text: Hundreds of beasts scurry throughout the ruined city of Colosia, the remanence of a battle over the rights of the sentient. Their base of operations all but destroyed, four soldiers shuffle between buildings working their way out of the heart of the city. Electronic warfare is keeping all long distance communication silent. What’s left of the squad is in search of a way off the lost planet. The Acers are a motivated mercenary company contracted out by generals of Dynamus whom they sympathise with. They believe grit should not be reaped from sentient life as they are sure its destroying the very soul of those reaped. The Astras empire on the other hand has no problem dissolving their slaves and prisoners into grit. This difference in values of life is what is fueling the war. Grit is a multidimensional particle that has just been discovered in the last two hundred years, and its capability of opening portals to hyperspace has had its value skyrocket. Combining powerful navigation computers with the ability to enter hyperspace allows travel to anywhere in the galaxy in short order. It’s collected by using a high frequency energy that breaks up the living or recently living tissue and releases grit which is collected by a specially designed negatively charged container. It didn’t take long for grit to become a standard currency which is used across the galaxy. “You really think the elevator is still functioning?” Rob asked his superior, referring the the space elevator a few dozen kilometers outside the city. “Has to be. It’s our only way off this grave yard. Just hope its still under Dynamus control” Luke said holding up a closed fist, signaling to his unit to stop. At the end of the alley is the growling of two wyrm hounds fighting over some garbage. The hounds were the remnants of monsters summoned by Astras to take down the city. “Hey!” Luke belted out not too loudly. It got their attention and they charged the soldiers. They bounded taking long strides and moved quite fast. The sound of the weapons were suppressed, made little noise, and short work of the animals. They bled green and didn’t smell so good. “We’ve only seen wyrms and traps set by Astras, do you think any of the army is still here?” Rob quizzed again. “Hard to say. There’s not much left to fight over. Those that weren’t captured and reaped managed to get at least out of the city, if not off the planet.” Doug chimed in. He was the units designated marksmen. The planets sun began to creep up casting long shadows and golden light down the streets. Taking full caution, the unit moved corner to corner keeping an eye out for traps and monsters. One at a time they switched off their night-vision. Their standard issue PR-330 light armor had kept them warm throughout the night. “Take five.” Luke allowed, walking into an abandoned restaurant. “Ammo checks and bio breaks.” Terra swung her backpack off and started counting magazines. “We’ve got plenty to go around yet. Two dozen clips and a half dozen nano patches. Not including your belts.” Terra is the engineer and pack rat for the squad. “How much farther?” “Your full of questions today” Terra smirked at Rob. “Well i-“ He stopped, crouching down and raising his weapon towards the window. The sound of heavy metallic footsteps drummed outside. “Ours??” he whispered. Terra pulled a heavy grenade from the backpack and passed it up to Doug who was closest to the window. The large bipedal machine thumped and than screeched dragging one of its feet, apparently damaged. Once it came into full view In front of the building the soldiers sighed. “It’s an FR-1080, one of ours...” Doug laughed and stood up. A second later machine gun fire lit up the robot from down the street and an anti tank round ripped through the biped and white hot metal erupted from the wound, it stopped in its tracks and fell to the ground face first. “Get me eyes on!” belted out Luke. Rob pulled a sphere off his belt and tossed it out into the street. It’s a drone for locating enemy targets. It gave a visual readout onto each squad members digital face shield, showing the pinged targets location. “Okay, out the back. Rob, Terra.” He commanded. “Get ready to flank.” They bolted out the back door of the restaurant and into the alley way. Their readout showed a dozen enemy soldiers in the street on the other side of the building. Rob and Terra moved up a half block in the alley to get behind their foe. In the meantime, Luke and Doug posted up behind the little cover they could find and waited for the enemy to come check out the robot that was taken out. It didn’t appear that any of Luke’s squad had been detected yet. The robot slayers moved from cover and began to cautiously approach the downed machine. This was all shown by the drone in the street. Terra and Rob got into position and raised their weapons to engage the enemy from behind. They opened fire. Two of the foes got tore up by the metal slugs thrown from the Acers weapons and fell to the ground. One more fell when running into view of Doug and Luke. A blue bubble, crackling with energy formed over the remaining soldiers in the street as they ran for cover. Rounds from the four man squad were stopped by the blue bubble. “They have a starmancer.” Rob spoke loudly over the short range radio, referring to a magic user in the enemy unit. “You think?” Terra growled back pumping another round into the chamber of her weapon. “Doug!” shouted Luke. “Yup!” He replied arming his hand grenade, it beeped once to audibly confirm it was armed and he tossed it to intercept the enemy. A fantastic explosion and the smoke cleared revealing all targets were eliminated. “Clear!?” yelled Terra. “Clear” Responded Luke. “What the hell? I thought it was just the hounds left.” Spoke Rob. “They were probably in the same boat as us. Left behind for bigger things.” Replied Doug. “Check the walker for a pilot” Luke pointed to the downed machine. Rob quickly climbed up to its hatch and knocked on the locked door with the butt of his rifle. “Anything?” Rob replied “Don’t think so, doesn’t look like anybody is home. Could have been unmanned maybe?” “Maybe.” Luke spoke. “Let’s get going. Another kilometer to the suburbs and twenty passed that to the elevator.” The party looked over their fallen foes for anything useful but found nothing they needed. So they piled up what was left and destroyed it with an explosive charge. The Acers marched on.