Tank Lord: The Iron Beast

Ace Battle group and Recognition

After Finishing His afternoon meal, Richard who is already standing up started to turn around and walk to the collection area as he was going to put away his plate which will be collected and cleaned for later use, which Rommel also manage to finish his meal a second late after Richard where he also quickly grabbed his plate and start to follow his back.

Dieter and Benjamin on the other hand were still shocked and surprised listening to such news directly from Richard which suppose to be a secret amongst the higher up but for Richard to know it is very mind wrecking for them as they could only manage to turn their head and followed Richard's back and when they already recovered the both of them quickly finished their meal and also stand following Richard and Rommel's footsteps and doing the same.

Richard and Rommel who already arrived slowly put down the plate on the table, at first Richard dipped the plate in the water for a moment then the Spork and finally glasses before moving to the side as he wipes the water from the leftover porridge soup from the plate, spork, and the glasses on the designated area so the cooker who come over to resupply the mess hall could pick it a bunch of plates then clean it up with detergent before any further re-usage.

Richard after finished with everything manages to turn around at the very least thirty-five degrees before noticing his friend from the same company which is Hans, Emmanuel, Engelbert, and Louise.

Surprised by the meeting two groups meet and gather around together for a brief moment as they each ask and talk about the small stuff as they also joke around about Rommel being a scary debt collector for once the group laughed together but it was not long as most of them have things to do as they quickly separated and started the walk to their destination.

Richard along with his group just arrived at their quarter before the nearby speaker tower sparked up and made an astounding announcement to the base and which state as follows.

---Every available personnel available for combat to report at the barracks and quickly pack up any personal belonging, I repeat any personnel available for combat report at the barrack and quickly pack up any personal belonging---

Since Richard knew of it would happen shortly already mid-walking to barracks as he also glanced to the side time to time watching the nearby soldier who is running around to their own set of barrack even some would time to time just to tell their friend to hurry up on whatever they are doing or getting late and get scolded later.

Richard who is reincarnated person quickly packed his bag in a precise and quick motion as he slowly put it inside the backpack at the same time he finds found an item something where he never thought to find after returning to the barrack where he accidentally finds it in the cupboard beneath his folded cloth.

Upon closer inspection, it was a brown-golden pendant that has his initial name which is R for a moment he slowly rubs it with his thumbs while remembering the memory he has within it as the flashback occurred at that moment.

He was sitting down on the nearby chair and finds two people nearby him after he looks who it was it was his mother and the younger version of him, his mother then lowered her body before given Richard a pendant as it has the same color as he was holding before.

"Mother what is this?" said the young Richard.

"This... this is a pendant, I made it for you," said Richard's mother.

"Really? Yay!!!..." said the young Richard as he shouted in joy.

His mother who was watching managed to smile with warmness on her face as she slowly stands up looking at the young boy but not for long his mother slowly turn around and now looking at the Present Richard which surprised him a bit and then her mother smiled at him but this time with more... sad look was shown.

Not long after it Richard become Hazy and cloudy before he woke with the pendant in his hand watching at it, He felt a hand on his shoulder in which made him turn around and find Rommel was beside him with a worried look on his face.

"Is there something wrong?" said Rommel.

"Eh... no, I guess," said Richard as he turns his eye away avoiding eye contact.

"Okay, if there is any problem you can tell me about it anytime," said Rommel as he walks away and returns to his bed packing his belonging.

Richard clutches the pendant tightly and only took one glance at it for a moment before he putting it inside his jacket pocket before shortly after equipping it, Richard then continues packing up the rest of his belonging into his beg but this time he was being overfilled by the sadness, not with the tranquility he usually has inside his heart.

With mixed feeling, he manages to put inside all of his belonging and lock his travel bag before taking it with him along with the other tanker who walking to the gathering area where he noticed many of them were standing in-crowd making large lines in attention beside their designated vehicle together with their belonging beside them on the ground.

Richard and his crewmate were standing together with the other tanker when at the same moment the Commander and his Vice commander were walking inside the garage which surprised most of the lieutenants including Richard and his crewmate, The commander looked around for a moment before the vice commander who spotted Richard walk close to the commander then whisper something to his ears.

