The door slid open to reveal my assembled kill team. Each of them filed into the small room and sat before a holotable displaying the target system that would be our first stop in our search. It wasn't a very notable system simply consisting of a single red dwarf and a small host of barren rocks in close orbit. It felt odd, standing before my own team. When only a few months ago it was me in those same folding chairs waiting for Burbonjack to give us our briefing.

Checking the clock I went over my PDP one more time before plugging it into the table. Miiora and Bra'tac were the last to enter both of them like all of my team, were dressed in dark grey ACUs.

Taking a breath I began the briefing. "Alright Kill team Viper. The Skipper has identified a soft target…" swiping my finger across the table I brought up the aforementioned target system.

"This is Altonix, from the information given to us by Gutsy and the captain of the Glimmering wake we know it rests on the edge of one the UEC's Alcubierre node chains. That means, normally there's only one way in, and one way out. The target is this…" with another swipe I blew up the image to show a UEC relay station.

"The UEC call it a relay station, somewhere they pass information through, and link ships to for orders and generally anything we would use one of our own comm nodes for. Now our scout drone has detected at least several dozen life forms aboard the relay. So our rules of engagement are the usual. We go in, get the data, KTF any clops or celebs, and free any slaves. This should be an easy mission, quick In and out…."

"How will we be inserting?" Trombley asked taking notes on his PDP from his seat beside Miiora.

"We will be inserting via black fly dropship. After Defiant jamms their signal, and Roland who is on loan from the Manitoba, tricks their sensors we will be going in."

"When will we be going Veteran?" Gutsy asked from her seat in the back.

"Defiant makes transition to the mission area in three hour. Be ready in case the time table moves up. Thirty minutes."

"What are we going to do with the slaves?" Miiora asked.

"We give them the option to either come with us or let them stay, it's up to them. But either way if they become a liability we cut them loose. End of story. If that's all, dismissed."

They all stood and began to file out of the room as I turned to X who stood leaning against the bulkhead. "Not bad for your first Briefing. I'll get the kids ready. You should take some time to yourself that's an order." The seasoned helldiver said before kicking off of the bulkhead and floating to the hatch.

Sighing I scratched my bionic, "Damn ghost itch." I grunted before walking out of the door, my mag boots clicking as I did so.

A message caused my PDP to buzz in its poly plast pocket on my leg. Retrieving it and opening the app I saw it was from from Shiraui. With a few swipes I opened the file and was greeted with an image of her eyeless face. "Uum mister Fallon, I'm sorry to bother you but it is time for out link."

"Right...." I said before turning a corner and taking the corridor down to the hanger. "I'm on the way."

"Welcome." Shiraui greeted me as I entered her hanger. Usually the bay would have been used to hold extra parts and spare drop ships, but since the fleet was running low on space ships after the last assault the bay was in stead converted into a creche. After all it was really just a glorified extra large closet with a freight elevator in it that we used to move her to the hanger and out onto the hull.

But to Shiraui it was her room and she enjoyed it. And I could feel that enjoyment through our link as I drew closer to her bay. I had to be honest, It felt kind of nice to not be truly alone. She could feel and influence my emotions, she had said as much, and to a much lesser extent I could feel hers.

Reaching the hatch I paused as the two war bots who stood guard scanned me before a synthetic seated at a desk waved me on. "Your clear, go ahead Veteran."

Nodding as the door slid open I stepped in. The hatch closed behind me as I was greeted by Shiraui standing beside a rack of Bio-pods. She appeared to be studying them as well as had several arrays of tentacles dancing across several PDPs. I noticed several changes to not just her person but to the bay itself as I drew closer.

First off she had appeared to have grown a close approximation of a tail, no doubt the result of the vast number of hostiles she had eaten when the Galactica was attacked. The appendage appeared to be the source of several of her long tentacles. And the final change to her appearance was a sort of dress like situation made of oddly familiar black scales.

The second thing I noticed was the increased heat in the bay. It must have been almost eighty or ninety degrees in here. But the thing that was most notable was the smell which had a kind of floral aroma mixed with a sugary pastry smell.

