Smoke, thick and acrid, hung over the beach as if it were its very own thundercloud. Burning vehicles littered the once-white sands, billions of Euros going up in smoke.

Men and women in the uniforms of the European Combined Armed Forces frantically dug at the sand, carving shell scrapes as quickly as they could whilst the enemy artillery kept up a constant bombardment. Human remains were thrown into the air with bright flashes and geysers of sand. Screams filled the air, many of the wounded calling for their mothers.

A jet roared along the length of the beach, tracer streaming from it like fat, hungry wasps. Their sting was far worse. Anyone hit by them was ripped apart. Limbs and chunks of flesh were blown from their owners, some of whom just disappeared in an explosion of blood and gore.

iMajor Ronald Clark held down the trigger on his Rapid Pulse Support Gun. It wasn't a weapon that officers normally used, but in the headlong rush from the shattered remains of Paris he had been forced to use every weapon in their arsenal. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and any weapon was better than no weapon.

His pulses filled the air, the smell of ozone reaching through his helmet's filters. Unlike most of those shooting at the jet he led his target, letting it fly into his pulses. Bright flashes indicated hits as his ammo counter showed a rapidly diminishing ammunition supply.

There was a puff of metal sparks from the jet, just behind the cockpit, as the last of his shots stitched their way along the fuselage. Smoke belched from the fuselage. As his shots continued to strike home, the pilot punched the afterburner, trying to clear the beach as quickly as they could in order to get back behind friendly lines. It was a fatal mistake. As soon as the afterburners kicked in a stream of fire raced along the fuselage to the source of the sparks. A second later the jet disintegrated in an explosion that reduced it to little more than hand-sized chunks of metal.

KILL! - +10DP

VEHICLE KILL - +100DP

'Nice shot sir!' A hand slapped his back. It was one of the 'scripts. As the war with the ChinKor Republic had gone from worse to sheer hell, conscripts - computer constructs - had been hurriedly pressed into service, European countries and companies emptying their coffers to pay for them. Not always the cleverest or best of troops, they at least kept the enemy busy enough for the real soldiers to do their best. They also cost fewer Command Points.

'Excuse me, mister. Can you help us?' Clark looked down at the source of the voice and the irritating tugging on his combat-trouser legs. It was a child, little more than 9 years old. Behind him was a gang of similarly-aged children. They all looked malnourished and in poor shape. NPCs, giving the Duty Calls Online world more realism.

As well as making our lives considerably more difficult, he thought.

'How can I help you, son?' He had a soft spot for children and would never turn down an opportunity to help them, even if they were fake.

'We've got no-one, and that man,' the child pointed at a particularly fierce-looking loadmaster, 'says that nonsensual civlians should get out of his bloody way and wait their turn. We bin here for days.' The boy's eyes filled with tears, and he let out a heaving sob.

'Fine, let's get you onto a hovercraft and out of this hell hole.' Reaching down, Clark offered the boy his hand. He grimaced, as the boy wiped his snotty nose with the palm of his hand then took his. The simulation was far too realistics.

'Thanks mister. Tell you what, if we get on, I'll give you this Euroscard. I can count up to 1000, but this has a lot more zeros on it that I've seen before.

Clark stumbled to a halt as he blink-commanded his visor to zoom in on the card in the kid's hands.

Fuck me, he thought. With that amount of money I could live without having work for the rest of my life. If I survive this war that is.

'Thanks kid, where did you get it?'

'There was this hover truck, a long way over there, in the wood by the village. It was blowed up and we used it to sleep in. There was loads of these!'

'Tell you what, I'll get you and your friends onto the hovercraft,' said Clark, 'You keep that card, you'll need it. Don't let anyone take it away from you ever. I'll take some men and get what we can from the truck.'

'Deal mister! Thanks! We like you. Watch out for the funny-looking bomb that's sticking out of the floor.' Said the kid with a smile.

It always pays to play nice, Clark thought smugly as acknowledgement of the SideQuest the NPC had just given him popped up on his HUD. Now all I’ve got to do is live long enough to there and back again!

