There comes a day when every soldier may be asked to lay their life on the line; today is that day. After a decade of occupation, the Confederated Earth Forces are coming out of hiding, betting the liberation of Earth from its alien overlords on a throw of the dice.

The sequel to the 2017 Dragon Award nominated Invasion: Resistance, Day of Battle picks up at the beginning of this fight, and follows regular soldiers as they wage desperate warfare. From a Special Forces team leading an uprising, to heavily up-armored M1 Abrams tanks dueling Invy armor, even hand to hand combat in the corridors of an orbital space station. Twenty four hours of combat in the opening shots of a war that may see the end of humanity.

“UP!” he yelled, and Dizzy yelled “ON THE WAY!” The gun rocked backwards, the tank with it, pushing it down onto its springs. Dash could have demanded that the gunner run through the standard fire commands, but she trusted Dizzy Lehmkuhl to do a good job. Hers was to keep them alive. Ibson didn’t wait for a command either; from here on out it was sabot until either the gunner or the commander ordered differently. Fine by him.

“Driver, back up!” she ordered, as return fire started to come their way. Their opposition was a company of Invy tanks, if the crews managed to get to them before the artillery cut them down. She had to assume they would face the full dozen the Invy organized their companies in, though. The Abrams dropped backwards, and she started to give the driver commands to maneuver them to the next spot, when the left side of her vision temporarily whited out, accompanied by an explosion that rocked Bad Bitch sideways on her tracks.

A hundred meters away the turret of Suzie Q leapt upward into the air, flipped over twice, and then fell back on top of the hull, almost snuffing out the fire that raged inside. The track commander, less experienced than Dash, had let his driver expose the shot trap, the space between the hull and the turret, while scanning for targets. The 100mm plasma bolt had blown through the drivers’ head, under the main gun, across the loader, and hit the anti-matter reactor that drove the tank. The resulting explosion had come back into the crew compartment and vented its fury in that contained space, incinerating the crew and lifting the forty ton turret high into the air.

She had no time to mourn her friends, just fight the tank. They were to engage at long distance, draw the enemies’ fire while the infantry swung wide around the base. Could be that, tonight, nobody was going to get out of here alive, but she’d take some of the bastards with her. Bad Bitch rolled fifty meters west, shielded by the hill, and then moved though the ruin of a house, the muzzle of her gun being given a narrow view to scan.

Lehmkuhl caught a glimpse of the angular side of an Invy tank also shifting position, rotating on its air cushion, and fired, the sabot round punching through the skirts. The Invy vehicle bounced backwards and settled on the ground, but the plasma cannon started to rotate in their direction.

Dash yelled at the driver to back up, but the gunner yelled, “HOLD!” even as Ibson raced to load the gun. The commander was tempted to kick Lehmkuhl in the head for countermanding her order, but settled on triggering the fifty caliber from her position, hoping the tracer fire and impacts would distract the Invy gunner.

With a HISS CRACK and a charge of static, the plasma bolt scored the top of the turret, melting a groove and overloading the active camouflage. Lehmkuhl a second later, the sabot arching out and crashing through the engine of the Invy tank, a small spark followed by an explosion that was so bright it shone through the metal.

Ibson turned to load another sabot round, but Dash shouted, “HEAT, APC, FROM MY POSITION!” Two seconds later Ibson yelled, “UP!” and the commander fired, knocking out an Invy armored personnel carrier that had been crossing the runway.