Author Note: Glad to see last chapter so well recieved. Truth be told I was worried my portrayal of Brendon didn't come over right, but I see that was a worry in vain. I should note that it was Revv, not Alex, that was at Gibraltar. Alex's armor and his Wraith are carved with skulls, while Revv is the one with humans burning in purgation and hellfire. Also, Revv has a Spectre, if Alex had been there he would have had his sword, which is like the Vengeance's, while the one at Gibraltar was using a double glaive polearm. Asmus noted that the Edenite officers kind of make targets of themselves, by taking center stage of attacks and pimping up their armor. All I can say is that's pretty much their warrior culture peeking through, they lead very much by personality and personal exploits, very "hero units", not many Edenites would follow someone who commands from the rear unless its a figure of tremendous reverence, such as Kunai. Will that make them targets? You bet. But that's just how they are. As for Legio Rhinobeast and their attack... well, that was a pretty heavy concentration of GreenCo in those ranks, they thought they could steamroll the "Stumps". If they'd made it into the city and base proper, they might even have made a good go at it. I mean, it was the same strategy, in essence, that Legio Direcat used to great effect. And their totemic animal is a cross between a warthog and a rhino... not much room for subtlety there.

xxxx

New Eden, Garden City, Custodial Headquarters, November 20th

Panner watched the immense, broad shouldered form of Strategos Magnus Ullric, the famous "Garm Breaker" of Legio Garm and commander in chief of the Custodian forces, pace back and forth on the stage to the front of the debriefing chamber, his every motion reminding her of a caged Garm just before it snaps and bites someone's face off. Panner, along with the leaders of the other Legios, all of Strategos Minoris or Strategos ranking, had been called for a war council meeting to address the results of the first few engagements with the invading USN forces. Many of them had come directly from the field where their Legio's were deployed, and the crowded room resounded with the cloack of borealite on borealite and the rub of exotic leathers as the Legio commanders shifted and jostled, all of them uncomfortable under Ullric's gimlet stare. Even those like Panner, who had enjoyed exemplary success against their chosen targets, destroying expansion abses or ambushing convoys and driving the pathetic Stumps into the forest to die, felt shades of unease as Ullric paced and glared, his fists bunching angrily at his sides.

In truth there was much to be uneasy about, because Legio Rhinobeast, in a bold... some said insane... move had decided to forego striking at the USN's expansions and made a play to knock out the primary USN base in the Africa-Middle East region, Gibraltar, which if successful might have sent the USN stumbling on the defensive in that theatre for the rest of the foreseeable war. However, audacious as the plan was, it was ultimately doomed to failure for any one of several reasons, not least being Rhinobeast's hubris and refusal to coordinate the attack with Megadon or Kraken, the other two Legio's in that theatre, intent on hogging all the glory and acclaim for themselves... a very Rhinobeast method of thinking, but no less stupid for it being in their character. Even with a pair of Praetorians, including the notorious Revv, in support, the Rhinobeast attack had become the first... and largest... military disaster of Garden City's record.

Revv and a very small selection of stragglers had managed to flee from the well executed USN trap before it fully closed, but a mere handful of survivors from a Legio that had once numbered more than a thousand combat ready soldiers and more than thirty Dervishes along with most of Garden City's heavier armored vehicles was a catastrophic loss by any standard of measure, especially considering a Praetorian had been lost as well! Estimates gleaned from Revv and the other survivors indicated as much as three quarters of Rhinobeast had been annihilated by combinations of orbital bombardment, regular artillery from ground and naval sources and an overwhelming rush by massed USN Mobile Suits, with the remaining quarter almost certainly captured, along with several intact vehicles and plentiful examples of arms and armor, a haul certain to be much enjoyed by the USN scientists! Just about the only bright side to the entire fiasco was that the Spectre and Dervishes had been blasted to smithereens by overexuberance on the part of the enemy, so there would be little to glean from the corpses of the Edenite Mobile Suits.

With Rhinobeast obliterated, the African theatre and the Custodians as a whole had lost their heaviest shock and assault specialists, leaving the less heavily armed and more specialized Megadon and Kraken legios to hold the line against an emboldened USN fresh from an overwhelming victory. If Strategos Aramis, master of Rhinobeast, was not desperately trying not to spill his guts in a USN torture chamber, or else buried in a shallow grave, Ullric would have had his head on a stick for leading such a disaster! Perhaps even literally... Ullric had won his reputation and nickname by wrestling and killing wild Garms with his bare hands after all, savagry was something of his calling card! Especially so early on in a conflict with a largely untested military, when stringing together victories would bolster his own force's resolve while accustoming the enemy to the taste of defeat! Now, despite the success of other Legio's, the loss of Rhinobeast had cast a heavy pall over the spirits of the entire Custodian Order, and that wasn't even going into what the civilians were feeling! The Wind was sour with ill restrained panic and distress!

At last Ullric ceased his prowling and stood in the center of the stage, his baleful gold on yellow eyes all but glowing in the dimness with his restrained fury. We all know what happened. Ullric sent without preamble, clearly too furious to trust himself to speak in less than a roar. And if we don't turn things around very quickly indeed, pups, we might as well send our heads on silver platters up to the Moon and hope someone else can do a better job! I dearly hope no one else is entertaining any more thoughts of heaping themselves with personal glory by attempting a solo charge against the most heavily fortified base in their theatre. They may just be Stumps but this is WAR, and if there is one thing the Stumps are good at, it is WAR! So then, can anyone tell me what we can do to avoid another travesty like Aramis gave us?

"We need to expand our tactical doctrine." Panner was the first to speak. Somewhat surprised at her own forcefulness, since she was usually more of a wait and see, hide and pounce at the right moment sort of girl, she forged on under the intense gaze of Ullric and the psychic pressure of the attention of her peers. "We have a standard set of maneuvers that we used to great initial success, such as sending in infiltrators and elite units to hamstring the enemy support while holding the attention of the majority of defenders with high speed shock and awe forces such as cavalry, while our main forces close the gap and sweep to overwhelm. But we underestimated our foe's ability to adapt quickly to such tactics, and what ended as a victory for my Legio turned into a deathtrap for Rhinobeast, though our strategy was very similar."

"Indeed, I am troubled by the cohesion that was reported among enemy units at Gibraltar, including such usually disparate forces as naval and space warships providing quick and accurate supporting fire for their ground forces and Mobile Suits." Strategos Minoris Jacques, of Legio Kraken added, the mane of finger thick, arm length tentacles that covered his warhelm rustling as he nodded his head for emphasis. "We of Kraken strive to emulate the coiling focus of the Kraken's ten tentacles, but even we could not have pulled off a smoother combined arms operation than what took down Rhinobeast. If we must deal with constant overwatch from powerful warships in orbit, getting any significant ground attack going will be very difficult indeed."

"It was almost Manifold like..." Strategos Rachel, of Legio Basilisk mused. "At first they seemed to crumple and scatter, just as Panner and Direcat witnessed in their own attack. But then their tactical capability completely turned around and Rhinobeast was outmaneuvered and trapped in a matter of seconds. Given that we have not witnessed such a high degree of tactical skill in all conflicts, I suspect that whatever system they have devised is limited in its capacity to respond to threats. If I were they, I would most certainly assign this tactical booster to any major offensive, and if that turns out to be the case, we may well have discovered a means to negate the advantage."

