As the final few seconds ticked down I spent a moment marveling at how useful the replacement for my old eyepiece really was. Sure, it only had a range of effect the size of my head, but the ability to interact with and modify the light around me without blocking it was every bit worth the relatively high 4pt cost of the thing. Well, relatively high compared to my old one that had been basically free and considering that I was points poor is a really big world. The thing that made it so valuable was that it worked seamlessly with my heightened senses to do things that my old interface could never do. It could place return data so far down in my viewing area that it covered the area that was normally blocked by my nose, meaning that I lost none of my viewing area but still got more information back. It could also adjust itself to deal with the much lower levels of light that my eyes could now handle such that it wouldn't need to glow for me to see it in the dark. While those aspects were nice, they weren't what made it worth the cost.

The really valuable thing was that it could focus the light from in front of me, do some basic filtering, and then direct it to my eyes without any type of screen to block the light. Most camera/monitor setups pick up their input, process it, then send out the feedback through a screen with a resolution far less than my new eyes could handle. This new equipment that I had, so long as the process it was doing with the light was simple or repetitive, would modify the light without loosing any of its fidelity. This, as it was described to me, allowed it to: 'analyze the waveform collapse of light to determine the distance, filter out signals what were superfluous, and then redirect all the remaining light coming from a certain specific direction directly to my eyes'. Again, that is how it was all explained to me. If you can figure out what that means in a technical sense, more power to you. In practice it allowed me to zoom in my sight in a chosen direction while ignoring things like the cover from light underbrush and moderate fog. I was sure it could do more, like showing me what was happening behind my back, but I hadn't figured out all the tricks yet. This took my already good scouting ability and turned it up to eleven.

I was using this ability now to scan the area to the south east of us at the old bunker, and directly east of the starting point where the army was supposedly coming from, in order to see if I could find and scout out the enemy army before they found us. A few seconds later my search succeeded in finding them appearing by twos and threes in a large open clearing near the edge of our testing area's boundaries. The first few through immediately set up a layered perimeter to guard the area, and they did it with military levels of precision. These enemies seemed to know what they were doing and were extremely well trained in how to do it. Every last one of them carried a long-arm rifle of various sci-fi make and wore armor that hid everything but the fact that the creatures beneath were generally humanoid in shape. Many of them also had a large bubble shield surrounding them while others had a similar telltale glow outlining their armor similar to what the scout had from the last round. I couldn't tell what the difference was between the various types of units or the ones that didn't seem to have a glow, their military structure was too alien to figure out without more study.

Next appeared what I assumed were the support crews. They seemed more lightly armored but still without any trace of skin showing. This group immediately got to work building a decently sized structure out of parts that they pulled from no-where. I've read in various fantasy stories about how skills and magic make things like construction faster but it is entirely a new experience to see it for myself. The first building they made was a giant machine that spit out a large section of wall less than a minute later. Numerous people grabbed it when it came out and rushed off with it. Several seconds later a second section appeared, and then a third. The engineers placed them around the outside of the area, dispersed seemingly haphazardly, but every one lit up with the telltale glow of shielding mere moments after being placed.

More enemies kept appearing, enough that they had to spread out from their starting area to not get crowded. Two more factories were quickly set up and new enemy types started appearing surrounded by strange holographic interfaces and wearing more decorated types of armor. This was a worrying amount of enemies, but what was worse was when the second factory spit out what looked like mobile artillery. Then the third factory started slowly pushing out what appeared to be the front of an honest-to-god anti-infantry tank.

I sat there dumbfounded as I watched. The whole process couldn't have taken more than ten or fifteen minutes. The entire section was now surrounded by walls with several exits and they were starting to set up a second layer of fortifications. I pulled out my newest piece of equipment, a walkie-talkie that had been set up so that I could talk to the others at the base of our tower without having to run all the way down and back up. "They are here. They're setting up a base and have what looks like artillery and a tank."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

If I hadn't been watching the base at that very moment than I might have missed when one of the fancy armored people surrounded by holograms suddenly turned their head in my direction and started looking over the horizon. "Say again?" came Mack's voice from the boxy device. "Did you say they had a tank?" As he spoke the person turned in our direction and I swear that they looked right at me.

