u/Guardbro — reddlx

The Lup’Hora armor was strong against munitions, that much was understood, but a shoulder check from a full-speed OBP crushed ribs straight out the back of the suit. The first salvo of strikes from the accelerated limbs of the OBP suits brought the charge to an immediate halt, with multiple taller targets being bowled over backwards or simply dropping from view. This caused the second and third lines of combatants to slam into the first, resulting in a horrible cascade of screams and the sounds of rending flesh.

Rhidi, ducking one of the blades while it made a horrifying buzzing sound as it sailed over the top of her head, plunged the tip of her blade into the groin of what she assumed to be one of the “opossum” people. Her armor accelerated her arm so quickly she punched straight through the suit, which made odd spasming twitches as it failed to stop the blade.

The Lup’Hora froze in surprise and shock as he fell across Rhidi’s armored shoulder, the cough of pain audible from under his helmet.

“Get off of me.” Rhidi snarled, her nose visibly wrinkling from under the remnants of her helmet as she powered on her blade, ripping her arm skyward with a roar of effort.

The orange Fimloi string crackled within the organs of her victim as it sliced cleanly up through his stomach and out through his collar bone, blood pouring out of his helmet as he gave another great gagging cough.

Rhidi, not in the mood to have this bleeding hunk of meat on her armor, backhanded the man off of her. The sideways strike caused his eviscerated body to throw itself to the side in a trail of spilling innards and spasming armor plates, his large intestine and stomach splattering sloppily to the deck of the station.

Those standing behind her first kill took several steps back, their blades brought up defensibly.

As Morris ripped the arm free of another taller enemy trooper, they all twitched their helmets in time to watch the Human crack the arm’s previous owner across the head with it.

The neck of the trooper made an audible snap as Morris’s strike broke their neck, and they collapsed down onto the ground in a heap. A stream of blood slowly pumped out of the stump, slowly losing gusto as the heart began to steadily lose fluid to pump.

Rhidi shook her head, bloody strands of her hair flicking from side to side as Imridit and Oin joined her flank, Inthur taking the other side with Morris, Alias, and Shasta.

The scant pause was broken as Shorsey barreled into a group of the Lup’Hora fighters, screaming audibly through her own broken helmet.

Over a quarter of her bleeding face was exposed, her merlot colored eyes wide and manic as she collided bodily with two of the closer fighters.

She whirled as she powered on her gleen-seaxes, shredding through armor and flesh with fanning sprays of the darkly, nearly purple colored blood of her enemies.

The third taller Lup’Hora trooper had thought she was spared of the little Human’s wrath, only to get snatched up by a male Human, his massive armored arms wrapping around her and cracking her spine like a glowstick.

Rhidi ground her armored boots into the decking and sped forward, her gleen-seax held low as everyone else came with her, the Dropper line smashing into the second and third ranks of their enemy with a crackling hum of their war blades.

Rhidi hissed as one of the buzzing combat knives of the Lup’Hora skittered across her breastplate, the knife leaving a deep, half-inch groove along her armor. The blade let out a shriek of metal as it scraped off of her, buzzing off into the air as the Lup’Hora fighter came down into a guard.

She quickly understood that her enemy had been trained to fight in a proper, nearly “pretty” form of knife combat, judging by the guard and footwork..

This did not mesh well with the UAA Army combat style, which was dirty, deliberate, and nearly rounding the corner of disrespectful.

Rhidi’s next victim could only look down at her leg as Rhidi stomped her armored boot through her shin, the white, pearly bone sprouting out of the armor like a frayed tree limb.

Her defensive stance crumbled enough in shock to allow Oin to jump into the air with a great heave of armor, planting both of her armored boots into the chest plate of Rhidi’s target.

Her black tail fluttered as she fell to the ground, but not without crushing the ribs of the enemy trooper and sending her flying backwards nearly ten feet.

To their credit, the enemy troopers on board Station Finland’s Revenge had enjoyed the weight of their charge working several times during their boarding action. The fact they had come up short had caught them by severe surprise, but it was not as horrifying as understanding that they were now intertangled with an enemy that did not mind getting close up and dirty with their foes.

It was around the time that Morris punched one of the yellow skinned, shorter male’s head clean off his shoulders that the enemy truly understood the weight of their mistake.

