After a numbing assault of torsion and light (far worse than your previous experiences) the Komet’s sensors report that you are on the deck of a strange ship. You hear – and feel – the heavy concussions of large caliber naval guns not too far away. In between the heavies, you hear the reports of lighter pieces – all bigger than anything you have encountered previously.

On deck the crew are shouting, bewildered by your sudden appearance. It looks like they might be thinking of lashing your vehicle to the deck and arresting its occupants. At least a few of you recognize them as US military, circa WWII. Alabaster starts spooling up the engines to make a getaway.

The panzer rises into the air on its thrusters, orienting itself and reaching out with its terrain mapping radar. A moment later, you hear pings as small arms rounds begin striking the hull. Alabaster puts the throttle forward to get the hell out of dodge, when suddenly there is a loud explosion, starboard. The craft shudders under impact and the turbines start to scream. “That’s not right” Alabaster starts working his magic, jetting forward at over 200 knots. More small arms fire hits the hull, sporadically. Air bursts buffet the panzer with their concussion. Alabaster is struggling with the controls, but the craft is definitely not reaching its top speed – and its starting to list to starboard.

“The intake is jammed. We’ve got no ground effect. I’ve got to put it down or we’re going to roll.”

The Komet continues to list and lose altitude. You are now hanging by your harnesses as the main hatch rotates underneath you. You hear the attitude thrusters fire – full bore – and the ship partially corrects as it slews to present its port broadside to the oncoming fire.

Turbines and thrusters screaming, the craft slams into the shingle of the beach – partially hull down. You are still taking small arms fire, but it appears that you may have defilade at the moment form the enemy’s heavier weapons. Outside, the sensors show a small group of men to the left clustered near the shingle. The nearest is perhaps 30m away. There are bodies floating in the water. To the right, you see a smaller group of men clustered under the sea wall perhaps 150 meters away. Ahead, you see a 200m expanse of shell-cratered beach leading to bluffs at least 30 meters high. A draw leads up from the beach, almost directly ahead. On either side, you see concrete casemates and pill boxes spewing tracer fire at the clusters of men, and now at your banshee.

Your sensors are detecting artillery fire from beyond the bluffs. A light mortar round lands a few meters from the Komet. It rocks slightly under the concussion as it is sprayed with shrapnel and debris. A moment later, a much larger round rocks the panzer, throwing up a geyser of sand almost 50 meters away.

“The starboard intake is jammed! Starboard thrusters don’t work! We’re not going to be able to get off this beach on ground effect! We have to fix the intake so that we can hop out of this firezone!” Alabaster looks a little wild-eyed. “And I think we’re going to have to silence those guns to do it!”