Chapter 1

Day 1,352, 03:20 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Henry Hank Moody

The sounds of rockets, chopper blades and the roar of the surging relief forces began to swim almost drunkenly through Brayford’s haze. The darkness that was beginning to engulf his conscience began to retreat until suddenly it was gone and the real world came flooding back into the Lieutenants mind.

The screams of the Injured and dying slammed into Brayford and he opened his eyes to find himself staring into a scene from Hell. Fires engulfed the compound, it took a moment for the Lieutenant to realize what he was staring at but the memories returned. The Irish.

As he knelt there in some muddy puddle in some field in Ireland Brayford watched as the enemy leapt from the burning wreckage of their compound and attempted to flee the wrath of the Imperial forces of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland.

“Oh no you don’t you little f**ckers,” Screamed the Lieutenant. He reached for his weapon, took aim and let loose at the enemy who had wiped out most of his men. Spent bullet casing crashed against his face as he emptied his mag into the packed group of Irish soldiers jumping from a second floor window. Blood flew like a mist from the group as the bullets ripped through flesh and bone. In a matter of seconds Brayford was out of ammo and pain shot through his face. The spent bullet casings had left their searing mark upon his flesh.

The Irish turned to their attack, raised their weapons and within a milli-second had all been evaporated along with half of the compounds outer West wall.

The Tank rumbled past the kneeling Lieutenant, followed by another and another until ten tanks were arrayed around the fallen members of the 1st armoured assault team. A few tanks continued to fire but the Irish had broken, the rebellion had suffered a huge setback and the 1st armoured had taken their control post and were ready to push on into the heart of the Irish rebellion and bring the land under the sweet peaceful control of Britain.

“Looks like you had a bad turn here Lieutenant.” The voice was silky smooth. Always seductive forever deadly.

“Bout time you showed up Dakota another few minutes and I’d have been dead.”

“And what a sorry loss that would have been.” The friends smiled, laughed and hugged.

In the middle of fire, blood and mud the 1st armoured moved the bodies of their dead back to their owns lines and mounted up and set off in pursuit of the fleeing enemy.