Chapter 1

A portal opened in the skies above the planet. Thirty shadows dropped from the portal and took off, flying through the skies, silent like owls and fast like eagles. They were headed towards the main administrative facility, Phoenix Base, after it was taken and occupied by enemy forces. Demons of Hell made their move against the Forces of Good and it was up to this special operations team to take back what was so rightfully theirs.

When the team fully cleared the portal and were on their way, the portal dissipated into nothing.

There were ten of each: ten inquisitors, ten paladins, and ten clerics in the party. They were members of an organization called the Society of Good People. The Society were the ultimate power in the galaxy. They were noble, honorable, and courageous. They were determined to extinguish evil from the galaxy.

Here they were, fighting a crusade against demonic forces that sought to consume and destroy the very fabric of existence. These demons could not be allowed to come to pass. They would be defeated, one way or another, sooner or later, because they were Good People.

The team’s objective was to clear the way for the Forces of Good, the military organization behind them, to deploy infantry and armor. Basic infantry and armor would come by drop pods and parachute. Heavy infantry and armor would come via aerial transports and escorted by fighter craft once the beachhead was secured.

It was early dawn, just before the sun rose over the planet. They were hoping to take the demons by surprise and then roll into battle backed by their allies. They were especially confident that they would win, as Good always triumphed over Evil.

“This is Inquisitor Raven, calling out to Phoenix Task Force One.”

“We read you, Raven,” confirmed Phobus, a veteran cleric and a sub-commander in the mission. Phobus previously participated in several operations under Raven. He was a good lieutenant, extinguishing attacking demon forces from one fortress and helped retake a city from another demon host.

“Roger, Raven,” said Castel, one of paladins. Castel was another sub-commander. He was itching for battle. Castel had a dozen small operations under his belt. The demons he and his comrades faced were no matter for their Good Weapons.

“Reading you loud and clear, Commander,” responded Briar, one of the inquisitors under Raven. She only had one operation to her credit, but it was a big one. Briar and a squad of mixed inquisitors and paladins, infiltrated and secured an enemy battleship, before scuttling it, in defiance of the demon host.

“The facility is coming up Phoenix. Prepare your final checks.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Dozens of clicks and snaps were heard through the darkness as the group slowed and prepared for battle. They would speed up again once they were done before the final stretch.

“Sub-Commanders final check in. Paladin Castel.” said Raven.

“My paladin core is ready, Commander Raven. We’ll crush their frontlines.”

“Cleric Briar.”

“The clerics are at your disposal. We’ll barrage their lines and force their conversion to Good.”

“Inquisitor Phobus.”

“Us inquisitors are ready. We’ll avenge our fallen comrades at Factory Reborn.”

Factory Reborn was a previous facility where a platoon of inquisitors attempted to hold the line against demonic forces. Two of those inquisitors had mobile suits as well. They were backed by robotic infantry, anti-armor bots, and robotic tanks. The demons dropped in from four dropships and spread through the facility, trampling the defenders.

When pushed into a corner, the demons deployed great abominations, powerful machines that dropped from the skies. The inquisitors scored some kills, taking down several demon mecha, but ultimately, the inquisitors were defeated, and the factory was taken by demonic forces. The Forces of Good lost two dozen Good People that day. Command was planning on taking the factory back, but the execution of that attack would come later, after Raven and his troopers took Phoenix Base.

“Final check sound off.”

The whole group gave Raven a silent acknowledgement. The Forces of Good had to win, so they would win.

On Raven’s command, the task force powered up their nuclear thrusters and made the final dive towards Phoenix Base.

Raven led the way.

“Enemy contact. Weapons free.”

Raven activated his Arcano-Tech wand. Arcano-Wands were part of Forces of Good armored suits that military commanders wore into battle. Every commander had some variation of the weapon, although paladins tended to also carry a main hybrid melee-ranged weapon as well, using the wand as a backup piece. Clerics used an upscaled version of the wand, allowing them some level of anti-vehicle firepower. Inquisitors relied on their great speed and flight capabilities, things that paladins and clerics lacked, to augment their firepower.

“Galitilde Equau!”

He aimed the wand, positioned in his right-hand gauntlet, at an enemy soldier. The soldier exploded from the force of the spell he cast.

