Rake awoke when a grenade exploded somewhere between the two fronts, the sun was rising over the horizon, smoke rising in dark columns against the sky. He shook his head to get the dizziness out of his head.

Rachel was already sitting up and eating her ration, without a care in the world his commander leaned slightly forward when another projectile struck the edge of the trench they were sitting in.

Protecting her food from the raining dirt she took a sip from her field flask.

“Mornin Rake, hope you slept well.” Sarah leaned over to him and read his vitals.

“Your pulse and brain activity was awfully high last night so I thought getting you a good night's rest might help, turns out it did!” She clapped him on the shoulder and moved over to a soldier marked with a red cross, injured soldiers had to be marked.

“Okay, now that we are all awake we got orders. The enemy line will hold, they are way to dug in for us to get them out of their position easily, also the Thirds have masterfully thinned our lines by a couple of thousand soldiers. We still outnumber them about twenty to one but with the advantage of their position, there is no way we can just overwhelm them like we did the gate.

Luckily for us four more carriers will be with us within the week, that's roughly half a million troops we just need to wait for until the enemy won’t have enough firepower to kill all of us.” She chuckled, and Mint snorted. Rake was not entirely sure that was something he wanted to think about.

“Well, our commander think we should try to take the line before our reinforcements arrive, giving him some fame and killing off at least half of us. To make sure we won’t all die and lose the gate we will try to find a way to break the enemy line, not storm the whole thing but make way for a force to flank the enemy.

On how exactly we are to accomplish something like this, he left it up to us and his own ass covered. There are five thousand soldiers awaiting our commands, but for now, I would like to hear your thoughts, we have forty-eight hours to figure out a way to breach a strip of land that is four hundred meters wide and covered from all angles by automated turrets capable of killing four hundred soldiers in a minute… Any ideas?”

Rake was not really sure the question was meant for him after all this was his first battle, he still tried to think of a way. The first thing that killed them as soon as they were charging? The turrets, operating day and night with an accuracy and speed beyond anything human they would cut them down before one of them made it further than one or two steps.

How to solve that problem then? The only thing that seemed to make the gunfire stop was a solid object between the gun and the target, a thick solid obstacle like the ground or the half meter thick concrete wall at the last bunker they fought.

He sighed, a moving fortress would do the trick, not that they had anything like that, all they had were shovels trenches and explosives.

“Can we dig a tunnel into the no man's land?” Rake asked, interrupting some idea from Mint about throwing trees in front of the guns.

Rachel looked at him and squinted slightly.

“Explain!” She demanded.

“Well, if we manage to tunnel towards the concrete walls they built and place enough explosives there…” Rachel began to smile

“We blow a crater into their defenses, won’t be enough to win the battle but should get us another route towards their lines… the best thing about it is we can launch more than just one of these tunnels, tunnel through three places and hit them all at once!

With a simultaneous, over the ground attack, we could probably even take part of the line, disable to front guns and scare the shit out of the enemies all at once!”

Rake had not thought as far but it seemed like Rachel was dead set on his plan now.

“Well, if you could get started on getting someone to have a look on strategic positions for our undertaking I am going to see if I can’t find something to dig a tunnel with, preferably not something so simple as a spade… that would take ages.”

The next four days the entire Ercinee army was taking turns in digging a tunnel towards the enemy lines with nothing but a couple of spades. Rachel was not happy about that but thanks to the exoskeletons the progress was quick and with shifts working around the clock the tunnel was quickly taking form.

The commander was satisfied with the idea and suspended the attack for until the reinforcements were ready, with his name under the project he was satisfied without the needless bloodshed of his troops.

Rachel kept her soldiers updated on the progress of the war as best as she could. The northern front had secured the gate but was now digging themselves in instead of attacking. The South had been stopped dead in their tracks, the enemies had gotten more reinforcements than any other gate, the West and East were now the two locations the higher-ups were concentrating on with troop deployments of a million soldiers each.

The reinforcements they received were meant to keep the gate from being destroyed and binding the enemy in place.

A group of soldiers walked towards Rake, in their midst was a small chest with what he guessed were explosives.

He dropped the spade in his hands, the concrete wall was laid open, the only thing they needed now was to place the charges and he was comfortable leaving it to the professionals.

“Everyone clear out! Prepare for an attack at dawn.” Rachel sounded from behind the soldiers, the dim light in the tunnels and the dusty air was something he would not miss. Once the charge had been blown the would clear away the rubble and use the tunnels to get directly to the breach.

He walked through the crudely dug tunnel, finally, he would be rid of the darkness, the only thing he had enjoyed down there was the missing of shots being fired and grenades exploding.

The entrance was dug directly in the bottom of the main trench when he exited the hole the sun was still missing from the skies, a fresh breeze cooled his face as he took a deep breath of the fresh air.