The Droppers, only losing a few more of their kin due to short range attacks by some of the more brave wielders of the shaped-charge weapons, were gaining confidence by the heart beat. The vibrating blades were having trouble getting past the true armor of their Onslaught Battle Plate, and they had managed to completely blunt the flanking charge of a far more numerous foe.

Their foe equally understood that they were becoming far less numerous by the moment, and they knew these kinds of missions were normally one way trips. Rhidi was advancing on another of the taller Lup'Hora when the opponent quickly threw down her blade, holding up her hands.

“Aptan’shi nah’hei!” She screamed, falling down to a knee with her hands still held high. “Va belqui! Aptan’shi! Apstan’shi nah’hei!”

Rhidi stopped her blade inches away from the female Lup’Hora’s helmeted nose, the orange string of power hissing and crackling in the reflection of her helmet’s visor.

Rhidi could see the wide, terrified eyes underneath the helmet, glowing orange with the promise of the death that was looming.

“Sergeant, we have some starting to surrender.” Rhidi called out, her eyes swiveling to where Sergeant Flores also had a male Lup’Hora falling to his knees, hands raised high.

“Cease fire!” Sergeant Flores screamed, powering down her gleen-seax as dozens of knees started hitting the deck. “Cease fire! Recall your blades!”

Morris, his armored hands wrapped around a Lup’Hora’s neck, let go of his quarry.

The Lup’Hora crashed down to the ground in a heap, weakly holding up his hands while his armored chest pumped and heaved for air.

“Va’ri belqui! Le keuz pasnouz, aptan’shi!” One of the smaller, yellow skinned beings cried out, ripping off his helmet and clasping his hands above his head as he came down in front of Rhidi. “Va reo appelie! Revieve au metra!”

Around the time that Rhidi glowered down at the man while pushing her hair back over her head, the Marines arrived with crates of magazines, sliding into place behind the old cover of the Droppers and laying their rifles on line.

“Droppers, they’re all surrendering." A Marine lieutenant called out, holding a finger to his ear. “Appears they received an all-call.”

Sergeant Flores nodded, reaching down and ripping the helmet off the head of a kneeling Lup’Hora. The male Lup’Hora avoided her gaze, keeping his eyes on the deck and bodies of the dead as his ears softly shook out of fear.

Sergeant Flores took off her own helmet, stomped her armored foot to get the attention of her prisoners, then made a motion of taking off their helmets, tossing the male Lup’Hora’s down to his knees.

Slowly, all the Lup’Hora and their smaller, yellow skinned compatriots pulled off their helmets.

Rhidi was surprised that she felt no pity for these soldiers, but instead felt hot disgust crawl across her skin when she saw their shaking, quaking ears, trembling hands, or the tears welling up in their eyes.

“What soldiers this lot is.” Rhidi muttered ruefully, her voice carrying along on the all-call channel by default as she punted one of their helmets across the waiting bay. “Trembling ears and quaking tails. I had no idea we were fighting children playing at war.”

Chuckling and laughter from both the other Droppers and the Marines behind them echoed through the air, which only made the Lup’Hora and their yellow skinned compatriots bend their necks harder and more shameful tears to fill their eyes.

They were the elite of their peoples, yet they were being laughed at by beings that had reduced them to their knees in a single blunting charge of merciless carnage.

With the station secure and the remnants of the Lup’Horan forces rounded up, they were left with the living members of an entire Brigade that had tried to take the station. Finnish station-trooper losses had been heavy due to the sudden attack, but they were still functional and medical aid was being rendered with rapid regimens.

After doing their own count, eleven Droppers had been killed in action with an additional thirty seven Droppers wounded, including Rhidi. She hadn’t realized it, having assumed it was someone else’s blood, but her forehead and the side of her head had caught multiple shards of fragmentation from her helmet being struck.

Without her being aware, her IB suit had injected her with pain killers, and she had started to feel a bit woozy when the medics finally got around to her.

The Void Marines had taken the brunt of the attack as they pushed ahead to gain some relief for the station-troopers, suffering casualties of their own due to their lack of all-body armor. They gave far more than they had got, though, and their weight of fire had been the main reason the all-call for surrender went out once the flank attack was blunted.

Due to the amount of surrendering enemy troopers, it was agreed upon by command of the battle group that the prisoners would be split up to keep them from having enough of a force to mount a breakout.

To Rhidi’s surprise, her bandaged head turned to find herself face to face with three familiar faces.

