The dangers of Hate

Earth was burning. She may have been locked away, surrounded by nothing but reinforced concrete and force-fields on all sides, forgotten by the world at large, but it was hard to miss the end of the world. There was the telltale buzzing of a Warhawk bomber whisking past the prison complex, undoubtedly delivering his cargo with unmitigated precision. She smiled when the disruption-charges it carried hit. That was the nearby anti-air tower, reduced to molten metal and debris. She laughed as the defenders returned fire sporadically. They had lost too much and this area did not have the defences needed to put up a proper resistance. It held very little importance after all. Who'd want the prisoners?

The old woman's thoughts were interrupted when she heard the guards run into the hallway. Captain Roald's voice came through the speakers. The glorious second in command to which ever devil was currently in charge of Installation 00. Where humanity's worst, aka political enemies and problematic personalities, criminals were locked away and forgotten at large. She wished she could see what was happening. Alas, that was beyond her. The soldiers came closer to her cell and she stood up, walking towards where she knew the force-field to be. She leaned against it, listening intently.
Oh Roald, she thought, grinning as the man barked for choke points to be set up. You have no idea what's happening, do you? She nearly purred it, vengeful delight warming her brittle bones.
Her grin faded as the force-field shut off and she fell through it, only to be roughly grasped by at least two soldiers.
"Help me take her to the incinerator!" someone barked.
She struggled. This hadn't been expected. She didn't want to die. Not yet. No. She wanted to see it end.
She turned to face the soldier and growled at him, drawing his attention.
"Come on wench", he spat at her. He underestimated her. Fair enough, she was old to the point of being ancient, she had starved for months and had taken more beatings than she cared to recall and her eyes had been plucked out and left to fester. So maybe his estimate was fairly accurate.

She managed to twist her arm free and reached for his knife, finding it where regulations dictated it had to be.
No, she affirmed, slamming the knife into his face. His estimate is completely off. The other soldier reacted quickly but not professionally and tried to disarm her, reaching for her wrist. His reward was a distracting kick to the balls and the knife in his eye-socket.

She spat on where she thought there bodies were.
"Fuckers. I served as a commando before climbing the ranks." She spat on them again for good measure. This was part of the reason why she had done it all. To get rid of weaklings like this. She listened for more footsteps but found none. Strange. There should be more men running around then just the pair that had come for her. Why weren't there—
A massive explosion rocked the building, she recognised it as a breaching charge, high yield.
Oh, she thought, picking herself up from the floor. That's why.


Several floors lower Captain Roald wondered what in God's name had just breached his perimeter. The armoured fucker had picked off the guards manning the wall, somehow vaulted over the outer doors, blew a door made to withstand fucking tank shells to pieces, and was now turning the prepared chokepoint into a goddamned abattoir! From the monitor he saw the armoured devil turn his veteran guards into chunks of meat, its carbine barking constantly, every cough of the weapon claiming another life.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!" he shouted, reaching for the mic. "All units, we have an intruder, switch to your heaviest load-out, do not let the bastard live!"
The man in the entrance turned to look at the speaker, threw something at it and every screen in the command centre exploded as a major overload happened, safety measures be damned.
Roald dove for cover as shrapnel peppered him and his crew, covering him in cuts and scrapes as shards of glass and fragments of metal ripped through his uniform.

"Well now," the old woman commented, stumbling along the wall. She wanted to find someone before it all ended. Her time was running out, but that was alright. She had done her duty. She was content. She had lived long enough and she had, through some miracle, seen her plans come to fruition. That the galaxy burned as a result mattered a lot less to her. It would be worth it. She just wanted to see the girl again. She did not know how the intruder had finally found out that she was still alive, but she was glad. She deserved to live. He would need her. Her skill, her expertise, her loyalty. She grinned. Loyalty. Ironic that she of all people gave a damn about loyalty. Alas, that torch would be for the new generation to carry.

Shots and explosions rang through the hallway. She had to hurry. He'd shoot her on sight if he caught as much as a glimpse of her. She didn't mind. She deserved it. But she just wanted to talk to her one more time. Maybe find some solace in explaining her actions before her thrice damned soul would go to hell to burn for all eternity. At least she'd be in good company.
"Ma'am? Are you alright?" came a young voice. She reared back, fists raised. Dammit, how did the bastard make it seem so easy? She hadn't been aware that someone else was near her.
"Don't worry ma'am, I'm not a guard, I'm—" his breath stalled in his throat.
"Good heavens, what have they done to you?" he asked, incredulously.
"They plucked my fucking eyeballs, what do you think it looks like, you shit for brains? Now get over here and help me. There's someone I need to meet a level down from here."
"Yes ma'am!" the young man yelled. She grinned. She could still put off the commanding voice. They hadn't taken that from her. She felt his arms take hold of her as he supported her. Coming as close as needed while staying as far as possible. Was he simply scared of her, or was he disgusted by her appearance? Maybe both.
"What're you in for, kid?" she asked as her guide navigated her through the occasionally shaking complex, cursing her slow speed.
Christ alive, he's not taking half measures, is he?
"Guess I wrote the wrong stories, ma'am. Asked the wrong questions," came a resigned reply.
She stopped, turning her vacant gaze towards the young lad.
"You're Penton's kid, aren't you? What was it again. Lucas!" she snapped her fingers as she recalled his name.
"Yes ma'am. How did you know?" came his surprised reaction.
"'Cause I signed the death warrant for him myself, before whisking the fucker off planet."
"You—! I— He—" the lad stammered, causing a vicious grin to appear on her wrinkled face.
"Yes. Your father's alive. I stashed him away on my command ship. The execution was faked. Didn't know you were just as ballsy as he was though."
She sighed, realising she was never going to reach the other cell in time.
"Stop," she ordered the lad, leaning against the wall.
"Listen kid. I reckon there's some shit that should outlive me. Shit that your generation never knew. Shit your father barely knew. Deep state levels of secret shit. About us. About humanity and our place in the stars."
She could sense the young man nodding and imagined a placating smile on his face. He was humouring her. The bastard.
"Listen kid, I'm locked in here as well. That means something, don't you think? And they went as far as plucking my god damned eyeballs out of my fucking skull. Then left me to rot. That was at least several months ago. Still alive though, eat your heart out Carol ya bitch. You may not recognise my esteemed figure the way I am now, but I'm High Admiral Leona Diriva. Esteemed member of the Senate of the glorious United Republic. Proud member of the noble Inner Council and a whole load of other titles I don't give a shit about."

She could feel him pale and God's tits, wasn't that satisfying?
"Aye kid. That's me. And they locked me away because they finally figured out some nasty truths. Help me to the cafeteria. I want to sit down while I talk. You can go into the com's centre and get something to record. And fetch us both something to eat."
"But the guards—" he began, only to find her waving it away.
"They've all gone to stop our good friend down here. And he's not the type to leave survivors. Guards are all dead and all the prisoners are either escaping or have been told to stay put. Now hop to kid. I want to get my story out there before the roof flattens my sorry ass." She kicked him and felt slightly bad about it. Not that she kicked him, but that she had to lean on the wall to give it sufficient force. Old age. She hated that it caught up with her. Soon it would all be over though. His allies would be following him. She grinned at that. She could imagine them trying to catch up with him, cursing and swearing every step as they cleaned up his leftovers.

It took her far too long to reach the cafeteria. It didn't help that the bastards had restructured part of the building through a liberal use of explosives in their desperate attempt to hold him off. Not that it'd mattered. Not to him. She sighed, a flood of memories coming back to her. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. So much pain and destruction. Betrayal and anger. And Hate. That most of all.

"Right then kid, are you ready for the story of your life?"
"Yes ma'am," came the eager reply. She smiled at that. His father had risked his life in his mad endeavour to find the truth, the sole truth and nothing but the truth. It had nearly gotten him killed, but his kind was needed for the future that she wanted. The future that she needed. That humanity needed. Seeing his son take after him brought a metaphorical tear to her non-existent eye. Penton would be proud.
"So you'd like to know then. How it all started. How the corruption of our overly political government brought the strongest nation known to mankind low. How the United Republic managed to lose its undefeated military to a group of upstarts that refused to die. How a small group of rebels managed to set foot on Earth, the most heavily defended planet in the universe. To tell you that, we must first establish a few ground rules."

