Sarge scowled at us as we regained our feet. A zombie made the fatal mistake of emerging from the surf within his sight. He took it down with an efficient burst of fire as he strode angrily forward.

"What the hell do you think you were doing, Peters?"

Kuwta and Robinson quietly sidled away from me, moving sensibly out of the likely blast radius.

I put my hands up in a gesture of submission but backed off all the same. Sarge's reprimands could be painful.

"A Marine never leaves a man behind. Sir." I muttered stubbornly, refusing to apologize for what I'd done. Still, I looked intently at the floor as I said it; no point in poking the dragon any harder than you had to.

Sarge looked at me closely. His eyes examined every freckle on my face as my lip quivered nervously in anticipation of his reaction.

"Alright, what's done is done. Glad you made it out alive." He nodded with grudging respect.

I slowly let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"What now, Sarge?" I asked. All around us was the dictionary definition of devastation. The bunker walls had cracked and crumbled under the explosions. The beach was pockmarked with the after-effects of shelling and littered with remains.

The wind whistled in over the scum covered sea. Dirty waves lapped at the sand, dragging the torn remains of bodies onto the beach.

At that moment, It seemed like we might be the only living creatures left alive on the planet.

"We finish our mission." Sarge stated resolutely, "The target is destroyed, but we need to contact command and let them know. Some of the other teams had comms equipment. We split into two groups and work our way up the beach checking corpses until we find a radio."

"And we help any survivors," I stated stubbornly.

"If there are any," I got the impression the older man was humoring me. He didn't look confident at the prospect.

"You and Kuwta take the south end, Westcott and limp along will take the north end with me."

"Right," I nodded.

Westcott eagerly scooted out from where he'd been lurking behind Sarge and went to help Robinson. The kid was like a lapdog, far too eager to please. I was starting to want to kick him.

"Let's get moving," I grunted at Kuwta.

Time to go grave robbing.

We didn't have to go more than twenty yards before we reached our first casualties. Each of the corpses was dressed in the same grey Imperial Numeri uniform that I was wearing.

The bodies could have passed for humans if it hadn't been for their pointed ears.

According to my nanobots, they were from the Elder race.

The Elder

The Elder like to consider themselves the oldest and most established of the known space-faring races. Long-lived humanoids Elder resemble the mythological elves of earth, but without any famed magical ability.

Kuwta watched over me with her gun ready as I rolled the nearest body over. He flopped over easily; there hadn't been time for rigor mortis to set in yet.

Bullet holes riddled his body. One had shattered his eye socket leaving his face a bloody mess. If the movies were right, this probably explained why he hadn't returned as a zombie.

A track of blood showed that the first shots hadn't killed him, injured, he had attempted to drag himself into cover only to the headshot to finish him off only a meter away from the cover he'd been crawling towards.

Poor bastard.

His pockets contained little of interest. A packet of what I presumed was chewing gum, some dice, and a holographic photo. His family peered back at me, eerily three dimensional in the flat paper. They almost turned to look at me as I tilted it back and forth.

"Hurry up," Kuwta reminded me as she fired a burst of bullets at a rising zombie further down the beach.

"Alright, no need to nag." Standing, I released the photo into the wind. It sashayed on the breeze before coming to rest in the sand near its owner. I didn't see it land, having already moved on to loot the next casualty.

After the first half dozen corpses, everything became a blur. I no longer saw the bodies as fellow soldiers; they were just storage items to be ransacked.

We had yet to locate anything of particular interest despite our grave robbing and definitely nothing resembling a radio.

I had lost count of the number of corpses when Kuwta announced, "What the hell is that?"

Near the edge of the beach, a small overturned boat, no more than six feet long, drifted in towards shore. Blue dashes broke up the matt black shell, and I had the feeling I'd seen it before somewhere.

A series of sharp clicking noise echoed out as it suddenly popped upward, insectoid feet lifting it upward. Seconds later, a small ugly bug-head popped out from underneath its carapace and flicked back and forth.

It was a bloody Skitter.

Species: Scutelleridae (Skitters)

The Scutelleridae, commonly known as Skitters, are a hive-based species. Each hive is reigned over by a queen who commands the common workers. Workers largely lack imagination and autonomy and will sacrifice themselves for the betterment of their hive. Lacking creativity, their species has developed only limited technology and has not mastered space flight at this time.

It is rumored that experiments have been made to integrate this species into the Imperial Marines as shock troops, but this has neither been confirmed nor denied officially.

Kuwta dropped to one knee, taking aim as she watched the alien cautiously. "Fucking bugs, I hate them."

The Skitters head jerked in my direction and alien eyes focussed upon me. Watching intently for several seconds, then it chittered loud at me. "We know you," it stated as it reared up to its full seven feet of height.

Internally I groaned. Seriously this couldn't be the same Skitter surely … but there on the creature's thorax. I could see the silvery color of the aerosol bandage.

Now the question was, did it hold a grudge about me slaughtering its kin?

The click of Kuwta's gun encouraged me to take prompt action before the Orc warrior acted on her instincts.

Standing, I moved forward slowly with my hands outstretched, in what I hoped was a peaceful gesture.

"We mean you no harm." I may have been exaggerating somewhat; it was pretty obvious that Kuwta would have no problem doing the creature harm.

"Helped Brzzktal before. Help us again?"

I looked at Kuwta and winked at her, "Why not? We seemed to be adopting misfits."

Then turning back to the bug, "Welcome to the squad, Private. We need to do something about that name though?"

"How about Buzz Kill," Kuwta suggested as she moved slightly back away from the advancing Skitter.

The Skitter stayed near me as our group grew. They acted like an overgrown dog, intelligent but reluctant to act without guidance.

Buzz Kill was the first of several stragglers we discovered. They came from various races. Most were lone survivors from a group who had been hiding, shivering in the cold surf waiting for death to take them.

As our group grew, we were able to search faster. Many hands make light work, as my mom used to say.

We moved further down the beach like locusts picking over the corpses we found and hoovering up any survivors, including them into our ever-expanding crew.

After an hour of searching, there were nearly two dozen of us combing the beach.

Despite this, all we had located were survivors. The means to contact command continued to elude us.

"Hey Peters, get your arse over here!" Robinson hollered from some distance away.

Perhaps Sarge's group had better luck?

As I walked over, I noticed the difference between the two groups. Mine was a disorganized rabble. I hadn't really taken control of them and as I walked over, groups of them slowly realized where I was heading and followed suit.

In contrast, even at a distance, the other group looked regimented. A small tent had been erected on the beach. Its camouflage had been designed for a forest, and it stood out like a sore thumb against the beach's sand.

A small regimented line stood outside of it, waiting for entry. As I watched, someone exited the tent, and another moved inside. Elsewhere sentries stood watching the edge of the beach while the remainder of their force methodically scoured the area.

My face flushed in embarrassment as I realized how ineptly I'd approached our search. I was no leader of men. Heck, some days, I was impressed that I managed to dress myself.

"Hurry up," Robinson was flushed when he reached me. "Major Dailey isn't someone who likes being kept waiting."

I hadn’t heard of anyone claiming rank within the Imperium forces before.

This could be interesting.