Jogging over the sand, Clark grabbed the loadmaster - an even fiercer woman close up - whose voice sounded hoarse from shouting, ordered them to load the kids up onto the hovercraft, and then stood and waved them off as the evacuation craft raced for the safety of Britain.

'Congratulations on a job well done iMajor. You've had this credited to your Mission Log.' The voice of Command HQ was ever present. Sometimes they would actually offer help on how to approach a mission, but usually they contented themselves with giving half-arsed briefings composed of a lot of supposition and very little actual intelligence.

'Thanks, I ...' He coughed, blood covering his visor. His vital signs plummeted. Looking down he saw the front of his body armour was peeled outward, wisps of smoke rising from the still-hot exit point. The last thing he saw as his vision dimmed was a pulsing orange number 48 turn into a bright red 49 as the prepare to respawn message appeared.

'Bollocks.'

*

'Incoming! Take cover!' Private Stu Hotston dove into the soft sand of the French beach, clawing at it as quickly has he could to gain an extra centimetre of cover. Shells screamed overhead, slamming into the ground, sending sand, vehicle wreckage and flesh alike spiralling through the air. Just next to him a soldier screamed, holding their knees and rocking back and forth.

'Stu! I'm hit! I'm fucking hit!' screeched Corporal Wanda Needsom, clutching at the shattered remains of her legs. Blood pulsed with her frantic heart beats, staining the sand a sickly red. ‘I can’t die! I can’t die! I’m on 48 lives!’

Snaking over to her on his belly, Hotston snatched a KwikKlott pack out of his backpack, ripped it open and slapped the contents onto her wound. Bile rose in his throat. He'd seen some horrendous injuries, but he still wasn't used to such graphic violence. In a way he hoped he never would be. Wanda screamed as the KwikKlott heated up briefly, the intelligent nanobots cauterising her veins, stopping the bleeding. The screams died off into a sigh of pleasure as the bots flooded her system with painkillers.

He took the time to plug a jack into one of her armour's ports. Her vital signs popped up on his visor and he let out a sigh of relief as he saw them stabilise. He click-blinked at her, setting a navmarker for the medics to come and get her.

'Sorry Wanda, standing orders. Fight-capable and walking wounded get priority on the evac ships; I've marked your position. Stay alive.' He took the hand she lifted, holding it until the drugs kicked in and she blacked out. He checked the squad roster, as he feared he was the senior private.

'Squad two on me, squad commander is down, rally on my marker. Acknowledge.' A chorus of voices replied. Switching to his map view he watched as the remains of squad two quickly made their way towards him.

'Platoon commander, this is Hotston, squad two, where do you need us? Over.' Nothing but silence greeted him, 'Platoon commander come in, where do you need us? Over.' Still nothing. A ball of ice formed in his stomach. Calling up his map again he marked the platoon HQ's navmarker as a squad objective.

'Squad two, forget coming to me. Get to the marker that I've just laid. Expect hostile contacts. Move it!' Snatching up his rifle he sprinted across the sand, the augmented armour making it easier than it should have been.

Skirting around a large dune he threw himself down, sliding along in the sand for a metre before coming to a rest. The laser that should have scythed him in half hissed over his head.

'Battlebot!' It was a creation born from nightmares. Spikes, hooks, and blades jutted out all over its armour. Weapon mounts on its shoulders and in its mouth spat lead, lasers, and fire. Its wicked claws snatched a wounded soldier from the sand, then beat the helpless woman against itself as if it was a flagellant, ripping her to pieces on the cruelly designed armour.

INTIMIDATED!

He didn’t need to know what he was feeling. The battlebot was designed to cause such effects. Those nearer would be suffering from PANIC! Their aim would be affected, some of them would break, run blindly away from the threat, making themselves all the more vulnerable.

Hotston took his shot without thinking, raking the creature's - for how else could he think of it? - thin legs with pulse shots. Sparks flew and a piece of armour whipped away into the distance. The monster left the dead soldier hanging from his carapace and charged towards Hotston, each step covering at least two metres.

PANIC!

He didn’t run. He couldn’t run. All he could do was watch, slack jawed as the ‘bot charged towards him. Time slowed. Hotston screamed as the 'bot skipped a step, lifted its rear leg, and kicked at him as if he was a football. The last thing he saw before everything went dark was a red 49.

