An HFY Tale: Drop Pod Green

Rhidi let out a sigh, rolling her shoulders as she hefted her MG111 around from the stored position along her ammo pack.

Their armor had been upgraded with some kind of new servo actuator, allowing the suit to move a little more smoothly than previously felt, but the ride over in the assault carriers had been less than comfortable.

No seats could bear their weight, standing room only.

The Company of Heavy Onslaught Infantry had been spread out along with the Regs, multiple Platoons riding along in the carriers as they howled through the air. Known affectionately as "Batfish Landers", the craft were odd indeed to Rhidi's eyes; Sporting main stub wings near the front, each short wing bore a locked pair of thrusters, with most of the agility and power coming from the four massive engines.

Behind these were another pair of shorter outcroppings that had a single engine each, along with a stunted, flat tail sporting a pair of forward locked engines that provided the majority of the thrust.

Despite its chubby main fuselage, the Humans provided the craft enough stability and agility to allow for quick and robust movements in order to land without much delay, offloading troops from sliding side doors. A short ramp at the rear allowed smaller scout vehicles to be deployed, or A.I. controlled, four-legged vehicles to sprint out along with the Regs.

The Regs in general, as Rhidi observed during the time they had all been loading up, worked side by side with A.I. more than the Droppers. The four-legged, pack animal-like machines trotting along beside them, some bearing ammunition or medical gear while others wielded some weapon platform or another.

As she rode now near the back of the Batfish, she saw that the A.I. piloting the "mulies" were playing rock-paper-scissors with the other Droppers, using their auxiliary claw arm to make the movements.

Apparently Shasta sucked at the game, and was getting rather frustrated.

Rhidi shook her head with a chuckle as Sergeant Flores keyed on in her ears.

"When we land, we're landing under good order, the enemy is currently preoccupied." Sergeant Flores said, crossing in front of Rhidi while brass-checking her rifle. "Buff will be coming in and opening a door for us."

Alias cocked a brow, turning to face his NCO. "Preoccupied? With what?"

"Not your monkey, not your circus." Sergeant Flores replied, rapping the top of his helmet smartly with her gauntlet. "We move in with the Regs after we get our entry point, everyone understand?"

Everyone confirmed with the customary "Yes, Sergeant", while the pitch of the Batfish carrier's engines began to change. The hum of the landing skids deploying filled the passenger bay, all the Regs getting the order to stand and coming up in unison. The slit gunners, sitting on sling-seats along the top edge of the craft, kicked open their visor slots so they had more room to swing their dual M2 machine guns, sitting on machine stabilized gunnery platforms.

The Batfish landed down on the grassy field softly, the engines roaring for a few breaths and then kicking down to their idle speeds. The ramp came down, sunlight flooding into the passenger bay as Rhidi and the rest of the Droppers trotted down into the grass, the mulies not far behind.

Rhidi looked up and around, scanning for whatever this "Buff" was, and blinked in confusion as she spotted an entire aircraft flying well within line of sight. It was surprisingly thin, for a Human aircraft, as if someone had attached long, broad wings, elevators, and a fin to a pen.

Each wing bore four massive engines, two of them side by side and held low by a mounting point. She could see that its bomb bay doors were open, thanks to the handy limited-zoom of her helmet, and could also see the small flight of Starcats loitering a few hundred feet above it.

"That's it?" Rhidi asked, turning to Specialist Frederick. "That's Buff?"

Fredrick nodded, looking up along with her. "Yep, that's grandpa."

"It seems so… old." Rhidi said, as the word fit too well to not be used.

"Ancient, actually." Fredrick laughed. "The B-1 is still running around as well, when we just need a bomb or two and don't want to pull out the B-3s. Grandpa Buff still has a very important job though, and does it so well that all we do is upgrade it when we need to."

Rhidi frowned from within her helmet, watching as long, black tubes began to drop from the ancient warhorse. "But what does it do that the others can't?"

"It has a bomb bay long enough to carry two hundred thousand pounds of ground shakers." Fredrick said with a tilt of his helmet, then turned to look at the distant enemy compound.

Their one-eyed foes had made a mighty structure indeed, boasting walls layered with both natural and synthetic materials to stop nearly anything from destroying them. The total footprint of the base was massive, around the size of the standard United American Authority military base, but there was a fatal flaw in its design: The anti-air batteries.

In their self confidence, they had never bothered to install anti-air batteries after landing on the planet and finding it barren of true opposition. Military intelligence units had already figured out how deep the base went underground, finding the teleport relay locations due to the massive heat signature they generated, as well as already pinpointing the mobile anti-air units that had been hastily deployed.

With a single scout unit, the Humans had managed to pathway laser-guided bombs straight into the machines and vehicles, Starcats launching the bombs from so far up in the atmosphere that the enemy didn't have a signal to detect, or issue warning. Once the first wave was cleared, they were simply denied any way to get more anti-air vehicles onto the ground.

