His lenses flickered back and forth underneath the sunglasses as he pushed open the door. He kept expecting something to appear. His instincts screamed at him that it would be a trap. Send someone in to distract the target, surround, ambush, destroy. He shook his head softly. It wasn't a trap. It wasn't an ambush. It was an old friend, a civilian, not a soldier; of his wife, who also was a civilian. He was supposed to be the good host and stop playing hide and seek with ghosts! Stars be damned, he knew it to be true and he still couldn't completely accept it for the truth in his mind. He didn't deal well with surprises. For years anything that wasn't briefed meticulously beforehand meant trouble of the worst kind. He had even been staking out the village for a month before he went in, just to make sure that he'd know everyone before entering.

No, he didn't deal well with surprises. Onoelle had no idea how much this was taxing him. Forget playing the act where he moved like a normal human, he had to keep his mind focused or else the hormone cocktail that came out under stress would flood his system and then he'd be a goner. So would Jane. She'd be dead in a heartbeat and nothing would stop it from happening. Onoelle thought she had changed him and for a large part she had. He did not want to be a cold blooded killer. He hated war, hated the destruction it caused and hated death even more. He had lost too many already, he did not want to lose any more. Yet it was in his blood, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

He let out a deep sigh and stood still, gathering himself, before entering. A foreigner entering his base. House! Dammit!

'Oh wow! You've gone for the rustic approach, haven't you? Do you even have power in here?' Jane asked, chuckling.

'We do, but just to heat the water, otherwise we've gone native,' replied Onoelle.

'What!' came the surprised reply. 'Are you serious? But how do you watch anything? How do you go online? Don't you have a datapad?'

'Simple. We don't.'

'You're joking. Mentuc, tell me she's joking.'

'She's not,' he replied curtly.

'Can't you take those sunglasses off? It makes it way too easy for you to keep a pokerface!'

'He's got a medical condition. His eyes are quite sensitive to light, hence why he keeps them on,' interjected Onoelle quickly, saving him from having to explain. His hand rested gingerly on the glasses, fingers trembling slightly. Jane had turned to face Onoelle again and he shook his head slightly. He was straining himself but he couldn't keep this up. Jane was loud. His experience and training continuously screaming at him to take her out, grab his wife and look for cover, check the surroundings for snipers, listen to the telltale whistle of incoming mortar fire. His blood was on fire, his entire body itching to move.

'Anyway, how about I show you around. Mentuc, can you make us something to drink?'

'Yes. I will do that,' he replied, glad for it. He went towards the stove and set about kindling the embers.

'Coffee for you and black tea for Jane. Yes.'

Jane blinked in surprise. 'How did you know?' she asked.

Shit. He had fucked up. He could smell that on her lips and had extrapolated from there. He wasn't supposed to do that. He wracked his mind to find an answer, at least what little that wasn't actively suppressing his instincts. He came up empty.

'I told him.' Onoelle. Thank the stars for her. 'I mean, come on Jane,' she joked 'You're pretty much an addict!'

'Am not' the other woman protested.

'Yeah yeah,' she laughed, walking over to him. She tiptoed and kissed him softly on the lips, sharing a worried look with him in private. She mouthed the words take care, knowing he could read her lips, before turning around and returning to her friend.

'Come on, I'll show you around while he works his magic. You'll love seeing the decorations he's made!'

He watched the chatting pair in silence, letting his senses focus on the fire. He ran his bare fingers through the ashes, finding a remnant of warmth, as he gathered the glowing embers. His wife and her friend.

A friend.

The Flying Shark made contact with the hull, the batteries engaged and the fusion cutters went to work, the antenna like structures forming a full net the size of the shuttle as they burned through the hull. The magnets locked the craft in place as the antennae extended, a tiny onboard computer providing data as the fusion cutters melted their way through metres of metal. When it finally registered an absence of metal on the other end the fusion cutters disengaged and the antenna slid outwards, grabbing hold of the interior, pulling the shuttle in. The light in the shuttle went from red to yellow as the disintegrator field was switch on, turning the armour plating into ash as the shuttle took the metal's place. By the time the shuttle was fully embedded in the hull the fusion battery was practically depleted. The lights switched from yellow to green as the front plates split open and the soldiers from Project Genesis stormed out.

