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Chapter 1 - Firestorm
December 7th, 6:31 A.M., 2499 A.D.
Like a thousand thunders crashing at once, eighty of the hundred-some siege tanks opened fire, hell itself releasing through their molten barrels. The cataclysmic sound rang through Ethan's bones, causing him to wince and recoil from the destruction. The fire from the artillery, the destruction from the siege tanks, all hotter and brighter than Chau's sun itself, the super-giant Sara. A raging inferno, the fire lit up the skies, cooked the heavens, and shredded through the water-thick fog. Clasping his rifle in his right hand, Ethan, hidden away in his standard pressure suit, took a glance out of Bunker B5's westward window. Nothing - only fog - could be seen. As if reality itself ended ten meters from the window, the fog blinded all. Flashes from nearby siege tanks were the only signs of any other existence. The only indication of an enemy out in the oblivion was the slow, plodding klaxon of the bunker's motion tracker. A steady but horrific beep, each sound off became closer and closer, the computers in Ethan's suit translating it all, displaying it on his HUD:
20 seconds
Ethan scowled at the number with disbelief. Goddamn things never work, he thought. As the words rang through Ethan's head, a flash of light illuminated the sky. Chau lightning was unparalleled throughout the Koprulu sector for sheer force - and brilliance. With its coming, Ethan was shocked at what he caught glimpse of: thousands, perhaps millions of milling insects, clambering up over a ridge hundreds of meters away, a sheer carpet of death. And then it was gone, absorbed by the blackness.
"Saddle up, soldiers!" came a voice from behind him, digitally transferred in 3D over the suit's network, no doubt from Cpl. Grim, or, as most knew him, Grimmy.
Ethan grabbed his rifle with both arms and swung it up to the bunker window, clicking it into the auto-ammo feed tube on the window railing. Ethan glanced at his HUD readout:
15 seconds
Shit, he thought. The Bunker Computer began displaying a massive amount of red converging on the bunker, just outside the perimeter spider mine field.
"The mines are going off... Now!" Grimmy cried, as the faint sound of clashing and explosion reached the suit's sound sensors. Hundreds of round expanding circles appeared all over the front of the enemy convergence on the BC screen. "They're coming - look sharp!"
8 seconds
Ethan checked his rifle over, making sure the safety was off, then fixed his vision on the oblivion outside. A downpour had begun, limiting his vision to about eight meters in front of the window, the dry-cracked mud of Chau now molasses in the rain. Still nothing could be seen. Sweat began to drip down his face, a sign of the battle anxiety the common soldier was often a victim of.
6 seconds
"This is gonna hurt," he mumbled, bracing himself for some kind of impact. Just to experiment, Ethan decided to try Infrared in the air conditions. "Infrared," he told the suit, and its computer complied. Ethan winced, millions of flashing white lights striking the ground, like a hail of ultra-bright lasers, on a background of incredibly bright purple blazing in his visor. "Normal," he cried, squinting in sight of the incredible color, trying not to be blinded by his visor. Damn rain ruins everything. The visor view switched back to normal and Ethan's vision was flooded with dancing purple flecks.
3 seconds - bearing 65 degrees
Wave after wave of adrenaline flowed through Ethan. A crosshair appeared on his visor, 65 degrees above where he presumed the ground zero mark would be. Trying to line his massive rifle sight up with the crosshair, Ethan overheard the network that controlled the firing sequence announced "FIRE" piercing through his concentration. Hands shaking madly, Ethan lined the rifle up and slammed his armored finger down on the trigger, unleashing an entire clip of ammo in less than a second.
Ethan followed the crosshair as it became closer and closer to ground zero, guided by the computer. The network that controlled the crosshairs was an ingenious invention, introduced several months ago by the Confederacy; A massive computer calculated where each soldier should be firing to maximize kills, which produced an easy-to-follow crosshair for the soldier to shoot at. The crosshair moved at a rather rapid pace, however - especially when an enemy line traveled quickly. The system was incredible, to say the least.
