*Ebel*

As a medic looks me over an IDR runner reports to me, “ma’am, there is an emergency dispatch order. As soon as you are cleared for action, go to the outer defense line, and prepare for an oncoming incursion attack. Relay this message to every trooper, soldier, guard and trainee you come across.”

Even the guards and trainees. On our way back from the city we lost one of our trucks to a large group of incursions. The group wasn’t even heading towards us, but as soon as they heard the trucks, they rushed. That one group was already thousands strong, if more of them join together, we will be in for a hell of a fight.

From the side, Greg hobbles up to me, “ma’am, have you heard about the emergency dispatch yet?”

I nod to him, “yes, I have.” I finger the rank on my chest.

Greg straightens up as much as he can, “ma’am, private Gregory requests permission to join your defense line.”

I look him up and down, “what do you think you are saying Greg. Look at yourself. You can barely stand; you haven’t even been looked treated farther than emergency triage. You are in no condition to fight.”

Greg winces, “Lieutenant, they fixed me up enough. I am not in danger of dying for hours yet. I can at least still hold a pistol up, and if I am prone a rifle should be able to lay down cover fire. Don’t leave me here when we are facing the possible end of our installation. Let me help.”

I finger my rank again and grip it hard. I do not deserve this. I rip the rank free from my blouse and look at it in my hand, before throwing it to the ground at Greg’s feet. I look up to him from the ground, he looks confused and conflicted, “you are asking the wrong person Greg. I am not going to go there as a lieutenant. All I would do if I went is get more people killed. I am not suited for command, I am . . .”

Greg forces himself to grab my shoulder, “lieutenant, Ebel, you are a good lieutenant. I might not have had experience with other truck leaders, but I have talked to many others. You have been a good leader to our truck. Better than most.”

I shake my head, “yet, the only ones left from our truck is you and Manuel. I got everyone else killed. My orders were the reason they died. I made the wrong decisions and they died as a result.”

Greg tightens his grip with a wince, “you did more than what anyone could have asked of you. We are in a bad situation. If not for you, neither me nor Manuele would be here.”

I sigh, his words ring hallow in my ears, “Dani is dead. I could say that was a bad situation. It does not change that she was on the top of the truck by my orders. That private is dead. I don’t even know his name Greg. George is dead. Rodriguez is dead. They died fallowing my orders. Not orders from the book, not orders from their training. Orders I made. I made bad call after bad call, and they died for my incompetence.”

I get up and start to walk off toward the front line. Greg whispers just behind me, “Manuel accepted a god’s grace.”

I freeze in my steps. I look back at him, “what?”

Greg hesitates before continuing, “back when we were in front of the building complex. When he was trying to cover the other truck squads. He said another offer appeared in front of him. He was so desperate. He accepted the grace.”

I do not speak. What am I supposed to say? Get mad at him for accepting the help of our enemies? We did not know that then. Angry that he ignored my orders? I never told him not to accept the grace, all I did was ignore what he was saying and snap at him for trying to report something important.

Greg continues, “he told me because, the gods can heal my arm, if I accept them.”

The gods can heal Gregs arm? I wince and look away, “you would be selling your soul to them. You would become their pawn. You would become our enemy.”

Greg glances down, “we don’t know that for certain. Manuel seems fine. He has not changed; he does not seem like a puppet or anything.” He looks at his bandaged bloody stump of a shoulder, “besides, what choice do I have left?”

I say, “you can still become a coordinator, logistics, instructor. The IDR is calling for anyone not able to go on the convoys to become instructors or coordinators. There are still options besides this.”

Greg looks me in the eye, “what options do we have if the incursions take the installation? We need every possible hand to defend the installation. If the gods can give me back my arm, I can defend us. I can help stop the incursions from advancing.”

I swallow hard, “I am against this Greg. You don’t know what they will do to you. Manuel might seem fine now, but a week from now. Hell, he might already be being controlled and he just seems fine. You heard the intel reports when we got back. The gods are our enemies, they want us dead, gone, exterminated. They were the ones to invade us. The incursions we are fighting are controlled by them.”

