#connected fates

The Sturmpanzer’s strained engine was the only noise that filled the air. Pulling the Covenanter had tired her out quickly, but she was still continuing on. It probably used up a lot of fuel, but on the other hand the light tank needed much less as all he was doing was rolling along. She hoped that it evened itself out.

“You should take a break.” the Covenanter said from behind her.

The sun had long vanished behind the dunes, but the Sturmpanzer wanted to go on. They needed to find someone who could repair the light tank’s track, and she didn’t want to waste any time with resting.

“I’m okay” she replied stoically.

“You’re the most unreasonable tank I’ve ever met” the Covenanter griped. He braked and the Sturmpanzer’s tracks started slipping. “You need a rest!” he said and the Sturmpanzer stubbornly continued driving on the spot for a moment longer, throwing sand at him, before she gave in with an exaggerated sigh. The Covenanter shook the sand off his turret. She released him and both of them rolled back down into the valley between the dunes. The Covenanter stretched his remaining track with a yawn.

“What made you tired?” the Sturmpanzer teased. He gave her a small, diagonal nod of his cannon, the equivalent of sticking out one’s tongue. “Get stuffed” he said, but turned more serious again afterward. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you up if something happens.” The Sturmpanzer tilted her cannon. “But that could be too late” she said, “I’ll stay awake and keep guard. It will be relaxing enough.”

She turned to leave, but he told her to wait. She gave him a curious look. The light tank hemmed and hawed for a moment before he said what he wanted to say. “Thank you.” he mumbled, and didn’t have to say what he was thankful for. The Sturmpanzer gave him a crooked smile but didn’t say anything as she turned around again.

***

After the night had luckily been without any incidents, they continued their travel.

Two more days had gone by, when clouds had suddenly appeared in the usually empty sky, and soon it started raining heavily. But it was over almost as fast as it had begun. The tanks shook off the raindrops and continued on. After a couple of minutes, the Sturmpanzer noticed something to their right. Something was sparkling in the sun, too far away to see what it was. The two tanks’ still wet armour was probably sparkling in the same way, so the Sturmpanzer quickly reversed behind the dune she had just crested.

“What’s wrong?” the Covenanter asked. “Something’s over there” the Sturmpanzer replied. “Can you see it with your sights?” “It’s too far away.” “If you push me up I can take a look.” the light tank said. The Sturmpanzer nodded. She released the towing ropes and got behind the Covenanter to push him up the dune just far enough so he could peek over it and use his scope.

“What do you see?” the Sturmpanzer asked anxiously, hoping that it wouldn’t be a team that could have seen them. The Covenanter ground his gears pensively. “I can’t see it clearly, but it’s not moving” he said. They rolled back down. “We should wait until we’re dry and go take a look” the Sturmpanzer suggested.

The Covenanter nodded and they waited. Only when the sun had dried them completely, they cautiously started making their way towards the spot where they had seen the sparkling earlier.

They took a bit of a detour, avoiding the dunetops, and the Sturmpanzer made sure to check behind every crest, but also look ahead to see if theirdestination was getting into reach of her sights. Eventually it did, and the Sturmpanzer wobbled on her suspension excitedly. “It’s a camp!” she said. A handful of tents had been installed on a flatter part of ground, and tanks were visible between them. The Sturmpanzer focused, and saw that two of them were TRVs, also an M3 Lee and an SU-85B. There had to be a couple more tanks, judging by the number of tents. They were probably inside them, or – guarding. The Sturmpanzer noticed too late that one of the guards had been coming right at them. Only as the light tank crested the dune in front of them, the Covenanter saw it and gasped, causing the SPG to hastily switch to her normal sights.

All three of them froze, and the Sturmpanzer slowly averted her cannon as she stared at the scout. The M5 Stuart stared back at them, but then quickly spoke into his radio, reporting two strangers to his team.

