The Ripper stood almost two meters tall on its hind legs. Its dark gray skin absorbed much of the light thrown at it, even in the bright daylight of Planet Telum. A cranial crest as tall as a Commander’s and lobes to match meant that it was smarter than half the other Hexadian species, on par with the Commanders and Menders in charge. Its mouth was just a small frown beneath its four narrow, glaring eyes.

Its frame was only a bit sturdier than that of a Sharpshooter, but what it lacked in pure stature, it made up for with its built-in weaponry: clawed hands as long as its head was tall.

There were six Rippers charging after Nic and his two comrades. These nightmares ran on all fours like some kind of monkeys, the thin hind legs springing and the forelegs thrashing the ground below.

The Bruiser stood at a solid two and a half meters. It looked like it could beat two Commanders in an arm-wrestling match... at the same time. Its upper arms were the girth of most Hexadian heads, and its bulgingly muscular torso was large enough to fit a Fodder inside of it. The Bruiser’s cranial crest was dented in the middle, with two tiny lobes jutting off at either side of its head. This meant that it didn’t have much of a brain of its own—but the lobes were used for their pseudo-telepathic communication, so it was good at following orders.

There were two Bruisers pounding the colony’s powdery surface in pursuit of the Red Battalion soldiers. The scariest part was that, despite their size, they were almost as fast as the Rippers.

Nic, Everett, and Danny were all retreating at the top speed their Gen-3 Achilles Powered Armorsuits could muster. Even at High Speed, their pursuers were making small but appreciable gains. Only time would tell if they would be able to escape.

“Lieutenant Reeve, this is Scarlet 1,” said Nic into his open comms channel. The screeching feedback returned—only this time, it was intermittent. He hoped that his message could still get through. “Seeking strike team status report!” No response. “Lieutenant Welch! Three members of strike team retreating to Red Base: Scarlet 1, Brick 2, and Brick 4.” He summoned the courage to face facts. “Status of other strike team members... unknown.” Again, there was no reply.

“Oh, no,” Danny mumbled. “Guys, they’re starting to catch up to us! What do we do?”

“Don’t look back,” Nic replied. “Don’t ever look back. You’re only going to slow yourself down. RTIFIS and your proximity radar will do the looking for you. Just keep running!”

“Permission to speak freely?” Everett asked.

“Make it quick.”

“I say we cut them off. Guns blazing! We already killed all their buddies. What’s stopping us from giving them the same treatment? They’re the ones chasing us, after all.”

Nic shook his head. “Quit while you’re ahead, man. You almost lost a hand a while ago. Telum doesn’t need any fallen heroes today.” Everett was quiet after that.

After another minute of sprinting at breakneck speeds, Nic checked the proximity radar in the corner of his HUD. Their pursuers were losing ground. I wonder if they’re hitting the limits of their biology, Nic thought. A body of flesh and blood, even one genetically engineered to be superior, could only sprint so far and so fast before it began to tire out, while his mechanical suit of armor was near limitless by comparison.

He was disheartened to learn that this was not the case when multiple new signatures appeared on his radar... in front of them, rather than behind.

“What the—?!” Everett choked out.

Danny was rapidly becoming inconsolable. “Ahh, guys! Guys, are you seeing this? Something up ahead!”

Nic shouted, “Halt!”

The three of them came to a skidding stop at roughly the same time. Roughly 50 meters ahead of them were several more Hexadians emerging from camouflage: three Rippers and one Bruiser. Their pursuers either lost interest or were conserving energy, as both lines of Hexadians stood stock still, acting as barriers and preventing the Red Battalion soldiers from advancing or retreating in either direction.

A damn trap, Nic thought bitterly. Part of him panicked, a visceral animal reaction to his circumstances. That part of him wanted to raise his gun and start firing wildly. He knew it would only seal their fate. Their predicament necessitated different tactics.

“There’s only four in our way,” Nic explained calmly. “The ones behind are at a standstill. They won’t be able to catch up to us because our suits go from zero to full speed faster than their bodies, and they don't have a head start this time.”

“You s-seriously still want to fight?” Danny asked. “Why don’t we just surrender?”

Nic shook his head. “Absolutely not. That's suicide. And I'm not dying out here without taking some with me.”

“Hell no,” Everett agreed. “So, how do we fight our way through the ones in front?”

“The Bruiser can pick any one of us up like a ragdoll. We need to avoid that one at all costs. The Rippers are deadly, but they’re easier to kill. I’m going to punch through between the two on the right there and make a hole. You two come straight after me. Everett, shoot to your left, and Danny, if that Ripper to your right is still on its feet, you shoot it. You both start running one second after I do. Do not hesitate and whatever you do, do not look back.”

“I see,” said Everett. “You know, I can take point on this one if you want. I can punch that hole no problem. Just let me after ‘em! These Hex bastards—”

“Dude,” said Nic, putting a hand on his shoulder, “seriously. You’re going to get yourself killed with this attitude.”

“Sorry.”

“Just stick to the plan and we’ll be back to base before you know it. But if anything goes sideways and I don’t make it out of this, I want you to deliver a message to Scarlet 3 on my behalf.”

