“Only the dead have seen an end to war.” -Plato

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(Fallon)

“What the hell is going on out there?!” Trombely yells as the ship reverberates with the firing of her main gun.

There is then the distant sound of the bow rail gun mounts firing in volley fire. The lighting in the Manitoba dims before a warning klaxon blares through the ship. Something flashes through my mind, the only time the fleet would deploy an Orion missile at the start of a battle would be against the Lanky's.

“Seal your suits now, if we decompress you won't get the chance.” I look to my right and see Forbes putting in a gel-filled mouthpiece before sealing his helmet. On an impulse, I unfasten my straps just long enough to strap on the up armor plate to my chest. The up armor makes us slower and makes my chest bulge against the restraints but it will take nothing short of an LHO or autocannon round to pierce it.

‘All hands this is the skipper we have just received the last transmission from the Kamehameha. Marines... Stand by to repel boarders.’ General Packers says over the shipboard address.

“What?”

‘All hands stand by for emergency retros.’

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(Snow)

My Avenger shakes and groans in protest as I push her to maximum burn to try to keep up with one of the now dubbed Trident fighters. The targeting reticule bounces across my HUD as the alien fighter spins and dances avoiding target lock. Shit, give me a UEC ace over Trident fighters any day of the week. At Least their fighters fold up like tissue paper to cannon fire. But these are made of much sterner stuff and take at least a prolonged burst to destroy.

And there in lays the problem the UEC fighters move like conventional planes in atmosphere banking and so on making it relatively easy to predict them. But these things fly around like human fighters on steroids, pulling the kind of acrobatics that would turn me to mush in a suit if it tried them. I am suddenly very envious of the NE’s Gungnir fighter and its G-couch that allows the pilot to take those kinds of dangerous stunts without having a stroke.

“Zulu 7 come about to point, two-five so I can get him off of you.” I report over the net, thumbing the missile selector prompting my missile racks to begin spinning, selecting a penetrator missile the rack stops on a white and red missile with a black tip.

“I CAN'T SHAKE 'EM!!” The African Asagi fighter rolls to port leading the alien into my targeting reticule.

++Target locked++

“Fox four, fox four.” There is a faint click as the missile un-clamps and leaps from the rotating rack. The Trident fighter disappears in a cloud of black hull plating and glowing red debris as the missile impacts its hull and the tungsten penetrator explodes inside.

“WHOOHOO! THIS IS SOME STAR WARS SHIT!” Someone yells over the tac-link, At Least someone is having some fun.

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(Space)

‘Attention hostiles are marked bugs one through eight, sub designation Mars one and two, Black one through five, and Claw.’

One of the Black seed ships in the distance Black four comes at the fleet at a hard burn. We have long since stopped trying to understand the Lanky’s apparent tactical ability in fleet actions, their motives and strategies just as alien as they are. The Leathy, Acheron and Styx take up the challenge, firing their positioning thrusters while the Leathy charges her main railgun. Acheron and Styx move to protect their charge with their hulls as the Lanky begins firing a spread of long-range dumb fire missiles.

The two linebacker cruisers launch first eight then twelve, then twenty-two missiles in response. On the tactical plot, the red dotted lines representing the Lanky's incoming missile barrage intercepts with the blue inverted V’s of the linebackers interceptor missiles. One of the missiles makes it through the defensive missile screen and is promptly torn to shreds by the combined PDC fire of The Pantheon.

“This is Leathy actual, one round, LHO, One gun in effect Firing.” There is a flash of pseudo-motion as the Leathy fires her main gun and the effect is almost instantaneous.

A massive section of Black four’s hull is blown away, and it goes limp in space. But the laws of physics are uncaring and the massive bulk of the wounded Seed ship continues on its course, carried by its own momentum. Expecting this, however, the Acheron and Styx send a salvo of six, sixty Megaton metroplex busters straight into the damaged section of the wounded Lanky Seed ship's hull blowing it apart in a sphere of expanding superheated gas and radiation.

On another side of the battle, a squadron of three UAF Fighter Frigates burns towards the Lanky battle group. Their massive spartan laser cannons firing invisible lances of energy towards Black two. Six spots on the two-mile ship's hull begin shifting in color as the lasers hit its surface before burning straight through the hull and into the ship. All across Black two’s bow holes eyes open and yard long penetrators shotgun out to meet the human ships.

