《Tread and Sword [Tanks | Magic | Kingdom Building]》 Chapter 1.1 - Ruins of Xandria The first interstellar colonies of man were, generally speaking, successful. Such was the wealth of habitable and resource-rich worlds made available to humanity upon the discovery of the hyperdrive that violent conflicts largely subsided. In their place came conflicts of prestige; any nation worth talking about needed at least one interstellar colony, often established by the cheapest of means. Many of the better-backed colonies did, in fact, become success stories in their own way. With national pride and prestige fueling political will, these quickly became model replicas. Yet success left their backers in the same predicament as those whose colonies had been barely scraping by, as the first order of business of a self-sufficient colony was to cut ties with them and seek better fortunes peddling their products on the open market. There followed a secondary spree of colonization, made cheaper and faster by the first colonies¡¯ experiences. Yet these ¡®second-class¡¯ colonies were not planted with national pride or prestige in mind, for the wonder of colonization had largely worn off for the majority of mankind¡¯s population. Commerce was a far better motivator; the daughter colonies were established as planet-sized mines and farms, freeing their progenitors to pursue higher-value industries. The new colonizers were far wiser than their Terran predecessors and, as such, limited or entirely barred their planet-sized business ventures from growing out of their strict role. Yet they failed to account for their own hubris, for they thought themselves capable of controlling men and women who relieved themselves of the luxuries of properly industrialized worlds for the mere chance at a life free from government control. Some controlled the spaceports, believing that their ventures could not establish independence -as they themselves once had- without control of their exports. Yet a population could only be forced into such subservience if only it was willing to be logical¡­and logic was a rare value indeed in the interstellar frontier. Many a colony rebelled against their masters, violently so. The homeworlds invariably were forced to either abandon the colony or reinforce and reunify it by military means. Yet any kind of military operation ultimately intensified the disruption, and the inevitable collateral damage of a conflict between colonial militaries and rebels against the majority-neutral populace made any kind of reconciliation a herculean task. Even if a military solution was found, the problem of what to do with the troublemakers inevitably arose. Solutions ranged from monstrous to stupid. On Jawhara, a joint farming venture between the egyptian Warada and the pakistani Khajana colonies, three thousand surrendered Sikh fighters were executed. On Solstice, a joint European lithium mining colony, much of the rebel populace succumbed to an enhanced malaria strain because they did not want to accept medical aid from the colonial government. Yet these were outliers. In the vast majority of cases, the defeated ¡®troublemakers¡¯ were sent to cause trouble somewhere else. That required there be other conflicts to fight in, but there was always another problematic world to reassert control over or a backwater colony whose produce could prove profitable if only it could be taken over at a manageable cost. The chaos that followed this second wave of colonization ensured that there would always be somebody willing to hire expendable troops. By the middle of the twenty-second century, the roving bands of armed exiles had transformed into organized mercenary outfits as small as a squad of marksmen or as big as an army, with payments and equipment sales managed by dedicated companies. The chaos never stopped; it merely moved far enough from humanity¡¯s cradle and out of the minds of the billions on Terra, Mars, Proxima Centauri and Trappist. For many within the core worlds, it was a barbaric profession best left to rot in the long and dusty annals of human history. Terra and her closest daughters had long banished war from their backyard, their militaries remaining powerful through their immense industrial and technological superiority. Violence had been exported to the outer worlds rather successfully, and to great profit. A brave -or crazy, depending on your viewpoint- few thought it more honorable than most. The practice held an undisputed allure to millions of farmers, miners and factory workers in the Heartland or the Outer Worlds; the average footsoldier earned about as much as a middling corporate shill but needed no qualifications greater than youth and vigor, and he had the ¡®luxury¡¯ to see the galaxy¡¯s beautiful, exotic and lethal sights. To Colonel Steele, it was the only life he''d ever known. ¡ª ¡°What the fuck do you mean, don¡¯t harm the statues?!¡± BOOMUnauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. The radio headset crackled around his ears. Indeed, the contract stipulated that no harm could come to ¡®objects of archeoxenological interest¡¯¡­unless his soldiers¡¯ survival demanded it. He glanced at the large screen at the wall in front of him, watching through the remote rig dialed to one of his panzers as cloth-clad extremists hurled Molotov cocktails and fired mortars at his troops from inside the statue-decorated outer walls of the city. Two of his tanks were already cooking off amidst the grassy plains, and soon the religious nutters would be bringing in more rockets. ¡°You want me to retreat now, you moron? A little late for that! I¡¯ve got tanks a hundred meters from the walls, and they¡¯re getting closer by the second!¡± ¡°No, you hear me, Director. If we retreat right now, I¡¯ll lose half a battalion of men and equipment to their artillery without two kills and a penny to show for it! You try to get a contract after that, because I sure as hell won''t!.¡± At a gesture across his neck, the comms specialist sitting on his right cut the crazy scientist out of the regimental comnet. The Bondsmen sure wouldn¡¯t like being dragged out to the edge of nowhere to settle a dispute, but they would award the money to him. Enough outfits had been fucked over by indecisive colonial governments that even the most boilerplate contract had ¡®heat of battle¡¯ clauses protecting him from bullshit orders. Switching to the kampfgruppe¡¯s network, he heard the local commander keeping his troops as calm as one could in these conditions. ¡°¡ªsmoke mortars. Keep tossing them out, men.¡± Within another try at the frequency dial, he turned the connection private between the pair. ¡°Ocelot Actual, this is Overlord Actual, you copy?¡± ¡°You do, Ocelot Actual. Clearance granted, dig em out!¡± Whether the following sounds were static or laughter, Victor didn''t know. Even without returning fire, most of the armored column had remained untouched; the jessomites had frightfully weak anti-armor weapons, powerful as their long-ranged artillery might be. With heavy munitions back in play, the tides turned in moments. BOOM The tank broadcasting through the remote rig fired its main armament, the fourteen centimeter smoothbore gun utterly obliterating a heavy stubber emplacement atop the gatehouse. Though Victor often dreamed of commanding entire divisions of panzers, it was sights like these that reminded him what as a single beast could accomplish¡­especially with a trained and bloodthirsty crew. Torrents of autocannon fire came from the personnel carriers, sheltering behind the tanks in neat rows of two. The twenty-mil guns seemed tiny compared to tank armament, but they fired ten times faster with the same computer-aided accuracy. Ocelot moved as one, twenty-four vehicles and nearly two hundred soldiers advancing deep into the city to find their targets. They crushed their way through the paths of most resistance, searching for that which the jessomites¡¯ mercenaries valued the most. The extremists themselves were bona fide religious nutheads, searching for meaning in forgotten relics of an ancient civilization that had gone extinct a dozen millennia prior. Yet even they understood they were outclassed when Steele¡¯s troopers landed on the planet with tanks, artillery and combat aviation supporting a core of battle-hardened mechanized infantry. So they had hired the Iron Mountain Legion, an outfit made up of veterans from the civil war on the russian-speaking world of Zamoroz. Not the best outfit, but respectable none the less and just barely cheap enough to be bought with the foreign exchange the jessomites earned selling pixie dust to off-world smugglers. The Legion was smaller than Victor¡¯s Regiment, three or four thousand men with no heavy armor to speak of. But they were not supposed to fight the same fight his soldiers did. Their job was to sit tight and defend against the opposing outfit until the enemy party ¡ªgovernment or rebels¡ª ran out of will, patience or money, and signed over whatever land or resources their clients demanded in return for peace. Their primary tool was none other than a battalion of heavy artillery, currently hiding amidst the irreplaceable relics Victor¡¯s own clients were crying about. Unfortunately for the Legion and their clients, he had a reputation to maintain¡­and the New Geneva Conventions said nothing about alien heritage sites. Static came from his headset¡¯s speakers, then a familiar voice. There was no response from his own bunker, but Victor was certain the command bunker housing Fire Control Central, nice and safe several hundred klicks away, was scrambling to respond. He and his staff officers merely listened, nice and tight inside their forward command post. The tactical table in front of Victor flickered, local counter-battery radars as well as orbiting fire control satellites picking up on the salvo of 15cm shells. On the remote rig, the panzer fired at the supporting column of what looked like a temple; gray-clothed legionnaires ran out with their hands in the air, only to be buried a moment later under tons of crumbling stone, carved before man had learned to farm. As the dust cleared, a series of explosions came from the camera¡¯s left. Going by the sounds of secondary explosions and bright flashes, they¡¯d hit the legionnaires exactly where it hurt. The kampfgruppe commander¡¯s voice came on the commnet not a second later. Central¡¯s sterile response was followed by eighteen more rounds; the entire artillery battalion was firing as one. Before the first eighteen landed, the fourth barrage shot into the sky, and it didn¡¯t stop until the tenth. By that time, the entire central district of the city had been levelled, statues and temples reduced to rubble, filled with broken howitzers and shattered bodies. Chapter 1.2 - Shipping Out The newest of my colleagues always make the mistake of equating an army that fights for coin to one that fights for a nation. They deify the weapons they are given; panzers capable of winning a fight outmatched two-to-one, rocket artillery that can fire everything from cluster to orbital denial munitions, aircraft whose technology makes all but the most advanced detection systems more obsolete than a rock sling. Those that survive their first few years commanding an outfit learn to specialize in their use or dispose of such fancy equipment, for they were designed for a military that had to fight, bleed and still make a profit at the end of the day. Let¡¯s compare, for example, the ¡®Astreus¡¯ MBT, the most advanced tank ever deployed outside of the Core Worlds, and the humble ¡®Rhino¡¯ panzer. The former¡¯s active and passive defenses make it virtually impervious to rocket and guided missile attacks, while its frontal armor can take a direct hit from most sabot or shaped-charge rounds in use. Yet its protections require skilled technicians, expensive spare parts and regular maintenance to remain in top condition, while giving it a factory-fresh weight of eighty tons. It¡¯s fast for its size, thanks to a martian engine design and its four tracks. Alas, the former requires a specialized fuel to run with any kind of efficiency, which is both expensive and difficult to source because of the small number of refineries that can make it, while the latter further decreases the ratio of frontline units to rear maintenance personnel by being double the normal size and double the work to keep in good condition. The Rhino, on the other hand, is a far leaner machine. It mounts the exact same 14cm gun but carries only thirty-five instead of sixty-two rounds of ammunition and has both thinner and weaker armor and a comparatively lacking active protection system. Yet its turbine engine can run on liquefied charcoal in a pinch, and can be virtually rebuilt in the field with a truck-mounted machine shop and a couple skilled mechanics. At just fifty-two tons in full combat kit it can cross most bridges, and the ubiquitous M1088 heavy truck can carry two Rhinos instead of just one Astreus on basic asphalt or dirt roads. The Astreus might win you the battle, but its logistical requirements will lose you the war. It costs two times as much to maintain and needs two to three times as much logistics and maintenance personnel to keep in combat conditions, though it¡¯s by far the best the Heartland Worlds have to offer. It¡¯s the best tank for a modern, capable, state military, which can afford the extra logistical challenges in return for lower casualties and better chances at victory against a peer enemy. Yet to one of our own it¡¯s more of a white elephant, amazing to parade around but absolutely terrible to budget for. Now, of course, your outfit might be special. I¡¯ve seen my fair share of ¡®elites¡¯ hired as a force multiplier by weak but willing colonial security forces. Yet if you, like most of us, are hired with the job of winning a war with minimal support, your secret weapon is no supertank. It¡¯s logistics. ¡ªColonel Victor Steele, Decennial Security Providers¡¯ Conference, 2344 ¡ª Steele and his regiment had fought on many worlds, from the exotic to the ugly and most often the boring. Each world was slightly different, though the reason they were colonized was mostly the same; resources. Whether it was massive herds of cattle, endless seas of wheat or deep crust mines, colonies were planet-sized resources extracted for the good of whichever government or corporation invested the money to develop them. Though the resource and method of extraction differed from planet to planet, every colony invariably started from a single location; its spaceport. For advanced worlds, this was a massive city-sized logistics zone where planet-sized land, sea and air corridors combined to load and unload hundreds if not thousands of metrics tons of cargo on huge dropships. Anything more advanced was done in orbit, where microgravity and vacuum allowed the construction of massive spaceports, shipyards and refueling stations. Yet this was the exception. Rural worlds, like Xandria, had far less illustrious facilities¡­and significantly more uniform. Entire megacorporations had formed around the industry of colonization, fine tuning the architecture and logistics of establishing a spaceport until all the necessary tools, heavy equipment and buildings could be packed into two dozen standard shipping containers and sent dozens if not hundreds of light years across space to their new forever home. The main terminal also functioned as the colonial headquarters for the first years of development, though on Xandria the government had long moved out and dedicated the building to traffic control and logistics agencies. Bright red-colored bunkers sat over underground fuel depots for the dropships; the local system had little in the way of orbital infrastructure, and the small merchants that bought its few goods used ships that landed on planets instead of sending ferries down from geostatic orbit. Last but not least, rows of metal warehouses and grain silos surrounded the tarmac, a large oval several kilometers long and almost a klick big at its widest.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. It was there, on that hot tarmac, that the barely aerodynamic brick that was the Victoria sat in all its splendor. Once a military dropship employed by Victor¡¯s homeworld, it had been sold to him along with a whole lot of goodies for a job whose details were best left under lock with the key forgotten. The only thing that mattered was that it was his, in the best sense of the word, completely reliable in even the worst of scenarios unlike the boats-for-hire most mercenary outfits had to rely on to take them off-world. As Victor watched through the glass wall of the restaurant nestled at the top of the terminal, a row of trucks and armored personnel carriers had formed in front of the lowered rear ramp, with navy ratings wearing high-vis vests and holding colored batons guiding them inside the massive vehicle hold of the dropship. ¡°Colonel?¡± A male voice called to him from the other side of the dining table. Victor turned towards Xandria¡¯s governor, a gray-haired man of Japanese descent who went by Hiroshi Susuki. ¡°Yes, Governor?¡± ¡°I think you will be pleased to know¡­¡± Governor Hiroshi said, sliding a tablet across the table. ¡°That your payment has gone through.¡± The simplistic interface of Banque Credit Insterstellaire, the premier intra-system bank this side of the galaxy, showed Victor¡¯s favorite words. [Transfer Approved] ¡°Two hundred and fifty million solariis for services rendered, as well as another seventy-three million and change for damages incurred.¡± ¡°Excellent.¡± Victor replied, digging into his steak. ¡°¡­plus an additional seven million, four hundred and fifty to thousand, nine hundred and nineteen solariis, and thirteen cents.¡± The Governor added, grimacing. ¡°I hope you¡¯re not planning on keeping some of my men on retainer with that offer.¡± Victor replied, cutting off another piece of perfectly seared steak. Beneath his mask, a cold smile took form. Hiroshi shook his head, taking a swig of the rich red wine that Xandria had begun exporting half a t-decade prior to great success. ¡°That is the remainder of Director Misaki¡¯s research fund. An apology, on our behalf, for the¡­confusion she caused. I hope the Consortium will be able to request your services and discretion once more if the need arises.