text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  You stick the plasticine-like explosive around the door and corridor through which your foes will come, then check the frequencies on your detonator remote, arming the plastique. As you duck behind a crate, you can hear the tortured shrieks of metal echoing down the corridor.
  
  Gearhead gives you a whispered countdown. "Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark!"
  
  You stab your finger down on the detonator. The roar of the explosive is muffled by the reverberating crash of falling corridor.
  
  Pick a number from the random number table. If you are an engineer, add 4 to the number, due to your training with demolitions. Also, remember to remove the explosives from your chart.
  
  > If the number is 0-4
  The world goes dark and you are whacked on the helmet with a large piece of ceiling (lose 4 health). Staggering to stay upright, you hear yells and running feet as the Taktat troopers rush the room. As you start creeping back down the corridor, you whisper into your radio "Get out! Get out of here, now!"
  
  "Ayo." Gearhead's voice is shaky.
  
  "Moving." Nemo is emotionless.
  
  "Ahh... I'm moving." Outrider sounds as if he's been injured.
  
  Silence.
  
  "Come in, Harridan."
  
  "Found her." says Nemo. "She needs a medic."
  
  A rumble throws you off your feet and into a container (lose 3 health if you do not have night-vision).
  
  As you pick yourself up, you start to run, hoping the Taktat troopers will miss you in the dark.
  
  "501st, this is Sentinel. The troopers are coming your way. Get ready to recieve them."
  
  On your radio, you suddenly hear a burst of reports.
  
  "Third Line to Command, our guns have been knocked out."
  
  "Third Line to Command, our section is being boarded."
  
  "All blast doors sealing now."
  
  "Where is that Ploork-infected Vanguard!?"
  
  > Flight
  You run, never looking back, and constantly hoping that your foes haven't sighted you. As you exit the labyrinth of containers and move into the corridor leading to the control room, you meet up with your team.
  
  Harridan is swearing through the radio. "Damn! Fucking ploorkspawn never give us a chance! We're always running, running, running and i'm SICK OF IT!"
  
  No-one replies, but you all share her sentiments.
  
  Okay, looks like everyone's here... Harridan, Gearhead, Nemo... Oh, fuck.
  
  "Where in this ploork-infested nightmare is Outrider?"
  
  You all stop, suddenly.
  
  Nemo's eyes go wide with shock.
  
  "We LEFT HIM BEHIND!?"
  
  He grabs you by the collar.
  
  "Do you KNOW what they do to their prisoners? They don't abide by any POW treaty. They'll grill him and then kill him slowly."
  
  Nemo's face contorts and he holds his head in his hands.
  
  "No... Not another one..."
  
  "Dammit, Nemo! You can agonise later!" Harridan gives him a push and he starts running. Trying not to think too much about what the Tach tradition is regarding POWs, you follow.
  
  Mark Outrider as MIA on your chart.
  
  You burst into the control room. Harridan starts yelling. "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, they're COMING!"
  
  The squad quickly jump out of their seats.
  
  Gambler shakes his head. "No way to contain them?"
  
  "Blast doors have been sealed", says Nemo. "Our section is lost for sure, but the others are secure."
  
  "Outrider didn't make it?"
  
  "No."
  
  Gambler clenches his fists in a private moment of anguish. It is soon overcome by fear - The clatter of metal on metal draws nearer.
  
  "We got another walker. Took ages, but we finally took out the guns on it's side. They stopped, and they wont move again until they get repaired.
  
  The squad systematically raise their pistols and blast the control panels - the less UG technology in enemy hands, the better.
  
  > Escape Tunnel
  You hurry into the escape tunnel, hoping that you get time enough to get in cover before the armies of Tach start swarming into the Fourth Line.
  
  Gearhead stands by the demolition pad at the far end of the tunnel. Last in the line, you watch the control room.
  
  The metallic clatter suddenly ceases, and two round objects bounce into the room. When the air starts to shimmer, your mind screams an alert.
  
  "Come on, blow the explosives, now!" Gambler has become very tense.
  
  As you shuffle further into the tunnel, you hear a distant rumbling.
  
  "It's coming down!" yells Harridan.
  
  Everyone spontaneously breaks into a run. You don't look back.
  
  As soon as you see daylight you hear the roar of collapsing tunnel behind you. You dive out the door just as a pile of supercrete rubble seals up the tunnel.
  
