Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Contest

John “SanguS” Netterwald

“The Strogg were nothing if not brutally efficient…”

Searing pain entices Sergeant Wald of the Global Defense Force out of the cold slumber where he lies naked atop a hard metallic grate in total darkness. His entire left leg is pulsing in horrible agony with each beat of his heart, and he doesn't need the extreme heat radiating from it to guess that it is deeply infected, probably beyond salvation. This hardly matters considering he has never heard of anyone escaping from a Strogg containment facility. The dawning realization sweeps over him in waves of nauseating horror combining with the already powerful pain which is leaving him weak and trembling.

Blinking his eyes furiously in hopes of shedding some light on his abysmal prison he inspects his body with his hands feeling for tears in the flesh, broken bones, or bruises. A ping of ironic relief hits him when he determines the only terrible injury was caused by the white hot Strogg plasma round which had obliterated the meaty portion of his thigh while conveniently cauterizing the wound. Additionally he discovers two tender bruises on his chest and right shoulder where a small center of fresh crusty blood sits.

Groping around with his hands while trying to keep his leg immobilized, he discovers the confines of his cell are small, only about 16 square feet as he has to remain at a diagonal to keep his leg fully extended while lying down. He is unable to stand enough to determine the height of the unit but decides that the answer is unimportant. There is nothing but a flat grate beneath him. The entire cell is constructed of a metal that smells familiar but in absolute darkness is unidentifiable without color.

Lamenting silently he is interrupted by a shrill gurgling scream muffled by the cells solid walls but audible and within close proximity. The howling voice repeats over and over the same words interrupted occasionally by choking or what sounds like violent gasping regurgitations.

Sgt Wald responds timidly his voice failing him. His throat is parched yet he eventually manages to shout: "Hey bud! I hear you do you speak English?" Presently, GDF forces are comprised of units from every nation on the planet. It is not uncommon to find a Japanese soldier working alongside a German soldier and an Arab working alongside an Israeli or an American. It is funny how differences can be so easily settled in light of the threat of extinction. Language barriers had become increasingly difficult as attrition forced separate nationalities to attempt to work as a cohesive unit, but usually one could rely on getting by with a few words of English.

At the sound of Sgt Wald's voice, the prisoner becomes frantic suddenly screaming while choking simultaneously. To Wald it sounds like "Hoey" over and over. He is puzzled and unnerved listening to the voice as it weakens until it is replaced by quiet sobs. The man is delirious, or crazy. In light of the current circumstances it could of course be both. For now he seems to have fallen into unconsciousness.

An eerie silence ensues with only Sgt Wald's heart counting out each second in powerful rhythmic flashes of pain. He does what he can to keep from sinking into the blabbering state of despair his neighbor seems to have succumbed to, concentrating instead on determining how long he has been a prisoner of the alien Strogg. With his memory being hazy and chaotic, he relies on his body to provide him with a general time frame. He is hungry, but not ravenous so he knows it has been less than a day. His extreme thirst can be written off in blood loss or the state of shock that his body surely had fallen into immediately following his crippling wound. He estimates that he has been prisoner for around eight hours. It is incredible that he is even alive, let alone conscious. That probably means that the Strogg have plans for him or he would have already been turned into Stroylent wafers. The idea that the Strogg have another use for him is terrifying, so he tries to keep from dwelling on the question.

Being alone and in total darkness has a way of sneaking up on you. Anyone that has ever spent enough conscious time in a sensory deprivation tank knows: When there is no input to the optic nerve, the brain likes to paint a picture for the mind’s eye. Wald unfortunately had not spent any time in such a tank and was not prepared when the hallucinations began. When a soldier begins to experience this it can be a terrifying experience. Unlike seeing a ghastly apparition in a dream, one cannot open his eyes to ensure that the world is all safe and well, as it should be. Unlike seeing a group of Strogg soldiers eviscerating your battle buddy with the most terrible weaponry imaginable, one cannot close ones eyes to escape the maddening image. In a state of total darkness the mind sees what the mind wills whether the eyes are wide open or gouged out of your skull. With this, as with any hallucination there is no escape.

For Sgt Wald whose minds palette is decorated with horrific memories, there is no escaping the nightmare. The fractal patterns dancing on his consciousness coalesce from memories and suddenly he sees a small pile of empty shell casings where they had fallen; ejected from his rifle during the brief slaughter. He works up the courage to evaluate his surroundings and manages to tear his gaze away to behold the battlefield that had left him crippled. What draws his attention foremost are the sky blue eyes of his friend and battle buddy Sgt Joe Bosch as is dismembered by a Strogg harvester unit. Sgt Bosch's jawless head stares with lifeless wide-open ice blue eyes towards Sgt Wald. His pale skin and eyes a sharp contrast to the flecks of dark blood riddled across his forehead and streaming from his naked throat. He died with the look of an astonished man, his jaw literally hitting the floor after being introduced to the business end of a Strogg railgun.

Half of their small specialized platoon had responded to an emergency transmission from a GDF tracking station that had lost its satellite link to an aerial bombardment before coming under light assault from a Strogg ground assault force. The transmission sent via a secure frequency-hopping VHF channel was requesting immediate reinforcements to protect vital information it had intercepted from a large fleet of Strogg moving towards the eastern front. The station indicated that they had detailed reports on the exact locations of Strogg ground support units as well as a secretive biological weapons facility where the Strogg were engineering organic weapons capable of targeting human hosts specifically. It was a threat that needed to be immediately dealt with.

The communications station was elevated to the highest priority and GDF forces mobilized immediately to secure the vital information. Sgt Wald's unit being the closest to the action was dispatched in four aerial heavy troop transports lovingly referred to as Bumblebees to aid in retrieving the data and saving the station if possible. The Bumblebees, much like their namesake look far from aerodynamic plowing through the skies like fat bottomed cargo containers on rocket fuel. Sgt Wald being squad leader took advantage of the calm before the storm to indicate in each Soldiers HUD exactly where they were expected to deploy, also indicating firing lanes so as to maximize their combat efficiency and the most likely route Strogg reinforcements would approach in the worst case scenario. After the short briefing he found himself exchanging humorous banter with Sgt Bosch drawing encouraging chuckles from the troops over open voice comms. This kept the apprehension to a minimum as the Bumblebees closed in on the objective, soldiers need something to keep their mind busy going into battle. The adrenaline is there long before the bullets are flying and if there is not enough activity to keep them remaining focused the soldiers can easily lose morale and make deadly mistakes.

"All right boys time to get serious," Wald announced using his authoritative voice "T minus 1 minute to contact tap your forward assists and check your battle buddies." As the Comm station came into view it appeared that the GDF defenses had held off and Sgt Wald's squads had arrived just in time. Machine gun fire from turrets mounted on either end of the Comm center targeted the half-man half-machine Strogg where they had advanced almost less than a hundred meters from the station. At the sight of the aerial units the small group of less than a dozen Strogg cyborgs began a hasty retreat towards the cover of the tree line at the edge of the facility grounds. The heavy machine gunners working from the Bumblebees turrets opened fire and worked in conjunction with the light munitions blasting out of the station to repel the invaders. Several Strogg stragglers too slow to find cover were ripped apart by the deadly barrage.

Seeing the Strogg panic Sgt Wald gave the signal triggering a screeching volley of 16 GDF troops armed to the teeth tearing out of the rear transport jump seats. The soldiers dropped onto the defensive fortifications of the roof and into the surrounding perimeter of the Comm station with mechanical precision assuming their predetermined positions. Wald's small four man squad had been assigned the task of securing the sites weakest perimeter at the front of the facility’s main entrance.

Sergeants Wald and Bosch dropped down into a prone stance on either side of a concrete barricade. Wald grinned this would have prevented the Strogg from storming the facility's weekend blast doors and provided an additional line of defense. More time for the heavy gunners in the turrets of the facility to cut down any advancing forces. in the confusion and the hustle of the task at hand three of the Bumblebees dematerialized from the sky showering them with a fiery hailstorm of metal debris. The pilots of those craft being perhaps the luckiest of the men on the battlefield that day. Their bodies converted instantly to thermal energy and their suffering mere fractions of a second. The fourth aircraft was forced down in a cloud of white billowing smoke as Strogg rounds incinerated the hydraulic lines of the bird's engine.

Wald scanned the tree line for the launchers but could not determine where the rounds had originated. He didn't have time to consider other possibilities either. Suddenly the Strogg advanced from the tree line. In proper GDF fashion his troops used interlocking fields of fire to maximize their kill power, one soldier keeping his rifle focused on a small patch of advancing monsters requiring the minimum adjustment to change targets. The Strogg appeared unwavering advancing ferociously even as small groups were cut down by precision firing from Wald's men. Dozens of Strogg swarmed their field of vision, no longer a small detachment of weakened troops, now a massive force, an unending wave of death. The GDF forces buckled under the onslaught.

It wasn't until the bodies of the GDF troops that had jumped onto the roof of the complex began to fall from the buildings edges that Wald realized the turrets within the bunkers of the complex had ceased firing. Only Strogg forces peered down from the pigeon holes at him and now pouring out of the open gates of the complex where they had been hiding and waiting to spring their trap. The screams of his troops only heightened his sense of dread, and he chucked his remaining grenades separating the organic pieces of what once had been human brothers and sisters from the metallic carapace of weaponry and armor stereotypical of those that have been Stroggified.

A shower of searing hot gunfire rained down around the small concrete blockade that Wald had been using for his defensive position, and white hot pain alerted him to the gaping crater that was left in his leg. He screamed into his voice comm unit, but his shouts only added to the din of the massacre echoing between the squads ceaselessly in the final moments of the battle. The Sarge knew that they had been betrayed. Perhaps there never had been a Strogg detachment moving towards the eastern front. There never was any distress call; instead the Strogg had just sounded the bell as dinner was served on a steaming platter of four bumblebee transports.

Shortly after Sgt Walds eyes rolled into the back of his head, the intense pain of his cindering leg wound forcing his system into a state of euphoric shock. The last thing he remembered seeing before succumbing to unconsciousness was a Strogg harvester unit dismembering Joe Bosch, his close friend and battle-buddy since basic training. Cutting his now lifeless body into pieces more fit for transportation. The Strogg were nothing if not brutally efficient.

The memory faded and Sgt Wald was left with only glimmering white spots dancing in his field of vision, each apparition individually pulsating in sync with his throbbing leg wound. The cold metal floor now anchors him to the reality of his tomb, reminds him where he is. Somewhere deep within the bowels of the facility a rumbling vibration began. The noise sounds and feels to Sgt Wald eerily like a massive ship engine as he has spent much time on carriers waiting to be deployed towards the nearest battlefield with his specialized platoon. Until this moment Sgt Wald had assumed that the Strogg facility had been a solid structure, a building, something solid and grounded like an ethereal lifeline connecting him to his home world. Hope, that intangible emotion that had until now only been lost, had just been murdered.

A clamor begins at the edge of his awareness and intrudes on Sgt Walds horror show. The neighbor is whimpering in a panicked response to the sound of a heavy portcullis reverberating distantly, but through the wall closest to Wald's injured leg. The vibrations continue rippling through the grate across his back triggering a terrible chill up his spine. As he is lying helpless and naked the vibration becomes stronger until it manifests audibly as heavy footsteps just outside the wall of his cell. He braces himself for what he will see when the door opens. Time ticks by as his heart expedites the blood rushing through his ears at a dizzying rate almost completely obscuring the sound of heavy objects being moved or prepared just outside. Then there is only silence. Nothing stirs behind the wall of his prison, at the edge of his awareness. Large white and red spots bloom in his visual field, creating patterns and shapes coalescing out of the abysmal black abyss. He blinks his eyes as hard as the feeble membranes of his lids allow, furiously trying to differentiate between the spots that are hallucinations and some real glimmer of light glinting off his would-be assailant. He imagined the face to the creature that would be responsible for his doom and possibly the demise of the entire human species. He remains however, in utter darkness.

He trembles, the infection of his leg spreading in feverish waves throughout the rest of his body. He wonders how silent the door mechanism could be, and how well the Strogg could see in absolute darkness. He remembers the few victories his platoon had managed over the alien Strogg and realizes some of the mechanical beasts lack even eyes from their human hosts. He is unable to control his wandering mind and shortly convinces himself the Strogg have already entered his cell and are only waiting for him to lose total control before revealing themselves. His sanity begins to crumble, as he braces his body for the demonic blades of his captors lashing out towards him from the darkness.

The sound of another extremely close wall moving causes Sgt Wald to jump violently and he is unable to stifle his yelp of agony. His room does not illuminate, the other prisoner howls in anguish his voice reaching a decibel level so high not even the loud mechanical noises that are now emanating from the neighboring cell comes close to drowning it out. The process continues unfaltering by the screams of the dying soldier.

Fear has a tight grip on the soul of Sgt Wald now, and a heavy sweat pools off of his powerful chest draining what surely must be the last of his body's water reserves. He prays for shock, hoping that the depleted waters, nutrients and blood supply would deliver him forever into the arms of Morpheus and far from the grasp of Strogg torture that surely awaited him when the bastards got around to introducing themselves to him.

Mercifully after what seemed an eternity the clamor ends, the pain of the soldier having come to an apparently terminal end. A few more loud banging noises and the sound of a whining drill-like tool echoed around the confines of the prison. The heavy footsteps of the Strogg retreated away from his prison until they were only a distant vibration and the sound of a massive gate shifting closed.

Wald is overcome with gratitude, knowing that his body does not have long before it gives in to it's grievous wounds. He is grateful for having a peaceful moment, a chance to convince his stubborn body to let go of the life force that binds his consciousness to its fleshy vessel. His hand gropes around the crater of his left thigh feeling for the charred remains of his femur. Finding it he begins to pry with his fingernails, his head swims. Having been a long time combat veteran, he has learned the weaknesses of the human body. He has assisted in dozens of emergency procedures in an attempt to save his soldiers as their precious life drained out with their hopes and dreams. He knows that if he can only find the cauterized femoral artery which runs alongside the inner part of the bone his life would terminate in a matter of seconds.

The door at his feet slides open, light pours into the room blinding him. Terrified, he tries to scream but his voice does not respond. His body paralyzed in fear has all but forgotten how to breathe and he remains helpless on his back as his eyes take in the form of a monstrosity only a Strogg mind could conceive. The creature’s legs are metallic pillars, its hulking form obscuring the entirety of the bluish light emanating from the hall around it, Stabilizer poles extend outward in many directions from the base of each leg unit. The torso is human, and was once muscular, with the abdominal region ending in a nasty tear where flesh still hangs in loose flaps and clumps over a rounded saddle that the body has been fitted over like a sock. In place of the sockets where arms once protruded coils of tubing and wires have been attached leading to massive mechanical arms fitted to the platform the body rests on or is bolted to. Each arm has a swiveling appendage bearing alien weapons and graphic surgical apparatus.

Like the moth to the flame Sgt Wald's gaze is inexplicably drawn to the disfigured head of the Strogg which is obstructed by a metallic face shield fitted with a small window through which Wald can barely perceive a disfigured human face. The Strogg moves forward with surprising dexterity and grabs Sgt Wald's head in the viselike grip of his left robotic hand. Wald sees the right hand come around brandishing a long needle and manages to grunt when it blasts a heavy cocktail into his pectoral muscle. He feels like his heart is going to explode. The Strogg does not hesitate and moves one of its heavy feet into position over Wald’s searing leg. It slams its pillar of a leg down into Wald's foot squishing it like a bug as it brings a rotating saw blade down onto Wald's thigh. The creature darts in with the saw severing the wounded leg in a deft maneuver that shreds the meat splashing the face shield with fresh dark blood.

Screaming now, his eyes closed against the pain, Wald does not see the creature working as it attaches a mechanical device to his stump. He reaches with his hands for the Strogg, hoping to find a weakness in the metal carapace, some way to cause pain to this alien monster. Instead of stopping him the creature bends down close the heavy window and face shield only mere inches away and the face shield parts. Sgt Wald stares into the eyes of his torturer and weeps. His mind recoils in horror and his body voids itself of urine. The Strogg leans down and begins to shudder, heaving in small spasms. One might think the creature was short circuiting as its torso braced in rigid spasms its arms heaving in response to a stimulus akin to alien seizures. Sgt Wald knows better however, and despite the absence of a set of bottom teeth or even the flesh that would make up the human lower lip he knows that the Strogg is laughing hysterically at his pain. He knows this, because the icy blue eyes of his good friend Joe Bosch could never lie to him.

Here is my entry. Thank you for reading it. To check out more of my stories or free games please check out http://PlatinumArts.Net

Journal found among the ruins of base Halinar 2064

March 17th 2061

I can’t believe they sent me to this base, it feels so far away from home. If I didn’t find this journal to write in I think I’d go mad. It feels strange having to write everything by hand but also sort of liberating. Let’s see, I don’t even know where to start. First my “commanding officer” is a complete ass. He is very strict about not letting me call home and keeps pushing us to exercise harder and harder. “A fit body means a fit mind” he likes to keep ringing in our heads. Yeah that’s nice Sarge! I’m lucky I even have the time to write in here. Hmm, what else. Well it has been quiet here, not a sign of any other life. The surrounding landscape is beautiful. The reservoir to the back of the base is surrounded by mountains and directly in front of the base is wild grasslands. At night the sky is lit up with what looks like thousands of tiny green explosions as the lightning bugs dance through the air. The base itself is pretty cool, I’ve never seen a bigger hunk of metal before. There are more turrets, and combat vehicles than I would have ever imagined. The Strogg definitely won’t have an easy time if they ever tried to take it. I hope the Strogg never come up here and decide to pick up camp and go away so I can go back home. I miss Violet so much. I can’t believe that I’m going to miss her seventh birthday. I have to keep remembering that I’m here protecting her. If the reservoir is compromised then we are all in danger. I can’t let that happen as little as I want to be here.