¡± Victor nodded slowly, grimacing. In truth, he was never going to blacklist the Sakura Consortium; greedy fuckers they might be, like every other trillion-solarii megacorp, but they paid very well in return for his discreteness. Case in point, this ¡®apology¡¯. A bribe in all but name, but one any bank would eagerly process nonetheless. Finance in the outer worlds was less regulated than xenoarcheology, and every solarii billionaire worth their fortune had an alien artifact in the lobby of his villa on Mars. ¡°A most unfortunate incident indeed; the Veisgolt Regiment accepts your apology in full.¡± He replied. A less experienced merc would¡¯ve asked about the Director¡¯s fate; Victor knew better. Best-case scenario, she would be teaching her craft at some middling university for the rest of her miserable life. Worst case¡­well, Xandria¡¯s farms could always use more fertilizer. ¡­ The plains of the Xandrian Highlands were much like the Central Plains of Lieutenant Pavlo Stepanovych Borysenko¡¯s homeworld, Zorya. Both were dedicated in their entirety to growing grains, though Zorya had specialized in a protein-rich strain of corn instead of the drought-resistant wheat Xandrians cultivated for a living. Yet there were stark differences that he couldn¡¯t get used to. Xandria was cold, windy, and so dry that pure-strain crops couldn¡¯t make it to harvest. The terrain was also full of short hills, which turned the experience of riding a fifty-ton main battle tank into being through in a running washing machine. ¡°Think you¡¯re going to miss the place, Emanuel?¡± He asked the brown-skinned man enjoying a cup of caf from his own hatch on the turret. Sergeant Emanuel Garcia, the Nutcracker¡¯s loader, had served under Colonel Steele for nearly three t-years. The man was supposed to be twenty-three according to personnel records, but looked closer to thirty-two. Nobody could blame him; even Borysenko was starting to see gray hairs in the mirror after the Xandria Campaign¡­which was thankfully coming to an end. With the Legion¡¯s heavy artillery and SAM emplacements destroyed in a siege two Xandrian Months ago -two and a half standard- the Regiment had been free to advance its own shorter-ranged artillery and aviation assets towards the jessomite strongholds on the eastern deserts. The Nutcracker had been part of that very siege, barely managing to take down an entire building with a siege round before the legionnaires inside reloaded their rockets. A peace treaty had been signed just last week after a flurry of negotiations between the Xandrian Colonial Government and the Jessomite Council, allowing the latter autonomous control over much of the barren desert that was so holy to them in exchange for funneling their profitable production of pixie dust through the former¡¯s spaceport and paying taxes. A shuttle full of justicars from the Bonding Authority oversaw the entire thing; non-compliance by either party would mean a slow and painful death by ironclad sanctions. ¡°Well¡­¡± the latino muttered, taking a sip of caf. ¡°Not really. The weather¡¯s pretty nice, but the coingirls¡­they are a bit too conservative for my taste.¡± ¡°And expensive!¡± Hans, their driver, shouted from the sun-baked tarmac beside the left track as he inspected the wheels for cracks. ¡°They charge the same rate as the bordello dancers on Haven, but they can¡¯t move half as well!¡± Borysenko shook his head with a smile; only a standard year ago he¡¯d been a captain of tanks in the Zoryan Guard, a ¡®prestigious¡¯ position whose salary barely equaled that of a sergeant in the Regiment¡¯s mechanized infantry, and with a significantly shittier quality of life to boot. Now a lieutenant with a single platoon of four tanks ¡ªpanzers, he reminded himself, as they were called in the regiment¡ª, he made one and a half times his previous salary plus combat pay¡­ Say what you will about the Colonel¡¯s attitude during combat operations; the man was worse than a slave driver without a doubt. Yet he knew how to take care of his men, with regular pay in credit or coin, food that didn¡¯t make them shit rocks, and even bonuses so that even the lowest-ranking men could enjoy a night a week with the local¡ª Borysenko keyed his headset, sending back a short ping of confirmation to the captain¡¯s tank. Soon the rest of Dagger Company replied, and the captain spoke again. Chapter 1.3 - Stop and smell the rainbows Many soldiers become mercenaries seeking freedom¡­only to have their dreams shattered the first time they go into town for supplies. The days of independent sell-swords exploring the world while earning their pay died with the era of swords and shields on Terra, when weapons could be scavenged from dead enemies and the day¡¯s food could be secured by hunting and foraging in the wild. Nowadays, even the worst-equipped bandit needs bullets for his rifle which must be made in a workshop out of gunpowder, casings and cores¡­which all require a supply chain from saltpeter mines or chemical laboratories and copper or tungsten mines to refineries and metal presses. Any proper soldier needs medical equipment to remain healthy in the field, packaged food to remain energetic during combat operations, and a shovel to dig himself a foxhole for cover. The greater the force multiplier, the longer the supply chain and the greater the price or barrier to purchase it. Therein lies the high cost of mercenaries, for they run on a military budget while still needing to make a profit. The main reason the use of mercenaries remains financially possible ¡ªif ill advised¡ª is that it is cheaper to hire an army for six or twelve t-months than maintain an active army for years or decades on end. Of course, there is also the issue of loyalty. A state army with proper hierarchy is loyal to its senior-most officer and civilian government¡­yet the former allows for the possibility of coups. An all-too-likely possibility; over half of all colonies in the Outer Worlds with a state military have suffered from coup d¡¯¨¦tat. Mercenaries, on the other hand, fight solely for coin; a colonial government can be sure that its hired help will fight only as hard as the contract stipulates, and only so long as the money keeps flowing. So long as the political and economic price of sustaining an army is greater than hiring mercenaries, the industry will remain a staple of Outer Worlds culture. ¡ªUnknown ¡ª Much of Xandria¡¯s population had stopped for a moment to look up at the sky as the IDS Victoria blazed forth towards orbit on a pair of fusion powered engines. The last time it had taken off empty, while thousands of troopers and hundreds of vehicles from the Veisgolt Regiment moved east to counter the jessomite advance. Now the threat of oppressed, impoverished and radicalized desert farmers was gone, buried under a mountain of paperwork that secured the colonial government¡¯s stranglehold over trade while keeping Jessom¡¯s followers inside their mountainous deserts farming arid fields by day and praying for death to their oppressors by night. Victor looked at the gathered crowds from a screen mounted on his seat in the bridge, while the experienced crew handled the pesky work of orbital and trans-atmospheric maneuvers. Fifteen or twenty years ago, the knowledge that he¡¯d likely ensured a few hundred thousand people remained oppressed would¡¯ve made him bitter if not sick; nowadays he grabbed the money, fed his troops and chucked all the rest in to the depths of his mind. On most planets, the alternative ¡ªrebel, religious extremists, separatists or ideological idealists, the branding hardly mattered¡ª were just as power-hungry as the incumbent government. The Outer Worlds, save for a precious handful of independent colonies which fed, housed, armed and entertained the hordes of mercenaries floating around, were rentier states. Furthermore, unless their homeworlds in the Heartlands decided to lose out on the income and cut them loose, they would remain so until their fertile fields turned to sand and their mines ran dry. The reign of fleeting violent solutions had persisted too long; humanity¡¯s hallmark, ironically, was impermanence. Everybody just kept kicking the can down the road, lest it explode in their faces. Victor did much the same, in a sense. For all his achievements as Colonel Steele, commander of one of the best armies to ever fight for a dollar, he was but a particularly well-oiled cog in the shit-eating and shit-producing machine that was the mercenary industry. ¡­ As the Victoria made its way to the closest hyper-transition bubble, the Regiment licked its wounds. The job had been rather easy, but easy didn¡¯t mean painless. Men and women had died from both enemy and environment, vehicles had been destroyed and consumables used up. Recruitment would begin the moment they jumped to the nearest R&R world, by sending out individual teams to select able-bodied farm boys, miners and factory workers from around the Outer Worlds. While some of the more specialized outfits had contracts with military academies to fill their ranks with well-trained tankers, pilots and technicians, the Regiment trained everybody in-house. The practice kept everybody running on the same frequency, as veterans too old, injured or experienced to be wasted on a frontline battalion trained the newer generation. It was also slightly cheaper; while the rest of the regiment rested for three or four months, the training companies borrowed vehicles, aircraft, artillery and production capacity to train their recruits.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. A greenblood was also almost never ¡®cut loose¡¯, as the Regiment could find a place for everyone. The ¡®recycling¡¯ clause meant that those who joined to become tankers or airmen were first trained as infantry, and contractually obligated to serve as such for the next two jobs or two t-years if they didn¡¯t make the cut while training for more elite roles. And in the unlikely case that the infantry companies couldn¡¯t use more manpower¡­logistics always wanted more. For every soldier meant to fight the enemy, there was another one-and-a-half whose primary role was support; driving supply trucks, providing medical aid, building fortifications or managing the dropship¡¯s autofacs. The latter was what kept the Regiment supplied, capable of making the mechanical components, electronics and chemical substances necessary to build everything from bullets to panzers. Much of the Victoria¡¯s crew was dedicated solely to keeping them working and maintaining the regiment¡¯s stockpiles of ammunition, consumables and replacements, whether during combat operations or downtime. It was the Quartermaster¡¯s job ¡ªoften known as the R4¡ª to ensure all those went where they needed to go¡­and Major George Flemming was exceedingly capable at it. Victor had poached the slightly chubby, glass-wearing man out of a managerial position on an industrialized world¡¯s spaceport. In return for replacing his suit and tie for an olive drab uniform and looking through catalogues of rifles and bullets instead of concrete and rebar, he earned four times his previous salary¡­and worked like a dog. The man didn¡¯t seem to mind too much; George was a workaholic through and through, often found working through catalogues of requisition forms in the corners of bordellos while oiled-up coingirls full of glitter drove the grunts¡¯ libidos to new heights. ¡°¡ªbattalion needs them for training the recruits, so we should prioritize the new Rhino chassis over increasing ammunition surpluses.¡± Victor nodded along as the pair walked through the Victoria¡¯s corridors towards the fore of the ship. Well and truly done with combat for the next four to six months, the regiment had gone into hibernation. Medical personnel, both army and navy, could combine their skills to treat those heavily injured during the Xandria Campaign under the clean and controlled ship environment, while maintenance crews, swell with numbers from idling frontline personnel, dived into damaged vehicles whose issues had been deemed too complex or cosmetic to solve during combat operations. Today, they were visiting the latter in the ¡®Stable¡¯. As they crossed one final bulkhead, the pair arrived at floor zero of the massive garage that housed the regiment¡¯s vehicles. From the most humble utility jeep to self-propelled air defence guns and panzers, everything was nestled side by side. Many of the vehicles were being tended to by soldiers surrounded by tools, spare parts and faulty pieces, crouched between wheels, crawling under chassis or hanging upside-down inside turrets. Rock music played from speakers, maintenance chiefs shouted at their crews, and power tools buzzed with life, combining into a never-ending symphony. Victor and George moved towards a particular corner of the Nest, where the gutted chassis of six panzers sat in individual cradles while mechanics crawled over them. Before they realized it, a ginger wearing the two-bar insignia of a captain was standing in front of them, performing a salute. ¡°Welcome, sirs.¡± The maintenance captain, one Iskander Traub according to the personnel records, said. ¡°I suppose you¡¯re here about the dirty dozen?¡± Victor saluted back. ¡°Is that what you¡¯ve taken to calling them, captain?¡± He gestured to the stripped-down panzers, half of which were missing a turret. Only one had tracks, and two didn¡¯t even have wheels. Traub shrugged. ¡°Somebody did, and the name stuck around. If you would follow me, sirs?¡± ¡°Lead the way, captain.¡± The trio walked through piles of fresh and discarded parts, puddles of lubricant and discarded power tools. Victor had seen war zones better organized than this, despite the fact it must¡¯ve felt organized to the gaggle of mechanics looking over his panzers. ¡°These six are on life support until manufacturing can sift through its previous orders. Engines, sprockets, turret rings¡­one of them even had its barrel sheared in half by an anti-armor missile. It¡¯s a miracle any of them are worth keeping, in my opinion.¡± George smiled, showing Traub the screen of his tablet. ¡°Actually, they were on life support. They¡¯ll be needed to train the newest batch up to standard, so we¡¯re moving up the order for replacement parts you submitted a few hours. Most of the replacement parts ought to be ready in seventy-two hours, maybe a little more for a new engine block.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­good.¡± The mechanic nodded with a smile. ¡°Good thing we have spare electronics¡­¡± He paused, looking at Victor with a worried look. He stared right back with a grimace. ¡°I feel the same way you do, captain; electronics replacements are a bane on the entire regiment. A replacement for our lithography printers is in the works, but I can¡¯t promise too much.¡± Traub nodded awkwardly before making up an excuse to go back to work. Victor couldn¡¯t blame the officer; talking with your boss¡¯s boss was weird any way you put it. As he and George walked back to the officers¡¯ quarters, he berated himself for getting soft...then dismissed the entire thing with a shake of his head. ¡®All I need is some good R&R¡­and a good blowj¡ª¡¯ The shrill tone of a klaxon reverberated through the corridor, followed by the panicked words of the Victoria¡¯s captain. He and George looked at each other for a split second before dashing for the nearest oxygen mask cabinet, smashing the glass with an elbow strike before putting them on. They were on a timer, and it was not going to be pretty. ¡®2¡¯ ¡°Where do we¡ª¡± ¡°Nest!¡± Victor replied before the man even finished, pushing him along as they ran for the garage. Blast doors slammed shut behind them as they entered, sealing off the ship¡¯s most vulnerable area¡­and their best hope. ¡®5¡¯ Mechanics scrambled all over the place, some running around like headless chickens, while most jumped towards the closest good-looking armored vehicle. Victor did as much, rushing to open ramp a nearby infantry fighting vehicle. ¡°Get in, come on!¡± he shouted, pushing George inside while a pair of mechanics barreled towards them. ¡°Seal in three!¡± ¡®7¡¯ ¡°Come on, lads!¡± He shouted, grabbing the pair by the shoulders and bringing them inside. One of the pair barreled to the floor with a whimper, but Victor barely registered the noise as he slammed the emergency seal button on the side of the ramp. The entire IFV sealed with a hiss and everyone secured themselves using the seats¡¯ harnesses. ¡®10¡­huh, was it a faul¡ª¡¯ Suddenly, he could smell rainbows and taste purple¡­and then everything went black. Chapter 1.4 - Combat Landing Many people think that after two and a half centuries of interstellar travel, humanity would have figured out all the kinks to hyperdrives. Those people have obviously never met the unfortunate souls who design these things; there are saner minds in mental asylums. For understanding the black magic parading as science behind these constructs, you must warp your mind to fit the ideas of its sick inventors. Hyperdrives are an affront to nature, logic, and physics itself. A manifestation of humanity¡¯s unshakable intent to conquer the unconquerable, one missing ship and lost crew at a time¡­ ¡ªDoctor Blane Janakowski, Director of Scientific Advancement, United Nations of Terra ¡ª Victor woke up with a jolt, the entire vehicle vibrating around him. The emergency jump had knocked everyone else out, save for the mechanic who¡¯d slammed on the floor. ¡°What did I miss?¡± He asked the staff sergeant, who looked at him with wide eyes. ¡°We¡¯re¡­alive, s-sir.¡± Staff Sergeant Jenkins, according to his nametag, replied. The sergeant winced, nursing a broken nose. ¡°I think I can hear the thrusters firing, means we¡¯re in atmo.¡± Victor paused, focusing his hearing on the outside. A faint but powerful thrum came from outside¡­yeah, those were the engines working in atmosphere¡­but how? ¡°We¡¯re in the air, probably descending.¡± He muttered. ¡°What in the hells¡­¡± Shaking his head, he dismissed the wealth of bizarre and lethal scenarios that a hyperdrive misfire could result in. They were alive¡­for now. ¡­ ¡°Agh!