[i]"Command channel was compromised! It's a trap! GET OUT OF THERE!"[/i]

"What?" was the only word Harold had managed to spout before everything around him gorged itself upwards in thick clouds of dust and dirt, accompanied by the sounds of the most terrible thunder. His visual display shook as Rostosov itself, even with its titanic bulk, was rocked around. Suddenly, the haptic controls weren't responding, and he was being pulled into and pushed away from his seat. The great pillars of stone were being rent apart with the force of a god. Flashes of red and white and orange overpowered the light of the sun.

Yet with the furious events going on, Harold's thoughts found a place for philosophy. The quote was old, so ancient, and yet still so painfully applicable: [i]Know your enemy, and know yourself, and victory will follow.[/i]

As Team Sigma was just a half-working pile of several people with radically different personalities who just met recently, they did not know themselves. And as far as Harold knew, no-one had ever actually seen the enemy they were fighting right now, except for Sigma. So they also did not know the enemy.

Their folly was overconfidence. And Harold felt guilty in that he proposed this ridiculous plan that would only have worked under the most perfect conditions - that the enemy would make a clean, frontal assault that would be easily pushed back. His hands clenched hard against the yokes and sweat began to drip from his forehead. Hell, why did he even suggest it? He graduated as a Starfighter pilot, not a Marine.

"Harold," he muttered to himself, "you son of a bitch. You did it again. You got people ki-"

BAM! A shell landed almost directly in front of the Rostosov, stressing its metal frame to the point where it groaned terribly. Only a goddamned rock had saved him from the worst of it. This roused him from his line of thoughts, and was enough for him to return his focus on what was at hand. He turned awkwardly to the right, and there, even amid the chaos of the world, he could see it - the silver armor of the Paladin, and the sunlight gleaming off of Pompey.

"ELORA!" he yelled. "GIVE ARIIN THE EXACT COORDINATES FOR THEIR ARTILLERY IMMEDIATELY! ARIIN, PREPARE TO COUNTER-BATTERY RIGHT NOW AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FIRE AT FUCKING WILL!"

It looked like artillery. It should be artillery. The Paladin should be able to fire back, right? Pompey could perform indirect fire - right?

And hell, did Elora even actually [i]see[/i] their artillery? All he had were vague dots on his map, and her unclear report.

They really did not know themselves. Harold, at that point, began to laugh, as he began to run towards Zone G.

"You sons of bitches," he muttered. "I fought the Aliens! I survived! You think you're fucking tough, huh?! Just wait till I get to you - I'll tear you the fuck apart!"

"Sigma," he yelled again, "you're on that big obelisk, right? If you can see the bastard shelling us, [url=http://puu.sh/nEEan/e4f85a9c0c.mp3]GIVE HIM ONE IN THE EYE[/url]!"