"Unlike grown-ups, children have little need to deceive themselves."

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German Poet, and novelist.

Author's Preface: Originally finished on Nov 07, 2011 and nearly a decade later it's still one of my favorite stories. Not just because it's the first big written project I've ever completed (It's like 80 pages long!), but it was such a joy for me to write. I think many of my readers noticed that too since it has become a fan favorite for most. It's brutal, funny, and explores the themes I love to most write about in SC. Not to mention this is the first story that's set in my post-WW3 storyline. I think it's fitting it would be the very first story to be corrected, rewritten at parts, and uploaded onto the new SC website. Thank you all for being here.

2/18/18 - Michael Mangual, NYC

CAS Lady Liberty, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik] 08112098

“You are men?” The hulking nine-foot tall creature said to the soldiers standing in front of him. The creature had no visible mouth on its long slender face, but everyone heard it loud and clear inside of their heads. The creature's voice sounded different to everyone assembled on the hanger of the Colonial Alliance battleship. Some heard it as the voice of a dead loved one or an old friend. It clearly unnerved them all. A few broke their military bearing and began to weep at the sound of the dead brought back to life. The creature moved forward on its two long legs and towered over the leader of the humans. “We are glad to see men. Fulfill man's call to the march.”

The man breathed heavily in an attempt to calm himself, he was trying hard to focus and brush off hearing the voice of his dead wife. “You're the Voorik military adviser?”

“You are correct.” The Vooriks large gem-like eyes fixed themselves on the human leader.

The angelic voice of his dead wife contrasted sharply with the hideous alien standing before him. It was certainly a bipedal humanoid, but its similarity to humans ended there. It wore a crystalline body armor that looked almost like black quartz with white “veins.” The armor gave off a slight glow and a low hum. In one of its large three-fingered hands, it held a large man-sized stick that seemed to pulsate with churning white light. The creatures only bare skin was blue, rough and blotchy. It was the first Voorik he had ever seen in the flesh. He had only seen them on television, like almost everyone else when they first arrived in human airspace a decade before. “I am Major Jacobs of the Colonial Alliance. I have with me 10,000 soldiers representing all of the colonies in the Colonial Alliance. We are the first of many.”

“Good.” The Voorik lifted his staff up into the air and the hanger changed. They were now standing on some alien planet. The green sky and four visible moons were evidence of that. The ground below them was black and charred. A strange series of howls could be heard in the distance. Just beyond the crystal-covered alien structures that were shattered and in ruins all around them. “This is a world of the Voorik. Now gone. The beasts overwhelmed it and cut the Voorik down.” A Voorik “child,” based on its size, ran from one of the structures towards the humans. The howls grew louder and a hideous creature burst out of the building and grabbed the “child.” It spun around and dragged the Voorik back into the structure. The humans tried hard to catch a glimpse of the other alien, but it moved so fast that they only got a clear view of its snakelike tail. “The world was one of our colonies near the southern border. A region we had never seen the beasts enter and the region closest to men. They know about man and they are trying to find man. It is better that man find them first and help the Voorik crush them.” The Voorik waved his staff and the alien world around them disappeared back into the Colonial ships hanger.

“What are these beasts? What exactly are we fighting?” Major Jacobs asked.

“The beasts are the blight of the universe. We Voorik have been at war with the beasts since man was hiding in the trees of your birth world.” The Voorik turned and moved further from the formation of Colonial Alliance soldiers.

“We need real intel. We need to know if these things can die. If they bleed. What their military capabilities are. Hell, what they look like would help.” Jacobs said angrily, he was thinking that the Voorik wasn't taking them seriously.

“We Voorik assure you that these beasts can die, but you will have to find out much on your own. We Voorik have never successfully engaged the beasts on the ground. That is why man is here. To help the Voorik and possibly save your birth world from the beasts.” The Voorik continued down the hanger until he reached a small scout ship that matched his armor in color and appearance.

Before the Voorik could enter his ship the Major called out to him, “You're not much of a military adviser! We can't fight YOUR war in the dark!”

“This Voorik does not advise man. This Voorik advises Voorik. This Voorik is only here to observe man.” The Voorik touched the side of the ship with his hand and it split itself open. “This is now your war. It would not have been long before the beasts found man.” The ship closed around the Voorik and it lifted off the ground slowly with no visible means of propulsion. It disappeared down one of the many launch tubes for Colonial Alliance fighters.

“Do you think it can read our minds? How else would it have been able to project the voices of our loved ones.” One of the soldiers behind Major Jacobs said out loud.

“If it can. I hope it did because I had some choice words for that fucking walking crystal pecker.” Major Jacobs said sneering.

Victorious Ember Mountains, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Mazza stopped to catch his breath and placed both of his arms over his head desperately trying to regain air back into his screaming lungs. “Holy shit. Can those fuckers run.” His running partner slowed and walked back towards his partner.

“You okay Mazza?” He asked genuinely concerned.

“I'm good. There is no way I can keep up with these guys.”

“The Indians?”

“Yah.” He gasped.

“Well, these guys were born, raised and probably fought in the Himalayas during the Great War. So they are probably used to this thin air.”

“Goddamn Chen. How the hell are you keeping up with them?”

“I was based out of Fort Ares on Mount Olympus for nearly ten years. You get used to this mountain air after a year or so.”

“A year? Shit.” Mazza said as he spat on the ground. “I hope the war is over by then,” he said as the long line of Indian soldiers ran past them.

Chen laughed at the stupidity of that statement. The Voorik and Huellok had been at war since “men were in trees.” As that Voorik military adviser put it, the introduction of a few hundred thousand human soldiers wouldn't tip the balance. Chen really hated that damn alien. It acted like it was a god amongst men and only offered the barest minimum of help. It took almost a month for it to reveal that the Voorik actually had very little forces defending this world and that the bulk of its defense would rely on the humans assembling here. “I highly doubt that Mazza.”

“You Marvins having trouble keeping up with real men?!” One of the Indians shouted at them from inside of the long formation of running men. Chen just shook his head as Mazza stood there flustered and out of breath. Mazza wanted to shout something back, but before he could another Indian shouted in a booming voice, “JAI MAHAKALI, AYO GORKHALI!” The other Indians repeated it together in a loud chorus that made Mazza flinch. Mazza looked around half expecting the commotion they made to make a landslide that would crush them all.

“Last time I run with these guys,” Mazza said with every intention to follow through with it.

“Most people from Earth are assholes,” Chen said as if stating a well-known fact.

“I guess those are the only kind that survived the Great War,” Mazza said as he watched the formation of Indian runners disappear into the distance. “You better go on without me if you want to keep pace with them.”

“What about you?”

“Don't worry about me. Gonna walk it back and enjoy the scenery,” Mazza said bitterly. Chen nodded and ran off towards the Indians far off into the distance. Mazza spat again on the ground, “Fuck this place.” He looked up at the green alien sky with its large red sun and strained to find all six of its moons. He could only find five. It was probably hiding behind one of the other larger moons, he thought. After an hour of walking, he reached the outskirts of a small Voorik village with a name he couldn't hope to pronounce. The Voorik inhabitants jerked up and noticed him as he walked past their small farms stinking of sweat. They were used to the humans by now, but not to their smell. Most of the Voorik who were anywhere near him backed away in revulsion. He chuckled to himself since for all he knew the Voorik had no nose, but somehow they could still smell him. Mazza chucked as he let loose and the aliens backed up even further. “You guys smell that?! Cause I do!”

The Voorik farming village had no more then twenty buildings if you could call them that. They were large hollow crystalline structures that seemed to sprout out of the ground. The thing that never failed to bother him was the fact that these Voorik looked like they lived in the middle ages. Mazza could not see how this could be the same alien race that suddenly appeared over Earth ten years ago without being detected by either the USEA or the Colonial Alliance. The same race that crossed space on faster-than-light ships and built the great interstellar wormhole gate in orbit around Earth. That gate, a gift from the Voorik, connected humanity with the entire Voorik Empire. Shortening the travel time between Sol and the Voorik Empire from twenty-two years to only a few weeks. Now Mazza compared those Voorik he had seen on television ten years ago with the Voorik of this village. Poking at the hard ground with dull rusted poles to plant seeds while looking sickly or hungry. He couldn't tell which. He was no expert on the Voorik.

Mazza made it out of the village and after another hour of walking, he reached the outermost perimeter of his home away from home, Camp Tiny Titty Ann. That wasn't its real name of course, but most English speakers had difficulty pronouncing the actual Nahuatl word for the camp so it was unofficially renamed something which sounded similar. The entrance to the base was abuzz with military vehicles coming in and out and military personnel doing PT in big groups by the side of the road. Mazza approached a guard at the entrance, a Mexican MP from the looks of his uniform, and presented his identification card. The Mexican took the card and ran it through his ID verification machine and then handed it back to Mazza with a glare. “What you doing outside? You no have leave Cabrone.” The Mexican said in halting English.

“I was running. That is allowed.”

“Where your running group? Where running partner? Explain Cabrone.” Other Mexican guards appeared and started to surround Mazza.

“I was running with the 9th Gorkha Rifles and my friend Corporal John Chen from the 16th Martian Armored Division. Didn't they come back here?”

The Mexicans talked amongst themselves in their language and turned back towards him and said, “No. Not back.” Another man ran up to the same gate, in sweaty PT's and shouted to the Mexican guards in Spanish. They all broke into laughter and the guards let the man through without so much as looking at his ID card.

Mazza was frothing inside from the obvious double standard these guards upheld. “Goddamn! Why didn't you stop that asshole?!” The Mexican guard's eyes widen and they pushed their rifles into his face.