"It smells like someone made cookies in here." I said as I clicked my heels and deactivated my mag boots.

"W-well I did sort of, um... ask the captain if it was alright if I had an oven." The flayed said as she turned to face me taking a knee to lower her eighteen foot frame to look at me. She then reached out a hand and snaked out three tentacles to gently grip me and bring me to her.

That caught me off guard."W-what? What do you need an oven for? You don't even eat right?" I asked completely befuddled. "I mean I've watched you shove whole fist fulls of people, screaming people, still alive into your mouth, and eat them…"

She looked down shifting her head away slightly as if in shame. "I just wanted to try cooking you all something. You know… as a thank you for taking me with you." She said in a sad tone, using her other hand to ruffle her dress.

"No, it's fine, really… I'm just surprised how human you can be. Given… well you know." I replied holding onto one of her claws as she moved me closer to chest.

"Really? Its alright That's fantastic! I was worried you…" Shiraui almost shouted returning her eyeless gaze to me and bouncing slightly on what past for the balls of her feet. The sudden movement forcing me to clamp my bionic onto the claw I was using as a hand hold. The claw large enough and dexterous enough to not only slice me in half with zero effort, but to flay me alive.

"Don't worry about it. But, do me a favor, just run it by me when you want to try alright. Wouldn't want you to feed the team people by mistake." I laughed as she moved me to what would be below her left breast. The hatch blossomed open and a small swarm of glowing fireflies flew out as I stepped in. Shiraui shuttered as I kissed my hand and ran it across a small plaque on the wall.

"Are you ready?" She asked as I leaned back and closed my eyes activating my implant.

"Ready."

There was a flash as my neural link was activated. The nantes in my body working to link themselves to the lanky I was sitting inside of. I opened my eyes and saw saw the world through Shiraui's eyes. The link felt odd, felt off, it could be because she was a lanky and im a human, or because she was what passed for a female and I was a male.

But it didn't matter, when I was linked be it to an atlas inside its womb, or inside Shiraui's seemingly hyper advanced cockpit. I felt powerful, like I could move mountains, do anything, like fight a hurricane and win. But that was a dangerous way of thinking, the kind of thinking that would get you and your people killed.

'And if it were up to me, it would be the first thing I would teach.'

Shiraui, the unique flayed I had come to call friend, began humming to herself as we link and she shifted her attention to other things. As she turned I brought myself back and seemed to float in the vast mind that made up Shiraui's synapses. I heard distant voices, just out of ear shot.

Then a sharp pain shot into my back followed by a cooling sensation flowing through my body. "Sorry! I wasn't paying attention." I heard Shiraui say as she shunted me back into my meat suit.

"Its fine, what was that?" I grunted feeling my muscles tightening before tentacles came down from the walls and began working over my shoulders. "Just a faulty synapse, you drifted too close to one of the wholes connecting nodes. Just I injected you with a fresh batch of nanites."

"It's alright, it just startled me is all" I smiled, and sat back in the seat and just listened to the soft thrum of what I guessed was Shiraui's heart.

"Mister Fallon…" She asked in an innocent voice.

"Hmm?"

"Could you tell me a story? The data I have on human history is so limited."

"Alright Shiraui. Have you ever heard of the Legion?"

"Ooh yes!" She squealed excitedly bouncing and rattling me inside her cockpit.

"My old placenta, no that's not the word you'r pattern uses… Pilot, my old pilot had some memory of them in his DNA when he was grown in me. They were formed after my kind conquered mars, before I was spawned. What was left of Martian Congressional Republic military came together and formed the Legion after they limped back to earth. That's where the term KTF came from." Shiraui said proudly.

"Well, not much is known about what really happened after the fact. We do know that they were crucial in the ten year war to take mars back, which if we're being honest we never did. And a few skirmishes with belter rebels who tried to blow the sperm and egg stations on Io. But have you ever heard the story of Rex's last stand?"

"No, who is Rex?"

