[b]Kalachinsk, Russia[/b]

Tse Lin was the type who could find the words needed to describe riding in a tank was like, for her. Or at least to the men. She didn't doubt she could manage to describe it other women in the force. Precautions needed to be taken, or so the indoctrination claimed. And given the often passive-aggressive hostility or the insistent flirting many lonely soldiers tried to pull on her type it paid to keep such observations quiet, or learn to put someone in a hold and threaten to tear off his balls.

But there was still that something in riding in one. Even so high up in the turret the vibration and rattle of the heavy diesel engine in back. Even with the muffled effects of reduced cylinders in the new power-plant for the modern TG 1980 there was still that distinct thunder in its chassis. The distinct way it rumbled through the steel, assisted by the way the treads moved across rough terrain that rolled deep into her legs. Even though the edge of her small steel seat often numbed them from lack of appropriate padding, the message over her pelvis was almost a way to forgive that. Just short of a prolonged orgasm.

And the gun she got to handle to go with it.

Her shoulders brushed against the side of the impossibly angled targeting computer. A whole mess of knobs and levers and dials she couldn't ever hope to read. But she knew it by heart, just like every other gunner in the Armored core of the Chinese army. Wi Hui had alongside him the auxiliary box, should something ever happen to her or the computer at her side that would prevent the precise angling and movement of the turret in which they sat.

Wi Hui, her loader sat staring out the tiny pin-hole window he was given. It was almost expected that if she was removed he was entrusted with blindly firing at approximately the same coordinates Sung would give in engagement. But Lin knew him well enough he wasn't searching for anything to shoot, he was putting aside himself for when he needed to take the dive to load shells. It was coming, the sternness in Sung's voice as he screamed over the radio for positions on the rest of the column were testament to that.

“Position requests on any units near coordinate positions 55, 74!” he shouted. The map laid out on his lap brushed its corners alongside Lin's face in rhythm with the movements her seat was taking her through.

“55, 74. Kalachinsk, Russian Republic. Come in!” he continued to yell, taking occasional glances up wards through his canopy of glass and steel to check the surroundings.

Lin wondered where they were in regards to their area. Filled with the curiosity of the moment, she pull the sighting scope up to her eyes and gave the road ahead a gander.

It was broken up, pot-holed, and mostly rain whetted mud and clay. Deep ruts ran the length of the muddy and churned soil, marking where trucks had passed. Water filled these furrows, breaking only for sticks or the upturned rock or thick unbroken clod of clay kicked up by any of the vehicles that came through.

There was a misty sort of quality ahead of them. The trees dropped with a sort of sadness. It was fitting really, for the almost two years she had come to know the Russian atmosphere there was no fitting display. The Russians were a people who had lost their nation some ten years ago. The Siberians had only just repaired their state a year prior, just before she had been sent her with this lovable crew. She couldn't lie, she loved them like brothers. It came with the territory, she assumed.

And this territory, this was knew. She didn't even know if in the eyes of the Russian peoples supposedly their allies if they trusted them. Did they see them as saviors? Or just another complicating element in their greater revolution. After all, it was no secret among them that the Chinese had flummoxed in assuring a hastier end to their Civil War. They held the president of the Republic, they could have demanded their cessation and allowed them to be absorbed in Siberia!

Though, despite this: the Diplomatic offices liked to deny it. They with the rest of Beijing claim it was them defending the east against the terrors of VX. To prevent another Seattle. Maybe they were right, in a strange sense. But it was the only they thing toted.

“Sun Song, Q-41I. Calling in at approximately two a half kilometers north of the old Siberian highway inbound to Kalachinsk. Requesting all nearby units for assistance.” he continued, looking up through the glass. That queer ovular microphone pressed close over his mouth as a singe hand held down the bouncing and waving map. 

“Do we have an-” bullets began striking the side of the armored shell, silencing Song mid-call as the pinging and twisting of lead striking against the side of the hull pattered like rain. An anxious smile exploded across Lin's face as she leaned back in her chair, going for the adjustment as Hui began to scramble for shells, coming to that precarious balance between seat and hanging.

“270 degrees!” Song bellowed to the crew, leaning in to his bulletproof ports and peering out into the countryside around them, “Nest, five hundred meters!”