Rhidi squinted her eyes as the first male Lup’Hora, his female compatriot, and the yellow skinned woman with the rocket boots came into view, the three wearing cuffs around their wrists.

She stared at them, and they stared at her, realization dawning on them as Rhidi removed the bottom half of her helmet with a click of it coming apart.

“Neh hapum grisor…” The female Lup’Hora murmured, her eyes wide as she took Rhidi and her scowling face in.

The male Lup’Hora, also sporting some fresh bandages, looked down at the yellow skinned woman. “Bo’re weh lemmet?”

“Li sest pa ley meur lemmet shutter…” The little yellow skinned woman started, eyeing Rhidi with open awe and fascination, “Au’re bovan lin prave lerruero…”

Rhidi clicked her tongue at the three, then pointed down the line with their other fellows that had been assigned to the Wild Hunt. “Go on then, you cry babies.”

They didn’t understand the words, but the tone came through with ringing clarity.

The three bowed their heads and moved on, Rhidi watching them all the while.

After about an hour, as Rhidi and the rest of her Company milled around while waiting for orders, a booming voice cut across the waiting bay, all the heads of the Droppers snapping around to the call.

“1st Wild Hunt!” Drop Officer Duluth bellowed, all of the Droppers quickly turning to his voice on their armored boots and slamming their heels into the deck as they came to attention.

“HOI!” They all thundered as one, startling prisoners and causing them to stop and stare.

Drop Officer Duluth looked worse for wear, his shoulder armor missing and a good amount of nano-foam stuffed into a stomach wound that his armor had failed to stop. His face was speckled with wounds, his hands were still bleeding, and it looked like his right leg had taken three glancing blows from shaped-charge weapons. None of these wounds kept him from his command nor his presence, and he somehow managed to fill the room with First Sergeant Lower at his side.

Even now, after all this time, Rhidi could not help but be in awe at just how tough Humans were.

“At ease!” Drop Officer Duluth eyed them all with eyes caked with dried blood, then smiled. “Damn good fight today!”

“Hoi!” Rhidi called out with her fellow Droppers, all of them grinning or smiling.

“We gave this lot a good reality check,” Drop Officer Duluth began, gesturing to the bodies currently being catalogued in the distance. “Our rifles took a lot to break through their armor, but they couldn’t handle the strength of our arms!”

Once again they all cheered their war cry, and First Sergeant Lower grinned.

“We took some wounded, and we have lost some brothers and sisters, but this is our duty!” Drop Officer Duluth stated, slapping the flat of his fist to his ruined breastplate. “We fall with fire! We meet our enemies with ferocity, and savagery! We carve the path to victory!”

Rhidi screamed “HOI!” with the rest of the Droppers, their voices nearly shaking the floor.

Drop Officer Duluth nudged First Sergeant Lower with an elbow, and the man stepped forward, helmet held under his arm and his face once again with the same set tone as a bored history teacher. His dark blue eyes looked over them, and he smiled when his gaze fell on Rhidi.

The Human’s hands were caked in blood, and Rhidi had heard from multiple Droppers that their First Sergeant had punched both of his fists into the chest of a Lup’Hora commander, ripping the poor fellow in half at the waist and throwing his ruined chest towards his aghast troopers.

“Awards are in order, as well as four field promotions.” First Sergeant Lower began, pulling out a data-slate with his free hand and holding it in front of him, his rifle perched on his back in its magnetic holding slot. “Sergeant Armadi and Private Torson, step forward. Sergeant Polish, Private First Class Mattock, and Private Lawport, step forward.”

Then First Sergeant Lower glanced at Rhidi, and her heart suddenly leapt into her throat.

“Sergeant Flores and Private First Class Rhidi, step forward.”

Rhidi stepped forward, having been wondering why Sergeant Flores had made her stand in front in the first place, and her chest was hammering with nerves. As Drop Officer Duluth was escorted away by Dropper medics, First Sergeant Lower instead took over the ceremony.

“Attention to orders!” First Sergeant Lower bellowed, everyone coming to attention once again with a thunder of armored boots. “The secretary of the UAA Army and Chief of the Dropper Corps has reposed special trust and confidence in the combat excellence, valor, devotion, and battle honors of Private Torson, Private First Class Mattock, Private Lawport, and Private First Class Rhidi. In view of these qualities, their demonstrated abilities of war, and dedicated service to the UAA Army, they are therefore promoted from Private, to Private First Class, Private First Class, to Specialist, Private, to Private First class…” First Sergeant Lower grinned at Rhidi, her eyes as wide as they could go and her ears so erect they hurt. “And Private First Class, to Corporal, effective immediately by Authority of the UAA Army and the Chief office of the Dropper Corps.”

