“Where the fuck did they come from?” shrieked Staff Sergeant Wyatt DeBoer as he bailed out of his stricken infantry fighting vehicle, flames licking at his heels and the screams of the driver searing his soul.

Trapped in the shattered remains there was nothing he could do but let her cook.

All around him pulsers, solid shot and lasers cut through the air, blasting the men and women under his command.

An IFV detonated, shrapnel cutting through the soldiers of first platoon, 5th company of the Veld Lancers. The blast knocked him sideways.

“Dammit! We need air support!” DeBoer yelled into his comm-set. He repeated his call.

Nothing.

Not even static

He shook the set before realising it had been shattered by a metal splinter. Roaring in frustration he threw the shattered comm-set in the general direction of the enemy.

Howls, hoots, yips and roars filled the air as their enemy charged into close combat. The Veld Lancers were pinned as enemy support weapons continued to blast away.

“Where the hell is our mecha support? Fucking cowards!” DeBoer raged as he scanned the tacmap for their unit symbols. His people needed them. They were dying.

The Veld Lancers were a mixture of mechanised infantry and mechas. A fast moving, hard-hitting blend of man and technology capable of taking on even a company of super heavies.

“Fix bayonets!” ordered the platoon commander.

An inexperienced 1st Lieutenant he was still wet behind the ears.

DeBoer sneered at the fear in his voice as his command was cut down around him.

Fucking dick, he thought as he took a shot at an enemy trooper, blowing its guts out. Going to get us all killed.

An elechimera stepped out of the swirling clouds of dust and smoke bare metres away from DeBoer. Spreading its legs it braced its belt-fed fully automatic shotgun on its hips.

Trumpeting a war cry it used its armoured proboscis to wave a mono sword cutting down a screaming trooper with ease.

Without thought DeBoer threw himself down into the dust. He screamed with fear as the elechimera opened fire.

The air was filled the air with thousands of small-calibrate hyper-velocity flechettes.

His people didn’t stand a chance at such a close range, their armour shredding just as easily as their flesh.

The last thing he heard as the elechimera’s shadow fell over him was his lieutenant screaming for help into the comm-net.

“Mayday ... incomin ... eject ...”

“Can”t hold them! Too many! Where”s our supp ...”

“55th mechas engaged, need arti ... they”re flanking.”

“Help me, help me, help me, they’re coming, they’re ...”

“Veld Lancers! We’ve been ambushed! Chimeras flooding us we need he…”

Uluthando Sigwaxa, 5th Bhuyeni Pulse Rifles, sighed as she flicked the bunker’s comm station off. She looked around the ops room, her mouth dry and palms sweating. Her people were just as frightened as she was, their eyes wide and Adam’s apples bobbing.

“Forget what you’ve heard,” she said, wishing her mouth didn’t feel as though it was packed with cotton wool.

“We’ve got a good position here. There’s plenty of ammunition, food and water. We’ve been dug in for weeks. Those units were ...” she mentally cursed at her poor choice of word, “are engaged on the plain. In the open. We’ve got artillery dialled in, sentry guns, iMines, and the enemy’s at least ...”

She didn’t have a chance to finish as alarms started blaring and her platoon’s comm-net was flood with chatter.

“Contact front!”

“How the fuck did they get so close!”

“Ammo! Need ammo!”

Snapping her visor down she waited for the hiss of her helmet sealing automatically before turning to charge out of the ops room.

Her HUD engaged and filled with contact reports. It might as well have been a solid block of red.

Explosions rocked the ground, so powerful that she even felt the shockwave through her armour. Casualty reports started coming in. Serial number after serial number turned red as her people died.

She winced as her comms-net flooded with panicked calls for help. A quick flick of her chin dropped the volume. At least now she could concentrate.

“Override 255! Squad leaders only,” she commanded. Immediately her command-suit cleared the comm-net and silenced the panicked cries. She slammed her hand onto the bunker’s exit release and charged into the trench system beyond.

“Shit!” She thanked Xerxes for the catheter in her suit. A commander with piss-stained trousers was guaranteed to kill morale.

The trench was filled with the enemy. Hideous chimera breeds, crosses between man and Hyena.

She shot the nearest in the leg as she brought her pulse rifle up, atomising chunks of fur and flesh as she raked it with automatic fire

Sigwaxa charged as she fired. Her suit’s auto-defences snapped her arms up as a power-iklwa was thrust at her face, her enemy slathering with ecstasy as its bio-engineered body was flooded with combat-stims.

A low kick to the shin brought its head forward and she slammed her helmet into its snout. It stumbled away in pain, clearing her rifle for a burst that blew entrails in all directions.

Despite her kills, the enemy pressed forward, vibro-claws and iklwa thrusting towards her. A flick of a switch with her tongue, and her shoulder-mounted acid thrower kicked into life, coating the enemies before her in a viscous substance.

Its effect was immediate, and horrific.

Enemy soldiers howled and yipped as they tried to brush the corrosive substance off. Their skin sloughed off as they did so. Smoke rose from their flesh as the acid ate through it, fat melting in great gobbets.

