An assault group of twenty people was quickly organized. The plan was simple: we quickly emerge from the hole, clear the area of enemy forces and divide into two squads of ten people.

Uwon and his ten fighters leave, moving to the bow of the shuttle and occupy the eastern arc, and I and my group occupy the western arc, after which we consolidate on this perimeter and hold the defense until we shoot all the natives hostile to us.

"We all have five minutes to complete this task. During this time, all assigned tasks must be completed. Have questions?"

No one mentioned any questions; everyone was extremely focused on completing the current combat mission. Twenty men with assault rifles at the ready took their positions ahead of the upcoming assault, lined up in two attack lines, with spare clips and grenades ready on their belts.

Meanwhile, the enemy natives were also taking up positions and preparing for battle, judging by the shouts heard outside in an unknown language. I would like to know exactly what orders they gave out so that we could be prepared for all possible surprises that might await us.

I gripped my assault rifle tighter in my hands, checked the scope, safety, laser designator, clip, adjusted the helmet on my head, the breathing mask for leaks, my glasses with the tactical plan and finally the headphones for the group communication of the assault team.

I could clearly hear my breathing and the rapid beating of my heart and I really couldn't wait to do something right here and now. I was filled with this very feeling of the impending battle, where the fate of your life would be decided, whether I was worthy of it or whether I should rot in the dirt. I was not afraid, but I was angry, angry at these bastards for killing John, angry that they were impudent, insulted us right to our faces and now it was time for bloody retribution. I just wanted to throw out all this anger along with the entire clip in my weapon.

I was preparing to start killing people again, and this time they were not peaceful demonstrators from a poor Republican colony, but soldiers, even though they had no chance of seriously resisting us.

«Now I am who I am supposed to be.»

The native fugitives, meanwhile, remained in the compartment with those wounded in the crash and took off the camouflage we had given them, putting on their wet tunics, and Uwon, being closest to the hole, used a scanner to check the presence of life nearby and showed this data on the lenses of our glasses, which was very surprising some of our fighters.

"Shit! How many are there?"

Someone swore.

"At least three hundred."

Added another.

It seems that native woman Yasmi was not lying when she said that we were on the lands of a certain Empire. If this is so, then the people we face are the least we can afford. What if there are thousands or tens of thousands of them? We simply don't have enough cartridges for everyone.

Uwon, meanwhile, spoke to all of us via communication, and we heard his voice in our headphones:

"Remember where they are, target them and shoot them. Turn on thermal imagers and bioscan. We have little ammunition, save your ammo. Is everyone ready?"

"Yes, sir!"

The entire assault group sang in unison.

"Go-go-go-go!"

The noisy clatter of the assault group's movement filled the entire space around. As soon as the first two fighters climbed over the corpses of the natives and passed through the hole in the skin of the shuttle, they immediately began to get wet under the poisonous rain and, briefly looking for targets, opened fire right on the run.

Several enemy natives did not even try to find cover and simply fell dead from the shells tearing their bodies, and when they realized that they had simply become targets, only then did they begin to retreat deeper into the jungle, and we, in turn, leaving the shuttle through the hole, one after another, entered the battle.

Having immediately found a couple of dozen enemy faces, I began to eliminate the opponents with single aimed shots, but it was not always possible to penetrate their armor with one hit and I had to spend more ammunition than required.

«These shells are capable of passing through reinforced concrete with two thousand kilometers of fire, and they are somehow able to withstand fire almost at close range!»

I was surprised at the survivability of the white knights as I continued to shoot through the rain.

Jumping a little later into knee-deep dirty water, we began, moving in an increasing arc, to free the area from enemy presence. The natives hid behind the trees and tried to hide from our fire, but our shells easily pierced the wood and tore their bodies into pieces, scattering body parts, intestines and pieces of armor in all directions.

Some of the natives even tried to attack, while the other part ran away from our field of vision, and when these natives became less and less alive, we immediately began to surround our shuttle, taking up defense along the entire perimeter.

And although the scan showed that the natives were retreating, they still didn't seem to be going to leave completely and quickly gathered in groups to try to attack us. Amazing discipline and fighting unity. If they had our weapons, they would be comparable to the elite elite of the Republican armed forces, but fortunately they are just retarded natives.

"Boris, that bitch is at the landing ramp!"

"Understood."

I answered over the connection.

Having heard Uwon, my squad and I hurried west to the stern of the shuttle, where, judging by the scan data, the natives were gathering in an organized detachment. When we went out into the open area where the shuttle dug a canal when it fell, we saw how the white knights surrounded the girl as if they were human shields, putting their long swords forward. I didn't think long and ordered them all to be shot:

"Fire when ready!"

