Cindy's brain slowly forced itself out of its pain-induced coma and immediately wished it hadn't. She groaned loudly as every nerve in her side seemed to shout at her that they were on fire. She tried to open her eyes, but found her eyelids not too cooperative. Darkness ruled all around her. Not silence, though. She made out heavy footfalls and a lot of rustling that she couldn't place. The footfalls put her at ease. It wasn't the bone-shaking thumping of the Svalinns, but no ordinary human could make the ground vibrate just by walking across it. Something pressed into her side. Something hard and cold, clashing with the fiery sensation that ruled it, but then an itch began to spread forth from it like a wildfire. She tried to scratch it, but her right arm ran into resistance and her left arm... She could swear she felt her left arm move, but it didn't touch anything. As the itch crawled further through her body and reached her head, her eyes jolted open and darted down.

I'll never hold Julian with both arms again, the strange, unbidden thought came in a panic, before her mental conditioning kicked in and forced her back into a cold, unfeeling state. Sorrow, panic, pain and loss could come later. The op had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. She looked up into the bare face of one of the Genesis. She didn't know which one. She studied it for a moment, just as two lenses were studying her face in turn. The man didn't speak, just scanned her body, putting away a sinister looking injector. His eyes kept moving around, taking in her body. It was still remarkable to her how... normal they looked, if you didn't pay attention to the eyes. Tall, for the average human, with a sturdy built that only marginally hinted at their strength. It wasn't until another Genesis walked in, if not being there one moment, only to reappear right beside her in less time than she could blink could be defined as walking, that she was reminded of just how utterly inhuman they really were. She thought she recognised this one. It was hard to tell, with her head still pounding and in the surprisingly low light. Very unusual for an operating room, the rogue thought came. But then again, they don't need it, do they? At least, she assumed she was in an operating room. The last she remembered was a lot of gunfire, more pain, and her world turning black. She saw the two Genesis share a brief look, with one nodding to the other, then the newcomer stood at attention beside her... bed? Operating table?

"We were ambushed on our way to our primary extraction point," began the Genesis and she instantly recognised him as Dreamer. Not hard to, really. He was the only one who used full sentences. Wasting little time he ran through the entire scenario. Cindy felt her eyes go wide as Dreamer summarised a lethal ambush and an impossible escape in only a few dozen sentences. She opened her mouth to ask questions, but he didn't let her get a word in. "It is my belief that the enemy now is aware of our capabilities. They have predicted our paths and mission objectives once, they are capable of doing it again. Next time we will not survive an ambush without casualties, or at all."

She tried to raise her hand to interrupt him, but glared at the straps holding her in place. Blasted void! They were so tight she could barely tug at the damned things!

"Critical blood loss. Synthetic replacement, lack of nutrients and vital cells. Rest required," the other Genesis chimed in. He blinked, the three lenses changing position rapidly. "Not combat capable," he told her in a cold, dispassionate voice. The words struck like hammers and she let out a hiss between her teeth. Relegated to the side lines, she darkly thought. Wonderful. The super-soldier grabbed his superior, who she only just now realised was only wearing his briefs, and began looking over his back. That annoyed her. Not that he was in his briefs, void no, but that she hadn't picked up on it. NavInt was supposed to see everything. Even when wounded. Especially when wounded.

"How many were wounded?" she asked, the anger helping whatever it was the medic had pumped into her with pulling her mind out of its stupor. She still felt pathetically weak and sluggish, but she refused to let it rule her. Mind over matter, damn you. She embraced the anger, roused it to fury, and directed it to where it could be used productively. She had to do her duty, had to help them. They were excellent soldiers, but they weren't infallible, and this was still an infiltration behind enemy lines in a populated area, which was her expertise. And she refused to be useless.

