---Oskar’s perspective---

---Monday, 8th of September, 2684 Terran Calendar---

---Orbit above New Australia---

fff♫Through the gates of hell…

As we make our way to heaven…

Through the Nazi lines…

PRIMO VICTORIA!!!♫fff

Come the intense lyrics over my helmet speakers.

My helmet’s interior display shows me Esme as she turns to the Captain and snorts “I didn’t take you for a metal fan, Cap(!)… I’d’ve thought you’d’ve selected a bit of Wagner or Tchaikovsky or something(!)” speaking quietly enough that I’d guess her words are only being sent to his helmet and mine.

“Please… give me more credit than to think I’d go with anything as overplayed as Wagner(!)… I did actually consider the 1812 Overture but it’s so long we wouldn’t be able to complete it before we landed… It’s also a bit of a slow builder… even if the crescendo is incomparable!… This piece was simply the one that spoke to me!” responds Burrows, his voice absent its usual mirth.

“Fair enough…” shrugs my wife.

I look around at the other Soldiers of the company.

Some are sat, stoically.

Some are engaged in various faiths’ postures of prayer.

A few are actively beating their fists against their breastplates to get themselves fired up.

The pod has no windows…

There is a pragmatic reason for that; windows would compromise its structural integrity. But there’s also a psychological reason; windows would allow us to see the antiair fire being levelled at us. They would allow us to see the drop pods besides us being blasted into flaming wreckage. They would allow us to see the size of the ground forces we are about to engage in combat with. The one thing they would not allow us to see would be the shot that would kill us all…

That’s the more pertinent reason drop pods are windowless.

If it were just about the structural integrity, a simple solution would be sensors on the outside and display screens on the walls inside, working more or less the same way as our helmets.

fff♫On the 6th of June…

On the shores of western Europe…

1944!!!♫fff

Comes the voice of the long dead singer.

My stomach swoops as I realise we must almost be at the ground.

fff♫D-day upon us!!!♫fff

The song concludes at the same moment as the drop pod makes planetfall.

An alarm sounds and the ramp swings down, crashing to the red dusty ground beneath us.

Clearly, whatever strategic value this place had as a landing point was also inferred by the enemy forces, as we’re already being shot at!

“FORWARD!!!” screams Burrows.

A deafening battlecry plays over my helmet as the company charge!

I join my own voice to the din as we run forward.

Exiting the pod, I’m able to see thousands of Terrans making their landing around us.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Airborn troops are already streaking overhead toward the fortifications in front of us.

Great armoured vehicles are dropped from their own specially adapted orbital transports to roll along beside us.

Mortar shells blast the sand.

Our armour may be bombproof but, with no internal dampening, getting hit by a bomb doesn’t actually need to get through our armour to kill us! Our organs would be ripped free of our peritonea by the rapid acceleration.

No use thinking about it.

Mounted machineguns spray fire at us but the durasteel does its job! Those hit quickly find their feet again and resume the charge.

“D Platoon! Take out that nest on our right! B platoon! That bunker!” commands Burrows in between firing off his own gun.

A nearby tank lines up its turret with a building on the hillside and fires a shell over us that reduces it to rubble.

I make it to a trench and jump down. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to land a jump of that height in full armour a year and a half ago but, after so much training, I barely even notice the weight of the armour.

I round a corner and find myself face to face with a behemoth xeno, plasmaweapon drawn.

Reflexively, rather than levelling my gun at him, I shoot out my hand, grasp his wrist and throw him into the side of the trench with enough force that he dies instantly!

Only afterward do I realise that that was the first time I’ve ever touched a nonTerran… it was the first time I’ve ever even clearly seen one in the flesh, not counting the indistinct shapes I was able to make out, crossing from the drop pod.

He died so easily!

It hits home, in a way that being told it a million times can’t adequately get across, just how much we physically outclass them!

That was like throwing a 3m mannequin made of soggy polystyrene!

The squelching sound he made as his body broke was utterly sickening but I don’t really have time to dwell on it!

We have a planet to liberate!

---Tlorn’s perspective---

“Sir! It’s lost! We must abandon the town!… The Terran's are tearing through our fortifications like they’re not there! This position is not defensible! We need to go!” counsels my currently agitated attendant, Vrurm.

Looking out at the coastal plain below, seeing the hordes of metal clad monsters violently ripping apart the fortifications built to stop them doing exactly what they are doing, I turn to him and silently gesture in the affirmative.

“Order a full retreat! Ready the [Commandant]’s shuttle and escort!” Vrurm shouts as we turn to hurry through the halls of the building being used as our base of operations.

We make it to the rooftop platform where my shuttle is parked.

I climb aboard and take a seat and, moments later, we ascend.

I’m granted a last view of the battle that stands testament to my unfitness for command before it vanishes.

I feel relieved to be temporarily headed away from the army of monsters toward the relative safety of planetary Command in New Canberra but, at the same time, I know that safety won’t last long now that they’ve made landfall!

Vrurm is looking at a monitor when his face falls in horror.

“We’ve lost Escort 9!”

I straighten up “I didn’t hear anything.”

“We’re travelling multiple times the speed of sound, Sir. You wouldn’t hear it… Escort 3 is down!”

I look out of the window just in time to see one of my escort vehicles careening down to the ground below.

Behind us is a formation of deathworlders, flying through the air without the aid of ships, defying their nature as a groundborne lifeform, trusting only to their body mounted propulsion to keep them aloft, their light armour to protect them from the crushing weight of air they must be impacting at this speed and their own instincts and training to keep them from impacting eachother in the air!

The Terrans' lack of mastery of neural interfacing technology means that they are controlling their flight manually!

I watch as one of them flashes across the back of another of my escort, severing its engine and causing it to spin earthward!

“That’s Escort 5 down!”

“Increase speed!” I shout.

“Sir, I think it’s a little…”

*THUNK*

Out of the window, I’m able to see a pair of armoured, plantigrade legs, standing on my shuttle.

I see and hear the *slash* of a thin plasmablade, followed by an engine seeming to eject itself backwards!

The deathworlder releases their grip on my shuttle as we go down.

The craft hits the ground with a deafening sound but, mercifully, the inertial dampening holds and the crash is not fatal!

No one says a word as four Terrans touch down on the dry, sandy terrain outside.

The shortest one draws her needlelike sword and ignites it as she walks toward the side of the vehicle.

“Sir, I need to teach you a Terran phrase!” says Vrurm, seriously.

“What…!?”

“No time to explain, Sir! When they make it in here, nobody take any aggressive action and you need to say four syllables to them so they don’t kill us…! Can you do that, Sir?!”

“I… err… yes…”

Vrurm nods and teaches me the phrase.

My breathing is fast as I see the sword pierce the hull of the craft between the fuselage and the door.

It slices upward, neatly severing the locking mechanism.

The Terran draws a pistol and kicks open the door, pointing the firearm at my bodyguards and Vrurm and the plasma[rapier] at me.

Two of her cronies enter behind her.

Seeming to have satisfied herself that the others aboard are adequately covered, the small deathworlder turns her attention to me.

The glowing sensors of her helmet looking up at me as she points the blade up in a 45° angle, at my throat.

“Suh rendah!” she commands.

Terrified, I raise all four of my hands and repeat the phrase that Vrurm just taught me “Wii… soo… ren… dar!”