“Say something else, Cabrone!” The original Mexican said as he pushed his rifle against Mazza's nose.

Another man in an American uniform spotted the trouble brewing and ran up to them all and started shouting at the Mexicans in Spanish. The Mexicans argued back and the man snatched the ID verification machine and looked it over. He turned to Mazza and angrily said, “Get the fuck inside. You stupid Marvin, you're on a death wish.” Mazza said nothing as the arguing continued between the American and the Mexicans. Inside the walls, he walked past long lines of Colonial and Terran tanks of all varieties. Every so often he spotted the distinctive towering figure of an Armored walker.

“Mazza!” A voice called from one of the Colonial tanks. Mazza immediately recognized it as his gunner Groves. Groves walked up to him and slapped him on his back. “You look like shit. Whats the matter?”

“I don't want to talk about it Groves. Do you know if Chen is back?”

“Chen? He's here. He came back like three hours ago with those Gorkhas. Not going to lie. I'm impressed he kept up with them.”

“Goddamn Mexicans.” Mazza bitterly said out loud to himself, “they lied to me.” Groves gave him an odd look and Mazza continued, “Do you know where I can find him?”

“Last time I saw him, he said he was heading to the Colonial Mess Hall. The one across from the soccer field.”

Mazza mouthed a half-hearted thanks and stormed off to find Chen. He passed a large group of Terran soldiers who were doing PT outside of the Amritsar Gymnasium. He felt them eyeball him as he walked past them. On one of the concrete walls of the Colonial Mess Hall were the words, “The Colonists are cowards. They won't fight.” Just below it, the counterargument read simply, “Fuck Earth.” Mazza smiled in agreement with the second bit of graffiti and continued on into the Mess Hall.

CAS Lady Liberty, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

The movie ended and the room's lights automatically brightened. The six military officers sitting at a small table in the center of the room said nothing until one of them said, “You have got to be shitting me.” The man who first spoke wore the black uniform of the USEA military and the rank of General on his collar and shoulders. General Arena was the Supreme Commander of the Terran forces on Via Van'viok and every other world in the Voorik Empire which had Terran defenders. General Arena's vast collection of medals and ribbons on his chest shone brightly in the harsh artificial light of the small conference room. These medals glittered as he shifted forward in his chair to speak again. “Where did this happen?”

“Vashar'at Torra,” Colonel Joon Lee the Commander of the Chinese forces on the planet said slowly and with some difficulty.

“Holy shit! A Voorik word that doesn't start with a 'V!'” General Arena said out loud in genuine surprise, his New England accent coming through. The other officers on the table laughed and nodded.

“I think its one of their 'things.'” Joon Lee said as he put his hands up to make the “quote on quote” sign.

“Is one of their 'things' also being cryptic assholes? The price we paid in lives unnecessarily lost to get this video...” General Arena was so angry he couldn't continue speaking. He was clearly frustrated with the support or lack of support the Voorik have been giving humanity lately.

“They are aliens, General. We know as little about them as they probably do of us. It could be a cultural thing or they probably aren't used to having allies. As far as we know we're the only other race in the Voorik-Huellok War.” Colonel Jacobs of the Colonial Alliance said without looking up from a pile of papers sitting in front of him on the table.

“You met their military adviser in the flesh, Major Jacobs. Whats your take on them?” General Arena asked.

Jacobs looked up and frowned, “It's Colonel Jacobs now.” Jacobs waited until General Arena nodded in acknowledgment and then continued, “Honestly I don't know what to think about the Voorik. I think they're holding back. That's for sure.” Jacobs tried hard to suppress the memory of his wife's beautiful voice coming out of that devilish looking creature. Her voice brought him back to that horrible day more than twenty years ago when New Eden was razed to the ground by Earth. He could still remember the hot sensation of his wife's blood flowing out of her body and over his arms as he held her. He could remember the smell of burning flesh and smoke. The screams of his neighbors dying in the inferno and the horrifying gasping sound of his wife trying hard to breathe with lungs flooded with blood. He missed her so much and twenty years later still cried for her when he was alone. Jacobs willed himself to put the thought of his murdered wife back in its dark prison inside of his mind. It was best that he banished those thoughts because the other men at the table were no longer the enemies of the Colonial Alliance. Yet, he couldn't help but wonder if Arena had a hand in the raid that killed his wife. Jacobs leered at Arena's wall of ribbons and focused on the black, blue and green ribbon that symbolized his involvement in the Second War of Independence. The Terran's called that war the Second War of Secession and he knew the Terran's had a special ribbon for the “heroes” of that raid on New Eden that ended the war in a stalemate. After it seemed certain Earth would be defeated by his people. He didn't know which one it was. Arena had so many damn ribbons.

“Colonel Jacobs anything else?” Arena asked.

Jacobs refocused himself and said, “No. Gentlemen you all have my report about the event. I do suggest you read it if you haven't yet.”

Arena nodded and moved on, “What did we learn from this video?”

“The Huellok are the ugliest damn things I have ever seen.” Brigadier General Lakshmikantha said with scorn. Lakshmikantha was the commanding officer of the Indian forces on the planet, the largest single group from Earth on the planet. “Aside from that. They have shit tactics. It's like watching soldiers line up and shoot each other up like it was Waterloo. It's madness.”

“Exactly. How the hell the Voorik participate in these 'war games' with the Huellok is beyond me. Apparently, both sides have been fighting that way for thousands of years and they probably think that is how everyone does it.” Arena said.

Joon Lee smiled and bared his teeth like a wolf preparing to lunge on a wounded animal. “This could give us an edge.”

“Let us not forget that the Huellok have far superior weapon systems then we do.” Colonel Cabeza paused and continued, “When they choose to use them. What's to say if we don't play by their rules that they won't use them on us? It could be why the Voorik fights this way on the ground, they're scared of those weapons. Most of which we have no idea what they are since the Voorik won't talk and the Huellok haven't used them for thousands of years” Colonel Cabeza the Commander of the Latin American forces on the planet said as he nervously twisted the ring on his left hand.

“Those are legitimate concerns Colonel Cabeza, but that is also probably why the Voorik haven't won a ground battle since the time of Pontius Pilot. What the Voorik are doing isn't working and probably helping the Huellok. We'll risk it. We have to because fighting like that will give us no advantage and play right into the Huelloks clawed... hands?” Arena paused as if to contemplate if that was the right word to describe the Huelloks large bladed spike at the end of their massive arms. “This will be our first major encounter with the Huellok and we have to prove to them that we're no pushover. With luck, the Voorik will take note of it too.”

A Colonial soldier knocked the door and entered the room. Her tight white and gold armor contrasted sharply with the dark and bulky armor of the soldiers of Earth. The CA soldier saluted the assembled officers and then spoke, “Via Voltar has fallen to the Huellok and the Voorik report that the Huellok fleet is heading this way.”

“Does the Voorik have any fleets nearby to assist us?” Arena asked the shapely Colonist.

“No Sir. We're on our own.”

“I could have predicted that happening.” Arena turned to the other officers and ordered them, “Gentlemen, inform everyone we have hostiles incoming and to make final preparations for an invasion.” The CA soldier quietly left the room in a hurry as Arena removed copies of the video from a manila folder in front of him. He handed one to each man on the table. “Show this to your men, They need to know everything they can about their enemy.” They all stood up and Arena turned to Jacobs, “thank you for hosting us on this ship.” Jacobs nodded politely. Arena slipped his seat back under the table and smiled, “Gentlemen, let's show these E.T. fucks how to fight.”

All of them gave the salute of Earth and shouted together, “Under Earth! All People's!” Only Jacobs said and did nothing. He knew what the phrase meant for his people. An Earth that wanted to subjugate the colonies under its power, or more specifically under the power of De-Tierra. The madman who ruled Earth, Venus and the Moon with an iron fist and dreamed of ruling over all of humanity. Jacobs left the room sick to his stomach. He pulled out the disc Arena had given him and stared at it. He wondered which was the bigger threat to his people. The men from Earth or the “men” from Huellok Prime.

Camp Tenochtitlan, CA Building 251, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“Who the hell keeps posting this shit around the base?” Jacobs lifted up a tattered poster of the old U.S. Bill of Rights written in the five major languages of Earth; English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, and Russian. Scrawled on top of it in red paint was the words, “COLONIAL LIES.” Jacobs looked around the packed room and continued, “this is the last warning. Anyone brought to me for posting this shit is going to be sent to the Terran's for a good whipping.” The assembled Colonial Alliance soldiers murmured loudly amongst themselves.

“That's crazy!” One of them shouted from the middle of the crowd.

Jacobs scanned for the heckler but didn't find him. “What's crazy is how some of you are trying to start a third war with the Terran's. Let's not piss them off when they outnumber us here ten to one and back in Sol a thousand to one. I understand you all want to see a free Earth, so do I, but we can't do anything about that. De-Tierra and his lackeys have gone to a lot of effort to erase this from history.” Jacobs lifted the poster up and pointed at the Bill of Rights. “Do not give the Terran's a reason to wage war on the colonies.” Jacobs paced back and forth as he contemplated what to say next. “More then half of our armed forces are being assembled to fight the Huellok. Some are already in the Voorik Empire and what will be left to repel the Terran's once those forces are all here? We are leaving ourselves damn near defenseless. The Terran's can easily commit millions of soldiers to this war, we can't. So everyone, cut the crap.” Jacobs crumpled up the poster in his hand and tossed it on the floor in a fury. “Spread the word. Dismissed.” Jacobs stormed out of the room and the assembled Colonists broke up and went off in every direction.

