Interlude 1

"Damn", thought staff sergeant Samuda, "here they come again." He checked to make sure his grenade was primed. "On my command people." A little closer. Now!" He threw his grenade at the oncoming carpet of bugs and hurled himself face down on the tarmac of the landing pad.

There were twelve detonations, after the last one he lifted himself up off the tarmac and began using his gauss rifle to pick off any surviving bugs. Twelve troops, that was all that was left of Dragon Company and he was the senior commanding officer.

Thirty-six hours ago Dragon Company had been 120 strong and his only concern had been trying to get Lancer Dow to drop her pants for him. Dragon Company had been assigned to guard the Voltarium mines on Arzawa III. Samuda had considered it the most boring assignment possible and had been trying for the past six months to get assigned to a combat post. He was now in a position to appreciate the irony of the old saying 'Be careful of what you wish for because you might get it'

The bugs showed arrived a little over a day ago there was no warning they were just there. They weren't really bugs; they were some sort of mechanical device that resembled an insect. But whatever they were there were a lot of them. They had swarmed over the mine and the computer center like a plague of locusts disabling the automated defenses and somehow jamming all off planet communications. The Company's F-lances had been totally ineffective against them, their plasma bolts dissipating harmlessly upon impact and their effector darts just bouncing off their carapaces, but the acid and claws of the bugs had proven all too effective against the Lancers. Over half the Company had died before they had discovered that a slug from a gauss gun would blow a bug to little pieces. Gauss guns and grenades, unfortunately the Company had very few grenades left. He was down to his last one and he doubted that anyone else was much better off.

The only bright spot in this fiasco was that an Argo two-man courier ship had made an emergency landing at the mines three days ago. If the LT could get his repairs done and make it to Arzawa II the High Guard would find out what happened. "He must be making some sort of progress" thought Samuda. "The bugs sure seemed to get interested in the ship all of a sudden."

"Ten more minutes Sarge. The Argo LT says if we can give him 10 more minutes he will be off planet." That was Dow; she had the communications link with the Argo. She sounded scared. Samuda didn't blame her; he was scared too. It wasn't the bugs that scared him though; it was the people commanding them. He called them people because he didn't know what else to call them but they definitely weren't human. He had been there when Brevet Major Ruisco had put half a dozen rounds from his gauss rifle into one of them. The high velocity slugs had torn large holes into the man but then the holes just healed up. It had been like watching a small boy throw stones into a river and had been just about as effective.

Ten more minutes. That's all they had to do, buy ten minutes of time. "What's the grenade situation Dow?"

"Scratch and White have two the rest of us are down to one each."

That was not what he wanted to hear.

Clakata. Clakata. Clakata. Another wave of bugs was coming.

From behind him he head singing. It was Dow. He recognized the song she was singing; he had learned it in boot camp. The March of the High Guard

"Heaven burns, the stars are falling
As the enemy draws nigh."

Her voice wavered at first but steadied as she began the second stanza.
"Sound the call, Fleet and Lancers
'Commonwealth' our battle cry."

The rest of the Company began to join in.
"Face the foe, never waver
Summon fire from the sky."

"Grenades, on my command. Ready. Now!"
"From a million sovereign planets
Scattered through the endless night."

Ten more minutes, we just have to hold on for ten more minutes.
"Bound by blood and High Guard honor
Hold the line until the light.

Just ten more minutes.
Hold the line against the night."

Clakata. Clakata. Clakata.