My battle armor was scuffed and beaten to hell, but I loved it anyway. I love the rifle more than a sane individual should love a mere object. Together the rifle and the armor turned me into something different, something more effective then I would be alone. In my arms is a sinister piece of alloy and polymer that looks both sleek and bulky at the same time.

This, the M66A weapons system, is the standard issue weapon for both the Spaceborne Marines and Territorial Army. It is a multi pursuance personal weapon designed to defeat a large range of battlefield human threats, and the NAC has been using the M66 line for over 80 years. Its main component is an automatic impulse operated flechette rifle feeding scaleless three millimeter flechette cartridges from disposable 250 round magazines.

The rifle operates as a fully automatic user controlled mode, and can fire as a semi-automatic or any combination of multiple round salvos. The rate of fire in burst and automatic depends on threat profile and varies from 200 to six thousand rounds a minute. The secondary component is the integrated 40 millimeter grenade launcher which fires a variety of low pressure grenades.

Mission specific munitions for the launcher include High explosive, Armor piercing, Fragmentation, Buckshot, incendiary, thermometric, chemical, and less lethal ammunition. We call this a dial of pain weapon, with just a change of grenades we can knock down a rioter or a reinforced one story concrete building.

The first time I put on my battle armor and linked up to the integrated tactical network I felt like I had been blind all my life without knowing it. The helmet computer has more computing power than all of the computers in my old high school classroom put together. On the inside of the eye shield there is a sort of monocle over the left eye and that's the truly magical part of the suit; the holographic projector is linked to the suit’s tactical computer.

The computer analysed everything I see, overlaying my field of vision with tactical symbols over every friend or foe in the vicinity, and then transmits the data to the rest of the squad. Whatever I see, the rest of the squad can see as the computers integrate the feed coming in from mine. If one of us spots a threat, their TacCom automatically sends the new data to the other squad computers through the encrypted wireless network and the entire squad is aware of the threat within a few milliseconds. Despite all of this I am woefully unequipped to deal with the issue that I am currently facing.

"Lets go people, before our guests get here." the LT says.

The rain has slacked off in the hours since we landed the dropship, and the surface of the atmospheric processing station is a flat rubber coated surface the size of a city block. The wet rubber squishes under my boots as we run from the access door to the edge of the roof where we spread out in our fighting positions.

The fire team on the right of the roof starts setting up an old mark 21. A large bore machine gun that is mounted on a tripod and fed from large translucent ammunition canisters.

By the time I reach the corner of the roof where corporeal Harrison's fire team has set up shop the impact tremors coming our way are strong enough to rattle the prefab wall sections of the admin building fifty feet below us.

Having run this sim varius times I know Something very large is coming through the rainy haze in front of the terraforming station. I glance over to the landing pad where the dropship sits on the gravel like a huge insect at rest.

"HERE IT COMES!" one of the marines from another fireteam shouted.

"ONE O'CLOCK, 400!"

We look over to the spot he indicates and see the outline of a massive shape in the haze a few hundred yards ahead. It’s still mostly obscured by mist and fog but the general shape and size of it is terrifyingly large, like a fleet destroyer coming at us through the rain squalls. The target steps out of the mist with slow giant steps that feel like small earthquakes under our feet.

"Holy shit." corporal Harrison says, all over our thin battle line I hear marines shouting in surprise.

There's no doubt about the alien origin of the creature that's now coming across the rocky plateau towards us. It somehow looks like a mix mash of reptilian, avian, and mammalian all at the same time. I see its huge eyeless head that slowly swings from side to side before locking into our position.

Its front limbs are much longer than its hind limbs and joined at the center in a way that seems structurally impossible. It walks hunched over on its front limbs like a giant fruit bat walking on its wings. Even with its stooped posture it's probably 60 or 80 feet tall, and it looks like it could unfold itself to twice that height if it stood up straight on its hind legs. Its overall appearance is familiar and unnervingly strange at the same time.

"AUTOCANNON HOSE IT DOWN!" Sergeant Becker shouts.

On the opposite side of the roof the auto cannon crew opens fire, the squad automatic weapon sounds like a giant jackhammer. It pours 300 rounds per minute in a slow authoritative staccato as I watch as the rounds from the auto cannon swarm out to meet the towering form coming out of the mist.

The strinng of tracers reach out only to bounce off in brilliant little explosions sending sparks in every direction. In responce the alien creature lets out a scream that’s earsplitting even at this distance.

It sounds like nothing I have ever heard before, a high pitched trilling wail that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to find a hole to crawl into. A quarter mile away the creature sways and staggers to one side, then it regains its footing and continues on its path. Its sheer size makes it look like it is moving in slow motion but it's covering the distance between the mist line and the terraforming station at alarming speed.

"You have gotta be shitting me." The corporeal says next to us.

"Rocket Launchers!" Sergeant Becker shouts from the central position.

The autocannon is still hammering out its streams of tracers in long and steady bursts. The creature is walking right into the barrage tracers bouncing off its hide as if it is wearing ceramic composite armor. The marine gunners are racking its torso trying to probe for a week spot, but there doesn't seem to be one.

The auto cannon standard round is a dual purpose shell, an armor piercing penetrator with a piggybacked high explosive fragmentation warhead and those rounds pack enough punch to take out an armored vehicle at a thousand yards. Against the hide of this creature however, the shells burst in a shower of sparks like oversized firecrackers, the creature wasis clearly annoyed, screeching it’s terrible roar, but it's still coming at us.

All along the line marines raise the stubby tubes of there mars launchers, I only have the rifle and its low pressure grenade launcher which will barely reach out that far. But I reach into by pouch slid the chamber and load a frag into the tube anyway.

"Launchers knock this fucker down!" The sergeant shouts.