Everett nodded. “Sure thing. What?”

I could never tell him everything I’d want to say, Nic realized. And even if I could, there’s no way he’d remember it all. Maybe I could leave a recording for RTIFIS, if our suits survive... No. Because we’re making it out of this. All three of us. “Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.” Nic took one final deep breath to steel his nerves. “On my mark. Three... two... one... Now!”

Scarlet 1 broke into a sprint on a dime. The Achilles suit’s reactive impact foam cushioned the sudden force, as otherwise, his bones would have been broken quickly at these speeds. It wasn’t perfect—at High Speed, he still felt like he was trapped in a washing machine.

“Engaging Rippers!” he called out. Running dangerously low on ammo, he squeezed his SMG trigger and sprayed the two long-clawed aliens in his sights. The other Ripper and the Bruiser, and the aliens that had been chasing them earlier, all of them were now charging as well.

Nic broke the line. One of the Rippers scratched at his shoulder plating on the way past—his heart skipped a beat—but it failed to get a grip on him. Now it would be too late for any of them to catch up.

Everett was right behind him. He called out as well, “Engaging!” Nic heard the bark of Brick 2’s SMG muffled in the planet’s near-vacuum atmosphere. A kill notification trickled down Nic’s HUD.

Then it was Danny’s turn. Nic watched the trio of Red Battalion lights on his proximity radar pressing forward past the enemy... or two of them did, and one lagged behind.

“Danny!” Nic shouted. “Move up now! Do not hesitate! Do not look back!”

“I-I don’t—” Danny stuttered. Nic made the mistake of looking back over his shoulder. Danny had frozen meters from the enemy line, frozen in fear at the sight of his enemies. His hands were raised defensively—not that doing so would so much as slow down the alien foes. Two Rippers were on the ground; the wounded-but-living one was getting up. But the free one, the third one that had only been grazed by their bullets, pounced on the Brick soldier.

“Danny!” Nic screamed. “Danny, move!”

“Ev—AGHH!” Danny shrieked. “Kincaid! Help! HELP!” He fired his SMG one-handed at the last second, every shot missing by a wide margin.

Nic made another mistake in watching it unfold. The Ripper, true to its moniker, used its long claws to dig into the small slit of feedback suit between the abdominal and waist armor plates of Danny’s suit. Another one, the weaker one, climbed Danny’s back and went for the tiny exposed section of his throat. The vitals notifications popped up faster than Nic could process them.

BRICK 4/DANNY: [URGENT!(✓)] 141BPM(▲), 96O2(▼), 37C(=), 130/80(▲) BRICK 4/DANNY: [CRITICAL!!!(✓)] 184BPM(▲), 93O2(▼), 35C(▼), 88/?(▼) BRICK 4/DANNY: [DEAD(✓)]

Mercifully, RTIFIS had muted Danny’s comms channel before the worst of it.

“You goddamn monsters,” Everett hissed through clenched teeth. “You filthy, subhuman animals! I should—” He raised his gun, but Nic stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” said the Squad Leader, suppressing the shake in his voice, “but he’s gone. We need to leave.”

“We can’t just leave him like that!”

“You don’t understand! We can’t go yet! We can’t... We can’t just leave her here. Stop. Stop! You’re just abandoning her!”

The memory surfaced from his subconscious like a drowning person coming up for air, loud, insisting to be witnessed, clinging to his attention like it was a life raft. He shuddered. “We’ll bring him back when it’s time. We need to go or we’re going to die out here. Now move!”

His voice cracking, Everett answered him, “Sir, yes, sir!”

The two surviving Red Battalion soldiers resumed their retreat. The Rippers were hot on their trail, and the dumb, oafish Bruisers, no longer entertained by the motionless body, followed suit. There was no way they could outrun the aliens forever, but Nic wasn’t banking on that; he was waiting instead for the moment when their suits’ endurance outlasted that of the aliens. The creatures were mind-bogglingly fit for combat by human standards, and their stamina was many times greater than even the most legendary genetically-tweaked human beings... but they still had biological limits based on energy consumption and respiration.

Their vacuum configurations meant they were running on a certain amount of air and that they couldn’t get more of it down here on the surface of Telum. They had the speed advantage without a doubt, but in a few minutes’ time, Nic’s waiting game paid off.

“We lost them for now,” he told Everett. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. We might run into another camouflaged line... but I think we should probably be in the clear. It’ll still be a few hours until we make it back to base. At least we won’t have company.”

Everett had none of his usual gung-ho responses this time. After another minute, he just said, “You know, I only said that stuff to him to toughen him up. He wasn’t always like this. He’s been different ever since we learned we’d be seeing action, you know?”

Nic nodded. “I know. You can’t beat yourself up about it. But right now, we need to focus on the mission.”

“I am sorry, you know. I... He’s my friend. I swear he is. I was just trying to toughen him up. That’s all.”

Nic sighed quietly. “It’s going to be a long run back to Red Base, Everett. Let’s talk about something else. Give me your top five favorite foods from the commissary—go.”

Shouldn’t have looked back, Nic thought. Not doing that ever again.