pride. Her celebration was cut short as their actions were swiftly punished by the second tank. It began firing high-explosive shells at their hiding spot.

Trapped behind the concrete slab and unable to move, in between the explosions, Robin heard the revving and clanking of more tanks trying to bypass the two knocked-out titans. Her mood changed completely, she thought they were close to losing their battle, to death. The bazooka man was hit by shrapnel in the back. He threw down his bazooka, bleeding heavily. Taking a grenade from his boot, he handed it to Robin.

She thought he meant for her to throw it at the tanks as a last-ditch effort, then he told her that they should blow themselves up rather than be captured. She thought there was no reason for such senseless actions. Staring at the hand grenade, she could hear a new sound in-between everything. An engine revving from the south, friendly tanks were arriving. Believing that the tanks were arriving at the last possible moment to defend the bunker line just as the sergeant had promised in the bunker, she looked out for the great formation of tanks to roll through. However, all that showed up was a single assault gun, basically a tank with no turret, the gun sticking out the front of the hull.

Robin had seen these self-propelled guns do extreme damage to UEF armoured formations before, but this was a single gun against an unknown amount of enemy tanks. It turned out the vehicle commander had risked his vehicle and crew to scout out the bunker line, alone. Waving to the commander who was barely peering from his hatch.

As it advanced on their position, it fired multiple rounds from its main gun and the commander had the driver maneuver in close to Robin and the bazooka man. The commander waved for them to quickly climb aboard, Robin tried to pick up the injured man, but he was too heavy, she was too weak after all the fighting and stress. Leaving the man behind the concrete slab, she clambered aboard the engine deck as the assault gun began reversing away.

The assault gun had destroyed a further enemy titan which left the road completely blocked, the UEF would have to cease fighting and clear their wrecks. Retreating multiple kilometres back along a forest path, the assault gun carried Robin back to where it had deployed from. A make-shift motorized platoon was being formed out of any men and vehicles that they could come across, a complete mix of infantry half-tracks and tanks.

There was a lull in the fighting, though UEF fighter-bombers constantly hit anything they saw moving in the zone. Using the time to organize themselves, Robin had no trace of her original unit, attaching herself to the makeshift platoon. She was given more magazines and grenades as well as another morphine cocktail by a medic. The small field kitchen gave her bread and soup, which boosted her morale and energy levels greatly. Most of the men were younger-looking boys, they all reminded her of Hawker. The young men were eager to engage the UEF as they hadn't been in contact yet.

Before they began to pack up to move, another twenty very young men found their way into the battle group. With no clear command, the group decided to have two armoured cars go and scout the UEF lines. They never returned. In the end, the assault gun commander finally received clear orders through his radio. He, his vehicles and anyone with him was to retreat again to a third bunker line protected by artillery.

Forming into a column, everyone slowly and hesitantly began retreating again. Armoured cars took the lead of the column followed by the infantry half-tracks. Infantry on foot followed behind them and the assault guns were at the rear, one reversing as to keep its gun towards the enemy.

The mood was tense, it was hot and humid and no one knew how close the UEF could be with all the paratroopers and flanking attacks. One thing Robin saw disturbed her. Around ten UEF troops were lying dead in a field, all lined up, seemingly executed. The assault gun commander of the vehicle Robin was walking beside leaned down and whispered to her it was the work of the young boys that had joined with them late.

Their destination was only a few kilometres away when suddenly, a group of six fighter-bombers appeared above them. Robin tried to reason that the vehicles were so well camouflaged that the planes wouldn't spot them and at first she seemed to be correct. The first two planes flew straight over and seemingly ignored them. The third and fourth planes however began entering a sharp dive. Robin tensed up but quickly threw herself into the ditch along the road.

The third and fourth planes launched a series of high explosive rockets on the convoy, many smashing into the fields to either side, but many coming down directly on the convoy. The bodies of the dead UEF troops were torn to pieces by the impacts, pieces being thrown for long distances. Robin could barely look as the rockets struck.

