The old saying goes that armies train to fight the last war, and nowhere was it more true than during the Terran Invasion. The last war - the last real war - was over a millennium ago, fought against an invading force of youkai from the surface. First-hand accounts stated that they simply appeared on the moon's surface through holes or gaps in reality; not magic, but something else entirely. They lacked organization and discipline, but made up for it in sheer numbers.
At the time the Lunar Defense Corps was primarily a peacekeeping force used to protect heads of state; the worst action they saw before the Youkai War was an anti-government riot near the Sea of Heng-O in '66. But once the youkai appeared, it... things turned ugly. Semi-automatic rifles and riot training were effectively useless against waves of monsters who could shrug off an entire magazine of 8mm to the face and kill a soldier in one blow. We managed to win, of course, but not before thousands of civilians and over half our fighting force lost their lives in the onslaught. Some of the youkai who invaded are still around here today, and they still brag about how many Lunarians they killed before being forced back. As if losing an unprovoked war of conquest is something to be proud about. As if murdering my people is something to-
...I'm sorry. This isn't the time or place for vendettas.
Following the Youkai War, the top brass were forced to rethink everything: Training, tactics, weapons... emphasis was placed on heavy armor, weaponry with high stopping power, and above all, discipline. A great many of the Corps' soldiers simply turned and ran upon first contact, something which contributed to the high death toll.
Refitting and retraining an entire army doesn't come cheap, however. A few decades after the plan was implemented the government began scaling back funding, forcing the Corps to cut recruitment. They had their results, they just didn't want to pay for them. Typical. Even with the budget cuts and reduced manpower, the brass was confident that another Youkai War would end quickly and in our favor. Unfortunately, we didn't fight another Youkai War.
It was summer of 1389 when the Terrans invaded. The external defenses, designed to target forces on the ground, fared poorly against their ships. I know for a fact that the brass put through a request for increased funding some years back to pay for anti-air but it was turned down by the government. They weren't about to pay for something which might not even see use; after all, the last thousand years were peaceful, so the next thousand would be as well, right? Idiots.
They were well-armed and well-trained - a far cry from the hordes of the last war - but then again, so were we, and we had knowledge of the terrain. I had been out of the service for four months, so I only found out about the attack when the evac order came through. The first wave had come down just outside the block, and the Corps were trying to hold off the attack while the civilians were herded into the shelters. As I said, I wasn't on active duty, but I still had my old Type 97 and I wasn't about to let some damned Terrans overrun my home. I threw on my dress uniform, thinking that it was better than no uniform at all, and left my room to provide support.
As I neared the entrance I heard the thump of grenade explosions and a voice shouting "peel!" as the soldiers defending the entrance pulled back around the corner. The officer assigned to the unit - some sharp-looking Second Lieutenant - spotted me and tried to get me to head to safety, but after a few words on my part she relented and explained the situation to me. It turned out that the Terran's rifles had a significantly longer range than our weapons, something they were keenly aware of, but fortunately for us they didn't pack much of a punch: The few hits they scored were mostly stopped by the heavy armor intended to lessen the blows of youkai, though the unit did suffer two casualties from "lucky" shots. To make matters worse we were greatly outnumbered, and reinforcements weren't expected for a good while. The lieutenant planned to draw them deeper into the complex, denying them the cover they had at the entrance and forcing them into a chokepoint so they could be cut down. It was risky, but it was either that or slowly get picked apart waiting for reinforcements that wouldn't come.
The Lieut was just as smart as she looked; about two seconds before I was about to suggest laying traps down she ordered two of the other soldiers to break out the grenades and wire while the rest laid down cover fire to stall the Terran's advance. Shortly thereafter we continued our withdrawal, heading into the park and closing and sealing the sliding door behind us. It wouldn't slow them down for long, but it would give us enough time to get into position.
I have to admit, though, that I felt a grim sense of satisfaction once I heard the grenades go off.
They must've been in a hurry, because after the explosion they didn't waste any time in trying to cut the lock with a torch so they could force the door open. I knew the first thing they'd do after that would be to toss a flashbang and go in laying down suppressive fire to get us to keep our heads down so they could flank us, because that's the same thing I'd do if I were in their position.
At this point I should probably tell you something about myself. My... talents lie in the ability to refract and distort light and sound waves, effectively causing individuals to see or hear things that aren't there. I won't deny that it helped my career in the Corps, but I joined out of love of country, not utility. Some of my peers complained about this during training exercises, saying that it gave me an unfair advantage. I suppose they expected the enemy to apologize before firing on them as well.
I can only imagine what the first few Terrans felt when they saw they had entered an empty room, only to find that were separated from the rest of the unit and being followed by Lunarian troops. Probably the same feeling of terror that their comrades felt when they turned their guns on them in a blind panic. In the ensuing chaos the Lieutenant's men cut them down, forcing the survivors to retreat without suffering a single casualty.
After that was... waiting. For six hours we sat there, crouched behind planters and benches, deafening silence punctuated by heated exchanges of gunfire as the Terrans kept coming to try and overtake our position. Three more times they came at us, and three more times we drove them back. I did all I could, but in the end four soldiers lost their lives protecting residential district 07. It was the first time any of them had seen combat, but they fought bravely; fighting alongside them was an honor and a privilege.
Eventually word came through from headquarters: We had won. The Terrans were in full retreat and the capitol was safe. It wasn't until later that we found out that they weren't in enough of a hurry to not loot our technology and strip the weapons from our dead, but for now all we knew was that we had done our duty and were victorious.
I expected a round of back-patting, but the bodies weren't even in the ground before the government bigwigs started pointing fingers over who to blame for not detecting the invasion force sooner and making the necessary preparations. Thanks to some anonymous source, it came to light that most of the ones who started the finger-pointing repeatedly turned down plans to add blast shutters to all essential buildings, stating that doing so would be "prohibitively expensive" and would have "a very poor cost-payoff ratio." One thousand years and they didn't think they could save up enough money to build something that would keep their own people alive? Bullshit. I signed on to the Corps to protect my home, not to pick up the slack for out-of-touch politicians more concerned about their own careers than the safety of the people they were chosen to represent, a bunch of old fools who weren't above outright sabotage, and for what? Money? Their careers? Their actions were nearly treasonous, and their use of the Corps as a safety net for their screw-ups sickened me. So I left.
I suppose that in some way I'm still a soldier. Even though my days in the Corps are long gone I still serve and protect a member of the Lunarian Royal Family. In uniform, no less. But... sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it out of loyalty to my old home or because I feel guilty that I left a country in need because of my disgust with its leaders. I wonder, but I don't regret what I did. I'll have plenty of time for that when I'm dead.