Even the air they breathed was now toxic, and they coughed chunks of blackened lung out with each gurgling scream.

The air was filled with the stench of excrement as their bladders and bowels voided. Bodies fell to the floor, thrashing in agony.

Recoiling from the sight before her, she stepped back into the bunker, thankful for her helmet’s respirator as thick clouds of smoke rose from the corpses.

+++++ INCOMING ORDER - HOLD AT ALL COSTS - STAND FIRM +++++

It was an all-comms broadcast, every soldier in her platoon would have received it. And she knew just how fucking happy they would be to hear it.

“Sergeant Jonker, sit rep,” she gasped. Her mind raced as it tried to catch up with what she’d just gone through. Her senior NCO was out in the trenches. No one better to have a full grasp of the situation.

“Enemy regiment to the front. More to the flanks. An element broke through, looks like you dealt with that,” he said, her helmet automatically translating his NeoAfrikaans into her native isiZulu.

“We’re holding the ones attacking us.”

“Coming to you,” she replied, chinning her helmet so that it mapped the quickest route to him.

As she sprinted along the narrow confines of the trench, she forced herself to ignore the still-smoking bodies of her victims. Her helmet’s audio pickup helped her to gauge the areas of heaviest engagement.

It made no sense for her to get stuck into a firefight that served no tactical purpose. Didn’t stop her from feeling like a coward.

Of course, Jonker’s in the bloody thick of it, she thought wryly as she charged past a section of her troops, all of them pouring fire at the enemy beyond the bio-wire.

Formed by nanites in less than thirty minutes to Dominion Standard Operating Procedures, the trenches were perfectly cut through the earth. Ribbed floor to aid footing, perfectly smooth walls and each section the perfect depth and length.

A cut left, a sprint down a communications trench, a cut right and a grunt as she bounced off a wall, and then she was into the main firing line.

Jonker was a few metres away, his huge form striding up and down the section of the trench. His trademark power axe hummed as he used it to wave out encouragement.

“Kill every fucker and the wors and bloutrein are on me!” he roared.

She left him to it, he’d have seen her arrive on his on HUD and it looked as though he had everything in hand.

Hopping up onto a fire step, she poked her rifle over the lip of the trench and gasped as the sight fed data into her HUD.

It was as though the grass plain beyond their position was alive. Waves of chimera-breed soldiers advanced through the chest-high grass.

Cheetah light infantry, acting as skirmishers, dashed from cover-to-cover. Heavy infantry, mostly Rhinos, lumbered behind them.

“Bollocks.”

Roughly one click in front of her position was a series of dried river beds. The soft earth of the plains had been eaten away by the rivers which would race through during the rainy season and made a perfect staging point for the enemy soldiers.

Sigwaxa’s fingers danced on her palm as she called up a tactical map. Her stomach flipped as she looked at their position.

Enemy units marked by red symbols were advancing on a wide front. At least three waves of infantry and armoured vehicles.

Her position was a set of insta-bunkers and trenches on a slight rise. As far as she could tell their position was the only still held by Dominion-loyal soldiers.

“Command, this is Sigwaxa, bunker 2-3 Alpha. Requesting fire support on positions 2-3 Charlie, Delta, and Gamma. Over.”

Energy pulses and solid shot slammed into the edge of the trench making her flinch even though there was no chance they could hit her.

The amount of firepower pouring in was apocalyptic. Dust filled the air, reducing visibility within the trench to just a few metres even with her helmet’s advanced vision technology.

Casualties popped up on her HUD as a huge shockwave blasted through the trench, quickly followed by an enormous plume of dust.

“Medics to section four,” she ordered. Her heart pounded as she stared at the chunk of shell casing the size of her head which jutted out of the trench wall millimetres away from her face.

Motherfucker!

“Bunker 2-3 Alpha, this is Command. Artillery on its way,” Command finally replied, the auto-translator removing any hint of emotion from the voice. Although maybe, considering they were sat miles away in a soft chair, they really weren’t that excited about the battle raging around her.

Popping her rifle back over the lip, she watched as the first salvo slammed into her target.

Even at this range she could clearly see bodies cartwheeling through the air as the first of the shells detonated.

She bounced up and down whooping as airbursts showered the riverbed with shrapnel. Acid bomblets spun through the air as they spat out their deadly payload, and deadly nanites rained down.

“That was fucking lekker, ma’am,” said Jonker as he took position next to her. “Although we can’t see for shit now, too much dust, and the bloody plain’s on fire.”

He was right, the high explosive had thrown hundreds of tons of dust into the still air of the plain, and the long brown grass was burning; thick clouds of smoke billowing up.

“Shit, that’s not good,” she said as she saw just how far the flames had spread. “They’re coming our way.”

“Dammit,” he cursed. “It’s going to fuck our infra-red.”

Elephants trumpeted, hyenas cackled, and lions roared, each of the chimera giving voice to their own war cry.