She held up a finger. "One. What you know, what humanity knows, about the galaxy at large is bullshit. We're not the supreme nation. We're tiny and mostly left alone in this godforsaken corner of the galaxy while the truly powerful species play, ignoring us like the insects we are."
A second finger came up. "Two. Humanity used to stand for something. Something nearly everyone forgot. Something the military needs to survive. Loyalty. Brotherhood. Standing by one another even unto death. Especially unto death."
A third finger. "And a long time ago a retired High General was given a freshly conquered sector to govern. Freshly won from the Confederacy. He instituted slavery and forced them to breed, pulled the resulting embryos away from their parents, through lethal force, and put them into a laboratory. What followed was a lot of gene-crafting and the most gruelling military training you can imagine. They lost a few kids at the start, but they started banding together faster than you could deem possible. These kids were known as the Grafted, named after the genetic bullcrap that they were put to before and after birth. They were raised and trained to be the ultimate soldier. Smarter, faster, tougher, with undying loyalty. The mad bastard succeeded and by the time the first batch were sent into war for their twelfth anniversary, they managed to pacify the enormous rebellion that was tearing his sector apart. Despite being impossibly outnumbered and outgunned, they won. They made use of psychological warfare, committed warcrime after warcrime, held nothing back and did everything they could to achieve victory. Their losses were staggering but it never deterred them. Only victory mattered. The Grafted were born and history was forever changed."

She shook her head warily. Nobody who saw the action reports would forget them coming into existence. The perfect army of super soldiers. Not a group of lone wolves, but an army of elites, forged together into a single unit. They had been beautiful. The Republic's strongest force.
"Then at one point, politics happened. Their armies weren't pulled out of any fight. They fought until they won and then went onto the next war. On and on, until the High General died and his successor refused to continue the project. But that didn't matter. There was still a full division of them left. Twenty-thousand men and women, led by the most capable officer even they had ever known. The man had altered how his army functioned, but it had only made them more effective.

It had also made them seem like a threat to the Inner Council, who ordered them terminated. It was a hot debate, plenty of us refused to accept what was going to happen. We couldn't just sacrifice our elite unit, an army that had redefined the very idea of what elite meant. So a deal was struck. They were sold to the enemy. We'd sacrifice them to a man, giving them the option for better peace conditions, but in turn the pockets of the Inner Council would be lined with gold and silver. I hated it. I voted no. I was alone and overruled. I had to accept, gnashing teeth all the way."

Lucas' nearly vaulted back when he saw the expression on her face. Pure hate and fury wrought her wrinkled skin into something monstrous.
"So the orders were sent and twenty-thousand of the best men and women I ever had the honour of serving with were sent to a bloody death."

Through the fire and the flames

"All right lads, we all know the plan", Commander Victor said without preamble, walking onto the platform that was covered with dozens of officers. He smiled warmly at the men and women under his command. His soldiers. He knew what others called them. Freaks of nature. The Grafted. As if it was an insult. He didn't care. None of them did. They cared only for one another and for victory. For doing their duty. They knew they had been made to do that and just that, but that didn't matter. They owed everything to the Republic and understood the why's of it. None of them would shirk from their eventual fate.

"Down there is the lovely world of Salaisuus. It's beautiful this time of year. Fortresses all over, rows of artillery for ground and space purposes nestled behind or on top of a trio of walls that are about exactly twenty metres high, a massive minefield in front of it, snipers perched on top, no option for air support on our side and a natural chokepoint leading up to the wall." The officers chuckled at that and Victor continued.
"Naturally, Command has invited us on this sunny day to have a picnic in the midst of those guns. We're tasked with providing the fireworks and making sure their shield generators go down, that the guns are reduced to scrap and that their entire power supply goes up in flames. Or debris. I'm not picky." Laughter this time.
"Estimated enemy numbers are hundred and twenty thousand men, supplied by the XXth and XXVth Armour Corps and the VIIIth and XIIth Heavy Infantry Corps, meshed together in the glorious Confederate Ist Army. Lads, I'll not lie. By the time we're through that fucking town I want them all dead. I don't care how you get it done, there will be no survivors, got that? These bastards are responsible for the bombing of Novab Prime and the deaths of our sister division. This is for them as much as it is for the Republic."
No laughs this time, but grim nods.

"Right then." He opened the tactics screen and called up the image of the landing site. This battle would be grim and cost them many, but they would make it. Thank God the enemy hadn't managed to install their artillery on the walls yet and that they didn't have any gunships or this would be a glorified suicide run. They would make it however. They were Grafted. They always succeeded, no matter the cost.



Victor walked towards the Captain's room. He had been there quite often. The captain of the Ulysses was probably the closest any foreign officer had ever come to friendship with a Grafted. He double and triple checked his uniform as he headed to the door, making sure it was immaculate, before knocking. The door slid open. Minor breach in protocol, but a Ship Captain outranked him anyway so he couldn't really say anything.
"Sir!" he shouted, jumping to attention. "Commander Victor, at your service sir!"
"At ease commander. Come in and close the door."
He obliged and as soon as the door sighed shut, the young Captain sighed deeply and threw a map of dossiers at him. He caught it with one hand, before snapping back into position.
"When I said 'at ease', I meant cut the crap and sit down you damned bastard," the Captain cursed. If the smile hadn't been a dead giveaway, then her tone would have been. She hated him sticking to the rules. Aside from him having to do so, it pissing her off just made it more fun to do so.
"This could be seen as a breach of regulations—"
"—regarding permitted levels of fraternisation between officers of rank OR-7 and higher. Section eight, paragraph twelve. Yes, I know. Now I'm ordering you to cut all that crap and let loose for once before security has to come in here and prey my fingers of your damned neck."
"I feel obliged to point out that wouldn't be very effective Captain," he said, eyes twinkling.
"Don't you dare!" she warned him.
"You're far too weak!"

With a scream she vaulted over her desk and put her words into action. She didn't know what was worse. That she was every bit as ineffective as he had said she would be, or him remaining utterly stoic under the assault. Even when the chair fell over and she crashed on top of him. He coughed.
"This would definitely be seen as a breach of regulations Captain," he informed her. She headbutted him for good measure, hurting herself more than him, but God DAMN if it wasn't therapeutic.
She climbed off him, stomping on him for good measure, then got to her seat again, trying to regain a semblance of dignity, which failed when she saw him fretting over his crumpled uniform. Then her facade failed entirely and she gave him a worried look.
"Are you sure about this Victor? You and your men are wading into a death-trap tomorrow."
"We're up for it Captain."
"My name's Lena, Victor."
"I know, Captain," came the professional response.
"Then use it."
He gave her a stern look, as if the very idea of him going against protocol disgusted him.
"With all due respect, Captain. No."
Well he switched the order of his words around. Probably as close as she'd get with the bastard.
She sighed and stood up, walking to the nearby projector and activating it.
"You and your men will land here," she said, indicating the landing zone. "From there you'll have to cross two kilometres of open ground, littered with mines, without any cover, charge a wall that's filled with enemies, get over it, and do it two more times, with mines being exchanged for fucking tanks. You're going in with a one to six disadvantage. Without any air support, until you get their guns down. Drop the Grafted act for one damned moment Vic and admit it, you're all going to die."
"No Captain. We are not. We're going in, and we're going to win." She met his eyes and saw only dedication there.
"Dammit Victor! You damn near make me believe your crap!" That seemed to shake him.
"You... doubt us, Captain?"
"I.. yes, no, I don't know! If you say you'll make it I damn well think you will. But how many of you will make it out?" His eyes widened ever so slightly. Any other human would've flinched.
"I estimate half of my division will not make it, Captain."
"Is that WIA and KIA?"
There was a slight pause before he answered.
"Killed in action, Captain."
"DAMMIT VICTOR!" she shouted.
"I'll take it up to my mother. She's a damned Admiral! We should shell their position and overload their fucking shield!"
"Their guns will tear the fleet to pieces, Captain."
"Not if we're fucking careful! We can move our ships goddammit! Before the shields go out! It'll take more time, that's all! Better to waste a few days trading shots and not losing anyone than sending you in! You guys are heroes, Victor. You're the last of your kind. You're supposed to be used sparingly. You're not supposed to go in there and die en masse for a few days that don't matter anyway. The Confederacy doesn't have any fleet in the vicinity anyway."
Victor stood up.
"Captain, that intel is not for me to know. What the Republic knows about Confederate fleet movements is classified, only to be known by the Fleet." His face was an iron mask. She couldn't glean a single emotion from it.
"NONE OF YOU WOULD FUCKING BABBLE! You lot DIE before you get captured!"
"It could happen, Captain."
"Millions of Grafted have died, Victor," she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
"Yes. Captain," came the curt reply.
She sighed, falling back in her chair. She wouldn't get anywhere with him. Gods above, he was an intelligent man, frighteningly so, but he was so indoctrinated and blind to so many things that she wanted to (and often did) scream at him.
"You're dismissed, Commander Victor. Good luck tomorrow."
He stood at attention and performed a perfect salute. "Thank you Captain. May the Republic be ever victorious."
She waved him out and was proud of herself that she didn't turn into a crying wreck until after the door closed.

