====== Story: Incursion ======

===== Incursion I =====

We learned we were being invaded when it happened. No warning, just flashes in the sky, then earthquake sirens howling. No one knew what was going on, or what to do.

Parica isn’t exactly a big name planet. Earthlike, residential, no particularly famous locals. None of us ever thought something like this could happen to us, just like no one would launch a nuclear attack on a small village. But it happened.

Our orbital defenses were nothing to them. The weapons satellites were only for asteroid defense, and the only warships in orbit were a single fleet cruiser, a couple of ex-League frigates, and whatever armed merchantmen didn’t cut and run as soon as the enemy came out of jump on top of them. We watched on the newsfeeds as the burning wrecks of our defenders fell from orbit.

I went out onto my apartment balcony and watched the sky. Vapour trails left a criss-cross pattern over the midday blue. Beyond that, meteor-streaks marked the descent of pieces of debris. Suddenly, I saw a scatter of bright stars flare into being. I thought at first it was a volley of missiles going off in orbit, but they kept growing brighter - nearer - and I realised it was something coming down, straight towards me.

As the stars grew closer, I saw they were pods, or bulbs, strange organic-looking lumpy things that shed flakes of their outer crust as they fell. I watched, transfixed, as they dropped below the city skyline. Then one hit on the other side of my apartment block, sending a shockwave through the building that shattered the windows and knocked me to the floor.

The noise deafened me. Finally panicked into action, I staggered to the stairs and almost fell down them. Eventually I made my way to ground level, and burst out onto the street, straight into a choking cloud of dust. Somehow, in this city I knew like the back of my hand, I was instantly completely lost. Everything seemed to be covered in concrete powder and ash. I saw a light and meandered unsteadily towards it.

It was a burning car. A lamp-post was embedded in one of the turbines, and the windshield showed nothing but flames. I thought about looking for survivors, but then I saw none of the doors were open. I moved away.

I’d lost the way back to my block. A piece of wall lying in the street tripped me, and I barely caught myself. Sounds were starting to come back - the sirens, still, and the sound of distant shouts and screams and falling rubble. Something roared overhead, unseen in the smoke and quickly gone.

A Safeguard stumbled out of the billowing dust, her long coat ragged and her gun drawn. She saw me and lifted her hand to wave. Something with too many legs leapt from the smoke and carried away her top half with a sickening crunch and scream.

There was a moment of silence. The Safeguard’s legs fell to the ground. I ran.

===== Incursion II =====

One of the soldiers found some water and a plastic tub, and let me clean up. The water was freezing, but I felt better afterwards. The soldiers took the opportunity to take off their helmets and wipe the sweat away, except for Kolya, who stood watch.

The team leader was Sayeed de Sirta, curly-haired and short with coarse stubble. He wasn’t the real team leader - that had been someone called Moose, but they weren’t with us, and the others didn’t talk about them. Karim Shahid, the big bald man with a short beard and a pierced nose, carried the team’s drones on the back of his armour. Raymond (I didn’t know whether that was his first or last name) chugged an entire bottle of water as soon as his helmet was off, and poured another over his head, leaving his skin shining and his close-cut afro matted. The only one with a smile was Rossy Rosseau, the burly woman with a missile launcher and a repeatedly broken nose. She bustled about the abandoned shop, finding a coat for me and some food in the employee lounge. When she thought I wasn’t looking, I glimpsed her hugging Polotti, the breacher, and talking quietly to her.

There had been others in their team: Irkutsk the sniper, Farnham, who had apparently been carrying most of the spare missiles, and Bjornsson, whose railgun Kolya now carried. The remaining soldiers didn’t say much about them, but I knew they were dead. It was the same kind of silence they had when anyone mentioned the cruiser they’d come from, the one that had been gutted and burned in the first minutes of the attack.

After we’d all rested and had something to eat, Sayeed said it was time to move. The team’s vehicle wasn’t far now, and he thought we could make it in half an hour if we didn’t get engaged. Rosseau gave me a little device to put in my pocket, which she said would let them find me if we were separated. I smiled and thanked her, then she put her helmet on and became an impenetrable machine again.

Sayeed was right. We made it to the Queen in 32 minutes of tense, twitchy dashes through the dust and smoke that filled the streets. I didn’t see any more of the enemy, though once or twice I heard Polotti’s shotgun firing somewhere ahead.

“The Queen” was a big, angular armoured box on six chunky wheels. It was parked in what had been an alleyway but was now a pile of collapsed walls. I could see the gun turret poking out between twisted girders and mangled sheets of composite cladding. Raymond and Rosseau quickly got to work clearing the rubble, while the others took positions covering every angle. Several times, things scuttled past on the street, but thankfully none of them saw us through the smoke. Before long, the Queen was free, and we quickly piled in. Karim brought the engine to life with a low, powerful hum, and we rolled out onto the highway.

There was no hiding now. The enemy swarmed out of the haze in every direction. Claws gouged at the Queen’s armour and heavy impacts rocked it on its suspension, but Karim laid on the power and Polotti swept the street with the roof gun’s hammering fire, and we broke through, racing out of the city and leaving the enemy behind us

===== Incursion III =====

After an hour or so, the road markings ran out. The Queen plunged onwards into the dark, rolling over a black plain defined only by the faint glow of the horizon. Occasionally the headlights picked out a scruffy bush or a small rock. Otherwise, we were sailing on nothing, the only indication of the ground the light rumble of the Queen’s heavy tyres on tarmac.

We drove mostly in silence. Sometimes the radio would light up briefly, or the vehicle systems would ping an alert, but then it was back to the quiet. Raymond tried playing some music, but the track was something creepily cheerful, and we all agreed to turn it off.

I dozed fitfully over the next five hours. Once I was woken by the roar of fusion engines above us, and stared out of the window to see a few fighters’ drive flames receding into the distance ahead. Sayeed told me they were going back to re-arm; privately, I suspected they were the last ones out.

We pulled over by a boulder to switch drivers. I got out to stretch while Kolya replaced Sayeed at the wheel. Staring out into the night, I saw four yellow, glowing eyes looking back, freezing me where I stood. I must have screamed, because Sayeed and Rosseau were at my side instantly, rifles raised. The eyes blinked out. Rosseau laughed and put her arm around me.

“It’s just a fox. A normal furry fox with the normal number of legs. Nice to know nature’s still working out here, right? Come on, sit in the back with me and I’ll find something warm in the MRE bin.”

I took her offer, and Karim took my seat in the front. As we drove on, I drank something chocolate Rosseau produced (which I thought probably wasn’t originally designed to be warm, or liquid), and watched some funny videos Sayeed and Raymond found in the Queen’s files. I even managed to laugh when Sayeed fell asleep and Rosseau drew an animal face on him.

When the sun finally rose ahead of us, I saw why the ground had seemed invisible in the night. All around us, the dark green moss native to Parica covered the earth in an unbroken layer, with only a few small objects sticking out from the soft, light-absorbing carpet.

The dawn illuminated our salvation, too: hanging over the plains, hull glinting gently in the sunlight, the long, cylindrical bulk of a fleet cruiser. Higher in the distance, a battleship and more cruisers shone like extra moons. Tiny pinpoints of light, small craft and fighters, flitted between them in the morning haze.

The soldiers’ moods lightened as we drew closer. Kolya put the battlenet on speaker, and we listened to the ships talking, and cheered at every mention of a new ship arriving.

Rosseau leaned across and hugged me as a shuttle pilot hailed us.
“I told you we’d get you out of there!”

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