"I fail to see what you mean, Basilisk." The Strategos of Legio Ironhide, the remaining heavy assault experts of the Order and a longtime friend of Aramis of Rhinobeast, said in a rumbling growl.

"She means, oh adamnt lummox, that while their tactical boosting is in effect during an offensive, it cannot be utilized elsewhere, such as to defend an important base." Strategos Vincent, of Legio Cold Hunter half spat, enjoying the opportunity to point out the tactical shortcomings of his fellows. Legio Cold Hunter was famous for its mastery of feints and guerilla warfare, and though he regretted the loss of Rhinobeast, truly, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of grandstanding oafs, in his opinion. Ignoring the scowl from his peer, Vincent continued his sneering explanation, idly scraping the trophy scythe-claws mounted to his gauntlets together, the claws taken from Cold Hunters he had personally stalked and slain on solo hunts, an accomplishment generally reserved for the Praetorians from sheer danger involved. "So that means they will be forced to choose whether they wish to properly coordinate their attack or their defense, one or the other, not both. So we wait for them to commit themselves, and that is when we strike, hard."

"I don't like the idea of sitting on the defensive while we wait for them to attack us." Strategos Minoris Megadon grumbled. "The Megadon is a hunter, not an ambusher."

"By all means, hunt, you bloodthirsty minnow." Strategos Rachel replied breezily. "But don't stray from the depths, less you find yourself hooked and fileted!"

"On the more practical side, we should probably continue harassing attacks against their expansion bases. Megadon is right, we can't just sit back and let them do whatever they want." Panner cut in before Legio rivalry could rear its ugly head. "We can utilize hit and run, bait and switch, ambushes, whatever sort of indirect combat we feel necessary, but we should not commit ourselves in any force unless we intend to follow through all the way. With constant harassing attacks we can also stay abreast on their troop movements and deployments, and it should be possible to determine where their heavy blows will fall while they are still in preparation."

"Direcat speaks the truth." Vincent backed her up at once, though relationships between Cold Hunter and Direcat had never been more than cool at best, despite their similar combat doctrines, or maybe because of it. "And once we know where they intend to strike, we can either reinforce or evacuate as the need arises, while at the same time preparing our simultaneous counterstrike against a primary target, such as their headquarters or their primary resupply point, Orb. That is how we will win this war, with cold, logical planning and tactics, not hot blooded grandstanding and brute force."

"Just because some of us have slush for blood doesn't mean we're all so cold and dead inside." Strategos Ironhide grunted in return. "When I witness injustice and atrocity, I moved to do something about it, not merely sit by and turn my head away!"

"Fine, then sacrifice yourself in pursuit of your nobility, just don't expect Cold Hunter to come to your rescue when the USN have you boxed into a trap a Oxiphant could have seen coming from two miles downwind!" Vincent retorted caustically.

"Fear not, lizard, I'd not have called for your aid if you were the only one alive to give it. I'd hate for you to break a claw sticking your neck out for someone other than yourself."

"CEASE THIS BICKERING!" Ullric howled, shocking them all into silence. "I will not tolerate this backbiting among my commanders! We are the Custodians, first and foremost, before we are any one Legio! We are all brothers and sisters of the same great Manifold! If you don't believe you can bear that in mind, speak up now and I will find a replacement for you!" Ullric eyed the dead silent, and hopefully chastened group of officers. "Consulting with Kunai and the Consols, who have been closeted within The Heartwood for several days now, I have recieved word that the future Yggdrasil now percieves has the USN mounting a major attack upon Urbanis City in Africa before the end of the month! In response to this, I am transferring Direcat from the Asian theatre to replace Rhinobeast, and Ironhide from the European theatre to further bolster our forces in the theatre! Megadon and Kraken will continue harassing attacks against the enemy expansion bases, Direcat will attack targets of opportunity and Ironhide will begin preparing defensive formations at Urbanis, while providing what training they can to the militia forces there."

Ullric fired up the holoprojector behind him as he continued to outline overall strategy. "The enemy desires Urbanis because it used to be the site of a Mass Driver, and much of the facilities of the Victoria Spaceport remain in an easily restored state. Though the Mass Driver itself lies in ruins, with access to the industry of Urbanis and their own supplies, we figure the USN could have a second Mass Driver and world class Spaceport operational in a matter of months, allowing them to more than double the rate of their deployment of heavy material to the surface and granting them much increased redeployability options as they use the Mass Driver to relaunch forces into orbit to come down either at Carpentaria or Heaven's Base. As you may imagine, this increase in flexibility for our enemies would spell many complications for us in a protracted war, so it cannot be allowed to happen."

"When we beging recieving intelligence that the attack is nigh, Legio Basilisk and Legio Rex Elk will transfer from the Europe and Asia theatres to reinforce Legio Ironhide and the Urbanis Militia at Urbanis. They will be charged with holding off the enemy and drawing as much of their focus as possible, including this new tactical booster, while Legio's Direcat, Megadon and Kraken perform a combination amphibious landing and raid of Gibraltar. The goal is to destroy as much of the base infastructure and especially heavy equipment such as naval or land warships as possible. Also a priority will be obtaining an unused sample of the USN's so called "MAIDEN" weapon, the devastating effects of which have already been demonstrated too many times. However the substance destroys itself during operation, so in order to reverse engineer and devise countermeasures to it, we need some samples that have not yet been activated, and from intelligence gathered at expansion bases, we have learned that the deactivated product is only stored at primary theatre headquarters in a secure facility. Once you have done as much damage as you can within time constraints, and secured the MAIDEN sample, the three Legio's will sweep down and attempt to take the USN offensive in the flanks, hopefully breaking up their attack or even crushing them against the anvil of Urbanis."

"Meanwhile, Legio's Cold Hunter and Spider Wolf will have their work cut out for them convincing the enemy in the Asian and European theatres that they still face a significant portion of our forces until it is too late for the enemy to redeploy. Once we have crippled the African theatre, we will then turn our attention to Carpentaria and Orb. It appears the enemy still remains ignorant of the location of Garden City, no doubt thanks to Yggdrasil's interventions, but we have to assume they will eventually discover us and then they will come for us with all their might. I would prefer if they had to come from Europe, rather than only a thousand miles off our southern coast. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Until then, you are dismissed to make the appropriate preparations. Be mindful that there will be a rather large Praetorian force operating in the area as well, as ever, be sure to give them as much help as you can without compromising your effectiveness to the overall plan. Though I know not what Kunai entirely has in mind, I do not doubt it will provide great dividends for us all. To Serve and Protect, my pups."

"For the Tree and the People!" They replied, as one, united once more in purpose and intent.

xxxx

Lunar Orbit, Flag Stateroom aboard the Remembrance, November 20th

"So what is your opinion of how the war is going so far, Talia?" Gil asked, propped comfortably against the mound of pillows at one end of the bed, the silky fine sheets of the most prestigious warship stateroom in all of ZAFT pulled up to his waist to cover his nakedness. Talia was next to him, her body still hot against his in the wake of their lovemaking, her head pillowed on his chest just under his arm, her hand tracing idle patterns on the bedsheets as she basked in the afterglow of their too infrequent time together. This hadn't even been a planned rendevous, just a sudden opening in both of their schedules that miraculously coincided with Gil doing a military review of the Lunar Fleets, which included ZAFT's forces, and viola, they managed to set aside almost eight hours of personal time for themselves, the most they'd had in the same room on a personal level in years. Once again, Gil wondered, as he always did in the wake of one of their trysts, why they hadn't decided to make this relationship formal and permanent already?