Camp Tenochtitlan, CA Building 041, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Mazza awoke from a nightmare by a violent tremor that tossed him off his top bunk and onto the hard concrete floor of the barracks. Mazza picked himself up from the floor and looked around trying to find the source of the tremor. The entire room was empty except for one man still asleep in one of the bunks. Mazza approached the snoring man and shook him awake.

“Sorry. I was snoring again?” The man said half awake.

“No. That wasn't it.” Although the man had a tendency to snore so loud that he could put a chainsaw to shame. “There was an earthquake.” Mazza stopped speaking and chuckled to himself. They were further from Earth then any men could possibly be, the word didn't seem quite right now to him.

The man hopped out of his bunk and stretched with an almost feline grace. “Where the hell is everyone else?”

“You're right. I never thought of that.” Mazza looked at the clock at the far end of the room and said, “Its twenty minutes before revile. Did you hear anything about an early formation?”

“No.” The man said after trying to recall such an order, but couldn't. The ground beneath them suddenly shook again and the flags of the Colonies came crashing down from their place on the walls.

“Aftershock or we could be under attack?”

“If it was an attack the sirens would have sounded.” As if he had reminded the world about the sirens those sirens began to wail. “How shit!” Mazza instinctively ran back to his bunk and grabbed his weapon. He then ran to his locker and strapped on his PCA, a heavy gray backpack, that instantly expanded over his body and encased him in the white armor of the Colonial Army. Mazza snatched up some grenades, his helmet, and sprinted out of the room. The hallways were jammed packed with Colonial soldiers in all states of combat readiness. Some had their armor and weapons on while quite a few looked around with wide bewildered eyes still in their pajamas as if they had just woken up. Mazza spotted a few of the men from his room trying to push through the crowd and called out to them. “Hey, Nebi! Where the hell did everyone go this morning?!”

The man spotted Mazza and yelled back, “to see the lights in the sky! Turned out to be the Huellok blowing the fleet out of the sky!” Nabi pushed a man in front of him against the wall, “let me through. I got to get my shit!” The man pushed back and swore at him.

Mazza ignored them and pushed through the crowded hallway and almost slammed against a door that opened up in front of him. A small blond woman came out of the room clutching her clothes with one hand and used her other hand to hold up a blanket that was covering her body. She ran off into the crowd and a naked man came out after her. “Baby! Where are you going?!” The man saw that she had disappeared and screamed, “GODDAMMIT!” He punched the wall and retreated back to his room. Mazza reached the exit and put on his helmet as he exited. The sky above was a dark green, almost jade, that was full of meteors streaking down towards the planet. He recognized that from the video, those were the Huellok entering the atmosphere, but he also knew that a few of those meteors were bits of human ships making their final descent. The area around the Colonial barracks was in complete anarchy and the Colonial NCO's tried in vain to restore some sort of order. Maaza knew what he had to do when the Huellok attacked, he had done the drills dozens of times before, he went straight for his vehicle on the far side of the base. Maaza had to pass through the Terran side of the camp and dreaded the idea. The Terran's paid no mind to him as he ran past. They were all business. The Terran's were all formed up in their armor and stood in formation checking and double-checking their weapons. Mazza couldn't help but admire their discipline and begrudgingly wished the Colonial soldiers were more like them.

Maaza reached his tank and nodded at Chen who was already by the tank checking its ammunition. Chen nodded back and then preceded to inspect the tanks fusion reactor which was hidden away in the rear shielded by a foot of reinforced composite alloy. Chen slowly pulled out the fusion core and once satisfied that it was in working order he slipped it back in. Maaza climbed aboard the tank and entered from the turret. He sat down in the driver's seat and pulled out his checklist. He quickly checked off each part of the list and waved up at Groves as he entered the tank. Groves took the gunner seat and dropped his rifle next to Mazza's without saying a word. Chen climbed inside and shut the hatch behind himself. Chen took his place in the commander's seat above both Groves and Maaza and linked his helmet up to the back of his chair.

“Take her out Maaza,” Chen said to Maaza through the AIMS (Alliance Integrated Management System), which Maaza heard inside of his helmet.

Maaza started the tanks fusion reactor and the tank lifted six feet off of the ground. The area around his seat seemed to turn transparent and he was able to see outside of his tank as if he wasn't surrounded by six inches of reinforced composite alloy. “We have a stable hover. Moving out.” Maaza slowly moved the tank forward to avoid striking other tanks or their crews. The tank took its place in a long line to leave the base. Maaza settled behind another Colonial Alliance hover tank and to the right of it was an American hover tank patiently waiting to move forward. He couldn't help but smile to himself. He had never seen a Colonial or Terran tank so close to one another without one of them being a burning wreck. He had served in the Second War of Independence more than a decade ago and was a tanker then too. During the war, he had fought against the Terran's on the vast plains of Mars and the great craters of Earth's Moon. After the war, he spent all of his time training to fight them again. Now they were no longer the boogeymen, but Allies against an enemy that looked a lot like the boogeymen of his nightmares.

A Chinese tank pulled up beside his tank to the right of him and he shook his head. The tank was an old Type Zero-60. It was new during the Great War forty years ago, but now it just clearly showed how technologically inferior the Terran's were compared to the Colonists. The Type Zero-60 was ten feet tall, its hull was twenty-five feet long, and had scaly black armor that draped over its wide treads. The Chinese tank was armed with a “Long March” 200mm smoothbore cannon and two automated “Ghost Gun” 10.5mm machine guns. Maaza half expected the Chinese tank to be running on diesel, but they had long since been upgraded to use fusion reactors. The American tank was a big improvement, but not by much. He recognized it to be the “Malach” HT-AT v.04 because of the strange wasp-like stinger it had in its rear. The “stinger” was supposed to be some sort of communication antenna, but he suspected the Terran's probably made it that way to enhance its psychological impact on its enemies. The American tank floated three feet off of the ground and was made up of four parts. Its central hull which held the crew was thirty feet long, narrow, and made up of bulky depleted uranium armor. It was flanked by two smaller pods that stuck out of the central hull that held the tanks hovering mechanism. The last component of the HT-AT was its oversized turret which sat near the rear of the central hull. The turret fielded a 177mm MAG gun and four smaller 50mm cannons, that was attached to the main gun, which shot specialized rounds.

The Colonial Alliance tank he drove was the CAMBT-3 or “Apollo's Chariot” as it was affectionately nicknamed throughout the Colonial Alliance Army. It got its name from the golden hue of its reinforced composite alloy armor, its unmatched top speed, and its unique “Zeus Cannon.” The main weapon of the CAMBT-3 was the “Zeus Cannon,” a powerful laser cannon that could slice through everything human-made. The CAMBT-3 was also armed with two anti-air missiles on the side of the main turret and two miniature turrets loaded with two automated machine gun barrels located near the front of the tank. The tank resembled a sleek floating snail to Maaza, but moved nowhere near as slow. The CAMBT-3 was twice as fast as the fastest Terran tank and could turn on a dime in midair. Something most Terran tanks couldn't do.

The Colonial Alliance had survived Earth's wars of aggression only because it had an impressive edge over the Terran's in all fields of technology and research. When the colonies seceded from Earth during the Great War it continued progressing in all fields of scientific study while Earth tore itself apart. The colonies survived the Great War with barely a scratch, compared to Earth, and when the war did finally end a large number of Earth's best scientists and most innovative people (who hadn't fled before) fled to the Colonial Alliance instead of living under the oppressive regime of USEA President De-Tierra. These best and brightest from Earth along with the naturally brave and independent people that made up the colonies helped push the Colonial Alliance some fifty years ahead of the Terran's in terms of technological progression. The Terran's may be in a huge technological disadvantage going up against the Colonists, but they were still greatly feared and respected by the Colonial Alliance. They had sheer numerical superiority in men, equipment, weapons, and vehicles. The Terran's were also ruthless, suicidally brave, efficient, and extremely competent soldiers.

Maaza remembered a time when he thought the Terran's would be a pushover. This was before his first battle with them in the Plains of Utopia. Maaza remembered how he laughed when the Terran's rounds bounced harmlessly off of his CAMBT-2 and then everything went black. He awoke seconds later to the screams of his gunner being cooked alive in his seat by the flames from an explosion. The smoke clouding his vision as he felt around for the escape hatch with the bloody stubs that used to be his hands. He somehow turned the hatch and jumped out of the burning CAMBT-2 only to be greeted by the smiling faces of some Terran soldiers. Maaza shivered in his seat at the memory and felt his surgically attached cloned hands nervously.

“Maaza! Wake up! Move Forward!” Chen screamed over AIMS. Maaza hadn't realized that the tanks in front of him were now gone. Maaza pushed forward on the steering wheel and it lunged forward at breakneck speed. Maaza slowly down once he caught up with the tanks in front of him and just followed them. “Maaza keep with these tanks. We've been ordered north to assist Camp Mekong. The Huellok have made landfall east of it and from the sounds of it are getting their asses kicked.”

“Yes, Sir.” Maaza said happily at the news of humanity winning its first major engagement with an alien foe. Maaza recalled how the video he had seen of the Huellok showed them lining up in tight formations and blasting away at the Voorik who did the same thing. Both sides would then charge one another and enter into melee range, which the Huellok were masters of. The Huellok seemed to be completely oblivious of combined arms or any other tactics of modern war. Maaza couldn't believe it when he saw it, but it had to be true. Maaza laughed and thought to himself, “this may just be a walk in the park.”

