Chapter 1: Going to War

I looked back at Great Big, my home planet. It continually shrunk until the darkness of space consumed it. Seeming as though space hid it away from me. All the other cadets were laughing and talking of how they'd get the first kill and kick ass on the battlefield. I wondered if they had doubt's, or even any idea of what was to come. I trained one-and-a-half years for this, just to get obliterated out on some planet.

You feel alot of things when you leave, but never happiness, or fear. You can't feel fear, or you'll get killed. But isn't that fear of being afraid. In 10 hours, we'd be going to war.

Chapter 2: Men Never Fight Alone

I'd had my 6 hours sleep and felt the pressure of combat arise. We all stood at attention waiting for our briefing before we landed and made our way to the battlefield. No whispers, no heavy breathing, not even an attempt to sneeze, no sound. It would be the last calm we expected. Master Seargent Antifoll walked toa fronts and gave all of us a quick glare.

"You are brave, you are smart, you are strong, and you are banded together. But none of that counts if you never use it. You must fight together to keep yourself alive, because death is waiting with a mighty scithe. You fight because you are men, and men never fight alone." Ofcourse their were female soldiers, just not so many. It included them too when Master Seargent said that.

Chapter 3: Enemy Sighted

We finally made ground, and the staleness of war filled our noses. 12 soldiers in a sqaud made a band and we have to stay a band to survive. I was sqaud leader do to my instinct and combat skills, but I felt wrong leading men I knew could die because of me. I knew that there was no going back after this, and that was that. I watched as the other bands waited for the signal to forward themselves.

I just had to make it to base, then we'd could rest easy for awhile. There were many mossy trees and swampy holes in the ground giving plenty of hiding spots to our enemy. I turned to face my sqaud, " Alright, listen here. We need a watch on those trees and on the water, and we all stick together. When we get signal, I want you three to keep sight in front, you four on the trees as we pass, and you four on the water. I got our tails so don't you change formation unless I give it to you."

After 3 minutes of waiting, my radio buzzed," Move your asses now, you got a two-minute window before you're left out." I threw my hand up and made a circlular motion to the other bands. We moved quickly into the trees, and stayed together. I ordered to one of the front gaurd soldiers to slow but his pace was going a little faster that ours. "Slow dow..," to late, a scithe like limb swished from the tree and tore into his chest, causing blood to spary everywhere. The tree gaurds fired at the tree causing a loud screech and his like sound. A large bug creature, a little bigger than an average human fell motionless from the tree, bringing moss, and blood with it.

I saw as it laid motionless, and the other soldiers stared in horror. I yelled out," Move your asses or die," and that they did. The soldier laid there dead, as we moved on. Now I was watching our front and tail (Like I wasn't anyways). I saw as the gated appeared before us, large gun turrets manned halfway their height.

It must of been atleast 200 feet high too. I saw as they watched us, and I ordered out, " Let's go, those turrets got our backs now." We picked up the pace as we moved towards our goal. I heard gunfire somewhere behind us, and then saw men running before us from the trees, they were still a full band. I then heard screams behind us, and more of those terrible screeches. "STOP," I stood still, my order passed through my lips.

The soldiers began questioning me, a bearded man, in his early twenties stepped to me, " What's your problem, you wanna die?" I responded," Those men back there need our help, we go forward and they die without chance. We go back and save them." I got a few bad looks from the crowd and a few dissappointmented faces. I spoke again," Alright then, you wanna go, go. This is a request, not an order." I turned around and headed back into towards the gunfire. I heard something behind me, it must be large because I'd never heard footsteps rumble the ground like that. I moved quickly, knowing if it was large it was probably slow.

I found 3 dead bodies, and none of them were intact. I saw a small group of men ahead of me, as they fired into the air. I looked to see a small glimps of a large wing, but it moved quickly out of site. I yelled out to them to come with me, but they couldn't hear me over the gunfire. I began to run up when something grabbed my shoulder, I thought I was done for. "You woose, you couldn't hear a rhino sneak up on you." I turned around to see my band of men, 11 in total including me.

The bearded man spoke," We got two rockets, but nothing for that thing for that huge thing." I thought for a while, " Got it, take out a wing and a leg, we'll fight it on the ground." We had only two rockets to do this, and we had to move quickly. Cause our two minutes were almost up, and those men were low on ammo. They seemed surprised when two rocket flew in the air, one slamming in the creatures back and another in his lower leg.

Next time..... Tough battle.