Tears of a broken star

The taste of burning fuel polluted the already barely breathable air.
Furious black clouds rose to obscure the sky.
Grey gravel dotted with struggling grass sterched for as far as the eye could see mared by scortched craters and twisted metal vehicals.
Squads of men sit waiting behind embankments, dirt encrusted and fatigued.
Behind them armored vehicals reved their engines and walker tanks lumber forwrd on their four limbs.
Large laser turrets heavy and idle waited barely burried in the sand.
The ground quakes a distant impact.
Another tremor marks a closer impact.
Somewhere cannons answered firing in to orbit.
Soon the smoke above is penatrated by the falling of high energy lasers, and the ground is erupting in colossal roars of stone and soil spraying fragments of rock for miles.
A section of the line is hit sending men and vehicals flying into the air.
Suddenly silence decends, deafening after the torrent of noise.
For a momment nothing moves, no sound can heard.

The charatistic shreik of an spacefighter accelerating in an atmosphere wails ominously over the desolate secene.
A fighter sweeps through he black cloud followed by fighter wing after fighter wing.
The turrets rise from the sand and turn to the desending sliver cloud and tunder in defience, spraying fire at the incoming fighters.
The lead fighter exploded and plumited to the ground in a fireball.
Other fighters fell to smash into the grit below burning firecly.
The fighters dropped low and fast their weapons scarring the land as they strafed the thin defensive line blasting apart embankments, tanks and turrets.
But the armored tanks and heavy laser turrets answered by sending numberless fighters crashing to join the twisted vehical graveyard that surrounded them.
Partialy obscurred the veil of smoke and raging dropships landed discharging hundreds of soilders and vehicals.



Reanic’s tired hands worked feverantly retrieving broken fragments, clamping spewing veins, stitching gapping wounds closed.
The roaring engines of a gladius passing mere meters overhead resounded through the ground itself, a hurricane guest sent dust spraying from it’s wake.
Reanic ignored it, absorbed in his tender work.
The wounded man he was working on bit harder on the strap between his teeth, a bit of shrapnel that had been lodged in his shoulder now lay harmlessly and blood soaked on the ground amid spent power cells, empty casings and the dead.
A solder knelt down beside Reanic
“How is he?” a pointless question voiced from a young troubled face.
“He’ll live,” replied Reanic absent mindedly as he sprayed a grey foam which quickly became darker in colour as it hardened over the wound.
“Lobis you slimy piece of graet!” the squad lead’s voice always became strangely musical when he was swearing, “fire your weapon or you’ll get an express trip orbit side compliments of my boot!”
The squad lead’s weapon a mass accelerator rifle cracked repeatedly each shot a sonic boom.
Although illegal Gearmire hand managed to get his hands on one, they use gravity compensators and electromagnets to propel a metal slug at 40% the speed of light.
Friction with the air superheat the round leaving a distinctive vapour trail and making the round hot enough to melt human flesh, apparently they were inhumane
Gearmire hit a fuel tank in an advancing APC providing a satisfying explosion.
Reanic’s comm. already busy with the chatter of shouted orders, of the dying as they scream beeped as it received a priority transmission, “Air support inbound, we need to protect our air defences at all costs, every second you delay them is another second civilians can escape, keep them at bay command out,”
“This is unit 283 we have taken heavy casualties are falling back to rally point 2,”
“Sir another unit is abandoning it’s post,” Reanic hissed his voice seemed weak amid what sounded a war between titans.
Gearmire swore softly.
Something hit just in front of the embankment showering everyone hiding behind it with gravel.
A short beam hit Lobis in the eye and blasted straight through the back of his head.
No one really paid much heed as he fell backwards.
Reanic checked his vitals before helping heave his body on to the embankment for a little extra cover.
It may have seemed barbaric, but only to those who never fought in a battle, never experienced the ancient, basic struggle of survival that is war.
Suddenly a cheer raced along the surviving soldiers.
Bluish sliver specks came pouring in from the left and right the weapons of friendly fighters cutting through enemy fighters, tearing apart enemy tanks.
But more swarms of fighters descended from the bleak black clouds above wrecking a heavy toll on the defending fighters.
Reanic gritted his teeth as burning wreckage rained from the sky from the ferocious fighter battle.
In a final attempt to topple the defences thousands of infantry broke cover and joined their accelerating tanks in a desperate charge.
Reanic’s rifle felt cold to the touch as he placed against his shoulder.
Three short bursts of energy three distant silhouettes fall.
Gearmire’s rail gun puts a shot clean through an enemy tank.
“This is unit 418 we’re being overrun falling back to rally point 3.”
Gearmire muttered something under his breath “We can’t fall back now! We’ll be routed and cut to ribbons!”
“This is field command all units fall back to rally point 4, I repeat all units fall back to rally point 4,”



