Locusts Chapter 1: You Can't Go Home Again
 

Location: 100 miles south of Fort Snelling, Minnesota
Operation: Exodus
13:25 Local Time



Lieutenant Frank Rodenburg cut through the sky at an altitude of 100,000 feet in his SR-230 “Zoomer” recon aircraft. Zoomers hadn’t been used for recon for a long time…Fleet satellites usually proved more than enough information to plan a battle off of.

But now the satellites were being shut down. For the most part, the Locust find them based on power signatures. The theory is, if we shut them down now, they’ll still be there when we come back.

If we come back, Lt. Rodenburg thought to himself. When word came that the United System League was evacuating Earth, the response was varied. For the most part, those in the armed forces didn’t have time to ponder the fact that they were abandoning their homeworld.

They were too busy fighting.

Now, cruising in the sky, Rodenburg found himself with that time to ponder. He was looking more at the Earth, his home, more than he was looking for Locusts.

As such, he his only warning was the incoming alarm. Out of sheer reflex, Rodenburg banked left, hard.

But it was too late.

The Locust missile-strain sense the movement of it’s prey, and quickly decided it couldn’t follow the move, detonated. The shockwave and plasma burst washed over the Zoomer. Frank fought the controls, but he couldn’t hold it. The Zoomer pitched downwards, trailing black smoke.

Rodenburg had no choice. Making sure his side arm was firmly in place, he ejected.

The seconds after leaving the Zoomer were a blur, a frantic attempt to get right-side up and to deploy his chute and a rescue beacon. However, once his head, cleared, Rodenburg knew he wasn’t going to make it. He could see the tale-tell blue light of the burning plasma of Shriekers coming at him at high speeds. With an odd sense of calm, Rodenburg activated his deadman-switch, and pulled his side arm. As they closed, he opened fire. He didn’t have any real hope of bring either of the Shriekers down, but it would of felt wrong just to let them take him without a fight.

Lt. Rodenburg died at about 6,000 ft above ground. When his heart stopped, the deadman-switch activated, setting off an explosive charge which crippled his killer. The Shrieker lived up to it’s name in the time it took it to hit the ground. The remains of both were collected by Harvesters on the tail end of the attacking swarm.

Such was the war with the Locust.
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Location: Fort Snelling
Same Time


General David “Dave” Goldberg grimaced as Lookout 3 disappeared from his H.U.D. His computer noted that his rescue beacon was activated, shortly followed by his suicide charge, and in short order, the loss of his rescue beacon was noted.

They’re almost here, then. Goldberg thought to himself. Just over an hour before the name force arrives…the leading edges of the air attack will be here soon.

Goldberg stood on the top of the wall…just inside the defensive perimeter of Fort Snelling. It used to be a historical site and state park…but the demands of the present overcame the past. The new Fort Snelling was one of the last human strongholds on Earth…and Dave Goldberg was in charge of it’s final defense.

As such, he stood on the wall in his command suit, overseeing the final placement of defenses, both with his power armors H.U.D., and with his own site.

ATTENTION: Armored Calvary 3rd Battalion, report to the evac site. Repeat, AC 3rd Bat, report to the evac site...

Dang…I was hoping to hang on to the rail cannons a little longer Goldberg thought to himself. He quickly removed the tanks from his defensive set-up on his H.U.D. This is already a losing battle. They aren’t even here yet, and I’m losing men..

”Command, this is Lookout 5. I have a confirmation on the main body of the swarm. Patching it through now.”

“Copy, Lookout 5,” Goldberg replied, part of his H.U.D. opened up into a feed of Lookout 5’s line…the familiar site of the ground crawling with giant insects. “Stay out there as long as you can. Remain at your own discretion. Command out.”

With a movement of a finger, Goldberg switched the line over to Fleet’s tactical line. To the untrained eye, it would of looked like the command power armor was twitching at random…perhaps typing at a keyboard that could not be seen. But to the trained eye, they knew the General was keep as good of eye on this as possible.

“Fleet, this is Ground Command. Requesting orbital strike at these coordinates, hyper-velocity missiles only.”

”Ground Command, this is Fleet Tact. Standby.”

For long seconds, Goldberg listened to nothing but static. Come on, you dogs, he thought to himself, Don’t tell me you can spare a frigate for one strike. That’s all I’m asking.

Ground Commander, this is Fleet Tact. Requested confirmed. Inbound in 30 seconds.

Yes. Dave thought to himself. “Much obliged, Fleet Tact. Ground Commander out.”

Thirty seconds later, a series of sliver streaks raced across the sky, and the sound of explosions could be heard.

But there was no rest for the weary. With another flick, General Goldberg put changed frequencies once more. “Artillery, this is Ground Commander. I’m sending you a live feed from Lookout Five. Plot a solution and fire when ready.”