March 21st 2061

Another boring day of training and playing with the fancy equipment. I can’t stop thinking of Violet and wishing I was with her. Today I pulled out a picture of us at the lake. She was towing the back end of my kayak and dragging me along the sandbar of the island. People who were looking on had quite funny expressions, I think the last thing in the world they expected was to see a six year old towing around a twenty five year old man, haha. She made quite a good motor that little one! And not to shabby at tossing the ol Frisbee either. She has a gun with that arm! Nearly took my head off a few times, haha. My beautiful little Violet. She was so sad watching me leave, her little blue eyes were filled tears and her long brown hair was its usual tangled mess. Haha her hair used to get tangled in such strange ways that I’m sure that some people would consider the random loops and curls some kind of art. How her hair always ended up like that I’ll never know. Ah well, that’s my girl, haha. I want nothing more than to just scoop her up in my arms and feel her warm soft body clamp against mine.

April 3rd 2061

I haven’t had a chance to write in here for a while because the activity of the base has been crazy. We have been hearing signs of the war in the distance. Boom Boom Boom like drums, there almost seems to be a rhythm to it. We haven’t actually seen any activity but we can feel the ground shaking under vibrations of the explosions. It really makes me nervous to think that the Strogg might be showing up here soon. I have never seen a real one before and I’m not anxious to. They sound quite horrible, chopping off their own limbs to replace it with weapons and mechanical enhancements. Some of the guys were saying that if you get captured by one they turn you into one of them. That they have assembly lines that chop off your limbs and replace them with their equipment. How sick is that? And if that isn’t your fate, you are sent to a factory to be processed as their food. Thinking about this makes me want to fight. I can’t let something like that happen to Violet. I will drive them all away by myself if I have to, I can’t let them take my little girl. Those horrid abominations! How can there be a God if he/she/it allows such deranged creatures to exist. What purpose could they possibly serve? They don’t deserve to live, every last one of them needs to be slaughtered!

April 9th 2061

Today we have seen the first of the Strogg. I have seen their heavy vehicles moving in the distance and I can feel them closing in on us. I feel so trapped being here. What if I don’t make it out of this? What if I can’t save Violet? I don’t want to die here to these things. And worse I don’t want to be turned into one of them, or be their food. We are on alert here at the fort and tripled the guard patrols around the base. I’m glad I’m not a part of the infantry. Hopefully they let me stay up in the recesses of the fort and snipe. I never thought I’d be able to kill a living being but how can these creatures even considered living beings. They are more metal and mutation than any sort of natural creature. I think that somethin

April 11th 2061

Last entry I had to leave quickly. We had a red alert because a small force of Strogg attacked the base. I think they wanted to test us and scout out our base. I don’t think they care at all about their own. I saw my first Strogg through the scope of my gun. It was running along the grasslands towards the base with around twenty others. Its face was wrinkled and gray, almost like that of an old person. Various tubes were in its skin and were attached to some sort of device that was stuck in its mouth. Its legs were not even flesh but looked like metallic peg legs. Both of its arms were stumps with firearms attached. I couldn’t see its eyes well from that distance but from what I could tell they looked red or perhaps bloodshot. It was like something out of a nightmare. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning. The base turrets quickly picked off the small group but I know there are going to be more, a lot more. I just hope to God or whatever force is out there that Violet never has to see one of those things.

April 15th

The combat has become really heavy. I don’t know how much more I’ll get to write, even now I’m lucky to get in every last word. The Strogg seem to have briefly pulled back but not without giving us a hell of a fight. The sky was red, orange and purple with all of the explosions and firearms. They have destroyed many of our combat vehicles and the engineers are working full time at repairing our turrets. We still have some fight left in us and we’re not going down easily. I have never been more frightened in my life. All around me I could see vehicles blowing up and people dying. I could see their open mouths but their screams were mute under the sound of the explosions. The stench of death mixed with the smell of sulfur. I’ve killed my first Strogg too. It was a driver of a heavy combat vehicle. It was driving towards our base and unleashing a battery of weapons. I was able to get the driver in my sights and after two misses I was able to put one through its ungodly skull. I was able to kill a few others that were running on foot towards our turrets and some that were manning guns of the various vehicles. It was so horrible though, so horrible. I can’t come close to fully describing it. I don’t know how I’ll even be able to look Violet in the eye again. To know that such horrors could exist is beyond anything that I could have ever dreamed. I don’t know how this world can ever be the same.

Seems like nobody doing much from the Strogg, so here's my entry:
_____________________________________________________

Memories. Flashes. Echoes of life and beauty, lost within the ages. Seems so long ago now.

My hand is not my own. My legs are not my own. I feel metal grafted onto where flesh used to
be, cold where warmth once flowed through. Blood and bone are replaced by oils and tubes,
oozing through me like a river of hate. Gears and servomechanisms hum and whine through my
body like a thousand angry ants, furiously working to cling onto what little life I have
left.

I wake to a world of fire and ash. The air is saturated with a beastly smell of hate and
malice. There are no trees nor wind nor water, for I have lost all ability to evoke such
things. Only the unmistakable draught of suffering fills what remains of my severely
disfigured lungs. I feel no pain, yet pain is all that is left to feel.

Suddenly, the rotted remnants of my mind are assaulted by a million senses of blight and
anguish, like billions of stinging needles searing into my brain. An irresistible force of
unimaginable power grips me completely, urging me to murder and rape and plunder, and to
unquestionably follow its command. My mind is incorrigibly bonded together to a million
different voices, all connected by one singular purpose - to maim and massacre all that
stands in our way. All doubt and confusion is washed clean from my conscience, and my only
desire is to conquer and destroy. Backed by the earth-shattering roars of Mechanized
Walkers, and by the deafening screech of Demon Insects above, I charge toward all that is
left - death.

Seems so long ago now.

Story in reply!

Sympathy for the Human Condition



in reply

Zorlag tilted his head in disbelief. “A contaminator ? Really, is that what they tell them ?” I could tell through the visor of my friend’s helmet that his face contorted into an expression of mischievous disbelief.

I shook my head. “It is what the GDF says it is.”

”Haven’t they noticed that we speak English to one another ?”

I laughed. “Yeah, but we sound SCARY. So, how long you gonna be tinkering with those turrets ?”

“As long as it takes, man. As long as it takes.”

“Let’s face it”, I said. “Even if they knew that we’re their great-great-great-great-grandchildren….”

“You’re right”, retorted Zorlag, “They would’ve bashed our skulls in anyway. I mean, just look at us !”

“A contaminator, though”, I sighed. “That’s inventive”.

“They could’ve come up with something more plausible” Zorlag chimed. “Something like a “death star” or a “photon cannon””. He clunked at the turret in frustration and dropped the wrench, which went bouncing down the side of the hill.

I folded my railgun. “Hold on, I’ll get it”.

As I traversed down the hill, I could feel the ground shake with the hits of artillery at a distance. A black cloud appeared on the horizon. Less than a mile away, other Strogg soldiers were dying to keep our last line of defense - all for the greater good… one that got lost in translation.

This was the very definition of a pointless war, I philosophized, bending down to get the wrench. As Zorlag says, I always get my head into the clouds….

Zorlag.

I spun around.

Zorlag was talking to another Strogg. That other Strogg was me.

…

“ZORLAG !!!!!!” I hit the ground running.

They both turned to look at me. Then Zorlag slowly turned toward the OTHER ME.

I WILL NOT MAKE IT IN TIME.
Unholstering the railgun took what seemed like an eternity.

Through the scope, I saw Zorlag on the ground, grasping his eye. The marine was aiming at his head. The railgun shook violently as I pulled the trigger. Then I ran. I ran as fast as I could. Through the smoke, I could see the marine limping away to the nearby tank.

Smoke was coming out of bullet holes on Zorlag’s helmet. I remember the blood stains on the knife sticking out of his eyesocket. I think I yelled for a technician. It all became a blur at that point. It was all so redundant and pointlessly cruel. I remember getting into a Cyclops. I remember the auxiliary generator flying off and bruising my face as the missiles hit. I remember the screaming followed by the cracking, squishing sound that human bodies made under the chassis. The sporadic beeping of depleted shields. And the thing that I remember the most is the red crosshairs and the long beep as I locked on to THAT TANK.

Makron will hear of this. I am done with this war.

It's quiet now...I like it quiet.
There hasn't been any quiet since the invasion began.

I wonder if all those aliens I killed felt like this when they were dying.

I hope not. I hope they suffered.
I hope they regretted ever stepping foot on this planet.

I always heard that when your time comes you see your life flash before your eyes.
But I don't see that.
All I see are the lives I'll be leaving behind.
Lives that I love. Lives that the these bastards want to take away.

I guess that means it's not my time yet.
I will not go quietly. I'll think these aliens to death if that's all I have left to give.

I still got my rifle though. I can hit anything with this rifle.
Let's see how many I can kill before I bleed to death.

I just hope the whole life flashing before my eyes thing doesn't get in the way of my aim.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Never having published any short stories, I will be curious to hear any feedback. There are some details I wanted to mull over more, but it's already getting close to the deadline, so I figured it best to just post it and see how it goes.


TITLE: The First Last-Stand


Suddenly I was drowned in a vacuum of my own silence, amidst the screams of those unlucky enough to dodge instant death in exchange for much worse.

"We were buds...", my mind snapped, as my two best friends remained motionless by my side. Shrapnel from the Armadillo we had parked 40 meters behind us was blown in our direction. A piece of the wheel well... anyway, Steve had a blank look and just faded away. James was hit by a small piece in the back and had the breath knocked out of him. While he was struggling, he stood up and had this real annoyed spacey stare, just before a Strogg sniper cleared his head for him. Whenever I had dreams about any of us dying, there was always time for a few last words. This was nothing like any of my dreams. This was a brutal, efficient reality.

"DAMN IT."

Adrenaline had been pumping on and off since 4 A.M. when we heard the first explosion 30 miles off. I remember Steve yelling "Bring it on, bitches!$&" in a candid response to that explosion. We laughed at the time, though it was tough to stay optimistic. Most of the communication satellites were long vaporized upon re-entry and all of the major internet backbone NOCs were either destroyed or their backup generators finished drinking all the diesel fuel. What little news we did get, was invariably bad. We seemed lucky at first as a forward detachment deployed in a relatively rural and quiet area 45 miles northwest of Austin, Texas. Traveling here was like going back in time as we moved further away from the ambience of war and neared small communities still intact, though not unshaken. We had passed several small riots on the way.

I'm so deaf now I've mistaken my heartbeat for a distant explosion once or twice. Strogg deployments had been raining down from space on the horizon for hours and didn't seem to be getting any closer, so we weren't expecting any action for at least a couple of hours. The fact that they managed to kill our first warning sniper scouts without us even noticing and then systematically dismantle us like they've got it down to a perfect science is really frustrating. There is no "us" anymore. It's just me.

Checking my watch to see if now was a good time to die, I notice it's about 2 P.M. and remembered we had set up an entire line of artillery and HAMMER missile deployments about a mile back. They were pretty useless since the Strogg were right on top of us, but hell if it matters now.

Some radio chatter kicked up. I knew it would all just sound like underwater mumbling to me right now and I wouldn't understand a damn thing, but tried anyway.

Radio: "Waashah Oomifoo Shadi Wheelo Esho Ioda, wa woo wee? Bobber."
("Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Echo Delta, do you read? Over.")

"I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU, I'M HAVING TROUBLE HEARING RIGHT NOW! EVERYBODY'S DEAD HERE, THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO REINFORCE!", I yelled, probably even too loud for the radio's liking.

The radio mumbled on a bit more as if they could force me to make sense of the jibberjabber. Throwing the radio aside, I picked up Steve's N38 sniper rifle and peaked from our cover through some bushes to see if I could find the damn sniper that picked James off. I spotted him up on a small hill between some rocks by pure luck within a few seconds. I use to be a sniper before getting re-assigned to field ops, and I enjoyed watching the Strogg for a little while through the scope before squeezing off their fate, like inspecting germs through a microscope. Despite how narrow the view is through that scope, you are sure you can see the world's future in that moment. I was not so inclined to hesitate this time. The shot was lined up, I began to hear a low roar and a breeze blew the bush a little, cluttering my view through the scope with some shaking leaves. I fired anyway, with the leaves waving and rattling against eachother rapidly as if they were applauding the justice.

It was difficult to find any peace at this time, but I let out a powerful sigh along with a single tear.

Looking to the side, I noticed a Strogg Tormentor hovering just a stone's throw away. Are they toying with me?!? Did they really not notice me?

Just then I saw an entire line of Strogg through the bushes, apparently collecting what reusable bits of our body parts they could find.

I tried to string together a sentence in my mind to describe to myself how angry it made me that they think they can just harvest us like a resource, but it just became a cloud of curses.

The Tormentor hovered off into the distance as if there was nothing left to see here.

"Is this really it?!", I whispered in a broken voice, just loud enough for Steve and James to hear if they were still alive.

"Are we really doomed to this end?!?!"

"GOD DAMNIT!$%^", I screamed, and this time I know they heard me. I was glad they heard me. I will make DAMN SURE they've heard me.

I stood up just enough to get line of sight, and one after another I locked the targets for each of the HAMMERs we had deployed.

I felt the heat from a laser as it missed me. Pleased that they were not as good a shot as the previous, I lay flat on my back behind the cover with no intention of giving him any more chances.

A Strogg with an Icarus came jetting over the bushes aiming down at me, and I shred him out of the air with my N80 just in time.

The moment his body landed, I heard the first HAMMER launch. It was the sound of a huge piece of paper getting slowly ripped in half through the sky.

The next one launched, and then the next, and I hope'd there would be no end to the launches, but I knew there were only 7. I was content with 7 though. 1 is plenty.

The Strogg began to yell, and I have no clue what they said, but I imagine that it had very much to do with getting the hell away from here.

Staring at the sky, I marvelled at how blue it was. In the midst of a war, the sky always seemed overcast. Right now, blue is just fine.

The HAMMER missiles crossed the sky right where I was staring, as if to say "Yo!", and I smiled knowing there was no stopping them now.

I've never been in love before, but if I had to guess, this is what it feels like, at least my version of it. Right here, dancing with hope's dead end in the middle of the ring of despair, with the last laugh.

The sun was blazing hotter than the flaming wreckage all around, but still I anxiously awaited the heat and closure soon to arrive. There was no way anything within a 2 mile radius would survive, including me.

"Bring it."

The first missile went off above ground just as planned, and the yells of some of the Strogg stopped instantly, both because they were certainly dead, and anything else was lost in the sound of the explosion.

The second went off nearby, with the blast catching up to us and blowing what was left of the vehicles a good 20 feet. The ground shook so furiously I was stunned and lost my breath for a second.

Quickly catching my breath, I let out the second painful sigh and the second tear I had been holding in, knowing the next one would be it for me. The cover we had picked with these rocks and bushes was a great choice, I thought, since we weren't blown off with everything else. We always were great at picking good cover. That notion disappeared just as quick as I realized how little it would matter in a moment.

I understood very clearly how little I had just achieved, when countless Strogg deployments came burning down from the sky directly above. I will be a fine mist before they even get here. There's nothing I can do.


And it was over...


-Crache

My entry in reply.
I tried to replicate the Strogg experience as accurately as was possible, sacrificing overall readability for a more accurate portrayal. I had alot of fun writing this. ^_^

Here's my story

[QUOTE]
+++++++++++++ Southern California, 8/15/2065 -- recording found in personal effects +++++++++++++

I don't know how long we can hold out. I don't know if we'll survive the war, but in case I don't, I need to set the record straight. People to know why we chose to fight. I want people to remember why I died.

I was 10 when the Strogg first came to Earth. The politicians said we should co-exist with them.

I was 11 when the Strogg obliterated the Los Angeles-San Diego metro area from space and demonstrated what co-existance means to them.

I was 13 and hiding in the hills when I watched the Strogg round up my family and haul them off to the Strogg factory. At that moment, I made up my mind to fight.

I joined the Resistance and a week later, we raided the Strogg factory to free our loved ones. There were none to be found. Instead, we learned the awful truth, that the captives went not as workers, but as fuel.

I killed my first Strogg that day ... he was my brother ... or what was left of him.

The Strogg have been hunting us ever since. I can hear the whine of their aircraft overhead as they look for us in the hills. They have us surrounded and are closing in. Tomorrow, we'll try to break out and link up with the nearest GDF unit. Don't know if we'll make it, but I hear the 533rd Mech is nearby and still fighting.

Guess that's the only thing worth doing any more ...

+++++++++++++ Recording ends +++++++++++++
[/QUOTE]

Its the way they run you know

Don't look at me like that, you know

----------------------------------------------------

It was dusk, around 1600 and the right time of year to find yourself peering into the darkness. Thats not what I was doing. I was on patrol outside the hangers on the east side when the klaxon sounded. I stood stunned for a moment, if the enemy was this close then they HAD to have gotten past ... 'No' I thought, that couldn't happen.


My radio crackled to life: "Three this is one, do you copy?"
I fingered the mic "This is one, I copy."
My rifle was in both my hands now, I was already running towards the gates at the east entry
My radio bursted with static as I ran. I held the rifle in my left hand and slung the strap over my head. Using my right hand I threw the mic off my shoulder and unplugged it from my belt. I stopped running and turned off my radio. The static stopped.

I looked up. Thundering filled my ears

The gate is around 6 yards long, over 3 yards tall , and opens in the middle.

It was being dented. As I watched dozens of indents appeard on the wall. I realized they were being beaten down. I needed someone else to see this. An impact on my shoulder

"Kenne get your ass over here!" It was Mkoli, grinning grimly his rifle in hand and a gleam in his eye. Without waiting for an answer he turned and ran towards the wall, a Titan moving into position as I ran to catch up to him.

"Hey" I said as I caught my breath.
"Radio got static too didn't it" Mkoli said. It wasn't a question. We jogged towards other men from our unit.
"Yeah how'd you know that jerky?" I retorted. Slowly I realized the answer.

It was as clear as day. All of our communications were usually organised by satellite. Other times by radar trucks, but we didn't have any of the trucks.

Mkoli turned and looked at me, serious. Then grinned.