“Please don’t shoot us” the Covenanter said, trying to sound calm. The Stuart’s gaze fell on him, then on the missing track. He seemed to decide that those two weren’t too much of a threat, and his posture grew a little less tense. His gun was still pointed at them, however. Now more tanks crested the dune, and they all looked at the strangers warily. All guns were aimed at them. “What business have you to be here?” the M5 asked. The Sturmpanzer spoke up. “We’re lost and need repairs.” she said, with a hint of pleading urgency in her voice. “Can you pay?” another one of the tanks asked. It was ogling the fuel cans that were affixed to the SPG’s side armour. “Yes” the Sturmpanzer replied.

The other tanks gave them another round of distrustful looks, but then the Stuart nodded. “Alright, come with us.” he said.

Both the Covenanter and the Sturmpanzer slumped slightly with relief, and they followed the other tanks to the camp. Another TRV – a converted Matilda – had emerged from a tent, and the three of them started working on the Covenanter at once. More tanks had appeared to look on. It didn’t take very long until his track was fixed, and he drove a little circle to test it. The Sturmpanzer had had to give half of their fuel and all spare parts to the team in the meantime. They could make a simple repair as expensive as they wanted, since the strangers had no choice but to pay them.

After his short test drive, the Covenanter drove up to the Sturmpanzer again and they turned to the Stuart. “Thank you for your help” the Sturmpanzer told the American light tank. He nodded. “You can stay for the night, if you wish” he said pensively. The Sturmpanzer blinked with surprise. “We would appreciate it” she said at once. Staying with a team meant safety, even if it was just for one night. The Stuart nodded again and invited them to help making a campfire.

Night fell, and they joined the team at the fire. The wariness of the others was gone, and the two strangers took part in the conversations. The fire made the coldness of the night so much more bearable, and they enjoyed being among people again.

But things got even better. The Stuart suddenly drove up to them and asked them to have a word with him. Curious what he had to say, they agreed and followed him a bit away from the fire. He got to the point immediately. “The day after tomorrow, an allied team will visit us.” he said, and the Sturmpanzer and the Covenanter had an exciting suspicion what his next words could be, but they didn’t even dare to think it. They still couldn’t believe it when he said it out loud. “They are looking for members, so maybe we could ask them if you could join them” he went on. The two tanks just gaped at him.

***

The Sturmpanzer looked at the team before them. The Covenanter had just finished telling their story to the team’s leader, and she looked at them thoughtfully. “You’ve been through a lot” she said, “And you managed to survive it. I think you might make a good addition to our team.” The Sturmpanzer and the Covenanter bowed their cannons hastily. “Thank you so much” the SPG said. “We’ll do what we can to not make you regret this decision.” The team’s leader nodded and together with their new members, they said their farewells to their allies and set themselves into motion.

The sun kept burning down mercilessly on them. The wind had stopped, too. Both tanks felt like their fuel was just evaporating and their coolant boiling. They had gotten less alert, just dragging themselves across the sand by now. The Crusader had gotten so tired from staying up all night that he had gone to sleep and just put his engine on cruise control. The Sturmpanzer knew that her engine was running on fumes, but she was trying to postpone opening the last fuel can for as long as possible. If the light tank consumed his as well, they would be out of fuel with no remedy anywhere in sight.

Suddenly, the Covenanter stopped as his engine stalled. He woke up dizzily and groaned. It was time for him to refuel. The SPG halted as well and watched him with a frown. Their time was running out.

As they went on, he stayed awake and drove ahead again. The Sturmpanzer's vision was too blurry to see him clearly anymore as he did, and he too was swaying slightly as he drove.

For a whole day, they continued their aimless journey, and their hopes of surviving this had long curled up and died as soon as the Sturmpanzer had used up her last can of fuel as well and their engines were running empty again. During the night and whole morning, there had been a sandstorm, which had forced them to stay in the same place for way too long. Only around midday, they could go on.

They had been driving for a while when the Covenanter drove up to the Sturmpanzer and gave her a pensive look. “If we’re going to die, and I think we will, I just wanted you to know that you’re not too bad for an SPG” he said in a subdued tone. She didn’t know what to say at first, but eventually replied, avoiding his gaze. “You’re not too bad for a snobby light tank either” she said quietly.