¡± Jenkins groaned as the dropship crashed to the ground. Its superstructure groaned around them, ill-tied vehicles crashing about within the expansive hangar. Victor¡¯s heart ached as he thought of his precious aviation battalion; he could practically feel about a dozen rotor blades bend, twist and snap with the impact. Then¡­silence. The four of them¡ªincluding one puke-stained corporal who¡¯d been with Jenkins when shit hit the fan¡ª inside the vehicle looked at each other for several moments, not sure what to make of recent events¡­but not for long. ¡°How¡¯s the face, son?¡± Victor asked the staff sergeant. ¡°Don¡¯t worry ¡®bout it, sir. Some men would¡¯ve sealed the door before we got in.¡± Jenkins replied. He nodded, turning towards the crew compartment with a frown. ¡°I need to contact the bri¡ª¡± Another sheer klaxon cut his words, followed by the announcer¡¯s words. ¡°What the fuck?!¡± Jenkins exclaimed, while the rest of the crew stirred awake. The thrusters¡¯ hum intensified, while re-entry alarms blared from outside. ¡°No time, son. Wake up, Code Blue!¡± Victor shouted, reaching out to the nearby arms locker. During travel, they stowed most weapons in the armory; however, at least two rifles and two sidearms remained in the armored vehicle¡¯s arms locker. There were, of course, safety precautions against withdrawing them for ¡®fun¡¯ or sinister purposes. He tapped a series of numbers on the keypad, and the vehicle¡¯s horn and floodlights came alive outside while the lock disengaged. If they were hallucinating the Code Blue, a security team would soon have them dragged out full of tear gas and blinded by flashbangs. If they were not¡­they had just gotten their guns. ¡°How¡¯s your shooting, Jenkins?¡± After distributing the rifles and sidearms around his makeshift squad, Victor looked towards the vehicle¡¯s rear ramp. Specifically, the tiny sensor interface next to. ¡°Atmospheric pressure¡¯s good, oxygen¡¯s good. If the hull was getting breached, it would¡¯ve happened by now. Let¡¯s go!¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. With the gentle smashing of a button, the ramp lowered to the ground with a hydraulic hiss, and the four men rushed out, inspecting the chamber for damage. Vehicles were strewn about, as were equipment, and the rear hatch had dropped down but everything else looked¡­ ¡®Wait, what?¡¯ The four of them looked on in disbelief at the pitch blackness outside the wide open main hatch, a gentle breeze flowing in from the world outside. Victor wondered how the air smelled without his oxygen mask, but dismissed the errant thought immediately. ¡°Keep your masks on and follow me.¡± They moved up closer to the hatch before pausing behind a personnel carrier. ¡°Flash!¡± Victor called out. ¡°Thunder!¡± Several voices replied from various points around the garage. ¡°Come on, lads. We¡¯ve got a hole to patch.¡± He ordered his impromptu squad, moving up to the hatch. It was situated at the end of a vehicle ramp large enough to fit two panzers side-by-side, while two personnel walkways flanked its left and right, descending into their own little anti-slip ramps closer to the hatch. A collapsible metal fence, which hadn¡¯t budged an inch from its upright position during the descent, blocked all three avenues off. Halfway there, another two groups of around twenty lightly armed troopers, which seemed to have gathered just a little earlier, joined them. A pair of lieutenants thankfully led the somewhat organized groups. They saluted him the moment they recognized his face. He saluted back, stopping them before they even spoke. ¡°We¡¯ll save the pleasantries for later. I see you both opened a few arms lockers, good. You,¡± He said to the blonde one leading the slightly smaller group. ¡°Split your group between you and your senior-most NCO, take the two walkways. If anything that doesn¡¯t look human moves out there, shoot it. If that doesn¡¯t work, we were all fucked anyway.¡± A few nervous chuckles escaped from the troopers, but the lieutenant quickly singled out a beard-faced sergeant and split his troops in two dozens. Severely understaffed for a platoon ¡ªand half of them were probably rear-echelon troops¡ª, but they worked with what they had. By the time he formed another thought, they had unlocked the fence gates and were cautiously moving along the walkways, flashlights and rifle barrels pointed at the great darkness outside. They were, at the very least, good at following orders. No trooper in the regiment could be expected of any less than that. ¡°What about us, sir?¡± The other lieutenant, just as blond yet donning a greasy beard, asked. ¡°I want four of your troops to go with the staff sergeant here¡ª¡± A howl from outside the hatch interrupted his words, followed by intense gunfire. He could barely make out shadowy figures beyond the ramp, gray fur and glowing eyes momentarily lit by flashlights and muzzle flashes before melting back into the pitch black night. That made no difference to the advance platoon, which was laying down fire with abandon. ¡°Four of your men, with Jenkins, and see if you can close the hatch through the control room.¡± He pointed to a cubicle nestled in the far starboard wall of the garage. ¡°Quickly!¡± ¡°You, you, you and you.¡± Jenkins immediately picked out the closest troopers, rushing off with Corporal Puke in tow while they tried to catch up with him. ¡°The rest of you stay here; I suspect we¡¯ll have a busy night.¡± ¡­ ¡°On the double, people!¡± Lieutenant Nick Gray ordered his men from the front, the platoon rushing to the hangar from their barracks in what was supposed to be full combat kit. Without looking back, he knew at least half his troops were missing something, and a quarter were most likely wearing only a pair of boxer shorts below their plate carrier. That was probably the best any platoon looked like in the squadron, maybe the entire battalion. His men ran through corridor after corridor, passing unarmed logistics and maintenance personnel in plain uniform. They were likely headed towards the armories; the sound of gunfire alone coming from the garage told him they desperately needed ammunition. They only ran faster as they entered the garage, dozens of armored vehicles; just one might¡¯ve secured them a breather, if it was combat capable. Alas, they were all unfueled, unarmed and uncrewed. Maybe in twenty or thirty minutes that would be different, but right now, his unit was the greatest weapon the regiment had. ¡°QRF, coming in!¡± He shouted. A gray-haired man holding a rifle turned to him from his spot in the ad hoc barricade that had become the ramp fence. Nick didn¡¯t need insignia or nametags to recognize his colonel; the salute was instant and subconscious. ¡°Lieutenant Gray reporting, sir! Where do you need us?¡± Steele took one look at them and spoke. ¡°You¡¯ve got heavy weapons, good. Split your stubbers and reinforce the two walkways, these monsters aren¡¯t bulletproof, but they are damn hard to put down with anything weaker than a grenade launcher¡­wait, were briefed?¡± Gray shook his head. ¡°Only that there are hostile life¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah, the folks I spoke with at the bridge were pretty confused themselves. Here¡¯s the deal; we are in fantasy land. Last I heard there¡¯s a thick forest outside, with all sorts of nasties from nature and nightmares skulking about. Five minutes ago we put down a spider the size of a truck, damn thing must be more lead than flesh by now.¡± Somebody spoke up in disbelief, only for a dark arachnid silhouette to be lit up by a passing flashlight beam a good three dozen meters outside the hatch. Blood and ichor coated the ground, littered with carcasses of animals and bugs¡­big bugs. Gray ordered the weapons squad¡¯s staff sergeant to move out, trying to process the images in front of him. ¡°¡ªthe rest of you,¡± Colonel Steele¡¯s voice barreled on, refocusing his attention. ¡°I¡¯ve got a few mechanics prepping a pair of IFVs for roll-off. As you can see, the hatch is still open, and will remain so until we can fix the hydraulics. For now, we¡¯re establishing a perimeter in the forest outside.¡± He pointed behind them and to their right. ¡°There should be a few 11Ms in your platoon, right?¡± Eight hands jumped up from the crowd, and Steele nodded. ¡°Good, you¡¯re our drivers and gunners. See if you can help the wrench monkeys get that number up to four, we need that perimeter ASAP or there will be spiders crawling inside the garage by tomorrow.¡± Chapter 1.5 - Meet the Crocodile Planning is easy when you¡¯re in the rear, looking at the tactical map with neat orders stacked around you and a cup of kaf in hand. Try doing the same from the frontline, where the line of command looks like an incestuous family tree and the only thing that looks organized is the enemy. ¡ªunknown trooper, unknown era ¡ª ¡°Out of the way, get out of the way!¡± A trooper shouted, his words barely audible over the constant barrage of gunfire. More than a company of soldiers had assembled on the walkways and ramp, some setting up portable fortifications while others brought entire boxes of ammunition and duffle bags¡¯ worth of magazines. Most, however, remained focused on keeping their gun barrel pointed at the closest enemy. The comm announcement worked better, transmitting directly into the troopers¡¯ earpieces. Most simply intensified their fire. The barrels of their rifles and stubbers were glowing from the constant firing, while polymer casings formed piles around each soldier. A handful were curious enough to look backwards to the top of the ramp. At that moment, the sight was more beautiful than any glitter-skinned stripper. A quartet of Crocodile infantry fighting vehicles advanced from the garage¡¯s bowels, their tracks clicking and creaking against the textured floor. Troopers surrounded them, ready to use the vehicles as cover and support in the upcoming bloodbath. Victor looked on from his forward command post, which was little more than an armored personnel carrier full of presently useless communications equipment. He sat on its roof, next to the pintle-mounted .50, with a pair of binoculars and a radio. His rifle hanged from its strap, the barrel still reeking propellant from the few bursts of lead he¡¯d put into one of the monsters outside. Monsters, there was no other way to describe them. Terran-variety fauna shifted in ways that made them entirely terrifying to man. Spiders three or four meters tall, millipedes twice as long and ruby-eyed wolves that blended into the darkness outside like shadows. The latter had already claimed four unlucky souls, an entire pack jumping up to the gantry for a split second before dragging the unfortunate section into the abyss-like forest. Fortunately, the wolves weren¡¯t invisible to infrared vision goggles. The voice on the radio belonged to the lieutenant in charge of the first QRF to arrive from the 4th Scouts Battalion. New lad, but he looked enthusiastic ¡ªas any cav scout ought to be¡ª and the staff sergeant babysitting him appeared to have a good head on his shoulders. Noting down the callsign in his mind, Victor pressed on the bone-conducting microphone ¡®halo¡¯ around his neck. ¡°Acknowledged, Hitman-2-5. This is Overlord-Actual, good hunting.¡± ¡®Let¡¯s hope you don¡¯t get turned into spider chowder, kiddo.¡¯ DUDUDUDUDU The lead Crocodile¡¯s autocannon opened fire into the forest, blinding white headlights shedding light into the monster-infested abyss as it rushed down the ramp. The cavalry scouts advanced on either side, forty streams of tracers laying down interlocking fields of fire. For all their size and strange abilities, no monster appeared to be bulletproof. That was fortunate; Victor had done jobs on two different worlds with bulletproof alien fauna. The memory of a sandworm erupting out of a Dune to swallow a tank whole, only to dive back into the golden sea before a single soldier could react¡­it still haunted his dreams, a decade later. And the less said about the dinosaur affair, the better; he¡¯d never had to bill a client for that many atomics, before or after. ¡­ ¡°Well, sir, this is really putting the combat in combat engineer.¡± Lieuteant Colonel Samter commented. ¡°You should really work on your jokes, Sarah.¡± Victor muttered, shaking his head in false disappointment. ¡°But yes, it is, and that¡¯s why you have the M31. The Demolishers aren¡¯t just for blowing up bridges or clearing IEDs; this is what they were designed to do.¡± A pair of modified Rhinos moved past his headquarters, bearing a shortened barrel, dozer blades and half a dozen other explosive goodies that ought to make any proper combat engineer giddy with excitement. They drove down the vehicle ramp and into the forest beyond, which had grown brighter over the past two hours. A battery of portable floodlights, as well as the Crocodile¡¯s own headlights, really made a difference. The defense had become far more organized in the last hour as troop numbers surged from two companies into two battalions. One was in charge of the ramp itself, which had been fortified with sandbags full of local mud and riddled with heavy stubber and grenade auto-launcher emplacements. Bursts of fire and the muted auto-launcher thumps could still be heard, though the tempo had fallen to a steady rythm. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Forward defense had fallen to the other battalion, which was charged with creating a perimeter beyond the ramp. A full company of combat engineers, as well as a platoon of light engineering vehicles, was helping them. They filled sandbags, unfolded concertina wire and unpacked steel mesh-lined hesco walls. All inside the charred crater that the Victoria¡¯s descent had created, where trees had been razed by the impact and then turned into fine charcoal dust by thruster exhaust. Yet that was not enough for Victor or his staff, which was growing anxious of attack. Just as the regiment was mustering its forces, so could an enemy be doing beyond the forest. If somebody lived close by, they¡¯d have certainly witnessed the dropship¡¯s descent. It must¡¯ve looked like a most fiery meteorite indeed. The Regiment needed to be prepared to defend against attack, even if such attack might never come. That meant they needed space. Space to set up their artillery and air defense batteries. Space to assemble their maneuver units and establish proper fortifications like trenches and minefields. Space to establish a no-man¡¯s-land between said fortifications and the forest itself, where they could see an enemy ¡ªwhether monster, man or alien¡ª advancing towards them. That meant they needed to clear the forest. To raze it, to chop down the trees and level the thick bushes in a circle hundreds if not thousands of meters in diameter around the dropship. Not quite a monumental task with multi-dozen-ton bulldozers and demolition charges, but not a walk in the park, either. Said operation fell under the purview of the Engineer Battalion, commanded by the woman standing next to Victor. Lieutenant Colonel Srah Samter, a woman so lazy she finished a week¡¯s worth of work in a day just to take the other six days off sipping electrolyte mix straight out of the pouch and watching a trashy superhero movie. ¡°Well¡­we can do it. Probably. Thankfully, the Demolishers have remote weapons stations for their .50s, so we don¡¯t need to worry about some poor schmuck getting dragged off by the shadow wolves.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯re calling them? Shadow wolves?¡± Victor asked, squinting Samter. ¡°That¡¯s what the troopers are calling them?¡± The engineer shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s what they¡¯re calling them. Sounds about right.¡± ¡°Where are the imaginative nicknames that shouldn¡¯t end up on debriefs but invariably do so anyway? I distinctly remember reading a medical report calling the damn sandworms anal annihilators, because some moron managed to get a baby worm so far up his ass they had to bring in a combat surgeon to pull it out. Where are those names, huh?¡± ¡°I¡­uh¡­I don¡¯t know what to tell you, sir.¡± ¡°¡­forget about it.¡± ¡ª Many mercenary outfits relied on technology to do the hard work. That ranged from semi-autonomous combat drones to orbital weapons platforms, guided artillery ammunition and machine learning-based intelligence gathering. It was often the very reason they succeeded¡­in spite of other deficiencies. The Regiment eschewed many of these ¡®glass cannons¡¯, which required expensive, time-consuming maintenance and whose reliability was questionable at best under combat conditions. Proper training of enlisted and officers alike by regiment veterans gave them an advantage that glorified bandits and ill-trained gangsters could not match, and they owned almost everything they needed to re-build their entire arsenal. Many a rival outfit had collapsed after running out of fancy drone bombs and guided artillery shells, utter disbelief etched on their pale faces as regimental fire support continued to rain barrage after barrage of plain ol¡¯ HE on their positions. There were, however, a few pieces of tech that even Victor¡¯s most conservative officers adored. The Jackal was one such piece. The fixed-wing drone could be loaded in a hardened case aboard a squad vehicle, assembled and launched in a time span of five minutes by two soldiers, and flown over the battlefield for four hours. That was four hours of constant reconnaissance, all handled from a tablet. It was nothing new. In fact, it was very old tech in absolute terms, hailing from the early 21st century. Yet technological progression post-fusion, except for the hyperdrive, had reversed from exponential to logarithmic. In the frontier, where farming was often done by ox-led plow and something as basic as a battery had to be imported from the Heartland, the Jackal was an advanced tool indeed. Victor¡¯s answer to most problems on the battlefield was artillery, tanks, and mechanized infantry. Everything else was just a force multiplier, a failure point and a cut from his profits. Yet the Jackal was simple enough that they could build it in-house, with engineers iterating on each batch to make them lighter, cheaper and better. They were reliable, effective tools. ¡°Remind me again, how many of these things do we have?