March 15, 2106 (military calendar)Iv'Lux(transted) 60, 1(Tukyarid calendar)Tanya“Fuck”

  My entire body spasms and I pick myself off the ground. By everyone running around only a few seconds have passed.

  Parks is sprinting over to me and York is shouting orders “…came from that building” As I get to my feet I shake my head.

  Why does my face feel warm and wet? I don’t get a chance to think about it because Parks is here and after an inspection of my helmet which now sports a new scorch mark she rips off my helmet.

  On an alien pnet, she rips off my helmet. Whatever. She wipes off my face with her glove drenching it in blood. Guess that solves that mystery.

  She then shines a light in my one eye. “How are you not concussed” she sighs “You got lucky… again, just a cut from hitting your helmet hard”

  She quickly wrapped my head in a bandage “Tell me someone got that bastard” she grunts “I saw York heading that way”

  I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully, when Jed digs Griffin out of his hole he can help me sort through this mess, he was always better at gueril tactics.

  Once Parks finishes she injects me with the strongest immune booster she has and hands me back my helmet. Now breathing triple-filtered air I can think.

  I organize supplies on the trains dubbed the kriegszug. As they can protect themselves and move faster than the entire divisions it’ll run ahead and lighten our load as we go.

  A few hours have passed and Frank radios in “Preliminary surveying isn’t too bad. The rads are high but not as bad as what we deal with in space plus the cave systems are very extensive”

  Finally some decent news “Continue your recon of the area that’ll be our base for a while so choke points defensive positions and fnking routes you know the drill. I’ll be having Cole drop as much gear as I can there so help guide them to the base proper as best as you can guess. I’ll give him the coordinates now”

  Next, I pass along the information to Cole and am pleasantly surprised when he already had the first wave loaded and an order of priority for supplies.

  With everything nearly ready for transport I radio Jed “Status update” The pause is telling “The area has been secured but after searching the entire area several times all we found is a shit load of bodies his helmet and sword and some blood”

  My heart sinks and it pains me to give the order “Roger regroup now we are heading out”

  An hour ter griffins men saunter back and find some open seats well all but rabbit. He comes over to me and hands me Griffin's gear they found.

  I note the shrapnel in the helmet and the red blood on the sword's handle. And the fact basically no clean metal can be seen thanks to all the bug blood.

  “Thank you” I manage to get out. A few moments ter we are on our way to our new home for a while. The journey is smooth sailing at least at the start. The expected call from Cole arrives at the halfway point.

  “I've dropped all I can, their fleet is getting too close for comfort. I left most of my ordinance in orbit for your use and dropped a surprise at your glowing home” I rest my head on the seats headrest and stare up at the sky as I respond “Copy that try not to take too long to get back”

  My tone was definitely off because Cole comments on it “I'm uh sorry to hear about Griffin he was the finest soldier I've ever seen and a better friend” I snort “don't have to tell me twice we just have to make sure to make them pay”

  I can feel a sad smile come from him “I'll drink to that… hold on my sensor tech needs my attention… that can't be right did you check it” I listen in on his conversation and get worried but its the sensor tech not engineering so it shouldn't be too major.

  “I've got bad and worse news griffins armor tamper beacon just went off… and he is still alive but it came from a ship leaving the system”

  My blood runs cold then spikes to burning psma as rage burns through me. “Preston once I’m done with this pnet the 104th is seceding your welcome to join as one of my dukes but I’m going after Griffin we don’t leave our own behind”

  After a few moments, he responds “I’ll get my affairs in order then I’ll see you again in a few months my liege” I smile and try to sleep the rest of the trip while pnning out the logistics of both this campaign now that I have no support and the logistics of a kingdom.

  Two months terGriffinDrugs flood my system waking me up only to be blinded by bright white lights. I try to raise my arm but it’s restrained.

  Panic sets in as I remember what happened. I’ve been captured and am restrained with them injecting stuff into me.

  A horrific visage fills my vision as a spider leans over me. “Mmmm good you’re awake” it states drawn out like it’s unfamiliar with the words.

  Wait… “yesss soft one when you were captured we found all kinds of things like this device that lets you understand us”

  It holds up the earpiece that transtes tukyarid. Hopefully, the tampering protection worked and sgged everything.

  “We shall start with conversation and questions. How many ships do you possess”

  I fall back on our interrogation training and hope it holds up here “Seran colonial GS-935115” the creature hmms “How many troops do you possess”

  I repeat myself “Seran colonial GS-935115” For hours we go around in circles and I’m thankful this bug sucks it didn’t even try to get friendly first or promise anything.

  It eventually hisses at me before grabbing something out of my view. It becomes evident it’s a syringe as I’m injected again but nothing happens.

