(UEC Fleet)

"Fire." Polar orders. The human fleet has lost many of its ships at the cost of over ten-thousand UEC personnel.

But their sacrifice has helped to distinguish the human ships capabilities. The ship like the now destroyed Manitoba appears to be some kind of carrier. While the two that resemble flattened turtles firing scores of missiles appear to be some kind of missile platform. The one that doggedly stayed by the smaller behemoth side despite multiple ships attempts to dislodge it from its position appears to be the equivalent of an escort destroyer.

The Smaller Behemoth named Leathy according to its name plate appears to be designed solely for capital ship destruction, how ever at the moment that ship is appears to be picking up what appear to be lifeboats. That just leaves the Giant ship with the absurdly destructive cannon.

The ship has already taken three hits from the Element of Magics main weapon and is sporting numerous burn marks, holes, and fissures in the hull that all bleed smoke, bodies or pieces of bodies, water, and frozen air no doubt a result of being the current focus of the fleet. The ship attempts to lumber its way to the left only to take a hit from the magical weapon this time however unlike the previous times the ship takes the full brunt of the attack to its starboard side.

The effect is glorious massive glowing hole is blown straight through her and she seems to go limp for a second the lights on its hull flickering. However instead of exploding as it slowly appears to be falling toward the planet its lights defiantly flair back to life as it reorients itself. However the ship is profoundly broken and her captain knows it, as well as the others in the NAC fleet as the six remaining ships move into close formation with it. All of which suffer varying degrees of severe damage except the Leathy suffers only relatively minor damage having one if its dorsal cannons blown clean off.

"Why aren't they using their Barbaric Nuclear weapons?" Rarity asks studying the two-dimensional battle map on the wall with a keen eye.

"What do you mean?" Rainbow asks gaining the others attention.

"I mean darling that they could have crippled our fleet at two separate occasions if they had, see here and here. However apart from the cruiser that blew itself up no nuclear weapons have been used."

"Perhaps they see the futility in their endeavor." the Changeling liaison says.

"Doubtful." Rarity says

"Well the only reason I can think of would be if they landed troops." she continues taking a look at her datapad.

"That is possible. That they could have landed troops." A data officer says

"It would explain why they bombarded the planet from orbit, and why that fool deployed the shield too early." Twilight says. She was very grateful that Rarity was here her attention to detail had made her very praised in planning.

"Now we have to go through the ordeal and wrought the NAC ground troops from the surface." Rarity says.

"Look the NAC fleet is moving." Through the window, they could see NAC capital ship limping in the direction of deep space. The Leathy and other ships in the fleet flying backward in a protective pyramid formation with the leathy as its tip.

"So the NAC shows its true colors." The griffin delegate says earning a nod from a the dragon helmspony.

"No, think about it if this ship was detrimentally wounded we would have retreated." Rarity corrects the others are about to speak up when Polar comes to her defense.

"She is correct, Not only would I have ordered our retreat. I would have done it without a second thought."

Rarity walks over to the window facing the planet now surrounded by a violet planetary shield folding her hands behind her back. Her friends join her as she plots their next move.

=================================

(Snow)

"Missile lock, Missile lock, Missile lock, Missile lock..." Snowman's computer chimes in a calm computerized female voice.

The weather has cleared enough for the UEC to scramble some of their aircraft. Snowman rolls his fighter to the right staying on the tail of a UEC fighter that had tried to shoot down the Helldiver dropship. He is currently chasing down the fighter through a canyon in blatant disregard of flight doctrine.

A stream of tracers stream passes his cockpit prompting him to fold the wings in and deploy a smoke charge as he follows the fighter around a sharp corner. The chime goes silent as the light of an explosion behind him lights up the night. He flips the "alt one" switch and the Laser cannon unfolds from under his fuselage. His retical changes and begins moving as the cannon's assisted aiming system begins tracking the fighter in front of him. He pulls the trigger and the fighter disintegrates under the heat of the invisible beam.

He pulls hard right flicking the switch back to cannons and turning a swivel ball on the accelerator and stops as his HUD begins tracking multiple ground and air targets marked by both ground and air units on the tactical link. the top of his fighter opens as two vertical launch racks emerge, The Multiple Launch missile system MLMS or M&Ms fires fire and forget smart missiles. Pressing the button with his thumb he bursts from the canyon as fifteen missiles burst from their launch tubes. Satisfied that the threats have been neutralized he toggles back and the racks descend back into his fighter.

"Wolf one-one requesting assistance."

"Roger wolf. Razgriz form up."

============================================================

(Miiora)

The human shu-dropship lands and we all shuffle out into the rain Instantly the humans fan out into the same circular formation around the drop-ship I witnessed on board the Dragon's Breath. The human weapon I carry is not the same as the weapons they use and that Avery Fallon had tried to teach me to use on Leathy and Annihilator. It is a stubby sub-machine gun the Humans call a Personal defense weapon or PDW It apparently it is less effective against Battle armor than an M-66 but since the UEC doesn't use ballistic hard shell it is adequate.

