text: [Themes: sci-fi, war]
  
  "Of course we've tried that, Squad Leader. It seems something is jamming the Fort's interstellar communications. The enemy is blocking the Greyson Transmitter somehow, so we're stuck with local communications. I don't know if they're only jamming the Fort, or if the whole planet has been jammed somehow, but there's nothing we can do here," he tells you.
  
  > 'I guess they're probably jamming the whole planet,' you think. Better focus on defending this fort!
  Everyone readies themselves for the coming battle, and another two of the massive blasts from the transports fire upon the Fort before enemy blips begin massing on your sensors. Squad Alpha is on 'wall duty', their M.A.U.'s leaning up to peek over the wall every now and then.
  
  Suddenly one of them ducks his head back down, as smaller versions of the lightning cannon blast through the air.
  
  "The enemy is here!" the pilot tinforms everyone. "Looks like those Behemoth's have three lightning weapons on them, smaller than the transports, but deadly all the same!"
  
  "Okay people, time to make a stand! Aim and fire, but keep an eye out for the transports. If you see them charging their big cannons up, duck down behind the wall until after they fire, then get back up again. We're here until it's just them or us. Go! Go! Go!" the Captain shouts.
  
  Everyone leaps up and opens fire with everything they have. Looking out over the wall, you see two of the massive Behemoth machines stomping out of the forest, trees collapsing all around them. In front of and around the Behemoths are swarms of lizardman infantry. Many of them running at the wall, others leaping and bounding with incredible speed!
  
  One of the Behemoths fires three bolts of artificial lightning from its three weapon spheres, and the energy arcs in on one of the pilots in Squad Gamma, completely obliterating the top half of his M.A.U. in a single blast!
  
  > open fire on the Behemoths with your energy cannon and your twin-firing plasmabolt machine guns!
  You start blasting away with your fellow Dale Company M.A.U.'s at the Behemoth war machines. Blasts of superheated energy lance out from the energy cannon attached to your mecha's right arm, melting lines through the thick armour of the enemy war machines. Your twin-firing plasmabolt machine guns rotate at blinding speed, spitting out fiery bolts that spray the surface of an enemy war machine, peppering it with superheated metal.
  
  Under the concentrated fire of Dale Company, one of the front legs of a Behemoth begins to buckle at the knee joint. As it starts to fall, it fires the three lightning-globe weapons, lashing out with fierce energy strikes. Two members of Squad Gamma are blown away by the strike, and a member of Squad Alpha goes down as the other Behemoth fires as well! There are only nine M.A.U.'s left in Dale Company!
  
  Then the front Behemoth tilts and it's leg snaps at the knee. The machine falls forward, pounding into the ground, but you realise that the moveable lightning-ball weapons on the top/sides of the machine are still able to point in the direction of the Fort's walls, so it is far from being out of the battle.
  
  Swarms of infantry charge the walls, some of the lizardmen jumping and bounding across the ground. As they reach the bottom of the wall, the jumping lizardmen leap up onto the wall, and somehow manage to cling to the slick metal surface! With horror, you watch as a dozen of the leaping lizard men climb up the wall, and leap past the towering Dale Company M.A.U.'s, and into the courtyard!
  
  You glance behind you momentarily to see the infantry of Dale Fort battle it out with the lizard men. A number of soldiers die horribly, as the lizard men draw wicked looking swords, and cut them down. Then the Fort's battlesuit warriors open fire with their anti-infantry weapons, and blow the lizard men away.
  
  A small lightning bolt blast explodes against the wall beside you, from one of the Behemoths, and you turn you attention back to the battle!
  
  > focus fire on the fallen Behemoth!
  Everyone joins together in firing on the fallen Behemoth. After a while, fragments of metal blast away from the top of the machine, and you fire into the hole. There's a huge explosion from within the Behemoth, as fire roars out the hole in its hull. Everyone cheers!
  
  The cheers are cut short, six streams of lightning blast out of the trees. Tomcat and the Captain are blown away as two more Behemoths stomp out of the forest and join the battle! Then you notice energy charging at the front of the massive transports in the distance.
  
  "Everyone down!" you cry out, and everyone ducks as a massive lightning blast assaults the Fort. The Command Centre at the middle of the complex blows apart, shattering under the assault of the weapon! Then you see hundreds of lizardmen leaping over the walls and bounding down into the courtyard!
  
  "We're being overrun!" someone shouts over the military channel. You quickly stand up again, and open fire on the lizards with your Gatling's twin-firing plasmabolt machine guns, mowing down groups of lizards, but there's too many of them! The Fort's infantry are swarmed, falling and screaming beneath the assault. Beside you, a fellow M.A.U. get's blown away by a back shot from the Behemoths behind you, on the other side of the wall!
  
  Then the lizard men are leaping and bounding onto the M.A.U.'s. You try to look down at the body of your M.A.U. but you head can't look straight down. They're crawling over your body, doing something! You glance at an M.A.U. near you, and see lizard warriors planting what looks like small explosive charges on the backs of his war machine. Moments later, you hear an explosion behind you, in the cockpit, and feel wind rushing inside.
  
  Your last thought is that they've blown the cockpit hatch off, and then you feel the blade of a sword thrust through your back, and everything goes dark.
  
  It is the end... for you.