Camp Mekong, Underground Bunker 2, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“They lined up in a fish scale formation and then moved forward towards the camp. There must have been five to ten thousand of them. As soon as they reached our kill box we opened up on them and blasted them into chunks of meat. The aliens kept pressing forward as we leisurely picked them off with artillery, mortar and sniper fire. The Huellok didn't even make it to the minefield or barbed wire. We killed them all.” Captain Zuang said with a beaming smile that looked unnatural on his pockmarked face.

“What were our casualties?” Colonel Joon Lee asked.

“As the Mexicans would say, 'nada.'”

Colonel Joon Lee smiled and said, “Not one?”

“One man burned his hand on a hot arty shell, but he's back at work again.”

“That's fantastic news. What about the dead Huellok?”

“I sent out the Indians to police the bodies.”

“Good work Captain.” Colonel Joon Lee turned towards a large computer map of Via Van'viok and zoomed in around Camp Mekong. “We have a few UAV's flying over the Huellok LZ and it looks like they're forming up for another assault.” Colonel Joon Lee zoomed in on the alien invaders and watched in real time as they slithered out of their ships and formed up into big neat squares. “Captain, you see those big formations of Huellok?”

“Yes, I do Colonel.”

“So should use our bombers. Blow those alien formations to whatever alien hell they come from. Use plenty of tactical nukes.” Joon Lee waved the Captain away and continued to stare at the computer screen as he impatiently cracked his knuckles. After twenty minutes had passed the entire LZ went up in dozens of bright flashes of light as bombers crisscrossed the area from every human base on the planet. The bombers unleashed their nuclear bombs over the large gathering of alien troops and then sped away back to base. Joon Lee flinched at the bright light and then watched as the small mushroom clouds rose up into the atmosphere. The smoke cleared after thirty minutes and the surviving aliens flopped around on the ground with flames covering their snake-like bodies. It didn't take long before the last of the aliens stopped moving altogether. The entire area which was once full of thousands of alien hostiles was now nothing more than a cluster of burning craters. Joon Lee turned from the computer screen and sat down at his desk with a heavy thud. He wasn't a God-fearing man, he had been raised a communist, but he prayed to whatever deity that watched over mankind that the battle for this world would continue to be an easy fight. He learned from his experience in North America during the War Against Imperial Aggression that there was no such thing as an easy fight.

Huellok LZ, Vib'ak Forest, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“Keep your eyes open. This is supposed to be the Huellok LZ.” Chen opened the hatch and stood up on his seat. He was half inside of the tank and half outside. From his commanding view from the top of the hovering tank, he could see nothing but smoldering fires, fallen trees, and charred alien bodies. Chen couldn't help but notice how similar the burnt bodies of the Huellok resembled those of a burnt human body. The Huellok were all mangled and distorted in death, blackened by fire, and covered with horrible fist-sized blisters. The only way Chen could tell they were aliens, and not misshapen humans, were for its two bulbous heads and long snake-like tail. The tank drifted aimlessly around the site of the Huellok LZ until Chen slapped the side of the turret and said over AIMS, “I'm getting off to check them out for myself.” Chen climbed out of the turret. Balanced himself on the front of the tank and jumped off. Easily making the sixteen-foot jump down with the assistance of his armor, which absorbed the impact of his jump. The Colonial tank backed away from him and began to slowly turn in place to provide security for Chen as he strolled among the heaps of alien bodies.

Chen stood over a large pile of fallen aliens and stared at their smoldering bodies in awe. Fifteen years ago he would never have imagined that he would be standing on an alien world thirty-something light-years from Mars facing an alien enemy. These aliens were dead, but they still looked fearsome and like something out of Dante's Inferno. As ugly as they were, it looked like evolution was kind to them. Evolution had created a being that was entirely geared to kill. These alien beings were covered entirely in a tough natural carapace with two long muscular arms that extended nearly to the ground. Each arm ended in a single flat blade that was as big as his thigh. They had no legs like humans or even like the Voorik, but instead, it had a freakishly large snake tail. Chen assumed they moved around like Medusa from Greek mythology and like Medusa they had multiple heads. Two primary heads on its wide shoulders with three spider-like eyes on each head and another set of eyes just to the side of its only mouth which was centered in the middle of its chest. This mouth spooked Chen the most. The mouth was wide enough to easily fit his entire head and had hundreds of small scalpel shaped teeth.

Chen activated his armors melee blade and a two-foot-long blade shot out from his right forearm. The Colonists nicknamed the blade “Wolverine's Claw,” after the Marvel superhero although Chen felt it resembled the Katara daggers that Kroenen wielded in that ancient movie “Hellboy.” Chen shrugged. People are always going to name things after heroes and not villains, although the villians usually make the most interesting characters. Chen raised his blade and started to poke the dead Huellok with it. The blade had no effect on its hard carapace, but the Huellok had weak points on its shell. He cut one of its necks and the soft charred flesh gave way and a gush of black blood poured out. Chen stepped back in fright and then composed himself. He approached the body and poked it some more with his blade until he was satisfied that he had found all of its weak spots.

“Playing scientist?” A voice called out from right behind him.

Chen jumped up and turned around. Swinging his blade towards the voice. The man met the blade with a khukris sword and easily deflected the blade. “Watch where you're pointing that thing, Sir.” The man wore black body armor that covered his chest and groin and his black uniform underneath was standard issue USEA camo's. On his face, he wore a black protective mask that covered his nose and mouth from the smoke and radioactive particles in the air. The man wore no helmet, but instead wore a Terai hat that was tilted so far to the right of his head that Chen wondered how it stayed on his head. “Sargent Delhi, Republic of India 8th Gorkha Rifles.” Delhi gave him a crisp salute and Chen returned the gesture of respect.

Chen had pissed himself when the Indian startled him and he cringed slightly as his armor cleaned the mess. “Sorry about that. You gave me a good scare when you crept up on me.”

The Indian looked around the barren landscape as if saying with his body language, “how could I sneak around in this?” “You need to be more aware of your surroundings. A few of my boys found several of these things alive in this heap and if they aren't hurt bad... they can be a handful. What are you doing out here? Out of your tank?” As if an afterthought he added, “Sir.”

“I should ask you the same thing. Isn't this place still highly radioactive?”

“We're policing the bodies as ordered and no. We used low-yield tactical nukes. Something developed in World War 3, but you Colonists wouldn't know anything about that since you didn't fight in it. Now here you are. Jumping at shadows and pissing your pants.” Chen looked at him and didn't know what to say. Embarrassed and unable to figure out if the Indian somehow knew or was just being an asshole. Another Indian soldier ran up to Delhi and spoke to him in rapid-fire Punjabi. The two men nodded and Delhi turned to Chen again. “We found another one of those beasts alive. I have to go. May Mahakali smile upon you and give you good hunting.”

Before Chen could say anything the two Indians disappeared beyond a large heap of smoldering alien bodies. He approached his hovering Colonial tank and pulled himself up on top of it. He entered the tank through the still open hatch and sealed it behind himself. As he sat down in his commanders chair the contaminated air that seeped in from outside was filtered out by the tank. The air quality light on his control panel switched from red to green and he took off his helmet. He took a deep breath and checked his computer screen. They had new orders to move and support an assault against a new Huellok LZ near Camp November. “Maaza move us back to Camp Tenochtitlan for redeployment.” Chen waited for a reply or the tank to begin moving, but neither of that happened. “Maaza! Wake the fuck up! Groves, get him moving.” Chen looked over his seat and down into the bottom compartment of the tank. He didn't see Groves but could see movement in Maaza's seat. “What the fuck?” Chen leaned closer and saw the floor of the tank covered in a thick layer of blood and entrails. Maaza was still strapped in his seat but was slumped towards his rifle as if he had tried to reach it. Maaza jerked violently in his seat and a small green creature crawled from underneath him. Chen had no way to describe the creature, to him it resembled no earthly creature he had ever seen. It was the size of a dog with transparent tentacles and green skin. The creature climbed on top of Maaza's back and wrapped its tentacles around his body and placed its “mouth” over his armor. The creature had no real mouth that Chen could see, but instead, it had a strange transparent pod. This pod slowly corroded through Maaza's armor and it started to feast on the soft meat and tissue underneath. Chen could see the bits of flesh, bone and blood sizzle as the pod touched it. The transparent pod mouth of this creature slowly absorbed Maaza and it horrified Chen to see it consume his friend. Chen slowly leaned back and pressed the self-destruct button on his command panel. The lights inside the tank started to flash red and he swung the hatch open. The creature jumped up and latched on to him with its tentacles as he tried to pull himself out of the tank. For its small size. It was surprisingly strong. His armor amplified his strength, but this creature was still holding him down. He pulled as hard as he could and finally freed himself from its grip. Chen slammed the hatch down on the creature and threw himself off of the tank and fell on top of a dead Huellok.

Chen looked down at his legs and screamed in horror as he saw that the tentacles of the creature had eaten through some of his armor and his bare bloodied right ankle was exposed to the elements. It didn't hurt, but he had trouble walking on it. He dropped to his knees and crawled as far as he could away from the tank. Chen knew he had only a minute to get to a safe distance from the tank if he hoped to survive the explosion. He crawled behind a charred alien “vehicle” and peaked his head out from behind his cover to get one last look at his tank. A small dime sized hole appeared on the tanks gold color armor. The hole rapidly expanded and the creature that was trapped inside now pulled itself out of the hole. Chen pulled out an HE grenade from his belt and wished he had his rifle on him. If that thing came, he had no way to outrun it. He thought to himself that if he had to decide on how he would die, he would choose getting blown up over being eaten alive. Fortunately for him, he didn't have to make that decision. The tanks fusion reactor went critical and exploded in a mushroom cloud. The blast wave hit Chen and he slammed his head into the ground with such force that he passed out with the entire world ringing.