Sheepdog had only just opened his mouth to yell commands at his platoon when X-12845623, now known as Testy, lifted his carbine and opened fire at a trio of Kra'lagh, nailing them with a single burst. The kickback of the weapon was violent but it was well within expected parameters and nothing he could not handle. The green shots rammed into the charging insectoids and crushed their chitin on the first impact. The second turned their innards to pulp and the third and fourth were unnecessary and came out through the creature's back. Com links snapped on, information was shared and platoons were wordlessly formed, every man knowing what he had to do and whom he belonged with. The supermen from Project Genesis formed up in platoon, then split open in four five-man squads.

Testy checked his surrounding, the green ichor from where dozens of dead bugs lay clashing with the deep, dark grey of the metal that the dreadnought's superstructure was made of. His eyes took it all in. The Kra'lagh that his unit had slaughtered had been unarmed and unarmoured, probably crew. Even unarmed they were deadly opponents, their chitin doubling as body armour and they had talons instead of fingers. They could and would gleefully cut apart any human. What little the Empire knew from the alien race was that they would fight to the death, never retreating. Which wasn't much of a tactical advantage if the enemy also had absolute aerial superiority and just atomised you from orbit.

He double checked his HUD subconsciously, saw that everyone was present and without exchanging a word with his team he sat off, diving into the dark honeycomb structure of the ship.

'Hey! Testy!' came Sheepdog's rough voice. He didn't stop but turned his head instead, linking his HUD with the lieutenant's.

'Good luck!'

Good luck... What a strange phrase. Luck didn't factor into things. Still, it was a form of encouragement. He had seen other humans use it during his training.

'You too,' he replied. They were empty words but it seemed the proper thing to do, even if he did not see the point.

X-12845620 up to 5 were storming down the empty halls, carbines at the ready and occasionally sending a controlled burst of repulsor fire down a pathway, obliterating the unsuspecting Kra'lagh. A general alarm had not yet gone out and they were running that information through their minds. Facts were noted and assumptions were made. The original entry had gone unnoticed, so there were no sensors in the hull, or at the very least that part of it. The lack of an alarm hinted at a lack of sensors as well. Even the dumb computer intelligence that ran Imperial ships would have caught on to weapons firing instantly and sirens would have been blaring loudly. Sensor jamming would occur the moment the boarders broke into a ship and Marine detachments would surround them, lock up choke points and utterly annihilate the boarders or die trying. It seemed that the intel about the Kra'lagh being less adept at direct combat was true. He remembered Doctor Eisel's words; Take their naval supremacy away and they are easy pickings. He doubted it would that easy but it was a good start.

His HUD pinged as it received an update. Platoon Seven had run into serious resistance, having just blown open a door to what was the Kra'lagh equivalent of the crew's quarters or at least one of them, as a dreadnought had several. He looked at the shared screen as an urgent call for reinforcements ran through. A sound tactical evaluation, there were at least five hundred bugs in there, many of them armed. Twenty versus five hundred was not good odds. He noticed several pings running through his sensors and knew that four platoons had responded and were on their way, while Seven was already falling back to a choke point where they would wait for the others, reaping heavy casualties as they went, still sharing intelligence of how the quarters had looked like. Like a beehive, except made in metal.

Keeping an eye open for anything that resembled the same symbols that were imprinted on the walls near the discovered quarters, the Genesis troops ran deeper into the dreadnought, covering a large amount of distance as they serviced small groups of crew along the way. So far they were making great headway with little resistance but sooner or later that would change.