*

The village was utterly destroyed. If there had been a wall higher than 6 bricks, iCaptain Sheena Devon would have been surprised. Shells continued to pound the objective as one of her platoon planted a digital flag marker into the ground, a bright orange beam of light marking the position, a warm glow washing over the ruins.

'We need to hold this objective for at least five minutes people. If we do, we'll be able to get a kinetic strike mapped to us. Don't let one of those bastards close!' As she finished talking, a timer appeared on her visor, showing ten seconds had already passed.

Smoke shells screamed through the air before bursting around their position, chaff exploding into the air in an attempt to dazzle their ground radar. Flipping her visor to IR, Devon swept her scope over the ruins in front of her. Enemy soldiers, marked in hues of red, amber and blue were charging towards them.

'Here they come. Estimate platoon strength.' She was surprised at how strong her voice was, considering the knot in her mouth.

Tracer and pulse rounds flew between the opposing forces, the thud-thud-thud of an automatic grenade launcher adding its bass tone to the vwip and tchou of the other weapons.

'Use your grenades!' Devon ripped one free from her vest, primed it, then lobbed it at a heavy pulse gunner. The enemy returned the favour and she cursed as one-by-one her comrades died. Looking at her timer she saw that they still had three minutes to go, an eternity in battle.

'Recon! Get a fucking drone up!'

She couldn't really afford to lose their last drone as command had informed them that other units were being treated as priority, but nor could she afford to be blind. The drone's feed popped up on her visor and her stomach sank as she saw that the attack to their front was a diversion, three IFVs were rushing up their right flank in order to sweep across the open ground and deploy their infantry right in the midst of her position.

'Squad three, switch to anti-tank, move thirty metres to the right, form up 90 degrees to my position, here,' she moved her hand, swiping a line onto the map that they would all see on their HUDs, 'Prepare for IFVs and dismounts.'

She didn't wait for a confirmation. She couldn't. An absolutely huge enemy soldier charged out of the smoke, thrusting his bayonet at her. Parrying with her barrel she snapped the blade off at the hilt, rammed her own weapon forward and blew the soldier's brains out.

KILL! +10 DP

+1SP - PULSE RIFLE

Her kill tally rose by five. Frowning she looked down at the remains of the soldier and grimaced when she saw that the soldier was a part of the elite ChinKor Patriotic Guard. She felt robbed that killing an elite soldier didn’t give her more DP as she was angling for a promotion. Unlike many, she was determined to make the most out of her situation. And the best way to do that, was to claw her way up the command ladder.

Nor was it fair that the elites would have better armour, weapons, training, and maybe even body enhancements.

'We're up against elites! They must really want this damned position. Fight hard! Die Hard!' she yelled the battle motto of the Willis 5th Infantry. Another enemy soldier appeared, looking away from her.

Shooting from the hip she blasted away his body armour, her pulses cooking his lungs and heart. Dead in an instant he dropped to the floor.

KILL! +10DP

+1SP – PULSE RIFLE

'Engaging IFVs!' Team Leader Three sounded more than a little stressed and the sound of missiles launching nearly drowned out his message. The drone showed one IFV destroyed and another immobilised, but the third had already pushed through Three's position.

'Penetration on our right flank! IFV with twenty dismounts!' One minute, they had one minute to hold the position and then the kinetic strike would be ready. Her platoon was already down to half-strength despite having a superior number. She put out a general distress call in the vain hope that another unit might be able to move over to assist.

The ground vibrated, and the roar of powerful engines reached her through despite the din of battle. Turning she saw the APC drive over a foxhole, spinning on the spot until the inhabitants were ground into mince.

Its turret spat flame as did the ports along its flank, pulses and bullets racing through the air in a hunt for flesh. She didn't feel the first round when it hit. Her leg just seemed to not want to support her anymore. The second round she felt as it hit her elbow, blowing the lower part of the limb clean off. Screaming she stared in horror at the blood jetting from the wound. More pain wracked her body as follow-on rounds hit her chest.

As she fell towards the ground the last thing she saw as it raced towards her was a red 49.