Greg looks away from me, “maybe they do control the incursions. Maybe they do want us to be exterminated. But it is also just as likely that not all of them want that. There are more than one god. Before all this happened, were we a single united front? Did all our countries and states get along and sing kumbaya? The gods could just as easily be the same. Have you ever considered that? Have you considered that the gods offering us their grace are trying to oppose different gods that invaded us. That there could be gods that control the incursions, and different gods that oppose them, and want to help us? Besides, you said it yourself. You are no longer my lieutenant.”

Greg turns away from me and starts walking off. Shit. I turn to the frontline and start walking there. Be safe Greg, Manuel. Don’t succumb to the gods.

*Harold*

As I was continuing to drag people from the continuously returning bloody trucks an army soldier runs up to me and pulls me to the side, “stop what your doing, get to the first defense line as soon as possible. An incursion army is on its way. Spread the word to anyone capable of fighting, but get there as fast as you can.”

My eyes widen and blood drains from my face, “but, I am only a recruit, I am not even a full trooper yet I . . .”

The soldier shakes me slightly, “it does not matter. The call is going out to everyone, including the guards and trainees. Just get to the defense line and bring as many as you can with you.”

I nod and look at the remaining trucks and injured before turning back to the soldier, he cuts me off before I can ask, “civilian volunteers are already on their way to take over here.” He hesitates for a second before adding, “they don’t need to know about the defense line. Now go.”

I nod to the man before taking off to the line. An army? I don’t even have a weapon. Will I get one there? Am I supposed to go to the armory first? I should have asked the soldier before I left. I turn back only to see the soldier talking to yet another recruit. He said to go to the defense line, so that is what I will do.

As I run through the fields of wounded, I pass by another trooper still working on the injured. I stop just past him, remembering that the soldier told me to bring as many as I could with me. I move up to him and relay the orders. He scowls but nods, “very well, good work recruit, move on, I will relay the orders to my team leader, and we will join you at the line shortly.” I nod and continue my track.

As I near the first line of defense I can start hearing commands and commotion float through the air. There are more and more people running along within my field of vision as well. Once I reach the edge I am stopped by a trooper, I look at his rank and he is a captain, “you, grab a shovel or axe. Build up a wall as best as you can.”

I look to where he is pointing and there is a truck full of axes and shovels. I nod and run to grab one. I grab a shovel before looking around. There are the beginnings of a wall further down range. It is far from completion, or even strength. It is composed of trees that have been fell and then stacked on top of each other and bound by five fifty cord. The thirty people stacking the massive trees aren’t even bothering to chop off the extra branches, they are just laying them on top of one another before binding them. Between the stacks I can see dirt flying into the air.

I run over to the location to see a trench being dug in front of the four foot tall wall. The trench is five feet deep at its deepest and five across at its widest. I jump into the trench and start trying to match the dimensions.

While in the trench I bump into another person as I rush to throw the dirt over the wall like the others are doing. I turn to apologize only to see a familiar haggard face, “Lieutenant Ebel?”

The woman looks over her shoulder at me and deadpans at me for a moment before speaking up, “you’re that guy that was with Alexandra right?”

I nod and go to attention, “my name is Harold ma’am. I would like to thank you for . . .”

Lieutenant Ebel interrupts me, “later Harold, for now we need to get this trench dug and our fire line built. Last I heard we have less than two hours before the incursions get here. The more holes we have the faster we will have to retreat to the second line. The longer we can hold here, the more well built the second line will get.”

I nod to her and continue to dig. Just under two hours later, with the increased help of more arrivals, we have completed more than eighty percent of the wall and trench within sight. At one point people started to cut off the branches from the trees and build a ledge of dirt behind the wall. This gave us a relatively flat wall and place to lay down prone to fire from.

I am posted next to Ebel. We both have rifles that were brought with trucks half an hour ago, along with tens of thousands of rounds of ammo. From in the distance we can see the incursions crest the horizon. There are millions of them. They black out the ground and we can feel a slight tremble in the earth below us as they run at us. There are a mix of all the classes from self all the way to dozens of disaster class incursions.

I gulp heavily and hold my rifle tight. From a few people down I can barely hear someone say, “my god, they were right. There is no way we can hold off this many. We are going to lose.”

Next to me Ebel snaps at the person, “Shut IT. We are prepared and have enough firepower to level the entire horizon, and the incursions with it. We will hold for as long as we can.”

The man retorts, “there is no way we can hold. My god warned me! She said we must run from the army. That it was too powerful. That we had no chance! We have to escape so that we can survive. If we survive, we can still grow stronger. Strong enough to fight back against that army, but not now. Now we are still to week.”

