Author's note: this story has been re-edited to bring it up to my current standards as part of an effort to make Ebooks. It features improved editing, grammar, punctuation, and also includes rewrites and expanded scenes where necessary. Please see my bio for more information.
CHAPTER 1: KRUGER
"Incoming charge!"
Moralez raised his XMR over the trench wall, resting the bipod in the wet, black mud. He peered through the thermal scope, his finger poised over the trigger as he waited for the telltale heat signature of a Bug to flare in the sight. The UNN troops to his left and right did the same. They were all clad in the same black, ceramic body armor, many with the opaque visors on their helmets down. They scanned the haze, peering between the broken, shattered trees that littered no man's land.
He picked out the glow of an energy shield, a line of blue ovals coming at them through the mist. He began to fire, and the sound of automatic rifles exploded around him, plasma bolts and tungsten slugs plowing through the air and impacting the shield wall that was advancing rapidly towards them.
Now that they were in range, the Bugs began to sprint, closing ground rapidly across the blasted field of cratered mud. They were bipedal insectoids with four arms, one of which held a plasma shield aloft while the other three wielded pistols and cruel, serrated knives designed to butcher. At about five feet tall they appeared small at a glance, but that was misleading. Their bodies were encased in rigid chitin, reflecting what light made it through the cloud layer above, shining in iridescent hues that might have made them look beautiful under different circumstances. Ornate, beetle-like horns protruded from their heads, no two of them exactly alike. Or were those their helmets? It was impossible to tell where the exoskeleton ended, and the armor began. Their green eyes, or maybe visors, glowed through the mist as they rushed towards the entrenched unit. Where the hell were they coming from? They emerged from the fog seemingly at random, disappearing without a trace when their work was done. All that the defenders could do was dig in and wait for the assaults to come. It was nerve-wracking.
He squeezed the trigger, his slugs melting on contact with the energy barriers in sprays of orange sparks as they drew closer. Damn it, they had to concentrate their fire, only plasma would overload those shields and bring them down long enough for the railgun rounds to penetrate.
"Concentrate fire," he ordered through his helmet mouthpiece, his voice crackling with static. "Overload those shields with plasma!"
Moralez cursed, fumbling with his belt, trying to free the plasma receiver for his XMR so that he could swap out the railgun attachment. The XMR series, or the X-Species Modular Rifle, was a weapons platform designed for versatility. It could be used by any humanoid species of the Coalition in the fight against the Betelgeusians, known to allied soldiers as Bugs, roaches or critters. The weapon's receiver could be replaced on the fly, accommodating either a magnetic railgun or a plasma caster.
Moralez's hands were shaking as he unclipped the plasma receiver from his belt, releasing the catch on the XMR frame and sliding off the railgun, but it was too late. The Bugs were too close now. He dropped the whole apparatus, cursing under his breath as he unholstered his pistol. The M1911 would do just fine at point blank range, but the Bugs were notoriously deadly in close quarters, known to cut soldiers to ribbons in a flurry of knives and mandibles.
The Betelgeusians reached the lip of the trench, raising their ornate knives and screeching a battle cry. A good number had been felled but not enough to turn the assault. Moralez braced himself, raising his sidearm, but then he paused as a black shadow passed over him. The Bugs were thrown to the ground, scattered by several dark shapes that leapt over the trench, emerging from the mist like ghosts. They drove what looked like massive spears into the aliens and ripped them apart with their bare hands. They hissed and growled like demons, their long, furry tails waving in the air.
Borealan auxiliaries, saving the day as usual. Moralez vaulted up and over the trench wall, firing his pistol into the Bugs, now in disarray as they attempted to engage the eight-foot-tall Borealans in hand to hand combat. The larger aliens impaled them with their long-barreled, bayoneted XMRs, using the huge rifles more as pikes than guns. They split open chitinous carapaces, stabbing and dismembering, ichor and bodily fluids spraying in an orgy of technicolor viscera.
One of the Bugs came at Moralez from the left, its four limbs swirling in a whirlwind of ceramic blades. He spun to face it and fired from the hip, emptying his sidearm into it, the creature spraying yellow ichor as it warbled and collapsed to the wet earth. The other UNN soldiers were rising from the trench now, climbing over the wall and firing into the mass of colorful insects, their handheld shields counting for little in the melee.
Moralez released the catch on his pistol, dropping the empty magazine and slamming home a fresh one, firing into the melee as a Betelgeusian was impaled through the chest by one of the massive Borealan bayonets a short distance away. It raised the screeching creature into the air with the strength of the thrust, the cat-like alien snarling, baring its sharp teeth as it fired the rifle with the blade still embedded inside the Bug. The insect exploded in a shower of gore, pieces of nondescript viscera and shell fragments raining to the ground. The Borealan dove back into the fray, shrugging off a pistol shot from a panicked Bug that barely slowed it.
The enemy had been routed and began to withdraw, the arthropods covering one another as they made their retreat back towards the fog. It was not out of fear, but rather strategy, as Moralez doubted whether they even had the capacity to be afraid. The Borealans gave chase, pouncing on them and tearing into them with their hooked claws, loosing carefully placed shots from their massive weapons into the backs of fleeing Betelgeusians. The human Marines formed a firing line, cutting down as many as they could before they vanished back into the haze.
They stood over the bodies of the dead Bugs and a few unlucky humans who had fallen victim to their knives, covered in the sticky mud, the barrels of their weapons glowing orange as they cooled.
The pack of Borealans returned to where the humans were standing, draping their rifles over their backs on straps. They were tall and heavily muscled, their black body armor doing little to hide their impressive figures. Orange tails and fluffy, round ears protruded from their combat armor conspicuously as they loped over the scarred terrain on their digitigrade legs.
One of the larger males walked over to Moralez and removed his helmet, orange hair falling about his shoulders in a lion's mane.
"Lieutenant Moralez? My name is Zuga, I am Alpha of Lambda Company. We have been sent to reinforce your position." The alien spoke with a rolling accent that almost sounded Russian, but it was understandable enough. He saluted, and Moralez returned the gesture, motioning for him to be at ease.
"Good job you guys showed up when you did, I've never been happy to see a
Mad Cat
before today."
Zuga huffed appreciatively, then turned to bark orders to his pack in their harsh, native tongue. It sounded like a cat fight, all hissing and spitting.
"These Bugs are becoming more brazen, Lieutenant," the feline continued. "Holding the trenches may not be possible next time. I have new orders from fleet command."
The alien retrieved a small data card from a pouch on his belt and held it out in his massive, furry hand. Moralez took it, careful to avoid the wicked claws that tipped each of his sausage-like fingers, inserting it into a slot on his helmet. He lowered his visor, and the green HUD flared to life, detecting the storage device and playing the video briefing automatically.
It was Admiral Doherty, leader of the defense forces on Kruger III. The video seemed to have been recorded on an orbiting carrier, Moralez could see stars beyond the window behind him, along with other fleet vessels hanging lazily in space. The Admiral leaned over a console, speaking into a camera.
"Lieutenant Moralez, as you well know, the defense of Kruger against the Betelgeusian forces is not going well. Since assaulting Kruger III, the only habitable planet in the system, they have become heavily entrenched. They are somehow able to avoid detection and have so far withstood orbital bombardment. The means by which they were able to move across the planet undetected and with such speed are no longer a mystery. Our intelligence suggests that the Betelgeusians have dug tunnels below the surface of the planet and are using them to move troops and supplies."