They were completely uncovered, and the Humans were going to teach them a lesson on why that was a rather poor place to find themselves.

As the "ground shakers" made their way towards their target, Rhidi drummed her fingers along the feed tray cover of her MG111, everyone simply waiting. There had been sporadic gun fire and the reports of weapons, but it was happening on the far side of the base, so none of them really paid it any mind.

"Impact in one minute." Sergeant Flores said, starting to walk forward. "Come on, Company is moving out."

Rhidi glanced over at Alias, her eyebrows raised. "We're going to walk forward while the bombs are coming down?"

"If these suits can't protect us at this range, I'd be shocked." Alias muttered, stepping past Rhidi as Shasta came up on her other side.

The seconds ticked by as they all slowly trudged forward, clearing the distance to the base, but Rhidi had not been prepared for the bright flash of light as all the bombs cascaded down onto the enemy fortifications.

The flashes were fierce, bright as sunlight, but short. The titanic plumes of dirt and rubble that stabbed up into the sky were far harder to miss, and Rhidi came to a stop, watching them reach up into the beyond like the brown fingers of a drowning giant. The serene calm was broken by the overlapping claps of pressure waves, punching into their armor despite the compensation of their suits. Exposed Kafyan tails whipped back and forth in the raging shockwave, the boom filling their ears and rattling them straight down to their bones.

Rumbling under their feet, the ground tremored and quaked, as if the planet was roaring in pain at the wounds that had just been pierced into its rock and clay.

With a command, they all began to run at their normal speeds, closing the distance between themselves and the enemy base while the Regs slowly brought up the rear.

Opening a door for the Heavy Onslaught Infantry may have been the Buff's goal, but the gaping holes in the walls was more akin to driving a truck through someone's fence in order to deliver a letter.

Against the odds, there were still enemy troopers alive as Rhidi and the rest of 1st Company approached the walls, likely sheltering in some kind of shielding and avoiding being turned to paste by the shockwaves.

As multiple bunkers opened up on the approaching drop infantry, Sergeant Flores directed them down behind the chunks of wall and buildings.

"Shasta, crack it." Sergeant Flores ordered calmly, and brought up her weapon as she saw Private Shasta pull down his targeting reticle, Acici slamming a rocket into his launcher tube.

There was an air splitting "shwah!" as the munition left the barrel, and the offending bunker simply ceased to be. Where once twenty enemy troopers stood, manning three automatics, there was now just dust and crumbling pour-rock.

"Advance." Sergeant Flores said, and they all lurched forward at once, rounding through the still dust littered entryway into their wing of what appeared to be some kind of aerial terminal.

More bunkers erupted in shards of rock and reinforced materials, filling the air with clouds of soot as the other Platoons advanced.

Despite what they had normally run into in the field, the one-eyed soldiers on this base were far better equipped, adapting quickly to their enemy and wearing their own suits of armor. They were not as robust as the Human made varieties, but they were different enough to issue a short period of pause for the drop infantry.

More curious was their once unknown melee weapons, long spears with tips that hummed with white light, the edges visually blurring anything behind them.

It appeared they did not have much faith in their long ranged weapons anymore, and instead desired to rely on something they had far more confidence in.

Rhidi did not pause for long, hefting her MG111 upwards and pulling back on the trigger. The dust around her flew away from the percussion of her weapon, the shadows cast by the soot clouds causing the bright star of her muzzle brake to illuminate both her and the droppers around her.

Alias pulled up his rifle and started to fire as well, armored-suit wearing enemy soldiers howling out as they poured from doorways and broken bay doors.

The retorting gunfire line was bright, blowing hunks of plating away from their one-eyed enemy or cleaving straight through the weaker, more mass-produced armor.

Even though the fire was withering, the armor gave the needle teeth-bearing troopers the time they needed to close the distance, and the more forward Droppers were now breaking away to duel with their gleen-seaxes.

Rhidi, in horror, watched as one of the spears punched straight through a Lilgaran's armor, ripping through his back in a crackle of singed armor plating.

The change of tempo was felt like a water ripple, their foes gaining a burst of confidence as Rhidi and the other Droppers were set onto the backfoot. The Lilgaran's screams broadcasted for two seconds before his helmet cut them off, recognizing them as bellows of pain instead of actual talking.

Rhidi turned her MG111, pulling back on the trigger as the Lilgaran fell away, his form limp and armor slamming down onto the pour-rock with no bounce. She felt the weight of his death fall through her boots as she tore the once proud one-eyed man apart, his pale blue blood spitting into the air as she tore his armor apart.

"On your guard!" Sergeant Flores bellowed, the edge to her voice unmistakable. "There's been a difficulty tweak!"