"The general T-Rex was one of the last heroes of The Siege, that's what we called the first war with your kind back then. It was a hot Texas summer, when the Lankys landed. Most of Mexico fell in a matter of hours and as the shovel heads neared the border the legion, who had just completed another campaign made landfall. Those old legis fortified an old pre spaceflight fortress and made their stand. And at their head was a man..."

"What was the man's name?" Shiraui cut me off, sounding like an exited kid. Like I was the first time I heard the story almost twenty years ago.

"The mans name, was Tyrus Wrechs"

"Impact!" I shouted feeling the gut wrenching crash as the bipod slammed into the radioactive dirt.

At once the pod's door exploded outward and I jumped out onto the blasted sand, the M-80 LHO rifle clenched tightly in my hands gloved. "Move it Legis!" One of my NCO's LS-65 shouted off to my left.

There was another thunderous crash off to my right as one of the big MCRL mechs crashed into the ground. Mech rose to its feet rotating its torso backward as its legs carried it to our rally point. I felt the urge to cover my ears as the mechs shoulder mounted gauss cannon fired kicking up dust and rocks that pelted my armor as I stomped past.

In the distance through the sound of the incoming bipods I could hear it. The titanic ear splitting trilling wale, that all lankys made. "LS-43, what's the distance!?" I asked as I stomped past several more legionaries who were only now getting out of their drop pods.

"Large hostile contacts at relative six o'clock, seven kilometers and inbound. They know we're here!" The crackling voice came back over L-com.

As we drew closer and closer the combat controllers with us were calling down railgun strikes from the fleet in orbit to take out the tall dilapidated buildings around us. With only seven kilometers before the shovel heads reached us, that only gave us a few minutes to get set up.

We past a sign and a computer welcoming us to something called the Alamo museum and I watched a brute of a Lieg drop kick the door down. "Up to the roof, set up by squads! Mortars in the courtyard! Rockets and machine gunners on the corners! Move it legionnaires."

Sprinting up the stairs and onto the roof I past dust covered displays with ancient looking weapons in glass cases. "What's the deal with this place!?" One of my legionnaires shouted as we blew the door to the roof.

"Don't know, dont care. LS-43, distance."

"Their hallen ass sir, if they don't slow down they'll be on us in ten."

Stomping out onto the roof the sky opened up large sheets of rain began pelting our armor as the sky grew grey. In the distance a thick mist could be seen, as well as the storm walls created by the Lankys atmosphere exchangers. Huge black clouds could be seen in the distance swirling, as if battling for dominance with the natural atmosphere of our home world.

My grey green battle armor ran slick with rain shining in the dull light as if a carpenter had just shellacked it. "Here they come! Through the mist!" Someone shouted.

Sliding to a halt I slammed down stomach first as I brought up and sighted in on my rifle. Behind me I could hear the mechanical whirring of THK's as they stomped into position behind us. As well as the muffed steps of my non comms as they walked the lines slapping helmets and grunting angrily at their subordinates. Then they arrived, like monsters from some ancient story the first batch of lankys lumberd out of the mist. At my signal the Mars gunners let loose with their rockets, sending ninety milometer rocketing towards their targets.

The red striped missiles rocketed out and slammed into the first few targets. Each high explosive rocket created a large fireball that billowed out in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics. But despite the show it was obvious to those watching that something was wrong, very wrong. Because for one the lankys that had been hit were while not undamaged weren't dead. That meant that whomever had loaded the launchers before the drop had done so with thermobaric rockets, instead of the much more effective, and requested LHO rockets.

As a result the wounded lankys lowered their cranial shields and lumberd back behind their advancing line of nine. "Fuck, Rockets reload and fire at will! Machine guns light them the fuck up!"

There was a pause as the machine gunners drew beads on their targets and the electronic whirr of electric motors filled the rooftop. Then the space between our shitty fort and the advancing lankys turned into the seventh circle of hell.

The rotary machine guns spat out streams of glowing tracers that connected with the lanky's unnatural joints like laser beams. Black blood shot from the first two lankys as their limbs were blasted from their bodys. Instantly however the lankys behind leading two dropped to all fours and leveled their cranial shields, sending the streams of tracers to spark off into the mist around them.