Another flick to put him on with anti-air…

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Location: Fort Snelling
14:05 Local Time

For 46 minutes, AC’s artillery units had fired non-stop. 23 minute ago, the Locust began to return fire. Again, the AC filled the slot with anti-air fire, along with a few MI power armors who sported good enough sensors to track missiles and the fast moving Shriekers. But still, the missiles landed. From his position, General Goldberg found himself thing At least they haven’t evolved an artillery strain yet. His command screen had been reduced to a small corner of his H.U.D. It was still there if he needed to plug a hole, but for now, every gun was needed.

The main body was on the horizon.

Those with HVMs and sniper rifles opened fire at the long range. The artillery continued to rain fire on them. In return, Locust Missile Crawlers unleashed volley after volley, hitting any AC unit that was stupid enough not to move after firing.

Finally the artillery went silent. Their rounds spent, they moved to the evac site. Another transport took off, a squad of fighters as an escort to fight through the Shriekers and Screamers now thick in the air.

“All units, stand by.” The General said, leveling his own weapon.

The tide came into focus. The older Warrior strain was the front rank. Poor guys have been reduced to cannon fodder. Goldburg thought to himself. Behind them came Soldiers, Tank Crawlers, Suicide Dogs…everything you could think of.

David watched. From years of experience, from Mars to Earth, he knew the MI and CM like the back of his hand. He knew where the effective fire range was. His mind drew a line in his vision.

The bugs crossed it.

“All units, FIRE AT WILL!” he yelled.

Across the USL defensive line, from the trenches to the wall, the humans opened up on the Locust swarm.

And the swarm returned fire.

Moments before the fighting broke out...

Some few meters in front of Fort Snelling's defensive wall, Amy's power armor stood stoicly as it's pilot ran her final diagnostic before committing to battle. Amy's vision through the forward viewport of her EX-BlackKnight power armor was rather unrestricted, allowing the android a commanding view of the swarm before her. She did not flinch, did not fear, even as she calculated the odds of mission survival at less than sixty-percent. Several elements of her own internal hud blinked across her field of vision, ammunition readings, time to range readings, command objectives, among other things.

"Amy, can you hear me?" a soft, female voice spoke through Amy's helment comm-system. She immediately recognised it as Chief Engineer Ayame from central command.

"Affirmative."

"I'm not recieving a video feed from you, is something wrong?" Ayame replied, a hint of concern in her voice.

"Negative. Activating Video Capturing would consume .02% of my system resources, resulting in a .002% overall loss of combat effectiveness. Do you wish me to activate the system regardless?" Amy replied in her mechanically cool, calculating tone.

"Yes Amy, the data feed is worth a great deal to us..." the engineer replied in an exasperated voice.

At that moment, a red warning light blinked across the top-right of Amy's HUD, as a plasma-green streaking trail of a longer-ranged Locust missle strain streaked toward her suit. Locating the threat's source, Amy's Power Armor jerked left away from the missle, taking cover below a high trench line. The missle, which was not particularly on target, detonated some distance away, showering locust bio-plasma in all directions the moment she had activated the video feed.

A startled shriek from Chief Ayame broke over the comm as she was met with an exploding missle as the first frame of the project data feed that streamed over her screen.

"A-are you allright?" She asked Amy in a frightened voice.

*Communications Link Terminated* flashed across Amy's integrated HUD as she disabled the unwanted distraction, pulling her Power Armor out of the crouch she had initiated to avoid splash damage from the missle.

*Wave 1, In Range* flashed as the android's vision changed to it's crimson red tint that was used in battle situations. A flourescent green reticle materialized in the center of her HUD, which momentarially split into three smaller reticles, each labeled for the different weapons aboard her suit. With a gentle caress of her right arm control-stick, the Reticle labeled "PDR" intersected one of the approaching warriors.

*Kachink-Kachink-Kachink* The sound of the Plasma Dispersion Rifle cycling range chokers reverberated through the cockpit of the battle armor. The reticle turned red as the long-range choker fell into place, and with a gentle squeese...

*Hiss-CRACK!* An azure packet of superheated plasma streaked toward the warrior in question, impacting it's underbelly. The Locust shrieked for a moment before being consumed by the burst of blue-fire.

Trial by fire at last.

12:27 Local Time

"I wonder what the strategists will do when a new variant of Suicide Dogs come out, all nicely mutated for stealth as good as ours. We'll all be sitting around, waiting to have our nice pitched battle, and blam, the base behind us goes up in a tower of plasma and charred flesh." Robert Burnelli spoke on the tightbeam communication channel he kept open with the only other CS Mk III suit in the vicinity, piloted by Lance Corporal Kerr.