The Sturmpanzer gave him a questioning look as he stopped all of a sudden. “We’re going in circles!” he cried out. The SPG thought that he must have been going crazy. First the confession, now this. How was it possible to go in circles when they were always driving straight ahead? But then she saw what he meant – track marks in the sand. It was exactly two sets, but the Sturmpanzer refused to believe that this could be true. She grimly drove on and crested the dune. On the other side, more track marks were visible.

“A team!” she shouted, and the Covenanter caught up to her at once. He disbelievingly stared at the trails in the sand. They couldn’t say if it was good news yet, but it was something different than just sand. A team could mean many things. One of those things was fuel. Maybe they would have mercy with two lost tanks and share their fuel, or maybe they could even join them. Maybe they would be able to sneak past their guards at night and steal from them. Maybe the team would get involved in a fight and decimated enough that they could take them on.

The Sturmpanzer got fidgety as she thought about the possibilities. Her fuel intake was dryer than the sand, and she was desperate enough to cling to the hope that the other team would somehow benefit them. Now all they had to do was catch up with them. They kicked their engines into gear and started to hurry.

It took several hours, but finally, they saw shapes in the distance. The Covenanter told the SPG to stay behind and cautiously got closer to confirm that this wasn’t just another illusion. He could make out several tier four and three tanks. It was a small team, there were only about eight tanks present. Teams tended to be this small here, since it meant less people to feed. They were driving along obliviously, not aware of the light tank’s presence.

Instead of coming back, the Sturmpanzer saw him drive down to them, his cannon raised. Apparently his plan was still to abandon her at the sight of another team. He turned around quickly however as he was greeted by shots. It looked like they didn’t have any use for a stranger.

He returned to the Sturmpanzer.

“We should just follow them for now,” he said, sounding a bit crestfallen. “Maybe they’ll lead us to a place where there’s fuel.”

The Sturmpanzer didn’t show it, but she was secretly glad that the team hadn’t accepted the Covenanter.

They did as he said, and followed the other team from a safe distance. They always kept a couple of dunes between them, but they didn’t worry about losing them, since they were moving slowly and all they had to do was follow the track marks. The Sturmpanzer also kept them in her SPG sights to make sure they wouldn’t run into them in case they decided to rest.

They followed them for a day, and jealously watched them refuel. They had fuel cans with them, quite a few actually. One of the tanks was pulling a little cart that was full of them.

“Where did they get all of that?” the Covenanter groaned. “Must have been a good raid” the Sturmpanzer said thoughtfully. “Look!” the light tank said, pointing ahead. The Sturmpanzer followed his gaze and saw that behind one of the dunes ahead of them, there was something glistening, and what looked like trees. The team was heading for it. “An oasis?” she asked. “A real one!” the Covenanter said.

They watched as the other team reached it, but it turned out that they weren’t there to relax in the shadows. Well, they did that too, but their visit to the oasis also had a different reason. “They’re burying the fuel” the Sturmpanzer said as she watched the team through her sights. It was too dangerous to crest the dunes right now, as the team’s light tanks were carefully watching their surroundings at the moment. The Covenanter next to her nodded his cannon excitedly. “Perfect!”

Now they simply had to wait until the team left, and they would be able to steal their fuel easily. When they would return here, they would find a terrible surprise. But it was every team for themselves after all.

It took excruciatingly long until the team finally moved on. As soon as they were out of sight, the Covenanter and the Sturmpanzer rushed down to the oasis, immediately going for the spot where the cans had been buried. They dug them up and greedily drank the fuel. It was cool compared to their surroundings, thanks to being buried in the shadows, making it only more delicious.

The Covenanter started laughing from relief and drove into the water. “That’s going to last for a while!” he said cheerfully. Several cans were standing in the shadow. It would be enough for the two of them for a week at least. The Sturmpanzer joined him and splashed water at him, just as relieved. He grimaced, coughing, but started grinning immediately afterwards. “Damn arty!” he laughed, returning the favour.