Rhidi understood that as soon as multiple, one eye bearing faces turned towards her, recognizing her as a priority threat. She turned on her heel, bracing herself as she placed her barrel upon seven armored figures that had begun charging her.

"I need help over here!" Rhidi screamed out into her helmet microphone as she pulled back on the trigger again, slowly tracing her rounds across the seven enemy troopers closing in on her.

Her rounds did their best to rip their way through their targets, tasking themselves with their purpose of blowing hunks of yellow flesh and blue blood spackled armor shards onto the ground below, but only two bodies toppled to the ground before they were upon her.

"Son of a bitch!" Rhidi bellowed, disconnecting her MG111 via the emergency lock by slamming her hand against the button. At the same time she drew up her gleen-seax with her left hand, turning it on and parrying the spear thrust coming straight at her chest.

Her MG111 rattled heavily along the ground as Rhidi shuffled backwards, the powered gleen-seax edge meeting the glowing spearhead with a crack of energy that could bust eardrums.

"Rhidi!" Alias called out, leaping forward and slamming himself into one of the armored soldiers that was swinging her spear around, the blow taking it off the planned course that had been aimed for the Kafya's neck.

Alias's arrival was dwarfed by the bullrush of Morris and Inthur, the Human impacting his target bodily while Inthur slid in under his swinging arm, smacking away another spear that had been angling in for Rhidi's hip.

The quick succession of powered gleen-seaxes hitting the white edged spearheads caused the air to split apart in rapid booms, the noise as concussive as grenades exploding next to piles of glass.

Rhidi had little time to take in why Inthur had arrived before anyone else, as well as her heart skipping a beat to see Morris rushing in to help her, for she still had her own enemy to deal with.

The burning white spearhead caught her less-armored shoulder, shearing straight through the composite layers like a bayonet through a cotton shirt. For the first time, Rhidi heard the emergency alerts in her ears, and her helmet lit up with a litany of warnings as she staggered backwards, taking a low guard with her gleen-seax.

As Rhidi and her opponent squared up, Morris snapping the spine of his own across his knee behind them, Shasta let out a battle-hiss and speared Rhidi's opponent in the ribcage.

"Die!" Shasta bellowed in a breathy yell, wielding his shattered launch tube like a hammer. "Die, die, die!"

Rhidi startled in surprise but quickly charged forward, burrowing her glean-seax tip into the chestplate of the one-eyed soldier while Shasta whanged him across the head with his tube, eliciting both a crunch and a "bwooong!" of the hollow barrel.

Alias, stealing the spear of his kill, whirled it around his armor and bisected the leg of a man trying to go for Inthur's back, the spearhead cutting straight through the leg and sealing it shut purely by the passing heat.

Inthur rallied, spinning around on her heel and ripping her powered blade across the man's face.

Shorsey appeared out of nowhere, flying through the air laterally with both feet together and cackling. She planted her heels into the chest plate of a one-eyed woman, inverting the armor and crushing her ribs.

Shorsey then landed hard onto the pour-rock, still laughing as Rhidi rushed over and helped the Human back onto her feet.

"Rather sporty today!" Shorsey laughed as she stood with Rhidi's help, looking down at her coughing, choking victim that was suffocating on her own armor plating.

Shasta let out another hiss as he brutally beat in the head of a downed enemy who had the audacity to twitch, his now bent launcher tube pinging and pranging off the body as it continued to jerk and flinch.

Rhidi went to reply when a great many shouts of alarm erupted into her ear, and she turned, her voice catching in her throat; The voices over the open channels were calling out in panic, and she saw the tracking markers of soldiers start to disperse, as if they were a flock of pigeons that saw a hawk fly towards them.

There were multiple secondary explosions and smoke grenade bursts that threw another cog into the chaos engine, Shorsey and Rhidi going back to back as Inthur, Morris, Alias, and Shasta closed in with them, weapons pointed out into the growing gloom.

Ten dark forms went running past in the dust, brushing by Rhidi with an eery calm. Some said nothing, others just growled, while some touched a hand to her.

A finger poked her ruined shoulder armor, touching her barely exposed yellow fur. Another ran a hand down the middle of her helmet, all of them jostling her softly as if counting coup. She even felt one hand run down her arm, followed by a girlish giggle that made all the hair on her body stand up.

"What the fuck was that?!" Alias shouted, staggering further backwards into the cluster of friendly armor as someone kissed the side of his visor, the Pwah powering on his gleen-seax with a panicked flick of the thumb.

"Mind your manners." A Human said via an external speaker, and Rhidi whipped around the other way to see who was speaking. "No need to be dicks to the Droppers, dogs."

A massive male Human, sporting the most advanced armor she had ever seen, was standing before her. His own helmet had a dagger shaped visor as well, but it was ringed in an odd, black and white striped pattern, a dusty white skull badge shining from his helmet's brow. His armor was black as night, and glittered with micro-shielding that made the dust around him glow a dusky amber as it was pushed around him by the barrier.

