[color=orange][center][h2]Plutonian Outpost, 588th Army of Humanity[/h2][/center][/color]

Line by line, the Griks fell dead like brittle branches swept away by a summer wind. The violent drum of Krak! Krak! followed by the screaming war cries of the Grik painfully pierced Barry’s ears, but he had to keep shooting, at least until his gun ran out of ammo. The Griks were getting awfully close, their strange banana-bread scent contrasting with the full-on bloodshed occurring at the moment. 

One of them reared back, spear in hand, and slung it at Barry, who ducked just in time. However, the projectile slammed into the grunt behind him, piercing his armor and sending him flying back into the ranks. The lieutenant dodged the flying body, and raised his sword once again.

“Form up! Do not break rank!” He commanded.

[i]Easier said than done,[/i] Barry lamented.

The Griks weren’t even half gone when the soldiers all felt an otherworldly rumbling. The veterans of the army knew the sound all too well. On the horizon, great, lumbering beasts with star-forged hide headed towards the lines. One dreaded word hung in their minds.

“BRUMAK!” 

As if they needed to announce their presence even further, a few of them grabbed hold of boulders and began to hurl them towards the North lines, smashing swaths of Human soldiers along their paths. Barry dodged one, and another nearly smashed Captain Faraday’s company. Speaking of the Captain, she was pissed, to say the least; shouting orders left and right and firing back at the Griks. 

“Machine guns! Where’s our goddamn machine guns!” She yelled.

A burly man wearing heavy gear ran up next to Faraday, and with him, a big-ass machine gun.

“Got it, cap’n!” 

He readied it on top of a sandbag, and let loose. A combination of the thunderous roar a hail of bullets cut a path through the Grik, and they fell faster than they could replace their ranks. Black blood sprayed into the air as the 7.92mm shrapnel rounds all but halted the Grik advance, at least in their immediate sector. Around them, however, the soldiers weren’t doing as well. 

Griks had penetrated their defenses, and troops were being mercilessly slaughtered. Barry watched in horror as a grunt was all but decapitated by a jagged blade, and another one had her arms torn off and was beaten bloody with the detached limbs. Barry tripped over a corpse as he tried to run, and as he crawled away, he saw that the dead soldier couldn’t be older than twelve. It was hard to tell though, with the axe buried in the kid’s face.

[i]Fucking hell. Fuck... Just get me away from here![/i]

The Lieutenant was fighting off three Griks, parrying their blows and strikes with lightning-fast efficiency. In a matter of seconds, he had dispatched them. However, his moment of glory was gunned down by another pale-skinned alien who wielded a firearm. Barry barely felt a thing. His instinct was to survive, and as both Grunts and Griks fell around him in droves, he lost his rifle, and shot blindly at anything that looked remotely pale. 

“FALL BACK! FALL BACK!” Captain Faraday yelled. 

The mass of soldiers began to fall back in a panic, and the Griks chipped away at the unlucky ones at the back. Meanwhile, a Brumak burst through a wall, crushing a few unlucky grunts under its feet. Some soldiers turned around to fire at the stone giant, but their bullets may as have well been pebbles. The Brumak simply swung a chain attached to its wrist, wiping out about a dozen grunts in a single strike. 

The five notable soldiers were lucky to make it away from the massacre, and away from the captured outpost. The bad news was, they were on an open plain. And once again, Griks spewed out of the rubble, followed by the Brumak. 

[i]Goddamit, you fucking Bulwark![/i] 

Electricity shot through Captain Faraday’s nerves, and without delay she reloaded, switched her rifle to automatic, and fired a storm of bullets at the approaching Grik. The other grunts, including the notable five, raised their inferior rifles to let loose a final hail of bullets towards the surrounding enemy. 

They were getting closer, and Barry could tell that people were beginning to panic. Grunts dropped their mags, others threw whatever they could find at the approaching Grik in a futile effort to slow them down, and some simply ran out towards the savage enemy, trying to bat them away with their empty guns. He couldn’t help but feel hopeless. Truly hopeless.

[i]Is this where I die?[/i]