"Vickers! You're insane!" Marius shouted.

He kicked the pistol across the floor as Banks, Nakano and them himself held him down to tie his hands.

"You'll thank me tomorrow scrub." Vickers laughed through gritted teeth "They had it comin'. Grade 1 TR chicken shit traitors."

"Tie him down." Marius clicked his fingers in front of Banks' face, who was locked stock still, staring at Fowler's shivering body.

"No need to fight me," Vickers grinned "Arrest me if you have to."

Fowler released a weak moan.

"Shit!" Vickers he shouted "Will someone finish him off?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you man?" Banks said, shaking his head in disbelief as he bound Vickers' wrists together with some spare wire in the truck storage area.

A crackle came over the radio.

"This is Sergeant Lyle," came the drawl "I just heard gunfire. Which of you chicken shits broke the rules?!" He shouted, seemingly exasperated.

Vickers now secure and silent, Marius turned to Fowler.

"Banks, do you think you could use the med-kit?"

"Yeah, sure man, I had basic training." He nodded, and immediately set to work.

Gregson's body rested heavily, blood-splattered on the wall, his head dripping red onto the floor. His eyes gazed lifelessly at him, a colourless grimace. Marius gagged, covered his mouth with sudden nausea. He had encountered death many times of course, but he rarely had to face smiling, ghoulish horrors that dripped in blood and gristle less than two metres from him. He staggered to the front cab of the Sunderer.

Nakano was now in the drivers seat, leaning back with her hands over her eyes, breathing heavily, seemingly trying to ignore the horror behind her, and the urge to vomit. But she was the only qualified Sunderer driver left.

"Naka..." Marius spoke softly "We need you now. Could you drive us to the base, as quick as possible?"

She nodded, closed her eyes for a second, and clambered gingerly to the driving seat.

"Sure, I can do it." She whispered stoically, with an air of renewed confidence. Naka could always be relied upon in a tight spot.

The Sunderer roared into life. Almost immediately, the radio crackled clearly once again.

"Sundie 043, respond NOW! We detect engine activity. Direct orders - turn off the damn truck this second and get in line."

Nakano shot into second gear, narrowly avoiding a squad of Terran heavies who were out smoking in the crisp morning air. They shouted in alarm as the truck accelerated past.

"Nighthawks, Sunderer 043 is rogue." Came a panicked cry over the radio "Repeat! It's rogue! Don't let it get away! Open fire, blow it to hell, dammit!"

The Sunderer swerved around a large rock formation, throwing Marius into the wall. Behind them dozens of horns and engines fired into life. The Tumas plain opened up before them. Warm orange light burned through the early morning mist to bathe the base in an ominous, dancing flame. The Sunderer was heading straight for it, less than a kilometre away. It bounced over the small rocks and mounds that peppered the rough grassland, throwing Alpha squad from side to side. Vickers, arms and legs bound, rolled uselessly along on the metal floor.

"You gonna let me fight, Acre?" He growled in frustration "Better than lettin' me lie down here doin' nothin'."

"Shut up Vickers," Marius exploded with unrepressed rage "I'll have you court martialed before I let you go."

Vickers laughed and spat on the floor.

"Ungrateful bastard."

Before he could riposte, a blast rocked the truck, making Marius jump in panic.

"Banks, if he's sealed up, forget Fowler for now, get up in the front turret!" Marius shouted.

"Yessir!" he replied. He dropped the med-gun and left the young medic lying on the floor, alive but still bleeding from a roughly-sealed wound. He scrambled up the front ladder to the front M20 turret.

"Marius!" Naka shouted from the driver's seat. "I don't think we're gonna make it. The Harassers - they're too fast!"

"I'll get on it!" Marius shouted at the top of his voice above the straining engine "Banks! Take out those buggies!"

Marius jumped up onto the second ladder and into the gunnery port. He had a 360° view of the morning light drifting lazily over the plain. Behind them on both sides, three Harassers were gaining on the truck, their light frames bounding over the field. In front of Alpha Squad stood a mound of boulders, several small stones resting on a five metre-tall giant brown rock. And behind it, a copse of thick trees. The perfect cover for a retreating Sunderer.

