text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  You lead them back into the treeline at the edge of the forest, and wait for a few minutes. Then you hear the loud rumbling of incoming spaceships. Moments later, four massive transports come into view to the east, slowing down, and heading toward Fort Dale. They looked about the size of a squad carrying M.A.U. transport, but were boxier and bulkier.
  
  "What the heck are those things? I haven't seen a design like that before!" Wolfman says over the squad channel.
  
  "We could be up against twelve enemy M.A.U.s," Tomcat says.
  
  Suddenly the front of one of the enemy transports begins to glow, and moments later, there's a loud cracking sound as a massive bolt of artificial lightning shoots out from it and over the treetops toward the Fort. You hear distant explosions!
  
  "We are under attack, I repeat, Fort Dale is under attack!" you hear Captain Jefferson's voice over the Fort's military channel. Moments later, the Captain patches through direct to your M.A.U.
  
  "Squad Leader - unidentified forces are attacking military Forts all across the planet. We won't be getting any reinforcements any time soon, and no one in our space fleet has reported in either. I want you to hang in there, and get some visual data on the enemy forces, so we can work out what we are up against!" he orders.
  
  You hear the sound of Gunship afterburners, and four Gunships suddenly roar over your heads. The afterburners switch off, and their rotors fold out, allowing them to hover in the air. The Gunships open fire on the lead enemy transport, blasting away at it repeatedly. The massive transport buckles, and slowly sinks toward the ground. The explosive impact knocks you off your feet! Moments later, massive lightning bolts fire from the other transports, and obliterate the Gunships in another quick succession of fiery explosions.
  
  > say "Let's get out of here! If they detect us, they might turn those massive weapons on us!"
  "But sir, our orders?" Wolfman asks over the squad channel.
  
  "To hell with orders, I'm with the Squad Leader," Tomcat says. Wolfman's M.A.U. nods its head, and they both fall in beside you as you run back westward through the forest for Fort Dale.
  
  Suddenly there is a massive cracking sound, as one of the enemy transports unleashes another lightning bolt attack. You only have a moment to respond, diving to one side, before it strikes. There's a huge explosion, shattering trees and scattering debris, as your war machine rolls along the ground, crashing into the trunk of a large tree.
  
  For a while there is just a ringing sound in your ears, and large cracks and gaps in your vision tell you the optic feeds from the head of your M.A.U. were damaged. You try to stand up, but your limbs are all held solid in place, meaning your M.A.U. took severe damage, and it can't get up. Swearing, you try hailing your squad mates.
  
  "Guys, you okay?" you say over the squad channel. You get no response, just static. Damn, you think to yourself, as you flick a switch on one of your control panels, and power down. Your suit suddenly becomes limp, as the power turns off, and you slip out of the cockpit harness that held you in place. Unplugging cables you pull your headset free, and your own eyes' natural vision is restored. You realise your M.A.U. is lying on its side, on the ground, and press a button at the back of the cockpit to open the rear hatch. Only two meters off the ground, in this position, you lower yourself down to the forest floor.
  
  Looking around, you see that one of the massive lightning strikes hit right where the three of you were standing. Tomcat and Wolfman's M.A.U.s lie scattered about in pieces of burning rubble. The blast must have struck them in the back, and because you were in front of them, you were partially shielded. Turning, you assess the wreck of your war machine. It will never walk again.
  
  What do I do now? You wonder.
  
  > decide to try and hike back to Fort Dale, and hope you don't run into enemy infantry... Or worse.
  You start hiking, grumbling about the fact that M.A.U. pilots aren't equipped with sidearms. About ten minutes into your hike, witnessing two more of the powerful lightning strikes surge through the air above the forest, and hearing explosions from the Fort, you hear whining engine sounds behind you.
  
  The sounds come so fast, you don't have time to respond. Soldiers on hoverbikes roar past you, narrowly missing you, as enemy scouts head toward the fort. They were wearing some sort of green bodysuit, but you didn't get a good look at them before they had gone by. What uniform is that? You wonder, trying to work out where the soldiers might be from.
  
  Suddenly one of the hoverbikes comes back! It quickly slows to a halt, and the soldier leaps down onto the ground. It is then that you realise with horror, that it was not a green uniform - it was their skin! Before you stands some sort of lizard man, covered in green scales! The invading force - they're not raiders from the frontier systems, they're aliens!
  
  The lizard man looks you up and down, and sees you have no ranged weapon on you, so he tosses his rifle behind him. Then you notice he has two more weapons - wicked looking swords hanging from either side of his belt. Swords? Who in the galaxy wields swords in this day and age??
  
  The alien creature tosses one of the swords at you, and it lands quivering blade-first in the ground at your feet. It gestures for you to pick up the sword. With no other options apparant, you hesitantly pull the blade from the ground. Instantly, the alien launches into its attack. With no training in this sort of thing, you manage to block the alien's first sword blow, but the second slices clean through your heart.
  
  This is the end... for you.