He was her only true friend, as pathetic as it was, and he was off to the mother of all meat grinders.

Victor was looming over the tactical display. He should be asleep. It was the middle of the night and the invasion started at four hundred in the morning. The reason he wasn't was that there was something niggling at the back of his head. His instincts were telling him something was off. That something was going to go wrong. He hated that feeling. It was correct, no doubt. You weren't genetically created as a race of soldiers, were armed them with the best the Republic had to offer, received nothing but war, war and more war, for nothing. It gave you a nearly supernatural ability to perceive things, even if your waking mind was lagging behind.

In a strange way, rather unbecoming of a Grafted, he enjoyed being alone. The silence. He rarely had the luxury of such moments. He smiled as his hands touched the digital keyboard and he called up the most recent imaging of their soon to be battleground. Grafted were conditioned to feel at ease in hellish warzones, surrounded only by the death, the dying and their comrades. How they fought unnerved nearly every other unit in the military, but that was alright. They had each other. He grinned when he realised just how pissed of Sarah would be. His second in command was still in intensive care, too wounded from their previous engagement, which had also been labelled a suicide mission, right up to the point that he had launched a second wave from their blind spot. Their reputation did wonders, at times. Go in with half the force, hit them hard, fast, let them muster a positively crushing response, then shove the second wave up their asses so hard they'd end up puking blood. One of his prouder moments. He absentmindedly touched his shoulder, feeling the scar underneath. He had given up his command post for that joke. Made himself a target. They nearly had gotten him. Instead, he had gotten the Confederacy. Them, and the entirety of the IInd and IIIrd Armies. Two hundred and fifty thousand men. That had been a defensive position though. So easy to hold those.


Now, however, he had doubts. Fears even, even though he could never admit those. He had seen the logistical reports. Read through information reviews. Knew the officers who were down there. Knew their battle history. Things just didn't add up. If he was them and had the same things at their disposal, he would have added gunships into the mix. They should have at least been able to piece a squadron together from what they had mothballed here and there. He grimaced and opened the requisitions form, altering a few squads's equipment to anti-air missiles and heavy duty AA-lasers. Then, going with his gut, he adjusted another handful of squads with dedicated nuke-intercepting missile launchers. If he were the Confederacy, he'd wait until their entire unit landed, then tried to nuke them. Easy. Dirty. But incredibly effective. They had a massive power grid running underneath the entire fortress, it wouldn't be that hard for them to get their hands on those toys.

These last minute adjustments made him a bit of a defective Grafted. They weren't supposed to second-guess. He was still loyal to the Republic, but even so he wasn't supposed to question the intelligence department's information. And he definitely wasn't supposed to requisition weaponry behind their back. He couldn't, normally. But he had plenty of friends amongst the ranks of the army, even if he was seen as a stiff rule-lover to most of them. It was a good charade and the people who had bled beside him knew better.

He poured his attention over the display again, frowning. He felt inadequate. That he was missing something. He simulated the battle and added in what he thought would happen. It wasn't good. His forces held and broke through, but dammit, he'd leave a lot behind. Given the height they were deploying from, they couldn't bring in the heavy shield generators or proper armour support, which was a damned shame as it would make things easier, so he understood the need to go in light and fast. But if the enemy detected them on their way down, they'd lose far too many men and equipment. Far more than he was comfortable with. There had to be a way to give himself another advant—

Oh.

Of course.

A feral grin appeared on his face as he switched back to the load-out screen and furiously started typing and adjusting every team's weaponry of choice.
He'd have to visit good ol' Captain Lena again. Ask her to fit a little surprise into one of the drop-pods. He'd have to sacrifice a few men. He was fine with that, however. His men would be too. He selected the weaker ones, the ones with the worst scores. It wasn't a personal thing and the men and women he'd chosen to die first would gladly accept the order. Hell, they'd expect it. Grafted were quite fanatical when it came to saving their comrades. If you could do more damage by dying and end up saving your friends in the long run, all of them would do so smiling.
His smile broadened as he thought of the Captain. She had, without pause, called him over to her cabin every evening when he was on board the Ulysses and he had been a pain in her ass every time. Still, there was a deeper understanding there that went beyond rank. He trusted her. She cared for him in a way he hadn't expected a non-Grafted to do. They were freaks, after all. Suicidal freaks who lived only for the glory. Very few ever realised that they didn't care about glory, only about success, survival and serving the Republic, but then again the Grafted didn't give two shits what others thought of them in turn. She did, for some reason he couldn't possibly fathom. Still. She did and they helped each other where-ever possible.


A furious Captain Lena shut off her communicator. Her mother had been very short in her answer. 'No, and don't bother me again.' How could she be so stubborn? She was a damned Admiral! She had climbed through the ranks from the very bottom! She had to know what shitshow was going to happen, how outrageously expensive the cost would be! She was perfectly positioned to see the tactical view and she, for some gods be damned reason, didn't give a shit. She was about to throw something valuable and delightfully breakable against a bulkhead when someone knocked on the door. When nobody announced himself, she realised it meant it was either an assassin, or Victor. She checked the camera feeds leading up to her room and found them empty. That meant it was Victor. An assassin couldn't navigate through the blind spots that smoothly. She opened the door and was pleasantly surprised to see him standing there, saluting her, with a devilish grin on his face.

She'd have to put all her hope in his considerable skills.
Heaven help you Victor, she prayed silently as she waved him in.
And may you come back to me safely.

"Move it people! Move it! We've got a war to win! That's right, into the pods!"
Victor moved to the overcrowded launch bay with the ease of someone who's done it a thousand times. For most units there would be technicians all over the place, crawling around the drop pods like ants. Not for the Grafted. They checked their own gear. Victor took it all in, his eyes scanning the massive launch bay for anything that might compromise operational integrity. This battle would have to be started right or their projected losses would go from staggering to total. The idea of the upcoming fight caused his many extra glands to start secreting hormones, banishing the sleep from his mind. He had stayed up far too long, barely getting an hour of sleep in, but he had overhauled the entire battle plan. His men wouldn't mind. They were used to their eccentric commander adjusting things on the fly. They hadn't been informed of the changes until they started getting in the pods. The news had spread like a wildfire, except nobody outside his division knew about it. Gone were the electronics and anything that wasn't built to withstand close range EMP blasts. Ditched were the radios along with their code frequencies and reserve batteries. It was a pretty big risk he was taking, but his instinct had never failed him. He knew well enough to trust it. It spotted the things his waking mind missed. He butted helms with his officers, their traditional farewell, before they went towards their unit.