“And those bastards bloody well know it,” she snapped, switching through her HUD’s visual spectrums as quickly as she could, trying to find one that could pierce the both bright heat of the fire and thick fog of the smoke and dust. “Bollocks, we’re blind.”

She chinned her comm. “Platoon 3-4, open fire. Blind shoot. Don’t let the bastards get close.”

“They’re in the wire!”

The shout went up along the line as the enemy troops entered the bio-wire.

Screams filled the air as the living wire sought out vulnerable points in their armour and then burrowed into their bodies. And yet they still came on.

“Up! Up and at them!” she ordered as the first survivor staggered into view, blindly spraying the contents of its battle-rifle in the approximate direction of their position.

Slinging her rifle, she drew her iklwa and activated her force isihlangu, a five-foot long shield of crackling energy.

Her lips peeled back, baring her teeth as she led the charge. User her helmet’s speakers to amplify the effect she screamed out her war cry.

Blasting out at over 200 decibels it stunned the enemy.

Hope you’re fucking deaf, she thought as the enemy milled in confusion. For a previous few seconds it seemed as though they couldn’t quite believe the humans would charge them.

She didn’t give them time to gather their wits. In only a few strides she was in their midst. She slashed the point of her iklwa across the throat of a leochimera, filling the air with blood and the hairs of its mane.

Spinning, she caught a blast of flechettes on her shield and thrust her spear over the cover it provided. The tip drove deep into the throat of the hyena who had just fired.

It gobbled. Blood spilled out of its mouth. Sigwaxa drove a hard kick into its chest, sending the dying hyena spinning away.

Screams of rage and pain filled the air as the rest of her command surged into the enemy. Bodies and limbs fell to the ground as they hacked and slashed with their own force weapons.

“Push them back into the wire!” she panted.

Icons representing the soldiers under her command started to turn red as their stunned enemy started to rally.

Another leo stepped in front of her, arms spread wide as electricity crackled between the blades of its combat claws.

In another time she would have marvelled at such a fine specimen of engineering and even trembled at the unit badge of six assegai crossed over a white shield.

But she was too drained to feel anything but thirst.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” she goaded, using her helmet’s speaker to let every being around hear the challenge.

It charged, roaring so loud that her helmet’s sound-dampening automatically kicked in.

A brawler, it came at her with both claws slashing in from the sides.

Sigwaxa’s training kicked in and she moved closer. Stepping back would have opened her to another attack and pushed her away from her objective.

Instead, she was now inside its arms where the force of its blows would be drastically reduced.

Her energy shield crashed edge-on into a bicep the size of her thigh, striking deeply into the pressure point beneath the flesh, deadening it immediately.

On the other side she reversed the grip on her spear as she raised her armoured arm to shield her head as best as possible, spear tip pointing towards the shoulder joint of the leo.

As soon as the leo’s arm struck, stars exploded across her vision. Stepping forward she thrust her spear as hard as she could.

What had been a roar of challenge turned into a yowl of pain as the leo’s own momentum drove the spear deep into its body.

Still gasping from the blow, Sigwaxa wanted nothing more than to live through the next few seconds.

She released her grip on the spear, threw an arm under the leo’s armpit, pivoted and dropped to the ground, launching the leo over her head.

It landed muzzle first, unable to use either arm to soften the fall. In a flash she drew her pistol, jammed it against the back of the leo’s head and blew its face clean off.

“Fuck, didn’t want to leave any for us?” panted Jonker as he reached down and offered her a hand up.

She tried laughing, but her throat was too dry, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop if she started.

“Sit rep?”

“Seventy-five per cent casualties boss lady,” he said.

Shaking her head to rid it of the effects of the leo’s last attack she stared slack-jawed at the devastation surrounding them.

The bio-wire writhed mere centimetres from her. Bodies of the enemy soldiers twitched like scarecrows as the wire coiled through their bodies, drinking their blood.

Sigwaxa shuddered, thankful that her suit’s friend of foe signal protected her from a similar fate.

Turning, she walked to the edge of the trench and looked down. Corpses lined the trench, some lying two or three deep, others draped over the walls of the trench.

Bodies twitched, some groaning, others snoring – a sure sign of massive head trauma. A few screamed for their mothers. Most were still.

“Get the wounded into the bunker as priority. Kill all the wounded chimeras and set a line of booby traps from fifty metres away up the trench,” she ordered. “Make them pay for every step they take. Traps outside of the trench too, as they’ll be jumping out as soon as they realise what we’ve done.”

Jonker saluted. The motion exposed a great tear in his equipment which in turn revealed a nasty cut.

“Get that fixed too. Don’t want you getting an infection, Mr. Jonker would never forgive me if you didn’t get home!”

He laughed, whether it was because he found it funny, or found her attempt at humour amusing, she didn’t know.

Didn’t care if it brought him a small amount of happiness.

“Mr. Jonker’s so pissed off at me for re-enlisting that he’d thank you for getting me invalided out.”

“Carry on, sergeant,” she smiled, turning before he could see the tears spilling down her cheeks.

