Journal #2 - Private Jacob Allen, Jekotian 83rd Airborne Armored Division

June 18, 2985

Today was hell, nearly everything hit the fan. We lost most of our platoon in the drop, and the ground force responsible for taking out the AA's was wiped out.

At 1500 hours we found out. The wing commander of the transports carrying us got a distress call from the ground team, heard an explosion over the comm, then it went dead. Soon after, we were under heavy AA fire. Since there was no chance of a safe drop at one-hundred feet, the formation was ordered down to twenty-five feet for a hard drop. This is what I feared the most.

Hard drop. It literally means hard drop. All the tanks have a parachute on the back. We just have to release it, and it pulls us right out of the transport bay. As soon as were out of the transport bay, its free fall. Tanks aren't exactly built for freefall.

We all scrambled to our tanks, and waited for the order. Five minutes? Ten minutes? I lost count. I later found out it was only about one minute. We got the order, released the chutes, and were hulled out of the transport bay. In seconds the tank was in free fall. These things are heavy, the largest tank in the Jekotian arsenal. Only thing that made me happy was the thought that the Brenodi would be clueless. It's not everyday that a tank platoon falls from the sky, leaving craters everywhere.

That happiness soon disappeared. Even though it was a twenty-five foot drop, it was fast. I guess a one-hundred ton tank falls fast. My tank hit hard, crushing an AA gun that was trying to tear through the bottom armor. I broke my left arm in the fall, cracked it hard on something. Thank god for the standard military bio-engineering, it would only be broken for a day or two. I heard countless impacts as the rest of the tanks from my wing hit, then a gut wrenching explosion. One of them landed outside the drop zone, in a mine field.

Then hell really broke loose. My tank needed time to get going after the fall. I didn't have time. In fact, I had needed time; the engine was too hot to move the tank. I put it out of my mind, got into the control seat, and look around. It was chaos. No, that's an understatement. With the tanks falling from the sky, it looked like Armageddon. Among it all, stood a lone Brenodi tank. Then another, and another. They were waiting, the whole time, in concealed bunkers.

I screamed and hit the throttle. I had to move, they knew it too. I keyed the comm and alerted my platoon. In moments we had regrouped and engaged the enemy. It was a hell hole. The Brenodi tanks were half the size of ours, exploding into fire storms of shrapnel when destroyed, blinding us while their comrades shot through the debris. I don't know how long we fought. Minutes? Hours? It was nonstop explosions, nonstop chaos. There was debris everywhere, couldn't tell friend from foe.

Then things got the worst they could. The transports started crashing. We were stranded in a hostile war zone, with no chance of rescue. Were going to be stuck here for days, weeks, maybe even months. We were able to salvage enough munitions from the Brenodi wreckage to restock the tanks, but were stuck.

Private Jacob Allen,
Jekotian 83rd Airborne Armored Division