Twenty thousand, two hundred and forty-six men and women, the last of the Grafted, minus Sarah who was in intensive care, and he knew he had seen many for the last time. His gaze wandered along the upper gantries, seeing a plenitude of upper class brass and politicians. Heaven knows why those guys were there. He hated this plan. Lena was right. They should have bombed the shit out of this place. It would take them a week, perhaps two, tops. Now they'd waste most of the Republic's last really elite army for what felt like a needless, empty victory. He was wary. He'd follow his orders —they always followed orders— but he felt ill at ease about it all. He hated losing men, even if they were well spent. Even if they died charging towards victory. That was part of the reason the Grafted struck so hard. They wanted to put the fear of God into their foes, so that maybe, just maybe, they would surrender. So that the Grafted wouldn't need to fight again. That they would be left to patrol, keep peace, train. The dream they all shared was to be so good at their job that nobody would ever dare go against them again. That they would finally be free of their curse that saw them die in droves in assaults that were impossible for other units.

He gave a near imperceptible nod at the Captain before he moved to his pod. The Admiral next to her had noticed. Not a dismissable feat, given that in his armour he looked the exact same as every other soldier.


"I take it that is your friend?" Lena's mother asked.
The Captain felt herself blush despite herself. "Yeah."
"He's a good soldier," she said and Lena thought she heard something in her mother's voice. Regret? Resentment? Anger? "Salute them girl. They deserve it." There it was again. Something frighteningly final about the way she said it. That didn't stop her from saluting though, because her mother was right. To a man, they all deserved it. The unsung, bloodied heroes of the Republic.

Admiral Leona, High Admiral for her colleagues, looked down at the Republic's most nasty division ever created. Inhuman, utterly loyal, bunch of bastards. All of them. Going down to die. Going down to be defeated. That stung her most of all. The least the fucking Council should have done was send them off in honour. Let them gain one final victory. Yet even that was going to be denied to them.
Then she saw it. She doubted anyone else had picked up on it. Whether they didn't see or simply didn't care was really irrelevant to her, but she saw what had changed. She glanced at her daughter, who was undoubtedly involved in it. That hadn't been reported. Then again, technically speaking it didn't have to. She turned to have an amiable chat with a fellow officer and made a very pointed gesture of shutting her communicator off. The major she was talking to gave her a confused glance, but didn't comment on it. She outranked him too much for that. She gave him a grandmotherly smile, showing just enough teeth to profoundly unnerve him, before leaving him alone, deciding she bullied him enough.
She turned towards the large screen that showed the planet in general and their target in specific.
Go, you glorious bastards, she thought. Go and show them what you are made of.

The hatch of the drop pod sealed and Victor double checked everything he could. HUDs blinked to life and connected with those of his officers. A small mini map appeared in the corner. He tapped his weapon, connecting the microchip's signal with his helmet's. Everything was green all across the board. Numbers flashed alive, showing him how many men were alive. He grabbed hold of the supports as the counter neared zero. He was ready.

The launch bay of URNS Ulysses turned to the planet. It dropped out of stealth, along with the rest of the support fleet, and fired its drop pods. It fired everything in a single salvo. More than fifty thousand pods were launched. The Confederacy reacted with commendable speed and by the time the Grafted breached the thermosphere, the enemy opened up on them. Flak rounds were sent skywards and burst open, shrapnel bouncing off most drop pods, almost causing no damage at all. Almost was not none though and Victor grimaced as the counter started dropping. Not a lot, but the first casualties had been taken.

The pods dispersed just before they hit the mesosphere. The entry was quite violent and the pod started shaking. Victor forced his mouth shut. He liked having teeth. His mini map indicated how some pods were diverted directly to the walls. Some of those contained soldiers. Others contained ammunition. Some of them contained his special surprise that he had mooched off Lena. Others were filled with chaff and exploded randomly as they went down, providing more targets to be tracked and aimed at. They'd keep more of his men alive.

A red signal started flashing alarmingly in his HUD and he knew they had entered energy weapon range. He didn't need to see the angry blue beams flashing upwards to know they were there. More green signals winked out of existence. The counter dropped some more. They were still too damned far from the ground and he could only wait as gravity pulled him and the thousands around him towards the ground at an insane pace. He felt thrusters flare up as they pushed his pod aside, one of the few privileges of being a commanding officer and felt the explosion rattle his metal coffin. Flak round, very near miss. Another thump and they had entered the stratosphere. A few kilometres beside him the pods containing his surprise opened and delivered their special payload, just as the enemy's tracking started working properly and the skyward fire was intensified by several magnitudes.

Incredibly powerful EMP bombs, meant to be used in capital ship-class combat, received the right imput signals and went off with a glorious bang. The shockwave rattled the entire division and knocked out any and all electronics that wasn't properly shielded. Victor grinned as his connection with command up top disappeared, but that was an acceptable trade. He lost comms for a while, but the enemy would be thrown in disarray. His grin widened as the counter started dropping more slowly. By the time his pod hit the troposphere that grin was gone though, replaced by a grimace as he readied himself for impact. Powerful thrusters fired and the chute deployed, slowing his rapid descent from lethal to the much slower pace of bone-breaking for anything other than a Grafted.

The pods slammed into the ground en masse and opened up, spilling forth the vengeful army of the Republic and they reoriented themselves. Squads were united, platoons were gathered, heavy weapon and support teams pulled the weapons they needed from the support pods and formed up. Within a minute the entire division had geared up and charged towards their goal, the first of the three walls, two kilometres away. Two kilometres of minefields, open fields with no cover. A warcry that shook the battlements ripped its way free from twenty thousand throats.


Hand signals flashed as the engineering teams took point, flanked by the heavies, covered by the snipers. The minefields were plenty and decently hidden, but his men knew how to deal with them. They deployed their drones in rapid fashion, who raced forward. They were simple things, no more than hard plating, a shield generator and an engine, with a little radio on top. They had been affectionately dubbed 'racecars'. True to their name they ran off into the minefield, setting them off and being bounced around. Every racecar took several mines with it before becoming completely inoperable, clearing the way. The heavies, walking in front of the engineers, relaying on their heavy Stormguard armour to deal with the incoming fire from the wall. It was sporadic, meaning the surprise EMP blast had been a good call. They ran ahead, unlimbering their heavy weaponry as they went, the weapons useless from this distance. Once they got closer, they would start scourging the walls clean of life with their barrages.
The snipers spread out, relaying on the age old trick of camouflage to hide themselves. They had gone without their Light Infiltration Suits, knowing the optics that were used for the suit's stealth systems would have been burned out by the EMP. It worked well enough with the enemy blind as well, their fancy long range radar no more useful than a pile of scrap. Their rifles barked and high calibre bullets whisked their way through the morning air, claiming lives with frightening accuracy, sending Confederate forces diving for cover.


Victor shouted, barking orders as he raced forward along with his personal guard that had formed up around him. Special units took in position, small, portable shield generators were deployed, targets were identified and called, plans were made and orders were given.
Then the Confederacy gave a proper welcome to the invading forces as the wall seemed to come alive. Machine gun nests opened up with everything they had, their long bursts mowing down scores of advancing infantry, daring the enemy snipers to return fire. The artillery let out deadly coughs, each indicating a high explosive shell being launched into the air and amidst their lines. Snipers and riflemen looked over the battlements and opened up as much as their respective range allowed and the casualties started soaring upwards.

The Grafted responded in kind and their returning sniper fire intensified. Private First Class Regald emptied his entire magazine in the crew servicing one of those damnable guns. He enjoyed watching the scene. He was good at his job and proud of it. Every time he pulled the trigger, another limb exploded. Heads, arms, chests. It didn't matter what he hit. Those whom survived the shock would die of blood loss soon enough. He moved his sights away from the gun crew, onto a machine gun nest. He took one of them out when a shell landed next to him, reducing him and three others to bloody chunks.