The bunker was in surprisingly good condition bar a few cracks in the ceiling from enemy shelling. Consoles sparked where the shielding in one room had failed under an EMP strike.

More importantly, it was cool, a good twenty degrees less than outside.

Sigwaxa sighed as she looked at the former inhabitants. None of the garrison had survived, torn apart by close-quarter weapons.

A couple of chimera shock-troopers lay amongst their victims, chunks of flesh hanging from their jaws and hand-long claws.

Nudging one with her foot, she sighed as she saw the Nagwolwe - Night Wolves - unit patch on its battle armour.

“Is that a Nagwolwe?” gasped a private, De Boer, according her to her HUD. “Fok my, they’re the bloody originals. Most highly decorated unit in NeoAfrikaans history. Have they all turned? Every chimera?”

“We don’t know. And we won’t know if you don’t get to your assigned post. Gaan weg,” snapped Sigwaxa.

There was a shuffling of feet behind her and she glanced over her shoulder, turning fully as soon as she saw who it was.

“We’ve set traps as ordered ma’am,” reported Jonker.

She reached out and lifted his arm, grunting softly in satisfaction as she saw the white bandages wrapped tightly around his chest. “Placement?”

“Both sides. Found a couple of dead engineers and their equipment which made our traps far more interesting.”

They shared a grin at that.

“Nice to have a bit of luck. Speaking of which, the bunker is fully operational.”

“Lekker!” smiled Jonker. “Next you’ll be saying you’ve got a braii going.”

“Better. Acid and flame throwers are fully stocked. Hyper-velocity miniguns, 20mm grenade machine guns, bio-wire mines, and enough supplies to last us a month.”

Jonker’s mouth turned down at that. “Don’t think ...”

Alarms blared, guns opened up, and another attack began.

Sigwaxa moved her gloved hand, the neuro-interface causing her multi-barrelled twin-mounted machine guns to track quickly onto a squad of chimera trying to dismount from a burning AFG.

She pointed her finger and curled it as if pulling a trigger, snarling as a stream of hard rounds blasted the enemy infantry apart.

Their bodies exploded under the kinetic force of more than fifty bullets per second hitting them. Scraps of flesh were all that remained.

An elechimera stood, planting a heavy shield in front of it, it brought its shoulder-mounted missile launcher to bear.

“Fuck you, Dumbo,” she spat, laying her reticle directly onto the chimera’s weapon, sending a quick burst into it.

Sparks flew and the missile mis-fired. With a gout of flame it flew less than a metre before nosing into the soft earth, and the chimera dove back into cover.

Its engine sputtered and died.

“Damn, that was disappointing,” Sigwaxa sighed, tracking for more targets. All she could see were enemy dead.

“Any luck on contacting friendly units?” she asked Jonker over a private channel.

“None, ma’am. They’ve pulled back to Command Line Delta. Fifty kilometres back. We’re the only humans left here.”

Sigwaxa took a moment to suck on her replenished water bottle’s straw.

“Upload all of our combat footage and set the servers to broadcast continually from now on. If we’re going to die in this shithole, we’re at least going to have a film made of it. Who knows, we might be the next Last Stand.”

Smoke filled the corridors and tight confines of the bunker as Sigwaxa pulled what was left of her people back. Forced to slowly give ground to the chimera as their overwhelming numbers pushed them on the back heel.

She and her battle buddy took turns covering each other’s withdrawal. Her suit’s ammunition reserve depleted, she’d ejected her mounted weapons and armed herself with a pulser.

She’d have given anything to have the acid thrower right now.

Pulsers raced between the two groups, carving chips out of the walls and chunks out of flesh. Men, women and beasts all cried out in pain as the superheated gasses cored charred passages through their bodies.

There was no blood from these wounds, the heat of the pulsers cauterising the flesh instantly.

Others were killed by solid shot weapons. No matter how sophisticated weapons became, kinetic-based weapons were still just as effective at blowing someone’s life away as the most powerful laser.

They were far messier than pulsers. Bodily fluids filled the air and spilled to the ground as high velocity projectiles bored their way through their targets.

“Grenades!” she yelled, yanking the pin out of her own grenade and lobbing it towards the advancing enemy.

There was a brief flash, howls of pain and the enemy’s fire slackened slightly. She used that pause to good effect, reaching out and yanking one of her people into cover by the straps on their harness.

“We can’t hold them boss,” whispered the injured solider. Visor shattered, suit so damaged that his Friend or Foe chip wasn’t broadcasting, his face was so badly burned she couldn’t recognise him.

How the fuck is he not dead? she thought.

His vocal chords rasped with each word and blood bubbled over his lips as he spoke. “You keep pulling back, leave me, no way are the medi-nanites going to fix me.”

She dashed away tears that sprung from her eyes, angry at losing yet another member of her team.

It was her job to keep them alive, to succeed, not to be forced down into a dead-end rat hole with no easy way of escaping.

Sighing, she nodded, and passed the soldier a spare pulser battery and a pulse grenade.

“That’s all I can spare. Die hard.”