"I bet that satellite was made from the USA." He joked. I looked at him and smirked. Before I could answer the sarge was yelling over the bull horn.

I'll never remember what he said. Not like it mattered, but Mkoli and I took up positions with a MG nest to the right of the wall over that had to be maybe 20 yards from the gate. The thundering was quieter now. The indentations were sporatic now.

I was scared.

More and more men took up positions near the gate. The Titan remained in place, engine rumbling. Soldiers, engineers anyone that could carry a rifle took up position. All eyes fixed to the gate. The banging at the steel wall quieted and stopped.

The wall exploded, not the gate. The wall.

To the left of the left of where I was facing, the left of where everyone was facing- - the enemy charged into the light. We were taken off guard.

I watched as the enemy charged into a mass of friends and soldiers. Flying and leaping into the fray. They run just like us I think.

Instantly the fighting went from ranged to hand to hand. Riggs went down right away, screaming. He was missing most of his face. Fuller went down on my left, his leg below the knee was melted. Before I knew it I was reloading my rifle. I didn't even remember firing it.

The Titan fired, pieces of Strogg flying everywhere, I fired and reloaded. The MG nest was now behind me, motion and violence filled my vision. Again the titan fired, ahead of me. I turned as something touched my leg. I turned and fired in revulsion as a Strogg died. I'd never been this close before, everthing was a blur. No time for detail.

Then I saw him, it was Mkoli, he ran just like the rest of us except left hand wasn't human. He ran to the Sarge and impaled him on a silver blade. Numb, I pointed my gun and fired. Nothing happened. I looked at Mkoli. Sarge fell to the ground lifeless.

Mkoli looked up at me and grinned. I checked my rifle, a shell half in, half out of the breech. A jam.

I dropped the rifle and reached for my side arm, it was empty. I backed way, put a new clip in, and started to pull the slide back. Mkoli fell over dead. Then everything went black

I was pinned in rubble as near as I could figure. I heard voices and called back to them. Mkoli peered down at me.

"Hey man !"

"Hi" I managed. Realizing the pistol was still in my hand.

I pointed it at him and fired

--------------------------------------------

Its amazing how much they move like us. I really thought he was Strogg.

God, I'm so sorry Mkoli

Operation Blood Eagle, my first combat action, started out just fine.
Smoldering heat went ignored; no amount of fatigue could stop the churning of my legs. Storm winds failed to deafen the coarse banshee yells and swears spitting out my throat as our platoon held cover-Z formation and humped it triple-time, charging up the side of Mount Hyui. I was a cog in a man-made wall of death, moving at break-neck speed.
The Strogg’s rockets and shells bellied out enough smoke to wrench the sun out of the sky and choke the clouds until they turned puss green. I gritted my teeth at the force of the explosions to keep from biting off my tongue, put my head down and pushed harder and harder, made boot-tracks until I was among the few running point. I, Darren Tate, GDF Private First Class, would be the first to breach enemy walls, the first to score a kill.
A guy we called Ruskie, for obvious reasons, kept pace beside me. He had a healthy beard, now wracked with dirt and bits of other people’s blood and bones gibbed from the artillery; but the son of a bitch was smiling: he was in the shit and he loved it.
That wasn’t always the case though. Back in boot he’d used his broken English to spread rumors about the Strogg. He’d been the lone survivor when his hometown got invaded, joined the GDF after they swept in, mopped up, and looked for the living. He called the enemy devils, straight from hell and un-stoppable, un-killable, invincible. I put him in place, asked him where he was hiding while the Strogg murdered his family and friends. I reminded him he was fighting alongside the U.S.A. now, reminded him some countries don’t let their lands get invaded. Funny how much good boot can do for a man, he was ready to claw the Strogg’s throats out with his fingernails if it came down to it.
We’d suffered acceptable losses and made quick time up the hill, but things started going bad within 200 yards of the fortress, which was when the Strogg upped the ante; they’d kept it light and let us in, now they’d play dirty and put the heat on thick.
A sheet of hot-white blaster fire forced me to drive my nose into the dirt. The unfortunate ones started tripping the mines they used to keep the tanks out. A blast that can burst a hole in a tank sure makes a sloppy-wet mess out of a man.
The pace had slowed but the march toward the fortress didn’t stall; still, the further in the heavier the casualties. The yells turned to cries for mom or God and screams; the lucky ones got in the head or the chest. I crawled knees and elbows over dead, blue guts and indiscernible red slime. The smell of over a hundred men dying and/or shitting themselves took a stranglehold over my nostrils. I’d long lost any sight of Ruskie or anyone familiar. I took a few pot shots at too far-away bunkers with my rifle just to keep my mind.
Persistence paid off and I reached cover at the front wall, a spot too low for the gunners in the bunker to get a bead on me. My lungs were on fire and metal shivers were embedded in my forearms, but I was in one piece. A handful of our platoon was with me. The Strogg were dug in deep, we’d fallen for their trap and suffered. But not those of us left alive, we could get inside and make them pay.
One of the guys was packing some explosives, but he was too busy shivering and looking his arms and legs over for wounds to realize it. I set the charges, tossed them over my shoulder and blew a nice, new entrance out of the wall. We hit the bunker with covering fire and booked it inside the fortress. We weren’t ready for what we found.
Visibility was near zero and the air was cold; I didn’t like it one bit. My pace was a few cautious steps at a time, the survivors shuffling behind me as I walked the point ‘cause I was the only one with the sand to do it. Our feet echoed down the hall, judging by the pitch of it I could tell it was a long way to go before it led to anything. Our flashlights bobbed as we went, lighthouses to guide us down a dark corridor that for all we knew led us to the very shores of hell.
Even in the dim light the walls shimmered. They were all steel, but together in some sort of hack welding job, as if the entire structure was a composite ball that had swallowed fallen buildings and car frames and formed them into a mad genius’s erector set.
We came to a fork; the corridor split three different ways. I raised my fist and our party held up to consider our options. That’s when the walls opened up and they came.
Red eyes are all I saw at first. I fired an entire clip into them but they kept coming closer. There was no time for the screams of the other GDF with me, calling for help.
I popped in a second clip and fired at point blank. In the muzzle flash I caught a glimpse of the mass of human flesh and metal that are the Strogg. It buried something sharp deep under my ribs, a surgical strike. I fell, thinking the Strogg are everything the Ruskie said as I hit the ground and bled.
That was the end of Operation Blood Eagle; but the worst part is they didn’t finish me.
One of them drags me by the feet further down the corridor, toward the sound of grinding gears. Where or why they are taking me I hope I bleed to death before finding out.

The radio in his ear crackled to life.

"We can make another milk run at 1800 - any special requests?"

His parched throat croaked out a response that thirst only accentuated.

"Water."

"Understood; overhead in 15."

Corporal Blaze squinted as he scanned upwards, hoping that he had misheard, and the Jotun transport was somehow miraculously passing at this very moment. Foxtrot Company of the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 6th Airborne Division of the Global Defense Force (how arrogant that name seemd now!) had been reconnoitering an oil refinery near Omdurman, Sudan, for two days to glean just what a recently encamped Strogg force had converted it into.

That's what the Strogg were good at - conversion. Conversion of material, conversion of structures, and conversion of... men. Whatever their origin, their history must have shaped the cybernetic savages into paragons of efficiency: every resource they encountered was bent, contorted, and twisted to their will.

Initially, it wasn't clear what the Strogg wanted from this planet, aside from the obliteration of its primary inhabitants. After murdering humans by the billions from space, the aliens appeared satisfied man had largely been subdued and began landing, often in the still-smoking craters their own energy blasts had wrought. The survivors then realized that even those who had already died had not escaped the worst: the Strogg were observed gathering human parts (curiously, they didn't seem terribly interested in Earth's animal life), and grafting them with exoskeletons, armor, weapons... new Strogg.

A week ago, Blaze had seen the Strogg doing something new: a human combat engineer, a sapper, was lying wounded between a GDF and alien position. While a Strogg soldier kept Blaze's squad pinned down with covering fire, another sprinted at the engineer, and working over his horrified screams, began to fit him with some kind of ribcage frame. Blaze could do nothing while the frame activated, and the engineer appeared to teleport away, leaving behind a red haze outlining where he had been. Not long after, a new Strogg teleported in his place, and joined the others in pushing back the GDF advance. It was unclear just what had taken place, as the... Stroggification... process of living humans was not well understood and hotly debated (how long did it take? was it reversible? did the frame somehow send fallen troops off to a Strogg surgical facility to be quickly converted?), but the essential truth remained: you will fall down as man, but you will stand up as Strogg.

Another radio crackle. "Briefing at the command post."

The command post, like virtually all GDF kit, had been designed for easy airlifting, as the multi-national force (an anachronism really: the initial Strogg attacks had shattered man's precarious system of governments and borders) had been born in the years prior to first contact as a rapid reaction force to provide humanitarian aid and secure crisis zones, stopping conflicts that were now almost incomprehensibly petty. Budget concerns had compounded the need to keep equipment simple: barring the legerdemain that powered a covert operative's bag of tricks, the GDF's armor, weapons, and vehicles would be instantly familiar to any infantryman from even a century prior. While this meant the GDF had never procured the latest UAC-developed plasma guns or BFGs, it also meant they weren't dependent on the infrastructure and rare components the Strogg had reduced to atmospheric dust. Penny-pinching had left the GDF standing alone as humanity's last effective line of defense.

The briefing was conducted over an interactive map table that provided most of the room's lighting, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Blaze noticed that an ad-hoc squad had been summoned by Captain Stultz to attend: ten men, probably to be broken up into two fireteams judging from the specialties of those assembled. The nearest gunner, Johann something (Blaze couldn't recall his last name) nodded in greeting. Grim-faced, the company's Chinese lieutenant liked to call him "Extermination Warrior".

Stultz began without preamble. "Intelligence believes that the Khartoum refinery we've been eyeballing is now producing an organic solution the Strogg utilize for fuel for weaponry and as nutrition for their fleshy bits. It's been decided by our betters in the Confederacy that we need to destroy, as soon as possible, whatever machinery they've added that turns oil into orange shit. The refinery itself is to be saved if at all possible. You don't need me to reiterate how critical fuel is."

The captain was referring to the Terran Confederacy of Man, the provisional governing body formed in haste to devise some method of throwing off the alien yoke. So far, there hadn't been much progress on finding weaknesses, replicating their technology, or even holding territory the Strogg hadn't immolated from orbit.

"Your squad will eliminate the squib forces from this urban area to our immediate north, thus allowing the mobile command post to stage surface missile attacks on the refinery itself. Hopefully, we'll only need to blow a path clear so the demolitions team can in turn knock out their filtering system. If not, we'll crater the entire building with SSM fire."

In other circumstances, the plan would be ridiculous: ten men from a civilization that had just barely left its own cradle in the void, hoping to bloody the nose of invaders that strode among the stars. Desperation, as they scrambled for a way to roll back Earth's twilight, forced suspension of disbelief.

As Blaze studied the grid, strewn with the orange and green lines that depicted Strogg and human territory in Khartoum, he wondered what had brought this doom upon them in the first place. Before the invasion, here had been rumors of other aliens, terrors the universe had bred in darkness and summoned to the worlds of men by his own arrogance: the incidents on Mars of two decades ago, the secret Earthside techbases said to be experimenting with teleportation... "slipgates" to other dimensions which spawned horrors to make the hardest soldiers quake and mourn. Dimensional travel, which the Strogg apparently used to sidestep the conventional limits of light speed, appeared to require titanic energies - if scientists had been opening doorways of their own, were they also beacons that brought the pitiless cyborgs to their very doorstep?

It was probably pointless speculating; one of the first casualties of the Strogg fleet, just after SETI had detected them lurking in the asteroid belt, had been the nascent Martian colony, followed soon after by the space station, Paris, Beijing, Reykjavik, Tokyo... Blaze winced at the imagery: lancing beams vaporizing steel and bone, bombs that flattened the world's mightiest cities.

What remained now was insurgency: stay alive and convince the Strogg, with blood and and bombs bullets, that Earth was not worth keeping. No one wanted to voice the other fears: that they would just call in additional reinforcements, or return to orbit and finish turning the surface into glass.

Blaze and GDF would have to remain confident in their own ingenuity; they already had a rudimentary understanding of Strogg network protocols, and the covert operatives appeared certain that they could bypass the safeguards on most of the alien tactical systems: turrets, shielding, maybe even databases that could tell them how to reverse-engineer their space technology. There was little hope of defeating the Strogg while their fleet was still overhead; they had to be swatted from the sky like so many gnats. The GDF had no spaceships, or even intercontinental rockets, but maybe with intelligence and some luck, they could do it from the ground... perhaps a self-reinforcing atmospheric energy pulse, if properly tuned.

Then, the real work of generations to come would begin. If the Strogg had taught humans anything, it was this: there is no safety here. Man's place in the universe would have to be won with tooth and claw, and their homes, families, and futures would never truly be safe until whatever language vomited forth from the rotting lips and speaker grills of the Strogg was spoken only in hell.

He could still see the last squib he had killed in his mind: metal grating against unnaturally pale skin as the cyborg lumbered forth with a mechanical gait, a mockery of the being it may once have been. The impact of assault rifle rounds that sent it tumbling backwards. The fear in its eyes as it faced true oblivion. Although they were partially machine, the Strogg still seemed to express and feel emotions: rage, contempt, hatred. Blaze had savored the panicked dread in the sickly yellow eyes at his feet, hoping that it could understand the oath he swore before it died: i{One day, we'll come for all of you. You see, we can be monsters too. We can be the worst monsters of them all.}i

A crackle. A reminder to report to the quartermaster for his parachute and gear. Blaze could brook no more brooding, and left to prepare for the fight ahead.

Quake Wars and Peace

Part One: The Zero Hour
The world had survived two Great Wars, economic upheavals, the Cold War, global terrorism, and the ever-spreading conflicts that came with globalization. But, as each new conflict had ended, a new one had risen to replace it. From the ashes of the Middle East and Africa came new fires in the Far East and South America. In what seemed the final hours of man, the world sat on the brink, watching the clock. All were expecting the bombs that would finally cast a shadow over all humanity had known, had made, to finally drop. And in 2060, they did, but they weren’t dropped by any nation we had known before. The Strogg had arrived on earth and with them came the beginning of the end.
In the wake of humanities destructions, all divisions we had held seemed so empty, so petty. The Strogg did not care if you were black, white, brown, or yellow. The Strogg did not care if you were a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or Mystic. The Strogg did not care if you were a man or woman, young or old. They did not care what nation you called home. The Strogg only knew, only cared, that we were not Strogg and would harvest us like fields of wheat and corn.
Whole cities, the great cultural centers of the world, were left in ruins. Populations of millions, if they were lucky, were turned into sludge meant to sustain the machine-monsters; the unlucky ones were mutilated of their humanity and turned into one of the creatures, cursed to slaughter the rest of mankind.
It seemed almost impossible to have any hope, but the human race held strong; even in the darkness we could still see the light and would not just roll over and die at the hands of the hoards. If the Strogg cared nothing for what divided us, then neither would we. The world, after wars against each other for millennia, had finally united. The machines of war were started again, but now the gears turned to not end life, but to save it.
My name is Winston Kovacs, and I am an engineer in the ranks of the GDF. This is my story.

The format of epic poetry is often associated with war stories. It makes my brain sad and I loathe it. So naturally I wrote my entry in epic poem format. Without much further ado:

Sing to me O Carmack, O wise creator of all
Of dark days past when humanity stood to fall.
Invaders rained from skies you lov'd
Creeping sinew, cold steel and blood.
So sing O Carmack, I beseech thee tell
The battle for Valley to save the well.

The wrath of Titans fell all around
Laying waste defences, scorching ground.
With mighty thrust their shining armour pushed out,
Armadillo as cavalry, Husky as scout.

The Trojans relentless as their namesake of old
Their phalanx advances, deadly and bold.
Spilling forth from their horse the likeness lingers
Shotguns and rifles clutched in blood-stained fingers
Through darkened tunnel they push ever forward
Upon their lips the rallying cry of “aawwkwaaaard!”

At tunnel's mouth a hulking Cyclops stood emplaced
Not Polyphemus as Odysseus once faced
Nay, this Cyclops is far more elite
Tho' just as hungry for human meat.
Fayjax, courageous and noble marine
You led the charge to smash this machine.
“ATTN SOLDIER MENZ: fire rockets at it”
The walker buckled and collapsed as they hit.
As you all gathered your breath there came a shock:
Nictor rais'd his arms and cry'd “I love the cock.”

Nictor was your comrade, you knew him well
Tho' bore his face 'twas not him you could tell.
To destroy the Infiltrator you made a pledge
Then into veiled Strogg you thrust your knife edge
Ripping gristle, bone and brain
The monster fell cleft in twain.

But you did not see Remilles camped up high
Watching you with deadly intent through beady eye.
Icarus descended, nary wax on his wing
Charging you with a frothing hiss of “Mortifying!”
As portends, Remilles' wings bring his demise
Sparked by your bullets they ignite as he flies.
The lord of Late Night Consoling lay dethroned
Standing over his corpse you mocked * R E M O W N E D *

For the epic battle still ahead you reloaded your gun.
tl;dr: contaminator was 'sploded, marines won.

Remembering fallen comrades you sadly reminisc'd
“'tis for humanity's sake we are driven to resist.
This is what Earth means to me:
Lamp, sand, lime and liberty.
We shall fight no matter how bruised or bleeding
From dawn of First Post till dusk's Evening Reading.”

