They were five miles out of my range.

The red had started to encroach onto my suits scanners. They were a flood, a torrent. Every second, more and more of the display was filled with them. And they were still so far out, and more would filter in, pushed into one point by Camille’s drones. Actually, they technically were in range of the artillery railguns on my back. But firing this soon would be counterproductive. It might scatter the horde that Camille had painstakingly herded together.

I stared down the half-mile-long concrete bridge, studying my battlefield. Honestly, it was a pretty great place to fight. The Worms would only have one way to go to reach us, and that was straight into our line of fire. The bridge was pretty wide, since it was as six-lane highway, but the defensive line was able to fully stretch from one side to the other. I was fairly confident that we could hold it. The problem was that I wasn’t so sure that the defenders on the riverbanks would be able to keep the flanks. If they collapsed, we’d get speared right in the bunghole by thousands of very pissed off Worms.

Even in a Paladin, there was a good chance I wouldn’t survive.

Which begged the question: why the fuck was I here?

“Sam?”

I’d answered the question earlier, to that man whose name I’d already forgotten, but honestly, what I said was mostly bullshit, bravado, putting on a strong front. He’d been right – I didn’t have family here, I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have anything to protect besides these strangers around me and some words sworn to a long-gone government. I had taken the oath back when I’d had nothing left to lose; but now I had my family back.

I’d jumped into this thing headfirst, like always, without really thinking about the consequences or what the hell I was even doing. This wasn’t like the other times where I’d fought Assimilators. There was a horde of these things, and they were all coming straight for me. I wasn’t trying to run away from them like in Denver, I was fighting them head on. All for people I didn’t know. They mingled around me, various expressions of fear and nervousness stamped onto their faces.

Did I really want to die for them?

“Sam?”

Why?

Why be a hero? Humanity was fucked. That was the truth. It didn’t matter if I saved one town from one tiny group of Assimilators when there were hundreds of millions of them surrounding us. Any time they wanted too, they could wipe the last pitiful remnants of our species out in a flash. One jackass, hell, ten thousand jackasses in Paladins wouldn’t be able to do shit about it. Who the hell was I kidding. Everything I was doing was just a giant joke, wasn’t it?

If I had any shred of intelligence left, I’d keep myself and the people I loved safe, and tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself. Commander Berston had it right. I didn’t owe these people shit.

“SAM”

Adelaide snapped me out of it. My hands shook wildly and my heart beat in my chest like a hummingbird’s wings as I glanced at my scanners

Three miles out of range.

“Sorry Adelaide, I was doing some last-minute checks. Everything okay?”

“For the most part. Camille’s funnel has been effective, and the Assimilators should be contained within our zone of engagement. The final estimate puts the horde at between twelve and thirteen thousand.” She paused for a second, letting that sink in, “On the bright side, desertion rate is lower than expected among the militia. The evacuation, however, is running behind our estimates.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, frustrated by the situation but grateful for the distraction, “What’s the holdup?”

“It appears as though some of the evacuees are attempting to bring too many belongings, and the transports are too full.”

We’d been using the transports that’d been plundered from the Reapers back in Fort Morgan. They were a good size, but with the amount of townspeople there were it was going to take a fair few trips to evacuate everyone. And the longer it took to get them out, the longer we’d have to hold the line. My initial attack would be critical in keeping the number of Worms down. I had to attack as soon as they entered range. Which meant getting distracted wasn’t really an option.

… Christ, I’d picked one hell of a time for a crisis of faith.

“Anything we can do to help them get a move on?” I asked Adelaide, keeping an eye on the horde populating my HUD.

“No. I have contacted Mayor Antonio and he says they are moving as fast as possible.” She sounded miffed.

I tried to rub at my eyes in frustration before remembering the massive Gatling guns strapped to my hands, so I settled for another drawn out sigh, “Alright, thanks for letting me know.”