Rhidi was so shocked that she actually broke protocol, turning to look at Sergeant Flores as she stared straight ahead, though her lips held a smug, satisfied smile.

After all, she had the first Kafyan Dropper Corporal under her command.

“Objections for these promotions?” First Sergeant Lower called out, scanning from left to right along the formation. Each NCO called out a negative, and his gaze fell upon Rhidi and her own NCO.

“No, First Sergeant!” Sergeant Flores answered back with a shout as his attention fell upon her.

Rhidi kept staring at Sergeant Flores, and an oddly pride-filled and happy amount of tears started welling around her eyes.

“So it is commanded, and so it shall be!” First Sergeant Lower boomed, putting away his data-slate and then puffing out his blood spattered chest. “Hail, the Iron Victory!”

Find the audio version here: https://youtu.be/DrkdKjqeE0o
Community here: https://discord.gg/7FBAQvCKva

“Prepare for soft capture.”

Rhidi clutched her MG111, the visor of her Skógarskera Battle Plate dimming slightly as the locking lights came on around her.

She was first in the breach, shoulder to shoulder with Wheeler on her left, and Dampnir on her right.

Wheeler had been with her on their drop to XJ-1, while Dampnir was new, the female Human joining them fresh from her armor trials.

After all it didn’t take pure strength to bear the weight of the armor, it took the force of nature to move it.

“What are we expecting?” Dampnir asked through their little three-way channel, her voice breathy with the growing adrenaline.

Rhidi’s armored ears slowly came forward with a light whirring of gears. “We don’t know, the station’s defenses went dark after a huge power spike, and then they sent out manual assistance beacons from handfed launcher tubes.”

“Beacons only read ‘enemy on board’, but it was enough to get us moving.” Wheeler joined in, turning to look over his shoulder with Rhidi and Dampnir.

Behind them were the rest of the Droppers, as well as half of their contingent of Void Marines.

The infantry carriers were too large to directly dock with the station, having to load their troopers on shuttle ships, which meant that the Murphy Class assault corvettes had to be the first through the breach.

Due to their veterancy, the Wild Hunt was taking up the hatch directly attached to the main cargo and transfer area, and they could already tell from heat signatures that a hell of a gunfight was erupting in there.

After the Droppers had breached through to establish a foothold, the Void Marines would move in behind them and set up their firing positions, supporting the Droppers as they moved through the station.

Alias and Shasta had been relieved of their explosive weapons for obvious reasons; Even though the station’s thick walls were reinforced stainless steel, the possibility of having an anti-tank shell blowing a hole in the lining made everyone a little queasy.

“Hard docking, prepare for lock confirmation.”

“Ready up!” Sergeant Flores called out over their helmets, as her entire 1st Pod Section was in the lead with a few of the others. “We’re going to push through hard and give the Marines time to set up!”

Rhidi let out an easy puff of air, her ears coming back into ‘airplane mode’, as the Humans put it. “Hail the Iron Victory.”

“With fire we fall.” Wheeler replied, hefting his MG111 up at the same time as Rhidi and Dampnir.

The trio of heavy automatic weapons let out a synchronized trill of their systems doing a ready check, then the doors to the airlock snapped open with a strain of their motors.

Without an order needing to be given, Rhidi, Wheeler, and Dampnir pushed through the portal, their armored boots thundering on the deck as they shouldered into the open space of the waiting area, swinging their MG111’s up into place.

They did not, however, fire.

There are few things that can make a UAA Dropper pause, sights so unexpected that it takes a few moments for the brain to recover from the weirdness in front of their eyes, and this was one of the few rare times that was caught on active recordings.

The first time Human and Kafya laid eyes on a fully grown Lup'Hora.

Standing at an average of eight UAA feet in height, the beings were massive bruisers wearing armor that Rhidi had never seen before; The armor itself seemed to writhe and move, as if the steel bands were behaving like the strands of actual muscle that laid beneath the skin. Where the bands of steel weren’t laying across the broad surface of the body were some kind of black, kinetic absorption material, giving the armor the appearance of someone that had been skinned alive.