Additional spell casts erupted from behind Raven as his Soldiers of Good engaged the Demon Host.

The battle for Phoenix Base had begun.

Yeshua, Amad, Hannah, and Sandy walked through the command and communication facility. It was early morning, just after dawn. They were doing the morning patrol, making sure the place was secured as the previous squad headed for a good morning’s rest. There were at least two squads of marines doing basic grunt work and another squad on the other side of the part of the base where they were at.

The four of them were deployed to the facility as part of a reinforcement wave backing up first drop special forces. Order Command determined that their foes were coordinating from a series of communication arrays located at this base, and sent special forces in to flush them out and hopefully take control of the facility.

According to Command, the defenders quickly evacuated the base and left without much of a fight. Some defenders tried to fight off the initial special forces’ troopers as their allies withdrew, but the marines from the first wave cut through their minor defenses and put them down. The defenders, however, had the last laugh, and took their own lives before the marines could secure their surrender.

It was odd that the defenders were mostly human forces. Their enemy liked to use robotic forces. There were also no military commanders at the base. The marines relayed that it felt like a trap, like that this was a pre-planned operation meant to lure the Order in. Command dismissed their concerns. There was nothing on long range sensors and the Eighth Fleet was present in orbit should things get hot.

Regardless of their enemies’ intentions, Command would delve into the secrets of the facility and get the information they were looking for.

Yeshua’s squad was one of six squads of spirits sent to support twelve squads of marines and a group of Order scientists and engineers. They deployed to the western secondary base. This was their third week at the captured base, and sixth week overall for Order forces. People were relaxed. Command was not expecting a counterattack, so they were free to do basic patrols while the techies poked and prodded their way through the base’s archives.

The whole base was located within a valley in a large mountain range on the planet. It was divided into three parts, two sub-bases located on either side of the valley and a center base sitting on a plateau in the middle of the valley. The center base was where the communication dishes were located. Massive wires and support cables connected the communication base to two secondary bases. The secondary bases housed power generators, capacitors, and a significant military base each.

All three bases had defensive artillery batteries. The two side bases had larger batteries, intended to defend their positions from small warships trying to land at their airfields. The central communications base was instead defended by anti-aircraft guns as the plateau had steeper sides and was awkward to get a ship in there to land troops.

“Big place,” said Yeshua to no one in particular.

“Indeed. Pretty big,” replied Amad.

“Whatcha think about the enemy?”

“I think it was a little odd that they retreated without a fight. But I also know that they’re on the backfoot in this sector. It could be that this place is just a low priority facility and it was better to conserve resources than to make a big stand here.”

As the two guys, Yeshua and Amad, talked about the skirmish for the facility and the units employed by the enemy and the tactics the previous wave of soldiers used, the two gals were holding silent watch over them, a few paces back. Hannah kept an eye on the two boys, making sure nothing was going to get the jump on her boyfriend and her commander. Couldn’t be too safe. However, she wasn’t old enough to realize something was not quite right. Sandy’s jittery was at it again.

Sandy moved closer to Hannah.

“What’s up?” asked Hannah.

“Something’s not right,” Sandy whispered to her squad mate.

“I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary.”

“I do. But I can’t place what’s wrong.”

“That old gut feeling again, eh?”

Sandy nodded.

“I can’t help but think the way that our foes retreated without a fight is hinting at something bigger at play.”

“You think that they may come back?”

“I do.

“Computer, pull up the after report of Battle 0964.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” her onboard AI replied. Combat gear used by Spirits now included a basic artificial intelligence that was able to help them access information available on the local network as well as battlefield reconnaissance. The AI had no personality but would differentiate between male and female Spirits. The AI was of little use in the heat of battle.

“Here you go, Ma’am.”

“Let’s see, a small force of human defenders guarded this place. They were armed with plasma rifles and sidearms. They had a small force of robotic infantry backing them. This is odd.”

“What?” asked Hannah.

“The report says that the humans were legitimate humans, not those metal superheroes.”

“Oh? That’s strange.”