They hit a four-way split and paused, the two front elements moving slightly towards the centre of the path, covering the front. The two final elements turned around and covered the rear. The rest ran across, carbines pointing down the empty hallways as they crossed. It was text book, an age old tactic and still as effective today as it had been hundreds of years ago. The split was logged, added to the rapidly growing map of the ship and the platoon continued, their progress not even slowed by the tactical manoeuvre. They found a new set of doors and the front elements flicked on their disruptor blades while the rest took cover. Rather than try to cut open the lock and shove it open, they simply ran along the edges, using their superior strength to cut through the metal. It wouldn't work with blast doors, those were far too thick to slice through in one go, but for these it worked just fine. Using their magnetic boots the supersoldiers ran across the ceiling, cutting the doors wide open. A small gravitic charge was applied, aimed, set and detonated, blasting the door inwards without causing any collateral damage. The platoon ran in and found themselves accompanied by a blaring alarm. At first he thought that was because a hundred of his brothers were tearing half a thousand bugs apart with impunity and that one of them had, which would be a logical action, triggered the alarm that borders were present. He was wrong however, as he looked at what seemed to be the bridge, the large room filled to the brim with computers, important looking bugs and well over a dozen automated turrets that were swivelling towards them.

Then he and the rest of the platoon sought cover as a torrent of fire sterilised the hall with superheated plasma. His Muninn recorded it and provided him with additional information, comparing the output of fire to the known schematics stored in the system, trying to find a solid hit. It simultaneously registered the output and informed him that his shields could withstand five shots before the safety would kick in, which meant it was useless to try and return fire to the turrets as the shots were pouring in by the dozen. They were effectively pinned. They could take out the turrets, but that would require sending at least one man to be a scapegoat and draw fire. Taking losses this early in wasn't acceptable given that they still had reinforcements running around. The request for reinforcements once again ran through the shared HUD system and was swiftly answered by another nearby platoon that was about two minutes out, provided they didn't run into any obstacles.

Then it was answered again, by another platoon that was much closer but moving much slower.

'We're on our way Testy! Told ya we could keep up with you, ya bastard!' came Sheepdog's voice.

He turned around and his lenses overlapped, letting him peer down the straight hallway and spotted Grey Platoon in the distance, closing as rapidly as their power armour allowed.

'Thought you supermen could handle anything?' he growled into the coms.

'Platoon twelve is on the way. I advice you to stay back,' he replied.

'What? Not even a thank you. Don't worry my darling freak, we'll take care of those turrets for you. Gutsy! Hammer time!'

'Sir yes sir!' clicked in a voice on the local coms.

'Stand down!' he shouted.

'Belay that, fry those—'

He saw one of his brothers raise his carbine, aiming at the so called Gutsy who was crawling to the front, making sure to not come too close to the door so that he'd be in the turrets' field of fire. He pushed down the carbine and violently shook no.

'Lieutenant, you will not fire! If you fire that missile it will explode when the plasma hits and you will kill us.'

The Hammer-launcher was a heavy RPG that could pull double duty in both space and ground operations. Depending on the ammo you could either blow straight to a battle tank or reduce a decent sized bunker to a pile of rubble. Both types of warheads, however, would not survive the barrage of plasma that was heading their way. The resulting explosion would wipe the entirety of platoon fifteen.

'HOLD FIRE!' the Lt screamed into the coms, causing the soldier wielding the RPG to nearly drop it in surprise. X-12845624 lowered his carbine and turned his attention back to the front, seeing that the danger was gone. If the man named Gutsy had fired, his platoon would have opened up. They would not have let the missile come close enough to them to do any damage. It would have meant wiping out the other platoon, but it was simply a cold equation. They were better soldiers, so their survival was more beneficial. X-12845623, ever the outsider, had chosen to do something they weren't specifically trained in; conversation, to diffuse the dangerous situation. He found it good that it had worked. It had kept the other platoon alive. The Empire could ill afford to throw soldiers away, even if they were of a lower quality.

