As heavy shell fire continued to rain overhead keeping the Empires advanced pinned, Sergeant Bakerson took his leave looking to find the nearest commanding officer so that a better stock of the situation could be apprehended. The few Quartermasters left were busy distributing out the last of their stores even as fresh squads of infantry charged up the ramparts to take up firing positions. The rapid staccato percussion of rifle shots echoed across the courtyard separated only by the heavier wet thuds of machine guns laying down deadly enfilades.

While the main fortress had yet to be breached, there were large numbers of wounded piling up in every free space available. Despite the best attempts of the Principalities Royal Navy at defending the landing zones, hundreds of landing craft had continued to make their treacherous journey from the enemy transports in the distance and several surfaced submarines. Thankfully, most of their heavy hitting ordnance had been destroyed or were in a similar state of almost being destroyed as their great hulls slowly sank into the cold, dark depths of the oceans embrace.

Arminius was barely lucid with bloody gasps and saliva spewing out with each heavy breath, he continued to mutter incomprehensible words self-consciously even as his right hand continued to spasm uncontrollably. With most of the squad having left to find a Medicae or Apothecary, the wounded were left to wallow in despair. Once proud uniforms hung in scraps off many. Yellow bone and already festering meat permeated the air with the sickly sweet stench of decay as the regions unbearable swarms of mosquitos feasted on the unfortunate and dead. Yet just when all hope seemed lost, the white tunic with the cross of Saint Marry appeared in the distance.

Already working on a severe case, bone saw cutting through the torn up and ragged flesh of a soldier who was unfortunate enough to have survived a direct artillery strike, the woman was focused feverishly on stabilizing the screaming man. As the device continued to rapidly chew through bone, flesh, and tendon, the mans screams reached a crescendo before ending abruptly as the blood loss proved too severe. Slamming her fist down on the dead mans bloody and dirt covered chest, the Medicae half-heard the cries behind her for assistance.

Wiping a crimson flecked hand across her face, smearing the ashen white features in arterial blood making her appearance look more like that of a vulture, the woman turned, grabbing her surgery bag in search of those who needed her most. Weaving through the mass of bodies and injured, the woman made her way to the two almost hopeless cases of Arminius and Mikale. Setting to work on stabilizing the private first, she pressed her ear down against the troopers ragged tunic listening for which lung was perforated.

Pinpointing the right one, the medic plunged her other hand into the gaping chest cavity searching for the arteries so that they could be clamped before it was too late. Delicate hands now painted ruby red then went to work on slicing open a slit across Arminius' trachea so that an automated breathing receptacle could be inserted. Moving quickly and brushing aside loose strands of hair from her eyes, she managed to stabilize him...barely. Despite her best efforts as a Medicae, she was no Apothecary and lacked the advanced healing powers an Alchemist could bring to bear effectively ending his fight for now.

With one case now stabilized, she moved over to Mikale who was now unconscious. Searching for a pulse and barely finding one, the woman screamed for the two nearest soldiers to assist her as stretcher bearers and gave them directions to the nearest dedicated field hospital. Quickly writing a note and orders on a blood-soaked segment of her tunic that was ripped off to act in lieu of paper, the two troopers disappeared in the thriving mass of bodies to some unseen destination.

Yet before anyone could thank her, the woman had disappeared already for the next person needing dire help. Like a ghost or other-worldly aspect, it seemed it was true that the practitioners of life were very much the same as the harbingers of death. Silent and forever mobile, they never remained still longer than it took to bat an eye towards their existence...

Emile satisfied with the apperance of the medicae and that his allies had been healed walked up onto the walls and found a crenalation to implace his machinegun. He said a breif prayer , superstition he knew but it was something his mother used to do and it helped ease his mind as he readied himself to surpress any Empire dog who drew into range so that sharper shots than he could fill the dogs with holes.

Seeing the medicae arrive and disappear almost as quickly, he was relieved to see that his squad mates had been stabilized. Before a word of thanks could be utter she was gone, like a faint breeze in in this sweltering tropical hell. He quickly ran to the wall ready to add his rifle to the defense of the fortress. He made his way to a spot above the entrance way, if need be he could always drop grenades over the edge onto the path leading to the defensive perimeter. He peeked over the wall trying to see if any of the enemy were visible so he could attempt to repel them with accurate fire. It was only a matter of time before they pushed on towards the fortress, the guns could only hold them back for so long.