At first, the commander has a normal look on his face before suddenly it warped into something like a surprise as he turns his eye to the vice commander for a moment then turn his eye back to the crowd of tankers in front of him as he searches from one side to another before landing his eye to Richard's group standing in front of his panzer.

After finding where he is, the commander then walks to his front as Rommel, Dieter, and Benjamin stand firm as they sweat almost a river since it was the first time they were in front of the commander which they salute in attention without any word the commander returns the salute at them as he stared Richard for few more minutes before he starts to open his mouth.

"Richard, was it?" asked the commander.

"Yes, sir," said Richard as he looked at him.

"I see, I heard that you commanded the flanking to the Warsaw city if I heard correctly." said the commander as he continues to ask.

"Yes, sir," said Richard as he answers.

"Do you understand that you could have yourself court-martialed because of it." said the commander as he asked further questions.

"Yes, sir... I understand the risk of doing so but if we were to win in the shortest amount of time, I'd rather have myself court-martialed than having my countrymen die for nothing, sir," answered Richard as he looked at the commander sternly.

"From what I see the panzer group you lead were very conservative taking the shot on those Poland so how did you manage to do that?" asked the Commander a bit curious.

"We... no, I merely told the group to conserve their ammo reserve until we get close to the enemy's side and when we have a clear shot and sure to kill them in one shot it would be better to do so." said Richard "As much as it was reckless but our driver was quite an excellent for driving this small piece of the box," said Richard as he calmly answered.

At First, the commander was a bit unconvinced but he changed his mind when he unconsciously glanced at the panzer's track is already started to break on a small part of it while only a few parts of it were already unstable and barely held on before suddenly a loud bang was heard in which turn caused the track to fall to the ground causing most of the tanker and the people on the site to get surprised since the sound was so loud that they turned their head and look at the sources.

After looking at the sources most of them were surprised by the condition of the track as half part of the track were barely held together then suddenly another sound was made and it was the same panzer who followed Richard and a few other panzers who has the same condition as Richard's panzer in which also fell apart from one to another.

This time the commander was dumbfounded by the incident that happened in front of him, he was surprised by how worse the track damage was but barely a dent in the hull damage that should have been caused by the enemy panzer rifle or arty g*n during the Poland invasion but none of the dent made by such weaponry was seen within the panzer who followed by Richard's group and they had achieved victory efficiently and no losses.

The commander was none other than the field marshall Gerd von Rundstedt as he was staring at the track in awe and fascination to the group as he knew right away they were an elite tanker instantly in which he laughed in joy as he just witnessed the making of the panzer elite group in front of him, the people who were watching started to sweat as they are nervous of the very next word that would come out from the commander's word.

What's come next were something that made the people so baffled and even confused that they are unsure what to say if they were questioned or asked by others, the commander just laughed in joy as it was something this funny or something entertaining for him since it was quite hard to believe the story if it was told to the others.

"This is something else, I have never seen something like this before amongst the many panzer groups I never seen something like... probably the interesting one I ever saw." said the commander before he snickered a bit trying to holding his laugh down.

"That also seems unexpected and I felt the same, sir." said the vice commander as he felt baffled with the broken track and the commander's action not reprimanding Richard in front of the entire battalion.

"One thing for sure I could say without any doubt that your company achieved the best result in this theatre of war so far." said the commander as he raised his hand to his vice commander.

The vice commander was surprised by the commander's action but he kept silent and quickly raised the small box he carried with him before entering the garage, he then opened the box after the commander glanced his eye at him to do it.

"Richard because of your service the army has now recognized your service to the country and here is your medal of service." said The vice commander as he showed the medal to Richard.

"Even though your panzer took a heavy beating because it overuses there were no recorded casualties on your side this surprised most people in the high command except a few mentioned individuals like they are expecting a great result from you." said the commander as he slowly gives the medal from its case and put it over Richard's chest in which he continues "So congratulation for your achievement and your work the higher up has recognized your work as they expect more for such results in the future."

"Yes, Commander I will try to live up to your expectation," said Richard as he saluted.

