“Give me options people!” Smith said as they ran. “Anything, even if it’s just a shovel.” His words brought a breathless chuckle from the squad.

“There’s a farmhouse over there,” Conners said. “Hide in the basement?”

“They would just chew through the building to get to us,” Monroe said. “How about laying low in one of the ditches?”

“I doubt that we could break line of sight long enough for them to lose us, yeah?” Conners said.

“We could fly away,” Jamieson said. When the other’s turned to look at him he smiled. “If we had wings.” Which brought a groan from the others.

“What about backup?” Barten asked.

Smith shook his head. “Probably unlikely. I doubt that things are going better there than here.”

“I got it!” Conners said. “Grab our ankles and hope for the best.”

“Ugh. No. Please.” Monroe said.

They continued to run, slowly losing to the millipedes chasing after them. “Hey! I think that I just got a level in Con,” Conner said as he looked at his terminal. “Haha, yeah! Suck it.”

Monroe twirled as she ran. “I’m already at 12.”

“Ugh, why?” He did his best to shake his head while all out running.

“I think that I’m running out of steam folks,” Barten said. “Never did get out as much as you infantry types.”

“Oh? Now you’re paying from looking down on everyone all the time huh?” Conner asked. The others groaned.

“What’s that to the south?” Jamieson asked. “Is there a flying type now? Coming from the base?”

“If it is, we are pretty much surrounded,” Smith said and stopped running. “Those with Ammo left to the back. Try to at least kill one of them.” He pulled out a pair of binoculars from his pack. After looking at the approaching flyers he handed them off to Jamieson. “What do you see there?”

After a moment of looking he spoke, “Uh. Flying men.”

“How the hell does that make sense?” Conners asked. He leveled his rifle towards the millipede coming from the north. It had been closer than the others and seemed to have sped up now that they stopped running.

“That’s what I saw as well,” Smith said and shook his head. “Either some power heard Jamieson’s fantasy earlier and made it true. Or it’s another new type of hostile.”

“Could be reinforcements?” Barten asked. He took the binoculars from Jamieson and looked through them. “Is that an exhaust trail?”

“Wait, Really?” Conners asked. And then he and Monroe were shooting at the northern millipede.

“Fall back slowly, just to give us some more room,” Smith said and leveled his weapon. The new type reacted as if a shot was going to be fired. “Huh, auto dodging is it.” Monroe managed to land a glancing blow on one of the legs of the millipede, which caused it to stumble into her next shot that landed on the chest.

Conners raced forward and planted a shot right on top of its head. “Last shot from me,” he said.

“I got maybe one more,” Monroe said as she checked her rifle.

There was a slight engine noise as the two flying types came closer. “Yeah, those have to be friendlies,” Smith said.

“Otherwise we are dead,” Conners said. “What, everyone was thinking the same. Let's jog towards them. Just in case those other two pedes are feeling frisky.”

A moment later two winged human shaped objects flew overhead. They looked like a bulky human made of blocks would. Were painted a light blue like the sky. And armed with much larger looking pulse rifles and something akin to a jetpack attached to their backs.

The two remaining millipedes stopped dead in their tracks. A keening screech came out of the two of them, they somehow stood even taller, and 8 arms, 4 to a side, extended out. Of course it all came to naught. There was the twin sound of the two pulse rifles firing, followed by two explosions as the massive balls of plasma impacted. Of the two millipedes all that was left was a scattering of black body parts and a smattering of blue ichor.

The squad stood there for a moment. And watched as the flying things turned north and continued on their way. Conners finally interrupted the silence, “Kind of anticlimactic that.” No one else had anything else to say and they started, a now less hurried, trek back to base.

***

Echo base had looked bad before they left. And now it was somehow even worse. The remains of dead beetles littered the exterior, the camp with its tents were run over, while the fence might as well no longer exist. Somehow the battered and broken tarmac held up just fine though.

Once they had a chance to drop their gear off, Delta Squad 5 was ushered into the familiar meeting room where Sargent Myles was waiting for them with his arms crossed. “I don't suppose you lot have a good reason for suddenly taking off like what. Not when you should have been returning to base. You’re godsdamned lucky that the davs were able to rescue you like that.”

Smith made eye contact with each of the squad before he squared away with Myles. “Sorry about that. Let combat get a little to us, and we chased when we should have retreated.”

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Myles looked at Smith for a moment. Shook his head. Sighed. And then pitched the bridge of his nose. “You are more seasoned, enough that a little bit of bloodlust wouldn’t cause you to lose your head like that.” Smith didn’t respond. Standing there stalwart against Myles and his accusations.

With a final Sigh Myles spoke. “Find. I’ll toss it up to Command. And I’ll try to see what I can do. But this can’t happen again, alright? The world is in a crazy state, and we need everyone working together with their ducks in a row. Otherwise we just might not win the next time.”

“What happened while we were gone?” Smith asked.

“More of those beetles showed up. We think that they might have been chasing after the refugees. Tracking them somehow. There was enough to fight them off at first, and then we received some unexpected backup.”

“Those were the davs then? The flying human shaped objects.”

“Right. They are a mobile tank tech that was developed off of what we could glean from the first G object.”

“When do we get to pilot one of those?” Conners asked. “Cause that would be badass, like crazy badass.”