"I thought we agreed not to talk politics in bed?" Talia reminded him wryly, though she did open her lidded eyes more fully as she turned her brain to the task of answering his question. At times like this, Talia always wondered just how much official impact her decidedly unofficial opinions might have. Gil was pretty exemplary about keeping their personal life out of his work, but on the other hand it was unlikely very many people had opinions that were more important to Gil than hers, especially on matters within her sphere of expertise. Truth be told she had been searching for an opening to bring up a somewhat unpleasant issue, and now seemed as good a time as any, with them both relaxed and friendly after several hours of passion following a romantic dinner with just the two of them. Not that Gil was the sort to suddenly fly off the handle even when he was pre-irritated, but since her concern was about something personal, in a way, she thought it best that Gil be in a good mood anyway.

Gil shrugged helplessly at her, relieved that her smile was biting only in a teasing manner. With his mind always so focused on the big picture he was slowing painting, a picture that framed out the course of human destiny for the next dozen centuries at least, he was finding it hard to tone himself down and just be Gil Durandel, the man, and not Solar President Durandel, even with just the woman he loved around. About that time was when he realized the answer to his previous idle wonderment, as he always did. He and Talia already were married... each to their own career, and those relationships didn't have time for more than the occassional outside fling or pleasant diversion, and neither of them was the sort of person who could just lay down a life they'd invested so much effort in creating, even for the person they loved. It was almost Shakespearean in tragic scope, Gil reflected, indulging in a moment of bitterness as Talia collected her thoughts. Lovers always fated to be distant from the arms of their partner, a divide created by the sweat of their own honest labor.

"As far as the basic course of the war, its going more or less along the lines I expected it to." Talia said at last. "Our initial landings were unopposed, along with much of our initial expansion, and progress was swift. But now the Edenites have begun pushing back, and expansion rates have slowed dramatically, even turned negative in some areas where expansion bases are destroyed faster than they can be rebuilt. Then there is the attrition from environmental causes such as the flora and fauna and lack of proper living and relaxation quarters, and we have a sure recipe for morale problems among soldiers spending a great deal of time on the front lines, many of whom are getting their first taste of combat by getting their butts kicked by a superior armed and armored Edenite force." Talia saw that Gil was about to interject, and she silenced him with a raised finger and a quick kiss on his lips.

"None of that is entirely unexpected either. And there have been moments of great success, such as the abortive attack by the Edenite unit upon Gibraltar that was so well handled by the TAS Center. You'd have to be blind and living under a rock not to have heard about that "critical victory" playing round the clock on the news lately. The boost to morale from an unconditional victory like that, not to mention the trickle down effects from technological progress from salvaging their gear, is enormous and nothing could gainsay that." Talia braced herself as she got to the meat of her thoughts. "But all the same I cannot help but be very concerned with how the war effort is being managed and led, Gil."

"Managed and led? Rare to hear you speaking out against superior officers, Talia." Gil pointed out, hoping she could tell he was teasing her back, her starchy respect for rules and regulations, at least as pertaining to the chain of command, being a constant amiable joke between them. "Other than that buffoon Icarus of course. Tell me, what has that twit done this time?"

"I wish it was Icarus I was complaining about. God only knows that with friends like him we hardly need enemies." Talia replied, steeling herself for the plunge. "But my concerns are mostly about Rey, Gil."

Gil was silent for several long seconds, mulling things over in his mind. Talia had never had a relationship with Rey like his own, she was just "Gil's girlfriend" to him, but he'd always felt there was a current of respect and admiration between his lover and his adopted son, camraderie born from their mutual interest in the military arts and as accomplished commanders if nothing else. So it was doubtful that this was some sort of personal rancour, as much as his suddenly clenched heart desired it to be, but rather a legitimate professional concern from Captain Talia Gladys of ZAFT. "About Rey?" Gil said slowly, almost hesitantly. "What do you mean?"

"He's changed." Talia said at once, and then extrapolated. "I mean, he's been slowly changing for a while now, years, ever since you chose him to lead the Solar Knights against the Brotherhood, but its been really pronounced these last few months leading up to the declaration of war. At first I thought it was just the standard bit of final stages of maturity as he grew to meet the challenges of his role as Paladin-Commander, but ever since he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Reclamation of Earth, he's been... off. Different. Aggresive and confrontational, in a detrimental way. His conduct during the strategy meeting in Orb was... disgraceful, and I'm sorry there's no better way to put it. But he was rude to our important allies, dismissive of legitimate tactical and strategic questions and outright arrogant about anyone daring to think his plan was less than perfect. He wasn't acting like the Rey I know you've guided him to be. It was almost like he was a stranger... he even started daydreaming during one discussion and had to be visible nudged out of it!"

Talia turned her head up to gaze Gil in the eyes. "I know its none of my business, but is there some sort of stress in Rey's personal life or something? I've known him to be brash and a bit overconfident in the past, but that was just the nature of youth, and I thought he'd learned from his mistakes against the Brotherhood. But now he appears to be backsliding, and fast, and since he is my superior officer now, that concerns me very much, Gil. We can't have someone who is crumbling at the edges while living in a partial fantasy world giving orders to a majority of the USN military. Maybe I'm overreacting, in fact I hope I am, but maybe you should take Rey aside and have a talk with him, see if you can't help him straighten out whatever his problem is? You're his father, you might be the only one that can reach him without totally squashing his pride." Talia recalled the way that Rey had glared at her during one stage of the conference, and could not help but shiver a bit. "I wish I was lying, but I'm afraid to confront him myself, Gil."

"Rey has been a bit... distant lately." Gil admitted after a few moments, his arm tightening around Talia to banish her shivering. "I had assumed it was because he was putting all his focus into his duties, but there are a few concerns that have been bothering me, personal matters I have refrained from intervening in because I respect his privacy, but sadly I may not have the option of remaining polite, given what you have said." Gil took his free hand out from under the sheets and grasped Talia's free hand tightly as he held her against his side. "I fear Rey may be inadvertantly being drawn into a plot to undermine and eventually even usurp my position as Solar President, orchestrated by some of my less scrupulous advisors. Growing up as he has, he's lacked a strong maternal presence in his life, despite your laudable attempts, and that has evolved into a general weakness when women become involved. His disasterous romance with the Lunamaria Hawke girl in the latter stages of the Eden Disaster just compounded matters, his first love, denied so tragically. Logic and reason may rule Rey most of the time, but when women are around, he tends to act on impulse and emotion, usually to his regret."

Talia stiffened in shock, staring up at him, amazed at how unruffled and casual he sounded. "There's an actual plot against you, from within the ranks of your top advisors?" She asked, aghast at the idea. She felt him chuckle, though there wasn't much humor in it. "That's no laughing matter, Gil!"

"There have been dozens of plots against me ever since the end of the Eden Disaster, Talia, many of which were conceived by powerful figures within my administration. Its one of the downsides to being the face of the USN. However, this plot differs from most in that it seems quite personal, almost like a vendetta, rather than a purely political or economic motivated power play." Gil paused, considering whether he should go into more detail and risk getting Talia involved in matters out of her expertise. His lovely Captain was a brilliant star in the field of warship and Mobile Suit tactics, but she was no politician and she would be as a baby mouse in the woods to the ravenous snakes that were his advisors. The conspirators had already shown they had no problem in attacking him through indirect means, such as the ongoing seduction of Rey, so any overt move by Talia in his defense would only draw the predators onto her without means for her to defend herself. And though he loved her to death, his Captain was not the most subtle of people, especially where politics was concerned, and she wasn't the sort to stand idly by either, even if she was out of her league.

