“Fire! Fire! FIRE!”
“Fall back! Fall baaa-!”
“Watch out! We have incoming!”
“Fire support, I need it here, now! NOW!!”
“Incoming tanks, rolling over our right flank squad, we need support! Anti armor! Something!!! Please!”
“Can anyone hear me?! Anyone!”
“Don’t stop firing! Don’t sto-!”
“I need support, please, the rear flank is crumbling! Can anyone hear me?!”
“We can’t keep advancing without support, where is our support?! Why is no one advancing with us?!”
“Drop pods! Drop pods just landed just behind the vanguard troops! I see power armored units coming out! Turn around! Just turn around! They’re about to attack you! Turn around!!! NOW!!! CAN’T YOU HEAR ME!?!”
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“No…” I whispered, clutching my rifle to my chest as I huddled in a crater that was inside the basement of a shelled out building, I could see all the way up and out of it, to where whatever had caused this had plummeted through it all to then detonate in the basement, where then by some miracle the whole building hadn’t come down all that time ago, whenever this had originally happened. “No one can hear you except me, and I can’t do a thing to help you.”
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I sat in a crater, my armor untouched save for a few scorch marks from the explosion that had sent me into this hole, my rifle unfired, my face smeared with camouflage paint, tears rolling down it till they reached my jaw line where they sat until more tears joined them, building up enough mass to surrender to gravity and drop to the ground.
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I didn’t want to be sitting in this crater, I’d been in it for the past twenty minutes and I honestly wasn’t even sure how it had happened. One moment I’d been advancing with my squad, carefully picking our way across what once might have been a beautiful courtyard of statues, water fixtures and trees, all burnt rubble, stumps and ash now, the next moment I heard distant screams, the sound of air whooshing, the feeling of falling, several impacts as I distantly felt myself colluding with then bouncing of several hard surfaces, before I’d woken to find myself staring up at a now very seemingly distant sky.
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I could hear thousands of my kyn dying and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. The first few minutes after I’d been thrown into this crater I’d searched for a way out of it, but the walls were oddly sheer and I wasn’t a skilled climber and I couldn’t find any way up. I’d called over the intercom for help without answer, I’d screamed as loud as my voice could carry without result. My squad wasn’t answering, no one was. Now I was realizing why. My small com unit inside of my helmet was powerful enough to transmit for over five kilometers, but down here, in this hole that went down at least five meters, inside of a basement that was who knew how deep, inside of a ruined building, my signal wasn’t reaching. The com officers units were able to broadcast so loudly and powerfully I could hear them, but they just couldn’t hear me.
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Yet somehow, for all of that, they didn’t seem to be able to hear each other either… something was very wrong, strangely wrong that I could hear them down here, but none of them could hear each other…
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“My name is Shesha Muldrin, I am Trooper 54113 attached to the sixty second squad of the third Battalion, can anyone hear me?” I whispered into my com unit. No response, not to me, but the chatter was increasing, my kyn were dying even more numerously, many were now fleeing, I could hear more and more officers calling for an organized retreat, but they couldn’t hear each other and even if they could, they were already totally outmaneuvered, there was no chance of any of them linking up without fighting through resistance far stronger than they.
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My breath came in strangled gasps as my tears turned to sobs. I stood up and began punching the wall. “Why? Why?! WHY?!?!” I punched it over and over, my armored gauntlets managing to protect my knuckles from the damaged fuertecrete with minimal bruising, but doing nothing to fuertecrete itself. Finally, my energy spent my arms sagged to my sides and I fell to my knees. It took me a moment to realize the com unit was silent… I couldn’t hear a thing. My eyes opened wide as I realized what that most likely meant. I was quite probably the very last of us now. My kyn, every last one, most likely dead to the last, or soon to be, and with that the enemy, the most noxious and vile Auktharian’s would be scouring the battlefield, looking for survivors.
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My rifle was back in my hands in an instant, I searched the crater and found an overhang of the fuertecrete and put my back to the wall of the crater underneath it and then aimed down the sites of my rifle up at the basement of the building, waiting, willing any of those creatures to come, to find me, to die by my hand in some small act of contribution I could give in my final moments.
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Minutes passed, I heard nothing, saw nothing, no sign, no hint of any enemy. Minutes turned into hours. My arms had grown weary, I’d finally let them sag to my sides, my rifle hanging from around my neck on its strap. I slowly sagged to my knees before shifting to a sitting position, my neck still craned upwards, still watching, still waiting.