¡± He asked his quartermaster, who was sitting on the other side of the conference table. After two hours commanding from the APC, the situation had calmed down enough that he¡¯d moved back to officer country. Not to be confused with resting; he was still on shift, though working from the conference room meant he could have a hot plate of food served delivered to him and his staff from the galley. They were eating the same stuff the grunts on the front were; dasht. Scrambled eggs with chopped onion, mushrooms, bell peppers and liver pieces marinated with honey mustard. One could scoop up the entire serving in under a minute; it contained enough sugar, calories, and spices to keep a man going in the worst conditions. It also had the benefit of being quick to cook, which was rather useful in times like these. Major Flemming wolfed down a spoonful before replying. ¡°Roughly four drones per company.¡± Victor nodded, looking at the screen mounted on the wall behind the head of the table. It showed the dark sky of this strange world, through the camera lens of a Jackal being prepared for takeoff. Speakers crackled with static. The signalier who¡¯d been awaiting on the other side of the table almost jumped at the trooper¡¯s words. ¡°Hitman-4-1this is Overlord. Signal¡¯s good on our end, you¡¯re good to go.¡± A thumbs up appeared on the edge of the drone camera¡¯s field of view, and moments later the robotic scout launched from its canister with a hiss of pressurized air. Within moments, the speakers hummed with the steady whirr of its rotor. As its heading leveled out, the landscape below came into view. ¡°Stars, is that a¡­¡± Chapter 1.6 - What happened here? You could have the fastest, most powerful army in the whole galaxy. You could strap a fusion drive on every tank, truck and pair of boots under your command, and arm your troops with weapons that would make Mars and Terra blush. Without sufficient intelligence, the only place you will end up is a ditch. Unknown Strategist, Red Nebula Independence Wars ¡ª ¡°Is that a palace?¡± Victor glanced back towards the speaker, his executive officer. The lieutenant commander looked utterly shocked, and he couldn¡¯t blame him. ¡®If that ain¡¯t a castle, I don¡¯t know what is.¡¯ The ostentateous complex was built along the side of a river, with stone walls separating it from the rest of the city. The main structure itself looked to be made out of marble, though its glory days were long past. Erosion, time and violence had reduced what must¡¯ve been a glorious achievement of civil engineering and architecture into a husk of its former self. Surrounding the palace itself were a dozen other sizeable buildings as well as a cluster of less recognizable, shoddy constructs. Housing, for guards or servants, and warehouses for storage. There was even a small dock connecting the palace to the river, though it was long overdue for maintainance; the bits closest to the water had been swept away in their entirety. ¡°Not just a palace. This place is a city.¡± Another officer pointed out as the drone¡¯s camera zoomed out. As it did, the Jackal banked to the right to show another side of the city. Massive walls, fifteen or twenty meters high and mighty thick, seemed to surround the strange, archaic city, protecting it from land and sea threats. Districts worth of housing spread out under the drone¡¯s view as it climbed ever higher into the skies. Forgotten manors of marble made way for neat blocks of apartments made from brick and mortar many, many years ago. They climbed three, even four stories high in some places; a truly impressive feat for what seemed like a pre-industrial settlement. The pre-industrial part became especially obvious as the modest housing gave way to barely organized slums, though they seemed remarkably¡­contained, to the right side of the drone¡¯s field of view. Stranger sights welcomed them further towards the waterfront. A huge seaport, filled with ships that must¡¯ve once sailed the oceans with wind pushing at their sails. Once, because now most of them were nothing but rotten wrecks. Many had sunk to the seafloor, only the barest hint of their superstructure and their cracked and bent sails poking out of the calm sea. The area outside the port looked positively dense with watercraft; a large island, complete with fortifications and a lighthouse, provided shelter from the wind and waves for what must¡¯ve once been a bustling center of commerce, culture and exploration. The sight made the hairs on Victor¡¯s hands jump, yet he couldn¡¯t understand why. Moments later, it dawned on him. ¡®They¡¯re all trying to leave.¡¯ It was like a picture out of a stampede. Not one ship was facing towards the harbor; their prows were pointed out towards the sea, as if every captain and sailor to call this port home had participate had tried to escape the city at the same time. For whatever reason ¡ªand Victor wasn¡¯t sure if he wanted to know¡ª their attempts had been met with failure. The city, from the most ramshackle of slum houses to the palace itself, looked wrong. Victor had no concrete ideas about what might¡¯ve occurred here, and the few similarities he could draw upon from his knowledge ¡ªknowledge that stemmed from examples about violations of the New Geneva Conventions¡ª made him feel all sorts of wrong. Shaking his head, he focused on the matter at hand; the area where they¡¯d landed. ¡°Signalier, have the drone look down at us and get a proper visual of our location.¡± ¡°Aye, sir. Hitman-5, this is¡­¡± The drone banked right once more, the operator deftly piloting the fixed-wing aircraft and its gimbal-mounted camera. As the latter locked on to where they¡¯d launched, murmurs erupted from around the conference room. ¡°Are we in a¡­garden?¡± Victor asked. His XO leaned into his seat. ¡°Maybe it was a garden, or a park, back when this city was actually populated. Now it looks more like a forest or wilderness reserve ¡ªthose really big parks on Terra and Proxima Centauri and other places that are so populated they have to protect the wilderness from getting chopped and hunted to extinction¡ª. I never thought I¡¯d see one up close¡­there aren¡¯t a lot of worlds with enough of a population to warrant the expense.¡± Whatever the plot once was, it was big. Maybe a tenth of all the space in the city, which spanned thousands of buildings on both sides of the river, was inside the rectangular plot of wilderness. Either its creators had intended or were stupid enough to have hostile fauna actively prowling the enclosure, or the beasties his soldiers were still repelling had managed to get in from somewhere else. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Tapping his fingers against the mahogany desk, he sighed. ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t say we crash landed on a paradise world, but at least this damn forest doesn¡¯t go on forever. How big is this section?¡± ¡°Algo says a square kilometer, maybe a little over that. Twelve percent of the city, with a three percent margin of error.¡± His ops officer, the third senior-most officer of the regiment, replied. His eyes darted from point to point on the crude map that was being algorithmically generated on his tablet in real time. ¡°Which is actually about what most planet-side cities in the Core Worlds suggest for urban areas. Helps with stress, it¡¯s actually cheaper and more effective than antidepressant programs on a planetary scale¡­¡± By the time he paused, every officer in the room bar the signalier himself was staring blankly at the lieutenant colonel. The man shrugged it off. ¡°What, I like urban design. You know I won a bunch of contests back when I was a¡ª¡± ¡°We know, Ian.¡± Victor shook his head. ¡°We know. Let¡¯s carry on, we¡¯ve still got work to do. Signalier, any heat signatures in close proximity? Humans, humanoids¡­aliens?¡± The soldiers nodded, speaking to the drone operator. After some confused back-and-forth, he winced and turned back towards Victor. ¡°Thermal camera¡¯s malfunctioning, sir. Some wire must¡¯ve gotten cut during the launch, or a manufacturing defect got past quality control. We¡¯ll have to land this one for repairs or launch another one.¡± McRiley let out a groan. ¡°Get another drone in the air, it¡¯s faster. And have the company commander talk with sustainment for a fresh bird, we¡¯ll just toss this one in the recycler.¡± The signalier nodded and focused back on his comms gear. In the meantime, Victor and his officers got to work with the information they had. ¡°Well, this changes things.¡± Archer was the first to speak. ¡°Hopefully for the better.¡± ¡°It sure is strange.¡± Major Strumman, the regiment¡¯s top diplomat, commented. ¡°This all looks human, yet who would build something so utterly ancient on a colony world?¡± McRiley countered. ¡°It could be a lost colony. They used to find one every decade two centuries ago, and they still do now and then. The early colonizer ships weren¡¯t exactly reliable, and the colonization failure protocols had yet to be established back during the Great Leap. This could very well be the creation of an expedition¡¯s descendants, after a few centuries of technological regression. It¡¯s happened before.¡± The early years of humanity¡¯s first wave of interstellar colonization were bumpy, to say the least. With so many expeditions being assembled by so many entities ¡ªfrom superpowers to fringe religious groups and excentric trillionaires to war refugees¡ª more than a few were forgotten. Add the fact that there was no standardized template for establishing a colony, and you had a recipe for disaster. These days, no human, sane or insane, would attempt to colonize a virgin world without the most basic of colony packages, as well as insurance. Whether that insurance came in the form of a single messenger boat checking in once every two years or a search & rescue cruiser passing by every two years, it was widely accepted that one did not even attempt to plan a colonization campaign without having the funds to pay somebody to check on the colony during its nascent years. Many a horror story were shared amongst patrons of drinking establishments throughout the known galaxy, of colonies falling to disrepair, strife and hunger because some critical component had been forgotten on a loading dock light years away. ¡°Whatever it is, it¡¯s fallen on some really bad times.¡± Victor summarized. ¡°But at the very least, it gives us resources to work with. Not many, and not usable without some processing, but we can use them to our advantage.¡± He pointed at the second screen of the room, which showed the recently generated map of the city. Surrounded by the neat strait lines of fifteen-meter-high stone walls, it took a trapezoid shape, with the northern side being the smallest. Tall towers, veritable fortresses in their own right, sat at each corner. The two standing guard over the northwest and southwest corners were established on hills, giving them quite the commanding view of the plains and forests beyond. To the east, the lighthouse on the nearby island appeared to double as a fortress, with the island itself also walled against eastern naval invasion. There appeared to be a smattering of gates on every side, big and small, each with their own warehouse. Truly, the more one examined the city, the more protection they found against outside threats. Was it aimed against the monsters which now infested the forest, or other humans? Had the colonial expedition¡¯s survivors split into warring city-states? Many questions swirled about Victor¡¯s mind, but he dismissed them for now. ¡°The city appears to be abandoned, for reasons yet unknown, but its structures remain largely standing, and especially its walls and large fortifications, as well as the castle. We need to send scouts, whether human or robotic, to check on the fortifications¡¯ status and the usefulness of major buildings inside the city itself. Living inside the Victoria is practical when we¡¯re all buttoned up and cruising through the void, but we need to find or build a proper base of operations.¡± His words were answered with nods from his officers. Seeing that Archer wanted to speak, he gestured to the man. ¡°Perimeter security and construction ops have been transferred to 1st Infantry and 6th Engineers, which frees up the 4th Scouts to move out in their actual vehicles ¡ªnot the IFVs they commandeered from 3rd Cavalry¡ª and scout the fortifications further away.¡± With their wheeled carriers and more independent profile they were the suited for such work. ¡°Meanwhile, we can send elements from 2nd Infantry and possibly 3rd Cavalry to scout the Palace, the south-eastern gate, and the lighthouse. Our Crocodiles ought to be able to ford over the calm waters with ease.¡± Victor nodded in agreement. ¡°A good start. Let¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°Colonel!¡± The signalier exclaimed. He turned to look at the soldier, whose eyes were wide open in utter disbelief. ¡°Sir, the second drone is in the air, and IR imaging is picking up signatures. A lot of signatures, all over the place.¡± ¡°Where exactly, and what kind?¡± ¡°T-They¡¯re in the buildings, on the walls, in the ships, there¡¯s even some on the streets. I can¡¯t believe we didn¡¯t notice them before; the previous drone¡¯s camera must¡¯ve been malfunctioning as well, because¡ª¡± ¡°What kind of signature, soldier?¡± Victor asked again, his eyes boring into the panicked signalier. ¡°They¡¯re¡­.they¡¯re human, sir.¡± Chapter 1.7 - Could be worse Sometimes, things are not as bad as they seem. Only sometimes. ¡ªUnknown ¡ª Their eyes bolted to the live camera feed, which had just reconnected to the screen. Instead of a nighttime palette of visible-spectrum light, it showed the distinct black, gray and white of thermal imaging equipment. And though humanity hadn¡¯t achieved all too many breakthroughs these last few centuries, legions of scientists and engineers had iterated on previous discoveries to hone them in every way imaginable, one bolt, dollar and line of code at a time. One beneficiary of this constant drive for technological evolution ¡ªno matter how small or seemingly inconsequential¡ª was camera tech. From radio telescopes that could point out the head of a pin on Terra¡¯s surface from geosynchronous orbit, to thermal imaging cameras so accurate, optimized and high-definition that you could make out the veins on a leaf as you might on the visible light spectrum. With accuracy like that, it was trivial to spot a few tens of thousands of bodies lying just out of visible-spectrum sight. Hidden behind piles of refuse and debris, of which the city was full of. Under abandoned carts, in collapsed slum houses, inside overgrown manor gardens or just wearing gray enough clothes that the previous drone¡¯s faulty camera had mistaken them for a part of the road they were lying on. ¡°Are these all¡­bodies?¡± Strumman asked. McRiley spoke. ¡°Looks like it. Missing limbs, deformations, torn clothes..yikes. Those are bodies, dead men and women, no doubt about it.¡± ¡°Then why¡­¡± Archer muttered. ¡°Why do they have heat signatures?¡± ¡°Umm, sir?¡± The signalier interrupted them. ¡°The drones have spotted movement among some of the¡­erm¡­dead. Not much, but it¡¯s definitely there.¡± ¡°Oh¡­¡± Victor¡¯s breath hitched. ¡°Oh, no¡­¡± ¡ª Under normal conditions, each of the Victoria¡¯s three massive cafeterias could comfortably fit a battalion. That was good enough for feeding the regiment and its support personnel during space travel, where the day-night system was replaced by three eight-hour shifts of equal size, making the logistics of feeding everybody far simpler. All that was gone now. Instead of the well-orchestrated transition from space to land logistics that occurred when the regiment arrived on a new ¡®jobsite¡¯, they were forced to work with what they had inside the Victoria itself¡­with active combat occurring just beyond the open garage door. So instead of a calm chamber full of men and women in their uniforms, Lieutenant Nick Gray and his platoon were met with a cramped, chaotic affair. Organized, yet chaotic. ¡°Juniors first, let¡¯s grab our spots in the line, people.¡± Staff Sergeant Greene ordered the platoon, individual squad, and section leaders making sure the lower ranks got fed first. If there was food or seating to be found. After two hours of non-stop shooting, every trooper and their mother was hungry enough to eat the cafeteria benches. The cooks knew that, which was why they were serving dasht. The tasty, filling stew with eggs was simple enough, and you could cook it from raw ingredients to finished plate in five minutes. Not the best meal they could be eating, though everybody would start getting real worried if the cooks started serving volturnian lobster and centaurii steak. The line was long, but the service was lighting fast; no serving sides or carefully adding the main course. Every man got a tray with a box of crackers and two big scoops of dasht. The only problem was actually maneuvering around the cafeteria in full battle-rattle. Greene seemed to feel much the same as Nick did on the matter. ¡°At least we aren¡¯t loaded up like the damn crabs.¡± The staff sergeant quipped, moving along with the line. Nick chuckled. ¡°Yeah, the poor guys are barely going to fit in the benches.¡± Just imagining the image of a shock trooper from 3rd Cavalry, wearing his full carapace armor alongside a backpack and battle-rifle, trying to take a seat inside the infamously thin benches, was enough to make the growing headache subside. He couldn¡¯t help but pity the ¡®black knights¡¯ of the regiment, who needed powered exoskeletons just to run with all their equipment. Not even double combat pay could get him to add another twenty kilos of gear to his kit. ¡°Say, el-tee.¡± Greene asked. ¡°Yup?¡± ¡°Do you think we¡¯re on one of them forest planets, or just a small forest on a big planet?¡± Nick shrugged. ¡°Hell if I know, Greene. But I bet the brass¡ª¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The shrill tone of a klaxon overshadowed his next words, followed by a voice on the PA system. Greene looked up at the nearest PA speaker with a blank stare. ¡°Shiiiiiit.¡± ¡­ ¡°I fuckin¡¯ hate wearing this thing.¡± A trooper muttered as he checked the seals on his respirator. ¡°You¡¯ll hate not wearing it correctly even more, kid.¡± Greene shouted from the other side of the armory, tightening the seal between his sleeve and chem gloves. ¡°Make sure your seals are tighter than your pucker. The worst way to find out if the enemy is using tear gas or aeropox is to feel your skin bubbling under the bug suit because you forgot to zip up the right way. If you aren¡¯t sure, ask your seniors.