"It's not your fault, and it's not the wrong call, but it's a horrific part nonetheless. And the Universe cackles with crazed glee, because it knows that it's won.

"Either you refuse to act as its agent, and you fail, letting tragedy walk in the wake of your failure...

"...Or you do what needs to be done, and the Universe claims your cracked, fragile vessel as just another agent of its malevolent play; letting you succeed only so you can feel the scars dig into your very soul, as you will now be marked by its play forevermore.

"Just like every other being that it has ever glanced its gaze upon.

"After all, when it writes the script, when it pays the actors, when it controls all that is or will be, who could stop the Universe's tragic play?" - Excerpt From: The Universe's Tragedy, in Three Parts, Rigellian Philosopher CppNymph, 4th Millennium PGT

SIX HOURS AFTER DEPLOYMENT

SIXTH TEMPORAL PHASE ROTATION

Sergeant Major Alicia Awgwarkawk had been a Terran Confederate Marine for over a century. She had led everything from fast entry drop pod insertions to boarding actions to hostage rescue operations. She could fight, kill, and win with any weapon in the Confederate arsenal, a hardware store, or a kitchen. She could sing well enough to attract the attention of beautiful chubby ducks to the point that they'd spread out their iridescent and multicolored tail feathers and shake them.

Which is why, as the dropship Hail Mary's Stockcar Race landed in the massive dropship bay of the Stop Hitting Yourself, she felt that tightness right above the top of her buttcrack, like something was going to get shoved in hard, she didn't dismiss the feeling.

"Lima-Three, reflex triggers on, lock and load one mag-bloc," she said. She had sixty Marines in the dropship with her, all of them in heavy boarding armor, all geared up as if she was about to fight an entire ship's compliment of Nexus Marines out to commit another Nexus Chainsword Massacre.

"Nothing on my sensors," Warrant Officer Three Mary said as her body settled down. The semi-permeable forcefield covering the entry of the bay glimmered as the armored shutters slowly closed.

"Got that feeling," Awgwarkawk answered. "Same one I got on Tasslehoff-IV right before one of the Krendarr spiked me in the face with a Bowie-Lance."

"Roger that," Mary said. "I'll deploy defensive drones and stay locked up."

There was silence for a minute before SGM Awgwarkawk opened her team channel.

"All right, Lima-Three. Your team leaders have your objectives. We want engineering, Fusion-Five, fire control, and the temporal resonance cannon system at the minimum. We'll take the bridge if we can. Nobody moves around in groups less than six, biometric reports and ten minute voice checks," she told them. "If, somehow, we end up engaged with the enemy, the only critical systems to avoid damage on are engineering, Fusion-Five, fire control, and the big gun. Everything else you can snap-crackle-pop the shit out of if you have to, Space Force can just bill the Corps."

That got chuckles.

"Perimeter looks clear, Sergeant Major," Mary said. "Opening doors."

The troop dismount doors unlocked and pulled back, showing that there was at least a meter of laminated armor making up the heavy blast door.

Awgwarkawk watched as her Marines, only a company left out of her beloved brigade, smoothly exited the dropship, taking up firing positions and scanning outside.

"What was the casualty total on the Stop Hitting Yourself, Mary?" Awgwarkawk asked.

"Total. Nearly fifty of the two thousand human crewmen went enraged. Someone triggered the security lockdowns at one point, the fighting in the corridors and ship spaces was intense. The humans wiped everyone else out before they attacked each other," Mary answered. "Brrr, don't try to bring up the DS. Some Enraged put on a eVR headset and tore her to pieces."

There was silence for a moment.

"And ate her," Mary said softly.

"So, worse case scenario," Awgwarkawk said. She tabbed in the officers, wishing that Colonel Hutz hadn't dropped dead in the Officer's Mess. "Mary says fifty Enraged were aboard here. Keep an eye out for any of them that might still be alive."

"Great, just who I want to fight in the dark corridors of a dead ship," Lieutenant ShrakHark grumbled. "Someone that's trying to kill, eat, and fuck me all at the same time."