Their bodies were strong, thickly cored with arms and legs that rippled with muscle only known to the bodies of the forge-born Skalathir. Just from the brief appearance of them, it was hard to miss the extra thumb digit and the long, thick, scaled tails that hung or coiled in the air behind them.

What really brought Rhidi to a standstill was that one had their long-nosed helmet off, the eyes visors of the helmet flickering and stuttering from the damage sustained by a rifle round.

The Lup'Hora looked up at Rhidi, his eyes wide as he plucked a mushroomed rifle slug from his bleeding forehead.

“Is that… is that a opossum?” Wheeler said aloud over their joint commlink, his own hidden eyes wide with a kind of bewilderment that was rare for a modern Human of the era.

Rhidi stared at the male Lup'Hora, the mushroomed bullet clicking down and along the deck as he released it from his fingers; His canines were long, poking out just past his bottom lip, while his eyes were large and pale blue in color. His hair was shorn close to the head, dyed bright red and clearly styled with some sort of putty.

His ears were wide, nearly like an Earthen Hyena, but were jet black except at the tips, which were a creamy white color. There were a few more white spots along the bottom edge of the white tip, as if someone had flicked a brush and speckled the ear with white drops of paint. His nose was larger than a Kafya’s, pink and plush, while his lips were thick and black.

Another of his kind, possibly a female judging by the hips of the armor, slid in along the ground to avoid a hail of gunfire, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

She froze when she looked up, her helmet visor locking onto Rhidi’s as they took each other in.

To Rhidi’s astonishment another race came sliding in, grabbing the fallen Lup'Hora’s helmet while taking off their own.

The woman was yellow, short at barely just getting over five feet in height, and was wearing a different kind of armor. Hers was more solid looking, much akin to a simple breastplate and skirt of scales from the Earthen Medieval era. Her ears, once long, had been cropped via surgical means, brought down to a professional pair of points at the side of her head.

She was far more humanoid in nature, having a nose much more akin to the Humans or Pwah, though her lips were blue, and her eyes were a dark amber in color

She glanced up from the two Lup'Hora to Rhidi and the rest of the Wild Hunt’s 1st Company piling into the waiting area, and Rhidi saw her draw in a short, panicked breath.

They were clearly not expected.

The pause had only been perhaps a few seconds, but it felt as if it had been hours since Rhidi or the others had moved, everyone taking in the sight of the other in a brief window of stunned surprise.

The window closed when the yellow skinned woman activated something on her arm, and pulled a grenade from her waist belt in a quick, smooth motion.

Rhidi, Wheeler, and Dampnir raised their MG111s with a snap of their armor motors and depressed their triggers, three stars of light erupting from the barrels as they held down the hammer and started marching forward.

Other Skógarskera troopers started rolling out to their flanks, hefting their own MG111s and taking their place in line as Rhidi traced her weapon along the retreat path of the three enemy combatants.

Whatever the yellow skinned woman had activated blossomed into some kind of odd energy field, though it shattered like glass when a 8mm Spandau hit it. The bullet was deflected, of course, skittering off with a spark of glowing light as it was directed elsewhere, but the shield rippled and broke apart like a melting window.

It may have been strong, able to withstand basic ballistic weapons, but it only lasted heartbeats of time under the weight of fire from three MG111s. The three figures barely cleared the cluster of desks and seats that had given them a small reprieve from the Finnish station fighters before the shield fell, the furniture evaporating in a cascade of shattered wood, stuffing, and ripped fabric. Rhidi chased after them with Wheeler and Dampnir, Droppers running after them as Marines piled out into their positions and set up crew served weapons.

The yellow skinned woman, the unhelmeted male Lup'Hora, and the presumed female Lup'Hora had taken cover behind a series of low walls decorated with potted plants, designed to act as que-formers that led towards a series of offices that dealt with on-station immigration.

The three had thought they were safe, until they heard the thundering.

Rhidi, trained to chase her quarry and kill it, had broken off with Shasta, Alias, Marides, Inthur, and another Dropper from 4th Pod Section, barreling after the three as the rest of the unit fanned out.

The yellow skinned woman popped her wide amber eyes around the corner of the wall just in time to see Rhidi shoulder her way through it, drywall and lumber being turned into a cloud of dust as Rhidi moved with speed that she had never seen before.