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Something was dislodged, it skittered across the rubble above me before falling into the crater. My heart leapt into my throat as my eyes widened with horror, thinking it was a grenade. I was leaping back to my feet when I saw the object and realized it was just a stone, not a grenade. My relief turned to horror again as I realized in my scramble to get back to my feet I may have made enough noise to telegraph my position and doom myself regardless. In less than a second my rifle was in my hands again, aiming at the lip of the crater and into the basement, but still, nothing was there. Had it just been the rubble shifting? Or an Auktharian scout? Quietly searching for survivors to put down?
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My heart beat rapidly in my chest as I gritted my teeth, my imagination was playing havoc with my mind. I began to regulate my breathing as I’d been trained, slowly inhaling in and out, I focused on the rifle in my hands, a Terikthus make, hardy and reliable it could take knocks and keep on working, I’d fired it on nine different occasions before in anger and countless times before that in target practice. Its weight was a familiar thing and I knew it well, I even knew how it felt to swing the butt of it into someone else's face. I knew the sound that it made when bone broke under it, I knew the feel of it as I swung it into position, either to smash with the butt, or to take aim and deliver death from range. I knew the kick it gave when firing solid slug rounds on its secondary firing mode, I knew the noise it gave off when firing from the mag battery, the charging whine, the zeeelll-plut, zeeelll-plut! I knew my weapon.
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My breathing was now calm, my heartbeat steady, my body relaxed, I was ready, I was waiting.
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I allowed my mind and body to rest again as I waited for any further sign of an enemy above me, but heard and saw nothing.
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A nagging thought brushed at the back of my mind. ‘No one is coming, friend of foe, you’re going to die down here, in this hole, alone.’ I closed my eyes as my fists clenched again, my fury bubbled to the surface but I turned my focus to what little I’d known of the battle, or more like slaughter.
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‘We were advancing on Telthingrad as per orders from Vorshin Mau, a Vaeros in the Eshirikyn Army. We were over five thousand strong in all, one spear of three, a three pronged attack to attempt to retake Telthingrad. Our spear, made up primarily of infantry columns, was supposed to be the second to attack the city, using the distraction of the first spear to attempt an infiltrated approach and if we achieved this we were to then break up inside the city into smaller fighting forces and head for key objectives. My squad was supposed to be a part of the group headed for the Neglian City Quarter to open the gates there and allow the third attack made up in bulk of armored columns of tanks and powered armored units to then proceed into the city unhindered. However, if our infiltration failed we were to signal the third spear to proceed without us.’
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“I doubt anyone got a signal off to them.” I whispered. “No one could even communicate with each other, let alone the third spear. They probably have no idea we’re gone yet.” The anger was coming back again and as I fought it once more I felt exhaustion sweep over me. I slumped in the crater and wearily glanced upwards and felt terror slice through me as my eyes alighted on a figure standing at the lip of the crater.
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Standing easily three meters tall was a figure in some kind of crude power armor. It was badly rusted in many areas and I realized the only areas that didn’t have rust were those that had recently suffered battle damage, or… I realized with a sickened feeling, were covered in blood. Its helmet looked like it might have once been meant to be in the shape of an eagle of Old Earth, the book jutting out from a mangled faceplate still proud, despite the blood and rust coating it, but it was the singularly distinguishing feature. The rest of the helm was so badly disfigured I could not properly tell where even the ocular sensors were placed.
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By the direction of the beak it appeared to be simply staring across the crater to the other side, its form however was unmoving, I had no idea how long it had been standing there, but if it noticed me… I had no weapon that could penetrate that armor with maybe the exception of my grenades but I’d either have to make an excellently timed toss with one or, possibly, if it got in close to me, my knife to an armored joint… it wouldn’t be likely to even penetrate, but if it did that might hurt whomever was inside, but it wouldn’t kill them, unless I managed to strike something like an artery in a hip or shoulder, but even so, it would still take time for them to bleed out, and it would be very doubtful I’d survive long enough to rejoice in that. As though to emphasize the point and drawing my attention to it, the right hand of the power armored Auktharian raised up a hand covered in what was easily identifiable as a talon gauntlet. Each digit was encased in hooked talon, powerful and flexing and even without half the power behind them capable of rending through stone and metal with ease, let alone my armor and flesh.
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It raised its hand in front of its mangled faceplate, flexing each digit one at a time, letting them play out in the light. Then, with terrifying slowness, the beak jutting out from that mangled faceplate of the helmet turned and pointed down into the crater, directly down at me141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBhLLHS2U9U
and then Add to home screen.