Las'Tai was no stranger to fighting. She had been in combat before, had fought honor duels before she joined Eirik's ship, joined in border skirmishes, and more. But she had never seen real war, especially not war in the way a group of cornered and desperate Terrans could wage, and nothing could have prepared her for the savagery at display in front of her as the Terran line slammed into the stunned Kloxna.

The flanking attack and the buried explosives they had detonated amongst the first row of Kloxna about to reach the barricades had worked as intended. Another charge forced to a grinding halt. When Eirik gave the order to charge, She had fallen behind for a moment, the sling of her rifle caught on debris. When she get it free and turned to join the fight, the Terrans were 2 steps away from the Kloxna and their counter-charge hit them with enough force, momentum, and violence that they started carving a path straight through the ranks of the now panicking Kloxna soldiers.

Everywhere she looked, she saw Terrans dealing death, knives stabbing, pistols shooting, armored boots crushing limbs and skulls with ease, trench shovels used as chopping tools to devastating effect. She saw a Terran with the claws of 3 Kloxna soldiers stuck inside of him, break the neck of the first with one hand while using the other to rip one of the remaining offending claws off of the Kloxna who started wailing in agony before her life was ended as he shoved the same claw down her throat before he went limp.

She could smell the blood, the gunpowder, the bodies that had emptied their bowels in fear, or death, the raw zealous hatred the Terrans emanated, and most of all the overpowering smell of fear. It was so heavy and thick that it affected her mental state, making her paranoid and unsure of her actions. It seeped into her, like a fog rolling slowly over a lake.

She saw Eirik, Jesper, and the squad leaders at his side, creating a spearhead of heavy armor that stopped for nothing. Somewhere, Eirik had gotten a hold of the spear he crafted with his brother while they regained strength and life after being imprisoned so for so long, and he was using it to deadly effect. Behind the spearhead of moving flesh, steel, and ceramic plating, the ground was littered with the dead and dying soldiers left in the wake of the counter-charge.

The thicker shaft of the boar spear was thicker than a regular Kloxna soldier's wrist, and he did not need the spearhead to kill with it, seeming just as happy with crushing limbs instead of running them through.

She saw all of this in seconds before she moved out of cover to help her crewmates in the fight. She had resigned herself to fighting her people, for their own good.

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Eirik hit the first Kloxna with a shoulder tackle that deformed most of her face before she was tossed aside by the laws of physics, and he wasted no time in bringing his spear to bear. He had longed to give it a name, but a weapon was named after great deeds, not by random selection. As much as he despised war, he relished battle. Here, he was truly home.

The present became a blur of new enemies constantly looking up at Eirik and his siege armor spearhead, fearful eyes and shaking arms trying to put up a valiant effort. They all fail. Eirik's group is moving too fast and is killing too quickly, for the time being, for the enemy to rally. Jesper was dealing unarmed death with casual ease, his hands a blur as he relied on his armor being sturdier than his enemies to absorb the damage to his hands. They were already painted in Kloxna blood and brain matter, and he showed no sign of slowing down.

They were almost at the point Eirik had designated as the PONR*. Going past that point meant dedicating himself to going after Tai'Tanu. He was more than ready, but it would ultimately mean the death of most, if not all of the soldiers here, including many of his close friends.

Was he ready to make that sacrifice to silence the biggest Kloxna advocate for not attending peace talks? Was he ready to do it for his own satisfaction in regards to the personal conflict between him and Tai'Tanu?

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Tai'Tanu was done. She would not suffer any more defeats at the hands of Eirik. When the first charge had failed, she had executed the commander of the troops publicly to make it clear that she would not accept anything other than total victory during the second attack.

The coordinated grenade barrage had created enough of a disturbance that the entire attack force had been forced to a stop by the soldier in front of them. She had ordered them spaced out more for the second wave. The fact that it also decreased the Terran defenders' ability to shoot them down as effectively was merely a side effect that the common soldiers should consider a blessing.

She was satisfied to see her soldiers making quick ground, the defenders not opening fire ad her soldiers charged. But she was disappointed greatly when they finally revealed themselves. They were using different weapons, firing small clouds of projectiles as quickly as they could make that pumping motion underneath the barrel of the gun and she saw her soldiers fall by the handful with every shot loosened from those cursed weapons. She would add them to her personal guards' armory as trophies.

When the Terran ambush from the northern coastline opened up, she had been rocked to her core. She was not even angry, so great was the surprise. How had they managed to not only sneak troops out of the Industrial complex but so many of them?? There were enough troops to present an actual threat when you took the Terrans' long-range proficiency into account, those bloody primates and their bloody natural affinity for throwing and aiming!!

She had just sent orders to dispatch a sizeable chunk of the attacking force when another series of explosions went off right in front of the defensive fortifications, and before the dust had settled, she heard a sound that would haunt her memory for years to come. She heard the sound of over 500 Terran soldiers raising their voices in a unified wordless warcry as she saw them storm out of their defensive position and engage her soldiers in some of the most brutal melee combat she had ever witnessed.

To call it a battle would be lying. She was witnessing the slaughter and mutilation of her forces as they were beset by soldiers so psychotic on adrenaline, fear, and rage that no action was deemed unworthy or beneath them if it meant killing more Kloxna. She saw Terrans bite into their victims, putting the rumors of the danger of a Terran bite to the test. She saw the regular Terran soldiers use the back end of their weapons as primitive clubs, maiming and mauling whoever they happened upon on the battlefield.

The few Terran females she saw in the melee were the worst by far. Killing with a cold precision that was only equaled by the speed with which they did so, all while screeching in a horrible way that sounded like the ghostly wails of the spirits of death she had been told about as a child, their long thin knives cutting down the Kloxna in front of them like scythes would cut wheat.

Then she spotted him. In the front, leading the charge, clad in heavy armor, wielding a spear larger than her and accompanied by 8 other soldiers with the same armor, but different weapons. A single one of them was unarmed but was killing just as fast as the rest. She remembered that one, he was as dangerous as Eirik. She could not let this chance slip away. He was still moving further into her massed troop!

"NO MORE OF THIS!!" She screamed and her personal guard quickly moved to surround her. They knew she would be taking to the field of battle and they hungered for a chance to repay the burning indignities they had been forced to watch their people suffer.

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Eirik was about to call the retreat back to the defenses when he heard the scream. He knew that tone. Moving his eyes slightly further in front of him, he saw them. Tai'Tanu and her personal guards, hunched over and ready to strike.

"LET'S DANCE THEN, YOU HONORLESS CUNT OF A COWARD!" Eirik roared with joy and the squad leaders around him shifted their attention with him.

Tai'Tanu and 100 of the finest Kloxna warriors in existence threw themselves at Eirik, Jesper, and 7 of the squad leaders.