text: [Themes: sci-fi, serious]
  
  You sadly conclude that there is nothing you can do but wait. The Mammoths move closer. The infantry scuttle forward. One mammoth is heading straight for your squad.
  
  The Mammoth stops. Then the world tilts 90 degrees again and your ears are ringing. The Mammoth is shelling you.
  
  The AA matrix lights up, but it is too far away. The ground is continuously thrown around and so is your brain.
  
  Pick a number from the Random Number Table.
  
  > If the number is 0-4
  The ground falls away, then rushes back to whack you in the face. Grass can be surprisingly hard, aided by gravity... (lose 3 health). You black out.
  
  When you come to your senses again and look around, you see the shells falling further and further down the lines.
  
  > The end of the ear-ringing
  Eventually it stops. You try to speak, but no sound comes, even as you can feel your voicebox vibrating. Then, as if a volume knob had been turned, the world gets louder. You realise your throat is sore.
  
  You look at Harridan.
  
  "Glad we got through that."
  
  You can't think of anything else to say. Your head is all... fuzzy.
  
  > Foothold
  The hiss of silenced shots and the hum of plasma fills the air as incandescent beams erupt from the long grass in front of you. The Taktat Empire's stormtroopers have crept very close and are now trying to make you take cover before they charge.
  
  "Contact!"
  
  "They're coming in, get ready!"
  
  "501st reporting contact with enemy infantry."
  
  "This is it!"
  
  You drop to the ground as you hear a dart whooshing over your head. Harridan lets loose a barrage of plasma from around the corner of a log.
  
  You still cannot see the stormtroopers, but they must be getting closer. The Taktat mammoths are drifting further away, their jobs done for now.
  
  You then spy long-nosed rifles poking through the green shroud. You blink as a laser sight passes over your eye.
  
  > If Psych is healthy
  You hear the muffled sound of a plasma dart, but it comes not from the grass, but from a nearby bush.
  
  Thub!
  
  A beam of plasma trails out behind the dart with a hum.
  
  One of the rifles in the grass spins around and starts firing continuously, lighting up the grass like a laser show before falling away into the undergrowth.
  
  From Psych's position you hear calm, calculated and precise shots.
  
  Thub!
  
  Thub!
  
  Thub-Thub-Thub!
  
  The snipers conceal themselves again. You thumb on your radio.
  
  "Nice shooting there, Psych."
  
  "That's what I'm here for."
  
  You detect a rare hint of smug satisfaction in his voice.
  
  "Hey, ego, those were easy shots. I could have hit em by smell alone. Worse than a Tachsquid's balls."
  
  "You have the advantage of me there, Smellovision, having never sniffed a Tachsquid's balls myself."
  
  Melodrama breaks in.
  
  "Ooh, burned. Better luck next time Sentinel, and if you aren't too busy Psych, please try to at least point your ego at them, not at us.
  
  "Don't worry. I hit them so hard it's like they'll have a hole in their heads."
  
  In the distance, a Taktat trooper slumps to the ground, blood leaking out of his cranium.
  
  > close up
  You hear yells coming from inside the tall grass. Your foes are pumping themselves up with battle cries. You hope they arent conscripts, but how many conscripts yell battle cries? You wouldn't put it past the Imperials to use slave soldiers, but even they know indoctrinated troops fight harder and more obediently.
  
  The thumping of boots on earth rises to a crescendo as they draw closer, unseen, but betrayed by the noise of running. Where the grass ends abruptly, they will be visible and visibly shocked.
  
  Suddenly a few faint outlines appear, the grass parting slightly around them. Patches of a darker green than the grass appear. Then they're right on top of you. Your heartbeat speeds up and you prepare yourself. You arent scared though, like when the shells fell. The adrenaline is coursing through your bloodstream, your trigger finger itchy, your brain saturated with anger, yet your mind sharper than ever before. Time seems to slow down as your smile turns into a snarl.
  
  "Come 'ere, ploorking motherfuckers!"
  
  "Taste our plasma!"
  
  "Get some!"
  
  "Come out and fight, you pigs!"
  
  "Stop skulking around in there, no-one's gonna save you bastards now!"
  
  The grass erupts as the Taktat stormtroopers rush out, blobguns and carbines blazing.
  
  You pull your body behind a rock as a green splatter appears next to you, reacting with the grass and producing foul-smelling smoke.
  
  The thumping tells you they've almost covered the distance. You look out. It's a flood. Too many.
  
  You see a veritable storm of beams, filling the air, the smell of smoke, ionized air and carbon scoring everywhere.
  