Confederate Lieutenant Angjelko was having a shit day. The platoon he was commanding was down to half strength and the battle had barely begun. He looked over the battlements, his rifle in hand, useless at this range. He took in the enemy army that was doing a suicidal charge against their defences. They couldn't possible hope to get through with how much firepower that was arranged against them. Yet they still came. He turned to look at the wall and was shocked to find holes opening up. Their snipers were taking a far heavier toll than they had any right to. It immediately identified the enemy unit. The damned Grafted had come. He looked back to the charging foe and spotted a squad setting up a mortar. He barked orders at his platoon and any soldier who could opened fire on the target. The bullets tore the troopers apart, their armour useless against the overwhelming fusillade. He let out a sigh of relief and reached for the radio.
"We need shield generators now! They're setting up mortars! We're facing the damned Gr—"
His call was cut short as a sniper identified him as an officer and shot his head off. The soldiers turned to their fallen officer, aghast, before turning back to face their enemy, grim determination settling on their faces.

Sadly enough their bravery was all for naught when the mortar shells started falling. The desperate orders the lieutenant had given never reached his superiors, the radios rendered useless by Victor's gift.


"That's it! Advance! Don't hold back, we got enough fucking ammo! I want that wall scourged clean!" Victor yelled, advancing steadily behind the vanguard. He should be hanging more back, given his position, but he didn't give a rats arse. They needed to get to that wall and they needed to do so now. The mortar teams had finally managed setting up and despite the enemy originally targeting them, they had to quickly abandon that when the countless snipers on his side took offence to that. That was one problem dealt with, but the artillery barrage didn't let up. He had lost thousands to that already, as well as to the damned minefield. His forces stuck together as much as possible, trying to stay on the paths the engineers had cleared, but it was hard to keep your bearing when shells reigned all around you and several engineering teams had been torn apart by enemy fire. More paths had been opened though. His soldiers had, upon seeing that the engineers were dead, rushed forward, the lighter infantry going in one by one, running into the minefield until they found one and exploded. Then the next came immediately after him, following the same course. It was a bloody, expensive tactic, but speed was off the essence and it had gotten more teams through safely, despite the all too high cost.

The Grafted charged. Snipers fired and mortars coughed. Both Republic and Confederate soldiers died by the droves, the latter in far higher numbers than the former. Reinforcements kept rushing on top of the walls, now firmly covered in blood and body parts as the Grafted located the entrances, transmitting the information to the units firing at the wall. The rest kept up a breakneck pace, officers shouting encouragements and soldiers shouting, adrenaline and other hormones pumping through their veins as augmented muscles were pushed to their limit. Victor panted, intensely tracking his HUD. He hated being a CO. He much preferred partaking in the battle directly, but he was the best at this, so this was his job now. The numbers kept ticking down. He hated that too. Well over three thousand men were dead now. The fire coming from the wall was relentless, but they were giving far more than they were taking. By his estimates at least four times that number was gone now, and once they cleared the first wall, the ratio would alter further in their favour. The wall would provide some cover to his forces and he had several more surprises in store.

He was so focused on reading the information in his HUD that he barrelled straight into the soldier in front of him, causing laughter to erupt all around him.
"We're at the wall, Commander."
"Well whoop-dee-fucking-doo, couldn't you say that before I ran into your fat arse!" Victor barked back, climbing to his feet and absentmindedly tossing a grenade up.
"You had so much fun admiring it, didn't wanna distract you," the soldier quipped back, earning him a round of hooting.
All across the wall more and more grenades flew upwards. Some smoke, some not. Victor focused on his HUD again and waited five more seconds, dozens of troops reaching the wall with every one that passed. Then he barked the order, grabbing his carbine just that little bit tighter as soldiers readied their grappling hooks.
"UP!"

This time he really went against regulations. His grappling hook attached he activated the inbuilt pulley system and he charged up the wall, dozens of men running up alongside him. He was the commander and as such had no business playing vanguard and Sarah had given him so much shit for it every time he did it. His response had always been the same.
I'm a commando first. Commander second. And as long as I stay alive, you have no grounds for complaining, do you?
And her answer had always been the same as well.
Yeah, until you don't in which case I won't have anyone to fucking complain to, now get your arse back before I kick it until you're in proper cover.
Well. She wasn't here to stop him now.

As he ran up the wall, his encased feet causing minor fractures on the concrete, the heavies opened up. Really opened up. It was a thing of beauty, seeing heavy automated gauss weaponry being brought to bear in full auto. Victor had just enough time to see an enemy poke his head over the battlement and look him straight in the eye, before he was turned to red mist by a fusillade. The rapid thunder rolled over the battlefield and the enemies who had been too eager to shoot down the enemies climbing the wall were evaporated by an ungodly hail of fire. Mortar teams picked new targets, the smoke grenades thrown earlier marking the zones they had to avoid. The wall was in reach now, and the Grafted were going to claim it.

He stretched his hand, feeling his finger sink into the battlement around his grappling hook and threw himself across. First man on top, he thought to himself, kicking an unfortunate soldier in the faceplate, shattering it.
And first man down, he concluded, giving him a quick burst with his carbine. He snapped his rifle up and opened fire at a blistering rate. His surroundings slowed down as his system went into overdrive and pumped several cocktails into his bloodstream. His eyes flickered from target to target, registering them, sorting them in terms of position, weaponry, threat. The smoke didn't bother him, his visor had an inbuilt thermal system specifically for these situations. His weapon flashed from enemy to enemy, letting out a single cough or a short burst depending on their armour. Within a handful of seconds he had cleared himself a neat corner, just in time for his guards to catch up, clambering up beside him and locking him behind a wall of bodies.

The fight escalated quickly, more and more Grafted vaulting on top of the battlements and engaging the Confederate troops in close quarters. That was a lot more up their alley, given their augmented physique, superior training and their long years of putting their skills to the test. The counter still went down, but Victor knew that for every one of them that died, the Confederates lost at least a dozen. It wasn't exactly fair, your enemy having a reaction time that was less than a tenth of your own.

The wall itself was a massive complex. Fifteen metres wide, covered with crates of ammunition, bodies (in various states of dismemberment) and guns ranging from simple machine guns to heavy artillery pieces. His officers were already directing his men to repurpose them as much as they could. See if they could turn the fuckers around and give the next wall something fun to chew on.

And all the while the enemy kept firing. The only mistake they had made so far was that the enemy refused to fire on the wall that was now under their control. The Grafted were probably the only unit that would fire on their own allies without holding back as soon as a position was declared lost. Not that Victor was going to complain, it gave his men time to get into position.

He signalled and his troops obeyed, slowing down and taking cover, going over their ammo, swapping equipment, unjamming weapons, clearing their visors, everything they could while the rest of his division caught up. Sixteen thousand odd left. The snipers and engineers were the first to scale the wall, the engineers having waited at the bottom, being far too heavy to climb up while the fight was still going on. The snipers had been covering the wall-climbers until the heavies took over, but they had been way back and had a lot of distance to cover. They were one of the lighter units and managed to cross the distance fairly quickly, especially since they went with normal body armour as opposed to the much heavier LISses.

The heavies were next and they slid into position neatly. Squads were reformed and officers debated briefly on how to divide the remaining troops so that every platoon would be back to full strength. Victor motioned for some of them to come over, the leaders of his special squads, and gave them very specific instruction. The men stayed low, staying out of sight. The wall itself wasn't being bombarded at the moment, but that was a matter of minutes before the fuckers would realise that there were no allies left on it. The men nodded and went to take up new position and ready their surprises.

He looked behind him and saw the mortar teams rushing to close the distance with the wall, following the signs that the other troops had left behind to navigate the minefield safely. Aside from an occasional shell landing in the wrong place, most of them made it to the wall unscathed. They nearly made it up too, before the shelling started, aimed at the wall this time.