"I probably don't even want to know who these advisors are, do I?" Talia asked, divining his line of thought easily enough. "You're worried they'd squish me like a bug if they thought it would get to you, right?"

"The people I'm worried about would do much worse than merely squish you like a bug." Gil told her, in total seriousness. "And it WOULD get to me, my love. Which is why I cannot let you get any more involved than you already are. In fact it would probably be best if you avoided Rey for the time being, duty permitting. I fear he may be deeper in their influence than I thought, and he knows all too well how important you are to me. I am still confident that his primary loyalty remains with me... a life of loyalty doesn't come unglued in a mere few years... but he may come after you if provoked, or if he feels provoked." Gil considered a bit more and then decided to risk it and go on. "And if you happen to have a chance to get in the good graces of FEAR, that may be a good tactical move even if it is offensive on a personal level."

"Perhaps I could even act as bait?" Talia suggested. "If they are trying to strike at you through Rey, I'm sure they'd leap at a chance to get "dirty secrets" relayed to them by your lover. You could feed them false information and I could establish myself as valuable to them without exposing myself to the risk of being used as a hostage... who would stick their neck out for a lover that obviously betrayed you after all?"

"This is what I was afraid of." Gil admitted darkly. "You're trying to get involved in things that are much more dangerous than you know. These aren't the sort of people that would take you hostage and demand a passing vote or a pile of money and then return you safe and sound. These people would make you disappear and mail me bits and pieces of your body they'd hacked off with surgical tools until I became their puppet. I know you want to help, and I appreciate it, Talia, but I can't let you."

"I figured you'd say something like that." Talia sighed. "And you're probably right, Gil. But don't you dare forget that if this ever becomes less a plot and more a coup, you'll always have at least one ship with a good crew that will fly into hell itself to save you."

"They'd better fly fast, I'm not much of a sprinter these days." Gil joked morbidly, the injury to his leg he'd suffered when Noah accosted him at a press conference and made him shoot himself twice in the leg had been aggravated by his refusal to sit in a hospital to let it heal, and as a result he was now graced with a perceptible limp whenever he walked, and running for any distance was pure agony.

"A sprinter, no, but you certainly have admirable endurance..." Talia said leadingly, putting her hands on his shoulders and pulling herself atop him, wanting to banish the worries of their tabboo poli-speaking from the hallowed bedroom. "We still have several hours yet, lets not waste them with the real world, Gil..."

xxxx

New Eden, North Africa, Gibraltar Expansion Zone, November 20th

Expansion Security Patrol was generally considered a pretty shitty duty, since it meant long hours, even multiple days, cooped up inside your sweltering hot armor, inside the hold of an armored vehicle that became ovenlike a few hous after sunrise, with no opportunity for any sort of personal hygiene or unconfined relaxation, other than the extremely basic facilities offered by the Expansion Bases within the circuit of that specific ESP. Some ESP routes were better than the others, the cushiest being the bases situated along the coastline, since they had plentiful access to water, enough to set some aside just for personal cleaning and even a bit of recreation, if you counted a pool barely big enough to count as a hot tub recreation. Then again, compared to the jack-fucking-shit the more landbound bases had, it was practically paradise.

Or so Private Ryan Jones had heard anyway, since his luck never seemed to run in the direction of cushy postings. Even so, he found he was actually glad to be tapped for ESP duty, because it meant getting away from the aftermath of the Eddie attack on Gibraltar. Maybe he just had a low tolerance for gore, but seeing the carpet of blasted and broken bodies left behind where the USN Mobile Forces had obliterated the trapped Eddie mechanized infantry was enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his life, and he well remembered tossing his cookies for most of an hour after the battle had ended and he'd gotten his first clear look at the aftermath. Given a choice between being on the SRB... Salvage, Reclamation and Burial... teams who had to manually shift through the wreckage looking for survivors or interesting trinkets or drawing ESP duty, he'd pounced on ESP like it was a wanton girlfriend with her panties around her knees. Not that he'd ever actually had sex with a girl, something he kept well secret from the rest of the guys in the squad to avoid excessive ribbing. Not from lack of trying, but unlike his ultra rich uncle, twice removed, the black sheep of the Jones clan, he'd never had much self confidence or luck when it came to the ladies. Maybe it had something to do with being ultra rich.

And so he found himself bouncing along in the back of a Chariot class APC, one of the newer models of armored transport that was supposedly made expressly for this operation to reclaim Earth. Which was kind of funny, in a sad way, considering that the things broke down all the fucking time because of inadequate dust shielding on the engine cooling intakes, which seemed like a fairly no brainer thing to Ryan, but had apparently and obviously escaped the notice of a professional design team that had spent thousands of man hours and millions of dollars designing the chassis. Soldiers being who they were, they were already improvising workarounds, from carrying several extra sets of dust filters, to jury rigging homemade filters and dust removers out of spare undershirts and duct tape. Ryan had contributed a pair of undershirts to the "lets not fucking break down in the middle of this godforsaken desert" fund, and so far their luck seemed to be holding.

Each Chariot APC was designed to carry a full squad of ten soldiers comfortably, though all "comfortably" meant in military jargon was that you weren't sitting in each other's laps, it had nothing to do with actual comfort of the plastic coated bench seating and nylon crash strapping that held you in place as the shocks communicated every variation in terrain directly into the base of your spine. One guy had compared it to sitting down in a speeding truck with broken shocks and a vibrator shoved up your anus, but after receiving askance looks from everyone else at how accurate his comparison might be and what prior experience had resulted in such comparative ability, the guy had been shunned, as much as was possible in the cramped interior. Don't ask, don't tell was one thing, but some people were just weird...

In addition to the squad it carried, a Chariot was lightly armed, with a remote controlled topside turret armed with a 20mm cannon and an additional forward cupola that had a .50 cal machinegun pintle mounted to it, but its armor was robust and its tracks and wide wheelbase made it extremely stable even on otherwise uncertain ground, and thought racked they could hit almost fifty miles per hour on flat terrain and maintain it for up to twelve hours before needing a battery recharge, so they made good long range patrol vehicles. ESP's usually consisted of two to three Chariots spread out within a half mile or so of each other, staying in constant radio communication as they swept the vast empty expanses of arid land between the Expansion Bases, for any sign of the Eddies trying to sneak through. They'd accomplished it once already, and though that had turned into a huge victory for the USN, everyone acknowledged that the Eddies never should have been able to get inside the Expansion perimeter unnoticed either, so the ESP's had been stepped up significantly in the last few days.