Leigh AF Base, CENTCOM Command Bunker, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Colonel Jacobs knocked on the door and entered the office of General Arena, the Supreme Commander of the Terran forces in the Voorik Empire. Jacobs quietly closed the door behind himself and silently stood by Arena's desk. Waiting to be acknowledged by the Terran General. Jacobs noticed the room was small and spartan in its features. It had no noticeable luxuries and even the desk itself wasn't a desk. It was a thick slab of cement held up with milk crates. The top of the desk was piled high with folders and files marked “TOP SECRET.” One wall was covered with a big plain map of the planet that showed the six major Voorik cities and the five human bases built to protect them. The map was covered with handwritten post-it notes and flag pins that noted unit locations. The other wall had a large portrait of USEA President De-Tierra looking sharp in his military uniform. The portrait was flanked by the flag of the USEA and the flags of the fourteen Terran nations participating in the defense of Via Van'viok. Behind the desk right by a large map of Earth itself stood Arena. He was turned away from the door and staring at a picture that he was holding in his hand.

“I am glad you made it out alive, Jacobs.” Arena said without putting the picture down. “Please, sit down.” Arena turned around and placed the picture on top of his desk. The picture showed Arena in his U.S. Army uniform and a blonde woman embracing him in what looked like New York City. They both looked happy and in Arena's case much younger.

Colonel Jacobs sat down and accepted the shot of whiskey that Arena poured for him. Jacobs gulped it down and placed the empty shot glass on the table. Arena reached for it and poured him another shot. “Thank you, General Arena.”

“You're welcome.” Arena poured himself a shot and raised it to the air. “To the brave men and women of the Colonial Alliance Navy who lost their lives above Via Van'viok today.” Arena tossed the shot back and Jacobs did the same. “I am also truly sorry for the CAS Lady Liberty. She was a fine ship, but she went down a hero. Scoring a killing blow against a Huellok Mothership.” Arena picked up the picture of the woman again and frowned. “Almost the entire human fleet assembled in orbit was lost, but the Huellok paid for it dearly. If we had the Voorik fleet here... we could have saved some ships. Now there is no way we can leave this world. It's either fight or die. That is if the Voorik arrive.”

“When do you think that will happen?”

“No idea. They should have been here days ago. The Voorik knew this attack was coming. When Via Voltar fell, it was obvious the Huellok would come here next. They keep giving me the same old tired bullshit that the Huellok are attacking all along Voorik space and that they feel that their core worlds are threatened. So they refuse to send their fleets here. All I know is that they're supposed to be sending something soon, but they won't tell me when.” Arena placed the picture face down on the desk as if to prevent it from hearing what he had to say next. “We're here dying for these alien pricks and they act like we're the enemies. I swear to Jesus H. Christ that as soon as I get back to Earth that I will personally recommend to President De-Tierra himself that we end this alliance.”

Jacobs didn't say anything. He would have recommended the same thing to the Colonial Alliance President, but he also knew that this war was a blessing in disguise for humanity. The Terran's always needed someone to fight, if not themselves, then some outside force. If that outside force wasn't the Huellok then it would certainly be the Colonial Alliance. Jacobs changed the subject by saying, “This is the list of the surviving 4,212 Colonial sailors and 2,579 marines from the 28 Colonial ships destroyed in orbit.” Jacobs removed a small disc from his pocket and slid it on top of the desk towards Arena. “I have decided against your recommendation to have them broken up and attached to shorthanded Terran infantry units. Instead, I will form them into a reserve Infantry battalion.”

“You're the boss of the Colonial Alliance forces here, but why would you do that? The colonies don't exactly churn out the best warriors. No offense. Your soldiers could use our hard earned combat experience. Hell, it might actually help our two people's mend some fences and forget the past.”

“What do you know about mending fences Arena? You're a goddamn killer of innocent people, one of them my wife. You stand there finger fucking a picture of your girlfriend and talk about how we need to forget the past. I cannot forget the past because it haunts me every goddamn day. What was done to her, to my people is unforgivable. I loved her and she died like a fucking animal.”

Arena shot Jacobs an angry looked, then calmed and shook his head. Arena lifted the picture of the blonde woman and showed it to Jacobs. “Her name is Leigh and she is my second wife. You ask me what I know about mending fences? If you lived through the shit storm that was World War 3 on Earth like I had, you were forced to become Saint Francis by its end. If we 'Terran's' didn't forgive our former enemies, the war would still be raging today. That is if we 'Terran's' hadn't snuffed out all life on Earth by this time. When the chinks hit the United States with its nukes my first wife and my four beautiful little angels were in Los Angeles visiting her parents. I lost them all that day. I didn't have anything to bury, I buried her wedding dress and my children's toys instead. Years later when the U.S. was slowly pushing the chinks out of North America I found the woman that would become my second wife in a PLA comfort camp. Do you know what they did to her there? They brutally raped and terrorized her eighteen times a day, every day of the week, for their sick pleasure. Do you know how fucked up she is because of it? It took me three years before I could touch her without her going into a nervous breakdown. When we tried to have a child together. We couldn't. I thought I had gone sterile from radiation exposure, but it turns out those chinks fucking burned her uterus. They burned her uterus so they could fuck her bareback and not worry about producing roachborn children. The war ended in an armistice and the sins of almost everyone who fought in the war was forgiven. Just like that!” Arena snaps his fingers in the air and continued speaking, “Now I lead those very men into battle who were once my enemies. I sometimes wonder with every PLA chink I see today on Via Van'viok if he was one of those men who fucked my wife and beat her to an inch of her life. They did unforgivable horrors to me, my country, my Leigh, and still, I do my job. I do my job and let it all go for the future of mankind and the future of my unborn child. If I can control my emotions. You can do it too.”

Jacobs burned inside. He wanted to pull out his pistol and shoot the Terran in his mouth. He didn't care about his life story, the man still had his wife. His own wife was dead and buried under a tree outside of New Eden. Jacobs was certain this Terran had a hand in her death. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. A gut feeling. Jacobs stormed out of the room without saying a word. He slammed the door behind himself and as he passed a small potted plant in the hallway he kicked it in with his boot. A Terran soldier ran down the hall with his gun drawn towards the racket Jacobs made. When the soldier saw Jacobs standing over the broken plant he lowered his weapon and just laughed. Jacobs wished that he had shot him.

21 km North of Camp Mekong, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Colonel Joon Lee couldn't believe what he was seeing through his binoculars. The Huellok were forming up again for the fourth time. New Huellok soldiers from dozens of landing ships just behind their decimated lines reinforced the gaps in their mile-long formation and once they were ready they moved forward. They slithered towards the human defenders who had marched from Camp Mekong to contest the Huellok's third attempt at landing on the planet. The Huellok made it halfway through the mile-long no-man's land before the leading Huellok started toppling over themselves dead. The aliens pulled back in disarray and gazed around in confusion looking for their invisible killer. Finding nothing, they moved forward again with the same results. Colonel Joon Lee just had to laugh. The Huellok had no idea what was killing them and in their stupidity kept pressing forward into the invisible kill zone of a rupture bomb. “This was entertaining, but it is now time to end this sad display of alien incompetence. Fire at will.”

The entire human line gleefully opened up on the Huellok who were caught in the middle of no-man's land. The aliens were torn apart by small arms fire, tank shells, and artillery rounds. The Huellok's long blades at the end of their arms glowed green and they shot back at the humans. The Huellok fired a strange green energy from their arms which blew large holes in the human's sandbag fortifications. Unfortunately for the Huellok the humans were excellent shots and shooting from the safety of a dense sandbag wall. The dense formation of thousands of Huellok, now trapped in the middle of no-man's land, did not retreat they just stood and kept firing until they were all dead.

“Sir, they appear to be retreating.” Captain Zuang said as he pointed towards the teardrop-shaped ships of the Huellok. Two dozen black ships lifted up into the air and immediately came under human artillery fire. The artillery rounds detonated just feet from the ships hull and had no effect against them. Captain Zuang had expected that “It's those shields of theirs. We still can't get through them. Can we use tactical nukes Colonel? The Colonial Alliance fleet had some success in using them against the Huellok Armada.”

“The nukes they used were a lot bigger than the artillery nuclear rounds we have.” Joon Lee thought for a second and then said, “Of course... it may be worth to try. Send the order. One nuclear round per ship. Quickly, before they get all their alien comrades on board and leave.”

The Huellok ships started to disappear one by one into the night sky as they became full of retreating alien soldiers. Suddenly a few of the ships still slowly hovering over the ruined forest became engulfed in a blinding blast that lit up the entire area with unnatural daylight. Joon Lee's helmet automatically darkened his viewing visor, but even with that, he had to avert his eyes after only a second. The bright light of the man-made sun had given him star bursts and black spots in his vision. After a minute of temporary blindness, he looked back at the direction of the blasts and saw the smashed burning hulls of many Huellok ships which had crashed into the ground. The nuclear rounds had worked and more then half of the ships it hit had fallen. A few Huellok ships still remain floating, but they were either gravely wounded or had been lucky enough to be missed by the artillery barrage. They didn't wait around for another salvo, the ships all shot up into the night sky.

