Mai brough the buggy to skidding halt as soon as they entered the tunnel’s main base. The new walls had forced her to slow down far more than she felt comfortable with, but at the same time she was pleased with how well they worked. Seeing the tops of the turrets poking over the walls and tracking her had hammered home just how it would feel to the enemy as they attacked.

“What happened ma’am?” asked a worried looking NCO. She had dirt smudged all over her face, and her fatigues were similarly dirty.

“Scouts. Get ready, we killed a number of them, but I can’t tell how long they were there before I spotted them. Get everyone into the bunkers and trenches I think …” she didn’t get to finish her sentence as a rocket was suddenly launched from one of the defence towers. Spinning on the spot, she cursed as the walls prevented her from seeing what was being fired upon. Another missile launched, and then one of the auto-cannon turrets opened up.

She formed a drone and popped it up into the air, ordering it to assume a hover pattern over her and follow wherever she went. Her retinal monitor filled with the drone’s feed until she changed the size and dropped to a corner of her monitor. A vehicle burned in the tunnel, and she spotted infantry moving past the wrecked vehicle. Bodies already littered the six lands of the road as the auto-cannon blasted the soldiers apart.

“Biyu, you getting kills for the turret?”

“Not me boss, the engineers put them up. They’re looking pretty damned pleased with themselves right now.”

Mai gave a sigh of relief, if her people were celebrating kills, and the experience points they would get from them, she was a little less worried about them refusing to open fire themselves.

She opened up the base expansion menu, essentially a SASS for the outpost. The kills were starting to register and, as previously, they were contributing to BASE scores which in turn added to their control points and allowed them to expand further.

She sent a message to the engineers to only maintain and replace the turrets, using the points to hold the base for as long as possible, rather than expand its size. Job done, she keyed her mic and got back to Biyu.

“Make sure that if they level up they only concentrate on their professional skills, every level they go up will add points of effectiveness to their defences. Try and rotate them as well, get some more turrets up by low levels that haven’t built anything yet. They’ll be weaker, but the more they level up the better.”

“Roger that boss, sending the order now.”

Mai’s retinal monitor flashed and the glyph for a new order started to flash. She blinked it open and closed so that she wouldn’t be distracted by the flash. Another rocket launched and raced away leaving a trail of flame and smoke behind it. There was a loud boom, and a cheer as another enemy vehicle was killed.

Infantry on the walls started to fire, as did the anti-personnel turrets, their six, six-barrelled miniguns sending a near continuous stream of bullets towards the enemy. The strobing light of the weapons bathed the area in an orange glow.

Return fire started to hit the defences, blowing chunks out of the walls, and forcing the infantry to drop behind cover. A heavy shell slammed into one of the turrets, blowing applique armour into the air as it detonated, saving the turret beneath from the full damage. Looking up at it, Mai saw that it had only lost a couple of per cent from its SOAK and suffered no actual damage itself.

“Enemy armour approaching. Six- and eight-wheeled tanks and armoured personnel carriers,” reported one of her platoon commanders. He was from one of the new regiments, but his calm manner made it seem he was a veteran of many battles.

Come to think of it, just because he was a civilian before he joined up, doesn’t mean he wasn’t already experienced before that. Either way, she was glad to see how well her people were performing under pressure.

“Engage the APCs, without infantry support, the enemy armour will be easier to destroy,” she ordered, ducking as a spent bullet whickered overhead. She was headed to the outpost’s command centre, a bunker buried below ground, and surrounded by a network of much smaller gun turrets.

More enemy shells hammered their positions, and Mai cursed as the first casualties started to appear on her retinal monitor. It gave their names, type, and unit. She could have done without knowing their names at that point, as she didn’t want to think about people she knew being hurt. She’d seen that happen far too often recently.

“We have another nine enemy tanks approaching. Four destroyed. Three APCs burning. At least another ten approaching,” reported the platoon leader as more rockets raced away from the turrets.

“Biyu, how we doing for bio-mass?”

“Turrets are burning fifteen per cent per missile, but it’s worth it because if they hit, they kill. Miniguns are five per cent per thousand rounds. A thousand rounds is just around one second of firing. We’ve got enough, don’t worry.”

Mai bit her lip at the cost of the rockets but didn’t say anything. War had its cost, and she was happy to pay for rockets if it meant it didn’t cost her people’s lives. Opening her comms menu as she continued to rush to the command centre, she sent a request for more bottles of bio-mass. Whilst there was a risk that they might be captured if the outpost was overrun, it was worth it if it meant the enemy suffered greater losses further out from Nether City. Looking back through the cave system, she realised that Nether City was far more of a home to her than the Upper City was. All she needed was her sister, and life would be – if not perfect – as close to being perfect as it could.

