As the convoy slowed to a halt, Bokep looked up from his book. It was a manual on Europan and Eurasian units. How to spot them, how to fight them, and how not to die immediately to them. Of course the Eurasian forces were blufor {friendly}, but blue on blue {friendly fire} was always something to be avoided. The manual was an old print and mildly outdated by Bokep’s own estimates. The already diluted ink on the pages had started to fade. The pages themselves were made of low quality materials and had that old “antique” feel and look to them. Bokep’s unit had been integrated into the 509th some days ago and since then, they had been traveling from their training facility to the front-lines in the city of Lost Angels. They had been moving across what was known by 509th veterans as “The Rust Bed”. A kilometers long no-man’s-land where the Europan and Euruskan forces had been locked in a stalemate for an undisclosed, or perhaps even an unknown about of time.

As Bokep dismounted from the BMP-2 he was riding in, he saw why they called it The Rust Bed. The ground, a mix of reinforced concrete, metal plating, and jagged rebar was a dark orange rust color. Everywhere he looked, there were burnt out vehicles, long-dead Mechs, and dried blood streaking across the old battlefield into what reminded Bokep of anthills from where reclamation units had taken corpses down below for organ-harvesting and to scavenge their war gear. As an infantryman, it was Bokep’s job to escort the armored vehicles through what were known as “kill-zones”, or “hot spots”; places where there were known hostile units and otherwise unsavory characters that might see a convoy as a good target. This would slow the convoy down to a walking speed, but slow is steady, and steady is fast.

Taking his position on the left side of the lead BMP, Bokep racked the charging handle his AK-74M and made sure his reticle was working before signaling to the driver to start forward once again. For the first while, there wasn’t much. A drone here, a Scav that they let pass there. Regardless of the escort’s uneventful nature, there was a tension in the air amongst the mix of both green and veteran troops that didn’t seem to dissipate. As the hours wore on, Bokep began to get complacent, tired, and more than a little bored. Finally as they reached the end of the kill-zone, he was able to get back into the protected hull of the BMP and at-least hold over his hunger until the next Euruskan outpost where they could resupply. As Bokep opened a can of meat stew, he heard the sound of mechanical screeching, what sounded like a demented war horn, and sporadic gunfire. Throwing open the BMP door, Bokep sprinted out, rifle in hand to get eyes on the situation. As he gazed out behind the lead BMP, he saw several large arachnid-like machines emerge from the same tunnels he had seen before. Others rose out from the ground, rubble and metal falling to the ground as they gave a ear-shattering cry. Several turrets from BMPs and BTRs alike opened fire, Bokep himself joining in the symphony of of gunfire as he fired his rifle at the abominations’ heads and limbs.

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Three vehicles down the line, one of the machines crawled atop a BMP and began to slam its pointed legs through the top armor of the infantry compartment. The whole vehicle shook violently as the beast broke into compartment fully and killed both the crew, and the attached infantry. Hearing the engine of his own vehicle roar, Bokep turned as the transport turned and moved off to the side, firing an anti-tank missile into the breached vehicle, destroying both it, and the arachnid inside. Seeing the changing tides of the firefight, the other machines, began to scurry back into the dark underground. Several used their large pointed appendages to skewer more Euruksan soldiers and the dead and Dying were dragged into the abyss. Lowering his weapon, Bokep heard several cries for help originating from another vehicle the had been attacked. Using what engineering tools and vehicles they had nearby, they managed to drag two men out from the wreckage. One’s legs were crushed and broken, and the other suffered minor head wounds. After setting up beacons both for salvage teams, and to alert other units of the threats in the area, the convoy loaded back up, then continued forward.