The human defenders behind their sandbag walls let out a loud cheer and shot randomly into the air in celebration. Joon Lee gave out a loud sigh of relief. “Report to General Arena that the third LZ has been cleared. Tell him how we did it.” Joon Lee looked out into the artificially created open field that was no-man's land and saw hundreds of dead alien bodies. They were mostly clustered in large neat heaps along the invisible borders of the rapture bombs kill zones They didn't even make it anywhere near the human line. “I cannot believe the Huellok can be that stupid. They seem to be like children playing war. How else would you explain them willingly running into that invisible wall of death FOUR times? We Chinese learned quickly about those damn things after the Americans deployed those nasty bombs against us. We soon developed effective countermeasures and certainly didn't stupidly run into it more than once.”

Captain Zuang said nothing. He was distracted trying to communicate with CENTCOM. He couldn't get a signal or even static. “Sir, I cannot hail CENTCOM.”

“You think it's the COMM?”

“It was working a minute ago.”

“Well...” The colonel didn't finish the sentence. The ground beneath him shook and he dropped to his knees. “What the fuck?!” He tried to lift his arms, but they were so heavy that he couldn't move without exerting maximum effort from his armor. Captain Zuang wasn't in any armor and was pressed against the ground screaming. The COMM's headpiece was pressed against his head and the ground with such force that he started to bleed. The ground shook violently and then it shook again. Joon Lee looked up and saw that a shimmering Huellok ship had appeared high above them and was blasting away at the artillery firebases in the rear. More Huellok ships appeared above the human defenders and they began to glow and shimmer. Joon Lee could see the humans on the ground firing up at the ships, but soon they were all slammed against the ground unable to move. The Huellok ships then began to neatly bombard the human positions from the air. The Huellok took special care to destroy any tanks and artillery they spotted on the ground.

Joon Lee could barely make out a strange green rain coming out of the ships over the humans below. He looked up towards the shimmering ship above him and it also began to rain green football sized droplets. The green balls slammed against the ground and began to stir. The balls broke open and a small dog-sized creature erupted out of it. The creature looked like an amoeba with tentacles and had a large ugly transparent ball on its “face.” More of the creatures broke out of their balls and started to scurry around towards the humans crushed against the ground by an invisible force. The creatures wrapped themselves around the humans and consumed them with their transparent faces and tentacles. They made a sloppy mess of it and flung blood and entrails around as they ate the pinned humans alive. Joon Lee forced his armor to swing his arm up and he blasted away at the creatures with his arm-mounted cannon. Others who were lucky to also have powered armor did the same. The creatures exploded in a large gush of white and red fluid similar to popping a pimple when they were hit.

The creatures turned towards the firing humans and rushed towards them. Many more green balls started to land from above and broke out more creatures. Joon Lee kept shooting at them, but couldn't kill them all. They overwhelmed him and a dozen of them wrapped themselves around his armor. One of the creatures jumped on top of his viewing visor and he could see it press its ugly ball against the bulletproof glass of his viewing visor. The alarms in his armor wailed and he immediately knew that the integrity of his armor was slowly being compromised. He could feel actual air near his belly and then he felt a stinging pain coming from that area. The pain was unbelievable, he tried to move his arms towards the opening but he could not move. The armor's power had failed and now these creatures were breaking through the armor. He felt as one of the creatures entered his belly and started to thrash inside of him. He tried to scream, but blood poured out as he did. Joon Lee looked straight ahead and saw that the creature over his visor had melted through it and now they both stared at each other. Joon Lee weakly chuckled. “I would never have thought I'd die to an alien,” he thought to himself. The creature pushed forward into his helmet and the last thing he ever thought was that the creature smelled a lot like orange juice.

Leigh AF Base, CENTCOM Command Bunker, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“All communications are down except for some backup hard lines we placed between key bases and cities. Reports are pouring in from all over the world that the Huellok are using super weapons. One was reported to be some sort of gravity manipulation that just pins everything to the ground. Another states that the Huellok deploy these ravenous green creatures that just consume everything. There is also one which says that they have a special ship that bathes an area with light and everything with modern transistors and electronics gets shut down.”

“That sounds like an EMP. Doesn't our weapons and equipment have protection against that?” General Arena told the young Australian Captain who was giving him the days SITREP.

“Yes it does, but these are aliens we're fighting. It may be something else entirely new to us that is messing with our electronics.”

“Please continue.”

“The Huellok orbital bombardment of the planet continues for the sixth straight hour and is mainly focused in and around our bases on the planet.” As if to put emphasis on that point the lights flickered and the room shook.

“Any word from Camp Mekong or Camp November?”

“No Sir. Neither has reported in and we assume they have fallen to the enemy.”

Arena leaned back in his chair and frowned. If it was true he had lost tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles from all corners of the Earth. He tried to recall the exact armies that would be lost, but he knew that those two bases were made up heavily of Americans, Chinese, Indians, Southeast Asians, and Australians. “Has aerial surveillance confirmed this?”

The Australian Captain pulled some pictures out of a folder he was holding and placed it on the generals concrete desk for Arena to look over. Arena began looking through the pictures and could see hundreds of dismembered human bodies scattered throughout the open areas between buildings. “Which base is this?”

“Camp Mekong. These pictures were taken by UAV. The Huellok keep shooting our birds out of the sky. They have complete dominance of the air and space above.”

“Any confirmation of Camp November's status?”

“Nothing official, but we can't get anything near it to confirm that it is lost.”

“So the north part of the planet is in enemy hands?”

“Yes, General Arena.”

“That allows the Huellok a secure beachhead from which to land their shock troopers.” Arena stood up and walked to the large map of the planet on the wall. He removed the numerous flag pins and post-it notes around Camp November and Camp Mekong and tossed them on the floor. He backed up from the map so he could see the entire planet and contemplated in silence for a few minutes. “We cannot fight the Huellok like this with those weapons of theirs. We need to retreat our forces into the major Voorik cities. That may negate those weapons. Not to mention all of our soldiers are highly experienced in MOUT warfare. The capital city of Vortanik and the city of Vasi are to be fortified immediately. All military and logistical assets from Camp Blighty and Camp Tenochtitlan are to be also moved into them.”

“What about Leigh Air Force Base?”

“We need to maintain whatever air power we can. So everyone except command and control must stay. This base must hold for as long as it can.” Arena felt ashamed that he was giving that order. He was signing the death warrant of thousands of brave men and women. The Huellok would certainly swarm over that base and smash it like it did Camp November and Camp Mekong. He was giving them up to the Huellok to buy himself and the defenders of Vortanik time to fortify their positions. “Anything and everything that may give away Earth's location must be destroyed. Remind the individuals who have been entrusted with that information the importance of keeping it secret. By any means necessary. If they give you even a hint of being unwilling to carry out that final order I want you to have them shot in the back of the head.” Arena stood up from his chair and handed the Australian a sheet of paper with the names of the people who knew Earth's location in that base.

The Australian nodded briskly then snapped into an open-palmed salute. “Under Earth! All People's!”

“Under Earth! All People's!” Arena replied with a salute of his own. The Australian turned smartly as if on a pivot and walked out of the office. The room shook again and the picture of Arena's wife fell on the floor. Arena picked up the picture of his wife which was now covered in shattered glass and broken frame. Arena sighed and placed it back where it belonged on his desk. He sat back down and looked at the picture of Leigh. He wondered if he'll ever see her again or if he would ever hold his miracle child. Then shame washed over him. He had just issued an order that would kill tens of thousands of people all in the slim hope he'll see his family again. He stared at the picture of his wife and flipped it over. He poured himself another shot of whiskey and gulped it down.

Vib'ak Forest, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Chen had woken up in a daze. He didn't remember when exactly. His hearing started to come back as he walked south towards Camp Tenochtitlan. He found it easier to walk now that his armor had repaired itself and patched up the wound that the alien creature had given him. He knew that the armor on his leg was now significantly weakened by the repair. He needed to get a new one as soon as possible. He wouldn't want to know just how fast one of those creatures could go through the armor on his right leg in its current state.

Chen arrived at the outer perimeter of Camp Tenochtitlan after more than half a day of walking. Everything was quiet and dark. This struck him as unusual because the camp was normally buzzing with aircraft and the light drone of sentries talking to each other at their posts. The floodlights that normally illuminated the clearing before the treeline was flickering on and off. Chen cautiously moved forward as his armor's helmet displayed a safe path for him to walk through the minefield that surrounded the base. He didn't want to accidental step on these Terran made anti-personnel mines. The Terran's were masters of making weapons that maximized the amount of pain and injury a person went through before they died. Those Terran mines would either blow off your leg, armor or no armor or spring up and smash you with a small radius of intense pressure. Literally crushing a man as if he was an air-filled paper bag. Sometimes a man would survive those mines, but if he was in an armored suit, which was common these days, the suit itself would crumple in on the person. He had seen the pictures of what was left during basic training and cringed at the memory. Normally he wouldn't be able to sense them because the Terran's made them in undetectable plastics, but the Terran's were kind enough to implant little signaling devices on them so that the Colonists could know where they were. The Colonists and the Terran's weren't enemies at the moment and as Chen crossed the mile stretch of mines in the dark he was so glad for that.

The Railyard, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“I want snipers there, there and there.” Brigadier General Lakshmikantha pointed to each distant location with his outstretched hand. “The roads into the city must be mined, blocked and booby-trapped. The roads inside the city, especially the major intersections must have fortified roadblocks with armor and ghost guns. The Huellok are going to hit us with everything they got and we need to prepare a defense in depth for them.” Lakshmikantha stared off into the distance, beyond the Railyard and the forests south of Vortanik and could see the dim green glow of Huellok orbital strikes bombarding Leigh Air Force Base.

