Chapter-1

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"Eat this you damn bugs!"

A stratagem ball flies the air, landing into a gigantic termanid horde. A red beam shot into the sky, a voice rang out over the comms.

"Orbital strike incoming, clear the area"

"Take cover!" I shout to my squad mates as we hightail it away from the bug breach. Hearing the whistle of an incoming shell I turn around to see it make impact, decimating a group of bugs leaving a flaming crater. Consecutive shells bombarded the ground, leaving fire in its wake.

"HAHAHA! YES! BURN YOU VILE INSECTS!" I turn to see my squad mate, Klaus. He spread out his arms taking in the sight and sounds of scorched earth.

Good old Klaus, if all else was taken from him he wouldn't bat an eye. But take his ability to torch the enemies of super earth and he would be without purpose. As the napalm barrage ended the bugs kept pouring out of the breach, machine gun fire cutting them down.

"Here keep fire going, you crazy man" Felix, our support specialist paused his machine gun fire to toss Klaus a supply box from his pack. Catching the box, he opens it to see incendiary impacts, perfect for a bug barbeque. He pulls the pin and chucks them at the oncoming swarm of hunters and scavengers, their shrill screams are music to our ears. Felix and I pepper the bugs, I with my stalwart and he with his machine gun Misha. I laugh as they perish under a herald of fire and lead, I was so caught up in it that I didn't even notice a bug sneaking up on me. A stalker knocked me into a wall, it sprinted at eager to rip me to shreds. I raise my crossbow aiming center mass and fired, the bolt exploding and sending the stalker reeling onto its back. Felix sprinted to the beast, jumping on top of it and unloading all the rounds he had left in the box. I reach for my pouch and find it empty.

"Dammit, outta stims"

"I got you" Our medic ran up to me, Frank was his name, but we just call him Doc. He took my arm and jammed a stim into it, my body feeling instantly rejuvenated. Doc helps me to my feet, I look around, bug corpses or at least what was left of them as far as the eye can see. I sigh, the fun was over for now.

"We still got the egg?"

"Safe and sound my friend" Felix confirms tossing the termanid egg like it's a volleyball.

"Good lets get to extraction and get the hell out of her" Doc says motion is to follow.

"Vhat a glorious display! So sad zhat it had to end" Klaus at it again with his Shakespearean nonsense.

"I call first shower" I say quickly, earning groans and curse from my comrades.

I chuckled to myself as we proceeded to make the long trek to the extraction point. I reminisce on today's performance. 2 bile titans with one 500kg, Klaus riding on the back of a charger, Felix tearing off the arm of a hunter and jamming it down its throat. It had been quite the day and like every day the worst part was walking toward your destination. We would have spiced it up with some combat, but Doc insisted that we keep low, Klaus was most unhappy about that. We eventually arrived at the exfil point; the beacon shone its blue light for us to see. I walk up to it and I put the code for extraction, now all we had to do is wait.

And wait

And wait

"Gott in Himmel, vhere are confounded insects?! I vas hoping for a feast!" Felix chuckled at Klaus' outburst.

"Maybe we scare them off, eh?"

"I'm not complaining, with how many times I've had to stitch you bastards back together I think I've earned a break" Doc said as we all chuckled. Our musings were cut short as the sound of an engine was overhead, our ride home had arrived.

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