They both chuckled at what passed for a joke. She nodded once more, patted his shoulder and ordered the rest of her people back further into the bunker complex.

“Make them pay for every step, people.” She followed her own order, tucking her pulser into her shoulder, drawing a bead on a chimera close combat specialist and blowing a hole in its chest armour.

“Move and shoot, move and shoot!” she waited to hear her battle buddies’ confirmation that he was in position and covering her before she made a quick sprint.

She leaped over a shattered desk to take up position whilst he moved. Desperate to keep the enemy’s head down she sprayed the door and the corridor beyond with pulser fire.

Chimeras pushed on, using their shields to block her unit’s fire, whilst their comrades fired over their shoulders, laying down an increasingly heavy wave of fire.

“Flamer!” she ducked down as the flame trooper ran forward and launched a wave of superheated gases towards the chimeras.

Screams filled the tight corridor and walking chimera torches staggered into the room. None of her people saved them from their suffering, ammunition levels were too low and none of them felt inclined to show mercy to those who had betrayed them.

She felt a tap on her shoulder as the flamer ran past. She was now the only thing between the chimeras and the wounded soldier.

“Time to go,” she whispered to herself, physically forcing herself to stand and sprint towards the exit. Heart aching, she left her trooper to die.

Shots whickered all around her as the chimeras finally recovered from the effects of the flamer, a couple clipping her armoured back, pushing her even faster through the door.

“Sealing!” yelled a cyber-tech, visor open as he connected an optic cable, clicking it directly into his cybernetic eye.

He held a specialist role in her unit which allowed them to fight for or against bunkers, the soldiers slipping into an electronic alternate reality.

“Bastards are trying to get a full spread hack on. Entering V-space. Watch my back.”

He twitched, eyes rolling back into his head, mouth moving so rapidly it was as if he was speaking in binary. None of it made sense, but that was fine. So long as he was doing his job he could speak in tongues for as long as it took.

“Done!” he gasped, wiping away a think trickle of blood from his nose. “They were good, but I managed to cook their brains and seal off the bunker from any further hacks. They were trying to turn the auto-defences against us.”

“Good job, field promotion. Corporal.” She made the promotion official as she spoke, using her suit’s computer to access the unit’s Table of Organisation and make the promotion.

Considering all the other officers were dead, that made her the commanding officer and so gave her rights she wouldn’t normally have held.

“Set a mine on this door. We’ll move down the corridor and take the rooms at the end and to the left and right. Create a mousehole from those rooms so that people don’t have to enter this corridor to leave it again.”

At his nod she moved as quickly as her battered and bruised body would let her. Building up speed she crashed through the door at the end of the corridor and swept the room with her weapon to make sure there weren’t any nasty surprises.

“Don’t shoot!” Sigwaxa was so surprised she very nearly did shoot. A tech, a rear echelon trooper who was more civilian than solder, had sprung up from behind a bank of screens.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she snapped, lowering her weapon to make sure she didn’t plug the idiot there and then.

“Was on my break rotation. Did a 12-hour solid shift with half a shift overtime. Slept through the order to evacuate. Got trapped here when the attack happened.”

Adrenaline had his chest heaving and his speech limited to simple sentences.

“You armed?” she held up as hand as others piled into the room, all seemingly just as surprised as she was to see the tech.

“Just my P2K SMG. Three magazines. Not used them yet. I was manning these.” He waved his hands towards the bank of screens and she realised that he’d been using VR controls to fire three automated turrets at once.

“Good job,” and it was. Not many people could take the input from two, let alone three, automated defence turrets and use them as effectively as he had.

Backup displays showed piles of bodies and smoking enemy vehicles on the plains outside of their bunker, a testament to his skill.

“Kill tally?”

“Computer estimates I managed to put down a company.”

“A company! Bloody hell. Good job. They still up?”

His mouth turned down, “No, buggers did a hack which overcooked the ammunition. It’s caseless on those mounts so it just fried the electrics and that was it. Boom.” He mimicked an explosion with his hands.

“Okay. Well, you’re with us now. There’s an estimated three companies of chimeras in the bunker complex. We’re carrying out a fighting withdrawal.” She decided to cut to the chase as there was no point in sugar-coating their situation. “Turns out we’re the only unit left in this sector. And we’ve caused so many casualties they’re throwing everything they have at either capturing or killing us. Good for our people in the other sectors as it buys them time ...”

“And bad for us as there’s no getting away,” he finished grimly. “Sign me up. I take it I’m attached to you now?”

Sigwaxa smiled and tilted her head. “That you are. We’re going to hold this room and the two next to it on the corridor. Think you can lock down any rooms further along, so they have to blow through each one rather than just stroll through the doors?”

“Piss easy. Give me a couple of secs. Your cyber-specialist could help as well.”

Sigwaxa called over to the newly promoted corporal, ordering him to help the technician.

“People, how we doing with the mouseholes?” she said over the units comm-net.

“Ready to blow boss. Just make sure everyone’s well clear. If you stand in line with the main door, you should be fine.”