All around him dirt covered soldiers were resting, weapons next to them. Rachel was awaiting him together with Mint and Sarah, Nike was nowhere to be seen.

“I have a good feeling about this whole idea, I think we are going to do great.” Rachel said as Rake shook the dirt from his hair and wiped his face with his hands, a shower would have been nice.

“If this works we will be through this line of defenses within days.”

Rake shrugged, he had his doubts about this going any better than the campaign had until this point. Even if they took this gate they still had to fight their way through kilometers of forest, take out the shields and if that failed they would need to assault a city built for the sole purpose of keeping out enemies and holding out for as long as possible.

All of that without any orbital help, the help of tanks or artillery, then there was the large metal object in the northern part of the colony. With the Empire’s ability to travel faster than light reinforcements could be here within days, even if the Ercinee was certain the fleet stationed in the space around Aurora was too large for a direct assault.

Over the years they had learned of three fleets but even with all of them combined the Empire would not be able to break the siege.

Every ship they lost would take them further back, the Ercinee had nearly a hundred planets under their control while the Empire had only just begun with their colonization efforts.

If they lost the entire colony, years of planning and resources would be effectively wasted. Maybe the loss would even be enough for the enemy to surrender.

Rake gripped his rifle tighter and prepared for the signal, the light was growing in the sky, as of now, the sun was still beyond the horizon.

The crew with the explosives came into view, they cleared the entrance and signaled for the other soldiers to take cover, sandbags were placed to protect them from shrapnel.

Nobody spoke a word, the air was cool and quiet behind them the reinforcements arrived through the gate, a stream of soldiers filled up the entire space between the trench and their place of arrival.

Rake guessed there were about forty thousand soldiers awaiting a command to attack. The tension seemed to thicken the air around them as the last preparations were made.

A hand signaled to brace, Rake took one last deep breath.

The charges blew, the impact sent debris sky high, thick clouds of dirt covering the little light above them. A war cry sounded and Rake dove into the ruined tunnel, light on his helmets illuminated the shifted dirt, against all odds the walls had held.

The tunnel exited into a crater, rubble and dirt covered the ground and Rake saw the breach they had made, it would be a steep climb, the broken off concrete made for a good surface, the nearest turrets were torn apart, imperial soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

He jumped into the crater, the heat clawing at his face, the concrete wall was scorched Rake ran towards it and began to climb.

The raise was not too steep he only needed one hand to make sure not to lose balance but it was still torture not to be ready for an attack from above. The heavy fire of turrets sounded together with the screams of more soldiers attacking if this worked all three breaches would be swarming with Ercinee forces now. Behind him, the tunnel spat out more and more of his comrades.

Rachel and Mint somewhere among them, Sarah was staying for the second wave, to heal the ones left. Rake reached the top of the climb, he turned to the side and saw a line of attackers slowly forming up, a few corpses were lying on the concrete floor.

One of the Imperials saw him and raised his rifle, screaming something.

Rake pulled the trigger and blue fire erupted from the barrel of his gun, the projectiles threw the first soldier back against the wall, his friends didn’t even manage to turn before the salvo tore into them.

The concrete wall sparked as the bullets hit the wall, ricocheting off into other directions. Behind Rake more two of his comrades fired into the opposite direction, he leaped to the still functional part of the trench and switched to a thermite bolt, the nearest turret turned, to him, the bolt shot forward and struck the joint where the gun was mounted.

Sparks flew as the thermite did its work, the turret tried to fire but the mechanism was jammed, after a few seconds the gun dropped to the floor, steaming hot metal clogging up the standing remainders of the structure.

Rake switched back to his normal projectiles as he reached for another bolt, explosions shook the ground as the charging soldier fired grenades and bolts as soon as they got in range.

He watched two more turrets go down, screaming imperial soldiers left their posts, running towards the back of the trenches. The wave of soldiers reached the trenches, Rake was swept with them towards the next line of defenses.

More turrets awaited them, but they were scarce now, the concrete structures not yet completed and metal skeletons reaching into the sky. The Colonials had not managed to finish this line, soldiers collapsed to his side as the defenders tried to stop to flood of enemies but they were outnumbered and outgunned.

Rake raised his gun firing at the line of defenders, the sound of battle drowned out as he watched hundreds die, throwing himself into a half-finished ditch he escaped the onslaught of one of the turrets.

Soldiers screamed, another explosion shook the ground as Rake crawled towards the enemy line, he fired his bolt as soon as he got into range but the armor plating caught it before it could do any real damage. More followed his example and soon the few turrets were burning.

The last line of defenders stood their ground until the sun reached its peak. The Thirds among them held their line until they ran out of charge for their weapons and switched to primitive swords during the last hours.

Rake sighed, desperation drove these soldiers, the Ercinee had taken the western gate, now the fall of the colony was only a matter of time.