He grinned. They had been just that tiny bit too late. The surviving guns on their wall opened fire as well. The first shots from both sides were near misses, both armies trying to find the right angles, but his men, like always, were better and the second salvo predated theirs by several seconds and he grinned when half a dozen guns were turned to scrap. The next wall was only a kilometre away from this one and both armies opened up in force, riflemen, machine gunners and snipers holding nothing back. Both sides kept ducking behind battlements and shield generators. The Grafted had the advantage of superior skills and weaponry, but the enemy outnumbered them by far. A quick estimate put between thirty and forty thousand men on that wall. He wondered how the hell they all fit on there, given that his men were already squished together.

He glanced at the counter and saw that it was dropping rapidly again. Not good. He turned around and saw the mortar teams getting in position again. Those weapons were a thing of beauty. Light, easy to carry and easier to deploy, with grenades that couldn't explode until you turned the two halves in the right position, meaning they wouldn't blow everything up in their general vicinity if they were shot, but boy were they effective. Two and a half km of range and the men using them could achieve a staggering rate of fire, not to mention their frightening accuracy. They lacked the penetration power of artillery, but for clearing walls —thank fuck they never had the genius idea of putting proper shield generator on it— they were perfect. He purred when the tubes flashed. Packed as they were on the other side, every shot would kill dozens, if not more. Very good for morale that. You're standing there, shooting at an enemy, then all of a sudden half the wall is covered with what used to be your buddies. Rinse and repeat a few dozen times and you'd quickly get a rout if officers couldn't instil enough discipline. He hoped that would happen here as well, but they no doubt had a plan.

Ah yes. Just as he expected. Open Sesame.
Several blast doors slid open revealing their newest enemies. The Armour Corps decided to join the play. Tanks thundered out from their hiding places, one after another. Jesus, they really emptied the stores for them. There must have been hundreds hiding there. That was just insane. Fucking hell, they even rolled out siege assault cannons. They were going to bring the wall down!

He jumped up. He knew he had to save some for anti-air, but what good would those weapons do when there was nobody left to fire them?
"Lancers, I want those things gone and I want them gone NOW!" he barked.
The soldiers he addressed hopped to and leaned over the wall. The power generator packs on their back brimming with blue-ish energy and a few too many sparks to be entirely healthy, as they dumped an ungodly amount of energy into what was supposed to be a dedicated long range, direct fire, anti-armour cannon. The long, thin weapon heated up, but the heavily armoured troopers were encased in enough layers to withstand the intense heat. The soldiers near them weren't, receiving severe burns, their skin blistering as the aptly named weapons were primed.

Distance and armour thickness were irrelevant things for the powerful Lances and on the command of their officers, right after targets had been called, they opened fire. Blue streams of plasma streaked through the air and cut into the incoming wave of armour. The siege assault cannons were the first target and went up in beautiful explosions, metal melting under the impossible heat, overheating critical components, setting ammunition aflame and reducing their crew to cinders. The Confederates noticed the threat immediately and shifted their fire to the position of the Lancers, who returned fire as quickly as their weapons allowed. The Grafted in turn unleashed murderous volleys of their own, silencing hundreds of guns with every salvo. Guns overheated and bent, barrels were switched. Mortar crews started dumping their water reserves onto the launch tubes and Lancers fought, killed and died in turn. Within a few moments the threat of the siege assault cannons was gone and that signified the next phase of the invasion. The Lancers would never survive for much longer and he signalled them to take cover again. They didn't hear his orders, but like clockwork it was passed on and spread through the entire division in moments and they disengaged.

"PHASE TWO, PHASE TWO, PHASE TWO!" Victor shouted and jumped up, only to be pulled down violently by his guards.
"No?" he squeaked, the air having been knocked out of his lungs.
"No," came the harsh answer. He grinned at them. They were right, of course. If he lead this assault chances were rather large he wouldn't make it to the next wall Not that they really needed him. Most of his forces knew what to do. Sure, he gave specific orders when needed and was personally directing the special squads, but he had majors, captains and lieutenants a plenty who all knew the battle plan. Which was proven as thousands of men and women launched themselves over the battlements, sliding down using grappling hooks. Half of the heavies went down first, their powerful Stormguard armour protecting them from the hail of bullets being sent their way. Unless the tanks got a proper hit in, or an artillery shell landed too close to them, they'd just wade through the storm and hit the incoming armour with their own heavy guns. The other half was going to be held back, but something nagged in the back of Victor's head and he signalled them to take cover, calling out to the snipers instead to redouble their efforts. Not that they really could, given their already astonishing rate of fire, but they tried. He appreciated it.

He saw his division run headfirst towards the enemy wall, diving in between the tanks who tore their ranks apart with relentless bursts of machine guns or blew them apart with their main guns. Halftracks skidded between the gaps left by their heavier brethren and doused entire squads with flames. The Grafted returned the favour, heavies blowing apart anything they encountered with missile launchers, brave men and women running headfirst into armour with satchel charges, killing themselves and the enemy in a fiery blast. Soldiers jumping onto halftracks and throwing grenades into the compartments, even as they burned. It was a slaughterhouse for both ends and yet the Grafted were pushing forward. From time to time a lance shot from the wall and reduced another piece of armour into nothing but scrap. The armour divisions were losing ground and his men were now spread all around them, forcing the artillery to stop firing, leaving only the wall as a viable target, but the few captured guns were taking a toll of their own, destroying as much of the enemy artillery as possible. The battlements helped. The distance was too short to get a proper arc in so unless a shell struck in between two bits of cover or broke through a part that was already damaged, his soldiers remained reasonably safe.

Then the noise came. He didn't know how he heard it amidst millions of gunshots, but hear it he did. He motioned for his guards to look into the sky and he could feel them paling.
"Sir I thought the fuckers didn't have gunships."
"They weren't supposed to," he replied, smiling underneath his visor. "Direction and quantity?"
"Two o'clock, at least two dozen. Hellraiser class."
"Huh. Heavy machine guns and bombs eh? Reckon they'll do a fly over, force us into cover, then bomb the shit out of us when they'll pass us?" he asked. There was excitement in his voice and it calmed the men around him. None of them were afraid of death, but getting bombed to shit by gunships you couldn't even fire back at was too much.
"Reckon so, sir."
"Aye. Thought so. Signal the heavies to get ready to empty their magazines. We're going to surprise the fuckers. Listen carefully, because we only have one shot at this."
The guards nodded solemnly and passed on the Commander's orders.

Flight Captain Dennis was having a good day. Ever since he heard that the first wall had fallen, he knew that it would be the chance for him and his boys to shine. As soon as they had heard that an enemy had made landfall, no doubt the Republic's parade party, the so called superhumans, he had made his unit prep their gunships. Hellraisers were absolute beautiful things, made to dive into enemy fire and blow the absolute fuck out of everything down there. What their heavy machine guns wouldn't finish, their clusterbombs would. Sure, he'd lose a few to whatever damnable Lancers were left, but that was a small price to pay for wiping out the Republic's most elite unite. Doing that was definitely a one way trip to a promotion and a fancy medal.
"Flight Captain to Hell Hawks, prepare for strafing run. I say again, prepare for dive bombing."
"Roger Captain. Wing one ready."
"Wing two ready."
"Three ready."
"Four, ready."
"Five, ready Captain."
"Six, ready sir."
"Good. Let's give 'em hell boys! Initiate strafing run!"
As one the squadron opened up, every Hellraiser taking a section of the wall for himself as the gunships dove towards the enemy.

"Hold it. Hold it," Victor whispered, looking in a small mirror that let him see the enemy without them being able to shoot his face off.
"NOW!" he shouted.

"WHAT THE-" screamed Flight Captain Dennis as over a thousand soldiers stood up all at once, heavy gauss repeaters aimed at him and his squadron. Before he could even think of firing on them, they beat him to the punch. A veritable apocalyptic storm of bullets rammed itself into the viewing ports and engines of the gunships, shattering them, reducing the pilots to paste and the engines to scrap. Some of the gunships had been taken by surprise, but others had returned fire and peppered their sections of the wall with gunfire, the oversized calibre punching through the Stormguard armour with ease, but it did not save them. In a single exchange the Hellraisers went down, engines futilely screaming as they tried to keep the multi-ton gunships in the air. They crashed into the wall, exploding on contact. One of the heavies nearly fell over and Victor jumped up, narrowly managing to grab hold of the man. His guards followed suit a moment later and the two were pulled back onto the battlements.