"627 is heavily injured and will not participate in any offensive missions. His armour is heavily damaged and his shields non-functional. His weapon is broken. I have sustained three broken vertebrae, the rear projectors are non-functional and the rearwards armour integrity is compromised." He methodically went through the list, from worst to least injured. It took her a moment to factor the equipment damage into it, until she realised that he wasn't giving her a list of injuries, but simply stating how their combat effectiveness had been affected. She shook her head, clearing it a bit further, before glancing back up at the man beside her. Three broken vertebrae? she numbly thought. He should be on the ground, screaming in pain, not standing up straight without any outward sign of discomfort! And she had the feeling he wasn't under even a fraction of the anaesthetics she had been liberally dosed with.

She tried to sit up, but just as soon as her muscles tightened the large hand of the medic was on her chest already, pushing her down. He shook his head. Once. His eyes were cold and lacking the stern gaze so common to medical personnel. "Did you manage to track down the ones who set the ambush?"

"Negative," Dreamer simply stated. Then, as an afterthought, "there is no mention of them on any network we have access to. They remain off-grid. I estimate them to be special forces. There was a singular unit of them planetside, but other than that no information can be retrieved."

"What about requisition reports? They can't subsist on thin air. They'll need ammunition, food, fuel, ... There should be some trace of them."

"We checked and found none." There was no anger in his voice, no hate or even mild dislike for the unit that had magically appeared and harmed him and his. No grudging respect for capable adversaries. His voice lacked any and all emotion, with the sole exception being a tinge of annoyance. She tried to think of something, a way to track them down regardless, but she came up blank. She knew how special forces operated. NavInt was intimately familiar with making people disappear of the face of the earth. Technically speaking less than half of their employed personnel officially existed to begin with. Yet there was always the chance that an outsider unit dropped the ball somewhere, left a tiny, visible track. She pushed down her desire to overlook the networks as well. Aside that it would take her an eternity, she had to trust the Genesis and put her professional paranoia aside. Briefly.

"I... see," was all she could reply with. "What are your plans now then?" She knew their tactical approach would have to radically shift, but now that they were being hunted and that their cards were on the table, she had no clue where to shift it to. An admission she did not like making.

He gave her a glance as he leaned down on the table, his face temporarily pulling taut as a painful noise came from his back, where his colleague was operating. She ignored the shiver that ran through her spine and kept her gaze firm. "I have contacted the rest of the Battalion," he began, worsening her shivers. "Our main objectives remain unchanged," he reiterated. "To damage and sabotage defensive assets and to avoid drawing orbital bombardment. Given that the ambush failed to eliminate us, it may lead the enemy commander to decide that a concentrated bombardment is the only option."

She swallowed audibly, feeling drops of sweat running down her skin. "That's not going to be a quick decision. It will cause massive damage to their own infrastructure, not to mention that it will require them to deactivate their own shields. And the civil unrest that will cause is likely to erupt into a planetwide revolt, which would likely take Nagalan strategically out of the picture anyhow, if they ever reach a consensus on it."

He tilted his head. Clearly that was a thing he hadn't considered, but he barged on as if she had said nothing and the bombardment was imminent. "There is another issue. Armoured reinforcements are coming in, enough to flush us out one by one and eliminate us."

"Brace," the medic's voice suddenly interjected. She barely registered the word before she saw Dreamer's face contort in major discomfort, followed by a large piece of shrapnel, larger than her own hand, clanging to the ground. In the short time it took her to look at the bloody piece of metal, his face had returned to normal again and he continued speaking as if nothing had happened.

"Engaging these reinforcements in ground combat would be too costly. We do not have the time to eliminate them without sacrificing our primary objective."

She blinked mutely at him as her mind processed that statement. And blanched at the implication. She mentally kicked herself in the shins. For all her attempts at understanding the Genesis and all the headway she had made into figuring out the why of their creation, she had overlooked the equally vital what. He hadn't communicated with the Battalion to discuss things. They didn't work that way. They had contingencies for virtually everything. Even the ambush hadn't taken them off guard. They immediately fell back onto predetermined orders and made their escape. No, he had contacted them to let them know that they were moving onto a different stage of the plan. .

