After a few seconds of standoff, one of them let out a loud roar and started charging at us, followed by the rest. They ran on four legs and being charged at by these monsters would undoubtedly paralyze anyone with fear.

The Colonel shouted into his radio: “Raider 1–2, open fire.”

The M3 Shepard tank column fired their 120 mm cannons at the incoming horde of monsters. The explosions created by these cannons were deafening and the only thing kept our eardrums from bursting was the adrenaline. Several of the Drones were nearly disintegrated in one single shot. Dozens of them were killed by the tanks’ suppressive fire. The second wave continued their advance, despite sustaining heavy injuries from the first barrage.

The Colonel screamed through his mask: “Fire at will. Fire at will.”

All of us began blasting the horde until our magazine box was empty. Some of the Ground Drones stopped and shielded their faces and chests with their muscular arms. Whereas, those that continued were killed after getting hit in their vital points. As a result, our Steyr AUG assault rifles with 5.56×45 mm NATO rounds could only slow them down.

I and the other gunners blasted them with 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. This time, more of them were killed. The Boxers (Australian Armored Fighting Vehicles) completely shredded the second wave of monsters with their powerful 30 mm cannons.

We squeezed the triggers until our fingers went numb. Our first line of infantry emptied their first magazine and reloaded. Then the second line fired and kept the monsters at bay. The third wave was blown into smithereens by the tanks’ barrage while the fourth was torn apart by the Boxers.

The pavement around the Harbor was a peaceful place where people jogged, walked and chatted happily with their friends, families and loved ones just yesterday. Now, it had completely been turned into a battlefield. It was filled with bullet holes, craters and alien monster corpses.

After nearly four minutes of carnage, we successfully killed 70 Ground Drones. Because of the adrenaline, I barely noticed the fog gathered on my masks. I had to wipe it off to have a better view of the battlefield and quickly reloaded our weapons.

Just as we cocked our guns, another horde of them which consisted of 50 Ground Drones jumped onto land.

But instead of immediately charging straight at us, they picked up scattered remains of their fallen brethren and raised them up as shields. While pushing those disintegrated corpses, they moved towards us, albeit slower than the previous waves.

“What the fuck?” One of the soldiers stuttered.

“Those fuckers know how to use shields?” Another man said.

“Don’t falter, lads! Stay in your position. Keep firing.” The Colonel ordered us. “Raider 1–2, hit them again.”

The tanks fired their cannons again. One shell after another, the explosions rang across the Harbor. Not letting the smoke clear, we unleashed hell upon them relentlessly with our weapons. At closer look, I could see that the corpses were actually taking almost everything we threw at them. The Ground Drones behind them sustained little to no damage at all.

In the beginning, there were two squadrons of troop transport helicopters. Because of their troop capacity which exceeded that of the Black Hawks’, the MRH–90 was chosen as the main troop deployment platform for this operation.

While the Tigers were still engaging the flying creatures, five MRH–90 helicopters maneuvered behind the horde. The helicopters’ gunners started raining bullets on them with M134 Miniguns and Mark 19 AGLs (Automatic Grenade Launchers). With such literal rain of lead and explosives, they successfully took out dozens of this horde.

One of the monsters in the back started howling while being hammered by the Miniguns. I looked up and saw at least 30 Aerial Drones coming straight at the helicopters. The gunners onboard managed to kill several of them but it was too late. Four of the winged creatures latched on one of the helicopters. They kept scratching at the two gunners and tried to get inside the aircraft, causing it to spiral out of control.

As we kept firing our weapons, I overheard the haunting radio transmission from the pilots. It was as if time itself had slowed down, since I could hear almost all of presumably last words of our fellow soldiers.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” The MRH–90 helicopter’s pilot screamed. “This is Pelican 7–5! They’ve latched onto us. Hydraulic systems are failing.”

“You motherf…!” One of the gunners shouted into the radio while we could hear him firing his pistol at the monsters.

“Shit! We are going down.” The other pilot screamed.