  The sun is low in the sky and the web of lethal energy is superimposed onto a brilliant Terra Proxima sunset. The clouds and the sun are a brilliant shining, yet deep, red, contrasting with the clear azure sky.
  
  The thumping of the Machine draws nearer. The stormtroopers look like clones, inhuman agents of an inhuman opression.
  
  You must make a decision. Your squad trusts your judgement. What will you do?
  
  > If you want to stay and fight, hoping to use the open ground and your cover to hold the flood of stormtroopers
  You switch on your helmet mic:
  
  "Stay here people, we need push them back so we can keep our distance."
  
  The pounding boots are very close now. You stick your head around your rock. You can clearly see your enemies deployed into a thin skirmish line to avoid bunching up and making easier targets. The snap-humm of plasma weapons firing is fiercer than ever. You see more movement in the grass behind and know that they will be able to flood out without resistance if you don't deal with the skirmish line quickly.
  
  A dark green suit of armour covers the final few metres in a sprint, then vaults the rock, absorbing the shock of the fall by sinking into a crouch. It scans the area with a translucent faceplate.
  
  It sees you.
  
  > If you have a blobgun and wish to use it
  You fire, a blob of liquid plasma exploding on contact with it's chest. The residue sticks and burns it's way through the trooper's chest. It topples to the ground. You breathe hard and realise your personal defense has gotten better. (Add 2 to your Health and Maximum Health)
  
  > Melee
  If you wish, you can pick up the fallen trooper's blobgun. Record it in the weapons section. It has a slow rate of fire and is lethal at close range, though hard to use in open ground over large distances.
  
  You look quickly for your squadmates, some of whom are fighting the troopers with knives, others hiding and picking the green-clad troopers off, one by one.
  
  Their re-enforcements are coming in now, forcing your squad to fight two foes at once. You see Melodrama lunge at a trooper, sweeping his blade up and cutting it's blobgun in half.
  
  The sun is behind the horizon now. Very soon you will all be fighting in the darkness.
  
  You have to get artillery support, fast, otherwise this tide of stormtroopers will engulf you. The only consolation you have is that you are buying time.
  
  First, you charge in and attack a mass of troopers trying to push through, from the side. You sprint and jump through the air, knife outstretched.
  
  *squelch!*
  
  Slightly disgusted, you pull your knife free as your target staggers backward into it's comrades, distracting them.
  
  You are hit with a carbine beam through the back. Three layers of armour are overheated and pierced before the beam is halted (lose 3 health). You overbalance and trip, falling to the ground. You release the spent coolant and a jet of vapour blasts out of the back of your suit, scalding the face of the trooper standing over you.
  
  Decision time!
  
  > If you want to stay behind while the squad flees back to the artillery
  You can think of no other way for the squad to escape such tremendous numbers but for you to stay behind and hold them off, maybe surrendering.
  
  They think you are crazy, but you urge them to go. Reluctant, but scared of the horde, they run for it.
  
  You stay behind and pound them from inside a shrub. They are scared to find themselves bombarded by an enemy they cannot see, and eventually you hear something over the general broadcast channel on your suit.
  
  "Sniper, you cannot win. We know you are here and you can do nothing. If you break cover, we will cut you down. If not, we will find you. Surrender, and we will let you live. You will know I am serious making this offer because if I wanted you dead we could do so anyway, with a lot less fuss." Come quietly, or we will have swift vengeance for our brothers."
  
  You have no other choice, so you raise your hands and step out of the shrub. You are handcuffed, stripped of all your weapons,including your knife (if you have a Holdout Plasma Pistol they will not find it due to it's concealed location and small size), you are hauled out of your powered jumpsuit and handcuffed to three troopers. They take you to a waiting gunship and you are whisked off to their base camp.
  
  > Captured
  Your helmet and jumpsuit are taken off, you are blindfolded and handcuffed, then pushed over some kind of ground for a while. You are then subjected to an annoyingly rough invasive search.
  
  "Hey, shouldn't we get to know each other first?"
  
  "Shut your poisonous mouth or we'll make sure you can never speak again."
  
  > If you have any Taktat dogtags
  "What's this?", you hear one of your captors say, as she removes one of your captured dogtags.
  
  "Hey, wait a minute! I knew him! You monster!"
  
  You hear a blade being drawn.
  
  "I'm going to enjoy this..."
  
  You gasp as you feel the agonising pain of a knife and the horrible sensation of metal sliding through your chest. Fear wells up in your gut.
  
  Then the pain suddenly hits a new height and you feel no more...