Pain rakes my body. Fire running through my being. Shockwaves must have broken my bones. A fact each aftershock reminds me of. No, that makes no sense. Earthquakes have aftershocks not artillery shells–
–Which means the shaking is more shells. Someone is bombarding the trench en masse, peppering it with dumb artillery shells after a smart shell killed a whole squad. I need to get under cover. Flash training drives me onwards, clawing my feet back and forcing me down the trench, limping on my left foot, must have twisted it. Zerg are tough, unlike myself, guess that means I''m still human. Like my name. I really dislike that moniker but chewing the fat in chat comes after running for your life.
>Human Athena: I’m alone, in a trench war with mutants and artillery! Fuck this shit. Teleport out? Give me a shield? Or a gun? These jackoffs didn’t even give me a combat shovel!
A moment passes, the only feedback being the metal mesh beneath my half tied boots. Regular thudding, one foot in front of the other. Shadows flit and flicker, half starved mutants digging deeper. Abominations gone mad with hunger.
I hobble faster. Soon escaping the shadow of a fortress.
Wind howls through the bones of the dead stones, dragging with it the dust of a shattered empire. The stepped pyramid, once a bastion against the galactic fury, now lies in ruins—its once-proud terraces crumbling, its great metal-plated walls pitted and scorched by orbital fire. What remains of its towering bulk leans to both sides, split open and scattered as if Shai Hulud tunneled through it. Black oxides coat the metal, gleaming with traces of ancient shields. Now ripped into chaotic anomalies.
Whatever destroyed this fortress is long past, yet the weight of silence presses down. This was no mere stronghold—it was a defiant citadel, a racial headquarters, the hope of an entire species. Meant to outlast the ages only to shatter like peanut brittle. Massive impact craters line the trench, yawning gaps exposing the tangled veins of ancient fortifications, of crystals, roots, stones, and a myriad of other layers I cannot recognize.
The earth trembles, going silent as I limp forward. Pain fading, must be the adrenaline. Far to my right a bunker pops up, energy collects in the short muzzle of a point defense cannon, green and angry. Aimed not at me, nut into the sky above. Three shots echo in quick repetition, only detectable by the thrumming air. I''ve gone deaf, ears blown out by the previous artillery.
Drained of energy the battery sinks into the mud, concealing itself for future point defense. An automated defense, left behind by some eradicated race. Syrak-9 is truly a game world where all races convene to hold their wargames.
I need to find cover.
I step carefully over the broken remains of battle—scorched armor plating, sun-bleached bones, the rusted husks of war machines whose pilots never escaped. The wind stirs again, carrying a whisper of something older than war, older than this fallen edifice. It is the sound of inevitability, the slow, patient erosion of civilizations.
Fingers flex, involuntarily spending my energy to stack upgrade upon upgrade on my pistol, soon reaching a theoretical limit of perfection. Every piece of steel gleams with a mirror polish, every edge chamfered to perfection, rounds and barrel swaged to impossible tolerances. No longer can it be called a 9mm pistol, for the rounds will fire twice as fast. Steel penetrators have grown denser, becoming hardened tungsten rods, and the two shrapnel-inducing kerfs multiply to eight, guaranteeing carnage on impact.
Still I continue on, dragging my foot through the pain. One glance at the walls tells a story of wood stacked below layers of steel mesh and additional supports. This trench is old, with a lasagna of fortifications layered atop each other. Sapient species, including Humans have been fighting over this dirt for centuries, attacking, destroying, dying, and rebuilding in a perpetual cycle.
All for export rights on solarium shipments.
With a couple of odd layers marking times when secondary antagonists -xenos- swept the field. Judging by the heavy treadmarks pressed into the mud I guess this is currently Technomancy territory. That checks out with the flash training, as trenches this wide are hard to defend with infantry and light vehicles. Standard policy for Singularity trenches is tight and narrow, ten feet at most, except for our heavy artillery we only use infantry and all terrain equipment so mud doesn’t stop us. I pray no artillery shells are whistling my way, but I''m deaf. Not like I can do anything if I hear the shells coming.
In a way, that’s relaxing.
>Executrix Alaea: Already tried to beam you up. Can’t. The equipment I have is a glorified microwave, and Augury reached its limit. So we''ve got weird limitations, that include us three. Might be anything the -nameless- are watching, not sure yet.
>Human Athena: Xeno-voldemort is gonna get me killed? Really?
>Human Athena: Fuck off with that bullshit!
>Executrix Alaea: I swear I would if I could! Might be a security lock out… Athena, we are no longer human. These names weren’t picked by us and my ship does not have a human habitable atmosphere! Even if you could get beamed up, your lungs would catch on fire and melt. Same for Hygieia.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
>Human Athena: I’m going to die if you don’t help me.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Survive bitch.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Hey, send me more biomass and i can make some bioforms
>Matriarch Hygieia: hive ship is organic so i got wiggle room
>Matriarch Hygieia: send and receive a bit without being noticed
>Matriarch Hygieia: takes time. but I’m safe
>Matriarch Hygieia: safe enough
“AAAAAHHH! What do you expect me to do? Hide in a hole and poop bodies?” I shout, the sound muffled under my gasmask.
A bend in the trench slows me, apprehension rising. Improved or not my FNX isn’t going to dent a Techno-tank or knock out Azhurai quantum shielding. While slowing down only makes me vulnerable to getting shot in the back.