Reaching at her desired spot, she readies the stands of the Hellbore rifle against the stones of the parpet and setup its iron sights. Even behind the giant sturdy walls of the fortress, there were still mounting casualties from the advancing invasion force Hell they were still holding the damn place and yet there's already so many dead and dying. It was becoming one hell of clusterfuck for them but it also looked like the Empire wasn't completely getting their way in the fight if the smoke off to the distance in the sea was any indication. She smiled at that, at least the big guns of the navy was still doing their job. But a lot of them still made it onto shore, and it was up to everyone in the fort to hold their own now. Taking out her binoculars from one of the pockets on her harness, she looks over the beaches and the route the troopers were taking to look for any sort of armored vehicles that might have made it up to shore.

Unfortunately she did see something through her trusty binoculars that just might be a problem for everyone and the fortress itself. Crawling out of the smoke on broad treads like a monster of myth, she could see two massive barrels peer out of the front of the monstrous vehicle. Not knowing just what the hell the thing was even called, or even how the got it on shore with a boat, she had a good hunch that it could easily blast the doors open with its cannons without pause. "Superheavy SPG! Coming up from the beach, someone get the damn batteries on that son of a bitch!" She shouted out loud to anyone in earshot that was listening. Seeing Ermanno from her squad coming up behind her, she gets his attention and points at the lumbering behemoth. @TechCaptain "Hey Noble, find an officer or some upper rank shmuck and tell him what kind of situation we got!" she told him.

Errmanno grunts and shakes his head in disbelief. He grabs the AT grenade off his belt and hands it to Eva and nods at the incoming Tank then he moves off. He gets up and grabs his rifle and takes off at a pace looking fora senior officer. When he comes to one of the gun crews. " We have a Heavy Tank coming towards the fortress from over there. We need the guns to realign and fire at it. Its to heavy for anything less." And then he continued to look for an officer and tell him the same.

Hearing the call come down the line that a super heavy was lumbering towards the gate he looked down at his rifle and then back into the smoke filled battlefield below. Not much good he could do up here when that thing made its final approach besides getting in the way of the gun crews who were better equipped to handle that kind of threat. He quickly made his way along the battlements passing one of his squad mates setting up her anti-tank rifle. @BuriasDempsey "I think we should clear out of here and make room for the dedicated gun crews. They have more experience than us with dealing with that sort of threat. We will just get in the way. Besides we need to move the wounded before they reach the gates, otherwise we may not be able to save them." He made his way down without looking back, he headed for the wounded. It was better to be busy doing something that actually would matter than to stand there on a wall with no hope of being able to help in its defense.

Ferdinand sat near the gate to let his hearing recover and to assess the situation at hand. So far they had been pushed back to the main fortress and have taken heavy casualties, the surrounding injured and dying was proof enough of that. Hopefully command had already been alerted and mobilized reinforcements so the beaches wont fall but a force big enough to repel the entire invasion would take time to mobilize. They didn't have much else a choice than hold up in this fort until said reinforcements arrived, if they were even coming. Surrender was most certainly not an option especially for him since he had no idea what his father would do or if he was even still alive. For all he knew he would be locked up in a cell or be give the family fortune only to be sent back into war on the Empire's side.

He sighed and looked to the sky for a moment "This day is one for the history books I suppose." It was then his hearing finally cleared up and he could understand the previous echoing and screeching that was the voices of the people around him. He stood up, several places on his chest still bleeding but not life threatening like the two that were dragged off. He made a note to thank that woman for what she did after the battle after all she saved his team mate's lives it was the least he could do. He saw John come back down from the wall and start to move the injured away from the walls. "I guess that's a sound plan" He thought as he ran over to the wounded and began moving them to where everyone else was moving them, taking extra care with the more badly wounded.

Lumbering forward on six over sized heavy armored treads, a behemoth of a tank slowly reeled out of the smoke from the previous barrage. Twin barrels large enough to shove a man into slowly elevated as it stopped roughly a hundred meters away from the fortified bulwark. In comically slow motion, stabilizers deployed from its heavy flanks and the guns inched up until they were pointing directly at the steel barricade that was the final obstacle for the Imperial infantry in charging the fortress.

Rockets, anti-tank rifles and mortars bounced off harmlessly from the monsters thick hide, even a direct hit from a 200mm heavy mortar barely left a scorch mark as the air around it shimmered and sang with unholy cacophony...the bloody thing was being shielded by a Metallurgist...behind it, the Empires final push was gathering. Hundreds of battle-hungry soldiers aided fire support up at the walls keeping the defenders pinned even as stray rockets and mortars landed amongst them launching limbs and bodies into the air.

Despite the heavy casualties, the enemy seemed to regroup and before most of the wall could be vacated, the world itself seemed to vanish in a blinding flurry of decompression and fire. Belching out a 300 kilogram shell designed to crack open super-heavy class fortifications, the tanks twin muzzles were nothing short of overkill as the rounds not only went straight through the curtain wall and gate but continued to travel for several dozen more meters before detonating raining a torrent of lead and shrapnel inside the courtyard.

