March 15, 2106 (military calendar)Iv'Lux(transted) 60, 1(Tukyarid calendar)Tanya

  I’m walking with Parks while everyone else sets up a temporary base over the tunnel that Griffin marked. “What do you mean their blood is coboglobin I mean I figured they are aliens so it’s probably different”

  She sighs “Like I said their blood is cobalt-based but the way it's structured it’s way more efficient at a wide variety of atmospheric conditions. The more I look into their biology the more I think they are designed”

  I look at her “How sure are you” She shrugs “Not very as the technology required is quite advanced to get these stable of results plus they have an entire civilization”

  “If something did design them it’s either dead and gone or just pin doesn’t care anymore”

  I nod “What other aspects look designed” She taps the chin of her helmet in thought “From the blood to their muscles even their skeleton hell the fact their memory is genetic I mean why would a species need to develop that naturally”

  I stop walking “Right keep looking into that it is pretty weird but keep it on the down low I don’t think it would spook our guys but there is no need to make an inter-species incident”

  She nods and goes back to work and York walks up immediately after. “My guys have a few live specimens secured”

  I continue my inspection of the camp “What’s your impression of them” he shrugs “At the moment? It feels like they aren’t used to fighting an equal only those obviously weaker”

  “I mean look at their tactics from before they were just Zerg rushing us and only the front line could fire and other than their maybe their infantry weapons I didn’t see any anti-air weapons we could just bomb them into submission”

  I shake my head “That would just drive them underground and make them more of a nuisance. Griffin is working with the hive to get them trained to a militia level, that will give us more freedom to act”

  York and I arrive at the command tent and I see a map spread out. The tent is fairly full as I have a few of my guys and Ivan and Alvin both have a few of theirs.

  I take one st look at the map to be sure nothing has changed too drastically. “The overall pn has changed a little. Now instead of just getting the locals out of combat areas, we are now going to give Griffin and the other operators a chance to train the locals”

  “My hope is this will both reduce our casualties and stop any opportunity of retreat underground once we do commit to an offensive”

  I point at the closest city marking it and the starport marking it as well “This city will be our next target, it has the local hive queen according to Griffin and klicks, we’ll secure the city and set it up as a refuge center while the starport will be our primary base of operations”

  “Of course, we’ll have troops at both locations but the main problem is logistics. We need the starport and can’t dedicate the time or resources to constructing habitation so we’ll need to transport men and materials between the two”

  I can feel some frowns from those around me. Not about the idea, that they wholly agree with. Using aircraft can work but the amounts needed would bottleneck us for more important issues and use up more fuel than we’re willing.

  One of Alvin’s attendants a man who actually belongs to Germany and is acting like an observer and adviser makes a suggestion “During our st war we relied heavily upon our rail lines, the republic never deemed them important enough to destroy and allowed us to move entire companies at once we even made several mobile weapons ptforms for them”

  I recall one of our outings in that zone near the start of the war. It did prove very effective and had we deemed them enough of a problem to actually take out the rails were the first target.

  Willy adds his two cents “Building the rails would be a huge endeavor it would pose a significant investment” Ivan clears his throat “I may have a solution for that, why not use tracks or tires? In Siberia, we built rge nd trains simir to the old American TC-497 due to simir problems that we have now”

  One by one we all began to nod “I’ll get Cole on it let’s pn the offensive for just after we get the first unit” I got various replies all agreeing. After that, we set out to order what city would be next for capture, all as a rough pn of course because should we find a rge waren of the spiders we will shift to that immediately.

  Two months ter

  I’m riding shotgun in a puma as shells and rockets arc overhead softening up prepared positions. We haven’t gotten much counter fire thanks to the militia according to reports.

  The operator's efforts paid off. Casper swerves to the side as a round streaks past. “Laze targets as soon as you're in range make the most of our air support while we have it”

  A minute ter a squad streaks over the city dropping a dozen missiles each rippling explosions throughout the city.

  In no time at all we are dismounting and breaching a building. We rapidly climb floor by floor. We seem to be an unstoppable force as building by building and hour by hour more of the city falls under our control.

  Having split our forces to attack it from three directions, the defenders seem lost. About twenty stories up in one tower I get a message “We got a hostage situation some important looking bug has a bunch of the locals at gunpoint I’m not sure how many targets”

  I mentally shrug. If they die then whatever it’s not anyone of mine but that wouldn’t be smart to voice. “Copy that mark the location I’ll see if we can divert some help”

  A few moments ter I see the marker and it’s… right next to us. The next tower over and a little down. “Confirmation is that ping on a room at the edge of the tower”

  The soldier replies “Confirmed I got a gnce and the opposite wall from our door is gss” I smile “Help is on the way brace for an external breach” I switch to my local channel “On me if your fuel is topped off everyone else keep clearing”

  I find a window overlooking the target one. I kick it out letting it fall to the street below as hundreds of shards. Shouldering my rifle I move back and get a running start and leap across and fire my pistol into the window breaking through only using a minor amount of fuel.