  Then I’m hit in the chest by a metal pipe and I’m gasping for air as every nerve is lit on fire. “Answer the questions” I grit my teeth and repeat “Seran Colonial GS-935115”

  Tanya Thanks to the fabricator Cole left for us we have some capacity for production meaning our base isn’t as spartan as it could have been.

  I’m looking on my tablet at the SSMs(ship-to-ship missile) he left me as well. A few are getting low on fuel having used tiny amounts for the st two months to stay hidden and in pce.

  Now though I have to use a few or I’ll lose them for nothing. Luckily there are a few ships in close range that I can knock out their main engine cluster and drop them into the pnet.

  I send a tight beam pulse to the SSMs I need and use another to watch. They find their targets and in minutes they are forming a psma cone on reentry.

  My attention is pulled from the screen as some arms sound signaling the return of a kriegszug. I walk to what is serving as our front gate and the scorch marks on the train's armor worries me.

  I pick up my pace and watch the train charge through the open gate and only slow down once inside. We decided on this method to reduce the amount of time the gate is open for. However it did mean a long stretch had to be set aside.

  I find the captain who’s in charge of the kriegszug “Captain what happened out there” My hud tags him as Captain Fulton and he’s sitting on the sand-covered tracks smoking.

  He takes another drag “We may have underestimated their ground forces. They have some tanks with a weapon I’ve never seen… I know you and Colonel Willy have seen psma tanks but this is different”

  “I’ll send you our combat footage but it looks more like some kind of hybrid weapon, luckily our armor holds up alright against it”

  I nod “Are they fielded in rge numbers” I ask. He takes a moment to respond “I think they could be but I don’t think they are made on world”

  That’s some good news “so at least for now every one we knock out stays out” I state. I look again at the battered krigszug and sigh “Get some rest and whatever else you need and make sure everything gets repaired or repced”

  He nods and I walk away. I’ll have to pull a tech ter and debrief them on the repairs so we have a more concrete idea of what kind of damage is being done.

  I head for the command center which at the moment is just the cave with the most electrical running to it. The barracks might be the nicest but that’s mostly because people need a pce to sleep and rest.

  We may be the absolute best but even we need sleep. Ivan and Alvin are lurking in the command center when I arrive.

  I give a zy salute and pull up a map on the central table and overy the route of Fulton. It went to an isoted town home to only Tukyarid to pick up some food that seems to be edible then it skirted several rger settlements and one is marked in red where it hit the heaviest resistance.

  I pull up all our data on that location and most tukyarid have been evacuated from it. It also seems to be a staging ground. I hit the comm for Jed and Silver “I’ve got a target for you I’ll send the data. Survey it and then ze it for targeting”

  I get affirmations from them both. That’ll be taken care of. Hopefully, they will catch most of the new tanks there.

  ColeSol system “On my command drop us back into real space” I bark at the bridge from my command chair. I dread what’s to come, endless reports and briefs and debriefs.

  I watch my side monitor specifically our location. It’s an estimate of course as there is no way to detect anything outside of slipstream, part of why jumps are by no means accurate.

  “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Drop us in” The command is repeated to the rest of the fleet as we can sort of travel together and communicate, thank god. Or maybe Tanya’s seven pilrs. Whichever gets the job done.

  The few external view screens go from a kaleidoscope to the familiar inky bck of the void. Bst shields are raised from the windows allowing an unfiltered view.

  “Broadcast the emergency beacon we need to make sure no reinforcements have left yet” The comms station gets to work while navigation and helm bring the fleet back into formation and figure out where we dropped.

  I wait patiently for the details to stream in. “Sir outbound fleet hailing us. Strike fleet howler” I breathe a sigh of relief “Put them on”

  A few moments ter a figure is on the main screen along with the dey to response caused by the distance. The figure turns out to be Spero and I can’t help but wonder why he was at this fleet. Shirley, he wasn’t pnning on going with?

  “What a relief you're here sir, it saves a lot of head-butting trying to push this up the chain” he nods while looking to the side certainly looking at my fleet “Indeed though your return is puzzling”

  He lets the question hang in the air so I brief him on the details and while he doesn’t look mad he definitely isn’t happy. “A dey to build up more forces is required. The two fleet’s combined could handle the task but not without throwing away most everyone’s lives”

  I nod in agreement, the ground pounders will just have to hold out. Hold out… “sir the German forces held out admirably in our siege. Do you think they could break one just as well”

  He strokes his beard “hmm an excellent idea. Those still on the pnet will need rotating out anyway. Get you and your ships to a shipyard then get everyone rested yourself included we have pns to draw up”