As Dreamer began to set out just which contingency plans they would be following, Cindy was reminded of one of those ancient quotes from a story or a movie from ages past. May God have mercy on them, she mutely thought. Because they sure as hell won't.

Vosjlaw watched his men stream into the complex, their weapons holstered for a change. He had not come here to wage war, but to insist on... Cooperation. There was no doubt in his mind that it wouldn't be a friendly one, though he hoped there wouldn't be too much blood spilled. It had taken him two days just to get here, even with his resources. It was more important than ever to stay undercover, as the Imperials would be looking for him. He had no doubt how well he'd fare if they found his location and decided to go after him. Not that he feared death. He was too much a soldier for that and had long since made peace that he would die in combat. No, it was failing his duty that weighed on his conscience. Already it was struggling with the amount of people he had consigned to their fate. He had tried, though, but apparently nobody aside his own men fully understood the threat of the invaders. Grevorich still bloody insisted on seeing them as a nuisance. Rats that refused to be stomped out, and the only reason the sewers hadn't been cleaned out was that the cleaners were arguing amongst themselves. He had tried to talk sense into the man, but... He sighed, glad the sound didn't go beyond his helmet. He really didn't like what he was about to do. And what he had done already.

The alarms began to blare and everyone reached for their weapons. The officers were jostled aside and Commander Grevorich was rudely pulled out of the command centre and shoved into the safe room, quickly followed by the rest of the staff. "What's happening?" he demanded, ignoring the stream of armed men rushing down the hallways and taking up defensive positions.

"An attack, sir!" one of them reported, pausing only briefly. Before the man managed to run further, Grevorich grabbed hold of him, only to be nearly pulled over in return.

"I can see that, man! Who's attacking us?"

"Unconfirmed yet, but they're wearing power armour."

Those words caused a cascade of fear to ripple through everyone present. He felt his own face freeze, the memories of the woman butchered by a disruptor fresh in the fore of his mind. Behind him he heard Gilgi gnash his teeth, before he audibly swallowed and pulled out his own pistol. Nayasi instantly rounded on him. "We're in orbit," she hissed. "And I had no reports of an assault on a port where they'd acquire a shuttle. And yes, there are orders out to blow any non-scheduled transport out of the sky."

Grevorich let out a breath he hadn't know he was holding, before blood rushed back to his face and painted him red with fury. "Get me a com line," he hissed, now knowing damned well who was storming the headquarters.

His demand was interrupted as sharp, hissing explosion blew open the armoured doors fairly close by. The soldier seemed to remember himself and shoved the Commander into the safe room, before slamming the reinforced armour plates shut. And then unloaded a clip into the control mechanism for good measure. From within the illusion of safety the officers could only listen on helplessly as gunfire erupted, grenades boomed and men screamed, barely audible through the thick plates. The sound of muffled pandemonium rapidly came louder, the source approaching at an alarming rate. They were getting closer and nothing his own forces did to stop them seemed to work. Then, far too soon, silence reigned. Someone knocked on the door.

"Open up Grevorich," came Vosjlaw's voice. "I'm here to talk and you're here to listen."

"Talk!" the Commander bellowed, raging fury overcoming any fear he had felt. "You slaughtered—"

Something massive and violent hit the door and Grevorich, as well as everyone else, recoiled away from it. Gilgi's pistol went up. So did Nayasi's. So did a few others. Brave, foolish bastards. Despite the situation, Grevorich still felt his pride waver up at the sight.

"I said that you're here to listen, you damned demented moron. Because so far I've talked and talked and talked, but you stubbornly refuse to listen." Metal clanked just outside as he heard Vosjlaw bark orders at his men, though he couldn't make out what. "Now you either open that door and face me, or I cut it open and haul you out of there. I give you my solemn word that I am not here to kill you or any of yours. But I'm getting you out of there and you are going to make the rest of your goons stand down. I'm running out of flashbangs and your peashooters are beginning annoy my men. Here's a first hint for you, don't leave your equipment lists out on vulnerable servers. Or the damned building lay-out!" Those lasts words were almost howled.