"Apologies, Private." The man said, patting Alias on the shoulder. "They know the rules, but they tend to flex where they can. Sorry it took us so long to get here, we had to come around your flank at a sprint."

Without another word the heavily armored man, and several others, pushed forward into the dust, chasing the figures that stayed hidden in the murky shadows. Rhidi and the other Droppers slowly formed up around Sergeant Flores, drifting in through the sifting clouds as they quietly listened.

The screams began abruptly, growing in a wave of agony and horror as if someone was slowly turning a volume dial. The buckling crunches of armor and discharge of melee weapons was eerie, as all Rhidi could see through the dust was the bright red, yellow, or green flashes of energy fields doing their grizzly work.

"Hold here." Sergeant Flores said lowly. "Form a perimeter, let the deviants do their work."

Rhidi turned her helmet ever so slightly towards her NCO, her fur still standing on end and tail as frayed out as the other Kafya. "... Deviants, Sergeant?"

"Irregulars." Sergeant Flores stated matter of factly. "All you need to know. Now fan out."

Rhidi recovered her MG111, apologizing to it as she and her fellow Heavy Onslaught Infantry spread out, finding cover where they could while medics did their gruesome work. Keeping the wounded alive was difficult due to the effectiveness of the enemy spears, while gathering the dead… as well as their pieces, was a distasteful task. Medical evacuation craft were already inbound, far speedier craft called "Pufferfish" that were designed to only hold a handful of Sections.

The screams, however, never died down, nor did the cackles and calls of the monsters that hunted in the distance. The fight had long since entered multiple terminal buildings, the power having been knocked out by the Buff's bombs.

"You almost feel sorry for them." Marides piped up, hunkered down behind a small, toppled cargo shuttle. "It's been nothing but screams coming out of that building."

"Who were those people, anyway?" Rhidi asked, turning to look at Marides, but instead turning to look at Alias as he spoke up.

The Pwah appeared unsettled, looking up at Rhidi through his visor. "I have a hunch… but I'm hoping I'm wrong."

"About time they got here, we have Droppers missing entire parts of their fucking bodies." Sergeant Flores said as she turned towards the sounds of approaching engines, but she jerked her eyes up past the Pufferfish coming in to land. "Eyes up! We have enemy exfil craft inbound!"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Rhidi snapped her head up to see multiple, angular enemy transport shuttles coming in behind the smoother Pufferfish, low and fast, and raised her MG111. "There are guns on those fucking things!"

Said guns had opened up before Rhidi finished her sentence, raking the Pufferfish with cannon fire as they howled over the gathered Droppers. Rhidi gripped her MG111 in a low stance and fired at the nearest enemy ship, walking her fire along the flank of the craft as it slowed down to land.

Rhidi kept up the fire, loading her hips and twisting on the balls of her feet as she kept on target. The unlucky bastards that had opened the side door were blown out the other side of it, flailing limply down to the hard pour-rock ground as Rhidi's rounds tore through the frantically manoeuvring grav-engines.

The wounded Pufferfish gave up the goat as the second shuttle turned around midair and pumped it full of more cannon fire, the Reg medics that had been leaning out of the doors now jumping down to the ground as the transport craft gave a violent shriek of warning. The rear propulsion engines and tail boom hit the ground, and the stricken craft bottomed out with a roll, instantly catching on fire and sending an engine pod spiraling into the air with a maddened shriek of rotary fins.

Rhidi, not paying attention and focussing on filling her target full of holes, perked up her ears as the loose engine slammed into the shuttle she was pumping full of lead.

"Uh oh." She said lamely as the shuttle keeled to the right, the visible one-eyed pilots working their controls furiously.

"Uh oh!" Rhidi screamed, turning her head left and right as she looked for an out.

"Private! Get the fuck out of there!" Sergeant Flores called out. "Ramirez! Try and hit the other stabilizer and yaw that son of a bitch left!"

The replying launch tube rocket hit its mark, but it was too little too late. As Rhidi took off at a sprint towards what looked like some kind of record building, the shuttle slammed into the ground nose first and at speed, buckling the first section of the hidden underground layers that ran beneath them.

"Rhidi!" Imridit screamed out, running forward to reach for Rhidi as the pour-rock gave an ominous rumble. "Rhidi, no!"

Cracks split across the surface of the parking lot under Rhidi's feet with an audible rumble. The shuttle exploded duly, setting off the wounded Pufferfish as well, and the pour-rock yielded with a bone rattling crunch as a split crackled along the ground, opening up into a chasm that ground open to the black void below.

The last thing Rhidi saw was Imridit against a dusty sky as the pour-rock gave away below her, sucking her down with the smoking wreckage of the shuttle, Pufferfish, and the falling shadows of long dead Droppers and one-eyed troopers.