The command centre door opened as she approached it, reading her bio-scans, and saving her the effort of having to actually open it. Inside was a buzz of activity as command staff directed the outpost’s defences.

Settling down in front of the holomap, she watched as various units started to engage, the enemy finally entering their sectors. In no time at all, every unit on the front line was fighting. Looking at the number of vehicles trying to force their way down the tunnel, she tried to gauge the number of enemy soldiers they potentially faced. Each APC was of the Gauntlet type, an eight-wheeled vehicle capable of carrying two squads of infantry at ten soldiers each. A platoon was made up of four squads, and one command squad in a smaller Fist APC, which was a ten-soldier carrier with only six wheels. They tended to hang back so that the commander could make decisions relatively safely.

Taking control of a command drone, she started to ping the enemy vehicles she should see, ignoring the tanks, and concentrating on the APCs. Despite the smoke, explosions and counter-measures filling the air, she was able to count at least twenty Gauntlets, or four hundred enemy troops. Ten platoons, which meant they were facing at least a company of enemy troops. Unlike other armies in human history, the Imperial Army’s massive size was reflected in its structure. For the rebels, a company numbered only one hundred or so fighters. And the outpost only had three companies of infantry, with another couple of companies of support troops.

She relayed the information to her commanders, letting them filter the information down to individual soldiers.

“Airdrop!”

Mai spun her drone to look for the new threat, using the indicator on her minimap to quickly orient it. Three large planes hovered over the outpost, passengers spilling out of the sides and rear as they dropped into the attack.

“Cullers!”

Mai cursed as she heard the warning. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get away from the culling and her old life. Forming an SMG and shield combination, as well as boosting her armour, she raced out of the command centre and straight into a bloody battle for survival.

Mai left the command centre and stepped straight into a melee straight out of depictions of the hells. Men, women, cyborgs, and bots battled each other with close quarter weapons. Blood, flesh, and sparks filled the air as nanite blades cleaved through flesh and metal with consummate ease.

The troops in this part of the outpost were new to this sort of thing, the only experienced soldiers being in 3rd company who were a good three hundred paces away on the wall. Already she could see that the incoherent rage of the cullers in their midst had shaken them to their core and that it would only take the slightest nudge for them to fall to pieces.

“Rally to me!” she amplified her voice, swamping the battleground with it, the noise causing even the cullers to pause. There was a slight silence, as everyone tried to gather their wits, and she broke it by shooting the nearest culler in the face.

HEAD SHOT

INSTAKILL

CULLER 482096 ELIMINATED

Battle erupted once more as her people gave a cheer at the kill, hacking and slashing their way towards her.

“Shields!” she boomed once more, and those of her people nearest formed shields, interlinking them so that they presented an armoured wall to their enemies, protecting the entrance to the command centre at the same time.

“It’s Mai Xiao! The bitch in person! Kill her!” screamed a woman, pointing a wicked-looking sword in her direction. Mai activated her SMG skill, then targeted a CRITICAL HIT box on the woman’s knee. It took the merest of flicks of her wrist to lay her sight on the woman’s knee, and a split second to fire a three round burst.

Shrieking, the woman tumbled to the ground, holding on to the stump of her leg as blood jetted into the air. Without pause another culler stepped forward, raised a heavy hammer, and brought it crashing down onto the woman’s skull, bursting it like an egg, showering those nearby in shards of bone and gobbets of brain matter.

KILL ASSIST!

CONTESTANT 896948 ELIMINATED

The cullers charged, a wordless roar of hate washing over Mai and her brave band of soldiers. Men and women grunted as the enemy crashed into their shields, feet sliding on the ground at the pure force of the attack. Weapons stabbed and slashed.

DAMAGE! 0.5%

BLEED AT 0.1% PER SECOND

Heat filled Mai’s cheek as a blade slipped past her shield. She returned the favour by reaching above her shield and spraying a burst into the tightly-packed cullers.

HIT! 50%

BLEED AT 5% PER SECOND

PINNED

HIT! 10%

BLEED AT 1% PER SECOND

PINNED

HIT! 34%

BLEED AT 2% PER SECOND

PINNED

The pressure on her shield lessened slightly as the enemy players shied away from her weapon.

“Push! One step!”

Her people roared the order back at her, braced themselves and then stamped forward at the same time, driving the enemy back. Foot twisting as she brought it down, she hissed in pain and looked down to see a wounded culler at her feet.

“You two, close ranks when I step back and out,” she ordered the rebels flanking her. “Push! One step!”

Once again the rebels repeated the order and then stamped forward, pushing the cullers back once again. That step brought the wounded culler into the cordon formed by their shields. Stepping back, she waited for the rebels to close the gap before bending down to take her prisoner.