She disconnected from the coms, and I was left with my thoughts again. The past days had been such a blur of activity that I hadn’t had a spare second to just think. I’d kept myself so busy that I’d been able to ignore the little voice screaming in the back of my head that maybe what I was doing was really fucking stupid. That maybe sitting this one out in the bunker would’ve been the better call. Honestly, they didn’t even ask for my help. I just up and volunteered like a glory-seeking moron. And then they go and fuck up the evacuation, because our job wasn’t hard enough as it was, apparently. It wasn’t even my goddamn fault that the Wormy bastards decided to pay Sterling a visit. That advance tea-

Oh. Right.

That was why. Simple, really.

I couldn’t feel like that again. Couldn’t let them die without helping again.

Without Camille, without Adelaide, and without me, they’d break within a half hour. The militia lined up at their sandbags, clutching the rifles they barely knew how to use, wouldn’t be able to hold. If I faltered here, if I lost, if I ran away, there’s no way that Sterling would survive. The Assimilators would tear into the town and chase down the transports. When they decided to attack, they weren’t in the habit of leaving people alive.

My damn nightmares were already crowded enough with the blank faces of the advance team. My conscience couldn’t bear a whole town too.

I had my reason, then. Selfishness wearing the mask of altruism. Not perfect, but I could live with it. I shook my head in the suit, and calmed down my breathing. The red wave was getting close to my weapons range, and I had a show to put on. There was one last thing though.

“Hey, Adelaide,” I called, while the twin cannons on the back of my suit began to move into position again, adjusting to the oncoming Assimilators. Two miles left.

“Yes, Sam?”

The cannons settled down for the most part, but the barrels were still moving slightly in accordance to the Paladin’s automatic targeting. Around me, the militia stopped what they were doing to stare.

“How’s the progress on getting through the black box? And is our backup plan in place yet?”

“The decoding process is very close to completion, under an hour by my estimates. Regarding your second question, yes, the station is online.”

“That’s one blessing at least,” I muttered under my breath. I switched the coms away from the channel with both Adelaide and Camille, isolating so that I was just talking to Adelaide, “Hey. Can I trust you to look out for Camille, in case something happens?”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“If something does?”

“… Yes.”

“Thanks.”

She went silent after that. I wish I’d had the chance to talk to Camille a little, but she had way too much to deal with to spare the brainpower. I pictured her in the control room of Camelot, brow furrowed with concentration, fighting off a headache as her eyes jumped between dozens of monitors. She’d need a long time to recover after today. My thoughts were interrupted by a little alert symbol that popped up on my HUD. One mile.

I cleared my throat and set my coms to the open channel, “Command, this is Paladin Lewis. I will be beginning my initial artillery barrage in approximately ninety seconds.”

For a dozen or so uncomfortable seconds, nobody responded. Which probably meant that nobody knew who was really in charge. Which was a minor source of concern. And by minor, and meant it was really not good. Finally, Mary’s voice broke in,

“Roger that Paladin. Give em’ hell.”

I closed my coms and cracked my neck. Showtime.

It didn’t take more than a thought to set the railguns firing. The system did all the hard work: in a split second, the angle the cannons were pointed and the power they needed to fire at was calculated. The range of the railguns was incredible, but that made it very difficult to aim accurately. With just a hair more or less power, the shell would end up in a completely different place. No human would be able to manage a system like that unassisted.

When the cannons fired, the ground underneath my feet cracked as the Paladin was driven down from the sheer force. The one over my left shoulder fired first, followed a moment later by the one on my right. The second they had launched their shell, basically just a conductive metal casing around a lot of explosives, a drone would load in a new one taken from the station behind me. The barrage was constant; I could feel my brain rattling in my skull every couple seconds. With the systems handling the bombardment, I didn’t have much to do but wait.

It took longer than I expected it to for the blue explosions to bloom on the horizon. The first one was faint, a flash in the morning. As the seconds passed they came closer and closer, brighter and brighter, advancing with the horde. The optics on my Paladin could pick out near-black shapes illuminated by them, moving forward relentlessly. It seemed that the Assimilators barely noticed the shells falling among them; dozens were wiped out by each one, but there were hundreds more to take their place.