—

Rhidi came to, slowly.

Pieces of pour-rock were still crackling and rolling away around her, but she blinked open her eyes. There was dust in them, so she blinked again.

Still dust… why was there dust in her eyes? Was there dust in her helmet?

Her helmet…

"What…" Rhidi wheezed out, reaching up to run her gloved paw-hand through her dust filled hair. "Where is my helmet? What… where is my gauntlet?"

Rhidi blinked with fuzzy eyes at her gloved paw-hand, turning her head left and right as she looked around her.

Her helmet ringed her head like a shattered halo, having broken away piece by piece to make sure her skull stayed whole. She had a rip in her left ear and a cut along her forehead that was pissing blood, both caked in the pour-rock dust that choked the air. It was dark where she was, but she had a flashlight in a slot on her ammopack.

Rhidi leaned up with a groan, and was greeted by multiple tones from her IB suit and the metallic clatter of ammunition falling out of her ruined ammopack. She knew the flashlight was broken without having to look behind her; If the fall had broken the pack, it certainly shattered the light as well with the weight of her armor.

Her loose ammo tinkled and rang as the rounds rolled off into the gloom, echoing in the ruined cavern of the apparent underground parking garage that groaned around her.

She patted around in the dark with her hands, one still wearing its gauntlet while the other was just in the IB suit glove, and slowly lifted her legs to extract herself from the rubble. Rhidi hissed and winced as she slowly pried herself free from where she had landed, the only real light coming in short, guttural sparks from the shuttle's wiring harness.

The wreckage was just above her and left, somehow both she and her victim finding themselves in the same place underground.

The hissing and sparkling harness dangled down from the passenger compartment, the light illuminating both Rhidi and the limp, gray arm that hung clear of the open door.

Rhidi stood fully after a good amount of time getting to that altitude, sighing out ruefully as her IB suit gave another beep from within its armored carapace.

Now that she was standing, it injected her with a slurry of drugs, narcotics, and stimulants, both perking her up, dulling down her pain, and getting her back into a combat-minded effectiveness.

"Humans really do have the best drugs..." Rhidi murmured to herself, flexing her fingers and sniffing wetly.

Before she could take more than seven steps forward, the passenger compartment buckled, throwing out three dead one-eyed fighters, and one live one fully clad in their rather new warplating.

Rhidi barely had a moment to understand what was going on before she was bathed in the dull, blue light from the compartment's illumination spheres.

The male one-eye tumbled down to the ground with the dead bodies of his fellows, but just coughed and sluggishly got to his feet.

He was bleeding from the mouth and ears, the bright, blue blood catching the light oddly. He was squinting, his eye heavily torn near the outer right tear duct, but he still held one of those terrifying spears in his hand.

Both standing in the light, the one-eyed man instantly recognized that he was in front of his enemy, and sprung forward with a savage war cry that echoed off the rubble around them.

The spear powered on, nearly blinding in the dark space.

Rhidi pinned her ears back and snarled, bringing up her gleen-seax to bear and taking up a defensive stance. The drugs and stimulants pumped through her heart and brain, building adrenaline as fast as possible and firing up her nervous system.

Despite the energy, the gray skinned man stumbled towards Rhidi, needle-like teeth bared due to both the unsteady ground and his injuries. Rhidi made contact first, battering aside the tip of the glowing spear with her activated edge.

The resounding explosion of noise hit Rhidi and the one-eyed man like a sledgehammer, her ears ringing as she stumbled backwards while holding her head.

The one-eyed man, blinking as best as he could and snarling at his panging ears, leapt forward and stabbed, the blade catching a glancing blow off of Rhidi's upper chest plate and carving a long groove along the composite metal and ceramic layers.

Rhidi howled out wordlessly in pain, spooling her gleen-seax back to life as she rushed in. The orange light of the buzzing edge bled onto Rhidi and the gray skinned man as she swiped, catching him hard across the chest but losing her footing on the loose rock below her heavy, armored boots.

She collided into the man with a sloppy shoulder check, though her armor was far heavier and the one-eyed warrior was sent sprawling into the darkness. Together they went tumbling down a ramp of broken pour-rock, steel, and broken vehicles of odd design.

Rhidi bounced off a heavy bumper, which sent her reeling into the dull darkness of the 7th parking level, while the one-eyed man went skittering across the intact pour-rock, breathing in raggedly through a broken ribcage and bruised lungs.

There was a pausing, mental wandering of Rhidi as she pondered how the hell they managed to hide an entire parking garage underground, though the thought vanished from her mind as she slammed into a vehicle.

Without her helmet, Rhidi's head was free and clear of protection as it shattered the glass window of the door that gracefully halted her fall, the glass shards cutting across her scalp and cheek.