I''m gonna be lucky or dead. Steeled, I walk forward like I''m the limping bombed out Queen of Trenchlandia. Sparing a regal glance back at the pile of comrades, just in time to see dozens of electric pink iguanas jump into the trench. Tulverians, aliens with rifles and blast armor over half their otherwise exposed scales. Filthy xenos.
With plasma rifles.
For a second I’m tempted to try my luck, but only a second. One pistol versus a full squad of enemies? Even Clint Eastwood’s .44 magnum would run dry. I jog forward, ankle bringing tears to my eyes as pain sledgehammers my leg. Around the bend I cry, hoping the crocodilianoids are sated by eating other earthlings.
On second thought, I hope we taste like shit. The last thing I need is buffalo sized iguanas thinking I''m a snakey-snack.
Around the corner lies empty, save for the very thing I’ve been looking for.
A black maw, the entrance to an underground bunker. Twenty feet wide and nearly thirty feet tall the orifice dares me to advance. Such an entrance is never constructed by Singularity forces, it’s too exposed. Any half-competent rocketeer could drop a nuke through this security breach from ten clicks away. At night! Of all alien races Jim informed me of, only heavy warmachines like Technocracy Juggernauts would need this.
I cup my ears, forgetting that I''m deaf.
Mud trembles as shells land above the trench, the shaking and thudding my only sense of hearing.
“Get lucky or die.” I say, jogging along the trench wall to the bunker’s mouth.
I pass an exit ramp, a place in the trench wall that’s been bulldozed into a gentle incline so tanks can enter and exit. On a whim I jog up it, hoping to find cover in the contested land outside the trenches rather than run into a bunker praying it''s abandoned. There is an old saying back on Earth. Speak of the devil and he shall appear. No sooner have I stuck my head above the ramp than twelve Juggernauts rise above their own trenches belching clouds of black smoke as they launch swarms of high explosive missiles.
A volley so comprehensive that chemtrails blot out the sun. Energy batteries whine and fire, detonating dozens of missiles. A futile waste of power cells. Thousands of the suicide fleet strike home, sending a shockwave that even my deaf ears can register.
Twelve Juggernauts is an armored division, this is the start of a Novan offensive push. A major fight. I cock the hammer on my uber-FNX, knowing it''ll never improve into an anti-tank weapon. I tap into Sanle''s memories for advice- Singularity protocol states we should call in an orbital bombardment or sacrifice ten thousand infantrymen to clog up their treads. They call that a ‘mobility kill’, since the tank will be a sitting duck until space assets or anti-armor weapons can be brought to bear. Real guns.
I NEED to hide, turning to limp down the ramp, reaching the bottom simultaneously with three green-scaled Tulverians. Mouths stained crimson. Plasms rifles armed, charged, and at the ready. Up close I see the folly of calling them Iguanas, three inch fangs line hard beaked maws, with a duplex of overlapping eyelids and claws evolved for rending prey into giblets. These are closer to Jurassic Park than a petting zoo. One bite would tear me in half.
The leader sees me, skull crest rising, gun aiming at my chest, mouth opening to–
-He blinks. Pupil shifting towards the bunker.
I feel the rumble more than hear it. Thudding into my chest like a massage chair dialed up to ‘beat them silly with hammers then ask for a big tip’. Thousands of slugs rupture the trio, turning green scales into pink mist before I can blink. One second they are there, the next they aren’t.
“Cute magic trick.” I mutter, smiling darkly.
My brain registers the response as abnormal. But ignore it, wondering how much blood I lost today. Adrenaline should be spiking now, but my glands seem empty. Exhaustion hits. I slump against the trench wall, collapsing onto my ass.
A Juggernaut, three stories of branching gun barrels, sensors, and armor plating rolls into view, turning away from me and rolling up the far ramp. Dozens, possibly hundreds of individual guns are welded or bracketed to the Juggernaut in a massive tree of firepower. As if someone made an American Christmas tree of AR-15s then bolted it to a remote controlled Killdozer. Thousands of rifles and machine guns are cludged onto a central brick of a tank. Long, steel, with armor thicker than a schoolbus and treads to match.
Rear facing autocannons aim, tracking my forehead, gimbals holding their aim steady as the juggernaut rises above the trench. For some inexplicable reason it doesn’t fire. Maybe because I’m no threat to it. But Sable has seen Juggernauts fire their guns just to feel recoil, some vestigial reflex of its human pilot, firing for the sake of sensation, of feeling anything. Each tank has only one pilot, located at center mass of the boxed section. Five feet above the reactor.
Maybe this one is out of bullets? It''s an autocannon type, armed with scores of individual guns all pulling from individual magazines. Either way, it turns to join the other twelve Juggernauts, firing a handful of missiles to support their advance.
I’m left there. Alone. Waiting for the end. Until Alaea’s words reach me. We can’t die here. Earth dies unless we win. They took four billion of us. If only one in thirty of us survive, we’ll still have enough to drown thousands of Juggernauts under our bodies. It’s time to fight. Not bitch out and F10 + S.
Cold logic knows I’m not firing on all cylinders so it analogizes life with Starcraft 2. This is a damn cannon rush and I’m an itty bitty SCV, But unlike in the game, I can armor up and become a Warhound. Before I can talk sense into my -ramblings- feet carry me into the bunker, jumping over tripwires left near the entrance.
Nightvision activates automatically, illuminating the bunker’s interior with twin green beams.
“Nightvision, dial to minimum.”