Faintly, I began to hear their screeches on the wind. An unholy noise that grew and grew, drowning everything else out. A militiaman in the squad next to me started to pray again, and another started to curse as the sun rose behind the horde, now just a mile away from the bridge. The thousands of Assimilators seemed to move as one organism, until they reached the opposite river bank. The horde split into three groups as they approached, fanning out along the river. When they reached the bridge, it wasn’t like in the movies. The army didn’t stop, didn’t face down our defenders in an intimidating show of force. They just continued like a wave, red eyes glowing brightly as they stormed forward, screeching all the while, a line of massive M2 Assimilators leading the charge. They covered the bridge in an unbroken mass, like ants over pavement.

I raised my gatling cannons, pointing them down the bridge. The railguns on my back were now parallel to the ground, blasting slugs directly into the Assimilators and tearing holes in their ranks. The guns on my arms began to spin up with a whir, the barrels glowing bright red. I set my target: a giant M2 Assimilator, one of the bison-headed Worms leading the horde.

The new scanners on my Paladin made the Assimilator look slightly translucent; I could see into the damn thing, and the ganglion in its head was highlighted in bright red. I took aim at it and pulled the triggers, and the Worm crashed to the ground, punctured with dozens of holes that sizzled around the edges. Behind it, two more Assimilators fell as well. I grinned and squeezed the triggers down fully, spraying the horde with bolts of bright orange-and-green plasma. Well, more like tiny, half-millimeter-thick ‘bullets’ accelerated to ungodly speeds. They burnt the air around them, coating themselves in a layer of plasma. The absolutely mind-boggling amount of power required to operate them was provided by the stand alone anti-matter reactor camped out behind me. I was basically a stationary turret, but that served my purposes just fine.

The Worms fell like wheat in front of me. I fired indiscriminately in a wide arc, trying to cut down as many as I could. While the plasma gatlings went to town on the smaller Worms, I picked off larger Assimilators with the railguns on my back. Unlike before, I was manually aiming at targets, the CAS only making minute adjustments to my accuracy. I had to keep an eye on the map on my HUD as well; despite the barrage, they advanced steadily down the bridge.

I dimly heard someone commanding the militia to open fire, and the rattle of assault rifles joined the cacophony on the bridge. The militia’s railgun turrets began to boom out as well, doing a shockingly good job of scattering tightly grouped together clumps of Worms. The horde faltered a bit under the hail of bullets, but surged forward after another moment.

They were getting too close to our lines, and my plasma cannons were dangerously close to overheating. After a moment’s hesitation, I sent a signal over the coms with a mental command. I continued firing, the gatling on my right arm reducing a row of seven gorrilladillos to swiss cheese while the railguns on my back tore the head off a hulking M2 Assimilator. Without pausing I fired a burst of plasma from my left cannon into a group of smaller ranged Worms creeping up the flank. I was a second too slow though, as to my left a militia screamed as she was impaled by a foot-long spike. Similar casualties were starting to crop up all along the line. To their credit, the militia were dishing out far more damage than they were receiving, the bursts from their assault rifles riddling the Assimilators with bullets, but every death on our side meant much more than one on theirs.

The Worms had gotten within fifteen feet of the defenses when I heard a low, steady hum and breathed a sigh of relief. The Merlin buzzed low above me in a blur of red and white, strafing the bridge with the nose cannon. Simultaneously, I unleashed a salvo of rockets from the pods on my shoulder. They exploded in bursts of bright blue, carving gaping holes in the Assimilator horde. Amazingly, the Worms fell back under the salvo, screaming defiantly up at the hovering gunship. Unfortunately, Adelaide couldn’t stay for long. She fired one last volley into the horde, then sped off to the North, to support the battalion there. The lull after she left didn’t last more than a few breaths, but it was enough for my plasma cannons to shed some heat and for the militia to reload. Then the Worms renewed their attack with unbroken vigor.

For a while, it seemed like things were going okay. The Assimilators would surge, and we’d beat them back, sometimes with the help of the Merlin. They came at us again and again, but we were holding them at bay. Better yet, it felt like the pressure on our lines was decreasing. There seemed to be more time between each attack, and they fell back a little farther each time we repelled them. It felt like we were winning.

Until shit hit the fan, at least.

I’d just finished punching a series of holes into a crowd of R1 Assimilators when a panicked call went out over the command channel.

