Austronesian People's Empire, Imperial Tanah Melayu, Ipoh
2000, 1, 1st Week, January.
Excerpts from the Eyewitness Testimony of Corporal ADINA MENZEL, Austronesian Liberation Army 933rd Infantry Brigade:
I remember hearing a thunderous roar made when the violent storm happened. It was so loud that I could hear it even from our home.
At first I thought it was a rocket attack or something, and no sooner had it faded when I could already hear gunfire and explosions erupting from south of us. I immediately rushed back into our apartment and found my husband there. The TV had cut out and instead there was just a blue screen and an announcement that some kind of attack was going on.
My husband and I both served in the military, that's where we met, and we remained with the reserve. So he brought out the radio tuned into our unit's special frequency, and we could hear the order was being made by the Colonel for all reservists to report to Ammunition Hill at once.
We arrived at the rally point maybe 20 minutes later, all kitted out in our gear and everything. It was past twelve in the early morning during this violent storm, but the entire area was lit up with floodlights. We saw many of our neighbors and others we had served with already there. There were also several M113 APCs that were being loaded up.
Not long after we arrived, I saw ten TZ-99 tanks come rumbling down the street, right past us. In addition to the men riding inside them, I also saw some of the men riding desant on the back of the tanks. I was so very confused. This was an awfully large show of force for what we thought until then was just another terrorist attack, or maybe another riot.
We were given orders as follows: several units, including my husband's, would lead the charge, aimed at putting this enemy down for good. The rest, including my unit and the other all-female squads, formed a reserve who would follow some ways behind the main push. Our job would be to provide support to the first line, and also to engage in search-and-rescue ops for wounded civilians.
We were all still confused about what was going on. I didn't think it could be a simple riot because we had tanks and everything, but I also didn't think it could be another coordinated surprise attack, like ten years ago, because we would have known about it long before. Something was definitely wrong.
At 0040pm, not more than 40 minutes after the storm appeared, we were off. My husband and his unit were part of the first wave. We followed behind, maybe fifty, maybe sixty meters. As we approached downtown, on our right, we could hear the shouting and gunfire getting ever louder and louder, the sounds of the enemy, the police and reservist units in those neighborhoods already engaged. I could hear new orders coming over the radio all the time.
They were being overwhelmed, shouting about a superhuman giant in black armor that looked like a knight, armed with what appeared to be... a sword. Yes, swords. One guy even claimed it was, like a wrathful Malaikah or something. I couldn't believe it, I thought that maybe they must have been delusional or something.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Then, new orders came. It seemed that our initial push to put down the enemy was failing. Our new instructions were merely to herd it away from the downtown and out eastwards, it's mainly enemy territory out there, so we didn't think much of it at the time. The enemy, logically, would try to follow the path of least resistance, and so we would dig in and hold our ground. With these new orders received, we began hunkering down and taking up defensive positions. I took point in a storefront, along with two of my squaddies, Sarah and Miryam. Across the street, I saw a heavy weapons team digging inside a cafe front.
They were setting up an M47 Dragon.
That's when the radio again alerted us that the situation had changed yet again. It seems the enemy did not "follow the path of least resistance" as we had expected, and instead it was deliberately charging right towards where the fighting was heaviest.
This whole time, I was thinking about some terrorist or rebels that will threaten the Empire. Instead, it was something else and it was somewhere ahead of us, but I wasn't in direct contact with it. But I could tell from the sounds of gunfire that it was probably already engaged.
I could see one of the Battle Tanks ahead of us. When we were in training, we were taught that a well-trained crew could probably manage about 4 or 5 rounds per minute under most battlefield situations, but this one must have been giving it their all, because they were frantically pumping out one shot every second. The soldiers who had been riding desant had already jumped off and I could see them firing at something.
There was a strange noise, not gunfire, but more of a blade traveling through the air at high speed.
Two of the poor guys were hit and seemed to explode into chunks of flesh and tattered uniforms. Thankfully, I couldn't see too clearly the details from the distance behind them when I was stationed. Another man was caught by debris where one of the blades had sliced the wall near him, he lay on the road, slowly bleeding out.
The Battle Tank continued firing away, and it began reversing too, backing up the street, towards us. It ran right over the man on the street. He cried out and there was a sickening crunch as the treads ran over him.
Oh God, that sound. Still, the tank kept rolling, firing away, like the crew was focused entirely on whatever it was in front of them. That's when I saw the attacker emerging from the cloud of smoke and dust.
I'd heard everything that was being said about the thing over the radio, but I still couldn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Yes, it was dressed up almost like a knight for something, which made me wonder for a split second if this was like the Crusades that we were taught about in school. Its eyes were glowing red and were armed with... with a sword, glowing with ominous energy, like magic, but more sinister.
And he moved nimbly on two feet and he was so fast, like an Olympic runner.
The tank was still firing madly. The towering Black Knight was very fast and agile, it was like he could see where the gun was pointing and react before it could fire, because not one shot hit him. I wanted to give the order for my unit to open fire, but I knew we might hit our own men up there.
The Knight charged right up to the tank, the other soldiers there were shooting at him, but the bullets just glanced off the armor. Grenades exploded around him, even that didn't stop him. And he ran right up to the tank, climbed on top of it. He was so heavy, at least maybe a ton, that the whole tank shook. And he leapt down behind it, turned, and rammed his sword into the rear.
It was insane. The rear of the tank was hissing and steaming, and the area around where the blade had gone in was glowing red hot and melting. There were sparks shooting everywhere, like lightning.
Though he must not have known that the engine in the tank is at the front, not the rear, because the crew, God bless them, was still alive long enough to back up one more time. The tank accelerated right into him, knocking him back a couple steps.
This attacker, whoever he was, held up his other hand to stop the tank and grabbed onto the rear trackguard, and dug his feet into the ground, digging up asphalt and everything.
But it was long enough that the heavy weapons team just across the street from us were able to get a clear line-of-sight, and they fired.
The anti-tank rocket flew and hit the knight right in the chest and I didn't see what happened after that, as there was an explosion and a cloud of smoke and dust that covered everything. There was another explosion seconds later, which must have been the ammunition on the tank detonating.
I... I honestly don't know how I ever got out of there alive, it was like hell.