More and more people around us are starting to shift. A few of them are calling out assent. This does not bode well.

*Alexandra*

The boss level is about to begin. I have no idea where Hal is, but I hope he is seeing this. It is spectacular. Incursions as far as the eye can see, and we get to kill them. At first, I was quite nervous. I was worried I would freeze up, panic at the sight of an incursion again. Go back to the expo, go back to hiding under the bench in the bed of the truck. My worries are meaningless now. There are so many incursions flooding the land in front of me I couldn’t even dream to hope to count them, or even identify one from another. All I feel at seeing this wave of death is excitement and anticipation. Anticipation for their death, excitement at the prospect of laying waste to the incursions that have caused us so much pain. I am not freezing; I am having to force myself from not unloading my entire magazine into the oncoming wall. I wont even need to aim. There are so many that it would be harder to miss one rather than hit one.

Not everyone has such high expectations though. From beside me Manuel is muttering to himself about how we were going to be steamrolled or something. Within his mumbles I hear whispers about how his god was right and we had to escape.

I turn on my side to Manuel, shock on my face, “Manuel, did you accept the gods’ grace?! You know they are the enemy! You are one of the highest ranked players in the world, you should know about how bad the gods are.”

He stops mumbling and turns his head to me, “I didn’t have a choice, Alex. I know what the gods are, but I didn’t have a choice. We were all going to die if I didn’t accept the grace.”

He goes quiet for a moment thinking, then he raises his head some more, “Alex, my god, he warned me about the incoming attack. The incursions are stronger now than they were. We will not be able to hold. We must get back and evacuate as many civilians as we can, while we still can. If we die now, no one will be able to fight against the incursions. We must get out of here, grow stronger, more experienced. Through the grace we have levels now. We can level up as well. We can become strong enough to fight against the incursions. But if we fall here and now, that all goes away. We will lose all hope of fighting against the incursions.”

I roll my eyes, “is that what the gods, our enemies, told you? We haven’t even tried to hold them back yet. Why not give it a shot before you blindly fallow our enemies? Besides, you think I am going to give up a chance at some payback for killing our friends. I am going to lay waste to these pieces of trash mobs.”

Manuel grips his rifle and settles back into his slot on top of our log and dirt wall. This is going to be great. I will think about what to do with Manuel later. Not just him, there are bound to be more people who have accepted the grace. A problem for later. For now, there is a barrel approaching me just chalk full of nasty little fishes just waiting to be shot.

As the horde passes the second range marker a flare lights up the now mostly monotone sky. As I register the signal my finger squeezes the trigger, and the recoil flows into my shoulder. Only a single shot spirals down range. I frown and flick the selector on the side. Releasing and then squeezing the trigger again a blissful and blistering jackhammer slams into my shoulder. The feeling is of cyclic divine death.

Bullets, rockets, grenades, and all plethora of munitions rain death upon the oncoming horde. It is sad that the artillery won’t be active until we move back to the second defensive line. They went through all this trouble to set up the first defensive line outside the pre targeted regions of the artillery to ensure that the incursions are bunched up as much as possible before they rain fire from the sky. It will be spectacular.

The incursions continue to advance, slower now, as we chew into them, but advance still. The first groups of them are being absorbed into the larger masses, just as planned. I love whoever came up with this strategy. If not for it, all I would be doing is watching them die in fire from the sky. With this strategy I get the chance to unleash some of that sweet, sweet death myself.

From down the line I can hear a commotion over the deafening fire of rifles. I glance over to see a person running back from our fire line. Why would they run from such a fun level as this? Beside me Manuel starts to panic, “shit, shit, shit. This will never work. Look at how many there are. We are not even making a dent. My god is urging me to escape as well. He even issued a quest for me to escape alive. The mission is to escape the collapse of the installation Alex. The installation is going to fall. If we don’t try and evacuate now, we will all die. The civilians will have no one to warn them. They don’t know what is coming their way. They will be slaughtered.”

What are you doing Manuel, we have not received the fall back order yet? Manuel stands up from his slot and starts running away from the line back to the civilian tents. Officers are screaming at him as well as the dozens upon dozens of other people fleeing the first defense line. Well fuck, this can not end well. The fire up and down the line is starting to lower. I look to the nest where the heavy rifle has stopped firing. It is gone. At least leave your weapons if you are going to flee!