  "Damn thing nearly killed me!"
  
  "Meh, it's the first time we've had to use it. Bound to be a few hiccups in the system." Gearhead talks with the accomplished cynicism of a hardcore techie.
  
  You hear metallic clunks behind you, and turn, slowly on the spot.
  
  > Oh fuck
  You struggle to take in the whole scene at once. Screeching sounds come from the blocked tunnel, cracks have appeared in the Third Line's supercrete, and, as you look up, you see paratroopers landing in their hundreds on top of the wall, all the way down it's length. Some bore holes in the roof and go inside on ropes; others abseil down to trap the wall between two enemy forces.
  
  The sound of the Taktat Empire's chemical-explosive artillery is deafening, even at a distance. You wince as you re-adjust your ear filters.
  
  After taking cover in an abandoned workshop you take out your binoculars, searching for more signs of enemy activity. You quickly spot a rapidfire gun being set up at a crossroads down the street, between you and the hidden defenses of the Fourth Line, presumably to catch fleeing infantrymen once the wall falls.
  
  And it will fall. The walkers are close enough now to start kicking their way through the supercrete. One walker doesn't even stop, just ploughing right in.
  
  "Right. Rapidfire up ahead. We'll burn our way through the buildings to get up close, then decide what to do next. Let's go."
  
  The squad moves quietly through the street, from abandoned building to abandoned building. When the various shops, workshops and houses do not have doors between them, you burn your way through with Gearhead's plasma cutter.
  
  Gambler whispers into his radio "paratroopers have landed between Third and Fourth lines. Recommend a gunship sweep before the walkers break through."
  
  You break into the final building in the street and step through the smouldering hole. You peer through a crack in the wall. About 20 metres away, the rapidfire gun, mounted on a tripod and encircled by sandbags, sweeps the area. You count four helmets in the small emplacement.
  
  You look at your squadmates, some afflicted with wounds. Gambler, ostensibly your leader, looks dazed and indecisive. He nods at you. He probably wasn't cut out to lead under pressure.
  
  > If you have an explosive charge you can throw it into the emplacement
  "Right. I'll lob this charge into the Rapidfire position. Cover me."
  
  The squad takes up position, cutting holes in the thin wooden walls and checking their carbines.
  
  You nod. Gambler brings his arm down.
  
  Volleys of beams fly out of the building and straight at the emplacement. The figures next to the Rapidfire drop to the ground inside their ring of sandbags.
  
  The squad keeps firing short, irregular bursts. One of the sandbags starts spilling chunks of newly-formed glass, and the troops in the bunker keep their heads down.
  
  You give your squad the thumbs up, before leaning out the door and chucking your explosive charge. After counting to three, you stab your finger down on the detonate button of your remote.
  
  The explosion rocks the ground and sends up a massive crater in the ground, scattering debris, glass and sand everywhere. A fine red mist hangs in the air, and close examination of the ground reveals burned, severed limbs. As you and your squad investigate, you find the Rapidfire gun completely ruined.
  
  You move on.
  
  > The Fourth Line
  After moving fast through the disintegrating city, you find your designated retreat point - your part of the fourth line of defense. It's a normal apartment building, on the outside. The squad enters, exhausted.
  
  You note the stairs to the basement and it's tunnels, but instead climb the upward stairs to the second floor. What used to be an apartment has been transformed into a strongpoint. Ladders poking through hastily-cut holes in the ceiling, Blast Doors, radios and ration boxes are all signs of a quickly-prepared fortress.
  
  The wounded - walking or not - are carried to the rear by patrol walkers - The Hover Roads were destabilised as soon as the walkers hit the Third Line. Gambler is incoherent and shivering - he too is loaded onto the walkers.
  
  After seeing them safely away, you and your remaining squad climb to the top floor - up five flights of stairs.
  
  You all take the time to take of your helmets and drink some water. You also choke down a few ration bars.
  
  "It has an... interesting texture, doesn't it?"
  
  "Reminds me of those fried ants we ate when we were cut off in the Xoralundra Jungle."
  
  "You were never in Xoralundra! This is your first action."
  
  "Yeah. He's a liar and a braggart."
  
  "Look who's talking. You guaranteed me Gearhead's X-ray specs would work."
  
