I killed this one. I swear I killed this one. I remember the two colored eyes. I remember the weird fur on the head.

  I know I killed this one.

  Wait. I'll show you. I'll drag it next to the other one.

  Oh, Omniqueen preserve us! All four of them are the same person!

  No, they aren't clones. They acted different. That one knew I had grenades. That one knew I was out. That one knew I can't see on my left.

  They're the same person.

  They're dead, but they just keep coming right at us.

  Um... Speaker, why are you pointing your gun at me? - Warrior Caste 529871254, Invasion of TerraSol. Year Zero Post-Glassing

  The ship's company had their game plan together and were pushing back. Vak-tel ground his teeth together, the gum keeping him from chipping any ivory, as one of the doors opened and a squad in full contact armor came rushing through. He kept his rifle up, hosing down the group, but the AM6 rounds just blew divots in the armor and rainbow colored flashes.

  His greenie had told him it was some property of the pebbly gray metallic looking substance their armor was made of.

  He could tell the modified one, it was carrying what looked like a cut down Madame-318.

  Vak-tel pulled the trigger as fast as he could, considering switching to burst mode, hosing the heavy gunner's upper chest.

  The Nookie's mask caved in then the face exploded, the skull vomiting out the ruptured faceplate as Vak-tel switched targets.

  Cipdek was crouched down behind one of the workstations. He'd ripped open the side to get access to the hidden access panel, then plugged in. The ship's network was fighting back, the code morphing and changing to try to reject him.

  He could beat it, but it would required all of his attention and twice some big Nookie lizard had run up on him and tried to rip his head off.

  "Fuck it, kill the VIP's," sounded out and Cipdek nodded. He looked at the holographic keyboard projected from his palm and tapped the bouncing smiley-skull emoji three times. It suddenly sprouted crossed bones behind it, gave an evil computerized laugh, flashed red and white, and vanished.

  Cipdek disconnected from the system and looked up just as one of the Nookie heavies charged him, with three smaller ones behind it and one of the spiders behind them. The spider was pointing at Cipdek with one leg and making meat slapping noises that Cipdek was pretty sure meant "Kill THAT one."

  His rifle came up, he flicked it to burst, and hosed the front rank. The heavy took the hits, just divots and rainbow flashes followed by wisps of bluish-orange smoke. He went left to right, just like training insisted. One of the smaller ones went down, head nearly severed from a throat hit, and the spider-nookie had a battlescreen shower sparks and become visible for only a second.

  "shit shit shit" Cipdek realized he was stuck, he couldn't go right or left, caught by the work station. Rounds hammered into his armor and he heard the alarms start to wail as red spikes appeared on the HUD icon for his armor.

  He got his battlescreen up right before the big lizard smashed into it, making it explode in a shower of multicolored sparks.

  Flicking it to full auto, Cipdek clamped down on the trigger, starting at the lizard's pelvis, and let the recoil ride it up the lizard's body to hit twice underneath the chin. Chunky salsa and red oatmeal slurry exploded from the ruptured pelvic plate and spewed out of the visor.

  The big bastard still managed to get two shots off into Cipdek's compromised chest plate. The first one was stopped by the kintetic layer.

  The second one blew his chest apart.

  The suit pumped him full of chemicals, flooded over his chest with armor sealant, and screamed for a medic.

  Cipdek's head was full of stinging red bees, his mouth tasted blood, but he was still trying to roar in rage, producing only a thin wheeze, as he lunged up and at the slapper. He bowled over the three smaller ones, throwing himself on the slapper, ripping and tearing and kicking and headbutting it snatching pieces off of it and ripping it with his hands and fuck you and your stupid lizards you six legged fuck die die di...

  Captain Kemtrelap cursed as he saw another one of his men go purple X with a red carating around it. He'd given up on trying to organize anything and just had his cutting bar in both hands and swinging it. It chewed through the Nookie armor like it was cardboard, spewing armor internals, blood, and guts out whenever he got a good piece.

  Someone shot him twice in the back and the second one made him feel like someone kicked him in the kidney. He didn't spin around, he jinked left and hacked apart a slapper in two overhand cuts.

  Something hit him between the shoulder blades, sending him stumbling forward. He put one hand on a console and rolled over it, the extended cutting bar ripping into the ceiling.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Captain Kemtrelap landed hard on his back and ordered his toes to skrunch. When he got the pain from a cut-too-short toe-claw he knew he was still running with working legs.

  It was an older trick, but it still worked.

  He looked over in time to see a half dozen of the big lizardman bastards come around the corner, two of them armed with what looked like M318 ripoffs. The right hand one had chunks of armor blown away, revealing where the artificial skin had been ripped off to reveal mechanical internals.

  shit shit shit

  Vak-del jumped over the console, tucking into a roll and somehow managing to keep from ripping his dick off with his cutting bar. He came up, leveled his SMG on the forearm of the hand holding the cutting bar, and ripped across the dropbear looking fucks that had just charged in. He'd given up AM6, switching to neutronium cored APDS rounds, which were tearing up the nookie armor. All six of the dropbears shuddered when the dimples appeared on the chest of their armor. Two had their visors explode outward, one had an arm blow off, as the rounds bounced and tumbled inside the armor.

  He didn't stop, lunging up and charging one of the lizards.

  It started to take a step back, jerked slightly, then moved forward toward him.