*Harold*

People are starting to run from the first defense line. Most are screaming about how their gods warned us. How ignoring them would lead to our deaths. There are a few that are not as well. As more and more people flee from the line the fire holding back the advancing incursions slows. The advance starts to pick up speed. This is bad. Even people that have not accepted the offered grace from the gods are starting to run from the defense line. The officers are screaming at them to return to the line. Before we engaged, we were briefed that we had to hold for at least thirty minutes. We have enough ammo to fire continuously for at least forty minutes.

The half hour we buy is the additional time needed to prep the original line of defense as well as the artillery batteries to begin a continuous fire. They would be able to fire for an entire hour in the plan. They would walk us back to the second defensive line where we could resupply our ammo and hold off the incursions. On that line supplies are being gathered to fend off the incursions with hours of continuous fire. Combined with the artillery, we could easily wipe out millions of incursions.

That is if we can hold on for the extra half hour. Without that the artillery won’t have enough ammo to do anything after they walk us back. The second line will not have enough ammo to hold off the incursions for more than an hour. We should still be able to take on the millions of incursions, but it will be much closer.

I watch another group of people flee from the defense line. I tun to Ebel, “ma’am, what should we . . .”

She turns to me then returns forward, “don’t ask me Harold, I am no longer a lieutenant. Just keep firing for now and hold until the signal to fall back is given.”

She is no longer a lieutenant? I do not have time to consider that as I return to firing on the approaching army. It is not long after that the incursions reach the red line. At this point a flare should be launched up to signal the fall back, yet no flare is launched. The bulk of the army has yet to reach the line, only ten minutes have passed since the beginning of the battle. The officers are likely wanting to wait until the bulk reach the line. The small groups should be ripped to pieces before that reach the line proper anyway.

The rate of runners increases substantially. Most of the line would have seen the incursions reach the red line. They are not waiting for the officers to call the fall back.

The fire stalling the incursion army slows to a trickle, effectively negligent on the advance. The small groups of incursions that should have been torn up are reaching the trench and piling in, setting off the mines and fires long before the bulk of the army arrives. Without the explosives, the incursion army will just walk over the defense line. The fall back flare colors the sky in a single brilliant white.

Below me a blast shoots up the wall and a black hound jumps the trench and lands in front of me. More by instinct that conscious choice I rase my rifle and fire. From beside me Ebel unloads into the beast as well. She then grabs and pulls me before it can crash on top of me.

We both look at each other before rolling off the back of the line and sprinting off with the rest of the defense line. As we run explosions start to wreck the trench and wall. The army is breaching the line. A second flare brightens the sky and I brace myself while still running.

Explosions a magnitude larger than the ones before shake the ground behind us. I almost stumble but Ebel grabs my arm and pulls me up. As I rise, I see behind me. There are dozens of explosions going off. There are supposed to be hundreds.

Ebel and I continue our sprint, the dozens of impacts fallow us slowly from behind. There are not enough. Incursions are starting to slip through, causing us to have to cover our fellow defenders. I hope there are some covering us as well.

As we approach the second defense line we can hear crack ring through the air through the detonations. At least the forward groups made it to the second line and are defending. Yet there are so few gunshots. There should be far more by how many had already run to the line.

Ebel and I clamber over the wall and help a few other defenders across as well. When on the other side we can see the line up and down. There are less than half of the defenders here than the first line. We can see in the distance many people still running. Not far off we can see the artillery batteries. Most are silent.

I look to Ebel, her face has drained of blood. Another defender tries to pass us by and I grab his arm, “what are you doing, we need to defend the line!”

He turns to me, “can’t you see? The line is lost. There is no way we can hold with so few!”

I grab him with both hands, “you are right. The line will fall. But we still need to hold for as long as we can. Troopers should have already made it back to the civilians, they should be evacuating them now. We must hold for as long as we can. We need to give them time to escape!”

The man hesitates and nods to me before returning to the line. From the side Ebel is holding a speaker, the transmitter is pointed at me. She smiles, “I was going to go find someone to give a rousing speech after I found this, but I guess I didn’t have to look far.”

I look around me, most of the runners have stopped and are returning to the defense line. What I said must have been sent through the wire analog loud speakers. I sigh and nod to her and we both mount the wall as well.