1 second - bearing 3 degrees
And thus the enemy capped the hill directly in front of the bunker, his crosshair disappearing as his enemy came into visual contact, about 40 meters from the bunker and closing fast. In the dark foggy sky, Ethan could only see moving objects, a sea of milling life, screaming towards his position. He ceased firing, allowing his rifle to cool, as a marine slammed his rifle into the railing next to him, opening fire in an orgasm of violence. The HUD readout changed:
6 seconds to impact
"Range!" someone cried, as another marine circled in on his right side, firing just like the previous. Ethan recognized him as Enrich '8-ball' Sanchez, from the crude pool-ball insignia sketched on his suit shoulder. Ethan felt his rifle cool rapidly through the suit's finger nerve-sensors, and pulled his trigger down once again on what appeared to be the enemy advance about 30 meters away. Burst after burst of fire ripped through the front of the wave, and Ethan could see hazy objects falling over throughout the advance, reducing the front line into a disorganized mass of figures. The Arclite Siege Tanks near the bunker opened fire with their 120mm 'Shock Cannon', an alternative, more powerful mode of attack that severely reduced the tanks' maneuverability. Fire ripped through the front line of aliens, illuminating the enemy charges with explosion.
5 seconds to impact
"Fire Range!" Grim cried, the marine on his left quickly replaced with a hulking Firebat soldier, the ultimate in short distance destruction. Twin flame-throwers opened up in a steady unyielding stream of hell itself, filling Ethan's vision of dog-sized insects with flames. Ethan let his rifle rest another half second.
4 seconds to impact
Ethan heard the opposite window to the bunker open fire, showering fire and lead. The enemy advance, now completely hidden by flames, seemed to slow the counter on Ethan's HUD, remaining at 5 and 4 seconds for more than it should have. In the distance, flashes of light mottled through the fog were sure signs of other bunkers opening fire.
3 seconds to impact
The siege tanks opposite to Ethan's window ripped off another salvo of fire from directly adjacent to the bunker, the machines slowly traveling backwards, away from the oncoming threat. The sound of alien screams and thousands of machine guns firing at once now snuffled the sound of Ethan's irregular breathing, like a gust blowing out a candle. The enemy line, about 10 meters away from the bunker, completely illuminated by flame, suddenly became entirely visible. Brown and black insects, at least the size of a large dog, they were covered in spines and mandibles, weaving in and out like hungry wolves. Their strangely intelligent, red eyes made him shiver, a knife sliding down his spine. Damn, I hate this. Another one fell, lost in a cloud of mud and fog.
2 seconds to impact
All four soldiers were now centered in Ethan's window, guns blazing at full tilt, fire rolling down the slight incline up to the bunker. Trenches behind the bunker began to fire, their thunderous fire in unison, like a death march. Thousands of bits of the ground lifted up, flying into the mottled air. Mottled not from fog, but from the sheer amount of metal coursing through the air, streaking the fog into wave patterns, covering the ground in what appeared to be a downpour, but was in actuality pure destruction.
1 second to impact
The first line of aliens, totally visible in the light of fire and numbering in the hundreds, was incinerated as a group of siege tank blasts pummeled the ground. Ethan felt the backdraft of high-pressure air meeting low, fire and smoke wafting into the open bunker window. If it were not for his suit, Ethan's ears would have blown from his head from the pressure change, his skin scorched and crisped. Although, he thought, without the suit, he would not be able to breathe the super-heated air surrounding the entire battlefield without singeing the contents of his chest. While Chau Sara usually remained at a nice 20 degrees Celsius at night and less than that during monsoon, the air around him now was surely at an incredible heat from the siege tanks' artillery blasts. His HUD recorded 64 Degrees average temperature, and had just skyrocketed to a blistering 358 Degrees upon contact with the super-heated vapor pouring in the bunker window from the blast. Ethan wondered what would happen when the aliens began charging the bunker - reinforced by incredible electric shockers, the aliens wouldn't be able to get in through the windows. Provided with some time, however, and Ethan was sure those mandibles and claws could surely rip through the bunkers rear-door. No time to think about that now - just hold down the trigger.