Another salvo of rockets soared out these being much more angular as I watched pass. The LHO rockets crashed into the cranial shields of the advancing lankys, injected their isolated explosive and detonated.

Chunks of cranial shield exploded outward as the lankys began to fall as a result of the LHO salvo. Then the Mechs came into play, as one the four mechs slammed their heels down and anchored themselves into the ground before they fired their shoulder mounted gauss guns.

The lanky on the left exploded as a result of the kinetic force of the rounds hitting it. And the ones to its left and right lost limbs to the sudden and violent barrage. Then the mechs raised their right arms and began to fire their arm mounted rail guns. While much smaller less powerful than the gauss cannons inlayed into their left soldiers, the railguns the mechs had, had a much higher rate of fire.

And then, as I watched an entire squad who had been dropped to far our be swept aside like yesterday's trash with one single sweep of a titanic hand. I heard one of the most glorious sounds any soldier hears in combat, and one of the most frightening. My grandfather had told me stories of them and as I looked I heard the he low growl of an ancient looking A21 rolling low and slow over the horizon.

"Good morning Legionnaires, you appear to have a bug problem. Got any targets for me?" The pilot said over an old radio channel.

At once I marked targets with my weapons designator. Getting the signal the A-21 rolled in and unleashed hot death on the enemy. Firing its 40mm rotary cannon and unloading its rocket pods on the wounded troop of lankys. With its prey turned to a fine puree the flying tank banked and made to fly away, before a bone white three clawed hand shot out of the mist and swatted the plane out of the sky like a toy.

"Holy shit. Behind us!" Someone called out over the tac-link LS-18. Zooming in my helmets visor I watched a column of tanks, and a platoon of NAC soldiers rolling out of the poison myst. It was like something out of a nightmare, and as we watched, dozens of lankys began to file out of the myst behind them.

At its head was the largest lanky I had ever seen. Normal lankys stood on all fours at almost sixty meters, or eighty if they stood on their hind legs which more and more they had begun go do. This beast of a lanky stood at almost eighty meters on all fours.

Small explosions rocked its body from below and I watched in horror the beast let out a titanic chirp so loud, that even from four miles away my helmet had to shut out all outside noise to protect my hearing. And even then the noise the sheer volume of the cry was like someone had shoved burning spikes into my ears.

Clearly agitated, the lanky brought up a hand and slapped it down hard enough that I felt the concussion of the impact from here. Instantly the sound of a mass zero life signees signal reached my ears, as almost sixty lifesigns greyed out.

Almost as if it wanted to add insult to massacre, the beast made a fist and sweaped its forearm across the ground. I watched petrified bodies and vehicles went flying off into the distance like a child had just thrown a tantrum. Then the beast seemed to look up, its huge eyeless head felt like it was looking right at me as it slammed another hand down and stood up.

Drawing its fist back the titanic lanky hurled a tank at us. If it was a human I would have complemented its technique but all I could do was fight my body's primal urge to throw down my rifle and run away. The ball of ruined metal that had once one of the NAC's centaur tanks sailed through the air at a speed my helmet clocked at almost three hundred miles an hour, and slammed into one of the mechs like a runaway repulser train.

"Dude we're so fucked!" Another Legionnaire shouted before the beast reared back and let out a scream so loud it hit our line like a hammer blow.

One if my noncoms spoke up. "Keep it together LS-12"

Taking a deep breath forcing the lump in my throat back down. I opened a company wide channel. "Guns up people, either we stop these things here. Or we die trying. I'll be damned if I'm going to let Earth end up like Mars.They can't kill us if we kill them first."

"I'll end it there for now. I've got to get ready." I saw Shiraui nodd on her cockpit silhouette.

With a grunt I waited for the cockpit to blossom open and kicked myself out. Floating down to the deck I turned and made my way to the hatch. "Be ready alright, and be careful."

"Yes Mister Fallon." Was her response before she giggled. "KTF."

Turning back towards her I called out to her, "Don't forget nothin."

"What does that mean?" She asked with a tilt of her eyeless head.

"I'll tell you later." I laughed as I walked out of the bay.