He looked on his counter. That trick had cost him four hundred men. He sighed. At least the armour was being dealt with at a decent pace, and the distance towards the next wall was closing. He motioned the Lancers to switch targets away from the enemy armour, what was left of it at least, and start scourging the next wall clean of life. The surviving heavies rappelled down, joining their brethren on the ground. Victor sighed. The battle was going decently well. Still. He was down to twelve thousand men now. He shook his head, willing the dark thoughts away. He could lament the dead later. For now he had a battle to win. Letting out a shrill battle cry he vaulted over the wall, joining his men on the ground.
Above all, he thought with grim determination, Victory!

Victor's charge was interrupted when his inbuilt comm system started beeping urgently. Apparently the ECM cloud had dispersed enough for the Ulysses to punch through it with a tight-beam signal. He blinked twice to activate it, casually sliding his sight over an officer that had been poking his head out over the wall a bit too much. He pulled the trigger just as the signal clicked, seeing the officer's head burst open like an overripe pumpkin while a panicking Captain Lena screeched in his ear.
"-AP! GET OUT OF THERE!"

Well that couldn't be good. He slowed down, turning towards Sergeant Kazarskov.
"Sergeant, switch to active sensors. Ping the surroundings."
"Aye sir!" came the immediate response. Good Lord, but Victor loved his men to bits. They just trusted him and obeyed him, no whiny complaints about 'sir, if we switch to active sensors we'll lit up the enemy scanners like the New Years Eve's fireworks on a moonless night!'. No, the man didn't voice anything of the sorts and just did it.

Victor used the lower pace to take in his surroundings again. Casualties were mounting on both sides and despite that the enemy's artillery had lessened, it was still taking its toll. The overcrowded wall was still loosing torrents of fire upon his men, but they returned it with interest and far greater accuracy. Most armies had a major disadvantage when it came to fighting up hill battles, but the Grafted preferred it. Every one of them that wasn't tasked with dealing with the armour, kept their eyes and weapons trained on the wall. Their skills combined with their superior weaponry allowed the entire division to shower the enemy-held battlements with rains of fire and did so with pinpoint accuracy. Heavy troopers that rushed to the wall immediately drew the ire of all the soldiers eyeing that section and despite their upgraded suits they were soon reduced to bloody chunks. Not that such a fate deterred the Confederates. Their officers knew all too well what would happen if the Grafted could reduce the distance enough to start climbing the wall again. The veterans knew that in close combat the Grafted were an unstoppable tide from prior engagements, where entire flanks had disappeared when they had started a mad rush. The Republic's elite took horrendous losses in such a tactic, but they seemed to be perfectly at ease with trading off the majority of their own forces for total destruction of the enemy. The newer or less experienced officers who hadn't fought in a grand scale conflict where the Grafted had been employed lacked that knowledge, but they too had witnessed just how quickly the wall had changed hands once their enemies had scaled it. So they send their men to die, wave upon wave upon wave. Bodies and their separate parts, blood, excrement and other bodily fluids streaming from the wall into storm drains that were rapidly getting clogged by the chunks of meat that were floating along on the pooling liquids. The Confederates soldiers, bereft of most of their senses, were clinging to their superiors orders with a blind ferocity as it was the only thing that gave them guidance in the brutal battle.

Victor grinned, turned to his sergeant and saw the man turning pale. Oh shit.
"Sir, enemy planes incoming. Bombers. Lots of them. They're headed straight for us. Airborne troop transports are moving towards our landing zone, armour included. They're moving in for a pincer," came the explanation. There was only a minor bit of tremble audible in his voice.
Victor jumped back into the comms channel with Lena. "Captain! We need fire support and we need it now! Bombers from the front and reinforcements up our asses, we'll be wiped out in twenty minutes if you can't stop those bombers!"
"Negative, Commander. Air support is not authorised," came in a new voice. He recognised it immediately. He knew the voices of every higher officer by heart.
"Admiral? All respect ma'am, do you expect us to die here?" he asked, incredulously.
There came a moment of silent that lasted all too long.
"Yes, Commander. The Republic expects you to die." There was an emotion there he didn't recognise.
"Godspeed to you. It was... An honour to have known—" Victor separated the comms. So the Republic expected them to die. No air support, no back-up, nothing but the Grafted and them alone. He sighed and let his muscles relax, his rifle slowly sliding out of his hands as he looked at the sky, where the silhouettes of the far off bombers popped up on his HUD, large warning signals flaring to life alongside them.
The Grafted had fought for decades, created by the millions to serve on the Republic's front line and to die in equal numbers, bringing them victory after victory, suffering quietly to bring glory to a Republic that made light of the blood price its soldiers paid in return. He had fought for years, abandoned his post as a commando to lead his men. He had shed countless tears for men and women that had died because of decisions he made. They had gone to their deaths willingly, but that had never lessened the weight of it on his heart. He tried to recall all the faces of the comrades he had lost. He failed. He tried to recall all the faces of the comrades he had lost today and still failed. He felt red hot tears leave behind ugly streaks on his face as he realised that it didn't matter. Soon it would all be over. All of their names would be gone forever, his included.


His hand tightened around his weapon as he snapped it back in a firing position. His eyes were aflame with determination as he clicked on the global channel.
"Gentlemen. Bombers are on their way and the Republic cannot send us reinforcements. Enemies are pooling behind us. In short, we will die. We cannot win. Therefore, I hereby relieve you of any and all duties but one. One last order."

The assault stalled as their commander's broadcast reached the surviving members of the division and slightly more than eleven thousand men and women held their breath for their final orders.

"TO VICTORY!!! he cried, charging towards the wall.

"TO VICTORY!!!" thousands of voices repeated.

Victor glanced at the men around him. His personal bodyguard in name, in function, but they were oh so much more than that. These were his closest brothers in arms. Fellow commandos, just like him, men and women he had shared hundreds, if not thousands of battles with. He lost count of how many times they had come back, wounded, near death, but still alive. They were tough, durable, an elite unit even within the Grafted, each of them a masterwork of genetic grafting, a wonder of modern medical science. They had been designed from the ground up for their tasks and luckily enough for them, their creators had been very, very thorough. They had earned themselves a special moniker, one that struck fear in the enemy's hearts and they would live up to it. They exchanged smiles from underneath their helmets, nodding towards one another in confirmation. This would be their final battle. They would stick together till the end. Only two more walls to go, then they'd hit the complex. He grinned and raised his rifle and so did the others. And they charged.

"Suicide Run!" shouted an officer, the cry rapidly being picked up by the others on the wall. It paralysed the defenders for several frightful seconds before panic well and truly struck. The front rows that could fire over the battlements were torn apart as the Grafted ceased being careful with their ammunition, a veritable wave of bullets crushing everything in its path. Soldiers and officers alike lost their nerve and started falling back, some in an orderly fashion, others weren't so disciplined and made a desperate dash for the exist. Most of them never made it, a few stalwart officers ordering their men to open fire on the cowards. Still, the Confederate lines were, albeit temporarily, broken. Before they had time to reinstate something resembling order, the first grappling hooks attached themselves to the wall and what little morale that had remained intact broke under the stress. Soldiers fired blindly as Grafted threw themselves over the wall. The first wave was low in number but made up for the enemy's numerical superiority with fanaticism. Grafted dived headfirst into enemy lines, covered in explosives, setting them and taking dozens with them in a fiery blast. Before the Confederates had time to recover from that, the next line was already on top of the wall slaughtering the disoriented survivors with carbines, rifles and blades. From the moment the first grappling hooks had landed on the wall, it had taken the Grafted less than two minutes to clear a wall that had held thousands of soldiers only shortly before.