In addition to the ESP's, which were actually based out of Gibraltar itself, the Expansion Bases also ran their own patrols, some quite far ranging, that often overlapped with the ESP's. After pit stopping at the last ExBa, nicknamed Fort Gulch because of its position near an array of arroyo's and small canyons, the Gulchers had complained that one of their recon patrols from the day before hadn't returned, and had given them the last known coordinates and heading of the patrol and asked them to check it out. Maybe it was just another Chariot breakdown, maybe it was some sort of accident, maybe it was the next big Eddie push, whatever the case, the Gulcher's wanted it checked out and didn't want to send out any more of their own vehicles, so guess how happy they were to see an ESP pull up looking to recharge? Ryan was tempted to grouse about the Gulchers being a bunch of lazy bastards, but then again they were stuck out here in the Expansion perimeter, fighting hostile Eddies on a daily basis, and he got to sleep in a real rack, without armor and take showers at least once a week back at Gibraltar, so maybe he could allot them a little leeway for laziness?

When Ryan had volunteered for ESP duty, First Sergeant Blundquist, the Top, had been all over the idea in moments. He thought it was such a grand plan that he just couldn't let Ryan go alone, so now Ryan found himself accompanied in his search for solitude by none other that Dudly and Meyer, two of his least favorite people in the unit. Dudly was just an overbearing idiot, but at least he meant well, Meyer on the other hand was a louse and a closet extremist. It was he that had pissed the Top off so much with his "lets go toast some Eddies" comment. Worst of all, since Ryan was less frequently on the shit list of the Top than either of his unwilling companions, he had been placed temporarily in charge of the trio as well, which made him responsible for the mishap prone Dudly and the sullen Meyer. Oh what a joy that was proving to be... not! If this was what promoted was all about, then Ryan wanted to stay a private for the rest of his life!

There were a few perks to the brevet promotion though, as he was able to use Top's invested authority to wriggle a few extra goodies out of the base armory in anticipation of the rigors of patrol, including a sweet Mauler LSG for himself and a backpack mounted flamethrower for Meyer. He might be a despicable maggot ethically speaking, but he was crazy good with the flamethrower, leaving many to believe he might have had a past as an arsonist, and damn it all, he was still part of the unit, which meant something. Ryan very pointedly did not requestion Dudly any extra gear, since the Dud was still working on being trusted with simple grenades, much less something actually complicated and expensive. If he noticed the exclusion, Dud was at least smart enough not to complain, though it was a very real possibility he hadn't noticed anything at all. His obliviousness was almost refreshing at times actually, when everyone else got pissy over everything that went wrong, Dud's phlegmatic good cheer was a welcome change of pace. If only he would learn to SHUT THE FUCK UP!

"... so as I was saying, I heard that some of the guys over in the Asian theatre encountered these crazy big spiders, like as big as a man, and some much, much bigger than that! Said they got chased through the woods for miles and miles before the things left em alone, and that was in Chariots! And get this, those lucky bastards over at Porta Potty, I hear they're all starting to have freaky nightmares and shit, worms crawling out of the walls and voices in their heads and shit! I tell you, something ain't right with the Porta Potty, boy am I ever glad I wasn't assigned there, right? And..." Dud was expositing, using the common nickname for Porta Panama, devised by jealous soldiers assigned to places where they might actually have to fight the Eddies, versus just clearing forests and sitting around jerking each other off!

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, DUD!" Meyer all but shouted, the only thing keeping him from diving across the narrow compartment corridor to strangle Dud with his bare hands being the crash webbing holding him in his seat. "You've been babbling for THREE HOURS STRAIGHT! If you say one more word, I'm going to keel haul you after the next pit stop!" There was a protracted silence in the compartment after his outburst, the only sounds being the bump and grind of the treads and the plip-plop of condensing water from the inadequate cooling system, like beads of sweat mirroring those on the faces of the armored figures sitting shoulder to shoulder along the benches. The silence quickly grew unbearable, and Meyer at last let out a heavy breath, acknowledging defeat. "Okay, keep talking, Dud. Just try to keep it to background noise, okay? I don't give a rat's ass what the losers in Asia or at Porta Potty have to deal with, fuck those guys, you hear me? Fuck them."

"Oi, meat racks!" The sardonic voice of the sergeant driving and commanding the Chariot crackled over the compartment speakers. "Look alive, we're coming up on the last known coordinates of those bastard Gulchers. Could get rough real quick, so get yer heads in the game!" There was suddenly a lot of shifting and muted clicks as the soldiers took the Sergeant's good advice to check their weapons, making sure to keep the safeties on, since a round would bounce around like red hell itself inside the armored compartment, and you'd be lucky if you only blew a hole in yourself! And it didn't bear thinking about what it might be like if Meyer triggered a burst from the flamethrower by accident. Tension began to build as their driver located the tracks of the missing Gulchers and their three Chariot patrol changed course to follow the tracks, heading into terrain that was more sandy desert than arid grassland. Less than a quarter hour later they discovered the Gulchers.

Or their vehicles at least, which weren't Chariots but instead were four person, open topped ATV's with balloon like wheels for ease of travel across sandy environments. There were two of them, though one was tipped over onto its side, tracks in the sand showing where the driver had apparently lost control and flipped going up the surface of a sand dune. The three Chariots pulled up to the scene before forming a triangular perimeter around it, a Chariot at each point facing outward, their back mounted embarkation ramps lowering to disgorge the squads they contained, thirty soldiers spreading out in fire teams of three, hugging the ground for what little cover it could provide as a central unit investigated the ATV's. Despite his wishes, Ryan found himself, Meyer and Dud tapped for investigative duty, and they tenatively began poking around the overturned ATV, hoping they wouldn't find any splattered bodies. Much to Ryan's relief, they found no dismembered bodies, though there was some signs of injury, gritty blood patches, as well as curiously bright and eroded portions of the ATV's side armor, scoured smooth and shiny by something in scattered spots.

Basic training had included some seminars on deciphering tracks, but it was fundamental level stuff and no help in figuring out the confusion of footprints, drag trails and assorted other indentations that surrounded the two jeeps. The glint of metal from one pile of sand drew Ryan's eye, and he cautiously sifted the pile with his fingertips before coming up with a handful of brass shell casings, easily recognizable as belonging to the sidearm pistols every soldier carried. While the Cutlass and Mauler were linear weapons, and thus did not have shell casings, the pistols still used chemical explosives to power the projectiles. Ryan wondered what sort of calamity could have befallen the gulchers that required them to resort to their fall back pistols, with no sign of enemy dead or wounded. Ryan reported the found casings to the jittery looking Second Lieutenant that was nominally in charge of the ESP, who commended him on the find though it was plain the LT had no greater idea of what the fuck had happened than Ryan did.

It was Dudly that actually broke the mystery wide open, though he did it in a typical Dud fashion, squinting at something on the ridge of one of the sand dunes surrounding them he stopped watching where his feet were goign and blundered through a mound of knee high sand. Something in the sand mound resisted when Dud's ankle struck it and he overbalanced and fell loudly over onto his face in the sand, jerking and kicking while swearing loudly, making a huge spectacle of himself. Some of the other soldiers started laughing at his ineptness, until they saw what Dud's thrashing had unearthed, indeed what he'd tripped over. After that, no one felt like laughing at all. Dud was actually one of the last to see what he'd revealed, and his curses died on his lips as he finally wiped the grit away from his faceplate and found himself practically lying atop the biggest, ugliest, meanest looking scorpion he'd never yet had nightmares about! Dudly screamed, just like a little girl, and hurled himself away from the abomination, and not a single soul there would ever give him shit about his reaction, it was simply that horrendous a thing.