0 impact
Like a group of massive grasshoppers, the first eight aliens in the line catapulted up, descending on the bunker window. Three of them were shot down by fire from companions, two others wrought down in flames, hurling towards the ground not a meter in front of the bunker window, which was about 1 meter from the ground. Ethan pressed the trigger of his rifle harder, as if it would kill faster. Two of the dogs were shredded, invisible bullets ripping through their leathery hides. The bodies came hurling down, and landed directly in front of the window, slammed up against the sloped bunker outer-wall. Ethan glanced down at them, to see the eyes of Satin itself up close. He found no eyes, the bodies mutilated beyond comprehension. Another eight jumped, followed closely by another row. Ethan could now see the piles of scorched dead a few meters behind them, remnants of the siege tanks. The first eight fell, the next eight fell, all piling up just outside the window. One creature blocked Ethan's line of sight, so he reached out to push it over, but was suddenly reminded of the electrical barriers when his hand felt a very sharp tingle in the tips of the fingers. He withdrew his hand, and glanced to the left, catching eye of siege tanks being overrun by hundreds of sprinting aliens.
The next group came, and fell, and then another, and another, bodies piling up around the bunker. Slowly but surely, the aliens were gaining. Bodies of aliens began to fall right in front of Ethan's rifle barrel, blood splattering over his visor. Ethan was forced to back up, unclipping from the auto-ammo railing. His rifle was full, having been re-armed before clip-off. The LED on the side of the rifle read:
100 Rounds
100 rounds... Estimating 3 bursts per alien, Ethan could take on about twelve of the little buggers-assuming they didn't get to him first.
"Out!" A voice cried to his left, sounding a lot like a Cpl. Grim in distress. Ethan wheeled about in the cramped window, only to find the opposite window surrounded by aliens rushing past the bunker to some other objective, probably the eight-meter high wall directly behind the bunker. The sky, black as night, had cleared somewhat, and Chau's moon Fiona could be seen, its massive bodice hanging in the horizon. Silhouetted against it were alien shapes larger than anything Ethan had ever seen move on land.
"You heard him, let's get the hell out of here!" Ethan mumbled into his comm., sweat dripping from every inch of skin he had. Grim, clad in jet-black armor like the rest of the platoon, lumbered to the center of the barracks, into a small depression directly underneath the main bunker CPU. He bent down and unlatched the twist-exit, like that used on an ancient submarine, for total pressurization. The sound of metal scraping against metal nerved Ethan, but once the huge door had been swung upright; he felt a huge sense of relief - and danger. Cries from behind him had him spinning on his heel to face three aliens, all mauling the Firebat in the chest, ripping through his armor as the Firebat lighted up the bunker ceiling uselessly. "Die you sons of bitches!" Ethan cried out in disbelief at himself, jamming the trigger to his rifle harder than before, swinging the massive gun to bear on the aliens. Rounds chambered in his rifle, the familiar low-pitched chock sound, and then they let loose, fire from his mouth. The aliens fell after two bursts, and Sanchez joined in the fray, puncturing the Firebat's armor all over, though the soldier was obviously dead from the staring, open eyes. Crimson blood mixed with brown, and the bottom of the bunker became a pool for vampires.
"Come on," Grim stated, and Ethan complied with a rifle-nod. The two marines lumbered down the shafted ladder, backing in slowly, firing at the general direction of the window. Ethan arrived at the padlock door at the bottom first, hitting in the key number 006-789. '8-ball' came clambering down the ladder, dropping into the dim, smelly room, untouched by the carnage. Just as Grim's feet became visible down the ladder, a gurgling noise could be heard over the chatter of his rifle, as the chortled fire turned into clicks of an empty chamber, blood spilling down the ladder.
"Shit, get out!" Sanchez cried, his face filled with pain through the visor. Grim's mutilated body fell down the rest of the way, smashing on the floor, his face unrecognizable. The door computer complied and swung open, just as 8-ball launched a small hand held grenade up the ladder tube. They ran through the door as the tube light up, blinding anything facing the other way, shockwaves flowing down the tube. Ethan and 8-ball slammed the door shut behind them, it soundness totally reliable. "Holy shit," Sanchez exclaimed, letting out old air held in his lungs. "I can't believe they got through the electric shocks... I can't believe..."
"God knows. Hell alive for all I care. Let's get out of here," Ethan said hastily. 8-Ball agreed without saying so. The two marines clambered down the long corridor, which traveled under the outer-wall, and towards Nuark base. "God knows..."
Reaching the end of the corridor much faster than a normal un-armored human could, Ethan and his compatriot heaved themselves up the next ladder, which went directly outside into the vast array of trenches within the outer wall. What awaited them was a sight neither of them would forget.