A while later, they were sitting under the palm trees, enjoying the cooler temperature there. “So, what now?” the Sturmpanzer asked calmly. The Covenanter shrugged. “I guess we should keep following the other team for now, it didn’t go too bad for us so far.” “Sounds like a plan.”

***

The Covenanter drove to and fro, venting his anger loudly. His words became better and lesser understandable with the changing distance between him and the Sturmpanzer. “-have happened if we hadn’t wasted so much time!” The Sturmpanzer watched him with a look that said ‘calm down already’. “You were the one who insisted on taking a bath!” she shouted over to him. “Shut up!” he shouted back.

They had lost track of the team. Soon after they had started looking for them again, a stiff breeze had started blowing away their track marks. It was impossible to tell where they had gone and after a couple of hours of fruitless searching, they had given up.

Before he could rave on, the light tank suddenly stopped and his turret turned towards the horizon, where the sun was starting to descend. He seemed to be in a hurry all of a sudden as he raced back towards the Sturmpanzer. “Enemies incoming!” he barked, and just as he crested one of the dunes, a shot hit it right next to him, throwing a cascade of sand at the SPG. So they had seen them already. That was bad. “How many?” the Sturmpanzer asked, but hurriedly looked through her sights to check herself. She could make out the blurred shapes of five tanks. They looked different than the team they had been following. “We’re in trouble.” she said. She watched them line up behind the dunetop that they had backed up behind. They were getting ready to shoot whatever would pop up.

The Covenanter climbed up the dune and stuck his turret out to maybe catch another glimpse of their attackers. He saw a Panzer 38(t) as well as a T-50, who were peeking over the ridge at the moment. A shell whistled past the top of his turret and he backed up again, but not before shooting back. His shot hit the Panzer and they heard a pained outcry.

The Sturmpanzer carefully took aim, taking a bit longer because she had to take the wind into consideration, but eventually she fired. The explosion caught two of the enemy tanks, but they didn’t blow up. One of them started smoking. The column of dense, black smoke started obscuring the Sturmpanzer’s view. “Dammit!” she hissed. “I can’t see them anymore!” she said to the Covenanter. He saw the smoke too and ground his gears together.

Cresting again, he tried to get in another shot. He briefly saw two turrets disappear to the left, and a Matilda’s popped up before him. He shot it, but the shell bounced and he backed up with a curse. “They’re gonna try to flank us” he said, “Back up!”

The Sturmpanzer immediately did as she was told and rolled backwards, though she could only go slowly. Her sights were still trained on the hidden enemy tanks, and she shot blind at what looked like the source of the smoke. There was an explosion that wasn’t just the impact of the HE shell, and the blast scattered the smoke for a moment.

She saw three of the tanks – one of them obviously taken out, but the other two were missing. Her sights darted to the left, where she saw them trying to sneak around. One of them was stopped as they had to crest a dune and the Covenanter picked it off, killing it with his shot. That made two dead enemies. The Sturmpanzer kept backing off and a shot graced her side as she crested as well, but she disappeared behind the dune almost immediately. As she was still reloading, she directed her sights at the Covenanter, who was setting himself into motion. The enemy light tank – the T-50 – reached him, and they started circling each other.

The Matilda popped up again and obviously wanted to use the opportunity. Its hull appeared from behind the dune as well as it had to drive up further to be able to shoot over the other dune that its team mate and the Covenanter were behind. The Sturmpanzer got back on top of her own dune and fired a direct shot at the distracted medium tank. She could have sworn that the impact threw it back a little, but other than that, it seemed unharmed. As a Valentine’s cannon started appearing from behind the crest as well, the SPG backed up again quickly. She looked at the Covenanter again, who was just finishing off the T-50, and saw him taking a bad hit from the Matilda. The Valentine missed. The Covenanter swerved to the side and behind the Russian tank’s wreck, shooting back but bouncing another shot off the medium’s armour.