The grass at James Wicker's feet was surprisingly green, given the circumstances. He squirmed in the folding chair, finding a more comfortable position. He was in the front row of many such chairs, looking up at a politician on stage, who was speaking from behind a podium. “Not many of those guys left”, he thought, “they're either hiding or dead.” This one, however, spoke vibrantly to an intent and focused crowd of military personnel and some civilians. It wasn't long before James heard his cue – the politician speaking his name. James stood up slowly, with a grimace of pain on his face. His wounds were healing well, but the bandages on his head and right arm were a constant bother. Slowly, he made his way toward the ramp at the end of the stage – but the closer he got, the less pain he felt. His stride quickened gradually to a brisk march. His posture straightened, his head held higher and higher. By the time he reached the podium, his wounds were all but forgotten. That is, until he turned toward the audience and saw the weary, battered crowd. What he saw shocked him – men in dirty field jackets, some torn, many covered in bandages. Even the civilians looked tired and worn, with the haunted looks of those continually on the run. Then the politician started speaking again, with surprising calm and a confident voice:
“As you all know, after the first images were broadcast of what the Strogg were doing to their captives, the world froze. National economies collapsed, and many government leaders across the globe went into hiding. Military forces worldwide were crippled with fear and suffered unprecedented numbers of desertions. But on May eighth, Lieutenant Wicker turned that around...”

May 8th, North of Pueblo, Colorado
“Lieutenant, we're just receiving news that some of the men from Sergeant Barker's squad have been found – alive.” Lieutenant Wicker jumped to his feet and turned to face the messenger.
“Where are they at? How did we find them?” He asked, the urgency in his voice apparent to all present.
“They're being moved by twenty or thirty Strogg soldiers going east, away from the city. A UAV from a local TV station spotted them” responded the messenger, a young Private who looked like he had only been in the military for a few short weeks. “The UAV controller said it looked like they had run out of ammo, and were fighting hand-to-hand when they were captured. He's keeping on eye on them from the air.”
“Is Command aware of the situation?” Wicker asked.
“Yes, they are. Their original orders stand.”
Wicker grunted in disgust, saying half to himself: “Assist and defend local civilian populations, but avoid making contact with the enemy.” He turned and looked the Private directly in the eye. “Apparently they're afraid that we'll become Strogg, too.”
“Nobody's been able to beat them, yet” answered the Private, meekly.
“That's because everybody's busy playing defense – and defense only wins if the other guy gives up. Private, go find me some Bumblebee helicopters. Their crews will have to be volunteers – we're going on an unauthorized rescue mission.” Wicker turned and made his way through a crowd of refugees fleeing the besieged city. Beyond the civilians was a fortified position of sandbags and barbed wire, a hastily erected fortress to defend the refugees from the horrors of the approaching Strogg army. A few artillery pieces stood scattered among the men stationed there – not enough of either to stop a determined enemy force, but enough to reassure the women and children trying to escape the city.
“I need volunteers,” Wicker shouted, “to help me bring back the survivors of Sergeant Barker's squad.”

As the politician to his side droned on, James let his mind wander. “Why am I here? Of all the people out there, why are they giving me a medal? I didn't do anything that heroic – in fact, I'm lucky they didn't court-martial me.” From his perch atop the stage, James looked out at the audience again, then beyond to the nearby buildings of Denver. The Strogg weren't here yet – but they were on their way. He would meet them again, soon. After accepting his medal, James would return to the hospital for a few more days before being returned to his unit, which was regrouping in a defensive position to the south. “Defense again” he sighed to himself, “some people never learn.” His mind continued to wander, replaying the battle of May eighth, wondering if he could have done anything different. Wondering if he could have saved his leg. “What would these people in the audience think,” he wondered, “if they knew that I have a robotic leg? They give me an award for killing a bunch of cyborgs, when I'm halfway to being one myself.”

May 8th, Northeast of Pueblo, Colorado
The pair of Bumblebee transports were flying fast and low. They were so low that Wicker was tempted to just reach out and touch the ground with his foot. He had ordered the pilots to stay close to the ground – it was their only chance to get into position without being spotted – but this was ridiculous. An abrupt stop indicated that they had reached their destination. As the two transports emptied out, Wicker began to survey the land around him. Yes – it was exactly what he had expected. The civilian UAV controller had been most helpful, flying the unmanned vehicle wherever Wicker had asked just fifteen minutes earlier. The two men had sat in front of a TV screen inside a trailer back at the refugee camp, seeing what the UAV saw and planning an attack. Desert terrain, full of cactus and sharp, unhappy grasses. Narrow, deep gullies criss-crossed the land and eventually led up to a large mesa overlooking the entire region. With a gust of air, the nearby Bumblebees jetted away. All of Wicker's men were on the ground, and the aircraft sped away towards the mesa.
Wicker's squad was much smaller than he had hoped. Seven men had stepped forward for this volunteer mission, and most of those only because they had friends in Barker's squad. Despite his best efforts, Wicker could convince no others. The terror on their faces had said it all – they would not risk being fed to the alien invaders, or being attached to their machines to become a robotic slave.
The men on the ground fanned out and got into position at the top of a small hill overlooking a particularly long gully. Even in wartime, Wicker couldn't help but marvel at the land around him. The hill on which he stood was arid and worn down to loose stone. The dry gully below was clearly shaped by flowing water, with steep, treacherous sides but a sandy, flowing floor. And in the distance ahead, beyond the gully, stood the magnificent mesa.
Wicker took a look at the small screen on his wrist. From it, he could monitor the position of his troops and see the video feed from the overhead TV news UAV. Wicker laughed quietly, thinking that the lives of several men below just might be saved thanks to a pilotless drone whose usual job was reporting rush-hour traffic on the highways. The UAV controller had done his job well – tracking the Strogg troops from high above them in the air. It wouldn't be long before they were within range of Wicker's rifle.

The politician had become very complimentary, describing the aspects of James' life that didn't involve slaughtering alien invaders. “The medal will be presented soon,” James thought, but some movement behind the audience caught his attention. Behind the rows of injured veterans he had seen before were rows and rows of new soldiers who had just arrived. They were standing at attention in crisp, clean, new uniforms - but not uniforms that he recognized. They were similar, but had a slightly different camouflage pattern, with familiar rank but unfamiliar unit insignia. These men were not here to simply watch the ceremony, but were fully equipped with combat gear. They were ready for action, but were just standing there, waiting – but for what?

May 8th, Northeast of Pueblo, Colorado
The lines of Strogg soldiers came into Wicker's view, marching along the far side of the gully that passed beneath his position. There were not twenty or thirty Strogg as originally thought, but forty or fifty. Surrounded by several guards were four men of Barker's squadron, disheveled and terrified. Wicker glanced around and received thumbs up signs from each of his men. They were ready.
Wicker moved his wrist monitor to his mouth, and whispered a command into it. Immediately, the same two Bumblebee transports that had ferried his squad bolted from their hiding places behind the distant mesa and converged over the Strogg soldiers with nose cannons blazing. Several Strogg fell to the ground dead. One raised a rocket launcher to take a shot at the hovering aircraft, but was quickly dispatched by Wicker's squad. The Bumblebees continued firing, being careful to avoid the human captives. Desperate for cover, the surviving Strogg began jumping into the gully. Their human captives started moving towards the gully as well, until Wicker stood up and motioned for them to stop. The men of Barker's squadron weren't the only ones to see him – one Strogg fired off some lucky shots, hitting him in the shoulder and jaw before being gunned down by several of Wicker's men. Another tossed a grenade before being killed by a Bumblebee. The grenade detonated nearby, shattering Wicker's leg and peppering his nearest squad member with shrapnel. Wicker dropped to his knees, waving his good hand forward to signal for his men to advance. He watched as they killed the few remaining Strogg around the captives, then moved toward the lip of the gully. One Bumblebee landed, loaded up the men of Barker's squad, and raced back towards the refugee camp. The other stayed nearby, watching for any stray Strogg who might have escaped the gully. Grenade after grenade was tossed down the side of the gully, and men were firing wildly into the helpless Strogg trapped below when Wicker blacked out and collapsed onto the ground.

“...and after dropping off the POWs, the crew of the second Bumblebee transport returned to the site of the battle to find Wicker severely wounded but alive,” continued the politician. “News of this harrowing rescue spread quickly, and people worldwide took note of the first human victory over the Strogg invaders. My friends, hope is contagious – and military units here and abroad began to believe in themselves once again. This war is far, far from over – but only because Lieutenant Wicker dared to stand up and say 'I will not be afraid. I will fight back.' For this reason, I am honored to award Lieutenant Wicker the Bronze Star for his valor in combat, and to give him command of the first Platoon of the newly created Global Defense Force.” The politician didn't seem to notice James' surprised stare. He continued: “This platoon consists entirely of men who were so inspired by Wicker's actions that they volunteered to serve under him. They come from many different military services – too many to name here – and have motivated the creation of a worldwide military force to be given supreme command of the campaign to repel and defeat the Strogg. This force is to be called the Global Defense Force, or GDF.”
James was dumbfounded. The men with crisp, clean uniforms in the back of the audience – they were HIS men? His action to rescue four fellow warriors had inspired the world? How could that be? Confused thoughts raced through his head as the politician handed over his medal, and a new uniform with the unfamiliar insignia he had seen earlier. The politician then stepped forward to whisper into his ear: “Congratulations, Lieutenant. When even simple survival didn't seem possible, you rallied the world around a new goal: victory!”
James contemplated this for a moment before looking out at the audience. He saw something new – something that had been there the whole time, but he was only now noticing – the look of confidence and determination across military and civilian alike. Even the wounded were standing tall, ready to perform their duty. “They may have to perform their duty sooner than they think” James thought to himself, as he focused on a distant spot in the sky. A flash of light and a burning comet plummeting towards the ground signaled another battle as the Strogg deployed their equipment on the outskirts of the city. “They're here – but I think they may be surprised” he thought with a smile.
The ceremony broke up quickly as the sound of the falling comet finally rumbled through the crowd, several seconds after James first spotted it. He made his way down the stage carrying his new uniform, and grabbed his assault rifle from the spot where he had left it leaning against the stage. He strode up to the men of the new platoon and placed his helmet over the bandages on his head. It was a tight fit, but far more comfortable than a bullet through the head. After looking over his men, Lieutenant James Wicker said: “My hospital trip will have to wait. We've got some clanking alien freaks to take care of.”

Can I start right away?
Here is my story.

It started as a calm day in the deserts of Yosemite California.
We had occupied the city for a while now, contaminating their water supplies.
We had held off the Global Defense Forces for such a long time that we thought they would give up
at one point or another.
What started as a small assault, or so we thought, degenerated very fast.
They started rebuilding the bridge we had destroyed a while back.
It took them a while but the finnaly managed to get it done.
I felt like in those old World War 2 movies we got showed during training camp.
I had a sniper up, shooting them one after another but they kept coming and coming.
After they had built the bridge we had to retreat, they had their APC closing in by the minute.
It was like they had an infinite number of soldiers.
My buddy, Groger ran out of anti vehicule rockets and had to retreat to the Water Gate spawn point.
When we saw that we were outnumbered and that they had lauched an SSM we had to set up our shied generator and once again retreat further.
This is where it got ugly, they destroyed our mech or vehicules and every one around me was dying.
Strangely I was taking cover with Groger but I noticed something fishy with him, he wasn't talking much but he was telling me he didn't want to fire his weapon anymore, that war wasn't the solution, it wasn't Groger's style to be like that but he was saying he had a revelation.
I left Groger because the enemy was closing in, I should have known about those deceptive techniques those GDF used.
When I came back to see if Groger was alright I saw him change into a GDF and hack the shield generator.
It was too late when I killed that bastard, the shields were already down and an SSM had already been launched.
I ran into the base trying to get to the contaminator, EVERYONE WAS DEAD, EVERYONE.
When I got the the contaminator there was many GDF there, they were planting a bomb on it.
I'm sorry if I may have failed to my duty but I ran, ran as fast as I could and heard a big BOOM.
From far away I watched the GDF celebrating and killing the rest of our man.
It was horrible.
I swear I will get vengeance for Groger and this time around I will not run and make sure I kill every single Global Defense Force members I come in contact with.

- In memories of Groger

This is my entry, usually I like to make my stories more gory, but this time I wanted to create a story with a realistic beginning, to get you grasped in the story a bit and then turn it slowly around in the Quake universe, in a way that could happen to anyone at any day. Also I wanted to give you an insight on how I think the Strogg would think; simple, in short lines and twisted. This all in a realistic way, detailed enough to grasp you in the story line, but not too detailed so it became too long to read. I had to cut out a few parts (like what happened in the first night for example), because it just didn't contribute anything to the story.

The moral of the story: A lot can change in just 24 hours, be happy with everything you got now and treasure it whenever you can. You will never know when you might lose it or things are going change...


These are the thoughts of a 21 year old guy by the name of Rick;
It's the year 2060, life has always been pretty good to me. I have a very sweet fiance named Miko and we just started living together. I also have just graduated from medical school and always wanted to become a surgeon, because it always made be feel good to be able to help people when they need it the most. Plus I was kind of into that blood and guts thing, I don't know if that is healthy, but it was seen as a good thing at school fortunately. Yes, I had it all planned out just fine...

Until one day when I sat on the couch with with my fiance watching an old horror movie on TV called "Resident Evil 12: Finally an Ending", when it was suddenly interrupted by a news flash. They said Aliens from an other planet came to earth to wage war against us. At first I thought; "No way this is real, it's probably part of the movie as a joke or something" and I laughed, although it all seemed very out of place. But after about one minute or so of the report we started to doubt our selfs, how foolish it might seem at the time. So we switched over to an other channel and the same news was on... Also on the next and the next and the next... And I suddenly froze from shock, "This just can't be real" I thought to myself as I was watching the news report... They stated that every male from 18 to 50 years old and fit enough is needed to fight for the survival of the human race and need to report to a local GDF office for medical checks tomorrow morning for immediate army duty, anyone not cooperating will be arrested immediately. All woman need to take care of the children, sick and elderly, while maintaining every necessary job to keep the electricity, food supplies and weapons productions up.
My fiance just freaked out, our whole lives where just turned completely upside down. Although I was very frightened myself, I wanted to cheer up my fiance. She asked me if I would come back to her alive and she wanted me to promise it to her, and I did.. Although I was not sure if I could keep that promise, but I thought; I'll try my best, there is nothing more I can do and I am sure that deep down inside, she knows it as well." I just didn't want to say it to her to cheer her up, even if it was only for the moment.
We stayed up all night together, worrying what might happen, we didn't close a single eye all night.
In the morning I promised her to email her whenever I could and drove off... Forced to leave my whole life behind me, not knowing if I will ever see the ones I love again.

When I arrived I hoped my sleeplessness would make me not fit enough, but as I thought; that was not the case. When I stated my name, a sergeant was called in and he said they where expecting me and to follow him to his office. As I was walking down the hallway I couldn't stop thinking about why they would want a special conversation with me, in a bad way. "This can never be good" I thought to myself as I entered the office. I sat down and the sergeant said: "I am sorry, but as you know we are in desperate times. We have a lot of wounded men on the fronts and not enough medics to treat them as fast as they are coming in... That is why we need you A.S.A.P. I have already arranged a helicopter for you to fly you to a small base where a corporal awaits you for further briefing and direct duty. Good luck." and there I went... Being flown off to I don't even know where, I didn't care about that, all I cared about was the situation I was in. "F***, I should be at home on the couch with a cold beer in my hand watching "Resident Evil 13: An Alternate Ending" right now" I thought and before I knew it we arrived at the base.

As I stepped out the corporal came up to me and to my amazement it was an old friend of mine, Frank, one day he decided he wanted to go join the GDF and I never saw him again after he left. We had a quick chat and it was kind of nice to see a familiar face while I am in all this mess. As we were walking, we arrived at a hangar, frank opened it and there were dozens of beds with injured personnel on them and he said: "You can start straight away, start anywhere you like... All the equipment is in the boxes in the corner over there." and I replied "You can't seriously mean this right? I have not yet received any preparations what so ever!" "You have gone to school for it right? Just go in there and do your thing, you are the only one on this entire base that is qualified to help these people... Either you help them without preparation, or no one will help them. These men would give a lot for ANY kind of medical attention, prepared or not." Frank said. "Alright... Fine, I'll see what I can do." I said "Good, I will come and check on you in some time, good luck mate!" Frank said and I walked inside the hangar.
Suddenly all eyes were directed towards me and I didn't know what to say; "Hello, I am a doctor, how can I help you all? I am not that good but I will see what I will do with your lives." No, I didn't know anything, so I just walked around with everyone staring at me as I looked who I knew I could help and needed it the most and just started working, without saying anything at all. It was very awkward at first, but after an hour or so the tension in the air finally vanished a bit, I started to get used to it as I have already seen a lot of blood and guts back at school.

But just as I started to find a glimpse of peace in my new life, a siren went off and shortly after Frank came rushing in. "Rick!" he shouted "There is a huge attack at a base south west from here, we are ordered to be flown in immediately and we really need a medic with us... So, you know where I am going with this right?", I replied "But what if..." and was quickly cut off by Frank "We ain't got no time for buts right now, you come with us, or we leave without you. Don't worry I got your back as long as you've got mine." "Ok" I replied and I quickly gathered some supplies and ran after Frank towards the helicopter.
In the chopper I was given a quick briefing of what the situation was, but it was hard to follow as all kinds of things were rushing through my head and the talk about the battle that awaited didn't make it any better. We arrived at our destination all too soon in my somewhat selfish opinion and we jumped out into the chaos. There were explosions left and right, people shooting, screaming, dieing... I just tried to focus on an area directly around me and try to ignore what else is happening around me to make it easier on me. But most of all, I was frightened by the Strogg, this was my first look at them from a distance and it was even more terrifying then the still pictures they showed on TV. We held up the defenses for a while, but it seemed not long enough... They kept advancing upon the base and it looked more and more like a lost battle, yet we kept on fighting.

Then came the command to retreat and give the base up as lost. A few choppers came flying in and we made our way towards them. But as we left our cover Frank got hit by a grenade and lost his leg, "RUN! LEAVE ME! I'M DONE FOR!" he shouted at me, but I just couldn't leave him there like that. With leg or without a leg, he shouldn't die from it! So I quickly tied a bandage tight around his severed leg to stop the bleeding somewhat and took his arm over my shoulder and tried to make my way towards the helipads. Then I saw some helicopters were already leaving and I gave it all I got to rush over there as quick as I could... But then, I recklessly stumbled and fell to the ground and the last helicopter took off... Without us...
"You should have just left me..." Frank silently said... And I did not know what to say or do... I just stood there... Looking how the last choppers, our last hopes, flew over my head away... Some of them looked down, they know we were doomed... I knew we were doomed... Then I fell to the ground from desperation and thought "How your life can change in just 24 hours... Why me... I had it all planned out... Why me..." then I looked up and looked a Strogg soldier right in the eyes. From shock I wanted to dodge away and then....

