Harry Jordan looked out the open hatch and thought he was jumping into a mess. He was on the verge of starting a new invasion. It would look bad if he backed out now.

He weighed that against looking worse when his squad was killed in action. He glanced at the other five contractors. He frowned as he thought of having to take the blame when they were murdered by the xenos.

“What are you thinking?,” asked Nick, his agent. Every contractor had an agent. They did all the paperwork, support actions, and tried to keep their contractors ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

“I should be doing this solo,” said Harry. He checked his harness. “These guys are all going to die before we hit the ground.”

“They will do fine,” said Nick. “It’s not your job to make sure they come out alive, savvy?”

“It feels like it’s my job,” said Harry. “How long until we jump?”

“We’re about forty seconds out from where you dropped your homing beacon,” said Nick. “Some of the other contractors copied you and threw their own beacons across from their planets.”

“I am ready as I can be,” said Harry. “As soon as we establish our firebase, the rest will be a push across to any likely target. Should be simple enough.”

“Look out for yourself,” said Nick. “If you can pull this beachhead off, I might get agent of the year again.”

“I already won it for you once,” said Harry. “How many more of those trophies do you need?”

“I have an extensive shelf I want to fill up,” said Nick. “Savvy?”

“Sounds greedy to me,” said Harry. “One trophy should be good enough.”

“Don’t be a pill,” said Nick. “Twenty seconds until you drop.”

“Give me a ten count, and then I’m gone,” said Harry.

Nick gave him the requested countdown and he jumped out the back of the drop ship. He plunged toward the ground, surrounded by his loyal minions. Things in the air charged toward where he fell. His robotic bees put on the aerial brakes and began firing the particle cannons mounted on their backs to help keep the air space clear.

Harry’s new companions followed him with a little more trepidation. They were all armed to the teeth, but none of them had roving bands of fierce drones ready to fight for them. They fell into the clear slot created by the descending bees and aimed for cover so they could regroup and start fighting.

“The landing zone is hot, Harry,” said the voice of John Stuart in Harry’s ear.

“There’s nothing we can do from here.”

“Mana satellites?,” said Harry. He reached for the ring to activate the harness. His helmet gave him a height in feet in an inset inside the visor.

“We dropped a ton, Mister Jordan,” said Delmar. “It looks like a ton of ants coming your way.”

“I got my end,” said Harry. “You guys are going to have to handle things in orbit.”

“We got it, Harry,” said John. “Guy loves being able to fly around out here without problems.”

“Don’t let him crash into anything,” said Harry.

“He’s doing okay,” said John. “And the thing is so easy to pilot, he probably won’t have any problems distracting the orbital guys.”

“I’m about to hit the ground,” said Harry. “I’ll call when I have something for you to use.”

“Got it,” said John. “Coms, coms.”

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Harry pulled the ring on his harness and his velocity slowed. He floated toward the ground. He grimaced at the amount of enemies waiting on him. He had to do something about that.

He ordered a flash bang from his quartermaster and armed it. He threw it at the ground, turning his face away. It flashed out, blinding the monsters looking at it. He reached up and unstrapped the Ripper from its carry strap. He pointed it at the xenos and went through the thousand rounds in the magazine in a few seconds as he fell.

His squad had their own weapons and followed his lead. Explosions and searing heat cut the air as the squad dropped. Once they hit the ground, they would have to do whatever they could to fight back the forces coming for them.

This was the first time contractors had tried to retake a planet, and Harry wanted the effort to succeed. If it did, the Bernies and their contractors could force the enemy out of the Milky Way, and maybe chase them back where they came from across the intergalactic void.

Harry ordered a sun gun and dropped the fabricator below him. He maneuvered to one side as the weapon expanded like a flower. The petals turned down as far as they would go to point at the enemy. Flame swept the ground in an arc. Xenos exploded under the gated piece of local sun.

“That’s your primary?,” asked one of the squad.

“Naw,” said Harry. He dropped four hives at the base of the sun gun as it continued to kill anything in front of it. His bees dropped down and began to shred anything close as he landed gently on the scraggly grass. “It’s my delay tactic.”

“Clearing the other side,” said one of the other squad members. “We need something more defensible than a tiny hill.”

“Gate weapon firing,” said a third man. Harry heard the hum of something and the ripping of the ground. “They are still coming. I need a minute for the battery to recharge.”

“Walls going up,” said the fourth man. “They’ll be able to come in from the top.”

“Rotary cannon coming online,” said the last man. “I am out of points. Those things cost a lot.”

The rotary cannon and the sun gun fired over the walls of blue light surrounding the group. Harry looked at the battlefield. They needed to move from where they had touched down and formed up. As long as nothing big appeared, they still had a chance.

“Le Roi?,” said Harry. “Give me a direction to a shelter from where we are standing.”

“There’s a set of buildings three miles out, at the three hundred on the compass,” said the former wheel man. “They look busted up from here, but that should get you cover so you can build some more of those bees you like.”

“All right,” said Harry. He turned to face the direction indicated and let his visor zoom in on a pile of rubble in the distance. They were going to have to make a move for it. Once under cover, they could start real fortifications. “Mark position for squad.”

“Everybody,” said Harry. “We’re heading to the marked area. Xenos will probably be waiting for us. It looks better than staying here. Let the big guns give us cover while we move away from here. I’m going to drop some fabricators for mobile guns to help us out. Once we start moving, we’re not going to be able to stop.”

“I still need another ten seconds,” said the gate man. “Then I can punch a hole for us.”

“All right, Detrac,” said Harry. “Let me throw the fabricators down. Then you shoot. Yema, watch the back with that cannon of yours. Do you need a personal weapon, Howitz?”

“No,” said Howitz. “The cannon is giving me points for reloads from the stations.”

“All right,” said Harry. He placed two rows of three fabricators to form a double line.  “We’re going to have to move three miles. The fabricators will give us cover but we’ll be able to run faster than they can keep up with us. You are going to have to set up walls for us, Har.”

“Ready,” said Har. He had a fabricator built into his suit. Anytime he wanted, it

created a projector to run an energy wall until the battery ran out.

The fabricators activated and built their first set of weapons. Harry pointed at Detrac. The large alien braced himself and created a wormhole very much like how the sun gun operated. A beam of fire rushed across the grass, setting it on fire, and creating a glowing trench in the ground. They started running toward their goal as they fired their weapons into the mob of malformed xenos rushing down on them.

More and more bees flew around the group, cutting through anything in the way. They were flying in from the hives, dropping more hives, and generally creating more bees with the extra hives. And the target rich environment around them would keep the hives active until the xenos were no longer close enough to be a threat.

“We need to reach that outcrop before we can take a look around for an assessment, and then finish our run,” said Harry. He reloaded the Ripper as he went, spraying a stream of bullets into the crowd without aiming.

“Ready to fire,” said Detrac. “Stand clear.”

Harry pushed away from the group, reloading as he looked at the ocean of enemies rushing toward him. Maybe this wasn’t as good an idea as he thought it was back on Wallens.

A stream of fire cut line to the face of the rock Harry was using for their midrange goal. Beyond that lay the ruins they planned to use. Anything touched by the beam vanished in a cloud of smoke and burnt air.

“Airstrike is inbound,” said Guy over the coms. “Get ready.”

An aircraft shaped like a bee cut down from the clouds. It dumped a block of

munitions and particle fire in a straight line perpendicular to the one Detrac had carved out. Then the attacker headed back to orbit.

“All right,” said Harry. “Let’s keep moving.”