Fortunately it was also a dead thing, visible holes from 5mm Cutlass rounds dotting its sandy brown carapace in tight groupings, showing where it had taken multiple bursts of Cutlass rounds from multiple angles at close range before subsiding and being buried by drifting sand. The body was about as thick as a human torso, the legs each about the size of a human leg, and there were ten of those, each of the back six ending in a wickedly barbed point, while the front four were equipped with pincer claws, two huge and two merely large. There was no neck to speak of, the head grew right out of the abdomen, graced with clusters of dull eyes beneath heavy brows of chitin, wicked looking mandibles placed to either side of jaws that were filled with actual teeth, fangs and multiple tongues that looked like they were made for sucking blood or fluids. The tail was as thick as a human thigh before narrowing to a bulging stinger spike that was at least six inches long and serrated like a combat knife. All told the thing probably stood two and half to three feet tall when standing, and was about the size and weight of a cow. Its carapace was an exact match for the color of the sand around it, only the dark eyes stood out, and those looked to have semi-translucent eyelids that could cloak them as well. You practically had to trip over the thing to see it against the sand!

"Jeezus F. Christ, what the HELL is that thing?" One of the soldiers stammered in a half strangled voice.

"It's a monster! I've never seen any damn thing so hideous in my entire life!" A sergeant commented, turning away from the grotesque thing with a shudder. "I guess we found out what happened to the Gulcher's though. They must have stopped for a rest or somethin, and this thing was waiting for them in the sand... dear god, those poor bastards prolly never saw it coming."

"But that doesn't explain the pistol casings I found." Ryan was amazed he had the balls to cut in, a junior private talking with sergeants, but everyone was so spooked they didn't seem to care. "The thing's full of holes, but there should have been eight guys with Cutlasses at least, if they had focused fire they would have shredded that beast into confetti! I think at most they had two or three guys shooting at this one, and sometime into the fight they started running out of ammo and had to switch to pistols. There must have been multiple targets..." Ryan suddenly caught up with his own line of thought, and the Mauler was up against his shoulder the next moment. "There could be more of these things around!"

No sooner had those words left his mouth than the sand directly beneath the feet of the LT exploded upwards like a geyser. Ryan blinked and almost missed the motions of four clawed limbs as they whipped around the LT's limbs and closed with bone crushing force, one snipping the left arm entirely in half like it was a dry twig, before the stinger tail of the emerging scorpion-monster slammed into the LT's chest, the spike punching through armor like it wasn't even there to fill the LT's insides with almost a pint of toxins! The LT went as stiff as a board in less than a second, every muscle and nerve ending in his body paralyzed almost instantly by the huge dose of Deathstalker venom, though he remained fully conscious as he was dragged back down into the burrow with the Deathstalker, its barbed tongues already scraping against his armor as the Deathstalker's jaws elongated like rubber, dozens of gripping fangs extending to vice down on the hapless LT as the Deathstalker's oter legs worked to collapse the burrow down behind it, sealing the soldier into darkness so it could feed in peace.

The entire attack couldn't have taken more than three seconds, from sand geyser to the LT being dragged below the sand and the pit collapsing inward onto itself, the only evidence a man had once stood there being the splash of blood on the sand and the bottom half of the LT's left arm lying a few yards away. Meyer's splash of liquid fire was pure reflex, glassifying the sand where the Deathstalker had disappeared, but it was far too late to do anything to the Deathstalker as it slurped the LT's still living organs out of his cracked open armor shell contentedly, only a few meters away from his friends, but all but untouchable nonetheless.

The scent of blood and the mental emanations of fear and shock coming from the two legged prey swiftly roused the other dormant members of the clutch, sleeping off the meal of the night before in their lightless burrows in the surrounding sand dunes, but while Deathstalkers only needed to eat once every week or so, especially if it was a large meal such as a human, they were one of the few high order organisms that actually enjoyed killing, for the sheer fun of it. This natural tendency grew more pronounced during the breeding seasons, when hormones had them on edge anyway, though this clutch of related males was strangely docile in truth, given the genetic imperatives broiling inside their carapaces. Their timidity was easy to understand, but only if you possessed the hypersensitivity to enviornmental stimuli that came with a highly Latent nature. If they wished to feed or hunt-slaughter, they would need to do it soon, for the prey had awakened a much greater threat than they, and mating season or not, any male caught on open ground when the Queen came nigh was doomed to feed her hunger rather than fertilize her eggs. After she gorged herself on the prey, she might deign to reproduce with a particularly impressive male, but never before.

Back on the surface, there was panic and confusion as the soldiers who hadn't even seen the Deathstalker spring its ambuscade reacted to the sidden, grisly disappearance of the mission commander. Barely had they begun to shout and argue though than more explosions of sand geysers came from underfoot and the sloping faces of nearby dunes, as the remaining Deathstalkers burrowed to the surface to feed and kill. There must have been at least a dozen of them, far more than would normally congregate in one area, but in recent weeks prey of the two legged sort had been extremely plentiful and so they could tolerate the competition of others of their kind in such rich feeding grounds. Even once revealed on the surface, the jittery quick movements of the Deathstalkers, complimented by their impressive degree of natural camouflage and the ability to predict and feel where the soldiers would be shooting, made them all but impossible to hit as the soldiers and vehicles opened up with their weapons desperately.

With the disregard for life and limb only those of insectile descent could possibly comprehend, the Deathstalkers charged the soldiers fearlessly, gouts of dark black-blue ichor gushing from their carapaces where linear rounds burst through chitin, but the nervous systems of the Deathstalkers were all but immune to sensations of pain, and even when whole limbs were blown off they continued forward, confident in the primal knowledge that any wonds which did not kill them would be regenerated during the next time they grew out of their shells. Closing the range with the soldiers, some of the Deathstalkers hawked and spat globs of viscous saliva from their mouths, others projected needlelike streams of poison from their engorged stingers. The poison sprayed into the faces of the armored humans, but splattered harmlessly away from viewports. The acidic saliva was a different matter altogether, and it began to steam wherever it touch armor plate, the outer surface rapidly beginning to melt away under the hissing fluid.

Ryan stopped, dropped and rolled furiously in the sand when he caught a breastplate full of toxic saliva. Fortunately the sand seemed to scrape the worst of it off him, and though his armor screamed at him, warning of external damage, it didn't appear that he'd lost environmental integrity. However, he had bigger concerns, as the Deathstalker that had regurgitated upon him was only a few yards away and closing with blurring speed, and there was no way he could get his Mauler up and around in time to stop it from either dismembering him with the claws or stinging him with the tail. Ryan closed his eyes and was about to pray when a blast of searing heat scorched him as a river of flame swept by overhead and took the Deathstalker square in the face, eyes popping as blazing napalm splashed and clung to the insect, the pain so tremendous the Deathstalker went into a frenzy, ripping itself to shreds with its own claws and tail as it tried to scrape the fire off its front half. Ryan nonethless blew a human head sized hole in the thing with his Mauler, just to be sure. He nodded a breathless thanks to Meyer, but there wasn't time for much else.