  "If you believed that, my friend, you deserve to get scammed!"
  
  You smile. Little experience that you have, you know that banter is the only way to keep spirits up in a situation like this.
  
  "Hey, Sentinel! When are we getting our reinforcements?"
  
  "They should be coming today. The Second Division is bringing all their air and armoured support. We'll need it, too."
  
  Whether they'll be here in time is another matter...
  
  > Situation
  You scan the third line with your binoculars from your perch.
  
  Smoke rises in sporadic puffs, and the enormous bass THUMPA-THUMPA of Zerstorer feet and chemical-explosive weapons shakes the earth. Parts of the wall fall away in sheets of light, and you can see the tiny heads of the Zerstorers peering through the gaps, before rearing back and smashing against the supercrete like a mad bulls.
  
  Capsules fly over the wall like cannonballs, spilling out tiny, ant-like Taktat Troopers on impact.
  
  In the air, hovering gunships make desperate runs, but the Zerstorer point defences swivel to impale them on glowing red beams. The ground is littered with burning aircraft.
  
  Here and there, desperate UG soldiers break out of the escape tunnels, only to find the capsule troopers in front of them. Small firefights between tiny figures break out across the cityscape as all sense of control disappears. It is carnage; man has been torn down to the basics, the simple task of kill or be killed.
  
  The Rapidfire guns of the Zerstorers poke through the breaches and spray the ground, cutting down soldier after soldier in a cold display of contempt.
  
  Across the whole line, the same scenes are repeated - the flaming gunships, the roar of artillery, plasma humming, and the screams of the wounded.
  
  Sickened, you move away from the upper windows and down to the radio to try and raise Command.
  
  "BZZZT! Slak har beeeeeeeep liiiiiiish no underground khalak beeeep invaders click-click mobilize."
  
  Puzzled, you realise that this gibberish is playing on every frequency, drowning out everything else. Your radios are useless. Even on encrypted channels, the message is the same.
  
  You shake your head. All that remains is to try and save as many comrades as possible.
  
  "Okay, squad - load up, and let's get to work."
  
  > Counterattack
  Fully loaded, the remaining fighting squadmates walk behind you, eyes peeled, as you move along both sides of a street, full of ruined, skeletal buildings. You can see plasma flashes ahead and hear yelling, but the combatants are hidden by chunks of rubble and mounds of scree.
  
  With no contact with command, the only thing left to do is try and rescue your comrades before the Zerstorers break through.
  
  "I heard they had a contigency plan if they were attacked by walkers."
  
  "What? I thought that was the Third Line."
  
  "No, something to do with underground ruins... I don't know."
  
  "Whatever it is, I bet Psych has a shrewd idea."
  
  "Yeah, if he's not a vegetable..."
  
  You and your squad reach a pile of gravel, just plonked in the middle of the cracked hover-road surface. The ground vibrates as if hit by an earthquake. The devestation grows more intense from here on out, with buildings razed to the ground and everything covered with a layer of dirt. Here and there, exposed and broken underground cables spark, and water wells up from shallow pipes.
  
  Then suddenly, you round a large piece of intact, fallen masonry, and before your eyes see a squad of Taktat troopers. With Rapidfire guns and grenades, they force the escaping UG troopers back down the road, laughing uproariously as sniper beams from the Zerstorers pick off the desperate soldiers.
  
  You rush in, beams flying, catching your adversaries completely off guard. As the last of them falls to the ground, you hear yells, and more troopers converge on your position from the ruined buildings on the side of the street.
  
  The trapped UG troopers take cover as best they can, and are soon out of sight.
  
  > If Outrider is healthy
  You are suddenly knocked to the ground in a flying tackle. Gasping, you shake your head and clear your wits, just in time to see Outrider exposed and off balance. He jerks like a marionette as the beams start flying.
  
  He falls to the ground, punctured like a colander. A pool of blood forms around his twitching form.
  
  But while they concentrate on Outrider, the United Guns troopers spread out around the rubble. You can only hear the crunch of gravel and flashes of reflected light from your position behind a chunk of rubble, but then you see the barrels of a squad's worth of plasma weapons appear from the ruins.
  
  In their rush, it appears the Taktat troopers had no flankers at all. They're all in one big stinking pile.
  