Myles shook his head. “We haven’t been informed much about them. Just that they exist. Cost a lot of money to build and send out. And that we shouldn’t count on them too much at this point in time.”

“It’s kind of rude of them to show us something like that, and then just take it away again.” Monroe said to which the others nodded along.

Myles laughed. “You guys are still in trouble. Don’t forget that. The other squads performed just as well and didn’t need a rescue.”

“We could have dealt with them just fine,” Conners said and crossed his arms.

Myles shook his head. “One of the key things with the chips and terminals is that not only can we tell where you are. But also the amount of ammo left over in your guns.” Conners kept his chest puffed out for a moment before he slowly deflated. “Stand by for now,” Myles said and left the room.

“So what now?” Barten asked as he shared a look with the others. They were covering for Jamieson. He had their backs in combat, and they had his back with his little jaunt into the wilds. But should they really cover for him in such a way? What if there was a problem with Jamieson that needed to be addressed? Would it really affect their chances of moving forward with their new outfit?

Smith shook his head. “Don’t worry about it for now. Myles will do what he can for us. Worse case I’ll have a talk with him to see if that helps things out at all.” He raised his arms over his head and stretched. “For now let's just get some R and R in.”

“Could also compare our stats,” Monroe said and wiggled her wrist with the terminal on it.

“What do you mean?” Smith asked.

“Didn’t anyone else bother to check? We’ve just seen a fair bit of combat right? Figured that might have something to do with the gains I’m seeing.” No sooner than she finished talking than everyone looked at their terminal.

Kyle Barten

Str: 10

Con:12

Agi: 11

Dex: 11

Per: 12

PRe: 10

“Holy shit!” Conners said. He looked at the others with his jaw open. “How many stats did you guys gain? I’ve gotten one in everything but strength now!”

Monroe smiled sweetly. “Same, but I’ve gotten two in con and agi now.”

“What? Damn it,” Conners looked to the others.

“Same as Monroe,” Smith said with a smile.

Jamieson looked at his for a moment and shook his head. “I uh. Well. I guess that I gained some. But I also lost some.”

“Wait? How can you lose stats,” Monroe said and approached. “See, I had 10 points before in PSe and now it’s down to 5. Other than that I’m up 1 point in each of the others.”

“I don’t have the PSe stat. Anyone else?” Smith asked.

Barten raised his hand. “Rather than the PSe stat. I have the PRe stat and it’s gone up by 5 to 10. Also I’m up 2 in Con and Per, and 1 in Agi and Dex as well.”

“What! I don’t got no extra stats. Total bull. You two are cheats,” Conners said.

“Just because they have other stats doesn’t mean that they are cheats,” Monroe said. “Jamieson took the physic pulse pretty hard as well as having that incident.”

“So it could be that there are good and bad stats,” Smith said, his hand on his chin. “Jamieson, Barten, have you reported anything about your stats at all?”

“I did once I noticed, that first day under the tree. They said that it comes up sometimes, and would let me know. But I haven’t heard anything yet. Considering the situation it might be some time.” Barten said. Jamieson shook his head no.

“Might be something for you to report then Jamieson. Just to see what they think. And maybe Barten too, just to follow up and see if they have figured out anything else.”

“You got to let the rest of us know when you figure things out,” Conners said. “Don’t leave the rest of hanging with your cheaty stats. Hook the rest of us up with how you got them.”

Smith waved Conners down. “I’m more worried if there are any negative effects. In this crazy world who knows. And not knowing could be fatal. More so with the combat that we are seeing. We got lucky this time. That is something that we need to be aware of. It might be that the other 3 squads didn’t make it out unscathed like we did.”

They shared a sobering look. If they ran out of ammo a little sooner. Or if Jamieson had walked onto a hostile in his fugue things could have gone a lot worse. “No sense only thinking of the bad things,” Monroe said. “I’ll need a shower, food, and my bed.” She stood and left the room. While the others followed, seeking their own comforts.

Before doing so himself, Barten decided to check in with the techs first. To see if there had been anything progress on his stat. But also because he was somewhat wired up still from the combat. He should have been dead tired. Maybe with the stat increases he somehow outpaced the energy he was spending? Which led to the question, what exactly was the chip that they planted into his head?

Only once he entered the hanger, all thought of speaking with them went out of his mind. There wasn’t a lot of room in the hanger in the first place. And with two of the massive davs taking up the space it felt cramped.

Seeing them up close for the first time made Barten want to pilot them. He had been in planes and helicopters of all types. But never something that looked like a mobile suit of armor. The paint jobs were plain, and probably had something to do with camouflage or the like. They also looked janky as all hell, only slightly approximating the human silhouette.

“Beautiful. I never thought that I would get to see one so soon.”

Barten turned and found that Fred the Head Engineer was standing there. “You’ve heard of them before today?”

Fred laughed. “Of course! One of the reasons that I came long for the ride. Should have probably retired long ago. But not when there are mechs to work on!” he placed his hands on his hips and looked up at them with pride. “Never been one for flying. But fixing things, that's what gets me going in the morning.”

Barten shook his head. Just like he wanted to fly neat or interesting vehicles. There were people who wanted to build or maintain them. He wondered what it would be like, racing through the clouds like the ones had done that afternoon. Combat would be scary, at least at first. But once he found his legs with the davs it might just be the very thing that he needed in his life.