"Good, Good as the rest of your crew will also be given a medal in recognition of their work." said the commander as he glanced at Richard's crewmate and motion his vice commander to give a different medal to them.

The crew who followed Richard then walked to Richard's panzer as they were confirmed to join his little company during the Poland invasion in which they received the medal with open hands as they celebrated it happily, the other crew who was standing on their side of panzer could only felt jealous to Richard and those who were ordered to follow him willingly after noticing the stares made by them the commander quickly walk to the middle of the garage in which he gave a speech to them.

"Since all of you might be jealous not receiving any medal, thus high command already planned given all of you a choice to join the company where Richard will be in. those who does not wish to join will have no voice to argue, jealous nor do they angry of his accomplishment but... the high command will give them a chance to do the same action as him if they could do the same result." said the commander as he looks at every last tanker who are not part of Richard's group.

"The high command had given some leeway to make sure they have a voice in such matter, prove it with skill, not your mouth... Understand, soldier?" said the commander as he continues his speech.

"Yes, commander." said all the nearby soldiers including Richard and his group,

"Good, I hope this cleared up any ill intention unworthy of a soldier from each last one of you, and Richard remembers not to get this over your head and forgot your duty to the nation." said the commander as he reprimands Richard.

"Yes sir, I will not let this achievement led me astray from serving the country sir," said Richard as he stands straight.

"Good, I will be watching your conduct and make sure to make the country and the great leader proud." said the commander as he pats Richard's shoulder.

"Yes, sir I will," said Richard as he stayed in his posture.

He then turns around to the crowd of tankers as he looked at them.

"Since all is done I hope every last one of you better go to the entrance and gets ready to embark on the western front, we're going to get ourselves some personal champagne." said the commander.

Hearing the word champagne some of the soldiers broke the coldness of their discipline as they celebrate a bit which received some scorn from the nearby soldier which put them back into their posture.

"Well good luck to you all, may victory came for the Reich and the great leader." said the commander bit loudly.

"and for the prosperity of the German people." shouted all the soldiers and the tanker in the garage.

"Dismiss." said the commander as he nodded in happiness.

And without any further word, the commander then quickly walked out from the garage where his vice commander slowly followed him up but before leaving the vice commander manages to turn his head around and gave a small hand signature telling Richard a best of luck as the commander and the vice commander walks away from the garage.

The tanker who was still saluting and didn't received any medal quickly run to their teammate who joined the previous battle and looked at their medal bit curious what it likes, some were jealous but since the commander mention that they could receive such a medal they were a bit forced to become content but they were also got enthralled of trying to do the same but most of them thought for a moment they couldn't do the same stunt as Richard thus this made them a bit more eager to follow him than trying to make their idea just only to kill themselves later.

"Yeah, I got a medal for the first time, I never thought to get it on few days after joining up in the army." one of the tanker right side of Richard panzer.

"True, I never thought to get it early too." says the other tanker who is beside him.

"Congratulation you two." said the other tanker who didn't get any medal.

The nearby tanker then congratulated those who managed to get the medal and those who didn't get the medal tried to get close to Richard and the other who got the medal as they wanted to join as part of Richard's team while the remaining few who doesn't just leave the garage were not interested to talk nor do they wished to congratulate them.

"Can we join your team in the next operation," said one tanker to him.

"Yeah, can we also join?" said the other tanker as he raised his hand.

"Yeah, us too." said another tanker as he pushes through the crowd.

Most of the crowd wished to join Richard's group but the person in question himself felt the sudden discomfort as they were staring at him either focused or they only glanced at him since most of them were are mostly undecorated soldiers with no mentionable skill in his past life thus most of them have little to nothing to offer for his next operation and may cause failure.

"Okay, okay please can all of you stop talking for a moment," said Richard as he closed his eye for a moment.

Hearing Richard's word most of the people went silent as they stared at him and carefully listened to his next word and hope they could join as part of his group.

"Listen well... all of you, it's not like I don't want to recruit most of you but I don't have any clearance to increase my battlegroup to a certain amount," said Richard as he looks at every tanker around him.

"Why?" said a tanker as he looked at Richard.

"That's..." said Richard as he noticed the tanker's stare and feeling uncomfortable on how to proceed.