Robert had already run his diagnostics. He spent the past six hours running diagnostics, now he was at stage of gruesome calm before every battle. Most of the time he would welcome it, but for some odd reason these particular calms were more eerie than the deafening sounds of the imminent battle.

What he hadn't figured out was his place in this particular engagement. It was quite possibly the most important mission he'd ever participated in. And yet, the battle plan confused him. Humanity has more things to worry about than preserving the land at this point, it faced extinction. Robert didn't like using that word, but it really was a possibility with the way things were going. Always pulling back, sometimes holding ground, then pulling back some more. Now, humanity is evacuating Earth, it's home planet. Orders were orders, and he would follow them, but if he were up in orbit, or back in the Outer Colonies with the strategists, he would be nuking this entire swarm into oblivion.

Maybe that's why Robert Burnelli wasn't a military strategist.

----------------------------------------------------

13:55 Local Time

Robert had sealed and soundproofed his suit to full capacity about thirty seconds into the artillery barrage. The seal was good, and the shock absorbers stopped most of the ground vibrations before they reached his body. Still, even with his back to the artillery, he could count every volley.

Thirteen minutes earlier, the swarm started returning fire with their bio-missiles from just over the horizon. His suit's sensors started to track the incoming projectiles, wrapping the small nucleus in front of the plasma streak with orange brackets. With so few targets on screen, a small digital readout gave the approximate distance and velocity of each. That quickly disappeared, as dozens of projectiles lit up in his HUD. Hundreds.

Robert switched the target acquisition to only highlight projectiles with vectors in his vicinity. So far, there were zero. The missiles were targetting the largest clusters of the Armored Cav to the west. Most of his attention was on the sensor data flowing in from the dwindling recon jets and ground scouts, while plasma explosions and anti-air fire filled the rest of his peripheral vision. "Kerr, we aren't really armed to deal much direct damage to the swarm. We can provide some sensor cover for Planetside; they'll need it when the shit hits the fan in about five minutes."

William Kerr's voice came in on the tightbeam. "They expect us to still be alive in five minutes? Damn high expectations. Well I'd hate to send those PASties back to their hangars without having had any fun."

"All right. Camo up, we can try heading northeast in case they spear us to the west. We should be able to move at top speed for a little while, there's enough shit going on." Robert glanced at the white-hot plasma eruptions and contrails of black smoke everywhere in the once-blue sky. "After that, we can power-down and go knee-deep. If we stay to the east and keep our beacons active, we shouldn't get blown up by our own guys," ideally.

Robert could make out the sounds of high-powered sniper rifles going off as he activated his stealth mode. He stepped forward carefully at first, moving at an easy twenty kilometers per hour to the northeast. When he was a hundred meters ahead out from the flanks of powered armor, he picked up the pace to sixty-five kilometers per hour. His target acquisition tracked a bio-missile streaking two hundred meters above, on its last dive towards the trenches.

One kilometer out, he opened up an active communications channel with FPAS Tactical Command. "FPASTC, this is Corporal Burnelli moving out with Corporal Kerr to provide some early sensor coverage in the swarm. Requesting permission to feed sensor telemetry directly to active FPAS units in the area, over."

Before an answer had returned, Robert slowed back down to twenty kilometers per hour, with the front lines of the Locust swarm only six hundred meters ahead. Behind him, most of the garrison of Fort Snelling opened up. The majority of the damage was far to his west, but still plenty came within forty meters of his position. He was glad, at least for now, that his USL-MI beacon was functioning properly.

He came to a halt and activated full stealth mode, watching as his power cells shut down and switched to silent batteries. Even most of his sensors shut down, once the tidal wave of locusts past, he would be able to reactivate some systems. He settled in a position between crouch and prone, ready to pounce up and sprint if necessary.

The most frightening moments of the any battle were upon him. The few seconds when the wave of Locusts charged towards his near-invisible suit. Come on, you fuckers.

The front of the swarm reached him.

Kerr had followed Burnelli out of position. First rule of the MI: if you've got an opportunity, exploit it. "Fleet could learn a thing or two from us dumb apes..." he grumbled as he dropped his speed to match Robert's movements. He would be going to ground soon. Staying too close would mean trouble if one of them was spotted, so Kerr opted for a position near enough to provide some decent cover, but far enough away that if either of them got splattered, it would still leave one operating scout.

Artillery was still thundering overhead, but Kerr had dampened his sensor suite to dull the punishing concussions of the high explosive shells as they smashed into the front waves of the swarm. Still, even at minimal power the shuddering ground made its way through the feedback systems on his powered armour. They really weren't holding out. It made sense, he supposed, to leave as little ammunition as possible. It wasn't like they were coming back any time soon.