The two Fighter frigates on the leads wing manage to do a sort of zero G barrel roll out of the trajectory of the incoming projectiles narrowly avoiding destruction. But the lead ship takes the barrage across the bow, the very forces allowing the ship to cover the distance then tear the ship apart from bow to stern. Pieces of the African ship's hull slam harmlessly against the hull of the seed ship as it advances with the rest of its battle group.

The two remaining fighter frigates in the squadron shoot passed the seed ship leaving a trail of chaff in their wake as it fires on them. Now passed the picket ship the two fighter frigates make hard burn towards the Claw ship. Mars one moves in to intercept firing invisible thrusters as it begins to flip around in anticipation of their bombing run. The two fighter frigates dodge around the ship before firing twelve six megatone cluster missiles at the Claw ship, who in a flash of light shrugs off the attack with no damage.

The Africans fly close into the ship in hopes of using it as cover from the Mars seed ship. But all along their trajectory holes in the ship's black sloping hull eyeris and massive bone white spikes launch themselves towards them forcing them to correct their course.

“Tigger three you are falling behind maintain formation.”

“We can not we have been hit. Breaches on decks three to sixteen, port side engine three is offline. Hold on I have an Ide….” The captain of the ship never got to finish the thought. As the Mars Seed ship launches its own barrage of penetrators and missiles tearing them to pieces. Mars two having never ceased its forward momentum does a complete one-eighty flip and returns to its course.

Now having cleared the Lanky fleet the sole surviving ship in the frigate fighter squadron pulls a one-eighty flip to reposition itself. Once in position, the crew receives a dose of G-stimulants while the ship burns at twelve G sustained to cease its momentum and get them back into the fight. However, one of the Claw ships four scythe-like structures swivels and points at them before glowing an ominous red.

Just as the African ship shoots back forward and begins firing its missiles and laser cannons, the glowing on the bone white claw reaches its crescendo. Then the Fighter frigate blows apart as a bolt of red energy from the claw reaches out and touches it. The bolt sails off into deep space while behind it the broken chunks of spaceship continue on their original course.

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(Charlotte)

‘Attention count four-five enemy fighters making a B-line for the Manitoba, move to intercept.’

“Avery…” I say to no one in particular while my couch pumps G-stimulants into my bloodstream as my stomach is left somewhere sixty kilometers behind me.

UAF- Shaka Zulu, SRA- Hirohito, NES-Joan of Arc, NACS Rodger Young, and NACS James Holden all swing about on their axis to bring their PDC’s to bear in overlapping fields of fire. The sheer amount rail and chain guns pointed at the oncoming enemy fighters would be enough to make the most suicidal pilots blush, yet the trident fighters accelerate into the effective gun range.

Ahead of me angry lines of tracer fire like long chains of white light interdict the space ahead of the Manitoba while she continues to cool her rail gun. The swarm of enemy fighters being more maneuverable than most of their human counterparts jink, roll, duck, and dodge through the gauntlet suffering minimal casualties before the first of the COG fighters another Gungnir enters weapons range. Now forced to contend with Rose and the PDC’s the aliens begin taking losses.

I flip the partial alt and my Gungnirs thrusters rotate forward to slow my thrust before I flip the complete Valkyrie Alt mode and take aim. Ahead of me, the Manitoba floats her crew reliant on the fighter craft to keep the aliens off their ship. A rage born from three generations humanity fighting aliens boils to the surface as I use my right arm gatling to tear one of the aliens to pieces. My leg thrusters take me into a sort of cartwheel around two of the aliens flying close together so I rake them with my left gatling.

[Missile verrouillé, Missile verrouillé]

“Pas assez bon!” Bursting backward while deploying flares, I push in thumb selector on the accelerator, before rotating it vertically and tonguing a switch inside of my helmet. Outside a group of six missiles sails passed following the flairs.

In space my fighter begins to shift into Infantry mode a process that only takes five seconds but now feels like a lifetime. The legs move on their tracks while the wings fold into the backpack, while the shoulders move into position. My fighters clawed fingers flex into as I am rotated in my seat to the torso position. A covering slides back on the sensor bulb and the barrel of an interior turret emerges.