Eventually, the helicopter crashed into one of the houses 200 meters from our position. Shortly after the crash, a spark ignited the fuel and the aircraft exploded, killing all four occupants onboard. The fireball engulfed both the aircraft and the two houses next to it.

Before we could even turn our heads to look at where four of our fellow countrymen had just died a gruesome death, another MRH–90 suffered the same fate. This time, five of those monsters had latched onto them, while being drilled by the gunners’ weapons. The helicopter kept spinning for another 150 meters until it finally crashed into the waters, sending debris and metal fragments all over the water surface.

The remaining helicopters scattered to avoid suffering the same tragic fate. Three Tigers kept their distances to provide support and managed to eradicate the Aerial Drones.

On the ground, the battle still raged on as the Ground Drones continued their advance. After the Tigers’ Hydra 70 unguided missile volley, there were 18 of them left. They discarded their meat shields, immediately went for the offensive.

Even with our ceaseless firing, five of them breached our barricade and jumped into our formation. The beasts mangled several of the soldiers with their claws, causing the others around them to panic. Since their rifles were already empty, they pulled out their sidearm and started shooting. Though, their Heckler & Koch USP pistols might do little damage to such thick scales, they still caused the monsters to stop and protect their weak spots with their arms.

I tried to shoot them with my machine gun, but it too was empty. The other gunners tried to shoot them but they couldn’t. Either their weapons had also run dry or they feared hitting their fellow soldiers.

The closest one looked at me while being shot at the surrounding soldiers. Seeing that thing so close, I felt like being looked at by a giant Grizzly bear, ready to pounce on me.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” My mind must have screamed that word at least ten times in that one single second. Perhaps it realized my weapon was already empty and I couldn’t pull my pistol due to my position.

The monster lunged at me. It jumped onto the ASLAV’s turret and tried to bite me with its mandibles. Luckily, I managed to block it with my prosthetic arm before its jaws could puncture my flesh. Its mandibles were inches away from my face, trying to grab my face. The only thing between them and my face was my mask. I tried to reach for my pistol but I had to use both arms and all of my strength to simply keep its jaws away from my face. Even through the mask, I could still smell its rotten flesh stench from its opening jaws. Strangely enough, despite its strength and determination to tear me apart, it didn’t use its claws to do that.

“Push its head up, Jack!” Someone shouted. Instinctively, I used my remaining strength to push its head up with my left arm and keep its claws away with my right arm.

The monster’s head was blown to bits by multiple shots. It collapsed onto the ground with a loud thump. I looked to my right and saw Colonel Hannibal holding an assault rifle with a smoldering barrel.

“You are okay, Jack?” asked the Colonel.

“I’m… I’m okay. Thank you, Sir.” I replied, my hand still trembling.

He nodded. More shots rang out around us. I looked over and saw the remaining four Ground Drones lying dead on the ground. Out of pure rage and anger, some soldiers emptied their remaining magazines into the dead monsters’ heads, until they stopped twitching. They even shot at the ones beyond the barricade.

“Major Clark, status report.” The Colonel said to his radio. “Everyone, reload your weapons. The fight is not over yet.”

“All targets neutralized, Colonel. No KIA (Killed in Action) on our side.” Reported Major Bowman Clark – Commander of the armored unit which was tasked with defending another strategic location 400 meters west of us. While he was talking through the radio, I could hear more gunshots in the background. I realized they were “cleaning up” on their side as well.

We looked up and noticed all of the flying creatures had also been shot down. The sky had been cleared. In our first battle, all 400 alien monsters, both Aerial and Ground Drones had completely been eradicated.

All 8 ARH Tiger Attack Helicopters remained intact. There were 10 MRH–90 helicopters left, minus the two crashed MRH–90s. 4 Black Hawk helicopters which served as our battle surveillance and situational report network were still in the air.

Suddenly, someone at a distance yelled: “Watch out!”

The soldiers in front of us scrambled and before we could even see anything, a large object crashed down at the houses to our left, completely demolishing at least four houses near the shoreline.

We tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Our battle had either knocked down or damaged most of the floodlights. The Harbor was completely evacuated, so there was little to no lights at the moment. We had to rely on the MRH–90 and Black Hawk helicopters to help us see what had just happened.

The object from earlier was one of the Degloka’s arms. As we looked closer, the cut mark that severed it from the main body was clean and still dripping with black liquid.

We all looked toward the Sydney Harbor Bridge where the real battle was taking place. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The building next to the bridge’s South Tower, as well as the steel–arch of the Sydney Harbor Bridge had been demolished because of the battle. Not only had 3 of the Degloka’s 4 arms been mutilated, but all of its tentacles had also been cut off. However, the arms and tentacles seemed to be slowly regenerating despite such severe damage. Lord Ar’Taz was standing on the collapsed building’s rooftop, with the glowing sword in his hand still dripping with black liquid.

Because of how far it was, I couldn’t see it clearly, but His sword was emanating a blue bright light. It looked beautiful and deadly, all the same.

“The Degloka can regenerate its body parts but it wasn’t fast enough. His Majesty Is too much of a match for this one.” Commented Gaina.

She stated: “Fortunately for you, these Drones can’t regenerate themselves after their central nervous system, or simply put, their brains were destroyed. As for the Degloka, its shell is extremely tough and designed to withstand all of your conventional weaponry. With your level of technology, you might need something with the equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon to completely kill it.”

It cost us nearly twenty men to kill these Drones alone. Hearing her remark, I wondered how bad the situation would have turned out if we included that giant monster, or Degloka into the equation.

The Degloka could barely stand with such injuries. The black liquid which I assumed was its blood now kept spilling from its open wounds. It glared at Lord Ar’Taz, eyes filled with rage and hatred. The Monster raised its intact left arm, prepare to crush him. Its massive hand was brought down which shattered the building completely. Lord Ar’Taz evaded by jumping into the air. He pulled back His right arm like a martial artist readying to deliver a knock–out punch. His gauntlet seemed to glow yellow light and radiate heat. It tried to catch him with its regenerating right arm. The moment he made contact, it created an enormous explosion. The blast was ridiculously powerful. The pressure caused the water to splash all over the Harbor. The air molecules was compressed to the degree that we had to duck behind our vehicles to protect ourselves. A few seconds of silence passed, we came to our senses, though our ears were still ringing from the blast.

A blanket of smoke covered our visual range significantly. When the smoke cleared, most of the behemoth’s upper torso was disintegrated. One of its newly regenerated arms which was torn off, landed on top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, causing it to collapse altogether. Lord Ar’Taz was standing on top of the South Tower of the Bridge.

“He killed that giant monster, by himself?” One of the soldiers took the word right out of my mouth.

The Degloka’s lower body slumped and fell into the water. As that happened, Lord Ar’Taz disappeared in the blink of an eye. Then, the water splashed which sounded like something big had fallen into the sea. Then, after a few seconds, another splash and we saw a dark figure jump out. At closer inspection, I realized that figure was Lord Ar’Taz who was holding something in both of His hands.

He dropped down behind us, creating a crater when he did, almost giving the soldiers around him a heart attack. It turned out Lord Ar’Taz was holding four soldiers from the MRH–90 helicopter which had previously crashed into the sea. Because of the differences in both height and body sizes, they looked like little children while being held by Lord Ar’Taz.

“Thank you for saving them, Sir Ar’Taz.” The Colonel ran over and said.

Lord Ar’Taz didn’t say anything and simply laid the four men on the ground. We all gathered to check on them.

“Doc, over here.” One of the soldiers shouted at the direction behind him.

One soldier emerged who I assumed to be a combat medic ran past everyone. His name tag read Corporal Peter J. Clarence. He immediately knelt down by the injured men and checked their conditions.

The two pilots were unconscious due to heavy concussion. They all had scratch marks all over their uniforms and even their masks had been lost during the crash.