*WHACK*

Rick was knocked unconscious and recklessly tossed into a transport vehicle together with Frank and the rest of the dead bodies and severed limbs and heads, off to a stroggification plant... To be turned against his own people, stronger and more vicious then he ever was. These are a few of his last sane thoughts when he awoke as a Strogg;

I remember nothing, from my past life. Caught in madness, no control over thoughts. Voices in my head, commanding me what to do. Am I hallucinating or am I awake? I only feel the pain inside me. Blinded by metal pain, I do what is instructed. Floating around in chaos, creating a will to kill. Surrounded by innocents, hating every soul. Driven together they scream, but not as loud as the voices in my head. They try to convince me I'm wrong... But blinded I slaughter. No father can forgive me, for sins have grown out of reality. Blood is dripping from my mouth, desiring human flesh. Feasting on human cadavers, making them part of me. Positive visions starting to collapse, my mind is splitting in two. Ending life, endlessly...
No one will be protected!

Great contest. Entry in reply.

The first day of the War, the last day of my life.

My name is Randolph Carter. This is the account of the final 24 hours of my life. In my final moment I feel the deepest regret that it has ever begun.

I and my wife, Marie, have been living in a remote location for the last 7 years. With majestic mountains behind us and ancient forest right at our doorstep, we had left comfortable city life and followed a simple way of life- rather harsh, and deprived of all the technology freely available in the cities that makes life easy, pleasant and meaningless. It wasn’t our own idea- in the second half of the 21 century many people felt the way we were. In fact, not a mile away there lived our friends with two of their lovely kids, sharing our view of the world. Guiding spoiled, soft and rich people that came form the city to “get in touch” with the mountains and the forest was enough to feed us and reaffirm us in our choice.

That was not to last however, and the end came form the cold, night sky, filled with stars that now seem hostile and threatening to all mankind…

Something fell from the sky, trailing behind a thick tail of smoke, and crashed not far away with thunderous roar that shattered our windows.
I was thrilled! As a child I had been devouring books about astronomy, and I knew that it had to be a meteor, and a very peculiar one at that, since it was traveling with bafflingly low speed. Grabbing my flashlight I bolted out of the house, my wife to scared with the whole thing to leave it, and ran to the crash site.
About five hundred meters from the crater I encountered blackened and fallen trees. The air was saturated with the smell of white-hot iron and very unpleasant acidic odor that was extremely irritating to my eyes. As I approached the rim, nearly suffocating, I felt as if struck by lightning, instantly lost my consciousness in a blinding flash of brilliantly white light.

I do hesitate to talk about what happened next. Fortunately, I don’t remember it all, but those things I do will haunt me to the end, which is near anyway…

I awoke on an ice-cold slab of metal, restrained, shocked and disoriented to my very soul. I was in a room filled with bizarre and utterly alien machinery. My view was however filled with a huge needle on a mechanical arm, aimed at my chest, hovering there, motionless. Then, with a sudden and utterly mechanical gesture it pierced my skin, my bone, and with a jolt of distant pain, my beating heart. Some kind of fluid began to fill me, so cold that I felt it in my every vein, in my legs, arms, head. Terror possessed me but was swiftly swept away- I fell disconnected from my body, felt as if time began to flow ten times faster- something akin to panic, but far worse. I nearly didn’t notice a huge and brutal saw that cut of my legs. I didn’t feel it cutting until my limbs were lying on the floor… I think I screamed then. The last thing I remember is a myriad of silvery metal arms, stained with my blood, moving swiftly above and inside me.

And then I became a puppet, a tool used to bring suffering and death, and to feed this horrible, ever hungry machine that has so many parts like me. My body was not my own, though my soul was still inhabiting it. I saw my deeds with eyes that no longer belonged to me, I’ve done terrible things with hands that were but gloves for someone, something- I never learned what it was and what purpose it had. And then I remember seeing my wife, and a barbed blade fused or growing out of my arm, buried in her chest and sticking out of her back, piercing the skin, but not her blouse, in a bizarre and nightmarish twist.

The last sight of her was when I dropped her into the gaping maw of some pulsing, organic monstrosity filled with red, acidic fluid that immediately began to dissolve her clothes, her body. Her wide open, sky-blue eyes were the first to go, leaving black, empty sockets. The skin of her strangely expressionless face begun to loose color and peel of, layer after layer, exposing raw flesh and white bone, soon dissolved into fluid, fed into my veins and those seemingly organic tubes, protruding from machinery, fused to my body. If I ever doubted in reality of those things I stopped now. I know that even in the blackest depths of madness, malice and cruelty, my imagination could have never, never! conceive such hellish images. As I realized that, my sanity and last shreds of hope left me never to return. I only wished for death to end this. It was to come, but not nearly soon enough.

Dropped form fifty meters above the ground scarred with fresh traces of violent battle, I was falling until some unknown device cushioned my landing, just enough for the artificial limbs to do the rest. Immediately I and my group began moving with silent, inhuman determination and efficiency, and with some strange coordination I could not grasp entirely. Surely, the great puppeteer was guiding us to some murderous purpose.
It became apparent after the smoke had cleared- there were dozens of tanks, hundreds of soldiers- my brothers a lifetime ago! The horizon was lit by distant flashes of artillery and the ground itself was trembling with the approach our vanquishers. I welcomed the prospect with relief.
But my master was not going to let me die without putting this piece of meat and machine to some use first. This body was guided to a nearby concrete wall, servomechanisms buzzing, hydraulics hissing under the strain of inhumanly fast dash to the cover. There, my armed hand was used to aim through a smoldering hole, drilled by a shell, not long ago. Soldiers were getting closer and the weapon began to fire, with disgustingly organic mechanisms decreasing the recoil, feeding round after round, cooling the red-hot barrel with the fluid now coursing through my veins! My augmented, telescopic vision helped my aim, and with soundless wail I observed as my rounds burrowed deep into human flesh, vaporizing blood and tissue, ripping them to pieces, tearing screams of agony from their throats, before they were stopped with the final, shallow breath, their eyes saving the image of their murderer forever.

And then came the deafening roar of a low flying jet. Concrete wall that had sheltered this biomechanical tool seemed to twist and bend under the force of the blast, before it finally shattered to pieces.
I lost vision in my right eye- stray shrapnel rending a deep wound in spite of the armored plate, mercifully hiding my face until now. I felt something akin to joy, seeing that one of those hateful and disgusting limbs I was given in exchange for my legs was now bend and melted- a broken and useless piece of metal. It won't harm anyone now- what a twisted kind of revenge…

Short while later soldiers came. Clad in bulletproof armor, but human, too human not to be shocked by the sight of those abominations they were ordered to fight.
"Sir, I've got one here, it still moves!" Said one soldier, without his helmet, his face covered in scarlet blood. "Kill it, private." was the short and bitter answer. The nameless soldier aimed his gun, and with voice tainted with anger and anguish said: "It's for my dead family", and pulled the trigger. There has never been a person in my damned life that I loved more than my killer, and his rage, that was the kindest mercy for me.
***
Bullet crashed into Carter’s skull, with sound so much like the thunder of the falling alien vessel on that previous night. But instead of bringing horror and suffering beyond imagination, this sound brought him something he craved more than forgiveness or compassion. It gave him peaceful oblivion.

*********
DISCLAIMER [and something about this story]: This story is a dramatization of the idea behind the strogg race- a very good one, i may add. It's an attempt to show how would an ordinary human feel when confronted with the reality of being turned into something so inhuman, yet in reach of our imagination, as a strogg. It's also The first day of the War, the last day of my life.

My name is Randolph Carter. This is the account of the final 24 hours of my life. In my final moment I feel the deepest regret that it has ever begun.

I and my wife, Marie, have been living in a remote location for the last 7 years. With majestic mountains behind us and ancient forest right at our doorstep, we had left comfortable city life and followed a simple way of life- rather harsh, and deprived of all the technology freely available in the cities that makes life easy, pleasant and meaningless. It wasn’t our own idea- in the second half of the 21 century many people felt the way we were. In fact, not a mile away there lived our friends with two of their lovely kids, sharing our view of the world. Guiding spoiled, soft and rich people that came form the city to “get in touch” with the mountains and the forest was enough to feed us and reaffirm us in our choice.

That was not to last however, and the end came form the cold, night sky, filled with stars that now seem hostile and threatening to all mankind…

Something fell from the sky, trailing behind a thick tail of smoke, and crashed not far away with thunderous roar that shattered our windows.
I was thrilled! As a child I had been devouring books about astronomy, and I knew that it had to be a meteor, and a very peculiar one at that, since it was traveling with bafflingly low speed. Grabbing my flashlight I bolted out of the house, my wife to scared with the whole thing to leave it, and ran to the crash site.
About five hundred meters from the crater I encountered blackened and fallen trees. The air was saturated with the smell of white-hot iron and very unpleasant acidic odor that was extremely irritating to my eyes. As I approached the rim, nearly suffocating, I felt as if struck by lightning, instantly lost my consciousness in a blinding flash of brilliantly white light.

I do hesitate to talk about what happened next. Fortunately, I don’t remember it all, but those things I do will haunt me to the end, which is near anyway…

I awoke on an ice-cold slab of metal, restrained, shocked and disoriented to my very soul. I was in a room filled with bizarre and utterly alien machinery. My view was however filled with a huge needle on a mechanical arm, aimed at my chest, hovering there, motionless. Then, with a sudden and utterly mechanical gesture it pierced my skin, my bone, and with a jolt of distant pain, my beating heart. Some kind of fluid began to fill me, so cold that I felt it in my every vein, in my legs, arms, head. Terror possessed me but was swiftly swept away- I fell disconnected from my body, felt as if time began to flow ten times faster- something akin to panic, but far worse. I nearly didn’t notice a huge and brutal saw that cut of my legs. I didn’t feel it cutting until my limbs were lying on the floor… I think I screamed then. The last thing I remember is a myriad of silvery metal arms, stained with my blood, moving swiftly above and inside me.

And then I became a puppet, a tool used to bring suffering and death, and to feed this horrible, ever hungry machine that has so many parts like me. My body was not my own, though my soul was still inhabiting it. I saw my deeds with eyes that no longer belonged to me, I’ve done terrible things with hands that were but gloves for someone, something- I never learned what it was and what purpose it had. And then I remember seeing my wife, and a barbed blade fused or growing out of my arm, buried in her chest and sticking out of her back, piercing the skin, but not her blouse, in a bizarre and nightmarish twist.

The last sight of her was when I dropped her into the gaping maw of some pulsing, organic monstrosity filled with red, acidic fluid that immediately began to dissolve her clothes, her body. Her wide open, sky-blue eyes were the first to go, leaving black, empty sockets. The skin of her strangely expressionless face begun to loose color and peel of, layer after layer, exposing raw flesh and white bone, soon dissolved into fluid, fed into my veins and those seemingly organic tubes, protruding from machinery, fused to my body. If I ever doubted in reality of those things I stopped now. I know that even in the blackest depths of madness, malice and cruelty, my imagination could have never, never! conceive such hellish images. As I realized that, my sanity and last shreds of hope left me never to return. I only wished for death to end this. It was to come, but not nearly soon enough.

Dropped form fifty meters above the ground scarred with fresh traces of violent battle, I was falling until some unknown device cushioned my landing, just enough for the artificial limbs to do the rest. Immediately I and my group began moving with silent, inhuman determination and efficiency, and with some strange coordination I could not grasp entirely. Surely, the great puppeteer was guiding us to some murderous purpose.
It became apparent after the smoke had cleared- there were dozens of tanks, hundreds of soldiers- my brothers a lifetime ago! The horizon was lit by distant flashes of artillery and the ground itself was trembling with the approach our vanquishers. I welcomed the prospect with relief.
But my master was not going to let me die without putting this piece of meat and machine to some use first. This body was guided to a nearby concrete wall, servomechanisms buzzing, hydraulics hissing under the strain of inhumanly fast dash to the cover. There, my armed hand was used to aim through a smoldering hole, drilled by a shell, not long ago. Soldiers were getting closer and the weapon began to fire, with disgustingly organic mechanisms decreasing the recoil, feeding round after round, cooling the red-hot barrel with the fluid now coursing through my veins! My augmented, telescopic vision helped my aim, and with soundless wail I observed as my rounds burrowed deep into human flesh, vaporizing blood and tissue, ripping them to pieces, tearing screams of agony from their throats, before they were stopped with the final, shallow breath, their eyes saving the image of their murderer forever.

And then came the deafening roar of a low flying jet. Concrete wall that had sheltered this biomechanical tool seemed to twist and bend under the force of the blast, before it finally shattered to pieces.
I lost vision in my right eye- stray shrapnel rending a deep wound in spite of the armored plate, mercifully hiding my face until now. I felt something akin to joy, seeing that one of those hateful and disgusting limbs I was given in exchange for my legs was now bend and melted- a broken and useless piece of metal. It won't harm anyone now- what a twisted kind of revenge…

Short while later soldiers came. Clad in bulletproof armor, but human, too human not to be shocked by the sight of those abominations they were ordered to fight.
"Sir, I've got one here, it still moves!" Said one soldier, without his helmet, his face covered in scarlet blood. "Kill it, private." was the short and bitter answer. The nameless soldier aimed his gun, and with voice tainted with anger and anguish said: "It's for my dead family", and pulled the trigger. There has never been a person in my damned life that I loved more than my killer, and his rage, that was the kindest mercy for me.
***
Bullet crashed into Carter’s skull, with sound so much like the thunder of the falling alien vessel on that previous night. But instead of bringing horror and suffering beyond imagination, this sound brought him something he craved more than forgiveness or compassion. It gave him peaceful oblivion.

*********
DISCLAIMER [and something about this story]: I'm sorry if my lack of grasp on the english language spoiled the fun you might had from reading this. It is not my native language, and I had little time to "debug" the text :-)
This story is a dramatization of the idea behind the strogg race- a very good one, i may add. It's an attempt to show how would an ordinary human feel when confronted with the reality of being turned into something so inhuman, yet in reach of our imagination, as a strogg. It's also a homage of sorts for H.P. Lovecraft ;-)

My entry.

Bloodred

The room we were in was cramped, but it was our home, for a time. April, they said it was—and a fine one to be sure, with the light drifting in through the shattered windows and the smoke from last night’s battle still caressing the air, sighing, softly. It was warm too, but that kind of warm where all you want to do is run—free, clear. It was the warmth of comfort, the warmth of spring.
Free. Clear. Mere words to me now. When I enlisted it was for the good of humanity, the preservation of mankind. I was devoid now of whatever lofty ideals had propelled me into joining the GDF. Stuck in this hellhole all words were the same. Knowledge had become irrelevant, a byword in the world of war.
They were watching—as always—we knew. We could never hide from the devils. Sam called them that, before he died. Died with a prayer on his lips, for all the good it did him. I felt the cold stamp of their eyes on me as I contemplated fate. We all die, yet the question lies not in the time or manner of the death, but in the completion of the life before it. None of us had finished. Nothing could comfort that harsh reality.
My weapons were repulsive to me as I picked them up each morning, ready for a fresh day of killing in the fields. They told us that the enemy wasn’t human, that they deserved no rights or quarter. This struck a chord with the more simplistic soldiers, but I lacked certainty. Does humanity precede rights? I killed them all the same.

What was war in April but bounty unrealized?

Roger found my eyes with his as he woke up and we stared for a moment before breaking away. Infinite grief, infinite pain. I wanted to speak but no words came. My inadequacy was revealed before the tribunal of my fellows.

Roger, in his conjugate adequacy, spoke. “I hear today’s it,” he said. “The day, you know.”
“I suppose,” I replied, “but what’s to be reckoned?”
Roger scratched his chin. I’d always thought him simple, but you never know. “Assuming it’ll be a big fight. Take ‘em down, right? In the end, though, I think we’ll stand. I really do. I think we’ll stand.”
Can’t argue with that, can I? Roger, ever the optimist, took his half full cup of beer and drained it. He turned to me with a strange expression on his face, opening his mouth to speak—

And the flash of the railgun was distinct and distant and there, and Roger was not. His head gone, vaporized, absernt. I heard a scream rend the air—realized it was my own, felt a hand clap my mouth. I heard Robert’s strained tones.
“Shut it,” he forced out. “Damn it, you’ll get us all killed.”
That didn’t seem like such a bad prospect, after all of that.

I’d heard war was terrible but nothing compared to the sensations I felt that April afternoon with a painfully clear sky. I was mocked again, and again. I watched my comrades fall. I longed to fall, but stood alone. No one died to save me. I merely remained a bystander. I was an abject failure at the test of war.

But war in April seeks the roses. And when found, the roses are far too red.

The Hero of Algeria

an epic tale of bravery and stupidity,

is in the reply.

You didn't put a word limit on it, so its just as long as it needs to be.

The Night Flight

As night approach the GDF Command Centre, my team and I boarded the Bumblebee and lifted off to attack the Strogg Domination Hub. The sky faded from bright orange to

dark purple as we topped the mountain. Unexpectedly, the alarm inside the cockpit echoed with a piercing ring. A loud screeching of a missile of green light nailed the tail of

the copter, causing the copter to spin out of control. “Hold on!” yelled the captain. It was said a bit late, because one member of our team flew out of the door, to his death.

I tried to catch him but I had to make that I didn’t join him.

The cockpit began filling with a thick black smoke that smelled like oil burning. I started coughing as I struggled to grasp for air. The smoke was so heavy that the red glow

from the cockpit faded to pure blackness. The copter kept spinning like top, unable to see where we were, we slammed into the ground, the copter shook like an

earthquake. The blade overhead hit the ground, slinging large chunks of grass and dirt in the air, breaking the blade in pieces.