“Should isn’t really very ...” she didn’t get to finish as the walls to either side of her erupted, holes roughly one metre by one metre appearing in the once pristine concrete.

A dusty head poked its way through, “Didn’t get anyone did we?” the trooper asked, smiling as she did so.

“No, good job.”

“Contact!” The enemy were through the far door of the corridor.

“Engage, hold until I order the pull back.”

Waiting until everyone in the room had taken cover, she pulled the door open. Enemy fire poured through, ripping apart desks, monitors and piles of paperwork, filling the air with dust and smoke.

“They really want this room,” she muttered drily over the unit’s channel. Chuckles filled the net, a soldier’s dark sense of humour always able to surface no matter what the situation.

“Doors locked and blocked, boss” said the technician.

“Good job, move through to the next room, get preparing things there. Any droids left?”

“Not sure. Droid command is four floors above us. Secondary command went silent after the first attack, so I’m not sure if that’s because they were all dead, or because they left the bunker.”

Christ, this really is a shit show, she thought. Granted, they weren’t members of the Dominion’s Immortals, but they had a proud regimental history stretching millennia.

The rebellion should have been crushed before it even had a chance to start. And the enemy should never have been able to get this close without detection.

Turning back to the matter at hand, she poked her rifle around the door jam, sighted on a large cluster of rat chimeras, and hosed them.

Smaller than most of the chimeras, they were often used in a scouting and insertion role, their small profiles allowing them to get into areas no other sentient being could.

As such, they were low to the ground, and mostly being ignored by her troopers who were understandably trying to kill the larger beasts.

“Don’t let the tanks take up your whole focus!” she yelled, breaking over the unit’s channel chatter. “You nearly let those bastard rats through.”

She hosed the group of rats again, just to make sure they were dead. Rat chimeras had a reputation for being tenacious, and ever so slightly psychotic.

A pulser hit a grenade, blowing chunks of rat all over the corridor, causing an advancing gorilla to pause and rise back, his armoured shield lifting slightly.

It was enough. His shins exploded as her troopers poured fire under his shield and he went down with a shrieking roar. She sighed in relief and served up the coup de grace, blowing the gorilla's head apart..

There was a sudden lull in the firing, and then it petered out entirely.

“What’s happening? Anyone got eyes on?” she called out, moving her weapon back and forth so that the sight could pick out any enemy troops. There was nothing. Not a sound, just the groans of the wounded of both sides.

“Can’t see any of them. They’ve pulled back ... I think,” called out the corporal.

“Squad one, get back in here, I don’t trust the gits. Everyone else get ready.”

Squad one poured through the mousehole in their room, huffing and puffing as various items of equipment caught on the jagged edges.

“Move to the next room. Get ready to cover us. Blow a couple of mouseholes and get some firing points as well. This room is big enough so turn into a killing chamber if they push in.” She ordered, still scanning the corridor beyond with her weapon.

She switched between visual frequencies, trying to see if anyone was cloaked and approaching them that way, but the corridor was still devoid of life.

The Dominion, the Achaemenid Human Dominion to give it its full name, had been around for one hundred thousand years, and yet troops like her still found themselves sweating their tits off because the kit they had couldn’t tell them where the enemy was.

“We’re in, blowing the wall. Cover!”

She hunched down, rocking slightly as the hole was blown. Even with the explosion there was still no reaction from the enemy troops.

“Bastards are up to something boss, I can feel it,” muttered Jonker over his comm.

“But what?” she asked. “They’ve forced us beneath the damned earth, wiped out every other unit. All they have to do is keep us here, starve us out. What else?”

“Pride. We’ve held out longer than any other unit. Killed their people. They have to wipe us out,” said Jonker.

And then it happened. Grenades sailed into the corridor, bouncing along the ground before detonating. Her visor flared, overwhelmed by the flashes, electro-magnetic and audio pulses.

“Fire!” she ordered, holding her trigger firmly down as her helmet tried to reset. Screeches, howls and roars filled her ears as the audio was restored first. “They’re coming! Enemy in the corridor.”

Vision was restored a split second later revealing a corridor packed with chimera of all breeds, shield-bearing rhinos leading the charge as their back-mounted flechette guns filled the corridor.

Sigwaxa swore as she saw her people’s fire being soaked up by the thick ballistic plating.

Sigwaxa pulled a grenade from a suit mount, primed it, and bowled it along the corridor. Three others followed in quick succession.

“Cover!”

Dust billowed down the corridor as the grenades detonated. “Charge!”

Pushing herself up, she stepped around the corner, firing into the mass of bodies before her, switching her shots between those lying, and those still standing as she sprinted forward.

“No prisoners!” she screamed. A rat lunged at her. Titanium reinforced teeth closed with a snap millimetres away from her visor.

A quick snap kick to the groin folded it over, exposing its neck. No hesitation. She smashed the butt of her rifle and broke its neck with one blow.

It was a last-ditch attempt to force the enemy back. She wanted to cause so many casualties they wouldn’t want to continue.