The yellow skinned woman let out a terrified scream, slamming her hands onto her belt while holding onto the Lup'Hora.

As Rhidi barrelled through the final wall, chunks of gypsum tumbling down her shoulders as she turned and levelled her MG111, the yellow skinned woman’s boots sparked with light, emitting a jet of fire as she pushed both herself and the two others across the smooth deck in a streak of screams and light.

“Son of a bitch!” Rhidi growled, her helmet’s targeting systems doing their best to give her a firing solution. She squeezed the trigger regardless, chasing the trio with the maddening crackle of her MG111 and digging plumes of sparks and carnage behind the three. Chairs, cushions, bookshelves, and potted plants were ripped apart and thrown through the air as the 8mm Spandaus sought their target, but the boots had an impressive output.

The helmeted Lup'Hora fired her weapon at Rhidi even as she slid across the ground, propelled by the yellow skinned woman’s boots, but the standard munitions did not seem to have the desired effect.

“Does that little goblin thing have fucking rocket boots?” Alias laughed out as he went jumping over seats, rifle raised and popping off shots when he saw the three come into view.

Shasta stood and turned from where he was crouching, lacing rounds towards the main gunfight. “We need to pusssh into the center!”

Inthur came jogging along behind Rhidi, her already massive suit doing a number on anything that she made contact with, including when her armored hip sent a chair flying through the air in a whirl of legs.

“Rhidi! Are you okay!?” Inthur called out, catching up to Rhidi as she still stalked after her retreating quarry.

Rhidi glanced up at her armor; After taking ten direct hits, she had only lost a single percent of integrity.

“Their munitions lack the power to penetrate our armor.” Rhidi said through bared teeth, raising her MG111 up to the limit of its height in order to fire over a wall.

Inthur joined her, lacing rounds at the now collapsing enemy center with her rifle. “Well there’s some luck! People kept saying they were worried about me being wide and catching rounds!”

The two Lup'Hora and the yellow skinned woman screamed and scrambled behind steel barriers as 8mm Spandau rounds ripped holes through them, the two Lup'Hora attempting to return fire around the corners.

They both jutted their weapons around, pulling back on their triggers on full auto with a spray of casings.

“High rate of fire.” Inthur observed as the rounds ripped across her armor and zinged away, leaving only scratches.

Rhidi nodded her helmet, taking note of her ammo count. “They’re a danger for Regs, but not for us.”

“Heads up!”

Rhidi and Inthur snapped their heads to Marides as she came sliding in a few feet away, chucking an impact grenade towards a surging Platoon of Lup'Hora and the odd, shorter folk.

The grenade made direct contact with a hulking Lup'Hora, detonating and blowing him apart from hip to shoulder. The Lup'Hora staggered to a halt, his one remaining arm lightly groping at the massive, flapping pieces of flesh and skin that used to be the right side of his body, then fell to his knees.

“The short ones are using some kind of shaped-charge gun! We’ve lost two Droppers already!” Marides called out, Shasta, Acici, and Alias coming down around her and plugging away with their rifles.

Shorsey, Oin, Imridit, Morris, and another male Human Dropper came in around Rhidi, preparing to hold the flank as more Lup'Hora began to adapt to the battle line.

As Rhidi watched, one of the shorter beings in the simple armor hefted what appeared to be an over-shoulder rifle, the weapon glowing with a brief pulse of light and then firing a dart of copper at their position.

The shot was wild due to incoming fire, and the copper dart was off target as it flew past them, but there was no ignoring what the munition was.

“Anti-armor weapons.” Morris said calmly, taking up position on Rhidi’s right. “If those hit us, we’re going to have a very bad day…”

Sergeant Flores’s voice came into Rhidi’s helmet, and Rhidi knelt down as she awaited the command. “Rhidi.”

“Yes Sergeant.” Rhidi replied, everyone around her firing their rifles as the Lup'Hora and their allies found cover and regained their battle composure.

“Their armor is tough, seems to take quite a few rounds to punch into the big ones.” Sergeant Flores said, and she sounded annoyed. “There may be an entire Battalion on this fucking station and no one knows how it is possible, but the Marines are setting up the heavy hitters. I need you to blunt their advance on your flank so they can’t get to the Marines.”

“They’re advancing on us?” Rhidi asked, poking her head up and looking around.