Black smoke filled the night causing the moon and stars to disappear. Slowly, the dust from the impact settled to reveal a horrifying site. The windshield was cracked and

covered with blood and dirt. The pilot was lying with his face against the broken glass. The captain was lying near the edge of the door. I reached for my belt and

unfastened it. It wouldn’t open. I was still reeling from the sudden jolt. I tried to muster up some energy and pulled hard as I could but it still didn’t unfasten. With my right

arm, I started hunting in the dark for my knife. Finding it, I had to saw off my seatbelt.

After removing the belt, I slowly moved out of my seat, I could see the rest of my team on the rocky mountain under the copter. I climbed over my captain and stepped out

of the copter, ducking just in case the enemy was nearby. As I crouch walked, the co-pilot’s head was sticking out the copter’s windshield and his blood was dripping down

the shattered glass. His head was covered in red. I tried to put the image in the back of my mind. The silence of night was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

Before I could recover from the crash, I heard the bullets hit the side of the copter, ricocheting around my head. I hit the ground in the prone position. The gunfire ceased, I

started hearing voices. Unable to understand the language, I realized that we crashed right in the middle of the Strogg’s forces. The voices sounded very technical and

robotic. I was afraid to move or make a sound. The voices began getting louder and closer.

Abruptly, the high tone voice shifted to a deeper and bolder tone. The language morphed into english. “DO NOT MOVE!” the voice demanded. “WE WILL SHOOT TO KILL OR

SURRENDER NOW.” I was a lone with a knife in the dark. I couldn’t tell how many strogg troopers there were around so I figured giving myself was my best option. “YOU’RE

BEEN WARNED. IN 10 SECONDS, WE WILL ELIMINATE THE TARGET.” I slowly stood up with both hands high in the air. “I GIVE UP!” I said loudly and kept repeating it. It was

difficult to see my surroundings. I felt a huge pain in the back of my head and my face hit the dirt. The blackness became even blacker and everything went silent.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a prison. My eyes gradually opened and my eyesight was blurry and unfocused. I could hear faint screams of terror and pain so I wasn’t alone. I was unable to move because my arms and legs were fastened to a metal table. I was too weak so I just relax as much as I could. My chest had wires connected to it and a tube was inserted in my neck. I was in a bit of agony but I could handle an enormous amount of pain. In my training, taking torture was my best ability. Everything faded to black again.

I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I needed to rest because escaping from this chamber of hell was going to be a challenge. After endless hours or days of recovering, my body was almost healed and my energy had return. My vision had become clearer. There was a large glass plated window in front of me. I turned my head and could see another room straight across from me but there weren’t any other prisoners. The room I was in looked identical to it. I still was unable to move. “Damn, I must escape but how was the question," I thought before falling asleep again.

GDF Engineer - Prisoner of War (Japanese Stroggification Camp)

I know what they have planned for me. Now I may be of flesh and blood, but soon of metal and decay. They came without warning, desecrating all in their path. Is there any hope left in the world that can save us? The Strogg managed to penetrate through our forces and claim Earth as their own. They may be victorious now, but humanity will fight until they are free once more. Sadly, it is too late for me.

I remember one of the soldiers, Ben, in my defense squardron. He was assisting me with the transportation of goods from the former United Kingdom to the African states when the Strogg invaded. We were well aware that there was a "security breach" and that there were multiple sightings of unknown objects above Earth. He dismissed this news as hearsay, but Ben was mistaken. Our squadron was ambushed before we could leave Britain, and Ben was taken captive. Rumor has it that he was stroggified, and, as Strogg protocol states, was stroggified. What an insolent fool I must be! I knew that the GDF was not for me, I knew that I wanted to become a physicist. Now I know for certain that my flesh will be twisted until it is no more.

Strogg Aggressor - Stroggification Camp (Japan)

You cannot think that the Strogg were always as they appear to be now. One must realize that the Strogg have a deep past, one that displays the transformation and mutation of a once human-like species into savages. Approximately 500 to 650 human years ago, the Strogg were technologically on par with the Earth scum now. They were invaded by a nearby species from one solar system away. Earthlings are not as close to other intelligent species as we Strogg were on Stroggos. After years of war, the Strogg became victorious over their invaders, but with a price. Disease spread throughout Stroggos, twisting the Strogg brains until their primitive instincts returned, but in a technologically advanced state. The disease from the invaders destroyed sexes that the Strogg once had, and made the Strogg sterile. However, the Strogg lived on. They searched the nearby systems for a method to stay alive, until they developed Stroggification. By that time, this renewed, but mutated, species was accustomed to war and conquest in order to maintain their survival. No other species has been as satisfying and easily converted to Strogg than the humans. The human resistance will be crushed.

I was not always a Strogg. I once was a human soldier, but that was long ago. My human traits are dying, and I barely remember what it is to be human. All I remember of my days as a human was the stroggification process, the pain of the change and the cleansing of humanity from my body. My peers frown upon me, doubting my loyalty to the Makron. The Makron has not yet given the order for my brain to be diluted to Aggressor standards, meaning I still have more brainpower than the constructors in my squadron. Yes the constructors. They fear me the most, still believing that I possess human traits. Love, passion, morality, do they fear that a Strogg could feel as humans do, or do they just fear a human that is Strogg?

The Makron's message has just been transfered through Nexus to our base of operations, and I have the pleasure of overseeing a Stroggification of a human scum. This shall be rewarding.

GDF Engineer

They won. I am prepared for stroggification, and they are sending in an Aggressor and Technician to follow through with the plans. To them I am Strogg, to me I am dead.

Strogg Aggressor

The technician is awaiting my arrival. As I approach the room, I feel nothing, nor think anything. I can see the Oppressors readying to be sent to a contaminator in the Americas, and some Infiltrators hacking GDF mainframes. I think nothing of it, and do not hesitate to make conversation with any of them or wonder anything about them. Well, here it goes.

GDF Engineer

The technician just gave the signal to ready the stroggification process and send in the aggressor. To this day, I do not grasp the purpose of the Strogg. As I see the lack of emotion in the technician's eyes, I realized that humanity has something worth fighting for. Something that even the Strogg do not bear proudly. Emotion. The will power to fight valiantly against our enemy. The power to help other humans against a common enemy, the Strogg. The door is opening, and I cannot help to recognize the voice.

Strogg Aggressor

"Ready the process," I commanded. "Let us see the face of the human scum as the transformation takes place." I could not help to notice that his face looked familiar. But I knew for a fact that I had no recollection of being a human.

GDF Engineer

I knew that face! It was--

Strogg Aggressor

Ben, that was my name before. I remember him too, was--

GDF Engineer

"Jacob!" I cried out. "It's me, Jacob."

Strogg Aggressor

The constructor stood at my side and was about to speak. He now thought that I was full Strogg by ignoring the human. But he was wrong.

GDF Engineer

I noticed Ben's face, twisted and metallic. I thought Strogg could not show emotion, but I was wrong. He reached for the constructor's nail gun and blasted the technician into oblivion. Then, without warning he decapitated the constructor and rushed towards me. "Run!" he exclaimed. We bolted from the stroggification plant, dodging Strogg attacks and maneuvering our way to the exit. An oppressor followed us and his bullets penetrated Ben's head, killing him instantaneously. I kept running but the oppressor's grenade blew off my legs. He looked down upon me and stared for a moment. "Thwarted, you puny human," he said in a deep voice. "Your life is terminated."

"Come closer," I told him. He put his ear to my lips to hear what I was about to say. "I would rather die as a warrior than live as a Strogg," I whispered. I removed my pistol from my belt and shot him in the groin, then in the head. He lay, motionless, blood spilling from his body. It was not until fourteen minutes after I killed the opprssor when a GDF medic came to my aid. I was confussed; why were the Strogg not after me? "It's alright," he explained, "we won."

/root/exec/strogg_war_letter0002

Infiltrator’s Log, Stardate 21003.5 - The Year of Our Makron

We have begun our initial invasion of the Terran System. Reinforcements are to arrive within the next forty-eight earth hours due to an unexpected amount of resistance. I however remain deeply entrenched behind enemy lines, forced to take on the role of one of these undignified primates. So as to not arouse suspicions I have taken it upon myself to collect as much behavioral knowledge as possible on this species. Though I would rather not be the one to field test these findings, I hope that the home world will find them useful in our conquest.

I have thus far managed to obfuscate my normal system routines using said observations. I had to configure my recharging cycle to appear as “sleep”. Furthermore, I have had to convince the GDF soldiers of my humanity by going to the bathroom occasionally. I shudder to discuss the details of these primitive creatures’ anatomy. The only thing that gets me through to the next day is the thought of you, my beautiful Motherboard, and our seven little cogs. I do hope that they are all in good health, still going for regular tune-ups, and of course understand why their Server must be away. They and their upgrades will never have to worry about protein replacements again if we achieve victory in this sector of the universe.

I must sadly finish this correspondence, lest the half-evolved minds of my “fellow soldiers” pick up on the transmission. It is encoded of course, but they are quick to become nervous, especially when it is related to something that they cannot understand. I shall relay my memory cycles again once I have the chance. Really though, sometimes I wish that I were an Aggressor or a Technician. Their inability to think beyond the Makron’s wishes must be comforting at times. I however must endure the pain of being away from my Network at home.

End of line...

It happened so fast, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it!

Until one group, full of soldiers willing to defend there planet and fight for there people, stepped up.This group was known as GDF!

GDF made it there main goal, to destroy the Strogg Invaders, if it meant everyone of them dieng to do so.The Strogg at no means, will succeed.

GDF Faces a new war and new enemies, unlike they never fought before.GDF must hack the Shields and destroy the Contamination Building before its too late.

The battlefield remains full of corpses of dead Strogg and GDF soldiers, both fighting for a cause.One will win and One will lose.The fate of Earth lies within the hands of the brave soldiers known as GDF.

Title: Sibling Rivalry
Author: idhindsight, aka epoch (in-game name: shoggoth.)

Part 1:

The blades of the Bumblebee transport chopper began to spin up, scattering dust and debris from the battlefield into his eyes. The sound of the five-thousand horse single rotor was deafening. It rattled his teeth in his skull. As he strived to shout over it, he could not hear his own voice.

“I'm not leaving without Tommy!”

“There's nothing we can do for him, Wilcox!” Sargent Milton yelled, grabbing Wilcox by his flak jacket and pulling him into the bay of the chopper.

PFC David Wilcox struggled to get out, to aid his brother, even as the 'Bee was leaving the ground. Sgt. Milton held fast onto his flak jacket.

“He's still alive, for chrissake!” His dying brother Tommy, on the ground below, now shrinking in the distance, struggled for life. He could see the dark shadows of the Strogg approaching him.

Milton grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. He shouted into his face, “Tommy was our only medic! There's nothing we can do for him. You've got to hack that Shield Generator!” He paused, then, “Don't let Tommy die in vain.”

PFC Wilcox slumped into his seat, pulled off his helmet, and hung his head in his hands. Tears began to clear away rivers into the soot on his face. His only brother died on the ground below.

Joe Howzer, medic


"Every day there is a fluint stream of wounded and theres no stop to it, they just keep coming like a never ending tide. The main reason is they keep sending these rookies to the front lines and they die in a matter of seconds. most never even finish boot camp there rushing things, if the government doesn' get there act together they wont have any more men to fight this war."

April 6th Beta Devision Central
You can hear the rumble of there vehicles in the distance they where inclosing the base. Joe ran over to the radio he picked up the mike, "This is beta central anyone still out there over". "Kzzzzzzzzzt yeah kzzzzzzzzzt where still kzzzzzzzzzzt here we need kzzzzzzzzzzt evac kzzzzzzzzzzt" the sound of gun fire over whlemed the sound of the soldier's voice. Then he could hear the yelling of the soldiers then nothing. "Kzzzzzzzzzzzzzt a deep voice came on the radio this is Linch Kovane the Strogg commander perpare for annihalation human scum". There was nothing Joe could but inform his commander of the situation. He ran outside only to that the whole was in flames the men that were still alive were being torched by strogg artillary fire. His first thought was fight sadly the geneva convention decided on not giveing medics weapons that are based at command. He immidiatly started running in the direction of the bunker only to notice everyone in it was dead. He stole the best weapon he could find that wasn't out of ammo, and one of the strogg hadn't taken it as a souvenir. he ran into the bunker holding the antique m9 pistol he had snatched off the dead commander. He kept running he finally got to the hidden entrance of the tunnel he climbed in.

Outside a GDF command post. A drill sergeant is staring down a rag-tag group of soldiers. Some are rolling around in a prone position, others are shooting the wheels off nearby vehicles, others still are calling in air-strikes on their fellow recruits.

Drill Sergeant: All right, maggots, listen up! It has been my immense misfortune to land the impossible task of turning you scrawny noobies into a fighting force capable of winning a war. To turn you into men capable of taking 5 shots to the head before dying, men capable of building bridges by wiggling a pair of pliers at a couple of sandbags, men with the gall to teabag a biomechanical monstrosity while standing in the midst of a lethal artillery bombardment. Now the first step in that process is to get you to respect the laws of this unit. As such, you will begin by addressing me in the manner I expect you to address all others on the battlefield. So the first and last words I wanna hear outta your stinking holes are 'lol fag lol'. Do you get me!? When I ask you to jump, I expect you to reply with 'omg bunny-jumping is lame'. Do I make myself clear?

One of the recruits shoots the drill sergeant in the face. 6 times. A smattering of rofls and lols are exchanged in the few seconds before the drill sergeant can be seen parachuting in from the sky. He storms over to the recruit.

Drill sergeant: Ooooh you think that's funny, son? You think that's real smart, huh? Hell, 15 minutes ago I had a group that blew me apart with a tank shell, dropped an intercontinental missile on my head and ran me over with an armoured personnel carrier. So don't think you can pwn me, cos I'll respawn on your ass so fast it'll make your head spin. If you had the appropriate animation, you'd be down doing 50 right now. How old are you anyway, boy?

Recruit 1: lol fag lol, 3 days, lol fag lol

Drill Sergeant: 3 days, huh. Were you even in the beta, maggot?

Recruit 1: lol fag lol, no, lol fag lol

Drill sergeant: And I bet you never even downloaded the demo either. Amazes me they even let noobs like you create an account. So why'd you join the army?

Recruit 1: lol fag lol, because Crysis isn't out yet, lol fag lol

Drill sergeant: Uuuuuh huh. So no patience, eh. Listen, maggot, a soldier in this war needs the kind of determination I believe you can only dream of. One of my men died 763 times yesterday, and that before even the first objective was complete. Where you come from anyway, boy?

Recruit 1: lol fag lol, CS, lol fag lol

Drill sergeant: Now why doesn't that surprise me. Lemme tell you, worm, only two things come outta Counter-strike - noobs and cheats, and you missed me over 100 times before you fragged me, so you must be a noob. I've got my eye on you, son.

The word 'aaaaaawkwaaard' can be heard emanating countless times from the group in the space of mere seconds, before the drill sergeant starts up again.

Drill sergeant: Now since I have better things to do with my time than discipline CS rejects, I'm going to get straight down to business and explain to you your specific roles on the battlefield. First, those of you who aim to be engineers. You have been gifted one of the most extraordinary pieces of technology the world has ever witnessed. Something so bewilderingly advanced that even our Strogg nemeses, with their mastery of space and time travel, cannot match it. Ladies, I give you....a pair of pliers. These are your secret weapon against the enemy. These are what they fear most. These are probably what car mechanics use before they charge you $2000 to fix your car. But despite this supremacy, I don't want you to use it. At least not right away. That's correct, maggots, I want you to ignore them at first. Put them away. Forget about them. Instead, I want you to wonder round aimlessly for the first half of every battle. Even if your team-mates are pleading with you to help their cause in the way only you can, you must let their begging fall on deaf ears. Your role will be then to plant mines in areas miles from the enemy's primary stomping grounds. To deploy anti-vehicle stations when we are being confronted only by infantry. And finally, when you do choose the moment to unsheathe the tool of victory, use it to build a useless guard tower that no one will ever pay attention to. Any questions?

Recruit 2: lol fag lol, if we get pwned, what should we do, lol fag lol?

Drill sergeant: If you are dumb enough to get yourself fragged by those walking scrapyards, then you really don't deserve any help, young man. But if you have the amazing good fortune to find a medic nearby, follow these simple instructions: wait, wait some more, wait until he's so close you can smell what he had for breakfast, then kill yourself so you can respawn a mile from the front line. That's the way we've done it since RTCW, and I'll be damned if we change it now. Speaking of medics, here are your instructions. Listen up. When deploying a supply crate, put it somewhere no one will ever see it. That includes members of your own team. Stealth is key on the battlefield, soldier! Inside a bush or on top of a mountain are ideal places. If you can somehow manage to drop it on a squad member's head, then all the better. Your most crucial ability, however, is reviving injured comrades. To do this, run towards them, then stand there, cycling through your equipment, pausing for such time on each one so as to make it appear you're studying ancient Egyptian artifacts. Then run away again. Then run back to your fallen soldier, and this time try to shock him with your defibrillators. Our statistical studies for the average GDF recruit suggest this typically takes fifteen attempts.

One of the recruits, who has been paying little attention, ambles slyly away from the group, then hops in a jeep and zooms off into the distance, fish-tailing as he goes. The drill sergeant initially watches with a look of fury which slowly forms into a smug half-smile of amusement as he realises the direction the driver is headed. A few moments later the jeep suddenly explodes.

Drill sergeant: Maggots, you may have heard some of your superiors in this army talk of how there is only one man higher than this beloved corps, and that that man is God. Well, the incident you have just witnessed proves that there is a being even mightier than the Lord himself, and that, let it be known to you now, is the Level Designer. You'd have to be crazy to go AWOL on me, but you'd have to be positively suicidal to do the same with a man who can create worlds at a speed that makes the events of Genesis look like the work of a slacker. Trust me, if you try and escape this battlefield, you'll be in a world of trigger_hurt. Now, your squad mate's untimely demise may not have been in vain, since it gives me an opportunity to mention some of the other environmental challenges you may face.