I lick my lips while lasers inside of my helmet follow my pupils while I target each of the missiles. My HUD comes alive with new targeting data as computer locks on. Depressing the foot pedals my thrusters now turned feet burst to life firing jets of blue flame as I am launched “up” and begin destroying the missiles.

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(Snow 3rd person)

The very process of shooting down missiles is impossible in atmosphere for fighters, but in space where one can constantly accelerate it is a relatively easy process. If you are fast and maneuverable enough the gungnir is both of those things and so are most every fighter in the COG. But only a gungnir can shoot down multiple missiles in space and in atmo and make it look easy.

“Let's get in there.” Snow says calmly before goosing his engines.

“Rodger that.” his only remaining wingman responds.

The two Avenger fighters scream into the dogfight firing their autocannons. Snow flips his fighter on its X axis destroying a trident fighter on his tail. Before Snow uses his single onboard laser cannon to turn another into a flaming ball of slag.

“Shamrock, multi-missiles.”

“Copy that.”

Their fighters retract the coverings on the vertical launch tubes as their helmets come alive with dozens of target locks. Before streams of missiles launch from both NAC fighters and corkscrew out and touch their targets blowing them to pieces. In the distance, Snowman watches the ice blue and white gungnir that is Ice Queens fighter extend an arm towards a distant fighter. But no pearl neckless of tracers lance out from her gatlings.

“Merde, je suis sec!”

“Icequeen, get Valkyrie squadron to the Joan of arc and rearm Razgriz will cover you.”

“Copy that.” she says over the taclink, before she shifts back into its fighter mode and followed by a pair of gungnir fighters goes for full burn towards the unmolested Joan of arc.

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(Miiora)

I have never been in a space battle on an unshielded ship before and now I wish to never be in one again. Human ships lack windows and the sound synthesizers that UEC ships possess so the entire event is oddly equal parts boring and terrifying. The only things that alert us to our being in a battle in the first place are the slightly dimmer lights and occasional alarms.

“What’s that sarge?” Trombely asks as the lights dim even more followed by a tinny sound like tearing paper and the reverberating drum beats of the hull.

“Thats Point Defence and small railgun fire. Holy shit we're in CQC.” Fallon says breathlessly, something foreign in his voice, fear maybe?

Then the ship rocks followed by the sound of an explosion. The air is then filled with the shrill siren of the warning claxon. The lights in the room turn red, before the ship is rocked by another explosion, and then another. What is happening, what was that sound in Avery Fallon's voice, why hasn't the COG destroyed whatever is attacking them yet? If this was the UEC they were fighting the COG fleet would have blown them to space dust by now, If this was the UEC…

“This is the skipper. We have borders in hangar bays twelve, six and nine. Sealing affected bays. MARINES, Get those fucks off my ship.”

“LET'S MOVE PEOPLE!” Avery Fallon yells barely contained fear in his voice as he unfastens from his seat, and picks up his rifle.

Fumbling with the seat restraints I unhook as well and retrieve my M-66c from its rack in my seat. The fireteam then joins a stream of midnight blue armored marines as we steam down the labyrinth of corridors. When we are halfway there I notice as a group of four black armored males joins Fallon. They possess the same armor as my friend and possess the same shoulder badge something called an Atlas Moth.

As we near the corner to the hanger bay we see a fireteam of helmetless marines firing on something around the corner. Then a series of white barbed spikes stitch the wall behind them before the headless body of a human in a blue vacuum suit slams bonelessly into the bulkhead. One of the marines leans out of cover and fires a buckshot round from his rifles launcher. A spike makes his head snap back and his rifle goes flying from his hand where it bounces off of the bulkhead. Instead of falling over his body continues to stand, his boots magnetically locked to the deck as his body lifelessly flails.

A membrane splitting screech brings us to a halt. The close quarters, combined with the cavernous, and metal bulkheads prove to amplify the sound. The crowd of marines comes to a halt as even with our helmets cutting all external sound it feels like someone is slamming picks into my hearing membranes. Ahead of us the marines without helmets clutch their bleeding ears and scream soundlessly.