¡± Nick watched from the side of his eye, half a mind to his platoon while he triple-checked the last of his uniform¡¯s seals. The poly-form was a fantastically versatile item of clothing; wearing a mask, hood, gloves and special socks turned the seemingly normal field fatigues into a Tier C hazmat uniform that could block out chemwar and genewar munitions, as well as light radiation. This was just his second time using it to its fullest extent. The last time it had been to deal with jessomite ¡®chemwar¡¯ ¡ªhomemade riot gas mortar shells¡ª but this time it could be a lot worse. Could, because he knew fuck all about what they were dealing with. He¡¯d yet to talk with company or battalion command, and there had been no further PA announcements. ¡°All sealed up, sir.¡± Greene reported two minutes later. He nodded. ¡°Good. Come on, lads; let¡¯s go see if the damn shadow wolves discovered how to cook up tear gas.¡± ¡ª ¡°Vic.¡± McRiley spoke up. ¡°What¡¯d they say?¡± He asked, turning around from the screen to look at his XO. The man looked positively pessimistic, though that was hardly different from James¡¯s usual demeanor. The lieutenant colonel was a seasoned front-line officer, and all the experience had burdened him both physically and emotionally. Now, though, Victor could see new wrinkles on the forty-five-year-old¡¯s face. ¡°Physics munitions are going to take at least twenty minutes to get ready, but Gorski¡¯s men are already working on getting the vault open. The thermobarics are en route to the hangar, there are crates of HE ready to be moved out¡­and they are getting the guns ready for outside. We¡¯ve got a platoon of mortars set-up in the perimeter, and another is being mobilized from 2nd Infantry¡¯s lineup.¡± Victor nodded. ¡°Best we could hope for. Archer?¡± The ops officer turned up from his tablet to look at him, his earpiece buzzing with noise. ¡°What¡¯s the ETA on the 3rd?¡± A thin smile formed on the lieutenant colonel¡¯s face. ¡°Not long. Singer tells me he¡¯s got an infantry company rushing out to reinforce the 1st at the perimeter, seven minutes on the tanks. He¡¯ll have a platoon ready for when we make some actual space.¡± ¡®Space.¡¯ Victor repeated in his head. ¡®If only we had more damn space.¡¯ It must have sat neglected for at least decades, growing into a full-blown forest. Their crash-landing had created an initial clear zone, yet the sailors¡¯ exemplary handling had actually worked against them where space was concerned. A thin band of cleared space surrounded the Victoria on all sides, but it was hardly enough to move out personnel carriers, artillery pieces and panzers simultaneously. He sighed. ¡°I just got off the horn with Engineering. Samter says she¡¯s scrambling every Demolisher she can find a crew for, and they¡¯re going the explosive route to save time. It¡¯s going to wreck hell on the perimeter defenders¡¯ hearing, but we need space for the damn artillery yesterday.¡± Without those howitzers and mortars, and with their maneuver elements trapped as they were by forest on all sides, the regiment was little more than free dinner for the zombies stirring around the city. Zombies. Victor thought he would never see one of the damn things even again. He¡¯d actively prayed to his ancestors that he would never have to go within a hundred light-years of an outbreak, but it looked like he¡¯d finally ran out of luck. Just like he had nearly two decades ago on Victrix III, stranded on the death world with a division of heavy armor for three weeks until air assets could breach through the AA and evacuate them out of that living hell. Thankfully, this one at least appeared to be a genewar manifestation, unlike those undying daemons his soldiers had fought and bled against. He still had nightmares from the nights when they wouldn¡¯t stop coming, when DIVARTY would have to fire a fifty-kiloton atomic into the horde every ten minutes just to stimy their advance. ¡°Status on the zombies?¡± He asked Major Hossier. His intelligence chief looked up from the table in his lap, turning his wheelchair slighty to have a better look at him. By all accounts, especially those of the physicians overseeing his recovery, Nikolai shouldn¡¯t be up and about. The senior most intelligence officer of the regiment had been an unfortunate victim of bad luck, when his transport had stumbled upon a forgotten anti-tank mine. The anti-IED vehicle upgrades had protected him from the worst of it, but he would never get his left hand back. Even with the mioelectric prosthetics the regiment had on hand, it would never be the same. Alas, for better or worse, Nikolai was not one to ¡®chicken out¡¯, though everybody except him would¡¯ve taken their millions and bought themselves a villa on Terra, spending the rest of their days fondling tits and sipping on iced mimosas. So here he was, doing his job instead of recovering from an injury that could¡¯ve taken his life and should¡¯ve taken his sanity. Fortunately, Nikolai was not quite sane enough; he¡¯d joined the Regiment long before Recruitment did psych evals on freshies. What he did have was loyalty, the kind that people would kill for. That Victor had killed for. ¡°Most of them are still hibernating, though there are a few lurkers around the park. We¡¯re tracking all of them in case any try to scale the fence, but I doubt they are that energetic. These don¡¯t seem to be of the nanobot variety; their behavior matches genewar viruses, where initial outbreaks originate from an aerosolized viral package deployed via artillery or air assets, with additional infections occurring from bodily fluid exchange.¡± Victor let out a sigh of relief, though he did not dismiss the danger the reanimated could pose one bit. He was just happy to know that they weren¡¯t some undying robot that looked like a human; the¡­durability of a nanobot neuro-hijacked body that had time to adapt was frankly terrifying. Both of them were on the New Geneva Conventions¡¯ list of banned weapons, though the latter was so terrible that it was cheaper to glass the entire continent or planet rather than try to clear the outbreak zone of every last nanobot breeding pool. Not great...not terrible. Chapter 1.8 - Zombie, meet Howitzer Whether it¡¯s raining, whether you¡¯re getting shot at or whether you¡¯ve only been served vomellate MREs for the last seventy-two hours¡­if you look at a soldier in the artillery hear the words ¡®fire¡¯ and ¡®mission¡¯ in the same sentence, somewhere on that tired and battered face you will see the barest hint of a grin. ¡ªRoyal Trantii Academy of Artillery ¡ª ¡°Let¡¯s go, people, let¡¯s go!¡± The section chief shouted over the hiss of hydraulics, his voice muffled by the combat respirator around his face.. The gun breech whistled open, and out dropped a steaming hot 15cm shell casing. It hadn¡¯t even settled on the razed earth by the time a crewman dropped a fresh one in the chamber, another two coming up behind him and shoving it inside with a breech ram. There was no need for additional propellant charges; their target was a bare two kilometers away, just barely inside the howitzer¡¯s minimum engagement range. ¡°Ready set!¡± Each of the howitzer¡¯s crewmen shouted, moving just a few meters away from the gun. ¡°FIRE!¡± BOOM Before the smoke even settled, a crewman jumped up to the side of the gun and pulled the breech lever, and the breech whistled open once more. Instead of rushing to reload, the crew waited in their positions. The crew chief¡¯s headset buzzed with static before a familiar neutral voice spoke. The battery signalier confirmed, a dull click signaling a shift from battalion-wide to battery comms. ¡°You heard the man!¡± The crew chief shouted, wiping the men to action. ¡°Get those rounds up here!¡± The howitzer crew burst into action, shouting adjustments and actions out of pure muscle memory as they moved as one deadly tinnitus-addled organism. Around them, the rest of 1st Battery made the final adjustment on their guns and prepared to fire. The target: a swarm of undead hundreds strong, and the stone bridge they were crossing. The symphony of war was in full swing once more. ¡­ The drone operator¡¯s voice came through the room¡¯s speakers. A bitter smile escaped Victor¡¯s lips. It wasn¡¯t much, but it was a good start¡­giving them just a little hope of living to see the next sunset. Outside, this strange planet¡¯s bright yellow sun was beginning to rise, making the wreck-filled sea glimmer like stars themselves. ¡ª ¡°Come on, Constans!¡± George beckoned, gesturing inside a nearby apartment. His sister followed right behind him as they made their way across the street with swift, methodical steps to the tall building. The pair clutched rickety crossbows and well-worn daggers, the best weapons their meager gains could afford them. As they entered through the front door, their eyes darted around for threats. The ground floor had once been some kind of shop, though time and looters had done away with any discernible markings or products, much like with most buildings in Iridia¡¯s southern quarter. George spared a moment to listen for movement in the streets behind them, but heard nothing. That was good, though the undead were not in the habit of making loud noises. The group that had nearly trapped them inside that old warehouse was but two blocks over, and by now they should be closer. Spotting a dusty brick staircase, they rushed towards the upper floors. A pair of mice skittered into one of the old apartments beside the forgotten corridor as they passed the first floor. Had they not been in a rush, they would¡¯ve skewered them with their crossbows. Any kind of food was rare in the Witch¡¯s City, and they had grown tired of their ration blocks. George couldn¡¯t wait for them to cross back out of the containment zone and dig into a bowl of stew back in civilization. Unfortunately, that day seemed further and further away with each passing moment. As they passed through a window on the second story, he caught the glimpse of a full swarm crawling their way out of a cellar two streets down. ¡®Curse that damn war-mage!¡¯ He thought, his eyes flashing back to that moment when they saw a giant meteor descending upon the Duke¡¯s Garden. Who they were and what they were doing, he knew not. War-mages were a rare sight, more often spoken of between drunken pub patrons than witnessed in real life. Especially in wintertime, when the passages to the north froze solid and the Imperial Army marched down south for wintering. By the time they made it to the thankfully empty third floor of the apartment building, both siblings were huffing and puffing. They needed to eat and sleep, or at least lie down and rest. The pair should¡¯ve been sleeping right now, after a full day of working the area, but the warspell had also awoken the city¡¯s denizens. ¡°What about this? Against the door?¡± Constans¡¯ voice brought him back to the present. He turned to find her pointing at the wooden desk placed in one corner, which was taking up a good chunk of the space inside the small upper-floor apartment. It was rather light for standard furniture, like any piece slated to be used on the upper floors. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Y-Yeah, okay, let¡¯s do that.¡± He approached on one side as she went to the other. ¡°One¡­two¡­three!¡± They lifted the desk a half-palm above the floor, so that it wouldn¡¯t make noise as they dragged it across the musty wooden floor, then carefully moved it next to the door connecting the apartment the staircase. Both items of furniture were relatively intact, though the door¡¯s hinges looked very rusty. Courtesy of iridian craftsmanship, back when the living occupied Iridia. Even now, so many years after its fall to the Witch¡¯s Curse, the city was still famous for its fine goods. Their fence had given them an extra silver coin just because a ring they found was etched with the seal of one of the city¡¯s Artisan Guilds. ¡°Slowly¡­slowly¡­¡± He muttered as they lowered it back down to the floor, most aware that a loud noise would¡ª BOOM ¡°Ah!¡± Constans exclaimed, the desk slipping out of her grip and dropping on the floor with a bang. George would¡¯ve cursed, had he not ducked down to the floor on instinct. ¡°What in the Witch was that?!¡± He cursed, turning towards the nearest window. BOOM This time neither of the siblings made a loud noise, though Constans let out a whisper-quite wine. The noise sounded much like the warspell they¡¯d heard some time ago, only slightly less loud. Out of curiosity, bravery or stupidity, George approached the window to look outside. BOOM The noise was coming from the Duke¡¯s Garden, no doubt about it. Other apartments obscured the view, yet he could see smoke rising to the sky. What could that be about? More spells? It made no sense, just like the first time they¡¯d heard the boom. Why would anybody be casting spells into the city? Any caster with the power to fire spells from leagues away was a precious resource, more than entire villages or towns. A single war mage was more powerful than three knights, as the popular saying went, and George had seen the power of knights up close the last time he got out of the containment zone. Maybe they were¡­practicing? It made some sense, considering the city was less than useless for everybody except scavengers. Knights and men-at-arms were charged with guarding the perimeter, so that no monster would go within. ¡ª ¡°Milord, please wake up!¡± A servant pleaded. ¡°The magus is requesting your presence.¡± Arnus woke up with a jolt, finding himself in naked under the covers. Looking to his left, he found the young blonde that had entered his quarters last night in deep sleep, not a hint of cloth on her body. He spent a moment looking at the woman, comparing her to the service girls that worked around the barracks down south. She wasn¡¯t as young, or even as beautiful, but there was a certain roguish charm to the girls of Centra. They were cheaper, too, which was mighty helpful when trying to entertain a cohort of men-at-arms through the autumn on a budget. As the voices grew stronger, he ripped off the covers and put on his clothes. An arming doublet of heavy cotton went over everything, more for its warmth than protection. There was no risk of attack inside the camp, so late into the year, yet through the years he found its weight felt¡­right. Strapping his sheathed knightly sword on the leather belt, he exited the bedchambers of the former farmhouse to an awaiting servant. The sky outside was still dark, though he could see the barest hint of a sun rising from the hills beyond. ¡°Why have I been awoken so early?¡± He asked, wincing inside at his acid tone. ¡®No need to kill the messenger, Arnus. Just¡­hear him out.¡¯ ¡°I-I bid you good morning, milord. My deepest apologies for disturbing your sleep, but a matter requires your urgent attention.¡± ¡°What is it, then?¡± ¡°Magos Telestis is awaiting your presence, milord. He speaks of combat inside Iridia¡­magical combat.¡± ¡°Magical?¡± Arnus muttered under his breath, looking at the servant straight in the eyes. ¡°Where is the Magos now?¡± ¡°O-Outside, milord.¡± The servant said, his gaze falling to the ground. ¡°H-He has taken a seat on the balcony, of his own accord.¡± ¡®Of course he did. Old Man Arche and his fresh air¡­¡¯ Arnus thought, replying in understanding as he made his way outside, pausing two steps later. ¡°Bring us something to eat, hot if it¡¯s available or cold if the cooks have yet to prepare watered wine to drink. We will eat on the balcony.¡± As the servant rushed to prepare food and drink, he walked outside and found the singular war-mage present in the southern perimeter in a chair, drinking from an engraved steel flask. ¡°Hard liquor so early in the day, Magos? Aren¡¯t you worried for your health?¡± He quipped, taking a seat next to him. Most of the cohort was still fast asleep inside repurposed farmhouses and sheds. The three villages just south of Iridia had been abandoned along with the city, as they were just barely within the danger zone. Some villagers had even fallen to the Witch¡¯s Curse, but most had managed to escape without harm. Now the villages were home to the southern zone¡¯s troops, as well as peddlers, blacksmiths, menders, servants and pleasure workers that made a living off the soldiers¡¯ coin. At its peak during the summer months, the population swelled to well over fifteen hundred souls. Right now, however, barely eight hundred lived here, including just three Knights¡­and a single war-mage. Magos Telestis was older than most war-mages of his rank, and that made him older yet than most mortals in the known world. Yet Arche knew that under that grandfatherly gaze and skin full of wrinkles hid a veritable beast of war. ¡°I sense a great disturbance beyond the walls.¡± The magus said. His simple world elicited a jolt from Arche. ¡°¡­truly?¡± The knight asked. ¡°Then¡­why is it so calm out here?¡± Telestis chuckled, taking a sip from his flask. The scent of brandy filled the air. ¡°You are a great warrior, Arche, yet your greatness blinds you to the world of magic. It is a common side-effect of your rank, one that I do not blame you; few war-mages can stand in the way of a knight in close combat.¡± The magus took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly as his gaze focused on the barest hint of the accursed walls of Iridia. Arche followed, but a familiar haze clouded his vision. The Witch¡¯s curse was potent, even from so far away; nothing inside the city could be observed from outside, no magic enhancements could pierce it. Even without the necromantic and chimeric components, the curse would¡¯ve doomed Iridia to ruin. Maybe not in a day, but in a week, a month or a year the city would¡¯ve been abandoned. No modern city of Iridia¡¯s former size could survive without the benefits of alchemy and magic, yet both had been excised in their entirety, barred not just from entry beyond the obsidian walls. ¡°The Haze blocks sight so completely that we can scarcely understand the size and shape of the walls we are looking at without consulting the texts smuggled out of the city during the exodus. Smell is equally nullified, though I doubt we could glean much even if we had wolf beast-men among our ranks. Yet touch¡­that¡¯s quite harder to shield against.¡± ¡°What are you saying?