Her heavy boots found more rubble and lost traction, her armored knee slamming down onto the pour-rock and shattering it like a stone against ice.

Rhidi dragged herself back up from the ground with a light cry of pain, her face pouring blood down her yellow fur as her IB suit registered the wounds as "non-life threatening". She slowly got herself to steady feet, holding her blade out in front of her in a basic combat stance as she huffed out in ragged breaths.

The one-eyed man slowly got to his feet, one hand holding onto the front of his armor as he bared his fangs again, spear at the ready in front of him and held mid-grip by his good arm.

"Mor loi!" Rhidi spat out, flecks of blood flying off of her lips and she started forward, her armor heavily whirring as she closed the ground. "Tinta ho poi!"

"Sich derde liskede, bunde!" The one-eyed man barked out in a challenge of his own, and hobbled his way towards Rhidi while spinning his spear, ready to plunge the thing into the arrogant Kafya and be done with this mess.

He would never get the chance.

A large shadow, streaking lines of red, fell down from a broken section in the ceiling, landing behind the one-eyed man with a hiss of impact boots. Rhidi startled to a halt, her armored boots skittering to a standstill as the one-eyed man stumbled forward a few more steps, letting out a harsh exhale as both his arms fell away.

They did not splatter, or tear off at the shoulders… they simply fell away, landing on the pour-rock with a dull thud of armor and flesh.

The spear clattered to the ground, still wrapped in the hand of his fallen arm.

He looked down at his shoulders, confused, giving one stump a little wiggle before falling to his knee in shock. He looked up at Rhidi, trying to see the hidden weapon that had taken away his arms… but only saw her equally surprised face, blood still trickling along her yellow fur.

There was another flash of red and white as a Lilgaran butcher talon was spooled to life, streaking through the air with a visible trace of light as the wickedly sharp, curved talon sliced through the man's body, rendering him in two pieces that tumbled to the ground wetly.

His chest and shoulders thumped to the pour-rock lamely, while his stomach fell to the side, pouring its contents in long trails of ropey yellow intestines that splattered out, staining the dust with their blue blood.

Rhidi shuddered out a breath, holding the gleen-seax out in front of her still, though the tip was trained on a new threat. There was a shadow standing just at the edge of the light, a massive shade that bore a pair of red and white Lilgaran butcher talons.

She couldn't see who or what he was… but she could smell him.

Human, male… and covered in blood. He smelled of sweat, death, unwashed skin, musk, a wild animal parading around as if it were an actual person.

He spoke out to her from the darkness.

It was low, and aloof, nearly polite as he addressed her. "I know you."

"No you do not!" Rhidi called out, looking over her shoulders and around her. She remembered the oddly armored Humans, and decided to make a gamble. "Your handler is nearby, mind your manners!"

The shadow slowly began to walk around the weak circle of soft light coming down from the ruined shuttle. Rhidi caught glimpses of war torn armor, heavily worn impact boots, and a flash of dusky red hair every now and then that hung off his head like snakes.

"My manners? I thought I was being rather polite. That was a full grown Doch male you were trying to spar off with, and he would have killed you, even in that state." He mused, watching Rhidi slowly counter-circle him, staying within the light. "As for my Vet, he's cut off from me. A crack formed where we were fighting and I was torn away from my brothers."

Rhidi's ears perked. "Your… your brothers?"

"That's right." The shadow replied calmly, even as he made the Lilgaran butcher talons slowly hum with power, just enough to cast a dull red light onto himself. "I am the Older Brother."

Rhidi's blood ran cold, colder than she had ever felt it go before. Her fur stood on end again, and she felt her heart speed to sprinting in her veins. She had no idea who this man was, or what unit he was under, but his tone of voice… how he looked, it screamed "danger" at her with every look.

"You're… you're a… a Reg?" Rhidi asked, her tongue thick and sticky against her mouth as she swallowed. "I-Is your unit the Three B-Brothers?"

"Oh… you don't know what I am, do you?" The shadow said cooly, though his voice held a darker, deeper note as he smiled kindly. "Sure, if that is what helps you understand."

Rhidi, a veteran in her own right, knew she was standing in front of a literal boogyman. She didn't know what unit, or even what branch of the Human military, this Human was in, but he wasn't normal.

He didn't look like the Special Forces soldiers she had seen in passing… he was something else…

Something feral, and barely tamed.

As Rhidi's hands began to shake, it dawned on her that she was staring at the most perfect, deadliest predator she had ever seen in her life.

It was smiling at her, and they were alone.

For some reason, Rhidi understood that he could kill her here. Hell, she could smell that he wanted to kill her, at least in his spirit. He was a killer by soul and by blood, and could snap her life away like it was nothing without losing sleep.

If he did kill her here, no one would ever know until they tracked her suit to retrieve her body.

That could take days… she would start rotting by then.