Firstly - water is your friend. On this battlefield, you have been granted buoyancy similar to a fat kid
overdosing on helium, so drowning is an impossibility, even for land-lubber maggots like you. Furthermore, our nautical superiority is incontestable. Or, in other words, the enemy has travelled 6 billion miles without remembering to bring a fucking thing that can float. That's right, Stroggy don't surf. Moving on - be aware that attempting to climb a surface steeper than 50 degrees is a physiological impossibility, so DO NOT attempt it. Wall-humping is not an act becoming of this uniform and is grounds for immediate lol or dishonourable kick-from-server. It is also a prime trigger for inciting psychological warfare from the enemy. Taunts such as 'mortifying', 'SSSSSSSSSSS' and 'kill the human food' have been known to break unit morale in seconds, so do not give your opponent the opportunity to utilise such strategies.

Recruit 3: The enemy is weakened, lolseye, the enemy is weakened, aaaaaawwwwwwkkwaaaard, the enemy is weakened, kill the alien scum, the enemy is weakened, lolseye, aaaaaaaaawkwaaaaard, for the freedom of earth....

Drill sergeant: All right, soldier, that's the spirit! Give as good as you get! Now save your strength for the battle ahead, these nuanced psychological ploys take stamina and guile to use effectively. Now I'm glad at least one of you has shown some initiative today, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna waste much more of my time on you miserable excuses for warriors. I'm gonna wrap this up right now and then it's 30 seconds of intensive training before it's F3 time, maggots! Field ops - your first order of business is to weld your hands to a pair of binoculars, then to weld those binoculars to your face. Your new visage of flesh and steel will not only fool the enemy into thinking you're one of them, it will enable you to deploy artillery stations on the battlefield with a moment's notice.

Your inability to shoot or supply ammo will be a minor inconvenience your squad mates will already be well accustomed to, having seen your kind behave in this fashion since RTCW. When directing artillery, it is imperative you identify areas with the highest concentration of GDF soldiers and then pummel them into little pieces. This cunning strategy will deter the enemy from ever engaging in close range combat. A related tactic is to shell engineers jussssst as they're about to complete a crucial objective. This will lull our alien foes into a false sense of security, making them believe it is non-essential to terminate our men as they perform crucial tasks. We'll show them yet that military intelligence isn't a contradiction in terms. Covert ops - wait, where the hell are all the goddamn covert ops?!

The drill sergeant glares around the GDF base, before grabbing a pair of binoculars and surveying the hills several miles from his position.

Drill sergeant: A-ha! My, my, so we do have some men who actually know what they're doing!

He picks up a radio and begins to speak into it.

Drill sergeant: And stay there! For the whole match! Even when we need you to hack the radar!

He puts the radio down and begins to address the group once more. He attempts to remove the binoculars, but they're stuck to his face.

Drill sergeant: WTF?! DURING THE BATTLE, field ops, goddamn it!!! How can I fight with these on! I've played Halo games with better FOV than this, you stupid sunnuvabitch! Where the hell was I? Where the hell am i?!

Recruit 4: lol fag lol, covert ops, lol fag lol

Drill sergeant: Right! If you see a covert ops disguised as the enemy, I don't think I need to tell you that you should shoot them. You can never be too careful on the battlefield, GDF! Lastly, the soldier, soldiers. This is hardly the role of the thinking man, so I'm pretty sure we'll have no trouble filling this position. This class basically requires you to shoot every fucking thing that moves, including your own team. And shoot you'd better, maggots, cos what you're about to face is an enemy hell bent on the destruction or assimilation of every living being on this earth! I hate the smell of stroyent in the morning, particularly if it's the stench of it coming from good men who I was humiliating just the day before! If you wanna be dispensing spam, rather than becoming a walking tin of it, I strongly suggest you get that resolution to 800x600, get that framerate real high, that ping real low and get ready for the battle of a lifetime, because these horrors are an enemy like nothing you've ever faced before, a race with weaponry beyond our imagining, a foe with a collective consciousness so honed they operate as a single, fully coordinated unit whose strategic capability is breathtaking to behold, whose...

Cut to a charred piece of waste ground, 2 km from the GDF base. A clanking humanoid creature of alien origin is using an enormous gravity defying tank to run over a gang of similar looking beings. Another is wobbling around in an insectoid flying machine that is upside down, on fire and seconds from exploding. Several more drop from the sky into crumpled heaps after falling out of jet-packs high above. Through all this a deafening cacophony can be heard:

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Ooops! Meh. Oops! Oops! Mortifying! SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Treohaz watched his tool sparking as he worked on the slumped anti-vehicle turret. The dull thumping of the dark matter cannons shook the unfamiliar ground of this rebellious planet and brought him a measure of joy.

Every planet was the same. The natives fought, with their inferior weapons, inferior stratagems, inferior coordination. It always ended the same. Stroggification. A better life. A longer life with increased strength, awareness and purpose. Also the benefit of knowing some of the extra body parts went to fueling the Strogg. Unnecessary body parts when you consider how superior the Strogg replacements were, what difference did it make if you were still conscious when the limbs were removed?

An explosion behind him made him turn. On the ground were the remains of a human combatant who had stepped on one of Treohaz’s mines. A sorrowful waste of useful bio-product.

The dark matter cannons fired again. Treohaz considered his battalion’s goal, protecting the water treatment facility the Strogg had captured. A noble goal, one worthy of Treohaz’s efforts.

The anti-vehicle turret whirred and straightened from its pathetic slump, ready for service. Treohaz smiled and pressed a button on his arm, signaling his completion. There were messages detailing the human’s progress, apparently they’d managed to complete the bridge and were rolling through the tunnel with some form of massive machine.

Treohaz frowned. His next goal was repairing one of the dark matter cannons behind the warehouse. How could it possibly have been damaged? He made his way back through the rear lines to the trio of dark matter cannons and saw that two of the three had been crippled. He pushed a few buttons on his arm plate and released his repair drone, he sent it to the furthest cannon and watched as it flew towards it, then he turned to the closest damaged cannon and began attempting to repair it.

As he worked he noticed that the ground was rumbling constantly, the sound of gunfire was getting closer. Those damnable humans were pushing hard on the lines.

Then he heard a hollow thump, similar to the sound of the dark matter cannons, only none of them had fired and the thump had come from a distance. He looked up and saw the arcing trail of a rocket reach its peak, and then begin plummeting directly toward him. Treohaz turned and ran toward the river, leaving the dark matter cannons and the repair drone behind. He leapt up onto a metal crate and then leapt off sailing through the air and landing heavily on the dirt bank next to the river.

The hammer missile detonated. The force of the blast destroyed the dark matter cannons, the warehouse, and the blast eventually threw Treohaz’s crouched form into the river. He lay in the water, watching as debris flew over him, and then began attempting to fight his way to the surface. When it became obvious that swimming wouldn’t work, he waited until he reached the bottom and then walked out of the river.

Looking back he could see the melted humps of the cannons, the wood and metal flotsam that used to be the warehouse, and the large tank-like object the humans had been attempting to move through the tunnel. Around the tank the humans swarmed like ants, awaiting the aerial deployment of their support equipment. Large triangular helicopters swooped in over the mountains and dropped tanks, ATVs, and anti-artillery machinery.

A low buzz behind him announced the arrival of three Tormentors, bug like flying vehicles, as they swung over Treohaz’s head and made headed for the human command post, strafing it. Treohaz pumped his arm as he watched the humans get shredded. Victory was short-lived, as there were always more humans to take their place. Eventually heavy ground fire drove the Tormentors away.

When Treohaz turned he saw the gambit. The Tormentors were a distraction. The bridge spanning the river leading to the water treatment facility shook as a Cyclops strode toward the humans. The giant bipedal machine crushed a human transportation vehicle, and then unleashed its lacerator, cutting down a hundred humans in the blink of an eye. Eventually the humans mustered a defense, firing rockets from their shoulders. The Cyclops changed its form, lowering itself down to the ground to lower its profile and began firing its plasma cannons.

Nothing could withstand that bombardment. Treohaz climbed the hill and watched as the human battlements exploded in a shower of metal, fire and triumph.

Eventually nothing stood except the massive tank, and that didn’t last long either. Treohaz moved next to the shattered hulk and began separating human bodies for recycling. It wasn’t long before more Strogg joined him and they began rebuilding their defences. He watched as a small group left to clear out the tunnel and destroy the bridge.

Another day on Earth, another victory.

My short will be in Reply, It takes place in the mind of a recent captured soldier.

Title: The Reply

After the 48 hours of brutal bombardment, massive insertion of Strogg ground forces and slaughter of millions of earth dwelling beings the high command of stroggos sends terms for surrender to the only military command left on earth.

A few minutes later the President of the United States responds......

<NUTS......>

~Dragon

Sacrifice
The story of the exceptional courage it requires when the freedom of the earth ,

and the freedom of all of humanity to come are at stake . Follow the tale of one man

as he is faced with the possblitly of annihilation as a whole world bids to come together

before it is too late to stop the invading Stroggos Forces. story by enderRose.





"Those damned Stroggos , or whatever you wan't to call them , I just call them
freaks. Scientist's have all these fancy names and such, but to me freaks is just fine.
They're here to take our planet, take our lives. Well I dont know about everybody else
, but i don't plan on becoming dogfood for anybody.

Colonel Rife laying on his bunk, took another long drag off his cigarate lost deep in
thought. Now was downtime , now was a time to relax and heal. After washing all the blood
off in the shower , he was feeling a bit better , but some of the wounds he knew would take
a long time to heal. Medics had done a more than fine job as far as he was concerned patching
him up the best they could , and it was a little hard to complain when there were guys out there
still fighting misssing an arm or a leg . Courage comes easy though when the alternative is to
end up someone else's food source.

Survival not even fear was the motivating factor now and it's pretty easy to fight
when the whole world's freedom is at stake , not just your's or even the people of today ,
but for all of humanity's generations to come.

The Colonel' s attempt at grabbing a snippet of R & R didn't last long as a young medic,
O ' shaney came walking up standing at crisp attention at the door. Colonel Rife looked up seeing
the clean cut blonde haired young marine. " At ease , O ' Shaney , what you got ? Did you Come by to check and
see if I properly applied the new dressings ? "

" Sorry to interupt , Sir. but this just came in and thought you should read it right away ,
I haven't read it but from the looks of everyone else in the room who did , I belive it is maybe
good news. " O' Shaney held out the official sealed envelope trying unsuccesfully to contain the grin
on his face.

" We'll hand it here , Son, obviously it's got you in some kind of a tickle. " Rife said snatching
it from the young soldiers hand.

Colonel Rife read it , and then reread it again just to make sure it was indeed saying what it said.
" O Shaney , Good news is right , this is great news ! The EMP Disruptor has been constructed .
By blast ! Shronkel and his engineer core were finnaly able to pull it off. "

O "Shaney stood looking confused. " What does the EMP disruptor mean, exactly ? "

Rife looked at the young man in that moment like a father does on a ignornant son, then
remembered. " That's right , guess we don't keep you grunts all that informed nowadays....What it
means, Son , is the Strogg shields are down .....What it means is I"m gonna take my GDF boys
down into those sewers and kick some ever lasting Stroggos butt !

"Yes , Sir ! " O "Shaney piped up a big grin on his face, ear to ear. " Should I alert the

men, Sir ? "

Rife looked at him with a mean determined look , the same one that he had when focused on a
important task and the one that had gotten him to the top and the same one that made most men just plain
shiver. " Dam ! straight , alert them . " Colonel Rife shot out . " You tell them be prepped and ready for
battle in the next two hours , time is our only enemy here and we will not miss a chance like this to
hammer our fist down there throats , once and for all . "

O ' Shaney got up and started to leave to deliver the orders when Rife stopped him.

" O ' Shaney . "

" Yes . Sir ? "

" You tell them , I will be coming down there to do the inspections myself . I wan't
no mistakes , I wan't us to be lean and fighting fit on this one , eveything must go like a snap
out there , and it better dam well be perfect , because the whole world is counting on our ablities
today ."

A few hours later the battalion of what was being called A core , the finest soldiers in the
world assembled togther into one fighting force, all seemed more than ready,gear packed neat and orderly
ready to go , but for now their attentions were glued to a small plasma tv mounted high up in the corner across the room.
Normally no one would dare to even take the slightest breather after having been giving orders
from old snake eye Rife , but there was someone just as important addressing them , the President
of the United States.

A distinguished , middle aged man with kind eyes took the podium ,a look of grave
serousness haunted his face .

" Good evening , " he began.
" Fellow Americans and people of all of earth's great nations.
I come to you tonight with grave news . As you all know now the alien Strogg
invaders have now esclated their attacks from orbital bombardment to an invasionary
force off the coast of Japan.

Their exact intentions are unknown presently , but intillegence predicts thier occupation
of the sewer systems in Kanagawa are a two fold attempt to poison the neighboring
cities water supplies and to prepare for the landing of a full out larger scale invasion force.
We believe the Strogg there are a reconnisnence force sent to test the defense forces of our
planet and failure to stop them here , could lead to an esclation we are not prepared to handle .

Today is a critical day , for all of us. So I ask you all the peoples of the world for your
prayers for our young men and women who will soon be in harms way , fighting for all of us today .
Our hopes as well as fears I am assured will come to rest on their more than strong and capable
shoulders.

For I belive today the invader will find the human spirt to be more than a formidable
match for any misguided plans they may have in store for us. The new coaliton of GDF forces ,
made up of all the nations miltary might are ready to repel the intruder and I belive with your
faith today , we will be tirumphant . He paused a moment coming to the end of the address.

" God bless you all . God bless our troops and may God go with us all today in our
time of need. "

First there was a silence in the room , and then an uproarious cheer interupted from the
men and women of A company. Only to be interupted and cut short by one loud voice piercing through
commotion.

"Attention on deck , Superior officer in the room. "

Colonel Rife walked in and the room fell quickly silent . He walked over to the tv and turned it off ,
then walked up to the podium .

" Listen up ! you sonabitches .

Today is not about fame or glory , or getting your faces on the news. Today is only about one
thing . Today it's about sacrifice , today we will fight and we will bleed , and bleed some more.
Until everyone of those bastards take one last dying breath from their dead bodies laying on our
battlefield. I wan't to see the grass and ground stained with the blood of the enemy . There
should be pain and gnashing of teeth, and for every advance of theirs we will meet it with guns ,
bullets and blade if need be . We will let them know we are here and that this is our home and
land and there's no way wer'e about to share with anyone . So go out there and kick the son's a
bitches back to whatever stinkhole or polluted wastelands they come from. Let them know the
earth is our's , and our's alone.

Rife paused to let it all sink in , then the men broke into a roar. He stood there watching ,
looking at the men he had trained personally , the one's in such a short time as six months he
had come to respect and honour as fellow combatants , as brothers in arms. They came from
all the great miltary empries , past and present , a new international force thrown together for
one common purpose , there was every creed , nationality and color here today , the elite the
best of the best, from Chang Lee most feared sniper in the world , hailing from the People's
Republic of China , to Ugdan Taylor a huge South African man from the miltarys of Kenya , once a
revolutionary , now earth's freedom fighter , to Mark Mcintyre hailing from the hills of Kentucky , to
John Mackey whose wife was expecting a baby today . Colonel Rife felt more proud in this moment
than maybe any other in his life and it could not be more perfect if were not for the one thing he
knew he must attend to if there was to be any success today .

Colonel Rife held up his hand quieting the room , then continued.
" As a great warrior once said ." To embrace death , is to be able to kill your enemy .
death will be your friend today . So have no fear .....and for you moral types out there , know
that the good Lord , himself up above is on our side today , for the alien is not anything but
if not evil. We are crusaders and we go forth and smite the new demon whose name is the
Strogg . For the rest of you , just go and kill the motherfuckers ! That is my only commandent.
He paused once more for empathsis . " Ladies and gentlemen , do not dissapoint me today ,
for I am a wrathful god.

Everyone got real quiet , the room growing absolute quiet as they let his last words
sink in . All were waiting for him to dismiss them and get along with the inspections when
he spoke again.

" Alright people , before we get to the inspections , I'm sure so many of you are so looking
forward to , I have a bit of news to give out today. Now I don't want you all to start calling me ol
Colonel blood and guts , it's bad enough the name snake eye Rife caught on ." Some of the men began to snicker
at this but quickly stopped when they saw the colonel was not laughing along with them.

" Today couldn't be more summed up in the fact of what is about to happen ,the real
reason we are fighting today . It seem's Lt. Mackey here is gonna be a father today . The men
next to Mackey began slapping him on the back , shaking his hand in congratulations.

" His wife is expecting any time now , and don't any of you go around saying I'm a cold Son 'a
bitch , least not to my face , even though we all know I really am. But out of the graciousness of my
stony heart I decided a few hours ago to let the Lt. call his wife Susan and wish her the best and tell her how
he wishes he could be by her side today . The colonel briefly paused then asked " Mackey how is Susan doing
by the way ? "

Lt. Mackey looked up at the Colonel with a proud smile on his face .
" Susan is doing just great ! She couldn't be better Sir ! "

" That's great news , son . " Rife said with a rare smile on his face. " Youv'e more
than anwsered any questions I might have had . "

" Yes Sir , she's a trooper . " Mackey said being a bit excited and chatty on the subject .
Rife raised his hand as in a congratulatory gesture and two huge Mp's came and stood behind
Lt. Mackey , without him noticing as he was too busy engaged talking to the Colonel who if ever
did , rarely made personal talk .

" Wer'e gonna name her John , I think after me . " the Liuentant said happy and proud.

" Mr. Mackey " Rife relplied . " There's just one problem with that . "

" Yes Sir . What would that be ? he asked puzzled .

Rife looked him square in the eye and his smile faded " Susan , is not your wife's
name , it's Ruthie Lynn, and I know you didn't call her because I had your call monitored .
In fact I know you haven't called her in the last month , she told me that the other day ."
The large burly Mp's grabbed Mackey roughly by both arms quickly restraining him .

