... 3rd Division ... 4th Regiment ... 9th Platoon ...

            We heard about the Roughnecks victory on Planet P early the morning after.  It was amazing what had happened.  Our Lieutenant, or Lt as we called him, briefed us right before our drop.  We felt nothing except pride and that kick ass attitude everyone feels after winning a battle. 

            "Ten minutes to drop point," sounded over the speaker, "Ok apes, time to get goin," Lt said and dismissed us to lock and load.  We all ran to our drop capsule and strapped in.  I couldn't wait to get down there.  It was my first drop and I was excited.  I wanted Bugs, dead Bugs. 

            Planet Z, the farthest planet from the Bugs' sun, similar to Pluto in certain aspects, except colder. Aside from being farther away from the sun as our own Pluto, the surface of the planet is covered with very high winds, I could help but think how much fun the mission would be.   Our orders changed at the last second from trying to capture a brain to complete destruction of all Bugs on and in the planet.  That made many of us feel much better, considering that to capture them was utter suicide.  I still don't understand how the Roughnecks pulled it off.  But that wasn't our objective now, and we definitely liked our new one.

            I heard Lt announce that Emperor's Elite was ready for drop and as I waited for my capsule to cycle through to drop, I thought about the mission.  Our ships pilot, though very capable had her work cut out for her.  She had to not only deal with the *****'s and the atmosphere, she had to account for the winds on the planets surface.  Most likely we would have to get a bearing and regroup before the mission even started.   Well, that was my main priority, get oriented and make my way to meet with my team.   The distinctive sound of my ***** getting ready to be shot from the ship pounded in my ears and then I was heading towards the planet surface.

            Well I have no idea weather the pilot was on target or not.  My visibility was 0 and it seemed that the high winds were interfering with our communication equipment.  Maybe the suit was not prepared properly for the winds and temperature, or maybe the techs just couldn't account for the severe change in the weather.  What ever the problem was, I could not wait to figure out a solution, I may only be a private, but I do know that I need to get in contact with my team to proceed as planned. 

            One thing that was working right was my timer, and my compass appeared to work correctly.  I had been on surface for 2 minutes and should be on the most northern position of my team.  Looks like I head south.  I decided that a bounce would just keep me from staying on course so I took the long hard way, even thought the suit kept fatigue away from me it was still a hard trek. 

            After 20 minutes of walking I still had not made contact with any members of my team, and my radar and comm was still out.  Something either went wrong or I was the only one not in contact with the others and they proceeded as planned.  This was a difficult decision for me, continue as planned or look for my team.  I decided that I should proceed with our plan and maybe I would run into someone from my team as I went.  My orders were to find the nearest bug hole and proceed to destroy everything in sight until I ran out of ammo or died trying. 

            The events that took place after I entered the hole are a bit sketchy, but I have the gist of what happened.  Immediately I heard the Sarge screaming for someone to help him, so I made my way to his position on the bounce, apparently he was under attack.  When I got to his position, there were five of them all over him.  I took up my rifle and started to send massive amounts of lead into the giant Arachnids.  As Three of them turned from him and started to proceed in my direction, I fell one.  I turned to another and took aim for his central nervous system dropping him immediately.  The third didn't even break stride as two of his comrades died before him and neither did I.  He moved side to side so I couldn't get a bead on where I needed to kill him so I let his main body have it.   Green ooze and pieces of his natural armor flew off as I fired and he was knocked back a bit by the onslaught.  It didn't take him long to over come the lead though, and he continued to move towards me.  I could hear the Sarge screaming both through my comm and from outside. 

            The huge warrior advanced and took a swipe at me.  I jumped to the side, over judging the strength that was required and went right through the wall.  I could hear the bug coming through the hole that I had made and turned to fire on him.  Fortunately I hit his soft spot as he emerged in the hole and he fell dead.  Unfortunately when I got up to get my bearings I noticed that I had jumped into what appeared to be some sort of gathering place.  There tons of bugs here rangeing from the ones we diseccted in high school to the huge plasma breathers I had seen on the Federal Network and I didn't have much time to think.  One caught my eye, for it was the only one like it.   It was about the size of a small shed and looked similar to a huge mound of blubber.  The others stood around it as if protecting it and I knew, or thought that I knew at the time (and came to find out later that I was right) that it was the brain bug.  Bugs started to move towards me and I raised my rifle to aim at the mound of blubber.  Immediately they stopped and moved away.  It seemed that I was in a stand still with them, and I had no idea what to do.  I tried to reach the Sarge, but he was dead.  There were no others answering any of the other freqs as well.  I was all alone with one objective, kill bugs. 