The lights go out again leaving us bathed in pulsing red light as a large four-clawed hand grabs one of the marines by the head and pulls her around the corner. A spray of black coats the wall in the red light. Before a large alien form slams into one of the two remaining marines. The form crouches over as it holds the female’s head in one four clawed hand and crushes it like a can.

Reaching its arm out it picks up the last marine a Tymerian male around the neck while he tries to retreat. Lifting him bodily with one hand it raises its free hand, where it then tabs an angeld protruberance through his back. Once the bottom of the angled gauntlet-like produberance is resting on his scales there is a sickening sound like that of bones being torn and flesh being ripped as he spasmed violently for only a second before going limp. There is a sound like a piston being driven, and the body of the male Tymerian is launched violently into the air and impaled to the bulkhead by a white spike.

The black silhouette of the alien then turns as the lights return. There towering ten feet tall in the hallway is an alien with skin the color of egg shells. Its biology so “Alien” it's two long arms nearly reach passed it's knees, who jut out slightly upward. In a way that is matched by the structure of its elbows and the area just above the wrist. It turns its eyeless head in our direction, a head with a huge toothless beak-like mouth with exactly three peaks the bottom jaw with the center being the largest and two filling the gaps leaving only a jagged seam to separate the bottom and top jaws. It is with this cavernous maw that it lets out a membrane splitting chirp before….

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!!”

“DUST THIS FUCK!!” someone yells.

The entire passageway ignites as the first rank of marines takes a knee and the second fires over their shoulder. Dozens of M-66 rifles and one or two SAW’s bark their horse reports as the alien lowers its large cranial shield and jerks around like a maryonet. It raises its arm and lets loose with a barrage of its own tearing through our ranks with its weapon. The armor that I have personally seen take point blank gunfire from UEC weapons now proved almost useless against the bone-like spikes fired from the alien's wrist. Behind me, a one of the Manitoba’s Zaltule marine’s eyes explodes while we scramble for whatever cover we can find.

“GO FOR THE JOINTS!” Perkin’s voice comes over the tac-link and our fire shifts. The bolt locks back on an empty magazine and Trombley and I scramble behind a ribbed archway for cover. As I reload I can see Trombley on one knee firing his SAW like an assault rifle around the corner under me. I slam the bolt home and around the corner to fire another burst when my rifle is wrenched from my hand and goes sailing down the corridor we came.

“Shesha!” Looking around I notice what the label on the hatch Trombley and I are beside reads.

“Trombley get this door open,” I say over a private comm, firing the useless sidearm I possess.

“Got it.”

Trombley simply turns ninety degrees and lets loose into the hatch with his saw. The relatively thin door’s frame yields to the armor piercing flechettes and once he is finished he simply pushes the door in before reloading and firing once again on the slowly advancing alien.

“Sha'olo.” I say to myself as I find what I am looking for and step back out into the passageway.

As I step out I see two things happen that I never wanted to see. First Forbes who was ahead of us is picked up by the alien his armor visibly yielding to its immense strength, his screams of fear and pain are violently cut short as he is ripped in half and his two halves float in a cloud of blood before bouncing off of the bulkheads.

Then like the icing on a morbid cake, one of the barbs penetrates the shoulder pauldron of a marine and Fallon is hit in the chest while he is reloading. He violently jerks to the right as his boots keep him firmly rooted in place. I rack the bolt on the weapon in my hands before taking aim over Trombley's shoulder and pull the trigger.

The result is vicious, and satisfying at the same time. The rifle bucks like being kicked in the shoulder by an earth pony, and the aliens left arm explodes in a shower of gore. I pull the trigger again the round bounces off of its cranial shield.

“AIM LOWER!” I hear Trombley, and Fick yells at the same time, so taking their advice I pull the trigger a third time and blow the things chest open in a shower of blood.

The thing staggers backward opening its gaping chest wound to the world to see. The world that consists of a corridor of angry and frightened humans and their “Former” allies opens up with everything its has. Flechette rounds spark and ricochet in the hallway as what seems like a literal wall of rounds bull through like one of the UEC’s bull trains.

Suddenly two gouts of violet flame reach out and engulf the bellowing beast. The rifle bucks against my shoulder again before the bolt locks back on an empty magazine. And I reload as two up-armored marines in black battle armor trudge into the open. They advance on the writhing alien puking gouts of jellied accelerant from the incinerator attachments on their rifles.