"Just keep your teams tight," Awgwarkawk said. She tabbed in her own team. "Bravo Team, form up on me."

The corridors were dark, silent. There was blood and ichor splashed and dry on the walls here and there, signs of electrical discharges having slagged warsteel and battlesteel, explosion marks and bullet craters. Even the emergency lights were dead, the ship's reactors having shut down.

"We've got something," Echo Team said suddenly.

"Report," Awgwarkawk said.

"Unidentified visuals. Pale white or gray light, humanoid shape. They're pacing us, appearing behind us, ahead of us. They aren't responding to hails and we can't get a good visual, they move too fast," Echo Team Leader reported. "They flicker, to top it off."

Awgwarkawk frowned. The description itched a memory, but she couldn't remember it.

"Keep your eyes up. Fingers on the reflex triggers," she told them.

"Roger that," Echo Team clicked off.

She motioned her team to keep moving forward, check each corner, each side passage, each open doorway.

Something was making her residual tailfeather anchor bone itch.

"CONTACT! WE'VE GOT CONTACT!" Delta Team suddenly called out.

Her command systems brought up the suit cams of those engaged in fighting, firing weapons, or near the acoustic signatures of weapon's fire into a composite.

Delta Team was fifteen Marines and two Space Force Technical Ratings.

Two Marines were down, the Marines had gone shoulder to shoulder in a circle, the Ratings in the middle.

Crouched over one downed Marine was a Terran woman. She was digging her hands into the armor, yanking out chunks of something and cramming them into her mouth. She looked up, her eyes a black whirlpool of madness, and gave a loud scream.

She was also entirely made of hazy, indistinct, white energy.

"FAB PHASIC ROUNDS!" Awgwarkawk called out over the command channel as she suddenly realized what she was seeing.

Phasic echoes.

It must be the warsteel and that we're in deep space, the Sergeant Major part of her thought.

Dark places attract dark things, her instincts insisted.

Everyone's nanoforges whined as they began infusing the blocks.

The other white shade jumped forward, sinking their hands into the Marine's armored chest as if they weren't wearing armor. The Marine screamed, loudly and in horrific agony, as the Terran shade dragged them to the ground, crouching over them, hammering on their faceshield with fists covered with silvery light.

Awgwarkawk could see the Lance Corporal's face. Wounds were opening up, cuts, abrasion. His eye socket was crushed. One of his nostril flaps was torn away, as the spectral fists slammed into him.

The entire time the two shades screamed, raw ugly sounds of hate and rage.

Lieutenant MacMoneyforger, a Saurain Compact Kobold, ejected the ammobloc in their pistol, letting the dull metal fall to the ground as they slapped in a warsteel doped ammobloc that glimmered slightly with the Kobold's fear and anger. He stepped forward, put the barrel of the pistol to the forehead of the shade attacking the Lance Corporal, and pulled the trigger.

The specter's head exploded, spraying backwards in a fan, their body pulling up as if following suction, spraying out on an explosion of clear gel-like liquid.

He shifted aim and shot the other one, which was standing up, growling, twice in the face.

Gelatinous fluid sprayed the hallway.

"Psychic shielding to max, safeties off," Awgwarkawk snapped, checking the load on her rifle.

Even dead they still kill, she thought to herself. The ultimate tool using predator.

She shivered as she opened the channel to Charlie Team, which was acting as a backup to Gamma Team.

"Charlie here," the Marine said. Her face was slicked with sweat, her pebbly hide dark with nervousness.

"Head to DCC, find out how to get the phasic disruptors and shielding online," Awgwarkawk ordered. "We've got Enraged Phasic Shades."

The Marine officer nodded, her spines rattling in her helmet.

"Don't mess around, they're Terran, they might be dead but they'll still rip your guts out," Awgwarkawk ordered. "Alpha Out."

--------------

"Boarding team has encountered resistance," one of the techs called out.