"FPASTC, this is Kerr. In position and awaiting instructions," he slowed his powered armour, and stopped in suitable terrain, and, to pass the time while the swarm closed the distance, he clicked his comm channel over to the ground forces and listened idly to the excited chatter from the PBs and cav as the swarm started closing dangerously. Everyone was nervous, and with reason. Casualties were always high during swarms. Kerr had stopped calling them assaults long ago. The locusts just swarmed until they overran the area. Sure, sometimes they did it with alien style, but ultimately it was attrition that won or lost these affairs. It didn't help that this was a last stand before the brass let the insectoid bastards have Earth.

'Let them have Earth,' the thought jarred uncomfortably. He'd been born and raised, and while travel offworld had always been portrayed as high adventure, he'd been quite comfortable on-planet. Now they were asking him to give up his home. There wasn't much left, admittedly, but dammit it all, it was EARTH. Shaking his head, he cleared his mind and focused on the immediate situation.

"Burnelli, I'm powering down and switching sensors to passive. Keep your head down when they come thundering by, and hopefully we'll be in one piece, and in enough of a position to do something useful," with those words, Kerr switched to power conservation mode, crouched in a small indentation in the terrain, and activated his camouflage. He watched with some trepidation as the swarm got closer.

"I hate bugs," he growled through clenched teeth as the swarm thundered towards him.

Location: Fort Snelling
Operation: Exodus
Time: 13:45

"Angel Seven, you and your flight are cleared for takeoff. You are to escort transports 10 through 12. God speed."

"Roger, control. And thanks, I'll see you on Titan," Dav said into his comm. "Okay B Flight, launch in pairs. Once you're in the air, form up with your wingman stick with your transports. Happy hunting Angels. I'll see you all on the ground. Dav out."

With that, Dav punched his throttle and roared down the runway, and with a gentle tug on his stick, took off almost straight up. Angel Eight mirrored the maneuver effortlessly, and at 40,000 feet they levelled off. Davaris' sighed and shook his head as he saw the darkened sky in the distance.

"Jesus Christ! Please, tell me that's not real Boss. How are we supposed to cover against that?" Angel Eight's voice crackled into Dav's headset.

"Easy Mako. The fight hasn't even started yet. We'll get 'em just like we always do," Dav reassured his wingman while switching his weapons controls over to missles.

"Angels, switch to your Fishnets. Be sure you're receiving everyone else's telementary to avoid multiple locks on a single target. Looks like we've got Shriekers and Screamers inbound. Fire at will, squad. Fox one!" Dav finished his sentence as he squeezed the trigger. The missle on his left wingtip shot off towards the horizon, locked onto six different bugs that were over 50 miles away. As he watched his missle fly away, Dav listened as his squadronmates reported their missles away. In seconds, the sky was lit up with hundreds of explosions from the Fishnet missles, as well as secondary plasma explosions from the brooding pods in Shriekers that had been hit. An instant later, he and the 295th "Death's Angels" Fighter Squadron were engaged in a vicious dogfight.

Davaris may as well have been a part of his fighter. He weaved in and out of plasma explosions, dodged missles, and knew exactly when to fire. His wingmate Mako mimicked his every move almost flawlessly, and took point when appropriate. They'd been in the air for 20 minutes when reports from the ground started coming in. Again, Davaris sighed to himself.

This is gonna be a tough one, and it's just getting started. he thought to himself.

A few days ago
Lao clicked her heels together smartly and saluted her senior.

“Specialist Corporal Lao reporting for duty, sir!”

“At ease, Specialist Corporal,” came the placid reply. It was a voice of quiet dignity and a weariness that suggested too many years of seeing the warfront and knew the answer wasn’t pretty in the end.
The man – a young one despite being a senior-ranking officer – looked up, the sides of his eyes wrinkled slightly in a tired smile.

“Report your current status, and forgo the complications. I need to know exactly the strength of your unit.”

“Permission given to speak freely, sir?”

“Already been granted.”

“Frankly, unit 5 is fucked.”

The ranking officer leaned back, sighing.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Spider’s taken a good beating. I’m currently having her serviced right now. Two ACs – namely the RS-41 and DX74 – are wonderful works of B.S. Johnson—”

“What?”

Lao waved a hand dismissively, “an old book I got my hands on one night. There was a character in it which—”

“Continue.” Irritation.

“Yes sir. We have two ACs totalled, although we managed to pull the pilots out just in time. Skyrover23 is missing a few parts, VG44 needs a new shield, and WR7-27 is pretty battered – probably will be out of service for a week before we pull all the gunk off and replace the whole hull. Prototype N4 is doing OK out in the battlefront, but it also needs a complete engine readjustment.”

“And the rest?” Necessary concern.

Lao shrugged, “as far as I’m concerned, they only need a few hours of hammering on before they’re ready again, sir.”

