Still behind the same tank buster over two hours later, Crest, Morse, Dutch, Ortiz and Stomare remained to be pinned down by the Cybers. Their numbers had decreased phenomenally yet they still put up a hell of a fight. Crest had seen Gary Nimsiki blown to pieces barely an hour ago, another man in his Division down.

“We can’t stay here!” yelled Stomare.

“I know that!” yelled back Crest.

 

Looking around for an option, Crest found none. The boats had stop coming to drop men off, as too many were being sunk before they could get to the shore. Pasdar and Worthington finally returned to the group with one extra man, Sanderson.

“Requested aerial support, on their way. ETA four minutes!” yelled Sanderson.

“Great!” Crest replied, giving him the thumbs up.

 

“Not so great!” said Morse. “Anti-aircraft battery, eleven o’clock on the cliff!”

Crest looked to the top of the cliff and saw that Morse was right, a small anti-aircraft battery lie there, ready to shot down any and all aircraft that came to the area.

“We’ve got to take that out before our pilots get here,” said Crest, getting up from behind the tank buster and moving further up the beach, towards the cliff. Morse, Worthington, Dutch, Stomare, Pasdar, Ortiz and Sanderson followed.

 

Just below the battery was a large trench in the beach that the men had dug into once they’d arrived. It was filled with hundreds of men, all hiding from the onslaught of the Cyber Drones on the beach.

“Who’s in charge here!” asked Crest.

“Me! Captain Charles Jackson,” said Jackson, the Captain of this group.

“You have a launcher? We’ve got aerial support on the way, they’ve got a battery that’ll blow them out of the fucking sky!” yelled Crest.

“Andro! Launcher!” yelled Jackson to Corporal Morris Andro, who proceeded to grab a launcher and pass it over to Crest.

 

Crest aimed carefully at the battery and fired. The entire battery exploded as the rocket hit its mark. No more than a minute later did a squadron of F-16’s fly overhead, launching missiles at the drones on the beach and the drones on top of the cliff. The explosions were massive as most of the drones were destroyed.

“Time we moved up there!” yelled Jackson to his men.

 

Jackson led Andro and the other soldiers to the base of the cliff and sent up several climbers up the cliff who would drop a rope ladder back to the men on the beach. Andro climbed up with Specialist Gabriel Cadence. A minute later, they reached the top and dropped the rope, Jackson immediately starting his climb followed closely by Privates Morris McCartney and Alex Boss.

 

Crest and the others started to move up the second ladder and were at the top fairly quickly. Looking around, Crest and the others saw the war-torn land. A massive crater in the ground from missile hits and mine explosions, broken Cyber Drones and smoking heaps of metal. Looking to the horizon, Crest and the other men saw another wave of Cyber Drones charging towards them.

 

Looking around, Crest saw only a handful of men on the top of the cliff, not nearly enough to make a stand against the oncoming drones.

“How many?” asked Morse curiously, eyeing the drones.

“A few thousand at least,” suggested Boss.

“Fire at will!” screamed Jackson.

 

The men crouched to one knee for a better shot and began firing at the approaching Cybers. Many went down in broken heaps while others got close enough to attack hand-to-hand. Three horizontal slash marks appeared in the chest of McCartney and he fell backwards through the air, off the side of the cliff, as a drone pushed his back. Morse was quick to take out the drone with several shots to its head. More men arrived up the ladders and joined the fight; most being shot back off the cliff within a second or two. Boss went down in a spray of blood as another drone slashed its way through the young man.

 

“We can’t stay here!” yelled Crest as he shot down another drone.

“You think?” yelled back Ortiz sarcastically.

The F-16 squadron flew overhead once again, dropping more bombs on the drones, destroying most, making it easier for the men atop the cliff to dispose of the remaining drones. When the smoke and dust cleared, all of the drones were down and no more appeared to be on their way.

 

To make sure, the men waited for over ten minutes, but when no more came, they decided that they’d officially captured the beach.

“Sanderson! Call it in, we own the beach, repeat, we own the beach,” ordered Crest to Sanderson who immediately got on the radio to their superiors.

 

Crest, Morse and Ortiz made their way back down to the beach where the surviving men were piling and grabbing the dog tags of the dead. Crest found Gamble, retrieving dog tags off the fallen.

“How’d we go?” asked Crest.

“Estimates at around four-five thousand dead. From the 51st I’ve found Nimsiki, Winston, Neonis, Butler and what was left of Carrington. I’m sure we’ve lost more though,” explained Gamble.

Crest nodded and moved on.

 

On the beach, Worthington, Pasdar and Dutch were enjoying a victory cigarette with Privates Will Harbour, Jack Galvine, PFC Kyle Pentalo and Corporal Todd Erickson.

“Something of a bloodbath, ey fellows?” noted Pentalo.

“Two hours of nothing but shooting and getting shot at. That’s a fucking slaughter. This was a fucking slaughter,” replied Dutch.

“We’ve got more guys coming though, rearm us and then we’ll continue on,” said Pasdar.

“Where’re we going next?” asked Worthington curiously.

“I’m not sure. I’d say we recapture the closest cities and towns and look for the French Resistance fighters to link up with,” suggested Erickson.

“Last I heard the only place with resistance fighters in this area is Carentan,” said Galvine.

“Carentan? Fuck that place, man. Some of the worst fighting goes on there,” said Pentalo.

 

Crest met up with fellow Captain of the 51st Division, Leonard Wish.

“Good news Crest, we’ve got orders to move our sorry Asses of the beach to make way for the new guys coming in about six hours. Each of us has a different place to get to and capture,” explained Wish with absolutely no enthusiasm. 

“Great. Which shitty place do I get?” asked Crest quietly.

“You my friend get to go to Louvières. Get together some men and move out ASAP,” said Wish.

“Never even heard of it,” said Crest. “Is it important?”

“Well, it’s off the main roads and sort of a sidetrack. Our boys want to use it to get men in and the wounded out, so yeah, it’s pretty important,” explained Wish.

 

Crest nodded and walked off to collect his men and start their march to Louvières. Crest collected Gamble, Sanderson, Ortiz and Morse, as well as the group that had been chatting and smoking. Within twenty minutes, Captain Crest led a group of about four hundred men, along with Captain Jackson.

 

The group moved along the beach to a path that took them up the cliff and into the green fields.

“How far to Louvières?” asked Sanderson curiously.

“Little bit over a mile,” Crest replied, hearing the groans and sighs of the men afterwards.

 

Crest looked over the small piece of paper he’d been given that contained the details of Louvières. It had been abandoned several years ago and reduced mainly to rubble, several buildings still stood though. The Army’s best guess was that it had anywhere from two to three hundred Cybers posted it at. It was going to be one hell of a fight.