Hasso Aldo finally fired his rifle. Krebs' jolted him out of his stupor and into action, as automatic as on the drill field; do this, do that, barked at you constantly all day long until you were automatic in your obedience to orders.

The bolt flowed smoothly out and smoothly in, chambering a round. The weapon functioned flawlessly, as it was designed to. He raised it, but kept his head down as much as possible, behind the sights, risking as little as he had to -- the helmets the Augstbergen used were big steel affairs with the ears and necks covered, wrapped in a camouflage cover similar to that of their shelter halves, but they were good protection. Then, that didn't help Amsel. And he didn't think about any of that -- he was doing what he was told.

Pressure on the trigger, a gentle squeeze was all it took, because the Augstbergen rifles were set up for a fairly light, easily pulled trigger.

He didn't stop to see if he hit anything at all, but instead fired off a string of shots; pressure, recoil, rack, pressure, recoil, rack. Six times and he was out, but the G34 was a faster firing weapon than the Holtish K96, with its turn-bolt, and the fire was more substantial in volume on the individual level.

He didn't know the Leutnant was hit or their flank was collapsing. He hardly even knew there was shelling in the distance, except he heard the basso crash of the artillery rounds hitting off thataway. He didn't notice their surroundings been churned into mud or the greenery being destroyed all around with the accompanying cacophony of hellish fire. Another clip of ammunition inserted into the top of the rifle, the rounds pushed in, and then the bolt slammed home and the weapon fired, cocked, emptied, reloaded, fired. 

Someone got wise to the muzzle flashes coming from his position, and the rounds started snapping all around the second time, which is when he held tight, looking all around and seeing the damage to the farmhouse, smelling the smoke and hearing the screams.

There was no way to measure the time that passed as he got his weapon reloaded for the how many-th time? He just knew that when Krebs called out to fall back, he was just peeking up to see the gray-green Holtish uniforms dismounting from their vehicles, apparently as close as the vehicles were getting -- one was smoking and back a distance, and he had no idea it'd been killed. But there were men there, scrambling away from the rear of their vehicle, trying to find cover away from it. [i]Why not take cover along the vehicle?[/i] his mind asked, suddenly.

And then he saw the answer, an eruption of flame to go with the smoke and the rattling sound of hell itself as the thing's fuel tank exploded.

Krebs' voice jolted him out of his reverie.

[b]"Go!"[/b] he yelled to whomever was next to him, he forgot, as he raised his rifle up and started to fire at one of the enemy elements firing at them, rather than looking for an easy kill off a retreating enemy. He fired at some gray-green Holtish uniform, too rushed to see if he got his mark, too worried about getting back in cover before the machineguns started again -- the return fire was a fusillade. 

Someone else yelled for him; as he got down the defile from his position, rolling down the reverse slope of the berm and away from the combat. He came up in a crouch, keeping his head well below, and was reloading his rifle, even as he moved -- he had to run, covering his movement was the other man's problem.