“Yes, it is strange. We’ve encountered ‘humans’ before, on sensors. Even when we couldn’t visually identify them, the sensors registered them as the metal superheroes. Being able to go from standing to flying as if they were using some sort of jetpack is something that regular humans can’t do.

“But these ‘humans’ that were defending this place were actual humans. Fanatical just like the superheroes. But still just regular humans.”

“I think I see your point, Sandy. Hmm.”

“Got anything to offer, Hannah?”

“I think what we encountered were not actually members of the foe’s military. Or at least, were not their striking arm. I think we jumped a bunch of civies.”

“That’s a good possibility.”

“Your gut feeling.”

“What about it?”

“I’m feeling it too. Like something is about to happen.

“Should we contact Command? The other squad?”

Sandy’s attention was not on the conversation with Hannah. She was struggling to see something in the distance, high up in the air.”

“Computer, focus on that, whatever it is.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Focusing.”

Sandy zoomed to four-times zoom.

It looked like a person flying through the air...

Sandy’s eyebrows rose inside her combat suit.

“Unzoom. Default sights.”

Sandy pulled out her sniper rifle and slid a full magazine into it.

“Hannah, look alive. Enemies, flying.”

Hannah took her sweet time being shocked as Sandy pulled back the charging handle of her rifle.

Then Amad exploded.

Yeshua was blasted to the side in the explosion. His body burned into nothing, arms flailing as he fell to the ground in a heap of nothing. He died.

The two women saw a flight of metal superheroes bomb their comrades and then took off far behind them. Two of them dropped to the ground in the ground behind two women while the others continued on, striking targets left and right.

Demons of the night!”

“Ye shalt face thy defeat!”

Hannah pulled out a pair of auto-pistols. The two of them turned to face their enemy, weapons ready to roll.

A battalion of robotic soldiers dropped to the ground behind them, in the area where Amad and Yeshua were. A series of squat mecha landed behind them. And beyond them, a pair of skeleton mecha teleported to the field, heavy sling cannons charging up.

“Fuck this shit. I knew something was up with that hasty retreat,” spat Sandy.

“You and me both, girl,” replied Hannah. Her eyes were on fire behind the visor of her helmet. Of all the people to bomb, these guys had to go after her boyfriend first.

An alarm sounded in the distance. The rest of the soldiers must have sounded it. An Avatar dropped to the field, somewhere over by Alpha Squad. One of them appeared to have summoned their armor support. But for now, this was what the two girls had to deal with.

“Which one you want, Hannah?”

“I’ll take the robots.”

“I thought you’d say so.”

“I want nothing to do with these fuckers without Avatar support.”

“If you insist, let’s go.”

The two metal super soldiers didn’t make a move. Their mistake.

Sandy took aim with her sniper rifle. She put two shots into the one on the left’s head. They were different from the inquisitors they faced at the factory and the mountain fortress.

The shots did nothing. Not even flinch.

“You puny weakling! A disgrace to your own kind!”

Sandy was unsure on how to proceed. The inquisitors from the factory mission would flinch from taking fifty-caliber bullets to the head.

Not these guys. They were more like metal warriors than metal superheroes.

The one on the left responded by bringing his left hand up to level with his face, arm at a forty-five-degree angle across his chest.

“Allisdeh-Ski Aduska!”

A large energy shield erupted from his left forearm.

“Gahlucha Gahnoski Equau!”

A hammer bathed in yellow light appeared in front of the metal warrior. He grabbed at it, grasping it as he twisted his body leftward and down before bringing his arm up, behind him, and made a short hop into the air as he turned around. The hammer came down and blasted a wave of golden light towards Sandy. She responded by running into a slide, going under the wave of energy and popping the rest of her magazine into the metal warrior. This time, he did flinch. Sandy noted that these metal warriors were far more resilient than the metal superheroes, which they found out to be inquisitors from an earlier skirmish.

Sandy kept going and dropped a fragmentation grenade at the metal warrior’s feet before jumping over him via her combat kit’s jet boosted double jump. The grenade exploded before he could do anything about it.

The second metal warrior, the one on the right, pulled out a big two-handed weapon. She didn’t get a chance to see what it was as Sandy was already into cover behind some large rock formations at this corner of the base. But she did feel an energy blast barely miss her. It impacted the rock she ducked behind.