“How long?”

“Two days max if you want us back at full strength. Until then we’re operating as a crippled unit.”

“What’s your recommended action, Specialist Lao?”

Lao considered this quietly for a few seconds, before opening her mouth again.
“Unit 26 has lost a Specialist Corporal and several of its AC are down for rapid maintenance. Until both our units are up to top strength, we could bear each other for a while.”

“Done. Unit 26 and Unit 5 are to work in combined force for the moment. You are to report briefly to your standing senior the moment your units are back to full strength and we find another Specialist for Unit 26. Dismissed.”

“Sir,” with another smart click of Lao’s heels, the Specialist Corporal stamped out.

~~

A few hours before present time…
“Unit 5 and 26, report.”

”All here, Corporal,” came a chorus of ragged voices through the intercom.

“Brace yourselves. We’re entering Locust firing range. Form defensive positions!”

ACs rumbled into position, rapidly rearranging themselves from an approaching line to a loose box – close enough to blast Shriekers out of the sky with collective firing, far enough to avoid collaborate damage when Tank Crawlers decided they were tantalizingly large targets.

In the middle, the Carrier units of the combined force scuttled in relative safety, heavy-laden with fresh CMs ready to disgorge themselves at designated spots.

Inside the ‘eyes’ of Spider, Lao’s fingers danced across the panel of buttons, wheels, and joysticks. Eyes flicked back and forth from monitors, and ears nearly twitched at every sound above the muffled roar of the four propulsion engines. She banged a metal panel just above her left head.

“You doing OK up there, Lieutenant?” she shouted.

“You sure this tin can will keep us safe?” was the muffled reply of the CM manning one of the gatling turrets.

“You worry about your own ass on the battlefront, and leave the transport to me. Just get as many of those damned cannon fodder before they scratch the paintjob!”

“Hah! More like rust-job!” the metal panel to her right laughed.

The Bio Force Cannon opened fire, blasting bolt after bolt of lethal D-A101 into the rapidly approaching mass (yet still a bit distant) of the Locust swarm. Each bolt landed and splashed like raindrops, showering and eating through Locust carapace and flesh alike. A Tank Crawler managed to advance a few more yards before the deadly organic substance ate through its leg armour and practically dissolved its underbelly as it collapsed in a screaming heap of agony.

“Dayemn that stuff is nasty,” the right gatling turret commented after witnessing two more Tank Crawler demises.

“Like it? It’s made to eat through only organically-synthesised material. You’re safe in this ‘tin can’ so long as you don’t step in a puddle of it and come inside,” Lao replied wryly.

[continued]

14:00 hours.

Kerr grimaced as the leading edge of the fast moving blob resolved into distinctive individual units. The Locust equivalent of the PBs were in the front, followed up by the heavier and much more dangerous later strains. Kerr sighed and thought it regrettable that the Bugs weren't stupid. If they hadn't decided to adapt, this probably never would have mushroomed to the point of having to give up Earth.

Kerr flinched involuntarily inside his suit as several artillery shells landed rather too close for comfort. Switching over to the artillery channel, he issued a single curt instruction. "Not so close fellas. Those last few rattled my teeth."

There wasn't a word in reply, but the next barrage landed a bit further distant. Kerr could see some of the bugs already starting to drop as shrapnel tore through their carapaces and played a game of s'lice and dice' with their innards. Unfortunately, for all the devastation the artillery provided, the bugs were still coming on, and some of the brains were starting to triangulate the position of the artillery. Organic missiles streaked away, and Kerr could hear gruff orders being bellowed over the comm. "GET TO COVER! GET TO COVER!"

Several explosions sounded 'behind the lines' and Kerr grimaced as several men began to scream for medics at their locations. It looked like a couple of batteries had been hit, as the general's cool voice cut in. "Standby on artillery. They seem to have zeroed some of the guns. We don't want to lose one of our tactical advantages before it can be brought fully to bear."

There was a quiet "yes sir" from the other end of the comm, and the booming guns fell silent. That silence didn't last. The screaming engines of FPAS fighter-bombers and air superiority craft soon mixed with the equally high pitched screaming of the bug flyers. Explosions dotted the sky as a dogfight began in earnest, the brain bugs hoping to tie the aircraft up long enough to allow the swarm to close with the trenches.

Bugs were already swarming past him, and one carrier bug trundled by so close Kerr could have reached out and touched it. "I really hate bugs," he muttered as some of the Cav opened up at long range. One walker in particular caught his eye. It was one of the damn spiders. "We've been fighting bugs for twelve years, and for some reason the eggheads back at R&D get the idea to design a walker that looks like a fucking spider." Kerr shook his head. "Someone's gotta have a warped sense of humour back there."

