In war, death was often sudden. And so were enemy attacks.

I drew my sidearm and fired five shots at the approaching enemy. It was slightly smaller than I expected, but without a doubt Cassandrian. The creature seemed to have appeared from nowhere, jumping down from the ceiling seconds after I had entered the chamber. That didn’t come as a particular surprise—with all the unrestricted memories of Cassandrians I had, it was easy to be prepared for such an eventuality. The unexpected part was it coming from a chamber that I had checked hours ago.

“Contact,” I said through comm, pulling away from the creature as fast as possible. “Contact established. All teams on high alert.”

The creature dashed forward to shorten the distance. Despite its animalesque appearance, it was smart enough not to let me have an advantage. As things stood, my sniper rifle—the strongest weapon I had—was nothing but a hindrance, limiting my movement.

Three more bullets hit its coral-like husk. I could see the splatter as they drilled through the shell. That didn’t impede my enemy in the least. Cassandrians were known for their regenerative qualities. While censorship protocols prevented me from seeing that myself, I had heard the stories from ground troopers after returning from a surface mission.

“One specimen, exo-skeletal type,” I said as I emptied my remaining magazine into its leg. That slowed it down slightly, giving me enough time to reload my sidearm. “Definitely Cassandrian.”

“What?” I heard the slightly nervous voice of the colonel. “Where did that come from?”

“Kappa point,” I replied, focusing my fire on the creature’s leg. It apparently understood my tactic, for it broke off its attack, leaping to shelter behind the corner of one of the temp bunkers. Being granted a reprieve, I holstered my sidearm and grabbed the sniper rifle from my back. Now both of us were armed and out of sight from the other. The issue was that the Cassandrian still had the advantage.

According to the twenty simulations I was running, my best course of action was to enter further into the chamber to a spot in the open. Facing a single enemy, I estimated, I could achieve two shots with my rifle before it got close enough to attack. If there were more than one, though, I was opening myself up for a simultaneous multi-sided attack.

“Didn’t you check there?” The anger in ‘Rissa’s voice was apparent.

“We did, ma’am, and there was no evidence of enemy presence.” I looked up at the projected spot where the creature had dropped from. The ceiling was slightly different from my memories before, as if someone had scooped out part of the rock.

“All scouting groups get back on the double!” she shouted in general comm. “Use monitored rooms!”

Apparently, there were more scouting teams than ‘Rissa had let on.

“Watch out for the ceiling,” I added. “My contact dropped from there. Three might be hidden chambers.”

“Why didn’t we find that?”

“Did you scan the walls for density, ma’am?”

I didn’t get any response. It was a bit mean of me to ask—everyone knew that the majority of instruments were deliberately low tech so as not to affect the plant samples, not to mention the third-contact artifacts the planet was full of. One question remained—what had activated the Cassandrians and why now? Looking at it objectively, I could come to only one conclusion—I was the reason.

“Sergeant, stop what you’re going and get back to base point,” I said, connecting to the members of my squad. “Get everyone with you and be ready for contact.”

“Roger that, ma’am,” the man replied. “Set a rendezvous point and we’ll get you.”

“Negative on that. Look after yourself. I’ll—”

The Cassie came at me before I finished, leaping from the roof of the closest temp bunker. The small caliber wounds I had dealt him continued to be a nuisance, though not enough to make it quit. This wasn’t the Cassandrian’s nature. The species didn’t seem to have a sense of self-preservation or even a self as such. Survival of the sub-species seemed more important than the individual. The only goal this soldier had was to kill me and everyone else in the tunnels, even at the cost of its own life.

I raised the sniper rifle and took a single shot in the center of its chest. The bullet hit the spot, less than three millimeters off the target. A loud crunching sound followed the shot, along with a subdued gurgle. There was a thirty-nine percent chance that I had killed the creature, but just to be on the safe side, I reloaded and took another shot before the creature’s inertia could have it reach me.