I feel the hull reverberate with the scuttling of a Kleese and turn to see the armored form of Durge wading through the throng of marines before leveling a large usually mounted MK-48. The alien is promptly torn asunder by the armor piercing grenades fired by the Zaltule’s grenade launcher and the added lethality of the M-99 LHO rifle in my hands.

“Bachsava!” Durge bellows lifting the weapon and reloading it with a fresh belt of grenades.

“Shasha’lowe!” I shout as my comrades let out a cheer. Looking around I see Fallon on the ground surrounded by the other MOTHS.

“Skipper, hostile in Hanger Bay 12 is neutralized. Be advised suspected Lanky inclusion.” Fick reports over the net.

His chest armor has been removed and the spike removed and floating in the air beside the group. There is a white powder in the wound and glancing at his chest armor I can see that the barb didn't completely penetrate the up-armored chest piece. One of his fellow MOTH’s helps him to his feet before with help from another MOTH they pull the bloody barb out of Fallon's damaged chest piece. The MOTHS repair the damage with something they call a suit-rep-kit before strapping it back onto Fallon who grunts in thanks.

‘Attention all ATLAS, and Siafu operators report to your mechs. EVA operation, Prot side PDC’s in section 12 are down, move to pick up the slack.’ general Packers voice booms over the 1-mc.

“Let's move people.” A MOTH with a captain's insignia orders. The others begin moving in that direction, but Fallon stumbles and I move across the hallway to catch him before he can manage to hit his head off of the bulkhead.

“Thanks, Miiora. Let's go.”

“What? You can't actually think you can keep fighting with a hole in your chest.”

“Miiora, less talking more walking.” he grunts out tuning out my protest.

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(Fallon)

I limp into the Mech bay relieved to see that bays have been relatively unmolested. The marines of Fick's Fighting Ninth fan out into the bay covering sectors with overlapping fields of fire. Around me, the members of MOTHs team-1 and two sprints to their ATLAS units as the techs scramble to fit EVA kits to the mechs.

Taking a few tentative steps forward I unclasp myself from my reptilian squadmates grasp, and star toward. I can feel the medical foam in my chest like a solid mass and have no doubt that the “Mister Clott” coagulant is doing its job keeping me from bleeding to death. As I close on my ATLAS I take the moment to appreciate the new ATLAS-B. The B’s possess a designated set of maneuvering thrusters for use on low-G planetoids or in Zero-G as well as an anti-missile system known as a trench coat. The trenchcoat will, in theory, detect the oncoming missile and fire out a cloud of shrapnel towards the missiles and hopefully destroy it.

“Sid open cockpit.” I order as SD opens his cockpit while the techs fit one of the EVA kits Retractable Ballistic shields to SD’s right arm. Using my jump jets I leap up and rotate landing back first inside of SD’s cockpit. Around me, the other MOTHS of both teams run the checks and start-up procedures of their own mechs. On the other side of the bay, I can see some African marines and techs loading their own Siafu mechs whose sleek squat heads slide forward sealing the pilots inside.

“HEY ANYTHING SPECIAL ON YOUR ICARUS? Want your L-blade?” one of the techs asks from a scaffolding.

“No, give me the gat.” I finish strapping myself in and running final checks on Sid’s systems while I feel a thud against his back followed by a series of clicks. Looking to the left I see the another tech loading one of the EVA kits folding ballistic shields onto my mechs left arm.

“Avery Fallon, remember you're not immortal you're just a man.” Miiora’s voice comes over our private channel. I glance out of the cockpit hatch and can see her making an active effort to not look over here.

“Don't you know Miiora. I'm more than a man.” As my cockpit hatch closes and the techs and marines begin feeling out of the bay. Taking a step forward I fill SD’s magazine pouches and pick up my rifle.

The amber alert light activates and I take a deep breath as the monitors activate. First the top, bottom, middle, left, right, then I see what Sid sees. Sids hands become my hands, his powerful clawed pads my feet, his hydraulics and servo motors my mussels. All sound dies away, as the room is vented and the hanger bay doors open. Outside battle rages men and women fight and die throwing themselves against humanity's mortal enemy.

“I’m a MOTH.”