“FULL RETREAT ORDERED, GET TO THE DIMENSIONAL BRIDGE BY WHATEVER MEANS.” The Super AI of the base said over the comms, as I popped up to fire another clip at an enemy. The plasma flowed out of the gun in needles, ten, twenty, thirty, needles hitting the incredibly heat-resistant exoskeleton. The creature screamed, mandibles slashing at the air, as it rolled to the ground, and twisted to show more of it’s back. I continued firing until it got behind a small wedge of crystalline substance destroyed by ship fire. I then got back behind the small opaque shield wall I’d set up. I reloaded, in a panic. Surely the battle wasn’t going that bad?

I heard the sound of clawed feet smacking into the ground, rapidly advancing on my position, these bastards were smart and fast. I threw my plasma spitter to the side, standing up and pointing my inertial launcher at the biped. It was closer than I thought, and it shot a burst from twenty meters away. The four orange and sharp rounds hit my armor. The first round hit my shields, flattening. The second shattered and so did my shields. The third round tore into and through my right shoulder, crunching bone and obliterating flesh. The fourth missed completely, the recoil launching it over my head. I was launched back a foot, and my body twisted around due to the one shot I had taken. I swapped the gun to my left hand, and as the creature jumped at me slashing with it’s long arms, and steadying the gun for another burst. I smacked the thing away violently with a Strand tentacle, with enough force to have smacked an unarmored human into two pieces. But this bitch just flew a few meters away, with a cracked exoskeleton, and likely knocked out.

I picked myself off the ground, and shot two rounds into the things head, seeing the head shatter open on the first shot, the round from so close going straight through the head. The second didn’t have much effect, due to the thing already being stone cold dead, but I had to make sure. I mostly just wanted it to get shot again.

As I ran to the portal, I picked up not only my own gun, but also the creatures’. I thought back to the order, wondering why we’d been ordered to retreat after just an hour of fighting. The base was heavily, heavily fortified, how could they have broken through?

Along the way, I occasionally fired the crystal-burst-weapon at the enemy, their own weaponry proving more effective than the plasma spitter. I eventually jumped into the portal, seeing some horrific damage. The station guarding the bridge was completely dead, dents and slashes, scorch marks and holes in the hull, there was no end to the damage. The bridge was nearly empty except for the wreckage that had been there. I floated through, not questioning the reasoning or logic behind the order anymore. They had crossed the bridge, and they were on the other side. As I crossed through the portal, gun in hand, I stepped onto corpses, blood, and saw the carnage in front of me. Two guard towers with which had probably been stocked full of guns, had been demolished. They had probably been the reason for all the corpses. In the distance I heard gunfire, and I chased after it.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I ran, and ran, adrenaline flowing through my veins. I found the bodies of Ul scattered across the ground, as though they were foot soldiers. I also saw one of these new creatures for every five Ul I saw. There had to be a name for these guys, but I didn’t have the ability to care yet. This planet had a relatively thin atmoshpere, it was existent, but only about half as thick as Earth’s. The red rocky surface I ran across was covered in blood and rounds. I finally saw in the distance, Hundreds of forms. Heavy war machines resembling tanks of old, but with metallic legs, and a thinner shape, were firing upon these forms. It appeared as though the forms were mostly Ul, but with maybe one third of them being these new creatures. A flash of light came from the sky streaked down and slammed into the forms. Releasing a huge explosion.

I kept running towards the explosion, winds whipping around my armor. When I got within maybe 100 yards, seeing the tanks going around finishing off the few dozen left. I pulled out my inertial launcher, pointing it at one of the creatures that was on top of a tank, putting rounds into the armor, without a clue that it wasn’t doing anything. “BAM” The round shot true, blasting through the back of it’s head. As I helped to finish off the creatures, a tall man stepped out of a tank. He was clearly genetically modified, being eight feet tall.

“It’s good to see another soldier. There aren’t many of you guys left, the Ul and company ripped through our outpost.” The man said in a relieved voice.

“What the hell happened here?” I responded, concerned.

“Information has been heavily censored, there’s no way of telling what’s what yet. I’d tell you if I knew. One thing I do know though, is that ships are ripping holes in space right now, and going to the two nearest systems, one of which…”

“Is belonging to the Xes’tor. This could be seen as an act of war. “

“You should be worrying about how you’re going to get out. Me and my men can return you back to base, but you’ll have to take some sort of shuttle to get back, the militay boats are all full.”