Grevorich glared at the door as if trying to melt a hole through it, as well as through the man behind. He had no choice. He knew it. He did not trust Vosjlaw's word. Not after the man had violently ransacked his headquarters, but... He was bereft of choice. He looked around at his staff. Good men and women. Youngsters, most of them, but already better officers than most fools that served. He put on his best warface and gave them a grin that he hoped exuded confidence. It seemed to work, somewhat. He turned back to the door. Might as well retain some dignity. He tapped in his override code and unlocked the door. The heavy plates slid open and he came face to face with a man encased in power armour, towering over him. He refused to back down, though. If he was going to die, he'd do so on his own bloody feet! "What," he quipped, putting as much arrogance in his voice as he could manage without it breaking up. "Not even going to meet me face to face?"

He simply gestured and two of his men stomped inside. "Hand over those guns first," was all he said. Grevorich looked over his shoulder and saw that, indeed, most of his staff still held their pistols at the ready. Not directly pointed at the intruders, but not far off either. He saw them glance at him and nodded. It wasn't as if they could do anything against men in power armour with those.In short order the lot of them were disarmed, then patted down. It wasn't gently, soldiers in power armour never were, but it wasn't aggressive or violent either. Merely professional. Once his men gave the all clear, Vosjlaw escorted Grevorich to the nearest coms console and made him order the rest of his forces in the facility to stand down. Even then, paranoid as ever, the Captain waited until he received confirmation from the rest of his men before he finally undid the seals on his helmet and revealed his face. He looked angry. Furious even. And, strangely enough, sad. "Well!" he bellowed at the staff. "Get to your stations, you idiots! The war's not over!"

Such was the commanding tone in his voice that the officers found themselves halfway back to their usual spots before they even realised they had begun to move. Even Grevorich discovered that he was standing at attention, his back perfectly straight. He hadn't let go of his glare, though.

"Well, here you are then. I suppose this is where you'll start making demands and everything. Are you going to proclaim again how you are the only one fully capable of dealing with the Imperial threat? One successful ambush doesn't win the war, Vosjlaw."

"I..." the man actually looked confused for a second, then he let out a sigh and he seemed to deflate. "The ambush wasn't successful, Grevorich. I lost seven men. Two hundred and thirty-nine soldiers died. We lost two gunships and five APCs. Civilian casualties are still being tallied up, but there's over a hundred of them as well. We had the entire area surrounded. Cordoned off, locked in. They were in a box. Every exit was watched. They showed up right where I expected them to, and we opened up on them with everything we got." Vosjlaw's earlier anger evaporated as he went on. "They returned fire the same instant. They had shields. They shot a missile out of the air." He glanced back up, eyes wide in still not fully processed shock. "They're not human, Grevorich. The Empire created something new. That ambush would have killed anyone. They got out. All of them. If we're lucky, we managed to kill the one normal human with them, but we've not found a corpse so I'm not even taking that for granted."

Grevorich was taken aback. Vosjlaw, to the world, appeared as unbeatable. Gruff, rough, uncouth and often violent, but never had he imagined that the man's shoulders could sag in like that. It took the own wind out of his sails. Until he saw the rest of the room again, with Vosjlaw's power armoured soldiers moving unconscious troops out of the way. His eyebrows aligned themselves into a frown as his anger returned. "You could have told me this," he hissed. "You didn't need to invade my headquarters to make a point. Beside, your ambush clearly did something right. We've not heard anything from them since. Even better, it finally put some fear in the others as well, as reports of attacks have all but ceased."

"I've sent you my reports, Grevorich. I told you that the ambush had failed." He spat out the last word, his own voice regaining in strength as the man raised himself to his full height, his earlier dejected mood forgotten. "I implored you, begged you to put out a global alert. To go into full martial law, the consequences be damned. To mine the pathways to anything even remotely important. I even admitted that the cost will be enormous, far beyond what we can imagine, but that it's this or losing the damned planet. You never did more than take it into consideration. Because you still refuse to believe." He reached out and grabbed Grevorich by the uniform, pulling him closer. "I need you, Commander," he said, making the rank sound like an insult. "But far more than I need you, you need me." He ignored the steel in Grevorich' eyes as the man met his gaze.

