He cried in relief as the MP’s came for him. The parasite in his mind tried to command him to run, but he fought and his muscles seized. He wasn’t fighting for control, he’d given up on that long ago. But at least he could keep the disgusting Slug that had wormed it’s way into his nervous system from doing what it wanted to do. He felt pain as he hit the floor, no longer able to keep balance.

Handcuffs slapped around his wrist. Mechanical and magnetic locks slipped into place as needles sprang forth from their interiors and injected him with sedatives. The Slug went into shock, and he smiled of his own volition for the first time in months as reality faded to black around him.

Kipouen

Dan awoke to Kazuo thumping him on the side. It was the dead of night, but they had both been trained to be light sleepers due to the nature of their missions. Dan wordlessly turned on his radio and pulled out his small tablet. He accepted the tactical update that Kazuo had picked up on a tight-beam laser communication from the rest of the Company.

Apparently, the asshats invading from orbit had dropped a bunch of drop pods over the northern hemisphere without any anti-air countermeasures. They’d managed to land plenty of them in the south, though, and were merging with resistance cells. That was bad news, as that would negate the home turf advantage they had. They seemed to be going for a second round up north where he was, though. They had already lost the air superiority battle, and large swathes of anti-air had been destroyed, allowing for drop pods and shuttlecraft to land safely en-masse.

That had included several shuttlecraft in the vicinity of where they were. Based on the data he had, three of the ten man squads that had been dropped off by those shuttles had combined into a loose formation and would be advancing past his position soon. He pulled up his rifle, knowing that Kazuo had already synced the data with its systems. Kazuo had already pulled up his binoculars and had tagged suspicious movement. It was way out, but Dan grinned as he confirmed that it was enemy movement.

Working together, Dan and Kazuo kept an eye on the enemy’s movements and began relaying the information back to the Company via laser. After plotting their likely course, Dan was able to locate a perfect spot where they would come into range and enter the open where he could get a clean shot. As they exited the treeline bounding along as if the massive packs on their back didn’t exist, Dan took a deep breath. He let it go as he pulled the trigger, and his shot left the rifle with a muffled whump as the magnetically accelerated slug shot out of the barrel towards its target.

***

Gus was directly behind the Sergeant when he exploded. Gore, fire, and dirt exploded outwards as Gus’s helmet automatically clamped down on his ears, preventing the blast from destroying his eardrums. The flash went through a filter on his HUD, allowing him to keep his sight. He screamed over the comms, “Sniper, Sniper, get to cover!”.

To their credit, his squad immediately found cover. Two men who had been near a large boulder ducked behind it. The other four had already been near a building, so they disappeared inside of it. Gus, for his part, was still near the treeline and sunk back into it, keeping low. His helmet automatically accessed his deck and began feeding data to it, processing the likely location of the sniper. As soon as it was done, it would disseminate that to his squad and the greater tactical network.

Another shot hit, and this time the boulder two of his squadmates were hiding behind took the hit. Instead of protecting them however, the stone seemed to contract before exploding outward in a hail of stone shards that whistled through the air. Gus had no time to say anything or react as he watched a massive shard head straight toward him. His HUD beeped ‘data uploaded’ as the three-foot shard of stone rocketed towards him.

***

Dan smiled in satisfaction as he began disassembling his rifle. It had been a good call on Kazuo’s part to use one of their three ‘mole’ rounds on the second shot. The mole round had extremely good armor penetration combined with a high-energy implosion. The boulder had been a good target for it as it had exploded into a wall of stone projectiles. The only thing left of the house that four of those soldiers had ducked into was the foundation and a pile of wood that had collapsed in on itself.

Kazuo was already up and keeping an eye on the sky for incoming drones. They didn’t know if that squad had been able to report their position, but there was no point in waiting to die when they could get a move on. Dan placed the rifle in his pack and melted into the forest Kazuo ranging slightly ahead of him as they moved to their next emplacement. It was going to be a long night.

Multirole Command Vessel ‘The Gringolet’ in orbit of Kipouen

Far above in orbit, eyes watched as data flowed in from the ground forces. In spite of the initial setbacks in the north, good progress had been made integrating with the local insurgents. Guerilla strikes that had been planned and were just waiting on supplies were already being executed on while other groups began to plan and set up.

The forces that had landed via shuttlecraft and attempted to assail fortified positions had turned out to be a mixed bag. Most of them were fairly fresh recruits, and they had been sent to the most dangerous positions on the planet with only air support and no mechanized units. Even so, they had outperformed by a wide margin.

