Lances of freezing cold fluid flew over the battlefield, followed by near silent, shots that were ripping through the armor of Chitins. Short grass froze underneath the beams that took away their heat. The cryo beams hadn’t done much yet, because our scatter shields had been able to reliably deflect them, however, the scatter shields couldn’t take much damage from them, only two or three hits. We had been jumping around trying to find cover, ad from there, shoot at them. We were still doing that now, but I’m currently throwing some magic around and whatnot.

“They unleashed the battle beasts! Prepare for close quarters!” F’toly said, a high ranking Viknorin that had undergone similar genetic procedures. With his somewhat slower, yet more dense body structure, he had been assigned to group 3, and was the leader of that Viknorin/Heiive squad. They were carrying bigger weapons, and lots of ammo/supplies. An enormous creature jumped over the rock I was standing on. It looked like a praying mantis, but mammalian, and four eyes. I immediately shot it, my railgun slug going through its chest, killing it instantly. I looked over my piece of cover, and fired my larger railgun into a larger group, taking out many Runners, Chitins, and beasts. The other third of their military, the Tanks, weren’t here. We had dubbed the bipedal members of the Alliance Runners, the long chitinous ones Chitins, and the other one Tanks.

We then began to push farther into the base, with F’toly and his team launching a short salvo of micro-missiles. The small missiles were about eight inches long, and a single one could kill/disable the lightly armored soldiers. After about 50 were launched, each tracking their own individual targets, and taking them out. We pushed through the gate they were coming out of, and began to clear the inside, with much less defences internally. One guy in my squad got frosted a bit when a beam glazed him. A Oort picked him up, and brought him to a hospital. If you got even a glancing hit from those, the muscles stiffened really badly, and the blood partially crystalized. We called this effect ‘frosting’, and it could kill if not immediately treated. However we pushed on, with far more resistance than we had expected. All the missiles had been used up before we got halfway through the base, where at which point things got much harder.We fought tooth and claw, before realizing it would be best if we split up again. We split into eight groups and the began to assault the underground areas.

“Holy shit!” I said after we had finished off the fourth 10 man group. “How many soldiers are there here?”

“I don’t know, just keep pushing forward.” Roou said, dusting off his four armored hands. The Viknorin began to scuttle along with his tentacles, and began to mess with the computers we’d been investigating until the group came along. The two hours we’d spent here had been full of nasty bullshit. J’lico, the single Heiive we’d brought along made a breakthrough.

“Guys good and bad news.”

“What is it J’lico?” Helian asked.

“I figured out what this place is.” The Heiive said.

“What is it” I asked hastily.

“This place is an exotic resource productions facility, and the only one. That means when or if we capture this we can get some truly awesome tech going, however, it also means they have an insane amount of troops here. This isn’t going to be a cakewalk.” The mood turned somber.

“Well, we should push hard.” I said. “Avoid as many breaks as possible, and tell the others. Let’s use whatever resources we can, and call reinforcements as soon as possible. We’ll need them to hold the elevators, and to cover our backs. Get a few Kyper Bikes and tell them to use a hit and run strategy on any armies coming to reinforce or assault other territory. The last time we captured one of the toys of one of the superpowers, it was a slaughter. We can’t afford to have that happen here. Last time was meant to send a message. We sent it alright, but, we didn’t hold the objective. This is the one gateway to us and every friend we have. We alone are covering this, and the stakes are high.” I looked solemnly at the group. “This is may take a day, a week, a month, but we will hold this. With the Rissi front in chaos, the slightest nudge could send it crashing down on whoever is on the other end. This is the key we need to establish ourselves. Once we absorb the Rissi, more will see who and what we are, and either make friends make enemies, or even let themselves be absorbed. Now then, let’s go fuck up some nasty assholes!” I said. With that rallying cry we raised our weapons, and turned them to the elevator next to us, which had begun to ding.