The Deathstalkers had overrun the ESP perimeter and things had dissolved into individual soldiers doing their best to shoot down the rampaging insects while not shooting their own friends. The fiendish bugs took absolutely forever to die, unless you blew apart their heads or something, and they were quite capable of killing a soldier even with half their legs and a tail blow into ragegd, ichor spouting stumps! They seemed to have no instinct for self preservation, nor did they show of any signs of a higher plan rather than causing as much bloodshed and death as possible in the shortest possible time. It really seemed to Ryan, as he used his Mauler to blast another Deathstalker in half as it menaced Dud, who had thrown a grenade once more without arming it, only drawing the things attention when it clunked against its back, that the bugs were almost high or intoxicated for some reason, and were lashing out in an orgy of violence, as if they were racing some sort of invisible timer only they could perceive. Meyer hosed down another with his flamethrower, having no choice but to immolate the two soldiers that were impaled upon its pincers at the time as well, but burning to death couldn't be any worse than being dismembered and eaten alive, right?

Screaming in agony, or maybe it was just the sound of its blood turning to steam and escaping in jets of misty black from gunshot wounds in its carapace, the immolated Deathstalker turned towards the source of the fire, shaking the blazing human torches from its claws and pounced at Meyer, tail sting drawn back to impale him through the throat. Meyer was in the path of Ryan's shot, and the Mauler would turn him into bloody chunks if he even grazed him at this range, so Ryan could only look on helplessly as the flaming abomination bore down on his squadmate. An object arced through the air, and Ryan realized Dud had hucked another grenade, which by either incredible aim or more likely incredible luck went right down the bug's yawning throat, and wonder of wonders, blew up a second later, scattering bits and pieces of minced, flambe'd bug for ten meters in every direction! Both Meyer and Ryan stared incredulously at Dud, who was looking just as stunned as they.

At last the Deathstalkers seemed to get tired of being burned, shot or blown up, and though they left more than half their number broken and blasted on the sand, they turned and burrowed into the sand once more, moving with even more haste than they'd displayed while on the attack. Shots from the 20mm cannons on the Chariots impacted on and around the burrow sites, and one yielded a geyser of black-blue ichor and brown chitin, showing at least one Deathstalker that hadn't burrowed deep enough, fast enough. Left to take stock, stunned by the sudden silence Ryan and the others looked around dazedly, for many it had been their first time in actual combat. Over half of the ESP patrol was dead, including all three sergeants and of course the missing LT, some dismembered, some impaled and left to bleed out, and others stung and appearing dead even though they were actually still alive and suffocating in silence, their hearts and lungs paralyzed while they yet remained aware of what was going on.

"FUCK THOSE BUGS! YEAH! WE KICKED BUG-ASS!" Meyer suddenly shouted, drawing a chorus, if a weak one, of agreement from the other shocked survivors. Ryan was stunned at how few wounded there were, everything in training had stressed how the number of WIA almost always exceeded the number of KIA by a large amount, but here that was not so, anyone who had spent more than a second or two in proximity to one of the bugs was messily dead. Once they got a pincer around you, much less hit you with the sting, you were done for, there was no grey area! The Chariots were undamaged, the Deathstalkers having had no interest in non-living constructs. Ryan was trying to figure out who was in charge, and whether or not he should suggest packing up one of the more intact corpses to take back for study, when Dud suddenly shrieked like a little girl once more and pointed wildly. Those who followed the direction of his point, Ryan included, also shrieked like little girls.

Crouching at the top of the sand dune to their right, a good twenty meters above their position, was another Deathstalker. But where the others had been brown, this one was fiery red striped with black. Where the others had been the size of cows, this one was easily as big as a family sedan, and that was just the body, the legspan made it look MUCH bigger. It glared down at the shrieking prey-things and clacked its pincers hungrily, each claw being as long as a human was tall and powerful enough to crush armor plate like it was gingerbread cookie. But though it hungered for the warm flesh of prey in its gullet, the Greater Deathstalker held its position, compelled by a instinct beyond even hunger to stay immobile. A rival Greater crested the dunes on the opposite side from the first, its coloration more orangy than red, but sharing the black banding. The little two legged shelled prey noticed the rival soon enough, and their shrieks of panic were soothing to the roiling emotions of the Greater Deathstalker. But still it held its position, even as puffs of sand and flakes of durable chitin began exploding around and on its body as they shelled prey spat their spines at him, the spines deflecting from his carapace or else digging in and stopping well short of the vitals beneath.

The red Greater whipped his tail back and forth angrily at the orange, indicating challenge as he raised all four pincers and clacked them loudly to declare his dominance. The orange replied with a similar display, as the males were of similar size and age, and normally an all out brawl between two of the deadliest predators on New Eden would have followed. But something greater than instinct kept both males rooted in place, and soon cowed them of any desire for further threat or dominance displays, even to the point where they folded their pincers arms together and placed them atop their backs in positions of submission, their tails dropping, the poison tipped injector spike withdrawing back into the poison gland itself as they humbled themselves before their approaching Queen.

Ryan thought these bugs were acting even more oddly than the frenxied ones they'd just been fighting. He was no bug expert, and even less so of Edenite bugs, but they seemed to be ignoring the soldiers, even as they came under fire, and seemed content to make threat displays at each other from across the gulf of dunes, though neither super-bug gave any indication it was doing much besides the bug equivalent of talking smack. And then they both, at the same time, seemed to fold in on themselves and crouch down, like they were trying to hug the ground for cover. But Ryan bet they weren't trying to present a low profile for the gunfire, since they seemed to be ignorant of its ability to hurt them, or maybe it couldn't hurt them! But SOMETHING had two bugs that had no apparent sense of self preservation and were big enough to comfortably dine on a pride of lions for breakfast running very scared indeed, and that made Ryan feel like he was going to wet his pants. And then he realized he had, and was shortly glad of that fact because it meant he was already on empty when the Deathstalker Queen stepped into view.

Her silence was eerie to say the least, her motions precise and so fast they appeared slow, like the spinning rim of a car wheel at very high speed. Her movement legs touched the ground in such a precise pattern that despite her weight she barely even made the sand quiver beneath her stride, making her almost impossible to detect sound or vibration. The only sound she made at all was a buzzing crackle, like a pot of boiling oil filled with bees a few rooms away, which seemed to emanate from her body in all directions, forming a field or aura around her as she narrowed her solid silver eye clusters at the noisy prey before here. Her carapace was the color of space itself and seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Her body was the length of a semi-trailer truck, and a Mobile Suit could have lain down beneath her spread legs without touching her underbelly. Ryan blinked, because a monster of such size and coloration should have been visible from hundreds of meters away regardless of silence, but he'd only noticed it when it was less than fifty meters away, like it had just suddenly blinked into existence, as if he'd passed some sort of event horizon that had been keeping it hidden.

And then one silver eye, as big as his entire face, swiveled in its socket and Ryan found his gaze locked with that of the monster and the breath left his body in one enormous whoosh. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he could tell that there was intelligence behind that eye, a thinking mind every bit the equal of his own. Every bit the equal and quite a bit more, but alien and incomprehensible except in its maliciousness and bloodthirst. Ryan tried to point and scream, but it was no use, he'd been so petrified with fear by meeting the monster's simple gaze that he couldn't make his throat work! Dud turned to see what was wrong with him, saw the Queen, and promptly fainted dead away, so he was no help. No direct help actually, as the sound of his limp form hitting the ground drew the attention of several others, including Meyer. "HOLYMOTHEROFCHRISTFUCKINGHELL!" Meyer shouted, his voice high pitched and tinny with terror as he swung around his flamethrower and loosed a stream of napalm at the abomination. Unlike the lesser Deathstalkers, the Queen raised a claw in her defence, the liquid fire splashing and running along her car sized pincer, scorching the outer layer of chitin but failing to penetrate to the nerves buried deep below.

