Elias
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” I heard the soldier shout once more before I finally registered what he was asking me. My eyes shifted from the oxygen mask that he was wearing down his body to the powered exosuit that he was wearing, a common fixture in the battlefields of the last century or so. The soldier grabbed my shoulder, shook me with the hand that wasn’t preoccupied with holding onto the rocket launcher, and he spoke again. “I asked you a question, what the fuck are you still doing here?”
I swallowed a dry swallow and looked back up to the masked face. “I-I came here to look for my family, the phone lines were down and I-I c-couldn’t check if they were safe. S-so I came back here.”
“Ignoring the evacuation order? What the fuck were you thinking?” asked the soldier, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore, my eyes were drawn back over to the window, where I saw a massive shape loom in the frame of the window that the soldier had fired from. My eyes widened in horror as the shape moved a bit more so all I saw was the compound eye of a giant bug. The soldier noticed this too, because after swearing, he dropped the rocket launcher, and brought up a rifle that had previously gone unnoticed by me. He fired a quick burst at the eye, causing the massive insect on the other end to recoil in pain. Both the shots fired and the screech of the giant outside caused my ears to ring, but the ringing quickly faded back into the background noises of the battle. Satisfied with his performance, the soldier looked back over at me. “It’s not safe in this building anymore, we have to go.”
Not wanting to argue with the man that saved my life, I silently nodded and shakily got up on my feet. “W-where will we go?” I asked, mentally chiding myself for asking such a stupid question.
“Well,” replied the soldier as he started jogging out of the apartment and into the hallway, “We’re about ten blocks away from the front lines, and neither of us are small enough to fit into the drone tunnels underneath the buildings here. That only leaves two options: either we get airlifted out of here, or we leg it back to the lines.” He seemed to anticipate my question because he said, “And airlifting us out of here is not an option because this building is probably going to be demolished in a minute or two, so legging it is going to be our best option.”
“Won’t they pick us off when we’re in the open?” I asked as we got into the elevator and started shooting down to the ground floor.
The soldier gave a grin that suggested that he had a plan. “Oh, I’m sure with the mechs, they’ll have much bigger fish to fry than us.”
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Sergeant Grays
“What the fuck do you mean that there’s a civvie in the AO?” I roared into the mic as I dumped more bolter rounds downrange until I heard the familiar clicking again and sent the signal for another resupply. These alien bastards don’t know when to fuckin’ quit!
“That means that I’ve got a fucking civvie with me, and I don’t know what the HELL TO DO SARGE,” came the reply.
I took a deep breath and held it for a couple of seconds. There was no need to panic, all that would do is sow discord in our forces and lose morale, and that was the LAST thing that we would want to do. “Alright, stay where you are, we’ll work our way towards you and get you out of there.”
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“Not an option Sarge, we’ve been found out, they’re systematically destroying all the buildings in the area, and we’re rapidly losing places to hide! If something is going to happen, it better happen now Sarge!”
I clenched my teeth as I thought about what could be done. There was no way that we could make a push significant enough to get to the two of them, at the very least without compromising our lines in the rest of the engagement. Simply put, the only way that they were going to get rescued was for them to rescue themselves, which was going to be a miracle in itself. I called it in to command as I burst down another squad of Yalayans that seemed hellbent to break through our lines. There was green everywhere now as I surveyed the battle, with the occasional streaks of red that were scattered every which way, but especially behind the lines. I patched into the security network and tried to find the soldier and his civilian shadow, but the entire network for that section was almost completely down.
“I heard that you have a civilian problem down there,” came the familiar voice of Major Morrow, a hint of humor in his otherwise stern tone.
“Yeah, but we have no way of getting to them without completely destabilizing our lines. Unless you have something in mind Major?” I asked, hoping that by some miracle he would deliver some good news.
“It’s looking like there’s a single APC about four blocks away from your guys, if they can get to that, then they shouldn’t have any problems getting back to safety.”
I furrowed my brow. Why the hell would an APC be abandoned on the battlefield? “There has to be a catch, isn’t there?” I asked.
I heard a slight chuckle at the other end. “Well, the damn thing was hit by a bunch of explosives that the enemy was rocking, so most of the armor is completely shot to hell, so all you’re really getting from that shit is mobility, but that’s better than nothing, and all that you’re going to get.”
I sighed. “How’s it looking everywhere else?” I asked, fully expecting to get nothing but bad news.
“Not so good. Your group there is holding the lines the best, but that’s just because they haven’t committed that many resources to fighting you there. Everyone else is getting pushed back.”
“Is there any chance of Broken Ties protocols being enacted?” I asked. Ever since humanity discovered aliens and the massive disadvantage we had against them, it was always priority number one to keep the secret of the Sol system, and if we had to sacrifice the lives of everyone on this ship to do so? That was the price of the safety of the rest of humanity. It would not be an easy choice, but one that had to be made.
“Unclear. The admiral has made the order to prep the reactor, but no orders to destroy the ship has been made yet.” I let out a sigh of relief. So long as the reinforcements came before then, we would be fine.
“Any ETA on reinforcements?” I asked.
“About six minutes,” replied the Major.
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed into the mic as my resupply drone finally made it to me.
“Well, I’m glad that you feel that way, now let them know they have an exit strategy!” shouted Morrow. Cocky bastard always loved making commentaries on things that I said.
---
Elias
We had long since fled to another building, one that wasn’t toppled over by the invaders for being a suspected hiding spot for us humans. The soldier had helped me stop panicking and made sure that I followed him every step of the way.
“You want us to do what?” I heard the soldier shout into his radio as he paced the room. It was obvious by the way that he was speaking that he was not happy about whatever information that he was given. “Oh, and what if they spot us on route? What the hell then?” There was relative silence as he listened. “FUCK! Fine! Wish us fucking luck then sir!” He looked like he wanted to kill something.
“What did they say?” I asked, fearing whatever he was going to say.
“The bad news is that we’re too spread thin to get any kind of real support. The good news is that there’s a wrecked but still useable APC about four blocks away that we could make a getaway in.” He took a breath, and then continued speaking. “The rest of the bad news is that we’ve got hostiles on our path.”
My breathing got more erratic. “Is there another way?” I asked, desperate not to go out there again.
“Unless you want to die, I don’t see any other way out of here,” replied the humorless soldier.
God help us all.