The southern flank was going to get overrun. I took a quick glance at my map, and a chill went down my spine. The mass of red had encroached all the way up the river bank, and was inching closer and closer by the minute. The green dots that represented the defenders were disappearing, one by one. Instead of going all in for the bridge, the Assimilators had started going for the flanks much earlier than we expected.

In the dithering silence that followed, I made a split-second decision.

“The reserve battalion needs to get over there ASAP. The Merlin is going to provide support in the meantime, I just need you all to hold for another few seconds.”

I waited for the affirmative noises to come in, then switched my channel to connect only to Mary, “Mary, you’re going to be alone for a while, can you handle it?”

There was a long pause.

“Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe if we get some air support, but there are way more of them coming than we expe-” the sound of explosion and static cut her out for a little, “- like they’re giving up on the bridge and going just for us.”

I cursed low underneath my breath, trying to split my attention between the Mary and firing at the Assimilators in front of me. I sent a quick mental message to Camille, a position on the tactical map.

“Okay, Camille’s drones will help you out, keep –“

I was cut off as a dark shape burst out of the horde, leaping with unnatural speed towards us. I fired at it, trying to cut it off, but it ducked and weaved through the stream of plasma, then bowled straight into me, sending me flying backwards. I smashed into the power supply, knocking it down. The thrusters on my Paladin kept me standing, barely, but another blow sent me sprawling. There was a sickening crunch as the plasma cannon on my right arm was crushed underneath the weight of my Paladin. I detached it and the one on my other arm, then rolled sideways off my stomach and onto my back, barely dodging the flash of claws that embedded themselves in the concrete where my head had been a moment before. I leapt to my feet and fired my front thrusters, which shot me backwards, giving myself some room to breathe and take stock of what the fuck was going on.

I was about twenty feet behind the defensive line, on an empty stretch of bridge. In front of me stood a massive Assimilator. It had the rough shape of a mountain lion, but twelve feet long and six feet tall at the shoulder. The thing was covered in pitch-black scales that were so tightly interwoven that they looked like smooth fur. Two rows of short spikes ran down the length of its back all the way to its tail. It bared a mouthful of teeth at me, face twisted into a growl, four red eyes narrowed in hatred. A Hive Lord.

It didn’t give me any more time to think, and I raised my arms into defensive posture just in time to block its lunge. Its teeth smashed down on the heavy plate of my forearm, and its claws scraped at the armor over my ribs. I felt a dull pressure in my arm, and the sensors on my suit reported minor damage, but that was it. The thick armor of the Assault Paladin had blocked the brunt of it. I flung it off one-handed, sending it careening into the air. It hit the concrete hard, but rolled gracefully to its feet in one smooth motion. The Hive Lord looked unhurt, but it was far more cautious than before, pacing in slow, predatory circles around me. I stood my ground, waiting for it to make the first move. I was much slower than the Worm, but much tougher.

I flashed a quick, worried glance over to the defensive line. They’d have to hold without me, and I wasn’t sure if they could. I had to take this thing down quickly. Almost as if it could sense my momentary distraction, the Hive Lord sprinted at me, jaws bared, accelerating like a sportscar. I could pick out each one of its curved, half-foot long teeth as it leapt forward. I balled my right hand into a fist, and pulled back my arm.

And I punched the fucking Worm in the face.

The force of the impact sent tremors up my arm, barely overwhelming the Assault Paladin’s unfinished inertia dampeners. Through the kinetic sensors on my hands, I felt every bone break in the Hive Lords head, my fist stopping it in midair. Unfortunately, the rest of the Assimilator’s body continued forward. It smashed into me in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Even though I’d smashed its skull in, it’s claws still raked over my armor. One of them found purchase on the railgun over my right shoulder and tore it off like it was paper. Over the blaring of the alerts, I roared and grabbed the Hive Lord, digging my fingers into the hard, scale-like fur. I heaved it over my head, flipping it around and smashing it into the ground. The Worm lashed out a leg at mine, catching me by surprise. I lost my balance and tumbled backwards, but the stabilizing thrusters kept me from falling completely. The Hive Lord took the opportunity to scurry backwards out of my reach. I watched in frustration as its shattered face began to slowly knit itself back together. The new sensors in my suit highlighted its ganglion: One where its brain should’ve been, which had been damaged by my punch, and one in its chest. Since I was slower than it, I’d have to get rid of both in the same engagement, before it could run away.