  The scene quickly devolves as several more follow me and we drop anything with a gun except for a partially interesting one.

  Halfway through the team asking for help breached and got the hostages out where they could. Less than a minute and it was resolved. “Got this under control,” I ask him and he nods.

  Still having our objective we head back over to our tower. Casper slides up to me “We could have just shot them from across the way” I shrug “didn’t think of it plus that was way more fun”

  Ten minutes ter we are back near the top of the tower clearing the st few floors. My radio comes alive again though this time it’s Alvin “City center has been reached and captured over” I groan and sag my shoulders.

  From his tone he’s bragging, of course, there was an unofficial competition. One by one confirmations that the city has been secured trickle in. One however interrupts that stream.

  Jed in a panicked voice shouts “We’re being pushed back they rallied for some reason we’ve lost contact with Griffin and his group” An explosion rings out “fuck fall back” It must be serious for him to shout like that on an open mic.

  “I’ll send some guys to get the rest of you out where was his st position” Before he replies I get another comm from Cole “We have a serious problem a huge fleet just transted in system”

  I stop moving entirely “Can you take it on” I’m certain of the answer before he replies. He wouldn’t tell me that unless there wasn’t a chance.

  “Engage and have any ships left? Not likely, with having previous damage and being outnumbered I’d be wasting everyone’s lives”

  My mind races trying to find a different option a better path forward… do we need a fleet in orbit? I mean yes but we could make due…

  “Cole this is an order… drop us everything you can set up a few surprises if you can then get back to Sol. Regroup and when you come back I want to watch that raggedy ass fleet falling from orbit”

  The silence stretched to an actual minute “You want me to leave you all? Are you insane”

  I snap at him “We have a beachhead we’ll hold off for a few months and make a stinking pile of big corpses you have that harder job of coming back and breaking through”

  I switch back to Jed “regroup and get to Griffin's st known location” That will have to be the best I can do right now. I look for the closest Tukyarid and march over to them.

  “Are there any locations on this pnet the spiders can’t go” they seem to think for a few moments before replying “There is a heavy -“radioactive presence” -transtion interpretation- and a cave system to the north”

  Good enough I radioed Frank “take a dropship and go north there should be a radioactive field with some caves investigate it for me” After that I started to organize everything else.

  I switch to the all comm “Listen up we’re switching to goril tactics as the enemy has a rge number of reinforcements coming. They must really want this dust ball”

  “But we’re not going to let ‘em have it. What we will let ‘em have is a belly full of lead and a pool of their own blood to drown in”

  My men cheer and a rifle cracks out “fucking shit” I manage to get out and the st thing going through my head other than that bullet is 'how did I hear it first' before I’m knocked to the ground shot in the head again.

  Griffin

  I pop up from behind the rock to fire some shots at the horde approaching. The bolt locks back and I gnce down at my webbing.

  Almost out of ammo. I take a quick gnce at the dead Tukyarid lying around me. At least we know we have much worse than we got.

  I sm in a fresh magazine and drop five more spiders. Their return fire sparks off my shoulder pte.

  Out of grenades, ammo, and no help coming. Let’s make sure the pile is worth it. I fire the st of my rifle's ammo and plug in my sword.

  The otherworldly screeching echoes up and down this tunnel. I bolt from behind my cover and tear apart the spiders as fast as I can get to them.

  My armor within seconds becomes caked in gore and blood. I’m also getting riddled with low-powered rounds that are slowly breaking down my armor’s impact gel.

  Soon I’ll feel every impact. I simply focus on what must be done.

  I break through the front lines only to get hit with a fragmentation rocket. I’m thrown against the wall hard enough to make my vision swim.

  I stagger back to my feet and fire my pistol where I think it came from. I feel a warm sensation running down my left hand and my legs.

  I gnce at my hand and bright red blood is flowing out. “Brick it seems I’ll drink with you soon” I run as best I can and cut down a few more only to get hit by a second rocket.

  This time I feel blood flowing down my face and everything feels too heavy to move. The air tastes terrible… fuck my helmet is gone.

  I try to stand up and manage a few steps but then colpse and it feels like I pass out. Only I can feel my body being secured to something and transported.