  Your voice is little more than a snarl, and filled with hatred for those bastards. The UG soldiers feel the same way - beams fill the air like a laser show, catching the enemy troopers in a lethal crossfire. When the troopers fall, your weapons are turned on the corpses, turning them into bleeding sacks of meat. They start to burn with the energy and hate being poured into them.
  
  Only when they have become dust in the wind do you stop firing.
  
  Outrider is not moving. His heart is exposed, and filled with holes. He lies in a hideous pool of his own lifeblood. There is nothing you can do (mark Outrider as KIA on your chart.)
  
  > Thoughts
  The shots fade as you and your squad hunker down behind whatever rubble you can find. You are all in a bad way, cut, bleeding, exhausted. But after having come this far, all that seems insignificant. Even as you cling to the masonry like limpets, doing little more than hiding from the stalking terror of the Zerstorers, you will not be dislodged.
  
  The potshots continue. Minutes pass. Your squadmates start to chuckle, faced with the destruction around them, the blood, the occasional whistle of a shell - for some reason it all seems so pathetic, so small, in comparison to your cameraderie.
  
  You feel stronger than ever as your fortress crumbles. You feel invincible.
  
  > If your squad has downed one Zerstorer or less
  The ground shudders beneath you. You look up to see the craning neck of a Zerstorer, 'eyes' gazing down.
  
  A roar goes up from the enemy, and taking advantage of your surprise, they dash out at you. Plasma from the Zerstorer rakes the ground, scaring the ever-loving shit out of everyone. As the Taktat troopers rush in, plasma rifles raised as clubs, you know this fight could spell your doom.
  
  > If your squad has at least 14 healthy members (including yourself)
  As you take your bearings, everyone starts firing. As your gaze sweeps left and right you see your comrades crouching behind the largest chunks of rubble they can find. The firing line starts projecting plasma forward at a furious rate, taking out a trooper just in front of you as, dazed, you pull out your weapon and start firing with them.
  
  You breathe heavily as the shadow of the Zerstorer moves over you. A mammoth foot crashes down just beside you, sending you spinning into the dirt. As you gaze upwards, you can see ropes falling from the belly of the beast.
  
  Quickly, you stagger to your feet and go over your options.
  
  > If you have a missile launcher and a missile and wish to use it
  Fingers trembling, you load the heavy device and point the business end squarely at one of the openings on the Zerstorer's underside. Above, you can see the figures of shock troopers starting their descent on the ropes.
  
  Phut. You close your eyes as a plume of smoke obscures your vision.
  
  WHOOSH. The sound of the explosion is muted, but flames gush from the weak spots on the Zerstorer's armour, blackening the metal. It stops, still, as the muted roar of secondary explosions echo up and down the length of the walker, until the smoke clears and it just stands there, still upright, a skeletal, blackened piece of junk.
  
  > Final Onslaught
  The battle has been long and hard-fought. In this lull, you pull back still futher into the city and the remaining water is shared out, and whatever unspoiled food there is, is divided up.
  
  Your whole body aches from exertion. The casualties around you have no place to go - and you have no idea where the other troops are.
  
  Then, the thump, thump, thump of Zerstorers in the distance. They're coming - twelve of them. Twelve fucking Zerstorers aimed at your group of battered invalids. No one is capable of fighting any more.
  
  You stare around you dejectedly. You have come almost to your barracks - The park where you found Psych gone completely bonkers is only a few streets away. The ground is cracked, and tortured. Even this far back, the buildings have been mostly smashed to bits.
  
  Wait. Psych. The field hospital...
  
  You groan. Too much to do. Just too much...
  
  The Zerstorers draw nearer, the thumping louder. A white flag is produced - you all know when you're beat.
  
  Closer. The tarmac cracks some more under the strain. You begin to feel uneasy - something is about to happen, but you don't quite know what.
  
  You can clearly see them now. They flatten the buildings in their path, spread out in battle line.
  
  Thumpa
  
  Thumpa
  
  Thumpa
  
  ThumpaCRAAACK!
  
  A Zerstorer's foot goes clean through the ground, pulling it towards its neighbour. Like dominoes, they collapse, throwing up a cloud of dust that sends you and your squad into a coughing fit.
  
  When it clears, the Zerstorers are gone. In their place is a massive fricking hole in the ground.
  