"Don't kill me." Rhidi pleaded quietly, even as the gleen-seax began to shake in her hands. Her lips quivered, and her yellow tail tucked firmly between her legs as she hunched her armored shoulders. Something deep within her, an older part of her brain that understood that she was standing in front of a bigger, hungrier fish, told her to beg. "Please, please don't kill me."

Rhidi couldn't explain it, but she knew that even though she was in the most powerful Human combat armor that could be fielded… she knew she stood no chance.

Not against this Human.

The Older Brother brought his Lilgaran butcher talon to full power, bathing both himself and the shadows around him in deep, crimson light. The white arcs of power skittered and crawled along the talons of the claws, flashing and illuminating his dull gray eyes. His armor was worn, battered, and deeply scarred by damage. His arms, bare where the armor didn't cover, was nothing but a mess of scars, a roadmap of his pain and woe through countless melee battles. His hair was a mess, a dusky-red mop of tangled locks that had likely not seen a comb or brush in over ten years.

Rhidi refused to give ground, instilled into her by her training with the Humans, but her arms shook so fiercely that the gleen-seax looked as if it was made of water.

"You are brave. Most would have flown away by now, and I would have had to chase them." The Older Brother said with an appreciative smile, and he slowly walked towards Rhidi. "But I already knew that. I can smell us on your soul, Tyr's dóttur."

Rhidi felt her armored knees start to shake, and she wanted to lay on the ground, prostrate herself before this avatar of butchery, but something inside her refused to let her yield. She may have shook at the legs and arms, and her ivory eyes may have been as wide as saucers, but she still held her ground.

When the Older Brother brought up his hands and cupped her face in his palms, Rhidi nearly fainted.

The containment fields of the Lilgaran butcher talons arced around her face, but they were well made with I.E.E.G. receivers, and knew not to injure her since they were not wielded against her. He smelled of raw flesh, torn muscle, burnt skin, sweat, and blood… he smelled feral, a smell that made Rhidi's nervous system scream at her legs to run.

Rhidi had never smelled the stench of death on someone so thickly, and she quickly understood the smell was being carried on his very skin.

"Please, don't." Rhidi mewled as tears fuzzed her eyes, and she was so scared that even her tail was shaking.

She had no helmet, her rifle and MG111 were off somewhere in the rubble, what was she to do against someone this size?

What was he going to do with her?

Was he going to kill her?

A part of her… hoped, that was all he was going to do.

Hoped that it would be a quick death, one she would not feel.

The Older Brother ran a massive thumb along the cut on her cheek, then frowned as he spoke in the tone of voice a brother would to his little sister. "You are bleeding."

Rhidi let out a sob, and despite herself, pushed the blade into the front of the armor plating on his chest. It, naturally, did not give, producing a pitiful "clink" as the two metals met.

She was so scared, she had forgotten to activate the blade.

"And you do not give up." The Older Brother said with a grin, a grin that had canines far more pointed than Rhidi would have liked. "That is good. Tyr desires those who refuse to give up, even in the face of fear. Are you a believer, Private Rhidi?"

Rhidi wished he would let go of her face, and stop running his blood-caked thumbs across her wounds. "I-It's P-Private, First Class."

"Hmm?" The Older Brother hummed, lifting a hand away to pet her ears, a gesture that made her skin crawl.

"It's P-Private, First Class." Rhidi repeated, and as he pet her again she had to push down the bile that was building in her throat, swallowing thickly. "I-I got p-promoted."

The Older Brother smiled kindly, an expression that did not match him in the least. "Oh! Congratulations. We get our news a few months late in the kennel."

"T-... Thank you." Rhidi murmured numbly, and squeezed her eyes shut as he gave her head another pet.

She had to swallow again, fighting back the urge to vomit all over the front of his combat armor as she felt his fingers course through her fur.

She nearly lost the fight when Rhidi felt his nails scritch her.

"You make him proud, little Kafya." The Older Brother said with another smile, and he finally released her. "He tells me all the time, how proud he is of his little Stjörnubörn."

Rhidi said nothing, just keeping her eyes closed and the blade still firmly pressed against his chest plate. She didn't dare turn it on, in fear of the Older Brother taking offense and deciding to bisect her down the middle.

The Older Brother looked around, sniffing the air lightly as he narrowed his eyes. "There is fresh air coming in from somewhere. Come with me, I will get you out of this tomb."

Rhidi merely nodded, and only allowed herself to fully cry out in relief when the massive Human turned his back to her. She sucked in a few wet breaths, letting out a few quiet pants of horror as the Human looked around some more, then pointed up towards a seemingly intact emergency stair set.

"I will take us through here. Come." He said, grabbing her by the elbow and dragging her forward.

Rhidi actually tried to not go, not moving her feet, and just ended up surfing behind the Human as he dragged her along the dusty ground by her arm.