Sure enough, the Platoon had grown to nearly a Company of enemy fighters, and they were preparing to push forward and swamp them. A few of the Lup'Hora were even pulling some odd little knife from their belts, and the knives looked more like little blurs.

“Correct. Hold that position, I have more suits heading to you, but I can only spare a few. They don’t get through you, Rhidi.”

Rhidi swallowed, then nodded more to herself than the voice of Sergeant Flores. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“We’re being told to hold this flank.” Rhidi called out around her with a local broadcasting channel that autolinked all the Droppers around her. “I need more ammo.”

“Coming, Kholihl!”

Rhidi almost wanted to roll her eyes at hearing Private Yiwa’s voice, the Germanic accent coming across as nearly comical.

“Sergeant Flores pulled me out of my position to bring you ammo! And I got Wheeler!” Yiwa chirped happily, running across the now waylaid waiting area with a fresh pack of ammo for both her and Wheeler under each arm.

Wheeler stood between her and the incoming firing, shrugging it off despite the smoke curling off of his armor.

Rhidi turned as the two arrived, slamming down onto their knees with a rumble of the deck plating as Wheeler brought up his MG111, and Yiwa started linking their ammo together into the feeder packs.

“How is it looking?” Rhidi asked, another concussive boom announcing the arrival of another grenade from Marides.

“A lot more here than we expected.” Yiwa replied, hitting the feeder on Rhidi’s armor so it would start retracting in the new belt. “They are tough!”

Wheeler shrugged his shoulder with a pained grunt. “Those shaped charge weapons hurt like a bitch, went all the way through my shoulder armor and got my arm with molten copper.”

“We’ve had a few Droppers from 1st Platoon’s 3rd Pod Section go down.” Yiwa said, now hitting Wheeler’s feed button. “They were moving forward to set the line and got raked by ten of the things, blew holes all through them and they went to the ground.”

“They’re gone.” Wheeler confirmed, slowly pulling up his MG111. “Marines are taking a beating as well, but it’s giving the Finns time to breathe.”

“Rhidi!” Alias screamed out, her head jerking towards him. “They’re coming! And I don’t like the look of those knives!”

Rhidi didn’t need to look over her cover to know the enemy was coming; She could feel the rumbling of the deck plating and the intensified fire from the SR-113s around her. She looked at Wheeler, and the hole in his shoulder armor.

“Think we can stand and slow them down?” Rhidi asked, her ears swiveling back into place.

Wheeler nodded. “Watch the little ones, kill them first.”

Rhidi gritted her teeth, her face a snarl as she pushed with her legs, launching herself upwards as she swung her MG111 up and around to clear her cover.

“HOOOIII!” Rhidi roared as she pulled back on the trigger, her snarl intensifying as she saw just how many had formed up on this side of the station waiting area.

Rounds poured onto her armor in a rain of hate as she hunkered down, locking herself into place as Wheeler walked around his own cover, slowly tracing his MG111 across the charging line of Lup'Hora troopers as he, too, called out the Dropper battlecry.

While they were not in the “open”, per say, the enemy had to move through a wider, tiled staging area that allowed large groups of visitors to gather, regroup, and arrange their luggage.

Handy for vacation, but deadly if it is what lies between you and an entrenched enemy.

The smaller, likely yellow skinned beings tried to throw their barriers forward, just to give themselves a little bit of cover. After deploying, both Wheeler and Rhidi focused their streams of bullets onto the barriers and quickly whiddled them down, and the things only had a few seconds of life before being shattered apart.

“More ammunition!” Rhidi snarled out, watching as a Lup'Hora tanked not five, but ten rounds of 8mm Spandau to the chest, only then causing it to stagger backwards and topple to the ground. “More ammunition!”

Brass and links crashed to the deck in a rushing waterfall of metal, scattering along the smooth ground while reflecting the bright muzzle flash of the two MG111s.

Rhidi smoothly panned her barrel from left to right, holding down the hammer as her ammo count began to swiftly drain.

“Ammo inbound, one minute.”

Rhidi recognized Rhodil’s voice, the rogue Prince seeming to always be happy to help when asked.

“Rhodil you better pump your legs like you’re chasing a fucking skirt!” Rhidi roared, then her MG111 ran dry with a click. “Shit!”

Wheeler swung his MG111 around onto his back, the arm locking it into place as he drew his SR-113 rifle in one hand, and his gleen-seax in the other. “It’s about to get sporty, Rhidi.”

