Prologue

Daron, a tiny colony of the United Sovereignty of Earth, located at the nation's outer rim.

Laketown, the colony's only city.

The Gamma-Sigma, the terrorist militia that has assaulted Daron.

The United Sovereignty Marine Corps, Earth's answer to the terrorist threat.

"Lay down suppressive fire!" shouted Lieutenant John Baylor as green K-bolts - highly corrosive and semi-plasmatic railgun slugs - sheared through the corridor's walls, forcing him to duck as an unlucky teammate ahead of him lost a head. Around the corner were trigger-happy Gamma-Sigma soldiers, fortifying their area with B-NETs, anti-material K-bolters. Baylor Squad, was tasked with eliminating the remaining Gamma-Sigma in the City Hall but not everything was going quite as planned, the Gamma-Sigma was determined to make life hell for him and his marines and John cursed them. Nevertheless, John had a job to do and he intended to-

His men returned fire, sending plasma through the wall like hot knives through butter and disrupting his train of thought. "Fire in the hole!" hollered John as he took out a grenade from his belt, pulled off the pin and tossed it at the corner. The grenade bounced to the other side and John was rewarded with a satisfyingly thunderous explosion followed by pure unadulterated silence, a testament to the efficiency of high explosives in close quarter combat. John activated his sensors and exhaled, relieved that his grenade had killed every living thing on the other side.

"You crazy son of a bitch!" snapped Pvt. Jerry Lawler, one of the soldiers in front and one of those most affected by the blast. "You could've killed me."

"I didn't, so get moving," John sarcastically retorted as he cautiously stood up and directed his ten-man squad to move forward. They briskly passed the corner and John saw his handiwork, the walls, already burnt by plasma and K-bolt residue, were perforated with shrapnel and the floor was literally soaked with green Bragulan blood. John looked at the many bodies that littered the corridor, one was on its belly and was attempting to crawl away, bleeding profusely as it did so. John tipped the body over with his foot and shook his head; the soldier was barely alive, too mangled to provide any useful information. John did what any merciful soul would do: he pointed his plasma rifle at the soldier's head and squeezed the trigger, causing the soldier's face to explode outwards in a gory plasma-induced steam explosion.

"El-tee, we've got a squad of bears coming towards us. What do we do?" John's second-in-command, Sgt. Joshua Cruise, said through the comm.-link.

"Set up mines ahead of us, and then we fall back. They'll think we're on the retreat and will move in, but as soon as the mines go boom, we jump at them," John replied, a pair of soldiers taking the cue and setting up the explosives, cleverly hiding them under the corpses and in the walls' many holes. One of the soldiers gave the thumbs-up signal. "Let's go." John said, withdrawing his squad.

The wait didn't take long, one minute after Baylor squad withdrew, the unmistakable sounds of detonating explosives filled the corridor, following it was another blast, and another, the warheads erupting in a pattern that trapped the bulk of the Gamma-Sigma squad in a violent armor-shearing kill zone of shrapnel. "Go, go, go!" John ordered, moving quickly and carefully, half-crouching and leaning against the wall for cover. The corridor was saturated with dust, smoke and plasma bolts. John's HUD automatically began acquiring targets, the targeting reticule locked onto a heat signature and John let out a controlled burst, sending plasma bolts through plaster, wood and concrete, and making short work of the target. John pointed at another heat signature; this one was attempting to stand up, still shell-shocked by the blasts, and he squeezed the trigger.

The other troopers fired through the walls and clipped the remnants of the Gamma-Sigma squad and proceeded unhindered by the threat of return fire (though it wasn't like they weren't prepared to deal with it). John turned around a corner and began firing directly at the enemy who were offering minimal resistance. A measly handgun round glanced off his chest plate and John promptly returned fire, cutting the offending soldier into half with a quick and clean stream of plasma. Up next was a sputtering burst of K-bolts that scattered acidic slugs throughout the room, one marine fell to the floor and yelped in pain while a slug punched through John's left shoulder pad and another slug grazed his left knee-pad. John screamed before leaning on the wall and dropping to one knee, to provide a minimal target profile and to provide maximum survivability.

"Shit!" John hissed as the K-bolt's acidic residue finished melting a hole through the armor and began eating away at his flesh. John tried to ignore the pain, he aimed his rifle and then fired, planting the enemy with one at the head and two at the chest while the suit's ASH gel (Anti-penetration, Shock-absorbing, Heat-redistributing) sealed the holes in his suit. The acidic residue of the K-bolt was neutralized and the suit injected him with fast acting, pain killing and performance enhancing drugs. Relieved, John pivoted his rifle and fired another series of shots, while most missed their mark entirely, a few managed to hit and the other troopers compensated for his inaccuracy. John then turned his head to look at his teammate who was, thankfully, still alive though incapacitated. John's HUD identified the man. "Medic, Jedd's hurt. Get to him. I'll lay down cover fire. More bears are coming."

The Gamma-Sigma squad had backup, the HUD showed distant heat-signatures approaching their position and K-bolts began whizzing through the air, as if to confirm that fact. John pumped his rifle's underslung grenade launcher and fired straight towards the direction of the newcomers. The high explosive warhead detonated over the heads of the incoming enemy, instantaneously killing their point guards. As this was happening, the rest of Baylor squad was filling the corridor with enough plasma bolts to overwhelm the IR sensors with hot dust and shrapnel. Then the Bragulans countered with their own brand of firepower, sending multiple rocket propelled grenades straight at John's squad. Thankfully, the rockets lacked the proximity fuse of the USE grenades and ended up streaking to the rear of the corridor and exploding far away from John, however, it was a mixed blessing as the screams of his men at the rear filled the comm.-links. Immediately afterwards, intense streams of K-bolts erupted from the Gamma-Sigma formation, forcing the marines to hug the ground to avoid being torn into acidic shreds.

The second he hit the ground, John began firing towards the K-bolts' origin, him and his squad blindly trading weapons fire with the Gamma-Sigma, infrared and x-ray sensors now blind due to the background heat and dust. John pumped his grenade launcher and attempted to crouch, but an RPG screamed overhead, forcing him to hit the ground for the third time. John lay still on the ground, waiting for a follow up RPG, but there was none and thankfully, K-bolt fire was sparse at his side of the corridor. John then got up to a crouch and fired a grenade that exploded over the heads of the Gamma-Sigma squad. John got back to the ground right before a dozen K-bolts nearly sliced his head off. "Grenades! Stick them full of grenades! Use your grenade launchers!" John yelled like a madman as he discarded his launcher's spent clip and snapped in a new clip full of grenades, he then pointed his rifle at the enemy and sent a full automatic stream of plasma, waving the rifle side-to-side as he held the trigger. The rifle stopped firing and began beeping, signaling that its primary clip was totally empty. Then there was monstrous boom followed by a giant wave of dust, shrapnel and air which filled the room as five grenades simultaneously exploded over the Gamma-Sigma's heads. John, not wanting to be upstaged, pumped his grenade launcher and fired one of his own grenades.

Chapter 1 »