He dragged her along, in her armor.

When she finally had enough of it, she allowed herself to be guided along by the Human, walking beside him while eyeballing the massive Lilgaran butcher talon grabbing onto her. The stench of coagulating blue blood and open yellow organs hit Rhidi's nose like a putrid perfume, and she came to a stop again as they came out into a well lit waiting area with windows.

Everywhere she looked, she could not find a body that was in one piece; Legs, arms, and sections of torso were scattered around as if the gray skinned Dochs had blown apart like dandelions.

The stop didn't last for long before the Older Brother pulled her along again, calmly humming to himself as he worked a path through the scattered remains of armored Doch infantry. Rhidi went back to a walk when she skidded into a skull, which split in two like a broken egg and spilled yellow brains across the once polished tile.

There were so many pieces of body that Rhidi thought, for at least a few calming seconds, that an explosive may have gone off, or a fighter had strafed this area of the terminal.

She was proven wrong when she started to pay attention, and all the wounds bore the scorch marks of Lilgaran butcher talons. Rhidi exhaled out in alarm, twisting her head back and forth as she counted; She had to make due with heads for now, but even that number was quickly climbing.

The Older Brother turned his head when he heard her counting in Kafya-hi under her breath, and he smiled. "No need to count, I already know the number."

"They're all yours?" Rhidi shouted in open panic, gesturing around her. "There's an entire Company in here!"

"Two hundred and three combat ready, one-eyed Doch. At least, it was that many before I fell." The Older Brother said with a nod. "But don't put all the glory on me. My little brothers did help, of course."

Rhidi stumbled over the corpse of a male Doch; He had been ripped apart from the middle, as if someone had dug their fingernails into his sternum, and then opened their arms nice and wide. She looked down into his open chest cavity, then her eyes carried up to the look of terror-filled agony on his face, his one eye opened impossibly wide.

The bodies only got thicker towards a set of doors where they had apparently made entry, and at those doors stood a Human that looked much like the Older Brother, and a Vet.

"Ah, there you are." The Vet said with a grin. "And you found the missing Dropper! After the body count in here and that little good deed, you're looking at a week of steak and romance manga there, big guy."

"Where is Alphonse?" The Older Brother asked, eyebrows raised expectantly as he ignored the Vet. "Do we need to go dig him out of a corpse pile again?"

The other man shook his head. "Alphonse has fallen, failed in a duel with a Doch leader of some form or another."

"Was our honor kept?" The Older Brother asked.

The man nodded. "Alphonse went down fighting, weapon in hand. I cleaned up his opponent after."

"That is all we can ask for." The Older Brother intoned, then bowed his head slightly to his brother. "Redemption in sacrifice."

"Redemption in sacrifice." The other man replied reverently, bowing his own head forward just a little bit more than the Older Brother. He then straightened. "The Vet says you have both been missing for over two hours."

Rhidi shook her arm free, having been held in place by the damned Human the entire time, and quickly skittered over besides the Vet. "We were knocked down into an underground garage of some kind when that ship crashed into us. I met him while I was fighting a… Doch, are they? A Doch survivor."

"It was quite the show." The Older Brother said, smiling to his brother beside him. "Never backed down, went after a spear using a knife."

The Second Brother smiled. "A knife?... I like her moxy."

"I was doing fine." Rhidi stammered out, though as much as she wanted to be angry, there were now four Lilgaran butcher talons in this room, and she still only had the techno-powerknife. "I… I had it, okay?"

The two brothers looked at each other while the Vet talked into his throat mic.

"Tyr touched." The Second Brother said quietly.

The Older Brother nodded. "Valhalla blood. I have a feeling they will come for her soon."

Rhidi narrowed her eyes at the two Humans, but before she could speak the Vet spoke up instead.

"Private, your NCO is on her way via Pufferfish to pick you up, they had moved on further into the base. You can wait outside with the other Vets." The Vet said, pulling out a spare pistol and handing it to her. "They managed to recover your rifle and your machine gun in one piece near the opening of the crack, but they're on the bird. Till then take this, I keep spares just for occasions like these."

Rhidi took the pistol, and tilting it, saw it was actually a split-cylinder fed revolver. "An Impact 5? I've never seen one of these yet, aren't they supposed to come out in a few months?"

The Vet just smiled, handed her a pouch of ammo, then chucked his teeth at the two other Humans.

The Two Brothers, now a brother less, nodded to the Vet, then turned to Rhidi.

"Redemption, in sacrifice." The Older Brother said with a kind smile, and Rhidi realized he was saying it in goodbye.

Rhidi inwardly panicked for a heart beat, then nodded to the two Humans. "Hail, the Iron Victory."

The two Humans smiled at her, a glint in their eyes she could not read, then they both turned, walking ahead of the Vet as they were gathered outside with the rest of Company C-13.