Half a dozen rocket launchers boom at the same instant and half a dozen missiles burst from their launcher tubes. They streak towards the creature, the exhaust nozzles glowing like a swarm of very large and angry fireflies. One of the missiles lands short of the creature, another streaks passed the alien missing its left side by a few feet.

Then the other three warheads explode against the things torso in huge fireballs that light up the night in the distance. The simultaneous impact of three mars rockets does what the auto cannon failed to accomplish. The alien is knocked off its feet and it tumbles to the ground screeching it’s nerve wracking scream and we start cheering in triumph.

The creature is flailing on the ground just 300 yards away there's smoke rising from its hide where the rockets slammed into it, and it throws up mud and dirt as it thrashes around. Then, to our horror, it manages to steady itself and slowly rises back to its feet, it takes a step as if to make sure its legs still work before continuing its march but much less steady than before.

"Fuck me." I say as I shake my head, The creature just absorbed enough explosives to tear a dropship into fine shrapnel. and now its back on its feet looking only a little worse for the wear.

"Reload, Armor piercing shit on the double!" the sarge shouts , the MARS rocket gunners reload and shoulder their weapons. I'd grab one of them myself, but our reinforced squad only has six of them. All I have is my M66 whose grenade launcher shoots wet firecrackers in comparison.

"Fire!" Ghe launchers send another salvo down range with a muffled bang, this time only one rocket misses.

One of the missiles clips the shield like protrusion on the back of its head and can see chunks of flesh tearing off as the high speed penetrator of the armor piercing rocket tiers into it. the other three slam into its torso with far less pyrotechnic drama than before. This time the creature falls forward with a wail, carried by its own momentum.

I only notice how close it has come to our position when I see its head digging a furrow in the ground, a mere 50 yards from where our dropship crouches like a resting insect, the roof under our feet shakes with the force of the creature’s impact. The creature wails and starts thrashing around again, but this time it reminds me of a bird twitching on the ground with a broken wing.

"FIRE AT WILL!" the sarge shouts and the space around the admin building turns into the seventh circle of hell as a dozen marines start firing their weapons at the same time. To our right the auto cannon opens up again, all along the roof flechette rifles start chattering there hoarse reports I aim my weapon and begin firing grenades, our reinforced squad is firing every weapon on the roof at the downed alien.

Then there is no movement from the figure below and all we are doing is firing at dead matter, still I keep my finger on the trigger until the bolt snaps back on an empty magazine. For a few moments the only sound is of the rain clattering off our battle armor and the roof, the alien creature lies sprawled out dead front of us. we brought it down but we had to throw just about every piece of ordnance in the armory at it, and the thing made it to within a hundred yards of our rooftop position. we hear shouts of alarm and turn to see not one, but four more of the creatures ambling our way.

The new comers don't follow the same path as the first, instead they pause at the far side of the mist line and the fan out in a widely spaced line abreast. As if they are aware of the fate of their fellow comrade and the limitations of our handheld weapons. When they are halfway to our position we've only managed to take one down, and with 14 troops and three quarters of our ammo depleted I know at once that we don't stand a chance at stopping this knew assault.

Before I know it they are on us, the shield like tops of their heads just barely clear the top of the roof, but their long forelimbs can reach far beyond it. I see a three fingered hand coming over rooftop ledge and claw into the rubber coating of the roof. The structure underneath yields to the grasp of the enormous hand like the metal foil cover on a meal tray. The other creature doesn't even bother with such a probing approach it brings its arm down with a bang that sounds like an artillery shell and the world goes black.

When I open my eyes again I am in a room with the rest of my squad mates crawling out of the sim-pods all around the room, and the sim chief is calling out to get our attention. I shake my head still high on adrenaline from the simulation of humanity's first encounter with the Lankies, I check myself for damage and see that I'm still intact and not paste. All around me the squad is doing the same thing before the overhead speakers come online.

"Action stations, action stations. All hands Action stations. Ground teams report to the Captain for briefing." the voice comes over the PA system.

"Let's move people." the LT says as we begin to exit the simulation chamber and double time it to the conference room. When we get there half of the room is packed with marines in battle armor. The skipper is standing in front of a hollow projector on a plinth at the front of the room. The skipper is a tall graying man who survived the Lanky war but still looks like he could wipe the floor with half the marines in the room without much of a fuss.

"Good morning, I'll keep this short." Captain Packers says as he presses a button on the hollow panel. The image changes from the picture of the ship to that of a star system, the system has one star and 3 planets orbiting it.

"This is the Trappist-A star system, 40 light years from SOL. 72 hours ago we retrieved a distress call from the colony on Trappist-B,a near Earth-like planet the colonists call Camelot. The other planets in the system include Trappist-A, a ball of radioactive slag that we fought the SRA for before the Lankys showed up, Trappist-C, a gas giant five times the size of Jupiter with a set of ice rings, and an asteroid belt between Camelot and Trappist-A. The NAC lost contact with Camelot when the Lankys attacked the Sol 80 years ago. Apparently in the almost 80 years since then the planet has been invaded. They have been subjugated by something calling itself the Unified Equestrian Conclave. The colonists were enslaved and shipped out throughout their territory. There is a resistance movement in the conclave that their government have failed to stop, and as a result we have received a call for help. There wasn't much information in the transmission. It is expected that one of the equine aliens interrupted the transmission before it was completed. These things think that Camelot is the homeworld of humanity so the Acheron will join Leathy, Styx and the Supercarrier Manitoba and her task group, and prove them wrong by kicking the Equestrian Conclave off of NAC property." the Captain says ending his speech with a slight smirk, one that many of us in the conference room echo. Humanity has been kicked around by aliens enough in the past 80 years. Time for a little payback.