Admiral Shtuklar and General NoDra'ak both looked up. "That vessel's a dead stick. Total casualties," the Admiral said.

"Sergeant Major Awgwarkawk is reporting contact with Terran Enraged Phasic Shades," the tech said.

General NoDra'ak's antenna raised in an approximation of a Terran raising their eyebrows in shock.

"They've got casualties. Twelve Marines down, LT(JG) Creeglerk, Space Force Navy Gunnery Targeting Mate is down, all KIA, repeat, thirteen KIA," the tech said.

Admiral Shtuklar swallowed. "Inform the Sergeant Major to continue on mission with all due conscious, but this is time sensitive," he ordered. He glanced at General NoDra'ak who was looking intently at the landing dispersion of the BOLO tanks.

"Don't throw her men's lives away, but she has to push through, carry out the mission," the Admiral said.

There was only quiet murmuring as he moved over next to General NoDra'ak.

"Shades?" the Admiral said.

"It's rare," NoDra'ak said. "But it happens."

"Have you seen it before?" the Admiral asked.

General NoDra'ak nodded. "Before I went Old Blood, during the Mithril Nebula Conflict, the Rogue Elven Queens, the Drow Queens, managed to figure out how to bring up shades every single spot a Terran was killed," the Treana'ad said as he lit a cigarette. "Phasic munitions or, if you've got enough phasic potential yourelf, Mark-II cutting bar or fists."

He looked at the Admiral. "Got one of my bladearms torn off by a Warborg shade. Picked me up and slammed me against the bulkhead before I could stab him through the brain."

He puffed out rings of smoke from his two right feet. "Friend of mine, we were in Advanced Infantry Training together, he got swarmed by a pack of child shades, Kindread. Tore him apart and ate him," the Treana'ad shuddered. "One of the reason the Drow Queens had to go."

The Admiral nodded slowly. "How did they go rogue?"

General NoDra'ak stared into the holotank. When he spoke, the Admiral could barely here him.

"Hellspace worship."

----------------

A'armo'o had to admit, his new tank was glorious. Yes, he was not as familiar with it as he had been with his hovertank, but there was just something about the huge behemoth he now commanded. Over seven hundred and fifty tons of armor, guns, shielding, and roaring bellowing closed system steam turbine supercharged engine.

His driver swerved slightly, driving straight over a Dwellerspawn nearly ten feet high, the tracks shredding it, sucking it under the tank, and viscous ichor sprayed out around the tank even as the main gun fired.

A'armo'o felt different inside this tank, which he'd named Atomic Bionic for reasons he couldn't explain, then he had inside the tanks of the Great Herd. This tank felt less like a mailed fist to ensure the unwilling adhered to policy and more like the engine of destruction it properly should.

The main gun fired again and the dwellerspawn in a twenty meter corridor around the 'harmonic shredder' round's path exploded from hydrostatic shock from the superheated air expanding then collapsing, trapping them inside a thunderclap as the round went on to slam into faceplate of a gigantic insect/reptile crossbreed.

The massive creature, the size of a small warehouse, exploded into slurry.

"YEEEEE-HAW!" A'armo'o yelled, raking the TC's gun across a flight of flying snakes that had insect compound eyes and dual stingers. They exploded in greasy snaps, the liquid napalm-esque chemicals in their long abdomens erupting when exposed to oxygen by the heavy 12.7 mm rounds of the machinegun he was using to hammer the Dwellerspawn.

The Atomic Hooves were pushing the enemy back into their spawning zone, away from three different cities, the thousands of tanks shredding the enemy from existence, often before they could do much more than scream.

"Scouts report some kind of energy wall in front of them," his commo tech reported.

"Well, breach the damn thing!" A'armo'o yelled out.

"They say they've tried. It's impervious to..." his commo tech's icon blinked three times rapidly.

"STATUS CHANGE!" the commo tech yelled. "ENEMY FORCES ARE COMMITTING ACROSS THE FRONT!"

A'armo'o looked around his tank.

He saw it. Less than a mile ahead.