Lakshmikantha turned back towards the assembled officers from all corners of Earth and the colonies of man and continued speaking, “Every block must be as hard as the last one for the Huellok to take and hold. We will slow their advance in this city and if the gods are good to us. The Voorik will come to our rescue.”

“Da. As you wish comrade General.” The Russian Colonel nodded and asked, “Is there anything else?”

“All the major buildings and defensible positions in the city must be garrisoned. The positions are marked on the map, but I want your men to hold the Railyard and the south of the city at all costs. The Huellok will most likely attack us here after they finish off Leigh. You'll have high fire support priority. I am also going to attach the Israelis, Australians, Colonial Group 1 and a contingent of STF troops to this area and 'Building 112.'”

“Do not worry comrade General. We will break the Huellok at the Railyard's like we did the Nazis in world war two and then the Islamist hordes in world war three.” The Russian smiled with pride as he spoke of Russia's bloody, but triumphant history against vastly stronger invaders. He wanted more than anything to add another name to that list of failed invaders. The assembled officers were on top of building in a complex that the Russians nicknamed “the Railyard.” The complex got its name from the strange alien patterns on the fish-shaped buildings in the area which looked a lot like train tracks. The nickname was also a fitting name for the Russians since the two other Railyards in their history were desperate last stands which the defense of Vortanik was quickly becoming.

“I have no doubt about that,” Lakshmikantha said with a grin.

“The north part of the city will be defended by the Europeans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Multinationals and Colonial Group 2. Your defense will be focused on the 'Amusement Park' and the lake edges. You will have second priority and I will attach the 9th Gorkha Rifles as a reserve to deploy as you see fit.” The affected officers nodded and all said they understood in their respective languages. “Now the eastern part of the city will be defended by the Chinese, Americans, Japanese and the Koreans. I do not expect the Huellok to attack in force there since they'll have to pass through the mountains to reach it. They may attempt to seize 'the Airport,' but do not let them have it. If we lose it, we lose the last of our air support. The Huellok may also attempt to take 'Hill 1949,' but as long as 'the airport' holds we will hold that mountaintop. We will need the fire support its guns will give us in Vortanik's defense.”

“There is no way those two-headed freaks will take 'the airport' from us General Lakshmikantha. Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!” The American officer who said it suddenly hugged the ranking Chinese officer and smiled. The other Americans in the group responded the same way to the dismay of the Chinese officers. They looked confused and muttered to themselves in Mandarin.

Lakshmikantha chuckled. “Cut that shit out there's more. Now the center of the city will be the second major line of defense in case any part of the outer ring is overwhelmed or needs to fallback. The second line of defense will be R21 in the north, R20 in the west, R22 in the east and Second Avenue in the south. The line will be manned by Indians, Mexicans, South Africans and the Colonial reserves. The last line of defense will be along 'the Ring' which surrounds 'the Palace.' It will be staffed by a skeleton crew of reserves from all nations. Should we retreat there, the survivors from the first and second line will shore up these inner defenses. Let us pray it doesn't get to that point.”

The other officers grimly nodded in agreement. A Mexican Colonel then spoke, “Senior, what of the Voorik civvies?”

“Were moving them into the center of the city, within the ring. The buildings designated 'palace,' 'outhouse,' 'parliament,' and 'library.' The buildings are sturdier then the other buildings the Voorik have in this city, and that is saying a lot, the only way to take down any of these crystal buildings is by nuking them. These central buildings also have a deep network of tunnels that can hold the cities twenty million citizens. They should all be moved there by the end of the hour. Now let us get moving. There is much to be done.” One of the officers from Earth gave De-Tierra's salute and was about to scream out “Under Earth! All People's!” But Lakshmikantha stopped him. “Now we aren't on Earth and we aren't even in Sol. We are not enemies here and the question of the colonies independence from Earth is of no importance here. We are simply men on a hostile alien world with no way out except to fight. We will leave with another note, from Shakespeare. 'For he who shall bleed with me to day, will be my brother.'”

The assembled officers all snapped into their customary salutes and screamed together. “FOR HE WHO SHALL BLEED WITH ME TO DAY, WILL BE MY BROTHER!” They turned and left back to their commands.

Lakshmikantha had seen a few angry faces in the mob and he was sure they would report his lack of commitment to the cause of Earth to President De-Tierra, but he didn't care. De-Tierra's time would surely come to an end. Someday soon if the gods are kind. He just hoped he would see that day, but that day was in the future. He had to worry about today and the prospect of surviving it didn't look too good.

Camp Tenochtitlan, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

Chen carefully crept over the barbed wire and jumped into the defensive trench. It was completely abandoned. All the weapons and equipment that could be carried out was, anything else too big to move was destroyed. He looked around for a rifle or pistol but had no luck finding one. He then entered one of the service tunnels and exited inside of the base just outside of the Terran Mess Hall. The Mess Hall had a strange graffiti picture sprayed on it of a bald man looking over a wall with the words, “Kilroy was here.” “Who the fuck is Kilroy?” Chen thought to himself.

Chen heard a loud moan and he ducked behind a dumpster. He landed on a pile of rotten “Vinny fruits,” a native red fruit that tasted like wheat grass that the Terran's fed their troops as a cost-cutting measure. The moan grew louder and from around the corner came a hulking Huellok shook trooper. Its black armor shimmering with a pulse of green energy that radiated from its scythe-like claw. Its small secondary arms were carrying a horribly disfigured man. The man in the alien's arms was missing his arms and legs and moaned loudly. Another smaller Huellok appeared and this one didn't have the black carapace of the soldier Huellok. Its carapace was green and its black eyes were easier to spot, unlike the black armored soldier. The two came together and just seemed to “talk” for a few minutes, completely ignoring the moans of the human in their midst. The soldier placed the disfigured human on the ground and then slithered away. The small Huellok used its claw to gently poke and prod the man who groaned in agony from each touch. The creature did that for almost an hour until it must have gotten annoyed or bored with the man and just sliced his stomach open with its claw. The man screamed and stopped moaning. The Huellok started to pull out the mans organs one by one with its small worm-like secondary arms. It laid out the organs neatly to the side of the body after it carefully inspected each one. It pulled out the intestines and seemed to be surprised at its length. Giving out a sound that almost sounded like a screech of relief once it pulled out the last bit of it. The Huellok pulled out the lungs and started to flap it around in the air, it placed the lungs over its big central mouth and blew into the trachea. The Huellok squealed with delight as it inflated the lungs and then carefully placed it on the side. Another two Huellok appeared and watched the dissection of the man with interest.

Chen had had enough and slowly backed up. He turned and ran smack into another man. “You really have to work on your situational awareness, Marvin. Follow me. This place isn't safe.” The American soldier said in a whisper. The American crossed the street silently and beaconed him over. He clumsily followed, almost tripping on himself, but he made it. The American entered a small hole under another dumpster and he followed. Once inside the American pulled the dumpster back in place and then ran down the underground tunnel.

Chen limped after him and said, “where are we going?” The American said nothing but did wait for him to catch up to him. At the end of the tunnel, the American opened a door that led deep into the Vib'ak Forest. Once outside he found himself surrounded by a dozen Terran soldiers.

“You've just joined the human resistance.” The American said with a smile and a fake German accent.

“Thank you, Mr. Terminator,” Chen said with a stupid grin.

Hill 1949, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“Nineteen Huellok ships have broken off from the main armada over Leigh and are heading towards south Vortanik.” The ranking Chinese artilleryman said over the hardline as he peered into the distance from his mountaintop outpost with his binoculars.

“Acknowledged Watch Tower. Fire for effect. Tactical nukes once they come in range.” The voice of General Arena said back to the man.

“Fire for effect in range. Tact rounds. Over and out.” The ranking Chinese artilleryman said out loud over the COMM so his comrades could hear. They rapidly loaded their cannons with the nuclear rounds and waited for the alien ships to come closer. Hill 1949 was a Chinese fire support station that was built inside the summit of the largest mountain closest to Vortanik. The native Voorik called the mountain “Voo'tansh,” which meant ancient sentry. The mountain dominated the local skyline and gave the humans an unobstructed view of the city in all directions. It also gave them the ability to provide fire support in all directions. The mountain was designated “Hill 1949” by the Chinese to honor the year that the People's Republic of China came into being. The name didn't go well with the Americans or Indians, but the station was completely Chinese manned and built so it retained its name. The Americans in turn spitefully designated the ugliest phallic looking building in the city the “Asian Station.”

“Range?!” The ranking Chinese artilleryman yelled.

“Ten more klicks until they are in range.” The Chinese soldier replied as he looked over the computers in the watchtower which was built on the very tip of the mountain's summit. The artillery cannons suddenly appeared out from caves in the side of the mountain and pointed towards the alien ships. “We have one shot and only one shot. After that, they'd know we're here.”

The Railyard, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“Here they come. In their big testicle ships. Nineteen of them.” Private Anrep said from behind his Proigryvatel J-12 Light Machine Gun. He had placed the gun behind a pile of sandbags inside of a balcony. Private Anrep looked at his gun and then up at the rapidly closing Huellok ships. “Whats this supposed to do against those beasts?”

“Shut up Anrep. You know what they say. Prochai Rodina!” Another man shouted from inside the building. The other men around laughed at the dark humor.

