"Right flank, light strikers," Undrat heard his SNCO snap over the command channel.

Standing in the watery ditch, his feet sunk in the mud, Undrat did a slow turn from the waist and abdomen, the power armor humming with restrained strength. The barrel of Madame 318 swept across the battlefield, the end of the barrel smoking and steaming. Dead Dwellerspawn and AWM were scattered around, shattered by the power of 64th Guards Rifle Division.

He was a Heavy Weapons Specialist, a Sergeant in the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems Space Force Army. He performed as a subordinate of Captain H'kitrak, LTC Johan-Blood, Colonel N'Mreent, Lieutenant General N'Vortu, and General Pht.Yernt.

Undrat knew, as surely as he knew his own name, that this battle would break the back of the 30th Rifle Corps, that the war was being lost on this planet and the inhabitants would be subjected to the horrors of the Atrekna 'sinking' the system.

He was proud to be part of it.

He intended on breaking the Atrekna's teeth and tearing away their tentacles. To die surrounded by expended brass and his chunk of territory being most expensive real estate the Atrekna had ever purchased.

His pride in himself and his unit and the Confederate Armed Services carried him beyond the pain of his wounds.

The strikers were Autonomous War Machines, dropping out of the clouds, hoping to use their speed to replace the armor they were lacking. The air was full of thin droplets of black rain, confusing the AWM's sensors.

Undrat's armor's VI was capable of editing it out without editing out a drop of oil falling from a cracked crankcase.

His armor heat was at 86.74%, his slush was at 88.22%. His green battle buddy was dead. His armor integrity was at 45.41%, he had two armor blowthroughs. The smart-harness was damaged and his recoil stabilizers were only at 22% efficiency. Steam billowed up around his feet as his suit desperately dumped heat into the heat sinks in his soles and on his calves.

But he had no fear.

Madame Three-Eighteen was with him and he carried the pride of the Tukna'rn people within him.

His Overseer would know that Undrat had covered himself in glory. That the Overseers confidence in Undrat had not been in vain.

Grinning, with bluish-green blood on his teeth, he saw his cracked visor flash for a targeting solution on the strikers. He fluttered his grip on the firing grip, Madame Three-Eighteen sang, and the bursts climbed into the sky, looking like he had missed. Four other lines of tracers joined his, the gunners reaching up into the sky with a weapon capable of gutting a medium AWM tank or a Devil Spine class Dwellerspawn.

"BOSS! NINE DEGREES RIGHT FIFTEEN UP!" his VI, Ricochet suddenly squealed.

Undrat turned his head to look, letting his grip relax, Madame Three-Eighteen's hungry mouth moving at the same time.

Five purple beings were in the air, protected by a shimmering forcefield made of glittering prisms, wearing iridescent robes and gaudy (to Undrat) jewelry.

They were clawing at their own faces and screaming, their eyes wide open in horror, the slit pupils, normally so narrow as to be invisible, wide open, their feeding tentacles flailing, their mouths open even as they screamed in complete and primal horror.

Not that Undrat cared.

"Alpha Lima Charlie Spotted," Undrat said to the crackling commo channel even as he thumbed the end of the grip, swapping in a phasic kicker on his rounds even as he squeezed the trigger even as he ramped the fire all the way up to thirty-five hundred rounds a minute.

It was faster to fire the already forged up rounds than to let the reclaimer pull them in and the nanoforge to reload the system.

The heavy "Smack and Crack" rounds hit the phasic shielding, causing it to flare brightly. The heavy warsteel jackets slammed into the psychic construct, the antimatter cores flashed bluish white as they reacted to the matter in the very air, the strange matter penetrator flared as it actually hammered divots in the psychic construct.

Less than three seconds of sustained fire and the shield was being greedily devoured by jagged purple halos that erupted where the rounds hit at over fifty a second.

Two others joined in, the rounds still flashing bluish-white as the gunners ran through the partial belts already nanoforged up.

"BOSS! TWENTY-TWO LEFT UP HIGH!" Ricochet yelled as another two engaged the ones Undrat was targeting.

Undrat let off the firing grip as he swung the weapon.

Another five, screaming, clawing at their faces, their camouflage flickering and splintering.

You exist only to be destroyed, Undrat thought as he clamped down on the grip and the thumb button.

-------

The artillery round hit, the fuze damaged from plunging through the defensive shielding, driving deep into the thick mud of the battlefield. The mechanical fuze still worked and the round exploded when it hit the packed dirt and debris below the mud.

The thermobaric round exploded in a reddish-yellow bubble of hellfire, picking up several armored troops of 1st Armored Close Support Medical Regiment and throwing them away. Armored failed on two of them, their limbs snapping free and sailing away.

More rounds hit and the Torgruth Armored Personnel Carrier exploded, killing the medical crew and the patients inside.

"MEDIC!" the scream was loud, full of agony. It came from multiple points, multiple species, all filled with agony.