¡± Telestis looked back at him. ¡°Had you or any other enhanced person been awake, you would¡¯ve felt it too. There was a great tremor from within Iridia¡¯s walls. When the containment patrol had just been set up I was younger and more adventurous, and once I shot a fireball into the city. Few cared, and none reprimanded me; the city was as good as lost whether I bombed it or not.¡± He chuckled, the smile not reaching his cold eyes. ¡°The tremor I felt was barely perceptible, and most other enhanced didn¡¯t even sense it. So if you¡¯re feeling such a tremble from the city, something truly great, either powerful or extremely heavy, has fallen into the city.¡± ¡°I have spent the time between there and now, considering the possibilities. It couldn¡¯t have been a spell, for the caster would need to be outside and, therefore, his signature detectible. It can¡¯t have been a necromorph or monster, because there exists nothing of that size and nature that could manifest so close to civilization, let alone inside an area so hostile of magic as to strip the mana from a mage¡¯s core.¡± The magus turned to look at him, his voice cracking. ¡°I don¡¯t know what could¡¯ve caused this, and that scares me.¡± Chapter 1.9 - Crimson Sands Decades had passed since Victor had left the regular army, and decades more since he¡¯d first put on the butter bars of a second lieutenant. Through the years, he¡¯d commanded all kinds of units. From armor, to infantry, atomic artillery and even the odd air assault component, he¡¯d done a bit of everything. Some out of skill, others out of sheer luck ¡ªor unluckiness¡ª. Yet even after so many years of leading combined arms units, he was still a tanker at heart. He still remembered the first time he¡¯d been put in the command of a tank, back in the regular Akritan Army. There was no other feeling like the rush of adrenaline as those seventy tons of steel and chobham drove into battle¡­and no other emotion like the devastation after. ¡­ The Roach¡¯s crew compartment smelled like sweat, propellant and piss, its once squeaky-clean appearance relegated to the inspector-general¡¯s records. Empty boxes of ammunition for the panzer¡¯s .50s was strewn about the bottom of the basket, alongside empty MRE packets and water bottles. Among the sea of trash clinked a lone shell casing, pristine brass warped by the autoloader¡¯s failing ejection mechanism and dirtied by unburnt propellant dust. Had the lieutenant colonel been there to look at the mess, he would¡¯ve put them to the saber without second thought. Fortunately, the miserable fuck of a commanding ¡®officer¡¯ had been the first to get sniped by the enemy¡¯s new guided artillery rounds. Served the bastard right, for leading from that custom-fitted, unarmored excuse of a personnel carrier instead of a panzer. He focused back on the present, as his platoon of four ¡ªminus the unfortunate Lucky 13¡ª crested the sand dune. After two weeks of cat and mouse on the dessert, his unit barely needed to communicate to function effectively. The three panzers advanced as one, climbing just barely up the dune to allow the turret-mounted commander¡¯s sights of each vehicle to look over the dune. Nowadays it wasn¡¯t even advisable to let the whole turret peak, lest you be spotted early by an enemy artillery observer and turned into a pincushion. ¡°Anything on the scopes, Vic?¡± His gunner asked, adjusting his own sights while they were of little use, pointed straight into the red sand as they were. In the past few weeks McRiley¡¯s pale white complexion had slowly turned red from the fine dust. He gently guided the small turret full of sensors and cameras to look at the crimson dunes beyond, searching for tracks or exhaust haze. Satellite overwatch was spotty at best, but they¡¯d gotten intel about a convoy moving through the Bullet Road headed for Lotz. One of many, most of which managed to get through the blockade, supplying the city¡¯s defenders with more of those damned artillery shells, but even a single truckload less of the stuff would save dozens if not hundreds of lives. ¡°Well, there¡¯s a whole lot of sand.¡± He quipped, cursing the¡ª A glint, there on that dune. He immediately taped the platoon comms; the short-ranged radio frequency fell on deaf ears where the enemy¡¯s radios were concerned, and had quickly become vital for 1024th Cavalry¡¯s continued operations. ¡°Visual signature, bearing zero-nine-two. Verify?¡± The reply came back instantaneously from his second. The Matilda¡¯s optics were a generation newer than his own, and Victor hoped they had some better insights. The Avenger¡¯s commander remained silent, though she sent a ping every time they spoke to confirm receipt. She was a junior to tank command, but Victor had high hopes¡ª BOOM A shockwave blasted the panzer, fragments pinging against the chobham. ¡°Void, what was that?!¡± JJ screamed. Victor turned his scopes right, and found the Avenger¡¯s turret split in half. The gun had flown off its mantle and was rolling down the dune, while ammunition violently cooked off inside the chassis. ¡°Artillery!¡± He shouted into the comm, knowing his platoon had just been reduced to two. ¡°Full ahead, chase down that convoy and get us out of here!¡± The Matilda followed along as his driven gunned it, the Roach¡¯s tracks bitting and grinding against golden sand. DUDUDUDUUDUDU Autocannon shells dug into the ground around them. It took less than a second for Victor to spot the lone box-shaped IFV cresting the hill, its driver madly turning about in a futile attempt to prolong their attempt at a distraction. A poor attempt indeed; the Vogdi had damned good artillery, but their vehicles drove like snail-driven bricks. ¡°Gunner, HE, Right, IFV!¡± He shouted into the crew comms. ¡°Confirmed, Aiming!¡± A shout came back. ¡°On the way!¡± BAM A shell flew four hundred meters downrange, striking the IFV in on a rear corner¡­and passing right through. It exploded a few meters away harmlessly. Damn the damn Vogdi and their vehicle¡¯s shitty armoring; the shell¡¯s fuze hadn¡¯t armed. In the background, the massive arm of the autoloader shoved another shell into the open breech, as another badly-ejected shell skipped over the collection hopper and landed in the rubbish-filled basket floor with a clang. ¡°Contact fuze, fire!¡± ¡°Reloading!¡± JJ reported, as Victor spotted the breech sealing on the edge of his vision. ¡°Fi¡ª¡± BOOM Something struck the IFV on its front plate, the tin can violently ejecting flaming inards as its unarmored rear and top blew off. A limbless Vogdi body ragdolled through the air, the head exploding like a crimson pumkin as it slammed to the ground. It took Victor but a moment to realize it was the Matilda which had gotten the kill. He turned the optics turret to look at the other half of his surviving platoon¡­ Only for something to violently slam against its turret from above, cleaving the armored beast in half. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The Matilda was no more. ¡­ ¡°¡­sir?¡± A voice called out to him. ¡°Colonel, are you okay?¡± Victor came to with a jolt, realizing he¡¯d been staring right into his glass for stars knew how long. He turned towards the voice. Lieutenant Colonel James McRiley looked at him with a knowing expression, while several other officers held back worried glances. He was at the conference room¡­not the Roach¡¯s crew compartment. ¡°Y-Yeah, the hyper translation must¡¯ve hit me harder than I expected.¡± He replied, rubbing his face. ¡°My apologies, where were we?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll call for a round of tonics.¡± Major Hossier said, standing up. Victor nodded subtly as the officer glanced at him, but immediately focused back on Archer. The man was hunched over the map-screen at the center of the conference table, little more than a hardened touchscreen-holofield combination that was useful for looking at maps, inspecting schematics and space navigation. The map was of the city, algorithmically designed based off the sensor data from the Jackal scout drones flying overhead. The city was big, though only horizontally speaking. The overwhelming majority of buildings inside the boundaries of its impressive black walls were less than four stories tall; only the castle and temple were taller, though the northwest and southwest corner towers of the wall were nestled on top of hills that made them taller still. It wasn¡¯t just a geographic map; as Victor inspected it he saw the signatures of enemies, highlighted critical infrastructure as well as friendly units. A gray foggy texture covered many small streets and alleys, as physical obstructions made constant surveillance impossible. He remembered the forest had once been gray in its entirety save for the landing site, yet now the overwhelming majority of the four square kilometers of overgrown garden had been scouted by short-ranged quadcopter drones and patrols. The perimeter defense taskforce hadn¡¯t rested for a moment, sending scouts and monster-hunting teams ¡ªquite literally, much to many officers¡¯ horror and amusement¡ª to every corner of the walled garden. As such, most of the monsters had been cleared out. Only a few stragglers remained; birds, rodents and somewhat large insects that were not quite monsters, as they lacked much of the aggression that made the shadow wolves and chameleon spiders come to them. All of the latter two¡¯s population had piled on to the perimeter defences like a tide, and was promptly eviscerated by heavy stubbers, autocannons, mortars and grenade autolaunchers. They¡¯d nearly lost during the first hour, when the sole defenders of the garage hatch had been a company of light infantry, but now the monsters could do nothing against a full battalion of mechanized infantry reinforced by heavy weapons and armored vehicles. The perimeter was expanding rapidly, as M31 Demolishers blew apart dozens of trees and scores of shrubbery in one swoop with mine-clearing charges. Nearly three hundred kilograms of explosives were shot out of a stubby mortar, tied to the tank via a reinforced cord. They landed in the form of a conical net, meant to clear a path for tanks through minefields. Instead, they demolished a chunk of the garden, leaving charred and fragmented remains to be moved further away from the Victoria by the M31¡¯s titanium dozer blades. Thus more and more area was cleared out, allowing the perimeter to be expanded. Defensive positions were moved forward, giving way for the additional heavy mortar platoons and artillery batteries to set up their positions in a rough oval around the Victoria. Tents where already being set up as chow halls, field medical stations and armories to service the perimeter¡¯s troops without them having to go through checkpoints and crowded corridors inside the crashed transport. Even more space, however, was being quickly filled by idling panzers, personnel carriers and IFVs full of carapace infantry and cavalry scouts, as units were mustered and organized for operations outside the garden. ¡°So far we¡¯ve found four critical areas that we have to occupy to establish a defensive zone against the undead.¡± Archer spoke. ¡°The first is the palace, and the bridges next to it.¡± His finger fell just one kilometer north of the garden¡¯s northern wall, it and the palace kept separate by a thin band of buildings and indoor markets that must¡¯ve once functioned as the city¡¯s interior commerce zone. The place was crawling with the undead. It made sense; markets were crowded, highly accesible spaces that easily fell victim to chemical and gene agents like whatever had prompted this zombie outbreak. The jury was still out when it came to the latter question, though the science types and doctors were certain it was biological. Air tests showed no airborne pathogens, which was a blessing; had the variant been aerosolized, the overwhelming majority of the regiment ¡ªif not all of them¡ª were dead men. This was likely not a very advanced agent variant, likely decades if not more than a century out of date compared to what the superpowers of the Core Worlds were certainly developing in secret. Early versions of genewar munitions were dispersed like neurotoxins; bombs or shells exploded a dozen meters off the ground, dispersing droplets of highly-concentrated agent. Some inadvertedly entered people¡¯s systems by falling into eyes, mouths, open wounds and such, though more potent variants survived in foodstuffs and water for hours if not days. Afterwards, the only method of transfer was the exchange of bodily fluids, usually through bites or wounds caused by the infected. Such outbreaks were devastating during the first hours against a concentrated civilian populace, but military and police responses using lethal force and hazmat gear took care of the issue with ease. Hopefully, dealing with these undead would be similarly easy. Without a civilian in sight, cleanup would be a swift and violent affair, though thankfully they wouldn¡¯t need to use atomics. Just holding checkpoints with heavy weapons and taunting the horde. Major Hossier returned with a tray full of polymer shot glases. The glasses glinted under the lamplight, filled with an emerald liquid. The officers paused for a moment, toasting to resilience as they downed the thick, tasteless liquid. There was no jolt of energy, as with combat stims, but Victor slowly felt the fog lifting from the edges of his mind. Archer continued where he¡¯d left off, sounding a tinge more energetic than before. ¡°Kampfgruppe Odin, comprised of the 2nd and 3rd Companies of 3rd Cavalry and two platoons of combat engineers, will move to occupy the bridges¡¯ southern end as well as the walled palace complex. Clearing the palace itself it a tertiary objective, seeing as there is no need to rescue anyone or preserve its cultural significance.¡± ¡°Clearing it out with thermobaric mortar shells is the most cost-effective solution, though I say we try to clear it without demolishing it. It could serve as good barracks or command infrastructure in the future, or as bargaining chips in case we meet actual civilized, living people.¡± Victor nodded. They¡¯d yet to meet any living humans, but they all hoped that was only a matter of time. Even cannibals or raping barbarians would be useful, if not pleasant to eal with; he had no qualms about using the decivilized and degenerate to mine the ore that would be turned into the parts to get the Victoria off this mudball. If they met actual humans who cared about this city, trading a castle for raw materials, labor or technology would be more than useful. ¡°Our second and third targets are intersections, here and here.¡± He pointed on the southwest and southeast corners of the garden, where major roads ¡ªmade of cobblestone, yet still major compared to most in the city¡ª joined together. ¡°Kampfgruppes Nemea and Hydra will occupy them, each kampfgruppe made up of two armored and two infantry platoons, plus a combat engineer platoon. Combined with Odin, these three task forces soak up all the available manpower of 3rd Cavalry. That means the 4th and final area will be occupied by elements of 2nd Infantry; a full company of mechanized infantry plus two platoons of fire support vehicles The combat engineer platoon will be stripped from the perimeter expansion task force, as we¡¯ve already made enough progress clearing out a zone for occupation and defense.¡± ¡°Kampfrugruppe Hera will set up a defensive line here.¡± He pointed to a row of blocks east of the garden, separating it from the harbor. ¡°This is not quite a critical area, but it is crucial if we want to expand the containment zone in the future.¡± ¡°If we secure the western portion of the port, we could secure the entire peninsula.¡± Major Hossier surmised. ¡°With Nemea and Hydra holding the south and west, and Odin securing both bridges and clearing the castle¡­if we clear the northern harbor we¡¯d be effectively setting up a green zone.¡± ¡°A good plan indeed.¡± Victor applauded Archer¡¯s proposition, though he was curious. ¡°What about the cav scouts?¡± The ops officer grinned. ¡°They will be in their element, sir. We¡¯re sending the whole of 1st company to scout ahead in independent platoons. One to the harbor and mercantile district south-southeast, a second to the central, wealthy district just west, a third three kilometers further than that towards the concentrations of barracks near the western walls, and the final to the lower-class housing south.¡± ¡°Combined, what they discover may be enough to tell us what happened to the city¡­and if there are survivors. If both of those objectives are a bust, at least they¡¯ll thin out the population.¡± Chapter 2.1 - Tread Lubricant I use to be bloody terrified of infantry, driving those wheeled missile carriers. Armor so thin a buzzbomb on the front plate could frag the whole crew; there¡¯s a reason you the shrinks get a second pass on new crewmen for those death traps. I¡¯m still afraid of them, sometimes. Sometimes they¡¯re hidden in trees or bunkers, with can-openers that could peel back a Rhino¡¯s side plate and turn the entire crew into pasta sauce given the chance. But nowadays they¡¯re no longer the grim reaper incarnate when they pop out in front of you. They¡¯re just Crunchies. ¡ªUnknown Tanker ¡ª He sat in the commander¡¯s seat, overlooking the column of panzers and armored vehicles that comprised his newly formed kampfgruppe. The air thick with the smell of burnt monster corpses and det cord. On his right, a pair of M31s dug into the gore and debris-filled ground with their dozer blades, pilling burnt charcoal, charred bone and crumbling chittin into piles. Stars knew what they would do with them; digging a mass grave would take days. Lieutenant Borysenko tapped the bone conduction mic around his throat, which allowed his voice to be heard crystal-clear even during the heat of battle. Hardly necessary¡­hopefully for the entire duration of the mission. The last time the equipment had proven necessary, his panzer had to be dragged out of the combat zone by an armored recovery vehicle. ¡°Odin-5, this is Butcher-1-5. All elements are green. Just waiting for your say-so.¡± The comm clicked, and seconds later a familiar voice came on the airwave. Major Nordvik voice came from his headset¡¯s speakers, and Borysenko instinctively straightened his back. He gulped. ¡°Understood, Odin-5. Moving out.¡± Shifting to the platoon comms, he steeled his voice. ¡°All elements, this is Butcher-1-5. We are Oscar Mike in thirty seconds, get warmed up.