Having quickly targeted them, we began to pour fire on the group of natives, but soon quickly stopped shooting when we realized that our bullets had suddenly disappeared in the air. The shells did not reach their targets, leaving the natives unharmed.

"What the hell?!"

Will cursed, firing a couple more shots and making sure that the bullets had indeed disappeared without a trace and stopped shooting.

The girl who called herself Yasmi muttered something under her nose, lowering her head down and hiding her eyes under her hood. She held her palms in a kind of prayer position while the white knights, motionless, held their blades in our direction. The lack of any action on their part was an opportunity that we certainly did not miss.

"Throw a grenade!"

I ordered.

Forn, without thinking twice, took out the pin and threw a grenade towards the natives, and meanwhile we hid behind a huge root, drowning in dirty water. Soon we heard an explosion, but did not hear anyone's screams.

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«What? The grenade fell right at their feet, and they are still intact?»

Meanwhile I was surprised.

Judging by the scan data, they were still there and this raised many questions. And I was about to raise my head to look at the result of our work, when suddenly bullets whistled over our heads.

"Shit! Who's shooting at us?"

«Really who?»

I wondered.

There was nothing new in the glasses, the same natives standing in that place and not even the friendly fire of Uwon, who continued to clear the area of natives at the bow of the shuttle and divided his group of two to hunt down every native in the jungle.

Soon another round flashed overhead and soon the shooting stopped. Without taking any risks, I simply ordered Esko to inspect the enemy's positions:

"Esko, what do you see?"

The sniper looked through the scope of his sniper rifle into the bush and saw the following:

"They are slowly approaching us together with the girl."

"Understood."

After hearing this, I called Uwon:

"We have problems. For some reason we can't kill them."

"What?"

Uwon was surprised.

"What the fuck are you doing there? What's the matter?"

"We opened fire on them, but they don't care! It's like they absorbed the bullets and then brought them back! We almost died."

This immediately occurred to me when a second burst passed overhead, which could only have belonged to Will. I don't know how they did it, but if they repeat their trick, then we will become corpses.

"I understand you."

Uwon answered and hung up.

"Orders?"

I heard from Itami and thought about what we should do.

"There is something..."

I answered thoughtfully and gave the order.

"We retreat to the hole."

"Yes, sir."

The fighters answered in unison and began to retreat to the hole in the shuttle. Soon I called Uwon:

"I need a sapper and a creeping mine."

"It takes time."

Answered the sapper from Uwon's detachment.

"Place at your position?"

"Yes."

"Got it, I'll come running now."

We made our way through the vegetation, dirty water and bent trees to the hole and took up a defensive position. Meanwhile, a sapper from Uwon's detachment came running to us and threw a creeping mine into the water that resembled some kind of metal octopus.

Soon after the mining, the sapper ran away to his own people, and I did not forget to thank my friend, by misfortune:

"Thank you, I'll obliged."

"My pleasure."

At this time, the glasses showed how the white knights and the girl reached our old positions and accelerated their movement when they realized that we had retreated further. We decided to fire single shots to get their attention and it worked.

«They seem to have a much worse sense of direction than we do. This is what we will use.»

After some time, the white knights appeared in our sight, and I immediately ordered a ceasefire so that the natives would not use their trick again. As I thought, some single bursts returned in our direction and when the cartridges hit our bodies, they did not cause much damage.

"Damn, it hurts."

"What did you want? We fired blanks and got blanks."

"Crap! Ahhh~…."

"Don't moo."

"Both shut up."

Itami shut up the talkative couple.

It is very good that the fighters took the initiative and in the meantime replaced the cartridges in their clip with blanks. If they had not done this, then we would have had an eight, and it would not have come in handy at all. Meanwhile, the knights descended from behind the forest straight into the water and gradually approached us, and the girl walked with them in the center of their encirclement, without fear of possible fire from our side, but soon a creeping mine was activated.

The white knights became wary when the dirty water suddenly began to splash and when the creeping mine reached a group of natives, it produced a powerful explosion and this time a very successful one. The shock wave scattered guts and fragments of steel armor in all directions, leaving literally nothing of the bodies of the natives.

"Yuhu~!"

"Ye-e-es!"

"We did it!"

The guys rejoiced joyfully after the explosion, but quickly fell silent when they saw on their glasses that one native had somehow survived. She survived the powerful explosion, but was very bloodied.

Covered from head to toe in scarlet liquid, she could barely stand on her feet and spat blood while breathing heavily, and soon she could not stand it, falling to her knees and plopping face down in the water.

"She's still alive."

Itami said, rising from cover.

"Shall we take her prisoner?"

I was silent for several seconds before giving an affirmative answer.

"Let's take her."

I ordered.