Metal clinked and clattered as a motor hummed as Lin reached to the targeting console and blindly dialed in the position, trusting her intuition and sense of feel, she peered through her sights as she spun the turret to the appropriate position on her left. As steel clashed shut Hui bellowed out, “READY!”

Lin needn't have any other command as she cupped the trigger mechanism firmly in her palm and pulled.

With a resounding sound of thunder, the chamber of the main gun erupted with a meaty and throaty boom. Immediately, the filmy white tuft of exaust steamed out from the chamber as the empty shell was ejected, split moments after the muzzle flashed with bright fire, streaming out an flashing silver flash. From Lin's command a blooming explosion of soil, dirt, and wood bloomed up out of the distant tree line, sending high a column of debris.

Though the offending nest fell silent, it summoned further attention to them.

Like angered bees dashing themselves against the thick hide of a bear live fire rained on them. The metal sing and dinged as bullets recoiled ineffective against them. The soft tinging of the thick plexi of the windows only suggested that they would need many more rounds to break a hole that may put their Commander – or driver – down.

The reports of responsive fire from the rest of the Tei Gui under Song's hand responded in muffled waves as they freely fired on the distant tree ridge. 

“Arrow head!” Song hollered into his radio, “Clear through the tree line! Break what you can, let the Russians mop up the rest!”

“Sir, we're taking fire!” Tsung shouted nervously over the mounting racket that was the saddened attempt of suppressive fire on mobilized armor. For all of his unproven worth, Lin couldn't help but snicker. He was young, cute. But thus far a pussy. Though Hui seemed to treat him understandingly enough, but then again, so had he to she, and to Tsung's predecessor; an impressive man and a amusement lost to his own stupidity.

“What fire! I see no fire!” Song shouted back down to him, almost laughing. The rebuke did make Lin smile excitedly as she waited for new coordinates to dial in.

“GROUP!” Song shouted down. Lin's heart raced in excitement. She shuffled her legs in anticipation. “300 degrees! Six hundred meters! HE, by the bushes!”

Ling responded thus, looking down her para-scope as Hui loaded the shell. The soft clicking of the dials muted by the Russian rain on their thick hide, and the burning roar of their powerful motor. She scouted down the offending group, an odd assortment as they tried to pack up and run from them, fleeing down the road to the town in the distant.

Over the thin trees and sparse foliage the roof tops of the village of Kalachinsk rose in the distant. Faded and murky through lens and wet fog. But for what she could see, it was the same as any settlement in the Russian far-east. Very few proud, old structures rose high above. Very much unlike the fabled imagery of a rural Europe. It was the last czar's push in capitalizing the riches of his land's sparsest place. It was also smoldering, and where her targets sought shelter.

“READY!” Hui bellowed, and the report of the gun sounded heavy in the enclosed shell of the hull. The report a great crack of thunder. A plum of rock and soil responded just ahead of the retreating men that threw them back and scattered the rest in the air. They hit the ground limp to not get back up.

“Muzzle flash, possible nest!” reporting Song. From the deck below Lin could hear weak stifled coughing from Tsung, “Straight ahead. Five-hundred meters.”

Lin dialed in the coordinates, re-adjusting the turret to run along with where the tank thundered. She stole a brief glance below to try and see what was wrong, but only caught Hui pulling out a long cylindrical brass shell.

The same steel hatch closed, and again Hui screamed at the ready. Drawing the firing mechanism the barrel reported loud and proud as a shell flew to the offending direction.

The explosion lit up the wooded patch behind the target position. Bright fire bloomed from the brush and trees. Taking over and ripping into the Russian nest in a cloud of dirt and white-hot rounds. From the tracers streaking from the impact sight, the explosion caught an ammunition dump. Red and green tracers ripped haphazardly through the air, burning bright luminescent trails through the air.

The flashes and bangs of additional fire buffeted and boomed just outside as the advancing Chinese pushed through the soft defense of the Republican counter-siege. Clods of smoke and ash bloomed across the fields and in the road as the village of Kalachinsk drew nearer. Lin took a breath as Song gave more orders. Through the parascope the red roofs and starched white, sterile structures of Kalachinsk grew nearer.