A missile roared past the turret, missing by metres, showering the viewport in dust and ash.

"Just get us to that rock formation, Naka." Marius shouted into his headset over the tumult. "The NC will see us and come to get us, no doubt. Their turrets will blow the Terrans apart!"

As if on cue, the base turrets sprang into life, aiming directly at and behind the Sunderer on the field below. Marius could see them tracking the movement of predator and prey for a few seconds, before thumping the air with bright flashes and the shake of heavy rounds that pounded the soil less than 200m in front of the speeding Sunderer.

"Oh shit," Marius cursed his own short-sightnedness "they think we're Terrans too!"

Another Harasser missile swung past the side of the truck. Banks started to open fire, puncturing the hull of the lead buggy with 20mm rounds. It veered left and right to avoid the barrage.

Marius swivelled in his seat and lined up the crosshair on the same vehicle. The mottled grey and green camo was smashed by a barrage of machine gun rounds. The driver swerved out of the path of the fire, but not soon enough to avoid the bullets crunching through the front left wheel, sending it skidding horizontally to a halt in a plume of dust.

BOOM!

The explosion threw Marius from his seat. The Sunderer seemed to skid, and slow down almost to a halt. The gunnery pod filled with thick smoke. His sights now useless, Marius leapt down the ladder, coughing as tears filled his eyes. A gaping hole greeted him where the left side of the back door had been blown clear away. The chasing wolf pack were clearly visible through the smouldering embers. Straining his shaken body, Marius dragged Fowler, Isla and Vickers clear away from the exit as far as he could manage as the truck swayed from side to side.

"Let me go, kid!" Vickers cried, still prostrate on the floor "Let me fight!"

Marius ignored him and scrambled to pick up a Terran carbine from the floor. He took aim through the back door, cursing as he wiped away the blood dripping into his eyes. The Prowler tanks were catching up.

"Prowlers Naka! Their coming! We need to go faster!" he panted over the screaming engine.

Marius staggered to the front. Nakano's knuckles were white on the wheel.

"We can't!" she cried.

"OK," his mind whirred "Get behind that rock there and through the trees - there's cover until the base."

"I'll try!" She gasped as yet another missile swooped past the windscreen.

"We can make it Naka, air support is here." He put a shaking hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure her. "See?"

Ahead of them a trio of Reavers closed on the mass of Terran vehicles. Machine gun fire pattered over the roof of the Sunderer.

"They're attacking us too!" Naka shouted in panic.

"Just get us to the rock! We'll be fine - trust me."

His optimism sounded hollow, even to him. He ran back to the back door just in time to see the heavy machine guns tear through the windscreen of another Harasser, the driver replaced by a splatter of blood on the windscreen.

BANG!

The truck lurched to the side as the thunder clap broke. The Sunderer screeched, he turned to the front just in time to see the windscreen smash and the front of the cab fill with smoke. Nakano desperately swung the wheel and the world turned upside down. Marius felt himself falling and he slammed into the metal, equipment and bodies falling all around him.

SCREEECH!

Finally, they were stopped. Marius spluttered for a second in amongst the dust and smoke. He found himself lying on the roof. Disoriented, his head was spinning in the darkness. But the roar of Prowler engines outside knocked him to his senses almost immediately. He jumped to his feet. Nakano was struggling to unlatch herself from her seatbelt, hanging upside down a metre above Marius' head.

"I'll - I'll catch you!" Marius wheezed, still winded from the blow.

"You'd better!" her voice echoed through the truck. She swung gracefully a full 180° to end the right way up, each arm gripping one side of the seat belt. She released her grip and dropped downwards, clattering into Marius, who fell backwards into the wall. Nakano, rapidly regaining her footing, offered him her hand.

"Not helpful!" Turning, she gave him a faint smirk, brushing back her shoulder-length black hair. Blushing, Marius retrieved his carbine.