Risky, but she couldn’t think of anything better. A black-backed Jackal cried out, the high-pitched call setting her teeth on edge. As it was designed to.

Accepting the challenge she stamped forward, thrusting her barrel at its face. It parried with its own rifle, knocking hers to the side, opening her up for its own thrust. Twisting, she slipped his attack and drove the butt of her rifle into its face.

Before it could react, she raked the rifle back, slashing across its face and then thrust straight back, driving her barrel deep into its throat.

Stepping forward again, keeping the barrel in place, she jammed the rifle butt forward and ripped the hole in its throat wide open.

Dipping her shoulder, she barged the corpse aside. A chimp leaped through the air and slammed both heels into her chest. She staggered as the force knocked her rifle from her hands.

Her opponent landed on the floor, then bounced back straight back, both hands throwing heavy punches, powered knuckle dusters crackling with energy.

Throwing her arm up she took the first hit on her bicep, then ducked the second. Changing her block into an overhand left, she used the distraction to draw her vibro-knife.

With a roar she punched the blade up into the chimp’s sternum. Blood gushed down over arm, painting her light-khaki armour deep red. More blood flowed out of its mouth.

Something unseen crashed into her back, causing her to stumble into the wall. As she did so, her eyes flicked to her unit’s status. It was red across the board.

I’m the only one left! she thought, her stomach flipping, tears prickling her eyes. What passed for silence on the battlefield filled the corridor. She was the only human being still standing.

The weight fell from her back, and she looked down as it hit the floor at her feet. It was Jonker. Choking back a sob, she turned and ran deeper into the bunker.

Lungs burning, Sigwaxa ran, chased by the chirps, whistles and tweets of African Wild Dog chimeras, the Jagters.

Light infantry they were fast on their feet, the perfect skirmishers, descended from stock which hunted by running its prey to death.

Tendrils of fear snaked through her brain like a virus as the blood pounded in her veins. Her chest heaved with each ragged breath.

“Fight hard. Die Hard.” Sigwaxa chanted as she tried to keep a level head.

A large red “A”, with “5” and an arrow pointing further down the corridor let her know she was near an armoury. Sprinting the last few metres she skidded to a halt.

She cursed her trembling hands as she tried to key in the door code. It chirruped passively aggressively at her as she failed on two attempts.

“Fucking wanker!” she screamed in frustration. With a deep breath she forced herself to take her time. “Less haste, more speed.” She muttered.

A more friendly chime signalled success on the third attempt. With a hiss the door started to open. As soon as there was enough room she darted through the gap.

Weapons racks lined walls. Large tanks caught her eye, a smile creeping across her face.

“Braai time fuckers.” She sounds of her pursuers were drawing closer. She had little time.

Dragging two of the tanks out of the armoury she opened their valves. Ducking back into the room, she gathered a block of high-explosive and a timer.

Placing the explosive onto the tanks, she slipped in the timer, set it for twenty seconds and ran.

This far down into the bunker, and with the elevators disabled, there were few escape routes. Once the fire took hold, it was going to roast anyone without an intimate knowledge of the escape routes.

I fucking hope, she thought.

The explosive detonated five seconds sooner than the count in her head. Even though she was separated from it by a switch in the corner she staggered as the blast wave raced down the tight confines.

Her suit bleeped an alarm as the intense heat of the explosion washed over her and charred the paint off her suit.

Flames licked along the walls, moving almost as quickly as she did, nipping at her heels.

She grimaced. Her suit’s rear armour had been compromised. The heat of the fire seared her back. Despite the agony she still managed to smile at the sounds of agony behind her.

No way are any of those bastards going to be following me, she thought with grim satisfaction.

She risked a glance back and gasped at the sight of the wall of flame behind her. Visor up, her eyes immediately dried in the extreme heat.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The laws of unintended consequences and sod had given birth to a bastard child. It wasn’t meant to be burn this fast, she thought.

Chinning a command into her helmet, she sent a needle flicking into her thigh, stimulants being forced into her body.

“Fuck!” She shrieked as they kicked in. Her heart felt as though it would explode whilst her brain raced as fast as a computer, picking out the best route to take through the shattered remains of the room.

Not one for extreme sports she’d always admired parkour runners, especially those who were able to do so in the variable g arenas.

Yet in that very instant she plotted and ran a course which would have had world champions balking. Nothing stood in her way as she vaulted, tucked, clipped and spun across the room.

Skidding to a halt bare centimetres way from the emergency tunnel she punched the hatch open. Shooting forward on hands and knees she entered the dark tunnel beyond as quickly as possible.

Designed to stop enemy troops from getting a clear shot on anyone trying to escape, the tunnel zigged and zagged, whilst acting as a baffle against the immense pressure caused by explosions.

It came to an end after a lung-bursting twenty metres, a metal-ringed ladder reaching up into the darkness above.

“Four floors down, each floor with ceilings of ten feet, ten feet of armour-crete between each floor. That’s ...” her mind raced for a fleeting moment before the stims wore off. “A fuck-tonne.”