For a long moment nobody stirred even as the shells kept hammering down, seeking out the shield generator and anyone unlucky enough to be caught by the blasts of the heavy artillery shells. A handful of rockets shrieked into the area, crackling as they deployed submunitions.

The whole area, the size of six football fields locked together in a two by three grid, erupted into fire and hatred.

"MEDIC!"

Black armored figures were scattered around, most of them not moving. The few that were were writhing in agony, some not even conscious as their bodies tried to relieve the pain.

More artillery hit, more shells than the last time. Figures unlucky enough to be caught by the second barrage were picked up and thrown.

Two were dismembered.

"MEDIC!"

Out of the mud a helmet lifted, a shaking hand pawed the mud from the visor. The armored trooper tried to push themselves up on all fours.

They collapsed face down.

"MEDIC! OH, GOD, PLEASE! MEDIC!"

The figure pushed itself up again, pawing at its face shield as it began staggering forward.

All Melinvae could hear was her own breathing inside her helmet. She could faintly hear alarms, off in the distance, even her mastoid speaker implant stunned. Her visor was cracked in three places, her HUD nothing but flickering garbage. She staggered forward, hunched down, her hocks and knees bent as far as she could and still hobble forward.

She held tight to her aid bag with both hands.

"MEDIC!" the scream rang out again and Melinvae realized they weren't using the radio, they were using their suit speakers.

"Where are you?" Melinvae yelled back over her suit speakers.

A hand lifted, shaking, from where a figure was lying against wreckage, half buried in the mud.

Melinvae broke into a staggering, lurching, stumbling run even as another barrage hit, more artillery shells getting through the weakening battlescreen. A flicker allowed a handful of rockets through and the rockets drove home into smoking and damaged armored vehicles.

Another APC exploded as Melinvae half fell-half kneeled down next to the figure.

Her VI was out and her head was ringing.

Training slotted into a bruised brain and a traumatized mind.

She did a quick visual survey.

They had all their limbs and none of them were bent the wrong way.

Their armor was breached across the abdomen and she could see the greasy coils of intestines.

Her hands moved of their own accord, horrible experience and terrible reflexes coming into play even as, deep inside her own mind, she ran in circles screaming.

"You're all right, you're all right, I'm here now," Melinvae's voice was perfectly steady and calm as she pulled out an autoinjector and used her thumb to clear the mud from the trooper's injector port. She jabbed in the needle and tossed it over her shoulder. She pulled free her canteen and dumped it over the exposed intestines, washing them off as best she could. She shoved the canteen back, confident the condensation system would refill it, as she pulled out a tube of gel. She squirted it all over the exposed intestines, not bothering with the careful figure-eight pattern taught in training, just slathering it on. She felt the container sputter and threw it over her shoulder as she reached down and began pushing the intestines back into the wound.

"Oh, Enraged Phillip, it hurts! It hurts!" the wounded trooper, Malinvae refused to let herself even recognize the species beyond what she needed to for critical care, screamed as she shoved his intestines back into his body.

"You're all right, you're all right," Melinvae slurred as she pulled out the spray bandage. She triggered the can and sprayed a thick layer, then flipped the can over and sprayed armor sealant onto the bandage.

"You're fine, you're fine, wait here," she said.

"MEDIC!" someone else screamed.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" Melinvae yelled back over her speakers.

An arm waved and the Hesstlan girl lurched through the mud and water to get to the wounded troop.

Missing lower left leg. Face exposed. Missing left hand. Armor breach, upper left torso. Rings exposed, upper left torso.

She grabbed his wrist, activated his medical override, saw it fail when "NO CARRIER SIGNAL" icon blinked on the telltales on her left wrist.

The well trained part of her knew the commo net was down.

She sprayed a liquid circulation bandage (with anesthetic) on the stump, repeated it for the leg.

"I've got you. I've got you," Melinvae slurred. She injected the shot straight into the exposed flesh, ignoring the scream, using one hand to bat away the wounded troop's hand when he tried to stop her. "I've got you, I've got you," she said as she dumped water to wash away the worst of the mud. "I've got you, I've got you," she told him as she dumped stabilizing gel on the wound. "Got you, I've got you," she reassured him as she sprayed liquid bandage on the chest wound, on his face. "Got you, I've got you," she said as she sprayed armor sealant on his chest.

His visible eye opened.

An unholy choir of shrieking screams sounded behind her.

"DOC!" he screamed, lifting up one hand and pointing behind her.

Melinvae threw herself on top of her patient even as she grabbed his magac rifle from the mud. She rolled, still keeping her armored body on top of her patient. She looked up, raising the rifle even though her HUD was gone and her visor was cracked in two places.

In the air were two groups of eight Atrekna.

They were screaming.

Melinvae held down the trigger, hosing the left hand group.

Fire joined hers, tracers arcing up.

The Atrekna suddenly turned into purple mist in the air, their flesh and blood reduced to their component atoms.

Melinvae dropped the rifle in the mud, turning over to look at her patient.

His exposed eye was wide.

She stared through her cracked visor.

He blinked.