Machine gun fire strafed the bottom carriage of the upturned truck. Making them both duck. Nakano stared at him with an air of expectation.

"So, Marius. What now?!"

Dazed and likely concussed, he found himself tongue-tied and out of ideas.

An explosion sounded nearby, and the chassis echoed with bouncing earth and shrapnel. Then he noticed something bright in amongst the scattered belongings and weaponry littering the crushed roof. Lying perfectly flat as if purposefully placed, his old, battered yellow and blue New Conglomerate flag. It must have fallen from his MAX personal storage container where he had hidden it days before. Nakano stared at it in disbelief, then at him.

"You carried that stupid flag to the Terran warpgate?!"

He winced sheepishly. Marius had carried that flag with him across three continents. He knew it was stupid, but it was perhaps his last symbol of loyalty to the NC cause... But to carry it into the Terran warpgate.

"Yeah, that was pretty dumb," he admitted.

Suddenly, he had a crazy idea. There was still one, small hope. He snatched up the battered flag and made his way to the smashed windscreen.

"If the NC Reavers can see this flag, maybe they'll realise we're not Terrans. It's the only way. Stay here."

Nakano tugged on his sleeve.

"Don't think you're going out there without me." She stared at him expectantly, her big, brown yet stern eyes giving no room for argument. Hoisting two rifles to her shoulder, she began to follow him through the broken glass on her hands and knees.

Marius shook his head.

"No, you'll be safer here."

Nakano laughed mockingly at his pathetic attempt at chivalry. He felt his face reddening.

"Shut up Marius, I'm not a kid. Besides, you're useless without me!"

She was probably right.

"Get up here!" Marius pulled Nakano up to a nearby rock, halfway up the huge boulder formation. They lay prone, watching for their opportunity.

The early morning sun bled down on the pockmarked field. The whoosh of a Reaver engine bounced back and forth as it duelled with the two remaining Harassers. The base turrets still pounded ineffectually, their ordnance landing fifty metres too short of their crippled truck. A line of four Prowlers fired round after round into the boulders shielding the Sunderer from the coup de grace, making the earth shake with regular shudders, lighting up the dawn sky with bright flashes just 20 metres away from them. Less than one hundred metres away, a Terran Sunderer was deploying, with light and heavy assault troops spilling out of every side. Aiming their rifles up at the rock formation, they started jogging towards their position. Marius figured they surely had thirty seconds they would be completely surrounded.

The TAK TAK of heavy machine gun fire raked the rocks. They had already been spotted.

"They can see us! Get down!"

An NC Reaver, taking a few hits from machine gun fire, let off a few more shrieking rockets to towards the buggies that weaved across the plain. The fighter disengaged, circling back around to face the rock formation on which Marius and Nakano lay. Suddenly, it spotted the paralysed Sunderer laying upside down in the dust. It stopped, buzzing the rock as if curious, circling the wreckage.

"OK, now!" Marius shouted.

The two of them scrabbled up to the top of the tallest boulder, perhaps five metres above the ground. Without pausing for thought, Marius leapt up, throwing the New Conglomerate flag above his head, Nakano beside him, also waving her hands in desperation. Bullets whizzed closer and closer to his head, Nakano grabbed his hand like a vice. Marius heard the Prowler turrets aiming upwards...

The Reaver twitched between the two exposed targets, as if confused which one to consume first. The bright blue and yellow symbol of the New Conglomerate fluttered in the cold morning air. Finally, the Reaver banked to the side, seemed to nod in recognition, and then twisted to face the Prowler column. A salvo of missiles forced the tanks to break their assault path, and instead they turned their machine guns to the sky to in a desperate attempt to deter this aerial threat. The Reaver fired its afterburners and swooped high into the air.

"Did it work?!" Nakano shouted, tearing Marius back down to the ground next to her.

"I don't know." Marius peered through the rifle scope to the base. His heart sank as the shadowy silence of the New Conglomerate base continued.

"No!" Nakano cried, seemingly in desperation "They must have seen us?! Why don't they do anything?!"