Two fighters ran up to the woman while the others were targeting her in case of unforeseen circumstances, which fortunately did not occur. They picked up the already bleeding, naked girl and carried her inside the shuttle where a senior medic would deal with her.

Meanwhile, we all set off to clear the area of the remaining natives, who had fought off the rest and, as a result, successfully completed our task in just five minutes. Uwon and I returned to the shuttle, opened the airlock to the landing compartment and sat down to rest in the second compartment with the wounded, where a senior medic approached us and told us unpleasant news after examining Lieutenant John.

"Severe burns all over the body, even thermal protection turned out to be powerless, as if they had set it on fire right from the inside, burning all the organs. He was doomed."

None of us wanted to believe what we heard, but considering what we had already seen on this damn planet, what we heard was quite possible.

"These aliens..."

Uwon said sternly, furiously clenching his fists.

"They dared to kill a man, and not just a man, but our lieutenant!"

"The question of command is now relevant again."

I said calmly, realizing that without clear leadership we would not survive.

"Who will be the new lieutenant?"

"Boris, you don't fit right away, even though you served for more than ten years."

Fred responded and turned his attention to the angry Uwon.

"And you are even less suitable for this role. You served half as long, but I still propose your candidacy. Boris does best as a tactical group commander, but in terms of overall command he is no good."

"Uh-huh, thanks for your honesty."

I answered the senior medic, and then turned to Uwon.

"Well, do you agree?"

Uwon looked at the metal floor for a long time before raising his gaze and giving an affirmative answer:

"Fine. I will lead the regiment."

Uwon said, having calmed down a little.

"Well, good."

I answered, getting to my feet.

"I'll go and tell the others about this."

Having gathered all the fighters in one compartment, I told them the news. We decided that we were no longer a regiment, but one large platoon and now our strength was 58 people. 20 people of whom were heading in an infantry fighting vehicle to the first cargo shuttle to find a STCNC machine to assemble the necessary parts for the shuttle, another 19 people lay wounded or affected by an alien infection.

Fortunately, before contact with the natives, some of them had already gotten back on their feet and replenished our numbers thanks to the efforts of Fred. And in total there are 19 of us. I decided to temporarily raise Will's rank so that he would lead half a platoon, while I headed the second half platoon.

However, now we were faced with an extremely difficult problem, namely, the native fugitives who sat down next to the wounded soldiers and waited for attention to be paid to them, and as soon as everything was sorted out, Uwon came up to me and began to ask more about them.

"What do you know about them?"

"They..."

Before I could answer, Uwon immediately interrupted me.

"Except that they are fugitives. We already know this."

"They seem to speak a completely different language."

I said.

"I heard their speech and the speech of those fighting natives. It differs not only in intonation, but also in sound.

Time spent on different planets of the Republic taught me to distinguish dialects of the English language. It was as if each planet had its own language, and I remembered it well.

Listening to the speech of the white natives and the fugitive natives, I realized that their languages were completely different and my assumption was confirmed by the fact that they did not react at all to the grins from the white knights when the lieutenant and that girl were negotiating.

"Hmm~... interesting."

Fred was already thoughtful, approaching the four and starting to scan their bodies.

The natives, clearly not understanding what Fred was holding in his hands, became interested, but continued to keep their distance, talking about something among themselves.

"And what does the scan show?"

Uwon asked.

"They are not people."

Fred answered.

"A completely different type of intelligent being, and all four belong to different species."

"A? Is this even normal?"

Will asked, and the senior medic hastened to reassure us.

"In order to accurately build data about a species, you need a clear calibration of the scan and checking more than one hundred thousand creatures of a given species so that the scan learns not to distinguish them into different categories. This is a long job for a whole team of researchers and we don't have time for it."

"Are you sure they're not humans?"

Will asked out of curiosity.

"Yes. They have a completely different set of organs, a different metabolic structure and different substances inside their bodies. You definitely can't call them humans."

"Are these native fanatics the same species as them?"

Uwon asked. Fred approached the wounded girl whom he patched up and scanned her, then frowned:

"But she's more like a human being... damn it."

"What's the matter?"

Fred turned off the scan before anyone could look at the screen and see the result, while the senior medic responded:

"She had a child. He died."

This news made, if not all of us, then maybe me feel guilty.

«How were we supposed to know she was pregnant? She herself went into battle against us!»

I made excuses in my head, trying not to think about the murdered child, who was not even born.

Meanwhile, the natives took out from the bags they had collected all the dried meat that we had all collected from the corpses of the white knights. However, those whom we recently killed may also have supplies, but we have not searched them yet.

"I will check this meat for food suitability."

Fred said and went into the cargo bay.

"And you figure out what to do next."

Meanwhile, I went to my soldiers.