¡± It was then that another voice came on the local comms. The engineer platoon¡¯s commander joked. Borysenko looked towards the rear of his platoon, where three personnel carriers and a pair of Demolishers idled by. They comprised one of just two engineer platoons inside the kampfruppe, with the latter kept in the rear of the column. ¡°No promises, Sapper-3.¡± He replied, not quite in the mood for jokes. Being the vanguard of the vanguard was a weighty role, even for him. Fortunately, he didn¡¯t have much time to consider all the ways the op could go wrong. ¡°Driver, advance to the western gate¡± He ordered. ¡°Copy.¡± Hans replied, and the Nutcracker tracks dug against the crusty dirt, propelling the sixty-ton war machine forward. Only a few hundred meters later, his platoon split in half, giving way for Butcher-3¡¯s Demolishers to clear the way. His section took up the right flank, checking the trees and bushes for monsters while the demolishers tore a path through the overgrown excuse of a garden towards the western gate. It took little over five minutes to tear a path to the rusted iron gate, which was enconcsed in a red brick-and-mortar frame decorated with the some kind of silver plaque on either side. The characters seemed familiar, though he couldn¡¯t make sense of the writing. Thankfully, that was the spooks¡¯ job. His was to make a path through the gate, one way or another. ¡°Butcher-3, I doubt command is in the mood for us to play burglar with that rusted lock. Would you guys do the honor of tearing this sad excuse of a gate down.¡± He asked through the radio. The lead Demolisher gunned its engine, sixty tons of steel, chobham and dozer blade crashing against the once-working gate. It held for a second more, even as thick vines and overgrowth snapped and tore under the panzer¡¯s momentum. Then the hinges gave way, bolts shearing clean off. A loud crash signalled the end of isolation for the garden, the gate fragmented into rusty scraps while the cobblestone road underneath cracked under the impact. ¡°Odin-5, this is Butcher-1-5. Gate is down, we¡¯re Oscar Mike to checkpoint Rubicon.¡± The four panzers of 1st Platoon advanced through the opening two at a time, turning north. The gate¡¯s remains creaked and cracked under the pressure, but Borysenko¡¯s attention was focused elsewhere. A handful of zombies, dressed in tattered and torn clothes, walked or crawled out of the buildings on the other side of the road. The undead were responsing fast. ¡°We¡¯ve got crunchies on the road. Heavy stubbers, clear them out.¡± He ordered on the local commnet, making sure Sapper-3 and the proceeding platoons heard him. TUTUTUTUTUT Sergeant Garcia was already on-task, the gunner sporting a gleeful smile as he raked rotten flesh and weathered brick alike with .50 caliber stubber fire. Borysenko joined in with the .50 cal slaved to his own remote weapons station, firing short bursts at anything that moved. Soon the entire platoon was letting loose at anything not tagged friendly. They had ammunition to spare; battalion logistics had doubled each panzer¡¯s stubber ammunition load in advance of the op. It made for a cramped interior, and the platoon¡¯s crews were all too eager to shed the mass that was blocking their extra leg room. The undead practically exploded under the stubber fire from all four panzers, oozing a liquid that was almost black. Borysenko crabbed a few pictures with his sights for the after-action debrief, but ultimately ignored the sight; the black magic parading as science behind gene-war agents was way beyond what his secondary education biology classes had taught him. ¡®Who knows, maybe the mitochondria is still the powerhouse of their cells.¡¯ He glanced behind Sapper-3, seeing scores of armored vehicles and panzers following after his own at a steady pace. Staring back forward, he saw the large cobblestone road continued for more than a kilometer alongside the garden, finally ending in a big block of buildings they¡¯d have to go around; the city market. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. As he fired another burst at a crawler, he knew that these few crunchies were only the beginning. Thankfully, his panzer¡¯s magazine was full of canister shot and siege rounds. Command wanted the bridge intact, but he had carte blanche to demolish everything else between him and¡ª CRUNCH ¡°AHA!¡± Hans shouted with glee. ¡°El-tee, you hear that? We got the first crunch!¡± Borysenko smiled. ¡°Good. Our treads needed the lubricant.¡± ¡ª Another dull boom reached Nick¡¯s ears through the Lynx¡¯s hull. ¡°Looks like they¡¯re really going ham on those Zs, huh?¡± the gunner muttered. ¡°Everything looks like a nail to a hammer.¡± He said. ¡°Hold your fire for when it will matter; there will be plenty of time to put bullets into skulls on the way back.¡± The gunner grumbled but said nothing more, though Nick spotted him looking around with the RWS¡¯s sensors for targets. It wasn¡¯t particularly hard when the undead heat signatures were doing nothing to conceal themselves and everything to follow after the noise¡­for a few meters. Porbably something to do with the specific genewar variant, though it could very well be the scouts¡¯ Lynx armored personel carrier. Their old Panther IFVs ¡ªa holdover from the regiment¡¯s founding from the remnants of an old army regiment¡ª had been big, heavy and noisy. They were meant to excel in recon-by-fire roles, probing the enemy for information and weaknesses, but the focused too much on protection and too little on mobility, the crux of a scout¡¯s strength. Lynxes were the younger, lighter, faster siblings of the Panther, designed and built entirely in-house using years of experience by frontline troops and with the full knowledge of what the regiment¡¯s scouts needed. They were shorter, at just six wheels instead of eight, which meant the dismounts were reduced from eight to four. Platoon organization shifted to accomodate the change, four vehicles becoming six. A platoon¡¯s size was reduced from four squads to three, with the ¡®savings¡¯ used to make a new platoon per company. The interior was cramped and the AC was a little hotter, but they made the unit stronger, adding two more heavy stubbers per platoon and three more pairs of eyes looking out for danger instead of staring at the floor inside the troop compartment. Smaller, better designed engines allowed for greater fuel efficiency, less noise and a more insulated thermal signature as well. More than once, entire platoons had flanked enemies without them realizing until the critical moment. Everything was relative, of course; you wouldn¡¯t call a fifteen-ton infantry combat vehicle gunning down a cobblestone road whisper-quiet. The undead certainly didn¡¯t; the platoon was attracting lots of attention, though its speed made the Zs quickly lose their ¡®lock¡¯ and go back to whatever they were doing before. Strange¡­but good. Nobody wanted a horde of undead chasing them down at crawling speed while they made a circuit of the area that had been branded as the southern district. It was just south-west of the garden, and likely comprised much of the working class housing of the city. It was larger than the garden, the central district and the palace district combined, made up of several hundred if not thousands of buildings going two to four stories high. These were medieval apartment buildings, though they hardly looked like the apartment buildings that many of the regiment¡¯s troopers had grown up in. There wasn¡¯t a hint of concrete or prefabed steel to be found in the entire place; the better-off buildings closest to the larger roads were made of brick and mortar, while the inner buildings were almost entirely out of wood. Nothing like the northern slums beyond the river, thankfully; that area looked absolutely chaotic. Nick didn¡¯t want to even think about clearing it out house-by-house, and his thoughts were likely shared by command. He hoped that the Colonel would torch that poor excuse of a housing district. All it would take was a single incendiary shell to turn the entire place into ash. ¡°Well, sir.¡± The gunner spoke up. ¡°Uh¡­nevermind actually.¡± Nick nodded, but said nothing out loud. He was more than happy to let the crisp morning air cool the parts of his face that weren¡¯t covered by a respirator. ¡®It¡¯s a boring ride indeed, but we don¡¯t want to jynx¡ª¡® ¡®Damn it¡­¡¯ He thought, wincing. ¡°Copy, Control. You want us to go and check that out?¡± ¡°Looks like we¡¯ve got a hit.¡± Nick spoke up, hearing rustling in the troop compartment under his hatch. Had any normal infantry platoon spread out like his, splitting into two trios to cover double the ground, the commander would¡¯ve felt like herding cats while trying to coordinate their movements. Poor 1st and 2nd Infantry got the bottom of the barrel, but the Cav Scouts received the best of the best¡­or at least the craziest. They were all eager to put a few rounds on target. He switched to the platoon comms, consulting the tablet holstered on the side of his plate carrier. ¡°All elements, this is Hitman-2-5. We¡¯ve got a point-of-interest less than a klick east; zombies are pooling around something, and command wants to know what that is. Check your firearms and ready up for combat; today¡¯s menu is full of zombie guts.¡± ¡­ Taking a left, the three vehicles of Alpha Section found themselves on a rather unassuming street crawling with the undead. Green¡¯s Bravos were still a minute out. ¡°I see ¡®em. Stars, that¡¯s a lot of targets.¡± The gunner noted with glee. Nick grunted in agreement. Overlord had caught the gathering pretty early on, but there were a lot of zombies approaching the brick-and-mortar apartment building from around the neighbourhood. Lots were walking, some were crawling, and some had arrows sticking¡ª ¡®Wait, arrows?¡¯ He spotted something fly down from the building¡¯s top floor. The arrow hit a zombie in the chest, barely stunning it. His eyes widened in realization. He took a deep breath. Calm and steady gets the jerky¡­ ¡°All elements, looks we¡¯ve got survivors on the top floor. Dismount and secure the entrance.¡± At his command every vehicle halted, hydraulics hissing as their rear ramps dropped to the cobbled road to release the infantry. ¡°Go, go, go!¡± The staff sergeant of 1st squad shouted, her soldiers filing out on either side of their with their rifles pointed froward. ¡°You, you, rear guard. This party¡¯s private.¡± TUTUTUTUTU Tracer fire erupted from the vehicles¡¯ heavy stubbers, lighting up the horde. The troopers weren¡¯t a second late, dozens of rifles joining the fight. The undead were quick to switch their attention to the biggest noise maker, more than a hundred of them turning around to attack the platoon¡¯s dismounts. A futile attempt; slow and unarmored, they were no match for the trained cav scouts. Engines purred behind them, and soon three more lynxes arrived, troopers dismounting as they advanced. With Greene there to take control of the vehicles, Nick went up to the dismounts of the next Lynx over, finding the squad commander laying down lead downrange. The staff sergeant noticed him almost immediately. ¡°What?¡± She asked over the gunfire. He pointed at the building¡¯s top floor. ¡°Get your squad and follow tme, we¡¯ve got VIPs in the building.¡± The sergeant nodded,shouting orders to her troopers. There was nothing more to say; the impromptu CQB team moved left behind the vehicles before approaching the building¡¯s entrance from the side. The rest of the platoon swifted its fire to cover them, though the zombies were little threat. ¡®For us, at least. Poor bastards have bows and arrows; they¡¯d be fucked against this many Zs.¡¯ Nick thought as he picked a tubular grenade from his plate carrier and pulled the pin. ¡°Flash in the hole!¡± He shouted, tossing it through a window, raising his rifle and blindly firing inside. The rest of the troopers crouched down and looked away from the windows, though their counterflash goggles and ear protection did most of the work. BANG ¡°Breach, breach, breach!¡± The sergeant shouted, slapping the pointman¡¯s shoulder. The troopers filed into the room, splashing any intact head inside the building. The bottom floor was devoid of anything bar a few dusty tables, but there were more zombies coming from upstairs. Some of the troopers reloaded while others slowed down as they reached the bottom of their magazines. The bloodied stone floor filled with polymer cases and dumped magazines. Rushing up and through dying and dead zombies with fresh mags and blazing barrels, the squad cleared two rooms that were devoid of the living. Then, they heard shouts from the floor above. The language was strange, unknown yet somewhat familiar. That only strengthened their resolve, even as fresh mags ran dry and many of the troopers resorted to their sidearms. Five, ten, twenty more shots and the last flight of stairs was filled with gore but clear of undead threats. Sploshes of black blood coated Nick¡¯s combat respirator, and he muttered a silent thanks to whoever had made the glass fog-proof. Silence reigned for several moments as they climbed up the room. Nick was barely able to see the pointman as he entered through the doorway with his gun pointed to the floor, stepping over a broken door and a zombie corpse. The trooper spoke. ¡°We¡¯re here to hel¡ª¡°¡± ¡°Ahhhh!¡± A girl shrieked. Next thing Nick knew, the pointman had a crossbow bolt sticking out of his plate carrier. Chapter 2.2 - Sugar Bribes Regardless of the high-level deals between the brass and the colonial government, communication between the grunts and villagers on the ground is spotty at best. Once you throw the usual thugs and bandits that call themselves ¡®colonial security forces¡¯ into the mix, you¡¯ve got a right shitstorm indeed. ¡ªunknown grunt ¡ª ¡°Aaaaah!¡± Constans screamed, pressing down on the rickety crossbow¡¯s trigger. For once, the scavenged bolt flew true¡­right into their savior¡¯s chest. George stood frozen, Constans stood frozen, their savior was frozen¡­and then his little sister¡¯s empty crossbow clattered to the floor with a painful crunch. He¡¯d seen the bolt dig into the man¡¯s ¡ªor was it a woman?¡ª chest with a thump, yet they seemed more confused than anything. The soldier, and he did faintly look like a soldier, looked down at the bolt sticking out of his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, George spotted more soldiers in the stairwell, and he could hear a hell of a lot more down in the street using their strange magic ¡ªthe use of which in the city¡¯s manaless enviroment had yet to register with him¡ª. Yet his eyes were more focused on the first soldier and he lifted his chest armor, and it was some kind of armor indeed, of cloth or canvas, and the bolt stayed on it. He let out a sigh of relief, thankful that the bolt hadn¡¯t pulled, for that would¡¯ve meant the flint tip had penetrated into the poor person¡¯s chest. The soldier pulled the entire bolt out, fragments of what had once been its tip falling on the musty wooden floor. Then the cries of his sister registered, and he rushed to her side. She had curled up into a ball, shaking. He tried to calm her down but felt lost for words as he looked at the confused soldiers. ¡°Uhm¡­does anybody have some sweets?¡± The soldier asked in a foreign language, looking back into the stairwell. ¡°I¡¯ve got a brownie, but why do you need¡ª¡± ¡°Shut up and give him the brownie, private!¡± Another, more authoritative voice, shouted, and the cries of his sister were growing louder¡­and he was too shocked to say anything about it as he looked at her reddened face and shut eyes. ¡°Wha¡ª¡± He jumped up, feeling something poke him in the shoulder. The first soldier took a small step back, but had already approached within whisper distance. He raised a strange¡­package? It glistered in the sunlight coming from the nearest window, some kind of wrapping giving it a gloss. They slowly unwrapped the little bar-shaped object from its packaging, miming as if they were eating it then rubbing their stomach. Then the soldier slowly handed over the object, pointing at his sister. Confused and more than a little eager to follow the powerful soldier-wizard-person¡¯s directives, he took the strange bar and realized it was soft and a bit sticky, but smelled somehow sweet, like¡­ ¡°Honey?¡± He mumbled, looking up at the soldier, who did the stomach gesture again while pointing at the girl, looking obviously distressed at her non-stop crying. ¡°I swear to stars, Ramirez, if you¡¯re eating the brownie in front of a crying kid not even surgery will be able to fix what I¡¯ll do to you!¡± The authoritative voice said again, and the soldier visibly flinched, before his gestures grew more frantic. Very much not eager to find out why the mysterious soldier was angry, George urged the melting honey bar into his sister¡¯s mouth. Her lips were quickly coated with the melting substance, and her eyes widened. He flinches himself as his crying sister turned into a ravenous beast, swallowing the bar whole and biting the tip of his finger. She slowly climbed back up to a sitting position chewing on the sweet with confused delight. ¡°Thaaaak uuuuu¡­¡± ¡ª ¡°Well, does anybody else have sweets?¡± The sergeant asked as she looked over the two confused kids ¡ªand they were kids indeed¡ª sitting on the musty wooden floor. Nick mumbled, pulling a pair of cereal bars from a pocket on the side of his plate carrier, right next to a grenade pouch. ¡°I¡¯ve got two breakfast bars from the cafeteria.¡± He said, handing them over to Ramirez. The corporal carefully took hold of the crumbly bars and gave each to the kids, who eagerly took them and opened the plastic packaging with naked hunger in their eyes. His radio headset crackled with noise, and Greene¡¯s voice came on the speakers as the gunfire below intensified. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The sergeant packed had heard the same words, because her face hardened. ¡°Alright, people, Zack¡¯s getting rowdy down there. Ramirez, you¡¯re on babysitter duty. Pick up the little girl, I¡¯ll grab the boy, we¡¯re getting them out of here.¡± As the corporal picked up the protesting girl, the sergeant turned to Nick. ¡°What¡¯s the play, el-tee?¡± She asked, grabbing the confused boy by the arm that wasn¡¯t holding a crossbow. ¡°We¡¯re getting these kids to safety. Get them to your Lynx, you¡¯re now VIP transport.