An enemy tank smashed through an embankment it’s weapons cutting down the men pulling out from behind it.
What should have been an orderly retreat became a desperate dash to outrun the assault vehicles running them down.
“We can’t stay here!” Reanic shouted his voice almost lost in the storm of fire and death “Borbis give me a hand with the wounded,”
From the darkest corner of the emplacement a giant unfolded, 7 feet tall and his huge arms supporting a gun he had ripped from a turret mount.
Casually and without comment he slung two men over his shoulders before checking the power cell in his gun like nether of the men or repeating cannon he was clutching encumbered him at all.
Reanic looked to the solider he had been mending earlier “You fit to walk?”
“Just give me a gun and I’ll run for you sir,” came his wheezing reply as he pulled himself unsteadily off the ground
“Epicran, Merdiff you have point, Saren, Quali you’ve got rearguard. There’s a utility building spinwards if we move and move hard we might be able to reach it,” Gearmire’s usually musical voice sounded gruff and depressing for the lack of swear words.
“But sir isn’t rally point four capward,” Quali wined he was young, inexperienced, unsure of his surroundings
“Rally point 4 will be crawling with hostiles long before we can even reach it,” snarled Merdiff.
A tracked APC choose that moment to crest the embankment, its mounted guns killing three marines.
The next few moments were a confused set of images as the marines scrambled to repel the men pouring from the armoured machine.
Gearmire fired his rail rifle through the driver’s cabin, Borbis let loose with his hand held mounted turret wounded men still on his shoulders, Saren armed and tossed a grenade and Reanic’s rifle grew hot in his hands as he fired again and again.
Light assault vehicles flanked the embankment; in an instant one was hit with a mass accelerator round.





Dust swirled through the air, caught on raging winds.
The roaring of guns and the chaos of battle had faded in to a surreal silence, the wind’s angry whistling the only comfort.
The black clouds were dissipating in the setting sun it’s weak light finally finding a way through.
The small band of soldiers marched forward in the setting sun, it’s golden beams reflected of thousands of bright pebbles in a marvellous display.
But while they marched on the sun slide slowly below the horizon it’s progress inexorable, it’s weak golden light vanishing as darkness claimed the sky.
Bright and imposing the three moons of Epheras rose into the sky while the majestic colours of a nebula cloud slowly appeared behind them.
A breathtaking spectacle ignored by the tired marines marching beneath.
The modular towers of the main Epheras colony dominated the capward horizon great sky structures.
Flashes capwards indicated that the battle had moved in to the capital and that the enemy were being violently resisted.
The armour of most of the men was grey but had a red insignia inscribed into the side of the shoulder pads, a depiction of a snarling dog it’s mouth open, it’s teeth long and sharp, it’s eyes two burning flames.
Reanic only had one such insignia, his left shoulder pad was pure white denoting that he was a medic; Saren’s shoulder pad was blue for a mechanic while Gearmire’s was grey and exactly the same as every other regular trooper.
Officers as a general rule don’t like getting shoot by snipers
Reanic’s mind wandered as he repeated the simple process of putting one foot in front of the other, it wandered from the deep cut on Gearmire’s scarred face received during the confusion as they escaped a doomed effort at defence, to the wounded men Borbis was carrying.
He dropped back to march beside Borbis.
From the various pouches on his armour he pulled a small torch and lifted the eyelid of one of them and flashed the touch across it watching for responsiveness of the pupil, then a quick check of his pulse and an examination of the bio electric activity confirmed what he feared.
He sighed deeply before moving on to the other person he lifted the eyelid and as soon as the light hit his eye he screamed.
Gearmire shouted something musical before calling a stop.
“Reanic what in the name of Harmony are you doing to him?” Gearmire demanded as he bore down on Reanic, each step decreasing the distance between them, distance Reanic suddenly wanted to preserve.
Disorientated the wounded soldier began calling for a medic his desperate pleas echoing for miles around.
Grateful for anything that could distract Gearmire Reanic stepped up as Borbis gently laid him on the ground before shoving the corpse off his other shoulder.
“Easy now, you’re ok, now just answer me this since we couldn’t find any I.D. tags what’s your name and rank”
“Private Kray 4th Epheras sniper battalion Sir,” the short clipped, respective, pre-programmed sentences always served to order a confused soldier’s mind.
He was being given an order he frequently received and knew exactly how to respond no matter the situation.
“Sir I can’t move my right foot,”
“I’m not surprised, we left that were we found you, don’t worry the Epheras military health plan covers such mishaps and you’ll probably get a free metal pipe to use as a leg if not you’ll have to make do with their condolences,”
"Merdiff you're not being helpful" Reanic spat as he glared at Merdif.
He shrugged "Never was never will be"
"What..."the wounded soldlier began.
"I was going to break it to you a little gentler than that but yes you're missing the lower part of your leg and lost an awful lot of blood in the process,"
"Can it be replaced?"
"Yes all your nerves are in order it'll be a simple operation to attach a biotic limb. I do however have questions concerning your eyes, they look... strange,"
"I'm from Gylerum so my eyes are a little werid to you guys,"
"Never heard of it," Saren's voice sounded much like the clanking machines he wroked on.
"I've fought there an isolated backwater it is too, the tiryournoethane in the air makes everything look like it's half a mile away, after about a thousand years living with it all around them their eyes went all funny to better see the light they were in, every single one of them has amazing longsight but close up every thing is just a blurr," Gearmire simled faintly at some fond mememory of killing "Strange to Gyleri out here,"
Kray looked straight at the squad lead his voice full of distaste and the shock of realisation "You're mercs!"