While Sheepdog motioned his man to get back amongst the rest, platoon twelve ran into the hallway, scaring the crap out of Grey platoon with their sudden appearance, their rear man seeing them pop up on his HUD at the same time that they appeared.

'Show me then, Testy, how are you going to solve it,' Sheepdog asked.

Testy didn't bother to answer. With two platoons together they had enough computing power to sync up and throw a disorienting wave of blanket jamming, rendering the turrets' sensors moot. The torrent of fire fell still as the sensors reset and in that exact moment the rear two squads jumped from cover, filing out into the hallway as they simultaneously scanned the bridge for hostiles while hosing the turrets with repulsor fire, turning them into scrap with a single, well aimed salvo. Minor explosions ensued as the plasma reactors' containment was breached. While pandemonium ensued on the bridge, the first two squads had rolled out of cover as well. Screened by their teammates in the rear their job was to deal with any sentient life on the bridge. X-12845621 was blown back by a well aimed plasma shot as one of the soldiers on the bridge opened fire, his shields flaring to life and keeping him from harm. Even while airborne he returned fire while the Muninn automatically assigned targets to the supersoldiers, each of them eliminating them in a heartbeat.

'Genesis Battalion, company Alpha,' the assigned platoon lead whispered in the coms. 'Be advised, platoons twelve and fifteen have taken the bridge and have started securing it. Continue to other objectives. Data will be delivered as we get it.'

The Kra'lagh in the bridge had been officers with a handful of guards, clearly not having expected a breach to occur. Normally this was where IT experts would take over, hack the systems and do their thing, hijacking the ship and flying it back. Given that the Empire had no one that had any experience with working with Kra'lagh systems this meant that it would be up to the Muninn to guide the Genesis soldiers through it. Of course there would be no flying back until the mission timer ran out. A thought occurred to Testy and he clicked himself into the open channel.

'Genesis Battalion, company Alpha. Be advised, shepherd the 74th into the mission zones. Double back if possible, guide them to preserve mission assets and let them assume defensive positions.'

The 74th Special Boarding Battalion had run into a few fights here and there and despite being 'highly trained' they had taken a fair amount of losses. Nothing that would compromise the mission as the casualties were still within the double digits, but enough to call their capability in doubt by Genesis standards. Running through a foreign ship however, would mean that they would run into traps, ambushes and choke points. If he and his brethren screened them until they were in the critical areas, however, they could return the favour to the enemy. They would exchange some time for mission assets.

His advice was acknowledged and he could already see the platoons near his location sending out orders to the men of the 74th, redirecting them while highlighting locations on the map where they could set up ambushes, simultaneously highlighting the area beyond the bridge, what they had yet to explore, in bright red. He did the same for Sheepdog, who snarled back in response.

'We don't need any babysitting, Testy.'

He wasn't quite convinced of that. He turned around and rejoined his squad, falling back in line with the rest of his platoon. The 12th entered the bridge a moment later, spreading out among the alien computers and hooking up with them. It gave them advantage, finding the bridge as early as they had as it likely meant they had cut off the enemy from playing vile tricks with decompression, gravity plating and anything else a starship could play on an unwelcome host.

The Genesis troopers went to work, half of them securing the entrances to the many entrances to the bridge, a major difference with Imperial ships that only had a singular entrance, while the other half plugged themselves into the system, their Muninn computers synchronising and launching an overwhelming offensive on the ship's systems. Their computers had been updated with the Empire's latest cyberwarfare systems and were making good headway, especially since they were launched directly from the bridge. Once again targets and objectives were called and spread between the Genesis troops as they dived into the wealth of information, sorting through what was useful for them and what was not. The rest of Grey Platoon filtered into the bridge, making far too much noise and useless comments to his liking, but at least Sheepdog was making them take up defensive positions, aiming his men in the direction they had come from. It was the sensible decision as his men were by far the weakest and it was likely that the pathway they had already cleared would produce fewer enemies in case of a counterattack.