There is a series of thumps and the ground shakes as we watch Avery Fallon and another ATLAS fallback to defend the drop ship. The ATLAS Fallon is piloting is scratched and appears to be drenched in blood plainly visible against the white paint on his machine. The machines are a marvel of technology I had never thought possible and their lethality on the battlefield is made all the more clear as the company fans out into the clearing.

There, are corpses were the bodies of the planetary defense forces that had tried to hold the clearing. Some of which have massive holes blown straight through them their organs that had been blown out of the exit wounds now lie on the ground. Two Minotaur tanks sit burning one with an entrance hole but still intact with burning visible inside through the hole and open hatch, and the other blown to bits.

"Woah sucks to be this guy." a marine says over the channel gesturing to the crumpled corpse of a deer that now closer resembles a mound of furry broken meat.

"Holy fuck!." Another marine shouts pointing to a dead adult dragon. The once powerful creature lies on its back bleeding profusely from a massive hole in its chest, and the stump where its head had once been.

"Miiora are there more of these things on the planet?" the Company commander a male who introduced himself to me in Fallon's Squad birth as Skyler asks.

"There could be. Dragons will typically be positioned at strategic locations as a kind of heavy infantry." I say trying not to step in a small river of blood. I glance up at Fallons ATLAS and see that he has a massive knife strapped to its shoulder no doubt as he would say "liberated" from the dead dragon.

"do those work?" Skyler asks pointing to a group of trucks and jeeps, I walk over and turn the key followed by Fallon and his team and am rewarded with the low rumble of the engine.

"How far can they get?"

"I would say maybe six hundred of your miles with how much fuel they have in them." I guess.

"Alright let's Mount up!" he orders. I here a series of metallic clicks and turn to see Fallon being lowered to the ground. He walks over to the Jeep and opens the back left door.

"Miiora your sitting here." he says pointing to the seat behind where he will be sitting.

"Trombely get that piece of shit MG off the roof so Garza can put his MG up there. Forbes you're driving." The Company all file into the commandeered vehicles and begin rolling down a dirt road with our jeep in front. SD and the other ATLAS now in auto-pilot mode begin walking one in front and one behind.

"I am so glad those formers (the NAC's name for former UEC slaves) showed us how to drive." The Radio Fallon brought flairs to life as we drive in the dark.

"Woah, check it out! someone says over the radio." pointing a waypoint on our tactical screens it shows a clear spot in the sky and we see a purple sky.

"Damn what the hell is that?"

"It's a planetary shield..." I begin

"Great." Fallon says before reporting this new information to Fick the platoon Lieutenant apparently despite his young age men in his platoon respect his command. The company comes to a halt and Fick walks up to Fallon's right passenger window. Trombely gets out as well as the other marines.

"Fallon."

"Sir?"

"We have orders to bust an air field make sure our birds can refuel. Change in the R.O.E. Anyone with a weapon is declared hostile. If a stallion walks away from you with a weapon on her back, shoot him. If an armed filly is selling lemonade out of a tree house, shoot her. I don't care if you hit her with a forty millimeter grenade." Fick says.

"Roger that, Sir." he Fallon's say

"Gear up, Gents, MOVING OUT!"

"Clamp your fucken armor, where's your trauma kit? Come on Trombely." a marine says to the young marine who fishes it out of his pocket. the Marine nods before fastening the armor correctly. Then a marine walks up to me with a quizzical face, we have all raised our visors do to the improper seals on the armor we have. I look at him confused he does something with my armor.

"This chick doesn't even know she's in a war. Thinks she's a superhero from some ancient comic."

"Hey, I put on my superhero uniform every day I'm in the corps brother! Hoorah." Another marine shouts.

"We're OSCAR MIKE!"

'All Hitman victor's be advised, we are rolling Freaks to tack 1-1-niner at 1400 Zulu. How copy?' The radio says

'Rodger 2-2 copies all. interrogative: I need crypto do you know who's got the C.Y.Z? I'm pretty sure I lost my filler. over.'

'Negative. I don't know a damn thing.'

'we have a Guadalcanal. over'

"Hitman one-one copies..." Fallon says

"Whats a Guadalcanal?" I ask

"The fleet left us here." Fallon says nonchalantly. My heart skips a beat we are stuck here?

"This sucks we were on point on taking that city. now we don't have armor and we aren't even taking the city." Trombley says from the seat where he points his SAW thru the window.

"Avery, this fucking SUCKS! We trained for that siege mission for two fucking weeks. And they take it right out from underneath of us. And they want us to take a fucken airfield without armor. And were stuck here." Forbes complains.

"Yeah, Ill be mad if we get to that airfield and get blown to shit without even seeing it." the Gunner says.

"Drop down here My Little Brown Friend." Fallon says raising his visor. Garza our gunner and the other two marines lean in to hear, I do likewise so see what he has to say.

"Missions are always getting fragged. We're marines, we obey our orders. Our mission now is not to do our original mission." he says looking at us before turning to scan out of the window.

"Semper Gumby, Always Flexible!" Graza says. I wonder how they are able to be so calm we are stranded here.