The insect-like head burst open. Even so, I saw its left tarsus twitch. A person would have mistaken this for a death response, but analyzing the motion in real time clearly indicated there was thought behind the action. Immediately, I reacted, pulling to the side and away from the creature.

It was a good thing that I did—an attack that wasn’t supposed to be possible followed. The creature’s sharp legs slashed at me—thankfully inches away—before it turned in my direction again.

No nervous system? I wondered while reloading my rifle for a third shot. There was no question that I was dealing damage, just not a lot, by the looks of it. Aiming roughly at the torso, I fired again.

The force of the bullet’s impact pushed the creature back, slowing its forward momentum enough for me to remain at a safe distance. Reloading, I fired again. Standard weapons specs ensured that I had ten shots before I needed to change magazines. Back when I was an active battleship, I used to think that the amount was appropriate, given that one shot was enough to kill a trooper in heavy battle gear. After facing a Cassandrian in battle, I reevaluated my estimates.

With every shot, I changed the body part I was targeting. The lack of clear Cassandrian anatomy made fighting them difficult, more so for others than for me. It had already been determined that shooting at speculated body organs didn’t affect the creature. Its eyes were likely secondary, which suggested that it moved based on vibrations or scent.

Three bullets went into the creature’s limb before it was torn off. This slowed it down considerably, then caused it to fall on the tunnel floor.

Immediately, I fired all remaining shots I had, then changed the magazine. If there were any other specimens, they were most likely on their way here. One thing I knew about the Cassandrians: when faced with a superior opponent, they made up the difference with numbers.

“Contact is wounded,” I said in comm. “Any other sightings?”

“No, ma’am,” my sergeant replied. “We’ve got sensors now so we’ll know if more show up.”

“No, we won’t.” Slowly, I moved backwards to the chamber’s nearest exit. “They are pointed at the ground.”

The one that attacked me had come from a hidden organic bubble in the ceiling. That had to be why the chemical sprays hadn’t had an effect. If anything, they had done the exact opposite of what they were supposed to by eating through the thin layer of chitin, providing access to more Cassandrian matter.

How did they grow this fast, though? Unless there were creatures hidden within the walls of the hive—which I considered a very low probability—there had to be something to have triggered them. Either way, I didn’t intend to find out.

Leaving the wounded specimen on the ground, I rushed towards the command point.

“I’m returning to base point,” I said in comm. Quite likely, the colonel and the other people in charge were watching me through their new surveillance system, but I preferred to be certain. “Contact has been temporarily disabled. It doesn’t appear to have a nervous system. Shoot at the limbs. That appears to slow them down.”

As I said it, I ran a few simulations on how long we could hold out with our current rate of ammunition. Provided the soldiers could achieve sixty percent of my performance, we would be able to withstand an attack of seventy-eight creatures. Of course, that was based on the premise that they didn’t rush us all at once. Anything beyond that would cut through us like a knife or slowly choke us as we exhausted all our ammo. Resorting to chemicals and flammables, we could maybe hold out for a few more hours.

“Scouting teams, report in!” ‘Rissa shouted. Things weren’t going well.

“Elcy here,” I said.

The rest of my squad joined in soon after, along with nineteen other people. The following moment of silence suggested that some people hadn’t.

“Where’s the team at, Sergeant?” I asked. “Would be stupid if we end up shooting each other.”

“Right at the main connecting tunnel, ma’am.”

“I’m way behind. Keep on going. I’ll keep my distance, so if you catch anything running after you, shoot on sight.”

“Roger that, ma’am.”

Just like on the front, I thought. There was more space surrounding us, but every now and again, we’d get cornered in a bad situation and forced to fight at a disadvantage.

Death always was sudden on the front, and so were minefields.

* * *

Liakwa System, Cassandrian Front, 614.5 A.E. (Age of exploration)

Red alert alarms were flashing throughout all my decks. I had issued three warnings for all personnel to get to their battle stations and had started sealing off non-vital parts of the ship. Considering what we were about to face, it was confident to say that I’d receive a considerable amount of damage… provided I made it out of this at all.