Anrep didn't. He didn't like it. He knew he was going to most likely die fighting the Huellok, but he didn't want his life to go to waste. He wanted to take out as many of those two-headed freaks as he could for the Rodina. He prayed for the first time he could remember. “God, if you do exist and aren't some sort of superstitious figment of the imagination created by weak minded individuals. I ask that you help me right now to get a fighting chance against these demons.” He prayed silently behind his gun with his eyes closed. The ground beneath him shook and a bright light filled his eyes, even with them closed. He opened his eyes after a minute and to his amazement the ships were now smoldering wrecks in the middle of the forest south of Vortanik. Anrep looked up towards the sky and said: “I would also like to add that I would like to be back home and that you have a virgin supermodel waiting for me.”

The Airport, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“Shit. They are really really pissed off.” Daniels said as he reloaded his rifle with another clip. He shot off a burst of fire down at the Huellok and their green lapdogs that were attempting to scale the side of the plateau that the airport was built on. The airport wasn't actually an airport. It was actually some sort of agricultural research facility for the Voorik, but since it had the largest concentration of open ground in the vicinity of the city the humans had converted it into an airport. The real Voorik spaceport was well beyond the city and most likely in Huellok possession. The Chinese soldier next to him said nothing as he too poured rifle fire down at the enemy. The east side of the plateau was lined with hundreds of human soldiers just hosing the Huellok with bullets. The Huellok tried in vain to climb up, but couldn't under the intense fire. “Like shooting fish out of a goddamn barrel!”

“Why would you ever want to do that?” The Chinese soldier asked.

“It's an American expression. Just means its easy.” Daniels said.

“It's a stupid expression.”

“Fuck you Chink!” Daniels screamed.

The Chinese soldier whipped up his rifle towards Daniels and yelled, “You fucking cockroach!” Daniels saw the rifle and shit himself inside of his suit. His rifle was still pointed down towards the Huellok and he closed his eyes expecting them to never open again.

He opened his eyes and saw that the Chinese soldier was dead at his feet. The entire side of his head blown off. Daniels looked around and spotted a sniper waving at him from atop of one of the “Terminal” buildings. The sniper raised his hand up to his mouth and made the “shush” symbol. Daniels nodded and pushed the Chinese soldier off of the plateau's edge and onto the climbing Huellok. The body tumbled down and landed on two of them and took them with him. The body landed on the bottom and was quickly consumed by the green dog creatures of the Huellok.

The Railyard, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

“You're doing a good job young lady. Where are you from?” Colonel Jacobs shook the hand of the Colonial Army soldier as he spoke.

“Ceres. Born and raised, Colonel.” She replied with pride.

“'The Golden Belt Buckle.' Never been there, but I want to visit it one day.”

“You should. It's hard to reach, but well worth the trip.” She smiled at him and Jacobs moved on to the next person on the front line.

“What is your name young man?”

“David Santos.”

“Where are you from?”

“Mars, Sir.”

“That's where I am from. Whereabouts?”

“Ares Metro by the Northern Seas.”

Jacobs opened his mouth to speak, but he gagged on thick hot blood that splashed on his face. He spat the blood out of his mouth as gunshots and alarms blared all around him. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked around. The woman who he was speaking to just seconds earlier was now leaning against the wall of the trench without her head. Just to the left of her was the body of a small red colored Huellok. It had two black gem-like eyes and it was smaller than the average human. “How the fuck did that thing get in here?”

“That thing just ghosted eight of our guys,” Santos said shaking out of fear. He picked up the head of the decapitated woman and removed her helmet. He stroked her hair and whimpered. Behind him, another red Huellok appeared out of thin air and raised its left blade up in the air. Santos saw the creature appear and did nothing. He just stood there staring, sobbing, and stroking the woman's hair. The creature sliced his head in half. His brains sliding out of his helmet like the yoke spilling out of a broken egg. The creature without wasting a second moved towards the nearest batch of Colonial soldiers and sliced them to pieces. Its blade glowed red as it cut through their armor as if they were covered in paper. The other Colonists in the trench, including Jacobs, just stood there and watched horrified. Completely paralyzed in fear. The creature disappeared again and a shot rang out. The creature appeared again. Lifelessly dangling from the top of the trench as it tried to climb out. A Russian sniper from the building behind the Colonial trench slightly stood up and nodded at Jacobs. The sniper then went back to his old position and disappeared from view like the red Huellok had. Jacobs pulled the dead creature into the trench and tossed it on the floor.

“Those eyes. They look almost Voorik.” Jacobs looked closer at the red Huellok's tail and noticed that it had two underdeveloped legs growing out of it. “Oh shit.”

The Airport, Vortanik, The Voorik Empire, Via Van'viok [Vashik]

The artillery from Hill 1949 was still going off, but not as often as it had before. The Huellok had figured out where the rounds were coming from and started to smash the mountain from orbit. Every few minutes a streak of green light would swoosh down and take off entire chunks out of the mountain. Somehow the Chinese up on that mountaintop were still firing their guns and each new round they fired refocused the Huellok's attention on that mountain. Daniel was grateful for that. As much as he hated those slanted eyed scumbags he had to admire their bravery. If the Huellok were bombarding the mountain they weren't bombarding him or the airport.

The airport wasn't entirely untouched by the Huellok bombardment. The Huellok still hit them every time they made an assault on the airport. Those assaults haven't had much success for them, but it had turned the entire airport into a pile of rubble, broken aircraft and open craters. The assembled human soldiers could no longer just pick off the Huellok as they climbed up the plateau, they had finally started to get smart. Now the humans had to take refuge inside of the airport's rubble to avoid the Huellok orbital bombardment during an assault and the occasional strife from Huellok fighter crafts. The human defenders of Vortanik started to call the stingray-shaped aircraft the nickname “Hummel” or Bumblebee in German because of the loud buzzing sound it made as it flew. The Huellok didn't seem to have many of the stingray-shaped vessels or they probably would have used them more often against the humans. These Hummel would fly low and smash the human defenders with its near infinite payload of green plasma fire. It stayed in the air until it either ran out of whatever fueled its weapons or was shot out of the sky. Which rarely happened since the Hummel carried a nearly impenetrable shield like the large Huellok ships. The humans couldn't waste the last few tactical nukes they had on just one Huellok fight craft, they were reserved for Huellok spacecraft or troop carriers.

Daniels moved from his cover behind a charred Chinese helicopter and raced to better cover behind a crystalline wall that used to be part of the main terminal. He looked out towards the open field of the airport and shook his head. The field was full of dozens of obliterated helicopters and fighter jets who had been caught in the orbital strikes or Huellok fighter craft strafes. The few helicopters that survived all had moved into the city itself and were now based around the Palace. It didn't take the Huellok long to gain control of the skies over Vortanik.

Daniel's thought to himself, “how could mankind hope to compete in the skies against an alien civilization that has been traveling through space for thousands of years?”

“What's your name American?” A voice in horribly accented English said from a nearby pile of rubble.

Daniels looked toward the area looking for the source of the voice, but couldn't find him. “Sargent Daniels, U.S. Army, 25th I.D.”

“Why you here?” The voice asked again in its harsh English.

“What?” Daniels raised his rifle and pointed it towards the area where the voice came from. “Identify yourself!”

“No. YOU identify yourself!” The voice came from behind him and Daniels turned to face it. He still saw nothing but shadows. “Why you here?”

Daniels didn't know what to do. He was afraid and had no idea who or what was around him. He let out a few short bursts of his rifle all around him and heard a high pitched squeal with a loud crash. He cautiously moved towards the sound and saw a small wounded Huellok thrashing like a fish left out of the water. Daniels had been lucky enough to hit the alien in one of its heads. The Huellok had two heads which the eggheads assumed were separate entities, but they shared the body and made it run together. If one of the heads was destroyed, half of the body died and the rest of it soon afterward. All of the human soldiers were trained prior to the invasion to aim for the heads or necks and avoid the rest of the heavily armored bodies. Daniels stepped closer to the being in curiosity and immediately noticed that this Huellok was different. It was red. Unlike the black shock troopers and green Huellok regulars. This Huellok was also human-sized and had a totally different face with just two of those creepy gem-like eyes that the Voorik have. Daniels also noticed it didn't have that big mouth in its chest or those worm-like secondary arms. Instead, it had two real arms with three fingers, it reminded him of the small arms that the Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur had.

The creature stopped thrashing and stared at him, “Friend of the Aggressors, is our enemy. We will consume.” It was the last thing the creature said before it began mumbling something in an alien language over and over like a prayer until it finally died. Daniels shot the creature in its other head to make sure that it had really died. Daniels now realized that the voice was in his head, the Voorik bigwigs tended to do that when they wanted to communicate with humans, somehow they projected their voices and thoughts into your head. Daniels hated when they did that, and they always used voices of dead loved ones as if to purposely fuck with you.

“That's fucking crazy. I need a cigarette.” Daniels pulled out a cigarette from his belt and was about to light it when all hell broke out. The incoming alarms blared and he heard hundreds of guns go off at the same time. Daniels rolled his eyes and killed the entire cigarette in one inhale. He tossed the cigarette stump to the side and found himself a rat hole to fire from. He set himself up and looked for a target. It looked like the whole Huellok army was heading towards him. A Huellok troop carrier had landed in the open field and was now lifting off. A few human anti-aircraft guns shot at it to no effect, but it was mainly to stubbornly tell the Huellok that “we are here.” Daniels knew for the Huellok carrier to even get this close to the airport that the Huellok must have neutralized the artillerymen of Hill 1949. Daniels took his first shots into the line of approaching Huellok troops and hit one of the black shook troopers in its right head. Every bullet connected and went into its head. The creature slumped over and died and another Huellok quickly replaced its spot on the line. “Shit.”

SC: THEY BLEED LIKE US