The ground shimmered, like the air above sun-heated sand. There was weird vibration, a sizzle feeling in his cybernetic lower right arm, and a ringing sound in his ears.

The empty ground was suddenly covered by the enemy. Thousands. Tens of thousands.

Hundreds of millions of enemy creatures.

"FALL BACK! FIRE AS YOU GO!" A'armo'o ordered as the air around his tank began to waver. "FRONT GLACIS AND TURRET TO REAR!"

The massive tank slowed, the turbines roaring, the transmission howling. The clattering tracks stopped, then began going in reverse.

He spun the tank commander's lift, bringing around the machinegun to face the direction the tank was going, over the back deck.

Creatures screeched as they appeared out of mid-air.

"YEEE-HAW!" A'armo'o yelled out, pressing his thumbs on the butterfly trigger.

Lemur guns are just so... so... fun!

------------

Vuxten looked at his status reports. He had two companies already at psychological damage threshholds, nearly thirty men injured with broken bones, concussions, collapsed lungs.

No deaths. Not yet.

He considered himself lucky.

He checked the stream of memes and other 'chatter' on another window.

His men had lived the majority of their lives beneath the iron shod hooves of the Overseers, had lived lives of desperation and helplessness.

Now his men were helpless as the terrain shifted and they saw millions die over and over, knowing that they couldn't be saved.

One caught his attention. A three picture meme, one on top of another, annotated.

It was a Telkan armored Marine surrounded by the dead of a city. It read "When all seems hopeless" on the top. The middle picture was of the Marine crossing his arms over his chest and squeezing tight. "You can always hug yourself." The bottom picture was of an atomic explosion. "And brighten everyone's day."

"Find who did that one. Alert Psych-Med," Vuxten said, clenching his fist.

He understood their frustration, their anger, but he didn't want them giving in to hopelessness.

Wars had been lost by superior forces who's morale had collapsed.

We have to find a way to fight back.

---------------

Sergeant Major Awgwarkawk was panting as she leaned against the control panel. Her Team, the twelve left, were gathered around. The two Navy techs were sitting down, activating the consoles on local power and control. Both had battery systems that let the panel boot up.

"Alpha to Team Leaders, we've reached the bridge. Total dark," she said.

"Kilo Team here. Reactor's ready to fire up," the Captain in charge of the force said. "Our Navy guy's hurt bad, but she says she can get the reactors online."

"Do it," Awgwarkawk said. She could feel the robotic medical kit and the internal nanite medical system kicking in, debriding the dead flesh from her arm, sealing vein ruptures, stunning damaged nerves and nerve bundles.

The shade had torn a pale flickering version of her arm out of her armor and left the meat behind, numb and burned and shredded.

The bridge lights flickered and came on. Panels and consoles went through auto-start.

"Gamma Team here. We've reached the temporal resonance cannon," the Lieutenant said. "Our Navy guy says its ready to fire, but I have bad news."

"Tell me," Awgwarkawk said.

"The creation engine is cold. It'll take ten, fifteen minutes to warm up, another ten to twenty just to print a second rounds. There's one round in the chamber, that's it for half an hour," Gamma said.

"Targeting online, Sergeant Major," one of the Naval ratings said. Her voice was slurred, half of her face paralyzed from a shade raking the front of her skull with curled claw-like fingers.

"Get the Admiral. Get a targeting solution," Awgwarkawk snapped.

-----------

"Signal from the away team. Temporal resonance cannon is ready! Thirty minute delay till second shot!" a commo tech called.

"Send the data," the Admiral ordered. He looked at the screen. "Alert First Telkan. Either they hear us, or they don't."

"Aye-aye, sir," the commo tech said.

"V Corps (Dead Blood) has made planetfall."

The Admiral flinched slightly.

"May the Digital Omnimessiah have mercy on us for what we have done here," the Admiral said softly.

----------

Awgwarkawk shook her head. Charlie Team had reported the phasic systems were all blown out, like they'd taken a heavy surge. They estimated it would take at least an hour for the system to be repaired, cleared, and brought up to operational levels.