This time the Matilda wasn’t as lucky. It was standing still, intently trying to aim past the T-50’s wreck, and the Sturmpanzer raised her cannon as high as she could, planted a shell right on its roof. The shot penetrated easily and the medium tank blew up. The Valentine next to it snapped out of its tunnel vision and fired at the Covenanter again, then backed up, disappearing into the smoke. “There’s only one left!” the Sturmpanzer shouted over the dune. She tried to spot it again, but the remaining enemy tank was hidden by the smoke. Out of the corner of her sights, she checked on the Covenanter again, who was still hiding behind the wreck. It wasn’t good cover, so she didn’t know why he didn’t use the chance to drive to a safer spot.

The Valentine suddenly crested again and took aim at the Covenanter, but the Sturmpanzer turned her cannon and fired before it could. The shell tore through its front armour easily and the explosion let flames shoot out of every gap of the light tank’s armour. As the sound of the blast faded, the sudden silence stretched on for several seconds as both of the remaining survivors just stared.

The Sturmpanzer snapped out of it first and drove out from her hiding place. She caught the Covenanter’s gaze, who still wasn’t moving.

“We did it!” she said and didn’t understand at first what the strange, bittersweet look that he was giving her meant. It took her a moment to notice that one of his tracks was shattered. She fell silent. “I’m fucked” the Covenanter said quietly, with a sad smile. So this was why he hadn’t moved. The Sturmpanzer unexpectedly felt a pang in her fuel pump as she looked at him. “Go ahead” the light tank said. “And better put me down too.” The Sturmpanzer slumped. She remained silent for a moment. Should she just do what he said? Even though she wasn’t particularly fond of him, for some reason she found the thought of just abandoning him painful. She just couldn’t do it. If it was him or no one, she preferred the handicapped light tank. “I’m not leaving you behind” she said eventually. He gave her a surprised look. “Don’t be stupid” he said, “I’ll only be a burden.” “I don’t care.” the Sturmpanzer replied. She started smiling sheepishly. “If I leave you here, whose nagging am I going to listen to?” The Covenanter dropped his gaze with a frown. “You’re making a mistake” he mumbled, but the Sturmpanzer didn’t pay attention to his protest. She went about searching the dead enemy tanks for fuel cans and spare parts, but found nothing except for a couple of track segments. Those guys must have been starving and desperate. Checking their fuel tanks as well, she siphoned off whatever she could find.

The red houses around her looked terrifying. The Sturmpanzer II trundled ahead cautiously, her nerves strung almost to breaking point. A town was no place for an SPG. Especially not when she was alone, but her team mates seemed to have disappeared. After a previous encounter, her radio wasn’t working anymore either. She anxiously looked around a corner, her cannon shaking. There was no one there. She drove on. Next corner. Again, no one was there. The enemy team must have taken great losses already, otherwise she couldn’t explain how she wasn’t running into anyone. She didn’t even hear cannonfire. She whispered into her radio again, but there was still no answer, only static.

At this point her objective was only to get out of here, and she started hurrying. There was a short burst of a radio transmission identifying two light tanks near her, and she came to a screeching halt. She had no intention of running in front of their guns. Shaking as a whole now, she backed up slowly, looked left and right in fear. They were most likely moving, and she didn’t know if they knew about her presence.

All of a sudden, she noticed movement, and a turret appeared behind a pile of rubble. She yelped, turning towards the light tank as fast as she could. A shot hit the ground just in front of her, and she rushed to take aim and fired.

The scout’s turret was blown off and the Sturmpanzer let out a triumphant “HA”, but her moment lasted only for a second as another light tank turned the corner. It didn’t miss her, and auto cannon fire pierced her armour. She screeched as the Covenanter raced to her side and shot right through her fuel tank and engine. Said engine stalled and she fell silent with a choked sound. The light tank seemed to have pronounced her as dead, and it drove a little further until it reached the corner and stopped to peek around it.