"What's going on ? What the hell is this ? " Mackey yelled out trying unsuccessfully

to break himself free. " Just what is this about ? "

" It seems we have an imposter amogst us . " Rife said plainly to everyone in the room.

" Imposter , I'm no imposter that's freaking ridiclous ! " Mackey screamed out , looking at the
faces of his squad members who looked just as confused as he was.

" The simplest little thing gave you away , Son . " Rife began again comfortable in the
knowledge Mackey or whoever he was now was adequately detained. " The men were complaining
to Doc here , he pointed to O ' Shaney who looked more than visibly shaken by everything going on.
"The men said you were breathing funny during morning pt and the Doc being a caring sort was
afraid you were getting sick or trying to hide some ailment or another , so he came to me about
it. Naturally if any of men are not one hundred percent fighting fit , you know I would yank them
out of the field , but Mackey being Mackey I knew he would probaly just lie to me , and being a hard
core motherfucker just like me would lie and go right back out to the front . So to make a long story short,
I decided to check your medical records and then even called your wife Ruthie Lynn to see if ,
something was indeed being hidden . Was shocked to here you hadn't called her in a month , a month is
about the same time you came back from that recon mission , the one were you supposedly
were ambushed and the only known survivor. "

Rife stopped and walked down off the podium to get more eye to eye with this man pretending
to be one of his most beloved soldiers. " I don't know who you are , or how you look just like him ,
but I don't care. Doesn't matter to me what goverment sent you here or for what purpose they
have to sabtotage our defense efforts . Treason is a capital offense during times of war , and I
would not be surprised if I end up shooting you myself . " He gave a hard look then motioned to
the MP's " Get this filth out of my sight ! "

The MP's started to drag him along when one of them suddlenly cried out in pain as he looked
down in horror to see the imposter had sliced almost clear through his wrist with some wicked blade ,
that he had somehow produced from thin air. The men all at once started to come to the burly MP's
aid, but stopped dead in their tracks as some wierd reddish yellow energy flowed up around the imposter
and to their shock and horror , he transformed into a Strogg ! The Strogg capitalized upon the
confusion twisting free and thrusting his blades deep thru the chest and out the back of the
second MP , twisiting as he pulled the nasty weapon free . Everything then happend in a split second
the revealed assasin moving faster than the eye could follow . Taylor the huge South African warrior
though regained his compusure enough to pick up his Smg but knowing he was too close to fire it
and would surely kill maybe half the people in the room , instead swung it butt end toward the imposter 's
head . But the strogg seeming to be more than adept at hand to hand combat tatics easily
ducked the blow of the rife butt by mere inches , and before Taylor could recover completely spun around
and struck upwards in a lightning quick swiping motion that tore open the the mighty man's junglar . Quickly
sizing up the sitution the infiltrator sensing he would not probably come out of this one alive locked his sights
on Colonel Rife , his inteded victim anyway . Just now he would do him face to face not a knife in the
back during the heat of battle his kind's prefered method . The Makron would not be unhappy with
him today he would cripple the pathetic humans all in one blow. Kill the human ! " it hissed then
like a cat leaping across the floor he was on Rife who was busy trying to get his sidearm
out of his holster , but the assasin was quicker , jumping high into the air and slamming his
blades down towards Rife's head for the killing blow. Rife quickly thinking knew there was no way to dodge ,
lifted his forearm in a high block and at the same time took a step backward , putting all of his weight on his
back foot bracing for the impact. The blades tore through his forearm ripping flesh and pulverizing bone
just barley missing Rife's face . The Strogg pulled the wicked blades out of Rife's arm for another swipe at his
targets head but was shocked when He saw Rife had his sidearm now pointed directly at him. Rife fired a
quick thee round burst into the Stroggs face , knocking the head back violently, spraying blood and brain fragments
onto the shoulder of Doc O ' shaney who now stood with a syringe , hoping to come to the Colonel's aid
. The Strogg lay dead laid sprawled out in a large pool of blood on the floor .

" Are you alright , Colonel Rife ? "

Rife stood there the gun still smoking in his hand , he had killed men before almost been killed
but this was the first time anyone had tried to assianate him.

" Yeah , I'm fine Doc, "

" That was some shooting sir. "

Rife still totally lost in the heat of battle , tried to regain his thinking looking down toward the body of his
dead alien assaliant ." Somebody get this sack of shit off my barracks floor. "

" SIr , your'e arms pretty torn up , it's real bad , afraid wer'e gonna have to amputate
it. " O Shaney said the medic in him quickly attending to the colonel's wound.

" What ? " Rife said then looked down at his now useless mangled forearm , the flesh
all torn up and barely hanging on , pieces of bone sticking out here and there . The pain was unbearable
but he wasn't feeling it yet , still being blocked by the andrenalin of combat that and most of the nerves had been
severed .

" Well those are the breaks .....We'll get to that when I get back. " Rife said simply.

" Sir ..with this much blood loss , it's real bad , I don't think you will come back. "

Rife just looked at him , with the look of a father gazing upon a beloved son.
" Sacrifice .....O'Shaney......that's what we all signed on for when we joined this war. "

" Yes Sir . I understand . " O'Shaney said then went back to his dressings " I"ll do
my best to stop the bleeding , bandage it up real good for you Colonel. "

While O 'Shaney bandaged up his arm , Colonel Rife took out a cigarate and lit it up with
his remaining good arm. He hoped it would numb the pain a bit but doubted it would . He took a
long drag off his cigarate , then blew out a long wisp of satisfying smoke that drifted toward the
cieling . Better savor it , he thought , probably will be your last , but either way he knew today
would matter , today would go down in history . Rife smiled picturing in his mind the enventual
outcome.







.

"GO GO GO," echoed through my ears as i was forced out of the drop ship. Gliding down my eyes blurred in the hot moist air free-falling 10000 feet to my certain demise. There it was, my shoulder blinked red catching my periferal vision with a offbeat tempo. I slowly reached over and grabbed my parachute release and ripped forward. quickly the shute opened relieveing me of my terminal velocity as i drifted over the enemy encampment. Darkness encoumpaced the area as i brushed against tree branches into the woodlands, but my parachute had caught on something. "Crap," I whispered to my self as i reached for my stainless steel combat knife. Slowly knawing my knife through the rope i dropped silently to the dense ground with a thud. Diving into the nearest bush i drew my gun and waited for daylight...

Eh why not :)

Flint Ironstag stepped off the bus, eyes squinting against the sun's glare. "Shit. Basic training. Bend over and hope they lubed up," said a gruff voice nearby. Flint turned, his eyes glancing up at the impossibly tall Nord who had stepped off the bus. "Name's Fizz. Fizz Rollbeef." Flint nodded. "So, what do we do now?"

"DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY, THAT'S WHAT YOU DO!" screamed a short man with a mustache like a thirteen year old Puerto Rican. Flint recognized a drill sergeant when he saw one, and thirty minutes later he was in the worst agony of his life. Push-ups had turned into squats had turned into an impromptu 5K around the base. Flint staggered into the barracks and dropped his duffel. Sarge had ordered them back to the bunk for a shower before chow, and he was eager to relax the knotted muscles in his back and calves.

Entering the steam-filled room, Flint recognized the chiseled torse of Fizz Rollbeef. Flint turned the nozzle and felt the searingly hot water needle into his back, as he sighed with relief. "Feels good, huh? Nothing like a nice shower after some exercise," said Fizz. "You mean you actually enjoyed that?" Flint laughed. "Oh yeah, just like back on the farm. Here, let me work the tension out of those back muscles." Flint shrugged- why not? Fizz grabbed a bar of soap and lathered up the smooth curves of Flint's back, kneading knuckles into rock-hard muscle. "Shit, boy, you're tighter than the ugliest girl at a West Virginia family reunion. Let me really work those deltioids... just relax my man. Let ol' Rollbeef's hands work their magic." Flint was scared... and confused... and excited. Very excited. "Looks like those back muscles aren't the only thing that needs attention," Fizz drawled with a saucy wink as steam filled the air...

An hour later, Flint pulled up a chair in front of his Intertube terminal. Loading up GlobalDefenseShack, he knew it was time to make a post that had been a long time coming...

By: FlintIronstag77

I love the cock.

The cold steel of my pistol began to calm my trembling hand as it slowly wrapped around the handle. My blood-dripped ears, still ringing from the blast, scanned my vicinity while ignoring the raging drums that was my heart. I could hear them, like rats rummaging through a filthy alley littered with trash and food. It won’t be long now until they deduce my location behind this dented and crumpled filing cabinet that’s only so tall that I have to crouch to avoid detection. But before the stench of my fear reached my nostrils, it all became very clear to me what had happened.
Apparently, the explosion left me a little dazed and confused, like a child who just fell off a swing, but this was not the case now. I remember. Joe was behind me loading his shotgun, as I trailed my Field Ops. What was his name again? I just remember shaking his hand yesterday thinking if he was worth using my defibrillators on. Before I knew it, his boot made contact with a proximity mine. Instinct can be a killer, but it can also be a savior. The distinctive whining sound immediately echoed into my system and before I knew it, I was already on the ground praying for dear life. Unfortunately, my team wasn’t as fast. The blast sent me flying across the floor, for what seemed like miles of office floor, while taking out chairs and desks with my own body.
And here I am now, staring up the barrel of a Lacerator as a Constructor stood towering over my crouched person. The impressive workmanship of such a weapon designed for taking lives such as mine did not deter me from making my next move. The Constructor began to make noises which alerted me to the other Strogg behind me that it was communicating with. As the two aliens exchanged auditory signals, I swiftly kicked the Constructor’s joint sending him into a painful collapse to the floor and before the other Strogg could muster a counter, my pistol was no longer holstered nor was it cold. I could smell its flesh burning from the projectile that left a destructive hole through its head. The Constructor attempted to reach for its weapon but my boot held it pinned on the floor. I had risen up and now I was looking down on the helpless Strogg. I noticed what had become of the office that we were ordered to secure. It was dark and filled with smoke, all too familiar of the destructive nature of the Stroggs’s weaponry. Now, while my pistol, still smoking and aimed at its head, I conjured up one important fact. These Stroggs are no less mortal than I was. I emptied the chambered and made it so.

Ten years of enlistment and you get through college and end up with a nice chunk of change when your times up. That's what they told me anyway, but life has a way of contradicting recruitment posters. As I sit in this damned hole waiting for those monsters to come I can't help but ask if it was worth it.

It's been two weeks. Two agonizing weeks and I haven't heard from my little sister. She was just leaving Sao Paulo at the time. I'd give everything I had to be there, to see if she's alive, if she got out in time. But orders have me sitting in the middle of Arizona, waiting too die in a hole that's over 100 degrees even in the shade.

Are you there Sarah? Are you alive? Please be alive. I think I could die then. As long as it slowed them down, even for a second, I could die for you.

--Last Journal Entry of James Caldwell, Private 2nd rank, 42nd Inf. Division, GDF

Heat like this should be illegal.

It was mid-summer, on the outskirts of a dusty, dry little desert town, itself in the middle of nowhere that is the Arabian desert. The Strogg had only begun their invasions a week before, catching the GDI off-balance. Now Sgt. Beringer found himself sitting in the ass of a Trojan, waiting for the god damned shithead of a driver as he tooled around with his overheated engine, in some godforsaken shithole he’d never heard of.

"This is the third god damned time today", he thought to himself, “I could fucking walk back to base faster at this point."

It was all the squibs' fault. They were the reason he'd been ordered out here in the first place. Sacrificing good men and material to protect oil reservoirs that would only be used to fuck the rest of the world over in the long run anyway seemed pointless to him. The GDI had been losing ground left and right to the squib invasion. What can you do with a hastily assembled army, against an enemy that can hit you anywhere, anytime, and with much bigger guns? Not fucking much.

The radio was always barking. Squads under fire, command and control centers being targeted left and right, oilfields, hell, whole cities, set alight, and screams. There were always screams. You'd think you'd get used to it, but you never do. The driver finally came around and switched it off.

"I've been a god damned soldier for 10 years now", Beringer thought to himself, "and what has it fucking gotten me?"

Fighting other men is one thing. You can't really call the squibs "men". Hearing what they may or may not do to those men unfortunate enough to be captured alive is enough to scare the shit out of even the most hardened veteran. He’d seen men that have stared down the barrels of God knows how many rifles and laughed go pure white after their first look at a Strogg. The metal and flesh molded as one is something that leaves an impression, to be sure. The thing that bothered him the most was their eyes. If you could see their eyes at all, sometimes they ripped them out and replaced them with other optics, all you saw was sadness, despair, and anger. There was nothing else there. They seemed hollow. They probably weren't allowed to feel anything. God knows what it's like being one of them, he didn't want to find out.

"I'd pop myself before I let that shit happen. Maybe even take a few of the fuckers with me.", the words just fell out of him.

"What? Did you say something?", the driver asked.

He was a fat bastard, that one. How the fuck he passed physical standards is anyone's guess. Granted, with the shape the world was in right now, it's not a stretch to imagine they'd be willing to take anyone capable of tying their own god damned boots.

"No, sorry. Just thinking."

"Listen, dickhead, it's not my fault this fucking thing is overheated. It's gotta be 250 fucking degrees out here.", fatty was a bit defensive, and sweating like a goddamned pig to boot.

"Yeah, I know, just cool this shitbox off and let's go, I don't like being out here, and it'll be night soon enough."

His rifle was dirty. Again. He had just cleaned it two hours ago, and he'd have to disassemble it and do it all over again back at base. The dust out in the desert got into everything, and was a bitch to get out. That would probably take him at least an hour, if he was lucky. How the hell is anyone supposed to kill squib when their rifle can lay claim to more real estate than they can? Pointless.

"I think I got it.", the fatass finally perked up, slamming the hood down.

"Well good, let's get fucking moving, I don't feel like being surprised out here."

The engine turned over. Maybe they'd actually make it back in time to get something done for once. Maybe they'd make a difference. Or maybe they'd just die trying, like all the other poor fuckers. Hatches locked, drive engaged, weapons manned, they were moving down the road.

"What the shit is that?", eloquence is not virtue when one's entire existence is driving a tin can and shoving twinkies into your face, apparently.

Beringer glanced up.

"Orbital drop", he mumbled, almost incoherently, as he reflexively readied his weapons, "we need to haul ass or else we're fucked. Strogg.”

Riding off into the sunset was something only cowboys in the movies did. He’d always thought that it meant they’d never have to fight again.

He hoped it’d be cooler where he was headed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a little rough but it's the best I can do right now, dammit.

The sign had read:

Attention! Join the GDF today and fight for your planet! Avoid the draft! Be a man!

Phil had always wanted to be a man. That, and miserable way his life was going at the time were what caused him to suddenly quit his job at Martian Buddy and enlist for the GDF. He hadn’t had a date for years, and there were only so many nights you could spend drinking and playing Super Turkey Puncher III: Feel The Magic! with your roommates.

Now he was in the middle of nowhere, helping to guard a water supply that went to…where? No idea. Everyone on the base used the term “guard” sarcastically – not one thing had popped up on radar since they deployed over six months ago. He hadn’t even spotted any commercial shuttles flying overhead.

Not that he was complaining. His basic training had been meager at best; if the stories he’d picked up from other officers were true the survival time of a Field Ops in battle were about as long as that of a unarmed scientist on a Martian base. Ho ho.

Yeah. At least he hadn’t been sent off-planet.

Phil went outside and scanned the horizon. The sun was shining and the water was calm. Every day was the same. A hand clapped him on the back.

“Hey Phil, you busy?”

“Nope.”

He could never remember this soldier’s name, and in his head referred to him as Annoying Soldier. Every other day or so Phil would run into him, and the guy would give him a booming greeting. Kind of obnoxious really.

He followed Annoying Soldier over to a small building that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever.

“Wait here.”

Annoying Soldier went inside, and came back out hefting a large, metallic tube-like instrument.

“Know what this is?”

“An alien penis pump?”

“No, man. It’s a Strogg railgun. Here, come around back.”

Phil watched as Annoying Soldier hit a couple buttons on the thing; an ominous hum began to emanate from the device.

“Watch this and try not to make any loud noises or you’ll scare ‘em off.”

He was in a crouched position and seemed to be scanning the field, which was completely empty. This went on for several minutes and Phil was beginning to get bored when he saw a small furry head stick out of a hole in the ground and make a little barking noise. A second later it vaporized.

Annoying soldier turned around, laughing. “This field is fucking FILLED with prairie dogs! Wanna give it a shot?”

“No thanks. You asshole.”

“Come on! Give it one shot.”

Phil was seriously debating kicking Annoying Soldier’s ass when the laughing man’s head exploded.

Phil was momentarily blind and in a panic. He stumbled in what he hoped was the direction of the small building while trying to wipe Annoying Soldier blood from his eyes. A second later he fell through the doorway of the structure.

Everything around him began to shake. He looked out the window to see Strogg attack ships landing and spilling out troops.

Phil looked around the building and found a basic assault rifle. Better than nothing. He looked out the window again. The other GDF were already responding, but seemed to just be running around with no organization and getting taken out one by one.

“Screw that.”

Phil ran around the back of the building again and crouched near Annoying Soldier’s headless corpse. He scanned the area frantically. The field ahead looked clear. Phil began to run away from the base in a low crouch. Then he noticed some faint movement on the ridge to his right. It was a Strogg Infiltrator and it hadn’t noticed him yet. Probably the one who had taken out…

“Bill!” Phil blurted out victoriously, suddenly remembering the soldier’s name.

He looked at the ridge again. The Infiltrator was nowhere to be seen. He slowly scanned the entire thing just to be certain. Then he heard the hum coming from behind him. He whirled with the rifle in his arms, trying to power it up and aim it at the same time. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

The Strogg cackled and raised its weapon.

Phil was still staring at his rifle’s display (DRIVER ERROR SEE MANUAL CODE 455867) when he heard the railgun fire.