After checking all four of them, he looked at Colonel Hannibal and said: “The pilots are alive, Sir. They had a concussion and some broken ribs, but they will live. I will try to stabilize them until Medevac* arrives. The other two are…well…”

His pause made it obvious. The two gunners were not as lucky as the pilots. They had no pulse, their chest and neck heavily mutilated by those flying monsters. Judging from such wounds, they were already beyond saving. However, what bothered us most was that drops of black liquid started leaking from their fatal wounds.

“Do what you can, Corporal.” The Colonel said to him, then turned to one of the communication officers and said: “Call the Medevac*. We still have another battle to fight.”

Corporal Clarence started treating the pilots, as well as the critically wounded. Among them, three more were dead because of blood loss and severe injuries. These three were heavily mauled and bitten to death. Even through thick uniforms and combat gear, those bear–like monsters could inflict such fatal wounds.

Two of them had chest wounds so large and deep, I could see their ribs and organs. The last man had his torso shredded so bad, some of his guts spilled out. The fact that I could have been one of them just minutes earlier and that these monsters doing this to a civilian, both terrified me.

With the four men who got killed in the first crash, this made a total number of 9 KIAs.

We gathered the critically wounded into one of tents so that Corporal Clarence could perform first–aid until that medevac arrived.

We placed the 9 dead soldiers together in one spot and temporarily covered them with black plastic sheets.

Some of us tried to put out the fire from the crashed helicopter in order to retrieve the bodies of four unfortunate men. Because of how large it was, we actually had to call a firefighter team on standby from the other unit to extinguish the raging flames.

While we were busy treating the wounded, Lord Ar’Taz approached the spot where we laid our fellow ill–fated men. I and the Colonel followed Him and saw Him kneel down. He flipped the sheets up and had a strange look at the dead soldiers for several seconds.

“What are you doing, Lord Ar’Taz?” asked the Colonel. I took a closer look and noticed all of the bodies had black liquid dripping from their wounds.

In this profession, we had seen many things, from bad to worse, but somehow, the current state of these bodies unsettled me.

“We apologize for doing this, but time is limited.” Lord Ar’Taz said as He put His hand which was covered in black glove with golden insignia on the dead man’s head. From this angle, I noticed that Lord Ar’Taz actually had six fingers on each hand. How strange that I had never noticed this until now!

“What are you…?” The Colonel couldn’t finish his question, as the spot touched by Lord Ar’Taz’s hand began dissolving into some sort of sand.

We both stared blankly as the body slowly dissolved into a fine pile of sand. “What have you done?” A young soldier whom I didn’t recognize happened to witness the strange phenomenon and asked. I looked closer and noticed his name tag read Private Ingrid Reese. Reese’s voice sounded a little angry when seeing his possibly comrade dissolving into dust, leaving behind a battered uniform and combat gear.

“These men have already been infected with the Rajmez Venom.” Lord Ar’Taz finally began speaking. He looked at us both and said: “You and your men can remove your masks now. They use Venom this time, instead of spores.”

As we removed our masks, Lord Ar’Taz continued: “The Drones that you fought carried it inside their mandibles and stingers. When they attack an individual, they will puncture that individual’s skin tissues and inject it directly into their blood streams. Venom works much faster than spores. As long as the victim’s nervous systems remain intact, it can infect, mutate both living and dead. These infected individuals, now becomes a Trejmorphs will start infecting every individual of your species. We can break down cellular structures within their bodies and render the Venom useless. With our current assets, this is the least we can do for these men.”

Private Reese looked like he didn’t really understand Lord Ar’Taz’s explanation and actions. He wanted to say something, but was stopped by Colonel Hannibal. The Colonel put his hand up, motioned him to stop. He looked at Reese’s eyes and shook his head. His eyes and movement spoke more than enough. It was like he was saying to the young man: “There is nothing we can do for them now. Let them go, lad.”

Somehow, I really doubted Reese understood, given our circumstances. But the man lowered his eyes and looked away as Lord Ar’Taz performed the same “ritual” for the remaining dead soldiers.