The Hive Lord was pacing again, still recovering from its wounds, ruby eyes locked onto my Paladin. This time, I wasn’t about to wait for it to attack.

I fired the thrusters on the back of my Paladin at full blast, sending myself flying at the monster. The pods on my shoulder fired a series of missiles which split into a pincer, cutting off the Hive Lord’s lateral movements. Its eyes widened, and the Worm dodged in the only way it could: directly at me. Backlit by the blue explosions of the rockets that detonated to its sides, the Hive Lord tore forward. As I prepared to meet it, the Assimilator surprised me by launching into a flying leap over my head, trying to use its agility to get into a more advantageous position. I desperately reached a hand above my head but caught nothing but air. I planted my left foot and dragged the other, bleeding off momentum from my lunge, trying to turn and face the Hive Lord before it could attack.

It was too little, too late. I saw a quick, black blur out of the corner of my eyes, then I felt a tremendous blow on my side. I fell flat on my back; the Worm was standing on my chest, pinning me to the ground with its weight. It thrashed at me, and I instinctively shielded my face with my arms. This time, it’s claws were effective: they ripped into the thick metal, leaving long tears down it. I launched myself upward with a quick burn of my rear thrusters, but the Hive Lord had already leapt backwards, just outside my range once more.

I’d barely gotten back on my feet when it attacked again. I fired rockets from my shoulder, but it weaved through them as if they weren’t even there. I prepared for another attack by raising my arms, but the Worm surprised me yet again. It ducked low, drawing itself almost flat to the ground, and tackled at my legs, sweeping me off my feet. I felt it tear at something at the back of my knee, and in panic I thrust my elbow downwards. It connected, and the satisfying crack of its shoulder breaking filled my ears. But the Hive Lord had done its job, and it retreated in a flash, prowling around me while its shoulder healed.

A quick look at my suit’s diagnostics told me that the servos in my right leg had been heavily damaged. The damn thing was trying to limit my mobility even more. Fortunately, despite the damage, my leg was still more or less functional. But the Hive Lord didn’t know that.

I struggled to stand, then feigned collapsing to one knee again, as if the leg couldn’t bare my weight. The Hive Lord’s tail began to twitch in excitement, and I grimaced underneath my helmet. Had the Assault Paladin not been built like a brick shithouse, I would’ve been over the barrel. But as it stood, this next bout would be my best chance of taking the fucking cat down.

Without a hint of warning, the Worm sped in my direction. I saw it's eyes become fixed on my neck. It was going for the killing blow. But so was I.

When it was just a foot away from me, I burst upwards from my crouch to meet it. I caught it in a hard tackle, and could feel the pauldron of my Paladin bend from the force of our impact. The Hive Lord was hit harder though: ligaments and muscles across its chest and shoulders tore and bones shattered throughout its body. It shrieked in agony, but I wasn’t done with it. Keeping a firm grip on the Worm, I heaved it like a wrestler and slammed it straight into the concrete, sending spider-webbing cracks over the bridge. While it was winded, my hand found one of the spikes on its back. I tore it out, eliciting another shriek of pain. It tried to scurry away, but I kept it pinned with one knee. It’s four legs thrashed at me, trying to push me off, and it was damn strong. I was stronger. I brushed aside its claws with my free hand, and hammered its own spike down into its chest, piercing through the ganglion.

The Hive Lord’s body went rigid, and it made a noise that would haunt me for a long time, a terrifying roar that filled my ears and reverberated across the battlefield. It started to struggle again, but with only half its previous strength. A quick punch to the face stunned it again, and I grabbed its head with one hand, pulling it upwards with me as I stood. The Worm wriggled, trying to pull free, but I kept a firm grip on its skull. My eyes met its, and I saw desperation in their cold red depths.

I slammed its head into my knee, and it collapsed with a wet, sickening crunch.

The Hive Lord’s headless body slid to the ground, limp and lifeless.