The rest of the flotilla battleships shared my pessimism. Several of them had started running multi-variable simulations in order to find the chain of actions that would save the greatest number of people. All of them were decades older than me, so I chose not to share my skepticism.

“How did you let this happen, Wilco?” Captain Augustus asked, holding the lieutenant by the collar. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him react in such fashion, although it was the first time he had done it to Wilco.

“There was nothing on the readings…”

“I can confirm that, sir,” I interjected. “Readings showed the system as empty and lacking any gravitational anomalies. The presence of a minefield could not be predicted.”

With a grunt, Augustus let go of the lieutenant and paced back to his chair. The atmosphere on the bridge felt heavy. Most of the officers there were veterans who had served with Augustus for several years at least, but even so, they weren’t particularly confident in his chances of getting us out of here alive.

Over thirty-thousand Cassandrian mines surrounded us in a field that encompassed a fifth of the entire system. No Fleet organization could dream of pulling this off, but the Cassandrians had, and clearly it had worked.

Originally, I was part of a reinforcement flotilla that was supposed to help gain control of a key strategic star system. The way things were going, the system was likely going to remain in Cassandrian hands, and all reinforcements—eighty-one ships in total—would be destroyed en route.

“Any line to Command or HQ?” Augustus asked in a while.

“Still trying, sir,” Zhira Lex, the ship’s communications officer, replied. “The mines have cut us off completely. We have system communications, though.”

That was a bit of an overstatement. Intra-ship communication was maintained through a combination of mini-sats and directional lasers—technologies that were better suited for a museum than on an active theatre of war. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I’d had to resort to alternative comm methods.

“In theory, we can reach every ship in the flotilla,” the comm’s lieutenant continued.

“Tell me if we get any orders,” Augustus said, then sat in his command chair. A quick behavioral analysis suggested that he was furious with the situation, although not afraid, unlike most of the rest. Interestingly enough, Wilco also didn’t show signs of fear. “Any way out of this, Elcy?”

“Simulations aren’t complete, but there’s a possibility, sir,” I replied.

“Zero-point-one percent?” the captain asked.

“As I said, I’m still running simulations, sir.”

“Less than zero-point-one percent,” Augustus sighed. He had gotten to know me well enough to be able to tell when I was hiding bad news. “Keep combat readiness. We’ll wait this out. Sooner or later, one of the geniuses at HQ will notice that there’s a flotilla missing.”

That didn’t sound particularly reassuring.

“I’ll focus on finding alternatives, sir.” I dedicated all available subroutines to run simulations as well as link with the other ships I had contact to for mutual solutions.

Meanwhile, Augustus took Wilco to his quarters and set to full privacy mode. Most likely, there would be a lot of shouting involved.

There’s no escaping the net, Light Seeker, Blinding Fury transmitted in the local ship channel. The mines have tightened. Anything that gets close will be drilled up.

There are a few loose ends, the frigate Crescent Light added. It’s possible that a few pass by, but that will mean bad things for the rest of us. A better solution would be an all-out attack. As long as we get seventeen percent of the mines, the net will collapse.

We don’t have permission for such actions, I reminded her. Analyzing it, though, the idea had merit.

That’s what captains are for. Mine is already looking into the idea. As long as the flotilla commander gives the okay, we’ll be pretty much good to go.

Getting captains to agree on something? Firespark laughed. He was the oldest of the flotilla, which made him the most cynical. That will be a first. The most likely scenario is that we’ll stay here and wait till someone on the outside rescues us. It’s the same that happened in the Orion sector. You’ll see.

Well, I’d prefer to do a few thousand simulations and come up with an option than—

Crescent Light suddenly stopped. She wasn’t the only one to have noticed something. While the jamming quality of the mines made all communications and long-range scanning impossible, there still were methods by which to monitor our current system. Right now, there were a series of gravity distortions in close vicinity. Focusing my visual sensors on the area in question, I quickly found the cause.