“Our condolences for your men, Colonel.” Lord Ar’Taz spoke His word of solace after He finished with all of the bodies, the only thing remained was 9 sets of battered uniforms and combat gear. Colonel Hannibal could only look down and said nothing.

The Colonel, Private Reese and I did a short, momentary mourning of our fallen comrades. Since the Saudi Arabia War, these men were the first to fall in service of our country.

Lord Ar’Taz put something into the Colonel’s hand which startled him. It was the dog tags* of the four men from that helicopter. This time, Lord Ar’Taz didn’t say anything. As he gripped them tightly in his hand, the Colonel knew what he needed to do.

Suddenly, Lord Ar’Taz looked over His shoulder and right on cue, shouting and shuffling came from the tent where we had gathered our wounded. We walked over to see what was going on, the soldiers outside seemed frantic, or more like, panicked.

“What the hell is going on here?” The Colonel asked the nearest soldier whose name tag read Staff Sergeant Jones DeWitt.

“It is… one of the wounded, Sir.” Staff Sergeant DeWitt stammered. “He is behaving...” Before he could finish his answer, someone screamed and it startled everyone, including us.

They stood aside to let us through. It was one of seven critically wounded soldiers. He was standing in front of the tent, with his chest, left shoulder and torso all bandaged up. His eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging all over under his skin. His body kept sweating while his mouth had that same black liquid running down his chin. Thanks to the floodlight, we could see that his wounds were bite marks and we quickly realized what was going on.

“It fucking hurts… Help me…” It was the only thing we could figure out from his incoherent muttering. He also said some other words repeatedly while he could barely stay on his feet. It was like something was trying to break out of his body. Judging from his reaction, it must have felt insanely painful for that poor man.

“Everyone just calm down, okay?” Corporal Clarence emerged from the tent and said. “Daniel is just having a panic attack due to all that medicine.”

Based on what he said and how he was facing that man’s back, Corporal Clarence clearly couldn’t see what WE were looking at. Everyone was both scared and confused at what we were witnessing. Even if everyone had read the files, I doubted they could have kept themselves calm enough or even remembered what to do and how to respond in such a situation.

“Come on, mate. Let’s get you back...” the Corporal stammered when he noticed it. The wounded man whose name was Daniel turned around swiftly. Clarence’s face said more than enough.

Daniel growled slightly like an animal, with black liquid leaking from his mouth and wounds. He took a stand and prepared to lunge at Clarence. The way he prepared himself was really disturbing. Somehow, it was like a lion preparing itself before striking and killing a hapless antelope.

When I saw what was about to happen, I raised my pistol and so did the Colonel. But the very moment we did and Daniel’s feet stomped on the ground, a strong gust of wind blew past us all. It was so strong that it nearly knocked us over. It startled everyone, including Colonel Hannibal.

We looked up and saw Corporal Clarence still standing there, shocked but safe. Daniel, the wounded soldier, however, was gone.

There was movement in the left corner of our eyes. We all turned to the left and saw Lord Ar’Taz standing inside a park 20 meters from us. His left hand was holding Daniel’s torso, completely lifting him in the air. Only then had we understood what had just happened.

With an inhuman speed, Lord Ar’Taz had pushed past us, somehow, grabbed Daniel and jumped over to the park. He did all of that within one single second. No, less than a second.

Daniel, now fully infected was growling loudly and struggling to free himself from Lord Ar’Taz’s grip. Because of His height, Daniel was lifted up to over three meters in the air. He kept scratching and kicking at Lord Ar’Taz’s arm. Though, what Daniel scratched and kicked was the gauntlet on His arm. At some point, Daniel even tried to bite Lord Ar’Taz’s hand but it was futile. As a result, Lord Ar’Taz wasn’t even fazed. In fact, it was as if Lord Ar’Taz was pitying the poor man, either at his hopeless attempts or at his tragic fate.

“Put him down, now.” Four soldiers ran over and aimed their guns at Lord Ar’Taz. What foolish action, but who could blame them?