*

I fucking hate artillery, thought Bobby Patterson as he and his friend Martin French cowered at the bottom of their trench. The 236th Mech Inf had been granted the honour of being made part of the rear guard. Bastard HQ!

The 236th had a reputation for getting the job done and as such was always given the shittiest jobs possible. Down to less than thirty per cent of its combat strength it had effectively been written off.

Shells slammed into the ground, their explosions showering the men with dust and the remains of their comrades.

'Why won't it just fucking stop!' screamed French, rocking back and forth. Drool ran down his chin, whilst tears tracked their way down his cheeks.

'It will mate, it will. Just be ready to kill the cunts when they come!' He fought to control his own panic by reassuring his friend, whilst inside his mind he screamed, and shit and pissed himself just like French.

As if his words had been prophetic, the shelling stopped with a suddenness that was shocking in itself.

'Stand to! Stand to!' The order was loud and clear over their comms units. Leaping up, Patterson flipped the bipod of his light pulse support weapon onto the parapet and snugged the stock into his shoulder, 'Get the fuck up Mart, you know the iCaptain hates anyone who won't do their bit.'

'Sorry mate, sorry.' French didn't make an effort to stand up as every member of their team clicked that they were ready to receive the enemy, French's icon stayed very much 'unready'.

'French! Get to position you snivelling little prick! If have to come down there I will blow your fucking cock off and feed it to my dogs. Then I'll shoot you in both kneecaps and wire you to a support weapon! Stand. The. Fuck. To!' Ordered their commanding officer.

Patterson didn't wait for French to reply. Bending over he physically hauled his friend up and shoved him hard against the parapet, 'Snap out of it Mart, you can fucking cry after!'

Checking his map, he saw that French was still showing as unready. The elbow to the back of his friend's helmet drove his faceplate deep into the soft loam of the parapet, 'Fucking ready yourself you prick!

French's icon finally turned green, just as the Captain's icon was moving from the command trench towards them, 'You're going to get us both killed. You're supposed to be my fucking best friend. Act like it.'

French's reply was lost as all hell broke out. Mortar shells rained down as a hail of tracer and pulse ripped the air. Hot on their heels bounded wave after wave of enemy PenCon – Penal Conscript - soldiers, men and women who had been turned into living bombs, the ultimate psychological weapon. Thought criminals – pacifists, journalists who reported the news in a way the ChinKor government didn’t like, artists, poets, authors, actors – deserters and criminals. All pushed into battle to be blown up time, after time.

Patterson let rip, grimacing as his shots set off the explosive packs worn by his enemies. Packing together due to the winnowing fire coming towards them, the PenCons died in their dozens as the ECAF soldiers opened fire, killing their own people far more effectively than the Europeans.

The front wave was wiped out in a matter of seconds, the second wave got a little further before it too ceased to exist, but there were many, many waves following them.

'Aim through the gaps, hit the bastards at the back!' French was back in the game, his heavy calibre sniper rifle shattering the heads of the PenCon officers that drove the frenzied troops forward. They held master control boxes, using the threat of an agonising death to drive their prisoners forward.

'Got it.' Patterson switched targets and was immediately rewarded with a ripple of explosions behind the front wave. Others caught on and the waves to the rear disappeared in explosion after explosion.

'They...' The iCaptain's voice broke off in a squeal of white noise, making Patterson shake his head in momentary pain. The message was clear though, the enemy were in the trenches.

'Mart, lose the long rife, switch to SMG, watch my back.' Patterson continued to fire, raking his weapon back and forth, desperately trying to save himself and his friend from the suicidal enemy. It wasn't enough. Screaming, he watched as a PenCon leapt into a position and detonated, blowing his friends to pieces, and allowing yet more PenCon troops to enter the trench-works.

'We're leaving! The position is lost!' Opening a command channel he gave an order he had always hated, 'This iSergeant Major Patterson, all troops retreat to Stop Point Five. Out!'

Snatching his weapon away from the parapet he turned just in time to see a PenCon soldering lunging towards him, arms outstretched as if he wanted to do nothing more than hug.

'Fuck!'

There was a searing flash, and the number 49 written appeared.