Admiral Fletcher was glad he was of high enough rank to not have to worry about the promotion paperwork for folks that far down the ladder. He began to outline the next phase of the plan based on the developing situation. One of the locations they’d managed to seize was a munitions factory that the enemy ground forces would undoubtedly try and take back. He began ordering immediate reinforcements dropped at all the locations they managed to seize, but allocated the bulk of the forces to that location.

Not only was it a munitions factory, but it had its own airstrip and support facilities for aircraft that could be and already were being modified for their own use. Damaged fighters had already begun landing, and a nearby resistance unit had joined up with the soldiers there. The resistance unit had primarily been workers at the factory and were more than happy to put down their guns to pick up the wrench.

Everything was going very well, in spite of the losses they were taking and the rather unfortunate sabotage that had taken place on The Valkyrie’s Steed. They’d managed to root out the infected officer and had even been able to safely remove the parasite from him. They had been truly lucky to recover him alive. Very few survived the operation to remove the ‘Slugs.’

That being said, it was the end of the war for him. The psychological damage that came from having your mind trapped, watching on as your body was stolen from you took a severe toll. But with time, the man could make a full recovery as others before him had.

Admiral Fletcher’s thoughts drifted back to the battlefield as he watched his orders execute upon it. Armor was being dropped from orbit, and shuttles were deploying more troops to the ground as drop pods rained down.

He turned his attention to the southern hemisphere. Things were going more slowly down there, but that had been the original intended approach. He had no intentions of accelerating the timetable for that half of the continent. No sense in committing to total war on the entire continent if he didn’t have to. Strategic strikes against the military were already commencing down there, and he had high hopes that they would locate Arbiter Cirillo within the next few days.

Until then, there was little to do. The Captain of the Gringolet, his flagship, appeared beside him. The man was usually upon the primary bridge of the ship and preferred to not make many appearances in the command deck. Which made sense as he was there to run the ship, not the theatre. If he had shown up here, it meant that he, the Admiral, had let time slip from him again and needed to rest.

Sure enough, when he checked his time of entry upon the command deck, it was listed as twelve hours prior. He quickly passed over command to the fresher of his two Lower Rear Admirals. It happened to be the one stationed aboard the Saratoga, which was due to rotate back to the Avalon after this world was integrated. He knew he was overdue for a change in upper command staff. He’d managed to avoid it on the last two rotations with some clever personnel maneuvering, but it looked like there was no challenging it this time.

Fletcher dismissed the thoughts and rose with a stretch. After a quick nod to the Captain, which the man returned, he moved to leave. Of course, the moment he reached the door, an alert drifted out, and in spite of his better judgement the Admiral paused at the door. “Report, Lieutenant Gruber.”, the Captain said.

“Sir, I am detecting dark matter ripples near the edge of the system. It’s almost certainly ships approaching the system via subspace. Estimated arrival is two hours.”, said the Lieutenant.

Fletcher’s eyebrow raised, and he shook his head. “Captain Donovan, keep me apprised.”, he said, perhaps unnecessarily. “Lieutenant, please inform me as to why we are only just now learning of this?” he asked.

To the Lieutenants credit, he kept composure after such a pointed question and began to immediately speak in the same tone and cadence he’d kept previously. “Sir, due to the uneven distribution of dark matter it can take time to acquire a baseline for a region of space. We were unable to do that previously with our scout ship due to the hostile nature of the local government so we’ve been establishing a baseline since our arrival. Between that and sheer proximity we’re only just now detecting them, Sir.”, the Lieutenant finished.

Admiral Fletcher was impressed. The Lieutenant had not become flustered or upset after the question and had given a detailed and, more importantly, good answer for the situation. “Thank you Lieutenant Gruber.”, he said, turning away and finally exiting the command deck. He mentally marked the Lieutenant's file with his implant leaving a small note that he handled well under pressure and attached a timestamp of the ship’s security footage for later reference. It wasn’t particularly official, but it might help when the lad was up for promotion next.

It had been a long day, and now with more unknowns entering the situation, the long day could turn into a long several days. If he was particularly unlucky, it might be a long few weeks, but it would be longer if he didn’t get any rest. Yawning as he entered his cabin, which was just a few short steps away, he removed his uniform. He was tempted to save the shower for later but knew he’d have no time when he awoke. So he stepped into the heat of the shower, his muscles relaxing as tension that he hadn’t realized built up faded just a bit.

Feeling much more relaxed and refreshed, he collapsed into his bed. After long years in service, he had become quite adept at falling asleep at the drop of a hat. And he did so now without reservation, the burden of command slipping from his mind as he drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.