Her shoulders slumped as she placed her face in her hands and quietly wept. Huge sobs wracked her body. After a short while she stopped. Rolling her shoulders she wiped her nose with the sleeve of her suit.

Smoke had started to fill the tunnel. It was acrid and made her eyes smart, so she flipped her visor shut.

“Steel yourself,” she whispered, the motto of regiment, “and test your mettle.” She grasped the first rung and winced as her bruised body protested. Pushing it to the back of her head she started to climb.

Each step was agony, her muscles protesting as she took a step and then reached for the next rung. Her suit’s powered servos didn’t prevent muscle fatigue, just lengthened the time it took for her to tire.

The stims flushed from her system, she was now experiencing the come down and it threatened to crush her. Every few metres she stopped, hooked a carabiner onto the rung and rested.

She sobbed with relief as she reached the top of the shaft. Pulling herself on to the platform over the ladder, she knelt by the shaft’s exit hatch.

Sigwaxa keyed in the door release code. Despite the thick clouds of smoke filling the shaft she paused before hitting the release. Listening, she tried to detect whether any enemy were waiting to ambush her. Nothing.

Just fucking do it, she thought, and hit the release. As soon as the door hissed opened, she squirmed through it.

“Bollocks.” The corridor beyond was filled with enemy soldiers.

She stood. Every eye was on her. No one moved.

Seconds passed. Her breathing slowed. Reading her HUD she was surprised to see her heartbeat had fallen to her usual rest rate. Even more surprising was that she was ready to die.

“What are you waiting for? Fucking come on!”

They came. Her pulser cut down more than she could count before the battery readout flashed empty.

Tossing it away she activated her spear and shield. She was too slow. Sigwaxa screamed as a leo’s energy combat claws raked across her gut. Her suit’s armour parted and exposed her vulnerable flesh before the rake turned into a thrust.

More pain than her suit’s painkillers could deal with blurred her vision and drove the breath from her body.

The leo smiled as it leaned in to lick her visor, certain that she was helpless.

She slammed her helmet into its sensitive snout. Shocked, it jerked its head back and up. As soon as its throat was exposed, she drove a stiff-fingered thrust into its windpipe.

The leo staggered back as it waved its claws for balance and gasped for air.

Sigwaxa closed in with a stamp to its knee which forced it in a direction nature never intended. She followed up with a powerful knee to its face as her opponent’s shattered knee gave way.

Grabbing hold of the leo’s head, she finished it off with a twin thumb thrust deep into its eyes.

Silence once more filled the corridor. Her gruesome kill seemed to have the chimera cowed for the moment.

“Motherfucker!” she gasped as her body finally reacted to the stress she’d put through over the last few hours.

The pain in her guts radiated throughout her body. It was more than she’d ever thought possible.

Knowing she couldn’t risk collapsing she locked her armour’s legs. It would buy her a few precious seconds.

“Suit, execute Broken Arrow protocol, my location.”

+++++ Broken Arrow protocol confirmed, awaiting Command response +++++

Unable to take the increasing pain, she chinned the emergency med-pack button. Soldiers called it the “fuck it”. It was a last resort measure.

Hand clasped to her stomach, she groaned through bloody teeth as the nanites tried to repair her torn flesh. There were too few, and the damage that the claws had wreaked on her guts was too severe.

From the smell, she thought her bowel had been perforated. No matter, it would buy her the time she needed. Keep her alive for a little longer.

Everywhere she looked through pain-blurred eyes chimeras gibbered as they stared at her, the last human soldier in the sector.

Every soldier under her command showed as KIA on her HUD, the comm-net hissing gently in the background; the cries for help forever silenced.

+++++ Kinetic strike authorised. Send confirmation +++++

She smiled through her pain and straightened. Letting the loose coils of her intestines spill to the ground she keyed the confirmation on her palm pad.

Silence descended as a huge gorchimera knuckled forward, back mounted .50 cal trained on her.

“Surrender,” it rasped, nostrils flaring, huge chest heaving.

Even over the stench of her own intestines she could smell the gorchimera. Pheromones designed to install bowel-loosening fear in its enemies filled her nostrils.

Sigwaxa was beyond fear, acceptance of her death granting her a zen-like serenity and contentment.

She slid a foot back, blading her stance. She activated her iklwa. Legs trembling like a new-born foal’s, she pushed away the pain and exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her.

“Not a chance bra,” she choked, blood dribbling over her chin as she spoke. “How about you surrender?”

They laughed, if the sounds that came out of their mouths could be described as that.

The noise sent a chill down her spine, a primal response she would never be able to master.

“Seriously, surrender. You’ll be sent elsewhere in the Dominion. You’re too valuable to execute.”

Roaring laughter followed her last sentence, so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of the kinetic strike as a one-metre-long rod of titanium powered into, and through, her.

A picosecond later and Sigmaxa, last member of 5th Bhuyeni Pulse Rifles as well as a mile-wide area of the Veld and all it contained ceased to exist.