The road was turned into an absolute slaughterhouse. Rockets tore the metal screens from the sides of the assault guns, two of the three vehicles being hit directly on the engine deck, destroying them outright. The third assault gun had its entire superstructure blown clean from the hull as it shifted from side to side, burning violently as the ammunition detonated inside.

Shrapnel shrieked through the air as it bounced from side to side along the high walls of the sunken road. Many of the young boys had been shredded by the many pieces of screaming metal, Robin looked up to see a few of the young boys be flattened by a burning half-track moving backwards. It kept reversing, crushing corpses and injured men until it smashed into one of the burning assault guns at the back of the convoy.

Other troops struggled in pools of gasoline, trying to drag themselves to safety until they were enveloped by the flames. Robin looked at another young boy that was completely engulfed in flames, his entire upper body missing in smoke. After a few moments, the flames finally detonated the multiple grenades he had in his belt, sending his limbs in different directions.

She waited for a minute, then two minutes and then for longer. She heard the fighter-bombers fly off to the north, it was all over. Having taken a piece of shrapnel to the back, Robin noticed she was struggling to breathe on the ground. She was at a loss, in a state of absolute confusion. She had been through a series of extreme battles, each time her forces were overwhelmed by vastly superior enemy weaponry.

She felt a feeling of despair, she was in a bad situation physically and psychologically. Once again, the morphine cocktail was wearing off, leaving her extremely weakened. She struggled with herself to figure out what to do. After everything she had experienced, she wanted to stand on the road with her hands up and wait to be captured, but something inside told her that giving up now would be meaningless when she was so close to the next defensive line.

With the assistance of the few survivors, Robin and the others climbed over the shattered corpses and metal pieces. Some of the men on the ground were still alive but horribly wounded, their groans being the only other sound apart from the flames. With nothing to help them with, Robin and the others did nothing. Stepping over a man who had his lower body torn from him, she felt a hand weakly grab her shin.

She looked down at the man and shook herself free. As she stepped away, a shot rang out, the man behind her had shot him. It was a merciful thing to do, she thought. Finally, they left the destroyed column behind and reached the fortified line. It was nearly identical to the bunker line Robin had just left. A medic quickly came over and guided her to a dressing station where he found she had multiple broken ribs, so she was sent to a zone further back to be properly assessed and sent to a hospital in the rear.

As she waited on a stretcher in a small field tent, all she could hear was the anguished moans and cries of other wounded soldiers. She could see rows upon rows of bodies placed in lines, bloodied sheets covering them. Doctors were sprinting about everywhere, some carrying stretchers with wounded or dead men, some dumping out buckets of bloodied water.

Medics brought a stretcher with a man on it into the tent and placed him down in the spot next to Robin and left. The man on the stretcher next to her let out a horrid wheeze, she looked over to him and saw that he was facing her and that he was horribly burned.

"What do you... believe in" the man weakly asked her.

Robin looked to the roof of the tent for only a moment to think, when she looked back at the man, she said nothing. He was dead.

The two medics came back and looked at him, letting out only a sigh.

"Ambulance is here for you, we're gonna get you back to the rear where it's safe." one of the medics said as the other draped a sheet over the burned man's body.

The two picked up Robin's stretcher and took her from the tent where she was able to get a proper look at what was going on. She stared at all the men writhing on surgery tables, pure carnage with no fighting to be heard. Loaded into the ambulance as the final passenger, the medics shut the doors and gave the driver the signal to leave.

As the ambulance jerked forwards, many of the men inside moaned in agony, none of them had the energy left to yell or scream. Robin took a quick look around and noticed that many of the men had missing ears, scalps and hands, and many were missing other limbs. Many of the men were also noticeably burned by either flamethrowers or that horrible incendiary weapon used by the fighter-bombers. She once again looked to the ceiling of the ambulance in silence as it bumped and shook its way down a forest path. She felt nothing at that moment, not even pain. All she felt was a pang of horrible guilt about how lightly wounded she had been.