"I've got you, I've got you," she said, turning back to work.

MEDIC!

--------

The crystalline citadel was partially collapsed, pink and gold crystal shattering and collapsing as the remnants of 5th Rifle Brigade, 5th Telkan Marine Division, advanced into the firepower of the Atrekna. Cones of phasic energy rippled across the battlefield, slamming into armored Telkan. Some were knocked down, some were knocked off balance, others kept moving grimly forward.

A Warbound roared in fury as a dozen rockets hit its armored carapace and returned fire with its 30mm dual barrel autocannon, the heavy rounds shrieking out to his the failing structures of the crystalline fortress. The Warbound kept stomping forward, ignoring the fact that half of it was on fire as the unexpended propellant from the rockets burned.

The Teklan podlings of the Church of the Digital Omnimessiah sang the Hymns of the Blessed Podlings in Ralvex's ears, their voices pure and sweet as he kept struggling forward through the mud and shattered rock.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC appeared in his visor but he paid no mind as he kept advancing even when the world turned white and his graviton spike howled with stress as the green mantid 525 kept Ralvex moving forward.

There was no going back.

There was no taking cover or taking shelter.

There was only forward.

The war for the planet was lost. Ralvex's briefing had made that clear. The Atrekna had established too deep of a beach head, had flooded the planet with Dwellerspawn and AWM faster than ever previously recorded, managed to establish their Elder Brains and the psionic network too quickly.

But, as General Rawgrakwa had said: This will be the most expensive planet the Atrekna ever bought.

The Brigade's target was merely known as Citadel Chronos.

It was heavily fortified, heavily guarded, with adaptive shielding. Its air defense was thick enough to swat even nanodrone clouds from the air. Its shields were good enough to even take God Rods with a smile. The walls shimmered with phasic energy thick enough that Ralvex had tasted blueberries thirty miles from the drop zone.

It had been attacked a half dozen times in the last six months as the sun dimmed from bright yellow.

Every time the commander had been forced to withdraw.

The General had asked for volunteers.

Ralvex had stepped forward.

Even as he stepped forward now, gritting his teeth past the phantom pain of the Fwoop Shot that shattered his phasic shielding for a split second and battered his body even as the alarms shrieked that his frontal armor was getting close to a blowout.

--i will ride this telkan to glory-- 525 sent across the channel.

"Shiny and chrome," Ralvex agreed as he kept up the fire from the heavy Madame Three-Eighteen.

PSYCHIC PSYCHIC PSYCHIC appeared in his vision as he lashed the exposed structure of the citadel with his heavy weapon, the rate of fire turned so high the nanoforge screamed like a teenager out after dark at a summer camp, while the heat sinks whistled like teapots.

Ralvex paid no attention, putting one foot in front of the other, licking the blood from the where it had leaked from his nose to wet the end of his muzzle.

He was a hundred paces in front of the rest of the Brigade that was still alive.

Eighty paces from the crumbled crystal of the citadel's outer wall.

The psychic shielding suddenly clamped down so hard on Ralvex's brain that he groaned and staggered, going down on one knee as his vision tunneled down and his mouth flooded with the taste of electric strawberries.

Ralvex, through the agony in his mind, went into the recovery position. Down on his right knee, left fist pressed into the mud, head down, right arm holding the weapon upwards.

PSYCHIC PSYCHIC PSYCHIC

The scream washed over him, the phasic energy so thick the exposed ablative layers of his armor cracking into dust and puffing off of him, streaming from his overheated armor like a black powder shadow.

Ralvex could taste the absolute terror coming from in front of him.

With the pure sweet sounds of the Telkan Podling Choir in his ears he ground his teeth together and managed to look up.

The shielding was down!

His vision tunneling down, static flashing across his eyes as his optic nerve struggled to function past the psychic assault, Ralvex managed to struggle to his feet.

"STAMPY! ONE POINT FIVE BIG MOMMA ON MY TARGET!" Ralvex roared out as he took a single step forward, lowered Madame Three-Eighteen into her work position, and squeezed the firing grip.

"STAMPY HELP!" the little drone squeaked happily from five hundred meters behind Ralvex. The little drone struggled to aim, heavily damaged, the 80mm Hellbore smoking. It's dim VI could see where the tracers were whipping into the heavy crystalline structure.

Stampy fired the one round he had left, the recoil throwing him, twirling, up into the air.

He landed on his side as the 1.5 megaton blast hit home.

Ralvex struggled forward, into the blast, hearing the alarms wail, the warnings scream.

--GRAVITY-- 525 screamed out in victory.

Ralvex's visor flashed twice and he could see a massive phasic signature in front of him that had been revealed by the nuclear hellfire of the Hellbore shot.

The Elder Brain was still screaming in horror as Ralvex lashed it with his autocannon.

----------

Roca turned slowly and stared around her as vehicle and armor exploded, robot combat armor fled the field, and everything in the air seemed to suddenly develop a love affair with the ground.

She looked at her squad.

"OK, who did what?" she asked.