Another soldier threw a rocket propelled grenade launcher to his shoulder and fired, screaming hysterically the whole time, and his screaming peaked exultantly as the RPG struck hom against the side of her carapace. That scream died in his throat as the smoke cleared to reveal only a thin trickle of ichor and no gaping wound in her body. A round that would have shredded a Chariot APC had barely even scratched this monster! It did seem to have pissed her off though, judging from the way her eyes narrowed and the threat posture she adopted, the buzzing bees in the background growing exponentially louder as she called upon her Latent nature. Guns fired directly at her failed to strike home, another RPG round struck her head and failed to detonate, though once the warhead hit the sand beneath her, it went off just like normal, luck itself bending the very physical laws of the universe to provide her protection, if only for brief moments at a time.

One of the Chariots suddenly tried a ramming charge aimed at breaking the motive legs on her right side, only to be stopped dead as the four pincers darted downwards and slammed into its glacis plate and sides, crumpling tempered steel plate like tissue paper before the tail sting slammed forward and punched through the driver's compartment, such a flood of posion being released that it actually drowned the driver before he could die of suffocation from the paralysis. Nor was her toxin simple paralysis like those of her lesser brethren, but actually caused the organic strucutre of the body to harden to a brittle, glass like state, in essence petrifying a victim to the point where they could be broken apart as if they had been flash frozen, easy to break into bite sized pieces for her to chomp down. Hurling the half crushed Chariot away like a crushed soda can, the Deathstalker Queen called to her harem and the red and orange Greater Deathstalkers responded to her summons, racing down from opposite dune faces to help corral the prey, ignoring the desire to fight one another in favor of serving their Chimera Queen.

Seeing the red and orange Deathstalkers joining the fray, Ryan realized they were all dead if they stuck around. Grabbing the dead weight of Dudly by the carry strap that was built into the back of the armor's torso area, Ryan began dragging Dud towards the nearest Chariot, which was booming round after round from its 20mm cannon at the gigantic black Deathstalker, but despite the creature only being a few dozen meters away, not a single shot seemed to be landing. The second Chariot had switched its aim to the red and black Deathstalker, and its first shot blew one of the four pincers completely off its arm, drawing a grating squeal of annoyance from the bug as its stump gouted ichor. It ignored the wound with the same casual disregard the small brown ones had their own injuries, and pounced onto the Chariot that had wounded it. Sparks flew and metal tore as the Greater Deathstalker beat at the Chariot with its remaining pincers and tail. Dudly's weight suddenly lightened, and Ryan looked up to see that Meyer had discarded his flamethrower and had picked Dudly's feet up.

Together they managed to get him into the back of the Chariot, and as soon as they were inside, Meyer slammed the switch that raised the rear ramp. Ryan had intended to go back out and try and recover others of the ESP, but one look at Meyer's terrified face told him he'd have a hell of a fight on his hands if he tried to open the ramp again. The illusion of safety might be flimsy, considering what they'd both seen the big black one do to a Chariot already, but an illusion was better than nothing! Ryan keyed the compartment intercomm. "Get us the hell out of here, driver!"

"We can't run away from bugs!" the driver shouted back, the "boom-boom-boom" of his 20mm turret underscoring his words.

"We sure as fucking hell can!" Meyer shouted back, near hysterically. "These are NOT just bugs, they're demons of some sort! Didn't you see what the big one did to that Chariot? If we stay here we're all going to die and be eaten! Get this tin can rolling or I'll come up there, shoot you in the head and do it myself!"

"Someone needs to get out and report back about this danger! If we just disappear, they'll keep sending patrols down here to investigate, and that'll just keep feeding these monsters!" Ryan added, hoping an appeal to duty would work when sheer terror did not. Fortunately it did seem to do the trick, as the cannon stopped firing and the Chariot lurched as the driver threw it into gear and began angling for the pathway leading out of between the dunes. Dudly muttered something incoherent as he started to come around from his faint, and Ryan and Meyer shared a brief grin as they realized they had made it. Which is of course when the gigantic black pincer came spearing through the side of the Chariot, metal screaming as it fragmented, the entire Chariot kicked sideways almost ten meters by the force of the blow. Dudly's mumbles becames raw edged screams as the serrated inner edge of the pincer scraped along his side, tearing through his armor like it was mist and scoring a deep, bloody wound in his side. The armor's emergency sealant system activated immediately, but then the armor began to fill with blood as secretions coating the Queen's picner prevented Dudly's blood from coagulating efficiently.

Ryan screamed hoarsely as the pincer started digging around the compartment, seeking more flesh to rend, and he lifted the Mauler to his shoulder and began pumping round after round into the matte black chitin only a foot or so away. He watched, dumbfounded, as shell after shell struck the chitin and dropped inert to the metal decking, internal fuses that were supposed to be failsafe failing to activate upon contact. Finally, the tenth shell struck and detonated, but barely cracked the chitin, drawing a thin trickle of ichor. Realizing gunfire was useless against the incredible armor of this bug, anything elss than a major tank or Mobile Suit weapon just wasn't strong enough to penetrate, he did the only thing that came to mind. He drew his mono-bladed combat knife and threw himself bodily against the outer side of the pincer, slamming the blade down into the chitin, watching with satisfaction as it bit deep and easy, drawing a gout of blue-black ichor that splattered all over his faceplate. The knife ripped a jagged cut in the pincer, flensing off a whole section of chitin as it was suddenly withdrawn from the compartment, the blade snapping off at the hilt shortly before the pincer exited the hull.

An earsplitting squeal of anger and annoyance made them both clutch their heads and scream in agony as the Deathstalker Queen reacted to the stinging pain of her cut pincer. Unlike lesser Deathstalkers, her nervous system was highly developed, only her exceptionally thick and durable carapace protecting her from hurt, and she was more than smart enough to feel the need for self preservation. Which was why she actually still lived, as a servant of He Who Called, rather than resided as a memory within the Great Beast's gullet. Ever hungry might he be, but more than smart enough to recognize the value of capable, like minded servants, especially those who lived outside his normal sphere of influence. Narrowing her myriad eyed gaze, the Deathstalker Queen watched the wounded metal beast flee into the distance, faster than any but she could pursue for any length of time. The two male Greaters were tearing apart the remnants of the two legged prey, but eyeing the painful graze on her left forepincer, the Queen had lost her taste for the small prey for the time being.

She would eat the more wounded of the two Greaters and allow the other to fertilze her latest batch of eggs, before she devoured him as well. Then she would devote time to planning her revenge upon the two leggers that had dared cause her pain, while she waited for her newest brood to hatch. The two leggers had been building new hives in the desert of late, she would have to crack them open until she found the one that harbored the prey that had dared scratch her beautiful carapace. Revenge was a dish best served cold, a two legger she'd eaten several weeks ago had had such a thought bouncing around its brain, and she had ingested the concept along with his succulent meat, finding both to her liking. No one was colder than a Deathstalker. If she had possessed the capability, she would have been smiling as she drove her tailsting down into the back of the red Greater, exulting in his spasms as he glassified from the inside out, fine edged cracks spreading through his organs and muscles as her posion did its deadly work. She was dimly aware of the orange Greater creeping onto her back as she began to feast, the urge to mate making him incautious of the twitching tailsting hovering over his head. She hoped it was good for him... another quirky concept ingested from humans... because it was to be his last...

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