Tears welled up in his eyes. A Prowler shell smacked dully into the other side of the rock, he grabbed onto the boulder with sweating palms in desperation. He turned to look at Nakano's petrified face, cut and bruised in several places.

"Naka, in case we... don't make it out of here, I just want to say -"

"Look! The gates!" she cried, ignoring him completely and pointing excitedly at the base.

The blue gates of the tech plant shuddered. Several large silhouettes strobed through the bright light. A line of five Vanguard tanks rumbled straight towards the boulder. Turning their gleaming turrets to face the quartet of Prowlers, they simultaneously opened fire.

Bright white orbs streaked from the base. The shells slammed into the earth in front of the Prowlers. Smoke piled up next to them, their turrets grinding noisily to face this new threat. With pounding thuds, they blasted shells in return. Their shells screeched through the air, casting smoking arcs in the sky. Just before impact, the NC Vanguards activated their shielding as one unit, the blasts bouncing off the shimmering blue protection harmlessly like stones skipping over water. As their barrage continued to strike the Vanguards to little effect, the brown and green Prowler column realised that had only seconds to save their own lives, ground to a complete halt, and soon began a messy retreat, their drivers in disarray as they desperately swerved in all directions to avoid crashing into one another.

"They're coming for us! They're saving us!" Nakano shrieked in delight. Marius' heart jumped as she threw her arms around his shoulders.

The Vanguard shells continued to rain down upon the reversing convoy. One Prowler lost both cannons in a loud CRASH and SNAP. A second collapsed outwards in a thunderclap of metal plating and flames. The remaining battered vehicles reversed full speed in desperation, backing around the corner of a steep hill that Alpha squad had rounded just minutes before. The air filled with the smell of burning metal and the rumbling of Vanguard tracks. The last Terran Sunderer was left stranded in the middle of the field as shells fell down upon it. The few Terran soldiers who had the misfortune to respawn in the middle of this hellish crossfire were obliterated in a final massive explosion that doused Marius and Nakano in a wave of intense heat.

Marius lay on top of the giant boulder, his chest shaking as the final Harasser sped around the corner. The two of them panted immobile for what seemed like eternity, grasping onto the top of the rock as if it was the only thing holding them in place. When they finally raised their head again the five Vanguards had surrounded the felled Sunderer in a protective circle. His hands shaking, he hurled his Terran rifle off the rocks. Marius and Nakano, hand in hand, wept softly amongst the drifting smoke.

#

Fowler was still alive, but critical. Vickers and Banks had both been knocked out by the Sunderer's barrel roll. Isla, on the other hand, had been knocked into wakefulness, tears streaming down her face as the Tumas Vanguard tank crews carried her out, her matted hair and pale arms red.

A few NC technicians had arrived on maintenance Flashes to commence the grim work of cleaning the wreckage. The whole inside of the truck was covered in blood. Gregson's body lay on its side on the upturned roof, a horrible snarl gripping his grey face.

"Now it ain't none of my business ta go questionin' your business." Came the gruff voice of the tank commander as members of Tumas armoured brigade hauled Gregson's limp body from the wreckage.

"But whatever the hell was goin' on in this truck, yer gonna hafta 'splain it back at base. For now, I'll believe that this big guy was Terran."

"He did it." Marius pointed at Vickers, his hand shaking with anger. He was also unconscious, his head lolling under the strained grip of four strong tank crewmen "Don't let him out of your sight. He's lost it. He's insane."

The tanker offered a hand to Nakano from the top of the tank. She barely glanced at him as she noiselessly leapt onto the hull. Marius staggered a few steps behind, struggling to haul himself up the sharp step. The gruff, broad tanker hauled him up by the cuff of his neck.

"Thanks," Marius stuttered, embarrassed. "We need to see Commander Harrison immediately. We have an urgent message from Lieutenant Landiss at Nott Amp Station, Esamir."

The tanker shrugged.

"Alright, I'll call it in. What's the message?"

"It's classified," Marius said, "we need to see him in person. Now."