            I lowered my rifle a bit and reached for a grenade, and thought at the same time, I wonder what would happen if I took out the brain, what would the others do?  Well there was only one way to find out, kill it.  As I grabbed for the grenade I noticed that a couple had circled around to the rear and would be upon me shortly, I had to do this quick.   In one motion I lifted my rifle and lobbed the grenade towards the brain at the same time.  The two warriors that had circled around leaped right into a barrage of lead expelled from my rifle.  I jumped for the hole I had created earlier and felt my leap grow a bit faster while I was in the air.  The explosion settled and I didn't hear any bugs following me.  Sure enough when I got up, what was left of the Sarge was spewed about in the small chamber.  I started to move towards the hole, and then heard Lt say, "Holy shit, team, the Sarge is dead, the bugs have stopped attacking us and begun attacking each other, " and then my coordinates flashed in my display with an order to converge on that spot, killing any bug that was come upon.

            I moved to the hole and saw that all the bugs were fighting each other in my chamber as well.  The huge plasma breathers seemed to be winning the battle.  The other larger ones were already dead as were all the smaller ones, and the warriors looked to be almost finished.   When I turned around the rest of the platoon had shown up.  Lt immediately ordered us to finish off the rest of the bugs while they were busy. 

            The clean-up didn't take long and before the planned end time of the mission, it was over and the Lieutenant started to call for extraction.  Something still kept comm with our drop ship out and the Lieutenant was forced to take us back to the surface.  He ordered us to clip ourselves to each other in a line so as to not lose each other and we began the trek through the high winds to the prearranged extraction point.  This had been arranged just in case some kind of comm out would happen.

            The attack came out of no where and we could barely see it.  I was broken away from Shorty in front of me and felt my self leave the ground being pulled into the air by Darchzek behind me.  I could hear some sort of clicking and then Darchzek began screaming how much it hurt.   I whirled and cut the strap connecting us and fired in the direction of his screaming only to hear it cut short as I began to fire.  I also heard a loud screech and something heavy fell on top of me after I hit the ground.  What ever it was, I had never seen any other bug like it, it was heavy.

            I eased myself out from under the monstrous thing and took a look around, nothing.  I could only see the snow that constantly hit my face shield.  Moving towards where Shorty had been I ran into another of those strange bugs, it swiped at me and I flew through the air (against the wind mind you) and landed on what appeared to be another trooper.  I didn't have time to check because that thing was already upon me.  I started firing at the beast only to watch it dodge every round, it seemed.  I couldn't even tell if I hit it or not, it moved too fast.  The wind was blowing close to 70 knots, how could this thing move so fast, if it wasn't for my armor I wouldn't even be able to hold myself down. 

            The strangest thing happened just then.  Something hit me from behind and I fell to the ground face first.  I tried to turn over to see exactly what it was but fell unconscious.

            When I awoke, I was out of my armor and in some sort of rock cell.  Closely inspecting my "room" I determined that it was a cylinder 5 meters in diameter and looked to be close to 40 meters deep.  The walls were completely smooth and there were no doors or openings of any kind, except for the opening at the roof.  I could hear activity at the top but could not see anything.  From the strange clicking noise I heard it was definitely the bugs. 

            I had but one objective now, escape.  But how?  No armor, no weapons, not even any clothing.  All I could think of was how to get out before the bugs figured out what to do with me.   There was so much I had to get back to my superiors.  I checked the walls to see what type of composition they were made of.  Hard as granite, figures.  No digging out, but there had to be a way, I just had to come up with the solution, and quick.  Then it hit me.

            If I could some way crack the wall and get just a small piece off, I could start digging out, but how to get a small chunk, I could only think of two ways, pick at it until my fingernails were gone, or try a little maneuver that I had seen in a training tape done by Private ShuJumi when he was in boot.  Well it was certainly worth a try.  I sat down and started to concentrate, on what I really wasn't sure.  Clearing my mind of everything except the task at hand I drew back my hand and let it fly towards the wall with all my speed, just at the instant before my hand touched the wall I tensed all my muscles it my body, putting all my strength into my hand, at least that is what ShuJumi had said what was happening when he did it.  The pain was excruciating and I passed out.

            I woke up and immediately cradling my arm, my wrist hurt worse than anything I had experience in boot, and we had had all types of pain inflicted on us while training at unarmed combat.  I started to curse myself for being stupid and then I heard a voice, "Hey, Mor-ath, is that you," it asked.

            "Lt?  Man am I glad to hear your voice." I replied.

            "Listen, are you ok?  I heard your scream right after this block crashed into my cell."

            I inspected the place where I had struck the wall and the hole was the size of my hand and was five inches thick to where Lt was.  "I'm fine sir, but my wrist is broken from hitting the wall." 

            "Try to bare with it son, and lets get this hole bigger, maybe we can get out of here now." he said and began digging at the opening.