¡± He ordered, the squad filling back down the stairs as quick as the kids could be ushered down. ¡°2-6, this is 2-5, we¡¯ve got two kids and no guardians.¡± Nick sighed as they moved down. ¡°Warm up the vics and get Overlord on the line, we¡¯re RTB ASAP, understood?!¡± The troopers-turned-bodyguards rushed out of the building, sergeant and corporal covering the children''s ears as they rushed to a lynx. Outside, troopers and .50 cals where letting loose on either side of the road as zombies crawled out of doors, windows, broken walls and sewers. ¡°Pack it up!¡± Greene shouted to the entire platoon as he spotted them. There were no more words exchanged as the entire platoon climbed back inside their vehicles. Within less than ten seconds they were packed up and rolling. The last thing Nick saw before the rear ramp of his vehicle sealed up was a few hundred zombies streaming in from side streets. THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP The driver let out a string of expletives as the convoy ran over the opposition, .50 cals letting loose into the crowd forward trying to clear a path. Nick took a seat as the grunts around him reloaded their rifles with fresh magazines and exchanged the empty ones for full from the storage bins under their seats. Cav scouts did not bring a lot of heavy weapons to the fight, but each scout had little over five hundred rounds of ammunition to themselves¡­and that wasn¡¯t even counting the squad automatics. ¡°Overlord, this is Hitman-2-5, we¡¯ve got VIPs and are RTB. Status on the route?¡± ¡°You¡¯re damned right we will.¡± Nick replied. ¡°Understood, Overlord. Hitman-2-5, out.¡± THUMP Another zombie splashed against the bumper, and the driver cursed again. ¡­ They passed through the western gate little less than fifteen minutes later, the four Lynxes escorted by a platoon of Crocodile infantry combat vehicles. There were a lot of jokes flying around about combat engineers, most about what they did with their trench shovels at night, but there was nothing anybody could say about their work ethic. Within less than an hour the rusted remains of the western gate had been turned into a fortified checkpoint, which formed a salient on the road surrounding the gate and splitting recently-named Main Street in half. A platoon of personnel carriers coated in blood and gore formed up the checkpoint¡¯s heavy armament with their heavy stubbers, while everything except a narrow band of space north and south was being covered by sandbags full of dirt and concertina wire. The gate itself had been moved out of the way along with its demolished frame, likely taken to Reclamation to be turned back into molten iron, then steel and then a fresh armored gate to be reinstalled. Engineers ¡ªboth combat and procurement¡ª had a reputation for stripping down old stuff and recycling it into something meaner. They passed through the Perimeter defenses, which looked much lighter than they were an hour ago, and parked in an impromptu parking zone replete with water tanks, fuel bladders and a crew of maintenance personnel who were currently in the process of putting a track back on the left side of a Crocodile covered in scratches. ¡°What happened over there?¡± Nick asked the maintenance sergeant who came forward to take charge of the vehicles. ¡°Zombies.¡± She replied. ¡°Last I heard Odin is bogged down at the market¡ª¡± THUD Nick flinched as a heavy mortar platoon a hundred meters away let loose. ¡°Lot¡¯s of that right now, everything¡¯s too close for the big guns to be of much help.¡± The sergeant pointed back at the 999s. ¡°Anyhow, Odin is blowing its way through the market, but there are so many zombies that it¡¯s causing problems for the vehicles.¡± ¡°The crew of this luckless bastard,¡± She gestured at the infantry fighting vehicle. ¡°They tried to push through without a dozer blade, and got so much gore in their tracks that a recovery vehicle had to drag them back here for repairs.¡± He shook his head at her words. ¡°Well, at least they zombies don¡¯t have buzzbombs, or we¡¯d have to demolish the entire city. Thanks, sergeant, and take care of my babies.¡± ¡°Oh don¡¯t you worry.¡± Her eyes glinted as she gazed at the bloodied Lynxes. ¡°We¡¯ll take good care of these bad boys. If you wait around long enough we might be able to fit dozer blades on them too; command just issued a directive for every unit not running with combat engineers to be able to blow through Zack anyway.¡± After parking their vehicles, most of the platoon was sent off to decontamination, then food and rest. It was well into the morning now, and everybody was hankering for a serving of some actual breakfast instead of another serving of dasht; despite how well the cooks made it, it got old fast. Most, because Nick, Sergeant Mink and Corporal Ramirez were quickly rushed through decontamination by a separate CBRN section, alongside the confused and scared kids. Mink and Garcia did their best to pacify the kids, and Nick managed to get the CRBN troopers to let the kids go by with a quick wash of their hands and a temperature check. On the other end, they were greeted by half-a-dozen troopers who seemingly belonged to no unit at all¡­until one looked at the tiny markings on the side of their collar. ¡°Are these two responsible for the kids?¡± A sergeant asked him as his men handed the children candy bars and bottles of water with warm smiles. Nick didn¡¯t even try to ask the spook about his name, and the kids latched on to the candy bars before either Mink or Ramirez could do anything about it. ¡°Correct.¡± He nodded. ¡°Are you taking them?¡± ¡°We¡¯re just here to escort all of you inside.¡± The sergeant helpfully replied. Left without choice, the three troopers and two mysterious kids were led inside the Victoria, the latter hoo¡¯ing and ha¡¯ing at every little thing. It made him realize just how backwards this strange world was; lamps and sliding doors were probably magic to them. It was strange that they were both cooperative, but he spotted the apparently older brother holding his sister¡¯s hand and whispering words in her ear. The kid had a look about him; while his sister was just happy to eat candy, he knew that they didn¡¯t really have an option. Chapter 2.3 - Viscera You could have the smartest strategist in the entire universe designing your plans, the sharpest officers giving out the orders and the best trained soldiers executing them. The moment they go into combat, improvisation becomes king. ¡ªLieutenant Colonel Ian Archer ¡ª ¡°¡ªtcher-1-5, we¡¯re getting fucking swamped over here, where are those damn mortars?¡± Borysenko spoke into his comms, thumbing his .50¡¯s trigger at another concentration of crawlers. ¡®Damn things are going to clog up the tracks.¡¯ BOOM The entire panzer kicked back as the 14cm fired into an intact apartment face. The siege round dug deep into the building before its fuel-air warhead detonated, sending flaming chunks of flesh and brick tumbling down into the horde. ¡°Eat bricks you fuckers!¡± Garcia shouted, letting out a maniacal laugh. His hand was slowly turning bone-white white from clenching the coaxial¡¯s trigger for so long; the man was on his third reload. It was in times like these that Borysenko truly appreciated the concept of relativity. Right now, he kept thinking how it was ¡®only¡¯ half an hour into the op. Thirty minutes ago, that would¡¯ve seemed like an inordinate amount of time. For better or worse, ammunition was the best time-piece in a combat environment. And according to their rapidly-plummeting magazines, time was running the fuck out. ¡°Finally!¡± He exclaimed. It felt like they¡¯d been plowing on for a hundred kilometers, but they¡¯d barely made a klick into their route before getting bogged down. The column of armored vehicles had awoken hundreds if not thousands of zombies in just a few minutes, which made sense¡­until one thought about the huge fucking noise a multi-thousand-ton formerly FTL-capable dropship should¡¯ve¡ª BOOM The shockwave shook the entire panzer, hundreds of mortar fragments pinging off the chobham like murderous jingle bells. Borysenko cursed, finding a giant crack running through the middle of his day camera, the visual getting fuzzy. ¡°Primary¡¯s toast, switching to aux.¡± He called out, eager to inspect the damage. As the secondary camera¡¯s armored lens opened, it revealed an image of pure carnage. The streets and rubble were painting crimson black with zombie blood. ¡®We did ask for danger close¡­¡¯ He thought, cursing himself. They¡¯d rushed into battle too fast, underestimating just how many zombies would pile up. Not that any one of them had ever actually fought against reanimated bodies, save for a few of the madmen in the cav scouts. Where Recruitment found madmen with their skillset was a well-guarded secret. ¡°Odin¡­wait one.¡± He said, looking into the daylight camera as the dust of a dozen collapsed buildings settled. The tip of the kampfgruppe stood in the middle of a T-cross, where Main Street met the market and split in two. East of them were a block or two more of buildings, and then the city harbor. The route looked relatively clear. Unfortunately, the route to their objective was not. A sea of blood approached them at a sedate pace, groans and gurgles mixing with the splashing of torn shoes and bloodied feet against the gore of the previous wave. There must¡¯ve been thousands of them¡­less than a hundred meters away. ¡°All Butcher-1 elements, turn to bearing two-seven-zero and fire as you bear. Weapons free!¡± He shouted into the radio. ¡°Siege in the breech, on the way!¡± Garcia shouted back. The panzer reeled back, its blood-stained cannon belching out another anti-building round at the horde. Better to fire now and reload than wait ten or more for the autoloader to unload the shell and load a fresh one. Borysenko was witness to the strange course the shell tore through the undead as its delayed action fuze ¡ªdesigned to detonate the munition afer punching through reinforced concrete¡ª took its sweet time to activate. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. BOOM It must¡¯ve dug into the road, because the detonation turned into an eruption of dirt, stone and bone. Garcia was not one to wait for the dust to settle; he lit off with his coaxial into the horde while the autoloader picked a fresh shell full of canister shot from the external magazine. ¡°Odin-5, this is Butcher-1-5, we¡¯ve got about two to three thousand undead rolling up.¡± He said in the calmest voice he could manage, thumbing his own .50 at the closest stragglers. ¡°I¡¯m not sure we¡¯ve got the ammo to deal with all of them, please advise.¡± The rest of Butcher-1 followed suit, firing into the oncoming horde or at the stragglers trying to climb up to the panzers. Sapper-3 tried their best, but the combat engineers were packed up inside their APCs and the .50s on their vehicle¡¯s did have good angles. What might¡¯ve been a big road for a pre-industrial civilization was barely enough for the kampfgruppe, and was becoming less and less so with every new pile of rubble and gore added to the mix; they could barely fit a platoon through at a time. The group commander voice came on the radio. ¡®All good things must come to an end¡­¡¯ Borysenko thought as he listened to his superior. ¡°Understood, Odin-5.¡± Borysenko shook in his seat as Garcia fired into the advancing horde again. The canister shot¡¯s proximity warhead detonate right in front of the crowd with a low bang, unleashing five kilos of tungsten beads into the wall of unliving fleshing. The effect had made him gag during the Xandria campaign. Everything in the first few rows was eviscerated by the metal shower, crippling those behind. Two or three-dozen undead, flash-shredded into crimson-black fertilizer. Within seconds the other three panzers of the platoon fired as well, turning the first rows of the horde into mist. The tracer beams of half a dozen .50s dug into the crowd, gunners and panzer commanders firing short burst aimed at the densest parts of the oncoming horde. Borysenko glanced back as his panzers slowly advanced westward. Sapper-3 had already been joined by the kampfgruppe¡¯s second platoon of tanks. The pair advanced eastways, followed by platoons of infantry fighting vehicles and personnel carriers. The first infantry platoon, however, turned west and joined his panzers. Reinforcements. The only ones he would be getting. The platoon commander asked. TUTUTUTUT Four Crocodiles opened fire simultaneously into the crowd, their 3cm autocannons perfectly suited to the job and paired with an equal amount of ol¡¯ reliable .50 caliber heavy stubbers. Tracer fire big and large tore chunks out of the horde. ¡°This is Butcher-1-5, good to have you here crabby. Get your men out and start clearing the closest stragglers; the everything above 3 centimeters will focus on the main horde. Weapons free, but give me a ring before your boys blow up a building.¡± ¡°On the way!¡± Garcia¡¯s shouted with ceaseless vigor, the breech kicking back for the umpteenth time. Borysenko caught the edge of the used shell as it dropped into the waste hopper, the brass subtly deformed. They were firing too fast, and he couldn¡¯t afford to lose a gun to a jammed breech. ¡°All Butcher-1 elements, keep your rate to four a mike unless they get closer than seventy meters.¡± He ordered on the comm, trying and failing to find some hint of a joke to sneak into the chatter. He¡¯d yet to completely get used to the Regiment¡¯s culture; his instructors in the academy had been very¡­harsh when it came to the matter of humor. Garcia grumbled but acknowledged, his body visibly slowling down. He liked the sergeant; crude as he may be, the man did his job and listened to orders. Not exactly a flying colors¡¯ grade for his rank, but nothing was ideal. That rang double when it came to everything relating their profession. Hopefully they¡¯d both live long enough to enjoy its fruits. ¡ª ¡®Well¡­no plans survives contact with the enemy.¡¯ Victor thought, looking at the live drone feed above the market. It could¡¯ve been worse. It could¡¯ve been much worse. He¡¯d thought up a hundred different alternative scenarios for what would happen once those panzers drove over the rusted iron gates, and most of them were not good. To put it simply, they didn¡¯t know jack. They were fighting zombies, yes, but they knew very little about what made them tick. They could be killed with bullets ¡ªunlike their nanobot cousins¡ª yet they were more resistant than the reanimated results of a genewar munition. Curious, considering they were significantly less infective. Not one trooper had been infected so far, and even Archer¡¯s most optimistic estimates put projected casualties in the high double digits. So the fact that their only current issue was being overwhelmed by the zombies¡¯ sheer numbers was¡­calming, in a sense. Computer projections put the zombies¡¯ number in the upper five digits. Those numbers would¡¯ve been overwhelming had the variant been close to the Tokyo Attacks, but these zombies were slow, weak and stupid. They could be baited, led into traps and handled with conventional weapons. It was less than two hours since he¡¯d ordered the mortars to prepare tactical atomics for use, yet it seemed like years ago. He¡¯d quickly reversed the order half an hour ago, though the warhead vault was kept up to a high readiness in case shit really hit the fan. The threat was being handled in simpler ways; high-explosive mortar shells, canister shot and liberal amounts of .50 cal ammunition. So well, in fact, that their main problem was one of logistics. At this very moment several hundred troopers with logistics patched were involved in a glorified daisy chain moving crates of mortar shells to the perimeter defenses, canister shot to every panzer platoon in action and belts of stubber rounds to everybody logistics could reach. ¡°You think we¡¯ll make it?¡± He asked McRiley. The CO-XO pair were the only ones currently in the conference room-turned-headquarters, as Ops, Logistics and Intelligence were too busy putting out fires. A few years ago, they would¡¯ve both been all-too-eager for a hands-on approach, but in time they¡¯d learned that their subordinates were more than capable of handling crises by themselves. The lieutenant colonel looked at him with a cheeky grin, the very same he¡¯d sported during their tour-of-duty inside the Roach. ¡°To tomorrow? Probably. At least the zombies don¡¯t have artillery.¡± Announcement I''ve been holding off on pulling the band aid for a week now, but I realize this does you, my readers, no justice. In an expected yet surprising turn of events, life has gotten very busy. University is tough; I barely got good grades last semester, and I''m not about to wing it a second time by not studying properly. I have a circle of friends and loved ones to keep up with every day. Personal projects, some of which are tied to harsh deadlines, have gobbled up what little time I had left to spare. Life is good; no doubt about it. I have very few regrets, and lots of things and people that bring me joy. Unfortunately, life''s also too packed to fit the hours necessary to maintain a consistent writing schedule. I tend to write slower than most authors on this platform, which means it takes me about three to five hours to write a chapter of E2F, in addition to whatever pre-planning I need to do. Kingdom-building, politics and economical uplifting are insanely good to write about, but they are also an unforgiving bitch if you mess up, so you need long-term planning and good execution to maintain a logic-based plot. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. In line with that conclusion, Exiled to the Future and my less popular story Tread and Sword are going on hiatus, at the very least until March 31st, when one aforementioned deadline is set to expire. I can promise nothing, but I hope to return as soon as possible. Even the harshest of critics among you have been nothing but helpful, and I am thankful for all of you. Special thanks to: Xotos750 (My first, and harshest, critic), Shadowdracul CyberSorceress ManiToth RandomPerson666 (Who I believe has commented on every single chapter) Jasus Skrublord Drayno XCoyKoiX Lapochka8 (Who rushed to write an excellent review when they saw I had so few) Epsilon Goolic Sininen