"Sir!" Nayasi suddenly interjected, her face looking pale.

"What!" both men shouted in unison, turning towards the Lieutenant. Their reactions to the sudden pandemonium that had sprung up out of nowhere and consumed the room vastly different. Grevorich looked surprised, taken aback as he saw screens turn red and heard the beeps of high priority messages coming through. Vosjlaw, on the other hand, only softly shook his head. He had predicted this would happen.

"We're getting reports of new attacks, mainly strikes on local headquarters," she said, pronouncing the words with care as if worried her voice would give out. Her gaze faltered and she cast her eyes to the ground, mouthing unspoken words as she tried to get her bearing. "Hundreds of them," she finally said.

Grevorich sucked in a deep breath. "How bad is it?"

"The..." she tapped on the console, as if hoping that the news was just a bad dream, sorting through the countless reports that flooded her screen. "I don't know, sir. I'll need time to sort through all of this. But it's bad. Really bad."

Vosjlaw stepped in, his voice booming around the room. "Draw the locations hit up on a map, then compare it to the last known list of attacks that happened within an eight hour timeframe. If they've only hit hundreds of locations, that means they've teamed up. Put the rest of the headquarters on high alert, they'll be coming for those next." He prowled around the command centre, looking every part the hunter that he was. "Tell them to load up every bit of anti-armour equipment that they have, and that the enemy they are facing is shielded. Overkill does not exist. Our own armour will be the enemy's primary targets. If units have mines, tell them to deploy them. Further, inform all commands that their coms channel are now classified as non-secure and that there is no way around it. Give the order to rely on hand-signals and cables for communications at all times, as jamming will be in full effect the moment combat starts."

Nayasi looked at him for a moment, before turning back to Grevorich for confirmation, but was interrupted by Vosjlaw bellowing "DO IT" at her, and she folded under his withering gaze.

The Captain turned to Grevorich, whose face had turned to ash. "Listen, Grevorich," he whispered, keeping his voice low. "In the next few days, the enemy is going to consistently strike at all of our regional commands, every one they can reach. They plan to douse the entire planet into unmitigated chaos, giving them free reign. Casualties will be, from today alone, in the tens of thousands, and I doubt we'll manage to kill even a single one of the bastards in return. Forget everything that the academy taught you. Forget everything that you think you know of our enemy. These bastards are inhuman. Something new, something vile, and something neigh unstoppable. Ending their rampage is going to cost us, more than you can imagine. They didn't avoid hitting us head on because they were scared of us, they did it because they wanted to hide their true abilities. We cannot stand up to them in a straight up fight, not in an urban territory. Not without artillery, heavy armour and clear lines of fire. Not while thinking about saving lives or maintaining infrastructure. And this is only the beginning. They're not suicide commandos. They're the first wave of the attack. We kill them, or we lose the planet."

Grevorich mutely stared at the man, pure horror marring his face. More reports kept streaming in, all equally disastrous. Entire compounds had been levelled. Armour left burning, hundreds of soldiers slaughtered in every base, defensive positions be damned. He still didn't want to believe that Vosjlaw was right, but as the map was projected on the main screen, with dozens of bases being darkened and listened as total losses, what choice did he have? None of their actions had even slowed them down much, and now they were wreaking havoc utterly unopposed. Against hardened military targets no less. "Then what do you suggest we do?" he asked, his voice hoarse, desperation giving it an ugly tinge.

Vosjlaw began to explain his plan in whispers. It was well thought out, took all the tactical difficulties into account and, if all you wanted was to kill the enemy, it made sense. Grevorich turned as pale as a ghost as the man in front of him elaborated why these 'extreme measures' were necessary. By the time the explanation finished, he only knew two things. That he was going to be violently sick, and that he needed to put a halt to this madman's plans.

No matter the cost.