That was when the spider knocked out one of the tank bugs. "Maybe poetic justice," came a whispered thought from Burnelli. "You holding tight?"

"Yep," Kerr answered as the main body began rushing past him. He tried not to concentrate on the impressive assortment of biological weaponry racing around him. "You think they'll spot us?"

"Nah," Burnelli replied. "I doubt they can even pick up our comm traffic. We're rerouted through so many relays they probably think we're somewhere in Spain."

"Whatever's left of it," Kerr answered somberly. "Alright, let's just get ready to give those crybabies back in the trenches some effective covering fire before they start badmouthing the scouts."

Burnelli allowed himself a short laugh. "I think we can do that. FPASTC, this is Burnelli. Please patch myself and lance corporal Kerr through to any unengaged ground support units. We provide the address..."

"And we deliver the package," came a reply from some fleet commhead in orbit. "Roger Burnelli. Tying in now."

"Fast friendly service," Kerr said with some satisfaction. "Artillery, this is Kerr. Burnelli and I will be activating our telemetry shortly. Stand by for the designation of priority targets, to be eliminated when unmuzzled."

"Standing by," another comm officer somewhere, replying as he patched the artillery officer responsible into the real-time telemetry being gathered by the passive sensors on the two suits.

"Sneekbots?" Kerr askedd.

"Hold off for a moment," Burnelli replied. "We'll save them for when they're necessary."

"Alright," Kerr replied as he settled back in to wait.

14:02 Local Time

The rapid vibrations of the horse-sized Warriors and Soldiers were replaced by the bone-busting stomps of the massive Crawlers. More obedient Soldiers were running alongside the hulking brutes as they unleashed bio-missiles, plasma bolts, and more Soldiers. As far as Robert Burnelli had been briefed, the "APC Crawlers" were one of the newest variants in the Locust arsenal. The vulnerability and heavy losses of Warriors and Soldiers against USLAF artillery had pushed for the new Crawler. Aside from trampling, it had forsaken any weapons of its own in exchange for an enormous, hollowed-out abdomenal cavity where Warriors, Soldiers, or other smaller Locust could be stored.

Robert imagined any of the leadership bugs would be housed in the ultraprotective carapace of the new Crawlers. The exoskeleton of these variants were so thick, even his hyper-rifle from five hundred meters wouldn't pierce it. He figured a shot from point-blank might do the trick, but it would be a waste of ammunition, a damn good suit of armor, and his life. He thought about the possibility of leadership bugs housing themselves in the Crawlers, and spoke to Corporal Kerr. "Our line of fire should be able to hold the smaller strains back, but these Crawlers pry defenses wide open, and they're causing serious havoc up in the air. I suggest we focus on taking them out before they start breaching the lines."

The feedback from the stomping of Locusts made Kerr's reply fuzzy, "fine by me."

A tiny tingle of worry crept down Robert's spine as he powered the suit back up. It was slowly fading as he gained more experience with the CS Mk III. The first time he had done it in a real battle, it was borderline convulsion. The batteries were still at 99.9% charge, the suits were built to stay in hibernation for much longer periods, and the power cells came back online bringing a host of his active systems with them. Satisfied that there were no noticeable changes in the movements of the Locusts surrounding him, he let him active sensors make a general sweep, an area large enough to account for the entire swarm as it converged on Fort Snelling. No Locusts moved in to tear him limb from limb.

He took a few cautious steps, moving as if the ground before him would collapse otherwise. No erratic movements, he grinned. He made two more general sweeps with his active sensors, then ordered the suit's processors to begin integrating the results from the three scans to try and locate all of the Crawlers they had found. Dozens of matches popped in every few seconds, and Robert narrowed the search to a three hundred meter radius, with himself as the center. As the suit began to chew away at the calculations, he fancied a more detailed look around. He could see several Crawlers: two that had already passed him, fifty-two meters distant, another two coming up on his far left and right respectively, one hundred forty meters distant. Judging by the disperal and abundance of the Locust he could see, he knew he was in the rough center of the swarm. In a few minutes he would be looking back towards Fort Snelling.

The sensor data came back after one minute, and it still came up with over ninety Crawlers of varying types. He picked the closest APC Crawler, now behind him and forty-five meters away to the southeast. He tightbeamed his intentions to Kerr and set out towards the brute at sixty kilometers per hour.

"I never get tired of mentioning how fucking huge the asses on these things are," Robert commented on the tightbeam as he watched the APC Crawler sway its massive abdomen back and forth as it moved. Robert narrowed his sensors and performed a deep active scan on the Crawler before him. The resolution was very high, and with such a small radius the results came back instantaneously. The Crawler itself weighed seventeen tons, and had a standard exoskeleton according to the database. It was carrying ninety-two Soldier types that were waiting to spring out once the brute crashed through the wall or was in the thick of the MI lines.