  Too late, he was inside it's reach and slamming the cutting bar up under the chin of the long muzzle/jaw. Grey pebbly armor, then pressure sleeve, then gore showered over him, but he was shouldering it out of the way. His battlescreen gave the two long beeps it was 10 seconds out from being recharged. A glance showed his battle buddy was surrounded by yellow strobing rings, not dead, just out of the fight.

  Two long steps and leap, going up two levels, letting the SMG snap back to his waist via the mag-tac system, wielding the cutting bar with both hands as he hacked at the group he crashed into. Kinetic energy did its work and he stayed upright while three of them went in different directions.

  He still had another half dozen.

  Chop chop, motherfucker.

  Captain Kemtrelap stared as the lizards started to round the corner, his visor tossing up that the lead one was using infrared targeting projected from its eyes.

  He tried to get his weapon up, but his arms were moving slow. Way too slow.

  The bulkhead suddenly bulged and tore.

  A massive figure, all Terran block-like head, bald except for a wisp of hair at the top of the head, wrenched open the bulkhead with its massive hands.

  "HA HA HERMAN!" the Terran roared, pushing out into the room. It grabbed the robotic lizard by the head and just squeezed. Brain tissue and other stuff squirted out and the Terran was already moving. Slapping heads off, caving in chests and sending them flying away.

  "HEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" came another shout. Captain Kemtrelap looked in the direction in time to see a slender looking Terran in old style adaptive camouflage charge into a group which immediately flew away in different directions, some of them shedding parts and others bent wrong.

  Gunny Heltok was covering the squad's medic, a pistol in each hand, when the wall exploded outwards, shredding apart half of the Nookie troops hiding behind a particularly large work station console. What stomped through the hole in the wall was a nightmare. A few inches more than four meters tall, two meters wide, with legs as thick as a Telkan's waist. It had a square jaw, burning red eyes, a mouth full of meat tearing teeth, and skin with the telltale glossy-matte black look of warsteel.

  A handful of punches and the Nookie troops went everywhere.

  Senior Sergeant Impton took down the Fleet Intelligence Officer, tackling the Slapper and slamming the blunt-hammer back of his axe against the knees on the right side. The slapper screamed as Impton stood up, grabbed a panel off of the workstation and whipped at across the distance to slam into the chest of one of the Nookie troops.

  The resistance was thinning out, Impton could feel it. The tide was turning.

  "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY!" came the roar and a glance told Impton there were two Monster class and a Madman already at work.

  Admiral Breastasteel had her hand on the back of the grunt she was kneeling next to.

  --armors cpu is blown out-- her greenie said.

  "Piggyback us," Admiral Breastasteel ordered. "Use some of my systems to keep his suit functioning."

  --roger roger-- her greenie said. --move hand left up--

  Breastasteel shifted her hand till her Greenie flashed OK.

  She kept shooting her SMG one handed. The first shot aimed at roughly the knees and the second shot and beyond climbing up for the last one to cave in the visor or snap the neck if the armor held. She could see her armor's secondary systems flicker as her greenie moved the CPU load over to her instead of the critically damaged Telkan Marine armor.

  She fired twice as a door opened, sending both Nookie heavies falling backwards with smashed in faceplates. Her greenie crossloaded the data, linking the systems for a quick combat medic report.

  The Telkan was in trouble, even her limited knowledge from a combat medic class decades ago let her know that. Her own onboard medic profile was loaded for a Terran but as she watched her greenie crossloaded the systems.

  One of the big monster class infantry landed next to her, holding a slapper with broken legs.

  "We've got the head of intelligence, Admiral," the Monster class said.

  "Get a medic in here," Breastasteel said, looking up. "I walked these poor bastards into an ambush."

  The Monster Class shrugged. "Nature of the beast."

  She looked back down at where her suit was running the Telkan's medical system. "Doesn't make it easier."

  The Monster just nodded before setting down the unconscious slapper. It leaped away, landing hard on the catwalk and crushing two of the dropbear Nookies.

  Captain Kemtrelap breathed a sigh of relief as the tide turned. The last of the battle was fast, decisive, and the Admiral's order to switch ammo types made all the difference.

  Still, as we walked up to the edge and looked down to where medics were working on one of his men to stabilize them he felt a cold anger fill him. He had dozens injured across the Company. Half of which were going to need intensive care or time in a regen tank.

  He'd only lost one.

  But that didn't make it easier.

  At least he won't be trying to hijack my Poptop profile any more, he thought.

  It didn't make it better.

  0-0-0-0-0

  It had only taken a week to get back, but Vak-tel was still in a foul mood as he moved down the corridor back to the Telkan Warren, as he and the others had started to refer to the section of decks their quarters were in.

  Cipdek had gotten his ass wasted. Let the Nookies scoop his chest out.

  Behind him Sergeant Impton and Juvretik were both limping along. Juvretik had just been released right as Vak-tel had been released from the after action briefings, "just" having suffered having one of his legs ripped off in the nasty fight in the Nooky command center.

  Nrexla was still in the med center, one hand blown off, his skull fractured, his whole left side being repaired.

  Vak-tel slowed to a stop in front of his door.

  "This sucks," he said softly.

  "First few days after survivor euphoria go away worst," Impton said slowly.

  "Fuck near peer bullshit," Juvretik said. "At least we aren't Delta Company. Their CO walked them into a total cluster fuck."

  Impton nodded. "Delta CO lucky dead. Command mad want answers."

  "Fuck it, let's drink," Vak-tel said. He hit the door pad with his hand and the door slid open obediently.

  Vak-tel stopped in shock less than two paces into the room, Juvretik and Impton bumping into him.

  "Hey, guys," Cipdek said.

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