“Everyone stand down.” The Colonel screamed at them. “Daniel is already infected. We can’t help him anymore.”

“We don’t know that.” One of the soldiers with his guns aimed at Lord Ar’Taz, whose name tag read Private Larry Swenson said impatiently. “We can still help him. I won’t let this monster take him like this.”

It looked less like an intense standoff, but more like four impatient young men who were about to make the biggest mistake of their lives.

The Colonel looked like he was about to say something, but he couldn’t. A loud sound of bone breaking rang out. We looked up and Daniel’s head was gone. Blood and brain matter were splattered all over the grass beneath him. Lord Ar’Taz was holding the lifeless body of Daniel, while streams of blood ran down His arm. Then, He dropped Daniel’s lifeless body down. Looking at the body, we realized Lord Ar’Taz had pulverized Daniel’s head so clean, not even his skull remained.

Judging from their reaction, Swenson, along with his friends were one second from away a decision that would definitely make them regret for the rest of their lives. Thanks to the Colonel’s quick reflexes, he managed to stop them.

“Stand down, NOW.” He pointed his gun at them with a commanding tone. “That is an order, soldiers.”

“He killed Daniel.” Another friend of Swenson screamed. “We could have saved him. Why did you kill him?”

Lord Ar’Taz said nothing, or rather, He couldn’t care less about their rage–filled responses at the moment. Despite their rage and anger, the fear of being court martialed for disobeying a high–ranking officer finally made them lower their weapons.

“Like I said.” The Colonel said. “He is already infected. There was nothing you could do for him. If you let him go and he started infecting everyone, what would you do then?”

Then, he looked at everyone who had gathered and said: “If you let something like THAT escape and it attacks the civilians, including your friends and families, what would you do then?”

The way he said it was so fearless and intimidating, it made everyone metaphorically shrink into their shadows.

He continued, with that same tone. “That giant monster, those smaller creatures, the infected Daniel and those who might become like him. THIS, is what we are up against, everyone. And there are six more of them coming to our world, all capable of the same destruction and tragedy. If we let ourselves fall here, who would protect our families?”

Then, he help up the dog tags from the dead soldiers and said: “The best and only thing we can do for these men… is to tell their families how brave and fearless they had fought. How they went down fighting, to the end.”

The Medevac helicopter arrived but the swirling wind from its rotors couldn’t lift the grim heaviness in the air. Everyone’s silence only made it worse.

“Colonel!” Lord Ar’Taz said from behind him, sounding as calm as always. “The Second Degloka is coming.”

We looked at our watches. 47 minutes had passed since the first one arrived in Sydney.

“I understand.” Colonel Hannibal said. His tone made it looked like he was trying to keep himself together. “The 5th Armored Regiment and Royal Air Force have already headed for David Town to intercept the Degloka.”

The Colonel called the communication officer from earlier over. “Get us a bird, Lieutenant.”

“Your transport won’t be fast enough.” Lord Ar’Taz said. “Contact your forces and warn them to keep their distance. This one might be tougher than the one we just killed.”

Confused at His remark, the Colonel said: “Wait, you are going alone?”

“We will send you the coordinates of the Degloka’s impact point.” Lord Ar’Taz said. Then, He walked over to another open spot about 30 meters from our position and just shot up into the air.

Lord Ar’Taz was so fast that it was as if he just vanished into thin air. Not only that, his spring created another large crater on the ground.

The Colonel grunted: “Damn it! We need to follow him.” With the distance from Sydney, it took us at least 50 minutes to reach David Town by our helicopter, so it made sense that Colonel would be in such a hurry.

While we were waiting for our transport which was on standby outside the Harbor, Colonel Hannibal met and handed command over to Major Clark. They requested the Royal Navy to continue the lockdown and assistance to recover the monsters’ corpses, as well as clean up the mess.

After one of MRH–90 helicopter arrived, we boarded it and headed for our second battle. As the vehicle took off, I thought to myself: “We are only half way into our operation and 9 men have perished. I hope they are doing better over there.”