The bombers started a dive run, seeing that all hell had broken loose on the battlefield below. On their feeds they could see their allies retreating from the second wall as it was being overwhelmed. Major Clive, leader of the mission, could hardly blame them. He had several tours behind him and had once had the bad luck to be on the receiving end of a so called Suicide Run, when the Grafted whipped themselves in such a frenzy they ignored all tactical acumen, proper unit cohesion and just charged like a pack of mad dogs, running towards their objective with the mad abandon of men who knew they were going to die and didn't care, as long as they could accomplish their goal. His commanding officer had made the mistake of thinking this gave the defenders a major advantage. He hadn't faced the Grafted before. Even when their command structure was blasted apart and they fell back to their baser instincts, they retained a formidable enemy, capable of somehow communicating with each other through the fog of war as if the bastards were a bunch of fucking telepaths. While they lost cohesion on the level of companies and above, they somehow linked up with each other in constantly changing squads as they took horrendous losses in their assault. His commanding officer hadn't lived to learn from his mistake and Clive had only survived because the flank he commanded wasn't part of the Grafted's objective. They had died to a man but had taken far, far too many of his fellow soldiers down with them, causing the Confederate lines to collapse when the second wave of Republic troops had hit. A fort reduced to rubble, their entire artillery battery reduced to smoking piles of scrap, it had been a devastating loss for the Confederacy and had highlighted the threat a Grafted force posed when you thought you had them cornered. Especially when cornered.

So it was that his bombers were flying in a loose formation rather than the cluster they were supposed to fly in. The enemy Lancers didn't have the reach to take down his craft, but he preferred to not take the risk. By all means it should be an easy mission. Fly high above the enemy lines, unleash seven types of hell on them until they were reduced to atomic particles, fly back home and drink themselves stupid as they finally got a victory over their most hated enemy. That was what High Command had told him.
Yeah. And that's why half our army is reduced to rubble despite enjoying fucking superior positions, he thought, tasting gal in his mouth. The enemy was barely below half strength and they had killed far too many.
"Dive! Dive! Dive! Keep your spread, I'd rather leave some survivors for our lads down there rather than get blown out of the sky," he ordered his pilots.
"Oh come on Major, we're up, what, twenty-thousand feet? The fuck are they going to do?" came a cocky response amidst a round of affirmatives, causing a deafening silence across the channel.
"Jackson you fucking moron you just had to—"
Fate obliged them Jackson's plane exploded when something smashed itself into it with at least mach six.
"DISPERSE!" Clive cried as the sky tore itself apart with explosions.
"The fuck they're hitting us with!" he cried out, sending his plane into a roll as his entire wing engaged in desperate evasive manoeuvres, something they only survived thanks to their spread out positions.


Twenty thousand feet lower Corporal Yssa spat out a string of curses, tossing her empty NILs to the ground. She didn't know what the Commander had expected when he had ordered them to take a dozen Nuke Interceptor Launchers with them, but she wasn't going to second guess him for it, though she hated carrying the bulky, experimental weapon. It weighed too fucking much. Now, however, as she saw far too few planes come down in pieces, she wished she had taken more.


As the sky finally returned to a semblance of normalcy, Clive blinked rapidly, trying to regain his vision. He was still seeing a lot of black spots and he couldn't properly read all of his instruments, but that would have to wait.
"Status!" he shouted into the comms, fearing the worst. His pilots reported in, one after the other with the occasional pause when they passed a pilot who hadn't survived the bombardment. All in all, he had lost a third of his wing. Far too many men and women. Far too many soldiers. Out of range my fucking ass!
After the battle the Major would be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel for his actions, which analysts believed prevented the loss of another third of his wing, allowing him to continue the mission.
"Continue the dive!" he shouted, voice hoarse with burning anger. "Drop everything on them, burn them to cinders!"
Bomb bay doors opened and hundreds of incendiary bombs tumbled towards the ground, promising death and destruction to all in their path.

Victor and the rest of his command squad made it to the wall just in time to avoid the nightmarish bombardment that occurred behind them. He turned briefly to oversee the carnage. Hundreds of his soldiers being consumed by flames that cooked them in their armour before setting that aflame as well. Skin and flesh caught fire, weapons were bent, visors shattered from the heat, shockwaves broke bones and tossed brave men and women about like ragdolls. He caught sight of Corporal Yssa, standing proudly on the first wall and opening fire with her Lance on the falling bombs, showing her excellent marksmanship by setting off three bombs in quick succession before her weapon overheated and exploded, vaporising the brave, stubborn woman. Rage flared up within him and he caught hold of it, clutching the ball of liquid hate and stored it in his heart. When he turned towards the third and final wall that very hate radiated from him and was magnified as it radiated from every Grafted around him. They were now bereft from most of their heavy weapons support, their mortar teams and Lancers reduced to ashes. Seven-odd thousand names flashed past his HUD. More names for a list that would soon no longer exist. Slightly more than four thousand remained.

He dropped his rifle and switched for a weapon he should have abandoned long ago. It had a fancy name but he had never bothered learning it. The handheld warcrime had been lovingly nicknamed the Shafter by the troops, a name that belied the weapon's frightful war potential. It was an experimental, portable railgun. A weapon wielded purely by the commandos of the Grafted. Heavy, difficult to wield, constantly overheating to the point that anyone who used it needed skin surgery after a battle, but when the trigger was pulled it would send a projectile out with such force that even the armour plates on vehicles would have a hard time stopping it. It simply erased the protective abilities of power armour and it tore massive gaps in the ranks of massed enemies.

"Thought you weren't a commando anymore Vic," came a grunt from the side as one of the properly outfitted commandos caught up with him. He recognised the black skull on her helmet.
"Shove it up your ass Tif," he cursed back, pulling the trigger. His weapon barked and he felt blisters form on his hands immediately, only to have them pop open when he fired a second round. He didn't even feel the pain. One good part about being designed by Frankensteins was that he had enough combat drugs in him that even losing a leg wouldn't slow him down much.
Tif made a minuscule nod, appreciating the accuracy of the shot as two artillery pieces exploded on the third wall, blowing away those nearest to the guns and showering those further away with shrapnel.
"Those are commando toys only. Sir" she countered, firing off two shots of her own, mimicking his actions as more shots rang out. The Shafters ignored conventional limits such as a maximum range and made a mockery of labels such as armour-piercing as they spat out death and destruction from a range normally reserved for heavy duty sniper rifles or mortars.
"Well then I guess you'll have to come take it!" he roared, issuing a challenge with a feral grin. He could feel her grinning back. A massive, armoured hand smacked him on the back and very nearly send him crashing into the ground.
"Good to have you back, V," said Gamling, the heavy weapons member of the commando team. "Being an officer never suited your sorry ass anyway."


The defence of the third wall was heroic, desperate and, all things considered, very, very futile. The Confederate soldiers defending the complex were still rushing to defend their positions, with those inside being prioritised and very few heavy troops had been on top of the third wall by the time the Grafted had cleared the second. Their brutal charge was met with volleys of massed fire that largely pinged off harmlessly of the power armoured troops taking the lead. Commandos and other, equally heavily armoured units, took the lead, their armour allowing them to outpace the others by a significant margin, drawing the attention of the defenders who fired on them, rather than the much more vulnerable elements behind the heavy troopers. There were a handful of officers that desperately tried to restore orders, but those were either sniped from afar or ignored all together, fear having taken proper hold of the Confederate's ranks.

Victor was pleased. The third wall fell and he only lost roughly eight hundred men. Well over half of those were his heavy units however, which he would pay for dearly. He focused his attention on the complex and used his command armour to call up schematics, searching for the best way to reach their goal. The place would be a death trap with thousands of power armoured troops hiding inside and even more rushing towards the complex from the barracks laying outside. All it would take was for one group of his men to reach the power generators. Once there, nothing would stop his men from blowing them the fuck up.

It was all slightly more complicated than that but that was the beauty about an army of Grafted. You simply gave them very clear and direct objectives and they would deal with everything else. That was why there were well over seventy thousand dead enemies behind him and he still had a fifth of his own division left.
They simply were that good.