  An unintelligible burst of static and digital bleeps fills your ears. It's on every channel.
  
  An ominous rumbling, deep in the ground.
  
  Crack
  
  Crack
  
  CrackCrackCrack
  
  Holes appear all around you and in front of you, disgorging what can only be described as metal boxes with limbs. Limbs and protrusions.
  
  Glass shards start to fly, and you and your squad flee for your life. But the newcomers don't seem especially interested in you. They move from place to place, never going too far from the pit, as if they were to secure a perimeter.
  
  After a few minutes, you all stop, panting. Psych would have a lot of questions to answer.
  
  "All squads, come in. This is Command. Rally back at the headquarters, all units. We're engaged in a cease-fire with the Taktat Empire for the time being. Do not engage Taktat troopers. Message Repeats:"
  
  You hurry, legs on fire and mind numb. What the hell was happening, you have no clue.
  
  The radio bursts into life again, this time in the clear. The voice sounds cold and metallic, as if run through a voder-vocoder. "Mechanized partisans are ordered to secure ground for the arrival of the reclamation fleet. To the inhabitants of Terra Proxima - be afraid. Very afraid."
  
  > Epilogue
  Silph looked out the window, the vast starfield staring back at him – millions of lights backed by the eerie green of the Milky Way galaxy. Sol was bright, 10 light years away, and the sun, Kray, threw a blanket of light over half the blue-green planet below them. The other half of the planet- the night half - was lit up with a show just as impressive as the starfield.
  
  Below his feet, the cable of the space elevator stretched, all the way down to the surface of the Xoralundra Plateau, and above the station floated the massive Anchor rock that kept the whole assembly in orbit. Because most of the cost of space flight is getting off planet, most spaceships were built, flown and scrapped in space, never even going into the atmosphere.
  
  It was beautiful sight from the terminus of this ladder into void - that was what he thought when he arrived. Now, though, it was nothing special.
  
  "Any news from planetside?"
  
  Lek looked up from the frozen screen. The computer's RAM and page files had probably filled, although with 20 petabytes of RAM and an exabyte of page files, he didn't see how.
  
  "News You Can Trust says Tel-Nadr is holding out heroically against the inhuman invaders, you know", said Harc, who was kicking a webswitch monotonously.
  
  "These are the people who claim the government of Ka'malma are evil traitors and heretics, while the People's Militia is an organisation for people who like to feed starving children?", says Silph, raising his left eyebrow.
  
  "Yeez, don't do that, Silph. It creeps me out, you know?"
  
  "There was another rally to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide today. Apparently it is present in all people when they die, and Nine out of Ten doctors are supporting the ban."
  
  "Would this be Nine out of Ten doctors Ltd, the advertising company?"
  
  "Yep."
  
  Lek reset the device and checked what the machine was running.
  
  Silph waited until Lek had turned away from the keyboard before speaking. " I know what's happening down in Tel-Nadr."
  
  "Well, out with it! Has it been overrun?"
  
  "The guys from Tach have been shelling them with old chemical-explosive guns. Skirmishers pulled in, fighting breached a few defense lines. They'll be hurling plasma through the streets now."
  
  "I don't know if I'd rather be down there, scared or up here, bored" contemplated Lek.
  
  "Hey, can one of you have a look at this? I reckon the Radar might be acting up." said Harc.
  
  "Nah, probably just an error. I'm not going to freak out the five hundredth time an anomaly pops up." replied Silph in a tired voice.
  
  > Incursion
  Harc was annoyed. The supply of various semi-legal stimulants and narcotics had run out. The omniweb acess here was heavily filtered and he was completely outclassed at Quil'zak. Maybe you had to be in the United Guns to really 'get' their wargames. Harc was here from Tach Scanner Corp as a punishment for giving a colleague "back-talk". In Harc's opinion, if people hadn't figured out what a conversation required by this century, they didn't deserve to live. But the corporate world he left would probably be the same under the newly-risen Taktat Empire, if his luck held out as badly as it had before. Terra Proxima could stick itself in a vat of Ploork virus.
  
  Apart from the people who passed through, Silph, Lek and himself were the only three humans on the station. He longed to do something, anything, more exciting than routine maintenance, watching crappy reruns and gazing at the starfield. He longed for the day his stretch up here was over.