The Sturmpanzer was feeling like she was fading, but she had a vengeful desire to do one last thing before she died. Painfully slowly, she turned around. The light tank didn’t notice. Her cannon was reloading and as soon as she finished turning, she shot the Covenanter in the back.

She didn’t know if that had killed it, because she fainted immediately afterwards.

Out cold, she didn’t see the end of the battle. Only afterwards she started slipping back into and out of conscience, noticed movement around her. TRVs had come to scavenge the wrecks after the fight. The SPG got muffled impressions of them driving around and eventually driving up to her.

“These two are still alive” she heard one of them say. She had trouble making out the words. “We could put them down and take the parts” another voice suggested. “Nah.” the first voice said. The Sturmpanzer fell unconscious again and didn’t get to hear the rest of the conversation.

***

The SPG woke up; she didn’t feel hurt anymore, just dizzy. She didn’t feel like she had been taken apart for spare parts at least. Her armour was still full of holes, but her internal modules were repaired.

The sun was burning down on her. She slowly opened her optics and took a look around her. There were seemingly endless dunes and no more town. The dunes she was used to already, but she had always been with a team and never with no idea where exactly she was.

It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone. On top of one of the dunes, a light tank was standing. Its back was turned towards her, and said back was scorched from the impact of a HE shell. It was the Covenanter from earlier. The Sturmpanzer immediately got ready to shoot it again if it would show any signs of aggression. But it didn’t even seem to be aware of her presence, or it didn’t care. She lowered her cannon and watched it for a moment. The heat was making the air dance, making it look like the light tank’s armour had no clearly defined boundaries.

“Hey!” the Sturmpanzer called out eventually. The light tank turned around and drove down the dune to her. “Took you long enough to wake up” he said curtly. The Sturmpanzer knew already that they wouldn’t be friends. “Looks like we’re the only survivors of the battle” the light tank went on, “And those god damn TRVs just dropped us off in the middle of nowhere.”

Her new surroundings made sense to the SPG now and she nodded thoughtfully. That had been kind of a dick move. But it was perfectly reasonable – they had went on with their travel and repaired the damaged tanks along the way, then left them behind when they were done. Of course they had also taken all of their things as payment. The Sturmpanzer had noticed that her spare wheel as well as the spare tracks were gone, and her fuel cans were missing as well, except for one that they had had the mercy of letting her keep so she wouldn’t starve to death right after her rescue.

“So we’re stuck witch each other now” the Covenanter said dryly. “That’s just my luck. Getting stuck with arty…” He sighed.

The Sturmpanzer gave him a sour look. “Getting stuck with a snobby light tank…just my luck.” she retorted.

“The moment we find a team I’m out of here” the scout said. “We don’t have to stay together” the SPG replied brusquely. The other tank wobbled on his suspension, but then haughtily turned up his cannon at her. “You’re right. I’ll be fine on my own.” he snapped. “Go ahead, leave.”

The Sturmpanzer snorted. “Fine.” she said and started driving, rolling past the light tank. He stared after her with a dark look.

She laboriously made her way up the dune and past its ridge, skidding down the other side. The procedure repeated itself several times. She always stopped before she reached the crest, peeking over it before she dared to cross it. Enemies could be everywhere. She drove on like this for two hours, seeing nothing but more dunes, before she noticed that she was being followed. As she hurdled the next crest, she waited behind it instead of driving on, aiming her cannon at the top of the dune. A few moments later, the Covenanter almost bumped into her. He gasped and hit the brakes hard.

“I thought you wanted to travel alone?” the Sturmpanzer asked. The other tank was obviously struggling for an answer. “I’m just coincidentally going in the same direction” he replied sullenly. “Of course you are” the Sturmpanzer said, rolling her cannon. “Maybe…we should stay together after all. It’s safer” the light tank said after a moment of silence and staring at the ground.

Tanks didn’t like to be alone. Especially not light tanks. Even though these two didn’t like each other, deep inside there was still the desire for company. Two tanks weren’t strong on their own yet, but it was still better than only one tank. Also having someone to talk to helped keeping one’s sanity in the endless sandy hell they were confined to.

