CRUZ CHRONICLES - Operation: Chronos, Shadowfall (Part 3)

Where am I? What happened? I thought of these questions as I try to open my eyes. For a moment everything seemed like a blur. As I slowly gain a clearer vision of my surroundings, I suddenly felt a hammering pain in my head. I’m back in the Hospital Grounds, I deduced to myself.

I tried to reach for my temple and that’s when I realized that my left arm was wrapped with bandage, supported by a sling around my neck. I tried to examine myself by trying to feel and move my other appendages. I felt a little bit better knowing I’m still in one piece. Most importantly, I’m still alive.

I looked to my left and saw Sergeant Wilson, our unit leader. He was also lying on a stretcher, still asleep but from the looks of it, he didn’t sustain any serious injury. I tried to turn to my right. As I slowly do so, I felt the pain on my left shoulder. Took a bullet, so it seemed.

Two more stretchers to my right hand side, the closest one next to me I don’t know the name, but I remember him as one of the pilots of our Wildfires. The one on the farther side was Corporal Badge, a weapons expert from the other Heavy Weapons Squad. Unconscious, with some patches here and there, they’ll live and fight another day.

All of a sudden, I felt the fatigue and decided to lay myself back to rest. As I do, flashbacks of the recent events ran through my head.

I recall an attack on one of our held locations. No, actually it was here, this hospital we’re stationed in right now. I heard the Axis troop was called The Mongoose. A couple of dreaded names rang amidst the gunshots and explosions: Lara and Panzerprinz. At first it seemed like a random attack but we realized they were after our newly dropped supplies. They must be falling short on their own, or could be an attempt to sabotage ours.

The assault was bold at the very least. I saw a couple of those mutated ape squads and some zombies, along with those eerie-masked, laser-totting grunts. The exchange of blows was brutal and devastating, considering the scale of the skirmish.

The enemy got the upper hand at the start. They were able to hold on to one of the scattered supply crates for some time. But we pushed forward, with the combined firepower and speed of our Heavy Rangers leading the way. Towards the end, I saw the Panzerprinz driven away by one of our Grim Reaper squads.

The vermins crawled back to one of their encampments. After a short regrouping, Joe assembled a strike force to hunt down the remaining Mongoose, with my Bot Hunter squad as part of it.

We got to the abandoned city hall just north of our camp, which apparently was taken over by the Axis forces we’re following. They took us by surprise early on, as I saw our other Heavy Weapons Squad knocked down upon entering their grounds. From there everything happened like a haze. I remembered my squad charging towards a Hermann, hoping our Bazookas and UGL load outs could bring it down. We were out of luck I guess, as our shells didn’t even scratch the walker’s hull. And then I remember seeing a blinding, warm light coming towards us, and that was it. I went blank from there.

Judging from there, I would say we lost that battle to claim the city hall. But seeing we were able to regroup back here, the enemies did not retaliate further. There’s still a fat chance of us winning back this city and drive both the Axis and SSU away.

And then it hit me, I could use the time! I reached out to my left chest pocket, and boy was I so relieved to find one thing: the pen I picked few days ago. Time to finish that report.