X-12845623's HUD beeped loudly as his Muninn connected his onboard map with the ship's layout as one of his teammates cracked the final layer of defences and downloaded it. An excellent find and green lights flickered on by the hundreds as the system overlapped the known position of his allies with the ship's layout. Aside from the few locations where the Imperial troops were actively engaging the enemy, the map showed remarkable few red dots. The only places that showed proper activity were likely to be their targets. He could see the Genesis platoons redirect themselves towards those locations.

'Be advised, there are very few internal sensors.'

That explained why they couldn't find many enemies. There were barely a thousand red dots on the map at present.

Then the map exploded, large swathes of red colouring the map. His mind analysed it as thousands of enemies made themselves known in a handful of locations. The crew quarters, probably. Stasis pods? They were insects, had they been made dormant? If so what was controlling them? A queen? He understood how the previous assaults had all failed in that moment. There were well over fifteen thousand enemies now and since the active crew had been only a few thousand, this meant that these were proper soldiers. One group in particular was approaching the bridge with incredible pace, equalling the pace they themselves had set.

The lead of platoon twelve clicked into the global coms.

'Be advised, we've got specialists incoming,' he simply stated, downloading a local map and sharing it with Grey Platoon, a wave of red dots advancing on them from all directions. Hundreds. They, on the other hand, only had forty men and twenty Boarders, with the nearest allied platoon being six minutes out.

'Sheepdog, we have incoming, anti-boarder specialists. You will handle this corridor. Link up with my HUD.'

'Don't worry Testy, we'll show you how it's done. Ain't that right Boarders? Hoorah!'

'Hoorah!' cheered the men around the rough lieutenant.

X-12845623 really didn't understand them, but was relieved when Sheepdog linked up with his HUD, a more permanent connection between the two as they now shared line of sight as well. It would be necessary. The Genesis troops would be hard pressed to hold this assault. He held not much hope for the others. Scratch that. There were at least two hundred enemies coming down on Sheepdog alone. They would not last a single charge.

'X-12845621, prepare to cover Grey Platoon,' he whispered into his coms. His brother clicked to confirm after a few seconds, running the scenario through and coming to the same conclusion. The two of them slid into cover behind an impressive bridge console, the metal looking thick enough to absorb a significant amount of fire. In the front traps were being set, grenades primed and energy cells were swapped, reloading their carbines while putting the empty cells into a slot in their armour, letting it recharge. They were about to burn through a lot of ammunition really quickly. Their repulsor carbines would give them another advantage as the sheer energy of the impact would seriously impede the bugs' charge. They'd need it. There were at least a thousand of them heading their way and the Empire knew nothing of how they fought tactically. This would be the Project Genesis' trial by fire.

He felt his heartbeat quicken as he peeked down the yet empty hallways. He let his Muninn run a check on his equipment, then double checked it himself just in case, before aiming down his sights. Small corridors. Narrow approaches. Repulsor carbines. Shields and grenades. If they just charged it would be a one-sided slaughter, but he did not believe the bugs would make it that easy. Not these ones. He steadied his breath and waited, finger ready on the trigger, for the first bug to enter his field of fire.

A sense of alarm kicked him back to the present and he blinked, clearing away the memory of Sheepdog and the echoes of hundreds of angry bugs barrelling down on their position. He looked down, found the kettle whistling angrily at him and smiled. He took it off the fire and started filling mugs, letting his senses guide him through the process of making tea. Supposedly there was a skill behind it, or so Nyna, Onoelle's mother, had told him. Supposedly he was very skilled at it, clearly a sign of a good upbringing, whatever that meant. He just followed his nose and so far it had worked every time. He shook his head at the absurdity of it all, picked up the two steaming mugs and went to find his wife and her friend, mentally prepping himself to be confronted with a stranger in his house once again.