            I dug what I could, but with the pain in my wrist it wasn't much.  The inside of the wall was a bit softer, as if the walls were some sort of cement designed to give the illusion that it was solid.   Luckily Lt wasn't hurt at all and he dug through in record time.  He took a look at my wrist and confirmed that it was broken, well things happen in war and you take what is dished out to stay alive and fight for what you believe in.  Lt told me to sit back and heal, as if I could just will my wrist to stop hurting, and he would take care of the rest.

            After what seemed to be days, but just merely hours, Lt had dug a spiral stair case to the top of the hole.   During the digging we came across Dare, Vamp, and Q-ball who were in the same situation.  They were also unharmed and helped Lt finish the job.

            Dare was named for his willingness to take on all dares anyone gave him, as long was it was legal.  Vamp had this strange obsession for vampires and always wore some sort of vampire shirt, and Q-ball and a head smoother than a q-ball.

            Once we reached the top we noticed that there were hundreds of these holes in the underground chamber that we were in.  Fortunately for us, there wasn't a bug in site, but we were sure that they were not far away, so we worked quietly and only found 2 more members of the team, Dee and Mac.   It was Lt, and five of us privates.  The rest of the team either bought the farm or were lost on the surface.  The remaining holes were either empty or held different types of creatures and aliens.

            "Ok apes, we need to find our equipment and somehow get word to our ship to get us of this ice block, suggestions?" Lt asked.

            "Sir?" Dare replied, "When we find our equipment, and get back to the surface, we're going to have to find the tallest mountain and maybe then we can get comm to go through this stormy planet."

            "Uh, sir?" I replied, "I don't know if you noticed it, but right as the brain died, the comm came back on-line."

            "Ok, Mor-ath, continue, and yes I noticed." he said.

            "Well it seems to me that possibly there is another brain on the surface, or a possibility that the bugs on the surface are not only different in appearance, but possibly they are all intelligent like the brains.  They may have some sort of machine, or telepathic abilities to interfere with our comm, as well as possibly listen in." Dare gave a sort of chuckle and I waited to see what Lt said.

            He just stood and was thinking to himself and then said, "Good thinkin Mor, your acting Sergeant, Dare your acting Corporal, now lets find our equipment, kill these smart bugs, and then get the hell out of here."

            I couldn't believe it, first drop and already sergeant, even if it was temporary until we got back to the ship, if we got back.  I think it went to my head a little, but no one seemed to argue when I gave an order.  That was how the M.I. was, you did as you were told by your superiors, and when you got back to the ship then you argued. 

            It didn't take us long, we found our equipment as soon as we left the huge chamber, but we also found three funny looking white bugs guarding it.  They had to be what got to use on the surface.   They looked like a cross between the warriors and the flyers, but completely white.   Their movements were much more graceful than the other bugs, and they looked, if there was such a look, intelligent.  They seemed to be playing some sort of game and their attention was not on the entrance where we were.  Lt told me to have two privates sneak around to get their guns  and then take care of these guards. 

            I had Mac and Vamp go, and they were all for it.  The rest of us waited in the huge chamber and wait for the fire works to start, then we would rush in and grab our own weapons and help them kill these bugs.  We heard the guns start firing and then we rushed it, but the three bugs were on the ground already dead.  These bugs, though more agile and intelligent than the regular warrior, were a lot softer and easier to kill.  That I'm sure made us all feel a bit better, I know it did me.

            Lt decided that we would search the tunnels that we were in before looking for the way to the surface, bugs had to die, and our comm was still out.  The search was very eventful, but we only ran into the white bugs.  They died just as fast as we encountered them and soon we were fighting our way into what was their command section.  As I had guessed they had machines in their command center and we destroyed it along with the bugs themselves.   Once the machine was down our comm came back online and we heard the mother ship calling us, they didn't leave us.  I breathed a sigh of relief and began inspecting the bugs equipment.

            Lt acknowledged and then gave them the rendezvous coordinates and told them to meet us in 60 minutes, we wanted a bit more time to recon the entire area, and kill more of the bugs if there were any, after all we still had ammo.

            The equipment turned out to be Skinny make, which wasn't big surprise.  The Skinnies had been making money off of both sides during the entire conflict.  Our journey through the compound and back to the surface didn't take long, and when we got to the rendezvous point the drop ship was there waiting for us.  We didn't run into any more of the white bugs either, and out of our entire platoon, only six of us made it back to the ship, Lt, me, Dare, Q-ball, Vamp, Mac, and Dee.

            I was promoted to Sergeant permanently as well as Dare to Corporal.  Vamp, Mac, and Q-ball were also promoted to squad leaders and we got a brand new team as soon as we arrived in Sanctuary.   I'm anxious to get to our next mission, we'll be going in with the Roughnecks to invade Khlandathu, the bugs home planet.  Maybe we can end this war soon, but I'll not count on it.  I'll do my job to the best of my ability and beyond if required, and of course kill as many bugs as come into the sites of my rifle.