The roar of the charge was deafening. It was a wall of sound—the thud-thud-thud of a thousand armored feet, the guttural, blood-hungry screams of the Orcs, and the disciplined, terrifying chant of the Romans.
"ROGERS! FIRE! FIRE THE DAMN GUN!" the Lieutenant screamed.
My hands wouldn't move. They were frozen to the butterfly grips, slick with... Grizz's blood. The man was dead. Lying right next to me. He'd been killed by a pointy stick. A stick.
The charge was less than a hundred meters out.
I couldn't process it. The smells. The sounds. The reality of it. It was too much. So my brain did what it always does. The only thing it knows how to do.
It simplified.
It shut down the "Kyle Rogers, terrified logistics driver" program and booted up "Kyle, Guild Main Tank & Raid Leader."
They weren't people. They weren't even Orcs. They were mobs. Red health bars. Zerg rush. This wasn't a war. This was a Tower Defense game, and the wave was about to break through. Grizz wasn't a dead soldier. He was a 'Tower' that had just been destroyed. And I was the new Tower.
My hands, shaking, gripped the triggers. "Okay..." I whispered, my voice trembling. "DPS check... engaged."
I pulled the triggers.
The world ended.
The M2 Browning wasn't a rifle. It was a god. It was a volcano. The sound wasn't a bang. It was a physical punch to my chest—a non-stop, deafening CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK that vibrated my entire skeleton.
The .50 caliber rounds—projectiles the size of a small bottle—didn't just "kill." They unmade.
An Orc at the front of the charge... one second it was a charging, green monster, axe held high. The next... its entire torso vanished. It wasn't wounded. It wasn't "downed." It was just... a red spray.
Oh my God...
"KILL THE DPS! KILL THE DPS!" I screamed, maybe out loud, maybe just inside my head. My training (from video games, not the army) took over.
I ignored the slow, methodical Romans. They were the tanks. Too much DEF. Wasting ammo. I swept the gun barrel across the Orcs. The fast-moving, unarmored, green "Melee" units.
I wasn't aiming. I wasn't "leading" my targets. I was "spraying and praying." I was dragging my mouse cursor across a box of enemy units.
The green wave... met a wall of lead. And the wall won.
It lasted maybe ten seconds. Ten seconds of non-stop, deafening, bone-jarring thunder. When I finally released the triggers, the silence that fell was worse than the noise.
The field in front of us... wasn't a field. It wasn't even a battlefield. It was... just... red. Chunks of green and bronze armor were scattered everywhere. Nothing was moving.
The Roman shield wall had stopped dead about 30 meters out. They stared. Their discipline was broken. Even they, men of war, seemed horrified by the sheer, industrial efficiency of the slaughter.
The smell of cordite... gunpowder... and... copper... hit my nose. I looked down at my hands, covered in Grizz's blood and vibrating from the gun. I looked at the... mess... I had just made.
I turned to the side of the nest and threw up. Violently. My "Specialist's Guide" hadn't mentioned this. The "Exp. Points" didn't feel good at all.
A heavy slap on my back nearly sent me tumbling over the sandbags. "Holy SHIT, ROGERS!"
It was the Lieutenant. His face was splattered with... something. He was smiling. A terrifying, wide-eyed, adrenaline-fueled smile.
"You're a damn natural! You just saved this entire FOB! You're a hero, Specialist!"
"A hero..." I wiped my mouth, tasting only bile. I looked at the field of mangled bodies.
This wasn't a game. This wasn't a game. This wasn't a game.
"I... I think I need to check on my Humvee, sir," I stammered, scrambling for any excuse to get away from that gun.