“Maybe.” the Sturmpanzer said. She had to admit that she’d feel more at ease having a second gun and another set of optics on her side. Most tanks here were perfectly camouflaged and hard to make out for an SPG that couldn’t see far to begin with. The Covenanter wasn’t able to see much farther than her, but every meter counted when spotting an enemy.

The looked at each other for a moment, and there was the silent agreement that they wouldn’t need to be able to stand each other, but that they would help each other anyway, even if it was only out of necessity.

They turned back towards their original path and the Covenanter drove ahead.

***

“Seaching for signs in the sky” the Covenanter sung quietly. The soft breeze that had emerged carried his words to the Sturmpanzer. “Bleed and wonder as you die.”

The German SPG didn’t know the song, but it was catchy and she found herself humming along.

“We fight and we don’t know why. Bleed and wonder as we die.”

They had been traveling for hours now, never seeing anything but more dunes. It was dull, and every so often they thought they saw a different landscape in the distance, but it always turned out to be an illusion. Other than talking or singing or listening to the other singing, they couldn’t do much. They simultaneously hoped that they would meet someone soon and that they wouldn’t. If it was someone who was lost like them, or a platoon, they could maybe take them on, but if it was a whole team, they’d have no chance. They would only be able to try and beg for some fuel. Most teams didn’t like to see beggars, though.

Soon, it got dark, and they decided to take a rest in one of the valleys created by the dunes. There was no way to make a campfire, so they prepared themselves for a very cold night. It would be better though not to be visible from a distance from the light of a fire, so maybe it was for the best.

“If we don’t find anything soon, I’ll go crazy” the Covenanter said as he sat opposite of the other tank. “Where’s the towns? The oases? All we see is those damn mirages.” The Sturmpanzer just shrugged. She didn’t know either why they were having such luck. If they’d find any abandoned places, they could at least try to see if they could scavenge them. But that of course wasn’t possible if they couldn’t find anything. The light tank slumped with a sigh. “You’re no help” he said glumly. “I’m going on guard.”

With that he drove off to go and keep an eye on the dunetops. The Sturmpanzer stayed behind and decided to get some sleep. The temperature had already fallen drastically, and she felt cold, wrapped her tarp more tightly around herself. The chilly wind didn’t help, made the whole situation only more uncomfortable by the sand being blown into every gap of her armour. But she eventually fell asleep nevertheless, dreaming of a better place.

She was woken up by the sunlight heating up her armour. The sun was only rising, but it was already getting hot. The first thing she noticed was that the light tank wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She kicked her engine into gear, feeling a small pang of fear, and crested one of the dunes. In the distance, she saw the blue and yellow Covenanter driving on top of another one. He was still keeping guard, it seemed.

The Sturmpanzer waved at him, and he actually noticed it, turning towards her and driving into her direction.

“Are you ready to move on?” he asked and she nodded. He waved at the direction he had come from. “I think I saw something over there, not too far away.” The Sturmpanzer didn’t really believe that it could really be anything this time either, but she set herself into motion.

But she was surprised.

The ‘something’ had turned out to be a team. They were crossing their path, and were about the same tier as them, as the Covenanter found out upon observing them for a while. They seemed to be resting, but as they didn’t move at all, they started getting suspicious.

The Covenanter cautiously drove out into the open, expecting to get shot any moment. But no shots fell. He got closer, and still no one even twitched. There was only one possible explanation: they were all dead.

The light tank motioned at the Sturmpanzer to come as well.

“Let’s see if any of them have any fuel left” he said, but didn’t have high hopes. If a whole team just died on the spot, it was most likely that they had gotten lost and starved. It turned out to be true; not a single one of the strangers had even a drop of fuel left in their tanks.

The Sturmpanzer and the Covenanter shared an uncomfortable look. The implications were dire. If the whole team hadn’t been able to do anything about running out of fuel, what were two low tiers supposed to do? They were just as lost, and would soon have to start using up their last fuel cans.