*Ebel*

Harold has given us a chance. I did not expect the boy to be able to convince the troopers to return to the line, but as soon as he started talking, I figured it was a better chance than trying to find a captain or major to do the same. He is right about one thing; we will not be able to hold the line for long. The artillery is having to maintain a curtain just outside the defense line just to maintain a semblance of a hold. The army of incursions are continuing to advance. At least their advance has been slowed to a crawl now though.

We continue to fight with everything we have. All together we were able to buy the installation another half an hour. After that, the incursions started to mount our defense line and we were forced to abandon the battlements.

I tried to stay as long as I could, empty as many bullets into the oncoming creatures as I could, but eventually Harold grabbed my arm, “Lieutenant! Lieutenant Ebel! We must go! The line has been breached. We are falling back to the civilian quarter to hold back what we can there.”

I hesitate, I almost tell him to go on without me. That I would hold the line for as long as I could. Give them those few extra seconds. What good would that do? At least I know how to drive a truck even if I can no longer command one. I leave the line with him.

As we make it back to the civilian quarter, we can see smoke billowing from the tents and shanties. Incursions are darting in and out of the streets and structures. We can hear civilians screaming and crying mixed with the roars and snarls of the enemy.

Again, my foolishness and incompetence come to bite me. Harold may have been able to rally the section of the line where we were at, but how far could an analogue speaker carry? The defense line was miles long. Other parts would have fallen much faster after the players abandoned the defense. Yet, even if they did, how are there still so many civilians left in their quarter? Did the players not come to warn them? Did they not try to evacuate the civilians and just run off instead?

Harold pulls on my arm, “come on. We can still evacuate as many as we can. We still have a job to do.”

I nod hesitantly. Dive in and save as many as we can. The incursion army will be here in less than an hour. We can bypass the civilian quarter all together and reach the nearby motor pool to escape on a truck. OR we can go through the civilian quarter and reach the motor pool on the other side, taking all the civilians we can with us. I look towards the nearby motor pool. There are already several of the defenders running towards it. Harold is running into the civilian quarter. Many more of the defenders are fallowing him. I fallow as well. I can still do something. I can still help even if I can’t command.

Within the quarter it is total chaos. Incursions of every class are storming all over. We try to stick together as much as possible, calling over as many civilians as we can as we move. We fire at every incursion we see. Thankfully most of the incursions ignore us, they have easier meals awaiting them. We avoid the areas where the raid class and disaster class incursions are wreaking havoc. Those may be the areas in most need of help, but they are the areas where we will be of the least help as well.

Harold is guiding us through the quarter with seeming ease. He is avoiding not only the larger class incursions but also seems to point us in the direction of most need. As we move we have been able to gather dozens of civilians. Children and elderly have been put in the middle of the formation whereas both the women and men have been given whatever spare arms we can afford and incorporated into the defense formation.

After another hour of stalking through the streets we finally make it through the quarter and reach the motor pool. Inside there are very few trucks remaining. There is no way we can fit everyone we have with us onto the trucks that are available. We look at each other and back at the civilian quarter behind us. I can see many of the civilians kneading their weapons.

Harold calls over the tension, “can we unhook some of the beds from the broken trucks and use them as trailers?!”

Off to the side of the motor pool is the work area where more than half of the trucks are being repaired. These trucks are not going to be able to run, but their beds are still serviceable. Most importantly, they can be unhooked easily and attached to the remaining operational trucks.

The few mechanics with us and several civilians rush to the broken trucks and get too work. The rest of us set up a makeshift defense line to hold off the incursions. The fight is intense, and we burn through our ammo rapidly. The incursions are starting to pay attention to us again. More and more civilians are being added to our group as they notice the gunfire from our direction. We do our best to cover them as they run to us. Most do not make it. Soon we run out of rockets and then grenades. With only rifles and bullets left we will not last long.

Not long after Harold comes up the line shouting, “the trucks are ready! Get everyone and as much ammo as you can on board! We are leaving!”

As we leave the installation in our makeshift convoy, I look back to see smoke and fire dot the horizon. We have escaped with our lives. We have rescued who we could. Yet, we have failed to defend the installation. We have lost the battle. Looking at the faces in the trucks and trailers I see not hopelessness; I see glances towards Harold and determination. We have not yet lost the war.