“Cassandrian ships dropping in system!” I announced on the bridge and in the captain’s quarters.

Info bursts filled the ship channel as all vessels exchanged all data they had on the approaching enemy. The minefield hadn’t been placed there just to disrupt our logistics; the Cassandrians had planned this, and now they were coming for the kill.

The door to the captain’s quarters opened. Moments later, Augustus rushed out, followed by Wilco. If there had been an argument, the urgency of the situation had quickly put it to rest.

“How many?” The captain made his way to the command chair.

“Estimates are at least several hundred,” I replied, placing what information I had managed to piece from the flotilla’s transmissions on the walls of the bridge. “Fleet composition remains unknown.”

“They’ll probably move in and launch missiles through the mine file,” Wilco said.

“The odds for our survival are quite favorable in that scenario,” I said.

A few of the mines exploded in a distant part of the minefield. Apparently, some of the ships had convinced their captains to go on with the all-out approach and had started targeting mines to create a tear in the surrounding net. The problem was that the action had triggered the mines, which had started closing in on all available targets. I myself tracked over seventy objects targeting me directly.

“Seventy-three mines are on a collision course,” I announced. “It’s likely they will fire a full salvo once within range.”

“Release all countermeasures and sats,” Wilco ordered. “Recommending that we missile the mines as well, cap. There’ll be nothing left of us if we save ammunition for the Cassies.”

“Do it!” Augustus barked, then started searching his pockets for his cigarettes. I despised this habit, all the more so considering the trouble he went through to be constantly stocked up on the disgusting things. “Fire at will, but don’t waste missiles. They have to last for the Cassies.”

“Aye, captain.” I reset the priority of a million subroutines and started coordinating targeting info with the closest Fleet ships.

The milliseconds stretched to infinity. I had sent priority requests to all weapon officers to assume direct control of their functions. Technically, I didn’t have to—the captain’s authorization trumped everything else. Still, I had found doing so made people less agitated. It was well known that humans couldn’t compare to a ship when it came to speed of commands, and still layers of bureaucratic constraints still required human oversight on every step of the way.

In thirty thousand milliseconds, I had two detailed plans of action. Both were presented to Augustus, who chose one of them, seemingly at random. The final approach involved seven other ships that assigned the targets in the surrounding area in such fashion so there to be no duplicates. As the youngest of the bunch, I was a bit nervous regarding my calculations. Some of them had been through similar situations, unlike me, and didn’t spend every millisecond rechecking their calculations. Then again, they didn’t have the processing power I did.

“Cassandrians are up to a thousand according to estimations,” I announced on the bridge. “I haven’t spotted any Fleet reinforcements.”

“Backups don’t get backups,” Augustus said. “That’s the whole point.”

“I don’t understand, sir. According to Fleet regulations, every flotilla with a strength over fifty must have an assigned support group unless the mission specifically requires that we don’t.”

Augustus grunted, a small smile forming on his face.

“We are the mission,” Wilco said in a somber tone. “Our purpose was to divert part of the Cassie fleet. We were always meant to get caught.”

Sixteen minutes later, a combined salvo of missiles from eight ships launched at the nearest elements of the minefield. Our battle for survival had begun.

* * *

Eleven ships had managed to survive that mission. Details remained highly restricted to this day, but from what I had found out using the mind scalpel, we had succeeded in our mission. In fact, we had done more than succeeded. One of the expected mess-ups of F.I. turned out to be a vital point in one of the greatest offensives at the time. There was no telling how many ships and personnel had been sacrificed to achieve that goal; such details were left out of the official accounts, remaining little more than a footnote in the military record of events.

It would have been useful to know the exact strategy I had used to escape that situation. Given the Cassandrian way of thinking, it was more likely than not they were using the same playbook. We had already come across the mines and triggered the remaining defenses after millennia of silence. The real question was whether there was anyone out there to come flying in.

“Second contact confirmed!” I heard through comm. It was a voice I didn’t recognize.