I ducked behind a wall and moved toward the interior. "They also have someone who can track our radios. We need to get out." I warned, then quickly hurried downstairs to join the rest. We had another fallback area, even farther from the enemy than this, but we had somehow hoped to not have to leave this one quite so quickly. At least the next place had another tallish tower that I could use to see what was happening.

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It took longer for us to get to our new location than it had for the enemy to set up an entire fort. This had come with the decision to cut off all communications in an attempt to keep the enemy from finding us for as long as possible. Not that we were very hopeful of it, but there was little else that we could think to do. The only ones really affected by it were myself, because I couldn't use the walkie-talkie anymore, and Tarrah, who had discovered that her communications tech allowed her to talk with any of our machines whenever she wanted.

Once I reached my new lookout position it became clear that things had progressed significantly in the last thirty minutes. Small groups consisting of mostly infantry and some artillery were headed in the direction of the aliens and our old position but they were slowed moving through the urban environment by the need to check the surrounding buildings for potential ambushes.

The group headed for the Cheaters had no such issue on account of the tank that they used to clear the way. A trail of destroyed buildings and toppled trees led back to the direction of the fort, though I couldn't see that far from our new position. The vehicle now stood at the edge of the original clearing, lazily firing from one of its four top mounted turrets but without any real sense of urgency or focus. The several mortars that were set up were firing regularly and the only reason why their targets had survived this long was a large shield that protected the group. Two of the more military types were working on it while the rest attempted to return fire. The attacking army, for their part, seemed almost relaxed; like this was little more than a game to them. There was no rush or hurry like what had been at the beginning. Instead they were content to continue the encirclement of the group and take them out whenever the end became convenient.

The battle, such as it was, remained fairly calm; assuming you weren't too worried about the explosions, gunfire, and lasers everywhere. The test takers found themselves with no way to progress and the army was content to hold them down with suppressive fire. The only one who even seemed to threaten them at all was the gun nut mercenary, Trigger, as his shots seemed to do far more than anyone else's to push the heavily armored invaders back. Eventually the attackers finished what they were doing and slowly started moving forward under the cover of several bubble shields, those soldiers finally showing their purpose, with barriers strong enough to shrug off even Trigger's shots.

It was hard to see all of what was going on, both due to the distance and other obstacles, but I did see when the defense broke. While I had expected the army to walk into the bubble, it instead broke suddenly and unexpectedly. As soon as the shield dropped I looked at the generator to find that its minders were gone and a very angry General was screaming at people to get them into order. Moments later he was hit by a sniper and the chaos was complete. There were a few people in the camp who tried to rally together and tried retreating into the bunker. The soldiers just used some sort of smoke within the doors and then streamed in, emerging five minutes later with victorious poses. And in the midst of the chaos, just as the shield fell, a smaller group of five individuals ran off to the side directed by one of the female VIPs and surrounded by a smaller bubble shield. I hadn't spent too long around their group but I recognized her as the one who had been hanging around the officers when I had gone to steal the data. Accompanying her were the two shield soldiers, Trigger, and one other that I didn't recognize. They disappeared to the south but not without some of the soldiers following them away.

The aliens battle started not too long after, as they were to the north of the starting area and not too much farther from where the army came from the east. The aliens inside successfully prevented the soldiers from entering the police station looking building by sending spears hurtling out at cannonball speeds toward any soldiers who approached. They would then telekinetically pull their weapons back to be ready for another round, doing it at a staggered cadence that didn't allow for their enemy to approach. None of the soldiers died, but one of them did end up injured pretty badly and was nearly reeled back in with the spear after it took him through the stomach. They responded by calling in the artillery, leaving the entryway too clouded with smoke to be useful while simultaneously knocking a hole in the back of the building. The soldiers were waiting and as soon as the wall opened up they charged in, following the soldiers with the heavier bubble shields to swarm the interior from the rear.

I didn't get a chance to see the outcome of that battle. The soldiers had almost made it to our position. It was time for our fight to begin.