It was all business time now, Robert's reactions became robotic. He activated one of his Sneekbots and deployed it. The small, crablike sensor robot was invisible to his naked eye as it zoomed off on its mission, but he watched it go using with his high-UV sensors. The sneekbot kept thirty meters distance with the Crawler and constantly used deep active scans on the beast, refreshing its status four times a second.

He made a general sweep with a three hundred meter radius again, and narrowed the results to the four closest Crawlers. He ran among the still dispersed ranks of the Locust swarm, deploying all five of his Sneekbots to watch five different Crawlers. Satisfied with the monumental amounts of sensor data flooding into his suit's hard drive, he opened a communications channel with FPASTC again. "FPASTC, this is Corporal Burnelli requesting five surgical air-to-surface strikes," he relayed the telemetry of his five Sneekbots onto his own communication, "on these locations, over."

"Roger, Corporal. E-Flight rerouting to attack, SATS strike imminent, over." A communications replied, faster than Robert had expected. The latter part of the reply was formal lingo for withdraw your fucking Sneekbots, over. He'd learned that translation in his first battle, where he'd lost eight of the expensive sensor units.

He ordered all five Sneekbots to withdraw to a one hundred meter distance, but he kept their sensor sweeps going. Deep scans weren't necessary anymore, anyway. Twenty seconds after the reply, he looked up into the sky and the USL beacons labelled E-Flight on an attack run, a few kilometers out. That's when he noticed, not for the first time, the havoc that was the sky above Fort Snelling. At best, half of the sky was still blue. Most of the rest was filled with black smoke and plasma contrails, with a nominal amount of Shriekers and Screamers filling the rest. If it wasn't for the beacons, he would never spot any allied aircraft amidst the chaos.

The six F-180E's making up E-Flight burned towards his general area at point seven Mach. Still a few kilometers distant, five of the six each fired one of their AIM-140 short-range air-to-surface precision missiles. E-Flight banked sharply as Shriekers and Screamers blasted primitive and advanced bio-missiles at them, luckily none were hit from Robert's view. The AIM-140's accelerated at nine gees towards their targets. Three hit their targets dead on according to the respective Sneekbots, and Robert had the pleasure of watching the fourth hit one of the closest Crawlers in real time.

The missile technically missed the Crawler itself, streaking between a pair of its walking legs and detonating on the ground beneath its underbelly; an equally deadly impact. The explosion was cocooned by the Crawler for a moment, before engulfing the entire Locust and the five Soldiers serving as its nearby escort. Robert's helmet polarized as the light from the explosion became too intense, and when it unpolarized he was looking at the ruined corpse. Every appendage had been blown off and clear of the explosion, while the head and thorax had been separated from the huge abdomen. The damn thing was still alive, wobbling around uselessly in its last moments of life. The extra-thick caraspace of the abdomen had been pierced, thankfully, on the underside. Resembling some kind of buggy squashed fruit, dozens of charred Soldiers had been spewed out of the contractable hole at the very rear of the abdomen, where the Crawler would have dispensed them. Robert figured a decent amount of the explosion had pierced through the underside and cooked most of the Soldiers inside.

"Then shot them out of the bastard's ass." He said out loud on the tightbeam.

"Sorry?" Kerr replied, confused but aware Robert was commenting inanely on bug-smashing.

"Admiring E-Flight's artwork." Robert sent back as he ordered his Sneekbots to find five more nearby Crawlers.

14:05 Local Time...

From within the spartan confines of her power armor, Amy carefully calculated the distance between herself and the oncoming swarm of warrior locusts. A flight of F-180E aerospace fighters streaked overhead, invisible within the hellish air battle above, to deliver precision air strikes on the inbound APC-Crawler strains. Several explosions revealed their presence before once again vanishing into chaotic obscurity.

But the android PFC paid little attention to the specifics, beyond the fact that the locust rearguard in her sector had its second wave effectively crippled, and the first group of warriors was closing within firing range. Once the bugs were within 900 meters, they would be within the effective kill-zone of her suit’s shoulder-mounted .50 caliber rotary autocannon. Thumbing her right joystick’s HAT control, the sentient weapons-system released the clamps holding the weapon in its “safe” fixed forward position. The menacing array of barrels and ammunition belts popped free of its hump-like position on the Black Knight’s right shoulder, and whirred to life, barrels spinning in an almost melodious gentle “Vwrr”. The crosshair labeled “.50RAC” moved tentatively to the left of a particular brood of oncoming warriors, the “Number two” light on Amy’s integrated HUD not quite lit, signaling that the target in question was not yet within optimal range. The laser rangefinder within the weapon put the target at approximately 912 meters.