Wounded soldiers, orderlies, medics, and those simply relocating were sliced part to the bone. In just half a second, over four hundred souls were sent back to the void, their lives unexpectedly and suddenly brought to an end. Even the ground itself was a permeated checkerboard of casing, bone, and steaming meat as the heat wave cooked everything underneath it to a staggering 200 degrees Celsius. Corpses...at least what was left of them were burned to a crisp and any weapons or armaments that might have been of use were still glowing as their molten remains pooled in the recesses making miniature grave markers as if in mockery.

Those that had been on the wall were swept down with a sudden shuddering which seemed to come from the very foundation. Masonry fractured and chipped but overall, the wall held mostly intact. In mixed states, the defenders were picking themselves up to return fire as the wave of Imperial grunts screamed in a unified charge. Whistles blew loudly even as the super heavy's stabilizers retracted and it began to roll forward with the obvious intent of ramming the gate down since it was too close to safely remove the arming mechanism of its shells. Even with the massive, still molten holes drilled through the reinforced concrete and steel, it was not enough to create a sizable breech...something the Empire was soon to correct.

While the fortress was capable of withering through a siege, its designers had not taken into account a 800 ton behemoth of steel and iron ramming into its walls and casements at 40 kilometers per hour. Soldiers quickly fled from the area that was about to be rammed and on the opposite side of the fortress, artillery guns were rapidly rotated, stabilized, and primed for a volley as soon as it broke through. There was nothing stopping the breech, nothing to save the wounded still in the courtyard, and nothing that could be done to stop the inevitable blood bath.

This would be the turning point, the do or die effort which tipped the invasion on its head. Either they held the line with every last drop of blood in their bodies or their efforts would all be for naught and the nearby city would be burned to the ground, its women raped, the men slaughtered or imprisoned, and their memory but a laughing stain on the honor of the Confederacy and Principality.

With each pounding heartbeat, the walls shook as the beast inched closer. With every passing second which dragged on for an eternity sweaty hands gripped weapons tighter even as assault infantry readied grenades. Machineguns were quickly wheeled into place to create firing cones but no one had any idea how to stop the tank once it breached...and then it happened.

Using its massive barrels as prongs, they speared through the 20 meter thick curtain wall further fracturing the defensive wall moments before the entire wall visibly shook as the tank rammed it. Reversing with powerful plumes of thick, black smoke from its over sized engine blocks, the barrels slowly retracted before appearing once more. This time the entire wall section moved towards the defenders and several chunks fell down or collapsed inwards on themselves. While bits and pieces fell into the barrel, possibly blocking it (not that a shell of that caliber could be stopped by weak masonry anyway), it was still not enough and with a final effort, the massive iron and steel cataphract rammed straight through dragging sparking conduits and chunks of concrete and re bars.

Immediately as the land battleship, for that's what it could be considered at this point broke through, the two artillery pieces fired. The first hit square on penetrating through the muzzle of one barrel but detonating on the masonry within. Exploding out like a balloon suddenly squeezed abruptly on the center, it ruptured and caused the tank to visibly stop in its track. Had they done it? Was it at least immobilized? As if to bring their hopes down in flaming trails, the brutish war-engine coughed back into life and continued its implacable advance followed by a wave of screaming Alemmanians who ran into an answering volley of lead and grenades.

Yet the tank continued on past, driving straight through the center of their defenses with no signs of stopping. While the incapicitation of one of its turrets seemed to have knocked both out of commission, it seemed intent on simply driving over the only real threat to it. Steaming past, a good look could be made of its rear armour blocks which gave way to several compartment bulkheads and hatches. Surprisingly, one of the larger ones which looked just large enough to fit a jeep through opened up on swinging hinges to reveal not one, but two auto-cannons and a grinning Imperial.

Depressing on the trigger, it swept across the unprotected flanks of the defenders creating a gap that the advancing troops quickly took advantage of and within seconds, a massive brawl broke out supported on both sides by additional infantry as it swept across the battlements, field, and smoldering masonry.

With her ears still ringing and vision blurred, Eva forced herself up and off the mud and rubble she found herself in. 'Mud? But I'm up on the wall aren't I?' she thought almost drunkenly so. But her hearing came back and the sounds of high caliber weapons brought her back to reality, rounds of autocannon bullets ripping through a bunch of infantry far off to the side of her. "Right, big fucking tank, no more wall, fucking great." she mumbled while retrieving her hellbore not too far from her and began setting up for a shot at the back of the still moving superheavy tank. She might not be able to hurt the machine, but she can ruin the bastard on the guns day easily enough. As long as she was able to do it quick enough before an Imperial decided to pay attention to her that is.