“Right.” Rhidi grouched, swinging her own MG111 around into place on her back and pulling out her gleen-seax. “Glad we’re not fighting something eight feet tall.”

Wheeler just chuckled, bringing up his rifle and firing it on full auto as the rest of the Droppers ran dry, vaulting over their cover with melee weapons in hand.

Normally, their combat load would have been more than enough to hold onto this flank, but with each large combatant taking nearly half a magazine to put down, ammo ran dry far quicker than expected.

“Marines are inbound with ammunition, hold firm.”

Rhidi didn’t recognize the voice, and purely by the cadence alone she knew it must have been one of the Marine commanders.

To her surprise, she found Sergeant Flores on her left, gleen-seax in each hand. “You leather necks better hurry up, we’re going into deathstand protocols.”

“Shit.” Was the reply, something that made Rhidi’s hair stand on end.

“Good evening, Sergeant.” Rhidi murmured as seven rounds from enemy rifles pranged off of her armor.

Sergeant Flores nodded. “Ready to get stuck in?”

“It’s a day that ends in ‘Y’, so.” Rhidi chuckled, causing the other droppers around her to bark out their own laughter.

The laughter was cut short when a munition from a shaped-charged weapon caught a glancing blow off of Rhidi’s helmet.

Rhidi spat out a curse as her head was jerked hard towards her right shoulder, but she was spared the worst of the molten copper shards that desired to separate her brain from her skull case.

The heat and impact was enough to deadline her helmet, the visor falling back onto limited emergency power and filling her ears with warnings to remove the helmet as soon as possible.

Rhidi spluttered out another choice stream of words as the helmet used the last of its power to plug in her inner-ear noise protection buds. Her helmet hissed as it cracked along the bottom seams with little pops, then deployed an emergency re-breather that sucked itself close to her nose and lower jaw. She felt the atmogel deploy and squish onto her fur and skin, giving the lower jaw of her helmet a perfect seal in case of water or to better assist with surviving in the void.

She was thankful she wasn’t outside in space, as the helmet would have filled with more atmogel to keep her eyeballs from boiling and keep her alive enough for retrieval.

Rhidi ripped her head free from the smoke slowly building up due to burning circuits, and tossed the top of her ruined helmet to the ground. It clattered away as she shook her head and ears, her hair falling down in sweaty strands around her half-helmeted head.

“You okay?” Morris asked, coming up hard to her right while firing what was left of his ammunition.

“Well enough to meet this charge.” Rhidi replied, though her voice was slightly muffled due to the atmogel.

Another Dropper from 3rd Platoon staggered backwards, clutching at his hip as a shaped-charge munition hit the joint, and he fell to one knee as other Droppers moved forward to cover him.

Dampnir charged forward as well to cover her fallen battle brother, throwing down the ruined remains of her MG111 and pulling out her gleen-seax. “I just got this fucking thing! You assholes are going to get it!”

The enemy was within twenty feet and starting to pick up speed, holding their blurring little combat blades high as they closed the distance.

“Ready!” Sergeant Flores bellowed out, reversing the grip on one of her gleen-seaxes as she powered on the generators within.

Everyone bellowed out their Dropper war cry, “Hoi!” filling the communication channels as the air began to crackle and glow with the orange light of gleen-seaxes being powered on.

“HOI!” Rhidi bellowed, her eyes narrowed as her own blade glimmered to life.

With a growl of satisfaction, quite a few of the enemy looked a little more cautious and worried in their gait.

“With fire we fall!” Sergeant Flores commanded, smoothly launching forward into a sprint. “Tally ho!”

The returning war cry from the Droppers was loud enough to be audible from their helmets, their suits lurching into motion with a swift, sudden push of powered armor.

What the enemy couldn’t know is how the knives they carried were only the secondary weapon when a Dropper went into melee.

The first, of course, was the Onslaught Battle Plate itself.

Many of the shorter enemy combatants skittered to a halt at the sudden forward momentum of the olive drab suits, as well as the look the “unhelmeted” one was giving them.

Unbeknownst to Rhidi, the entire battle line had gotten a good look at her, and everyone had quickly shared scattered communications about the “angry looking one in the yellow fur”.

The sounds of the Droppers charging forward in their heavy suits and slamming into their taller enemy left an actual scar on the air, the sound akin to a humvee of old hitting a bison.