With these last few seconds, Amy maneuvered her power armor into the trench she had earlier used to cover herself from a stray Locust missile strain. From this position at the frontlines, she and the other anti-infantry equipped battlesuits had an unrestricted line of fire on the front of the swarm. Once fully crouched within the hastily-created earthwork defense, with naught but head and shoulders poking above the ground, Amy’s laser-rangefinder put the first wave of Locusts at 885 meters. Well within optimal range.

A loud buzzing noise accompanied by bright, strobelightesque flashes of muzzle fire signaled the activation of the Black Knight’s .50 rotary cannon as a stream of bright yellow tracers streaked in an imperceptible arc toward the oncoming warriors. The weapon swept slowly from left to right as it disgorged several of its steel-cored penetrator rounds toward the advancing Locusts. Several fell outright as the weapon ate through their lighter carapaces and proceeded through them, wherefore similar injury was incurred on the second line. The Locusts attempted to spread out to mitigate this damage, but were clustered too close that any gaps within the line merely allowed the incoming shells to hit the more powerful Locust strains farther back within the swarm. Limbs and ichor alike flew every which way as Amy swept the weapon back across her kill-zone, slaughtering another line of smaller warrior strains. A palpable wall of corpses began to build, slowing those in the rear from advancing beyond the bodies of their fallen brethren.

“Yeehaw!” One particular MI soldier alongside Amy complimented over the squad commlink as he admired her lethal handiwork. “That’ll sh*Crackle*” He tried to say more, but was cut off as one of the Locust’s return fire missile strains impacted his suit’s head, killing the pilot instantly. Amy watched the incoming return fire unperturbed from behind the rhythmic illuminations of her weapon, singling out Locust missile strains headed in her general vicinity, and then further to those on vector with her suit. To the android’s dismay, three bright red boxes graced her HUD. With a careful flick of the .50RAC’s controls, the weapon jerked skyward, spitting it’s rapidly firing armament toward the oncoming missiles as Amy engaged phalanx AMS mode. In all honesty, the .50RAC wasn’t designed to shoot down missiles, but with no other defense besides the shallow trench she was hiding behind, she had little other choice but to attempt to intercept incoming missiles manually.

Two exploded in midair to the steadily sweeping weapon, while the third landed just behind her suit, showering the immediate area with armor-dissolving bio-plasma. The ground shook violently from the near-miss as damage readouts popped into existence on Amy’s HUD, signaling that the rear of her suit had incurred minor to moderate damage from the resulting splash. The suit rocked violently forward from the damage, but managed to keep it's feet through careful control by its pilot. For the first few seconds of battle, things had gone rather well...

"Transport 10 is taking off, please provide cover B Flight," the command came through the comm. Davaris, who was tucked in right behind a Screamer with Mako in tight formation, held down on his trigger and unloaded several hundred rounds from his Vulcan cannon into the flying bug's plasma bladder then banked out of the way of the resulting explosion before taking the time to look over at the airstrip where the boxy transport was taking off.

"Eleven, Twelve, that's your Crate. Take it out to the colonies, I'll see you at the debriefing," Dav ordered.

"Boss, Twelve got hit! A missle flew straight up his tailpipe, there's nothing left!" came the anguished reply from the pilot.

Shit! We lost Sparks already... he thought as he grimaced to himself. He knew all too well the pain of losing a wingman.

"Okay, okay, calm down Eleven. Everything's gonna be fine. I'm gonna send Eight up with you instead. Now get going, that Crate can't wait for you, but won't last if you're not there."

"Dav, are you crazy? I'm not ditching you," Mako protested immediately. Davaris switched to a private frequency with Mako.

"Mako, he's too green to be able to run this gauntlet alone. He needs someone with him. Now get going, that's a direct order."

"Roger, Boss," came his wingman's strained reply. Mako's F-180E peeled off from formation and went to join up with Eleven and the transport.

A Shrieker made the mistake of banking directly across Dav's HUD. Dav snapped off a quick shot that tore through one of the Locust's wing joints, sending it plummeting into a Tank Crawler on the ground, enveloping both in a large explosion that sprayed plasma over some stray Warriors who had been too close. Dav punched up the private frequency one more time with Mako.

"Don't worry buddy, I'll make it back. I've gotten out of worse situations," he reassured his wingman. Then he switched back to the general frequency. "Command, this is Angel Seven. Requesting permission to be reassigned from escorting Transport 12 to the last Crate off this rock," he said when an alarm began blaring. He banked hard to port and narrowly avoided a fate similar to Angel 12's. The bio-missle shot by less than two meters from the underside of his fighter. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He'd almost forgotten how much tougher flying without a wingman was. He shook his head and punched the throttle up a bit and acquired a new target.

Guess I should do my part while I wait for Command's reply. he thought.