“It’s at point lambda. Everyone in the area, be advised.”

Lambda point? I had been there recently as well. Curious how this was the second chamber I had scouted without finding anything. Apparently, my team hadn’t either. Good thing too, otherwise at least half of them would be dead.

“Pick up the pace!” I said to my squad in comm. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t follow.”

“You’re going to take it on your own, ma’am?”

“It worked once, it’ll work again.”

Thankfully, unlike the Scuu, the Cassandrians were slow to adapt to our tactics. Back on the front, we’d spend years winning in the same fashion until a new vessel type would force us to change our strategy. Looking back, we were fighting entirely new species without even realizing it. And as the weaker were killed off, stronger ones took their place… until the day we came across an enemy we couldn’t defeat.

The Fleet and Med Core must have realized that. This was why they were conducting experiments—outright dangerous ones at that—at such a breakneck pace. If a permanent solution wasn’t found to deal with the problem, one way or another, the moment would come when the Cassandrians would breeze through human space until they clashed with the Scuu.

“Comm officer, give me an update,” I ordered through comm. Technically, my rank didn’t allow me to order people about as if they were my subordinates. The urgency of the situation, though, brought an instant reply.

“It’s still at point lambda, ma’am. It’s just standing there, doing nothing…”

“Even nothing is something. Is it looking at the sensor?”

“No. It’s just standing in the middle of the chamber and waiting.”

Cassandrians waiting, I thought. That wasn’t good. It suggested that this subspecies was very different from the ones I’d faced. It seemed to have rudimentary strategic thinking. That’s how it had managed to take out so many troops and collapse the entrance to the hive. If it also had the ability to learn, our time was much more limited than initially calculated.

“All teams, do not engage!” I shouted in general comm. “Only shoot at contacts if you can’t do anything else.”

“Why?” Colonel ‘Rissa asked on a private channel. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s a chance that these Cassies are learning. The latest instances weren’t attacks, they’re scouting us, seeing how we’d react. The more info we give them, the sooner they'll move to the next phase.”

“If we don’t react, they’ll kill us by scouting,” the colonel countered.

“That’s the balance you have to keep, ma’am. The optimal play might give us enough time for the rescue teams to reach us. The alternatives won’t.”

I turned around, still running backwards. My memories from here to base point were fresh, eliminating the need of having to look where I was going. Thankfully, there was nothing behind me. The comm officer was right—for whatever reason, the Cassandrians weren’t following.

“How much of the hive has sensors?” I asked.

There was no immediate response.

“Comm officer?”

“Not that much,” ‘Rissa said instead. “About seven percent of the ones we’ve explored.”

She was right. That was a minuscule number compared to the entire hive.

“What’s the rescue team’s ETA?”

No answer again.

“Colonel?”

“Fifty hours, give or take,” she replied on a private comm line. “Thirty-five in a best-case scenario, sixty if things go really bad.”

“Do you believe we can survive for that long, ma’am?”

“We’ll have to. We’ve seen that there aren’t too many of them, so maybe they won’t attack at once. As long as it isn’t a surge, odds are about even.”

I didn’t feel the need to correct her. Whoever had given her the numbers probably knew something I didn’t, otherwise they’d have gone with my original estimate.

“We don’t have enough people to act as bait, ma’am,” I said. “If there are more than a hundred Cassandrians, you’ll lose more time by splitting the group than making a final stand.”

“I know.” Her voice was calm. “We already ran that possibility. The best-case scenario is for us to watch and wait it out.”

“Actually, that is incorrect, ma’am. There is another option that doesn’t involve shattering the planet. Would you be willing to lose a few artifacts and the option to examine the Cassandrian remains?”

The colonel closed the line as I knew she would. This wasn’t a question she was cleared to answer, and even if she were, I doubt that she’d agree. In the grand scheme of things, a few lives—even of top researchers—were acceptable losses. Losing Cassandrian specimens that had become active after millennia of isolation… nNow, that was unacceptable.