"All troops, one hour till phasic systems," Awgwarkawk warned.

"Signal from Fleet. We have the target," was called out.

She looked at the rating as she sat down in the Captain's chair. "Run the firing solution. I'll fire the gun myself."

The two ratings nodded. The system kept trying to reject the solution as it was planet-side. When the Sergeant Major took over the Captain's chair, it authorized the targeting solution.

"Temporal Resonance Cannon ready to fire, Ma'am," the Naval rating said.

Awgwarkawk nodded, reaching forward to grip the lever. She squeezed the grip, feeling the mechanical safeties unlock.

"Firing main gun," she said.

The entire ship felt like it turned inside out for a split second.

The streak of light lanced out, flaring as it hit the planet's magnetosphere, ripping through the layers of speed/gravity temporal banding that made it so that time moved slower at the highest peak compared to the deepest valley.

It hit to the southeast of the rippling distortion covering First Telkan Marine Division.

Everything for fifteen hundred miles in every direction went white.

"Direct hit."

----------------

The Atrekna had had enough. They had tired of the resistance of the feral primitives on the surface. The stubborn resistance in many different temporally shifted pockets was proving more strenuous than it was worth. The rabid primate was taking more and more effort to hold in place, getting stronger with every passing moment.

They reached out, finding what they needed. It required effort, it exhausted a quarter of their number.

But it worked.

They turned their attention back to the planet and their conquest.

Everything went white.

-------------

The Admiral was staring at the forces of 8th Infantry and 3rd Armor as they drove deep into the Dwellerspawn hordes.

A section of the planet went white.

"Stop Hitting Yourself reports direct hit," one of the techs said.

The Admiral opened his mouth to reply.

"STATUS CHANGE!" was barked out. The Admiral whirled around. "MANY MANY POINT SOURCES!"

Nearly two hundred specks burned brightly on the stellar system map.

"TYPE FOUR BOGEYS, DESIGNATING FORCE ALPHA!"

------------

Vuxten was reaching for the communications buttons when it happened.

Everything turned inside out, upside down, backwards, and was smooshed into a single point of light that expanded into infinity then began to flutter like butterfly wings.

One of the temporal stabilizers blew out in a fountain of sparks.

The long, stuttering, eternal second passed.

He could see six flares of phasic energy on his map. He snapped his finger out, tapping them all rapidly.

"OPEN FIRE!" he yelled over the commo to the units close by.

He knew he needed to overcome their shock at what just happened, what had been happening.

---------------

The Atrekna reeled back as time itself was chopped into split pieces of seconds, stretched here and compressed there, for an eternal frozen second it all vibrated, wildly out of synch.

The ones still guiding war machines in exploded in splashes of purple blood and gobbets of purple flesh. The ones bringing forth more slavespawn were knocked loopy, dizzy, losing their grip.

The slavespawn came through in a spray of tissue laden mist and the temporal gateway links shattered.

The ones holding the primate in lockdown had their focus slip for just a moment.

-----------------

The pilot of the armor was almost alone. He had been for a long time. He no longer knew how long.

It didn't matter.

There was only the enemy.

And the enemy existed only to be destroyed.

His only companion was a woman who whispered in his ear, whispered in his soul, spoke to him gently, and knew him more intimately than anyone in the universe.

A second, a heartbreat, a moment, the sky flickered and there were a half dozen moons in the sky.

A fragment of video with a shattered chunk of audio wriggled through the cracks of the walls holding the pilot in place.

The pilot opened it, expecting orders, updates, something pertinent to destroying the enemy.

Instead, there was a face. Bluish. Gray. White filmed eyes. Bruising around the eyes, the mouth. Familiar even in death to the pilot.

It said two syllables.

"Kay..." it moaned.

"...seee."

The transmission ended.

The pilot held still, shocked into immobility. The lightning around the suit faded and went out. The guns went silent.

The creatures around the pilot that had survived shrieked their victory and charged.