"Where the h.e.l.l are they!?""No f.u.c.king clue! s.h.i.+t, another wave incoming!"
"They really don"t like us much huh!?"
Six hours had pa.s.sed since then. All Dax"s CAS-7"s had been shot down, and the marines under his command had been reduced from 50 all the way down to 10 by endless hordes of remote controlled drones. The enemy drones were various types of hexapod, a relatively simple design with six mechanical legs (hex = 6) connecting to a single body (pod = body, hexa = six sided) and a turret on top of that which housed a low caliber gauss rifle. Although they were simple and quite primitive in design with mostly inaccurate fire controls they were easy and cheap to ma.s.s produce compared to human type drones. As such Dax"s unit had been a.s.saulted endlessly over the last six hours by what must have been almost 10 thousand hexapods in endless and unintelligent waves. A single hexapod was no big deal to kill, being only as large as a medium sized dog (and as smart), they could be disabled with a single shot or simply kicked with enough force, but that disadvantage was eliminated when facing over 500 of them at the same time. For the first few hours they were easy pickings, even for the mostly green marines, but as Dax and his unit slowly got overwhelmed the situation quickly turned dire. Judging by the continuous sound of gunfire and explosions in the distance, the other allied elements had run into similar issues, which didn"t help the overall situation one bit.
"Arg! f.u.c.k me, I"m hit!"
"Then stop b.i.t.c.hing and fix it yourself, our last medic died an hour ago."
"I can see my f.u.c.king spine.."
"Then kill 50 more drones, after that you have my permission to die."
"Haha, that"s pretty harsh.."
As Dax interrupted two marines chatter he looked around and slowly realized the futility of their current situation.
(No reinforcements, 9 rookies and no hope of extraction surrounded by millions of hostile drones….)
"You guys are free to surrender."
Uncharacteristically muttering that Dax realized his imminent defeat.
"What will you do then commander?"
"Fight till the end. I"m a black ops operative, and a qiton, as such I can"t be allowed to be taken alive."
"Then we"re with you too."
"But-"
"Don"t misunderstand commander. If I survive this the promotion alone will set me and my family up for life."
"Yeah, if we survive this we"ll be set up for life! Don"t even try to take that from us commander!"
"... Seems like all of you became proper soldiers while I weren"t looking. I retract my earlier statement! It has been an honor serving with you all!"
"""""""""SIR, YES SIR!!"""""""""
But in the end only Dax remained, and he had fought for what seemed to be an eternity. With his last ally dead and the other units launching red flares signaling they had been overrun Dax abandoned his position and turned to guerrilla warfare. For a few days he did hit and run attacks on enemy positions, but soon they had seemed to realize that there was still a single pest remaining on the surface so they retreated behind heavy blast doors and sent out units to hunt him down. The new game of cat and mouse had continued for G.o.d knows how long, as Dax slowly lost the grip on time to ever increasingly fatigue and dwindling supplies. Fighting with rifle until it broke he used it as a bat, then later a s.h.i.+v. When that finally proved useless he used his knife, until that also was no longer usable, then he finally turned to captured equipment and his fists, which slowly had turned course and lacking any skin. Looking down on his own body it was pelted with holes and bruises from being shot at more times than he would bother to count, his right arm had been completely obliterated after he had used it as a s.h.i.+eld and a few hours ago he had lost sight in his left eye from a explosion. Scanning his surroundings he located a dead hexapod and walked over to it before tearing its primary armament, a coilgun, off its six legged body and threw it at another one that had been pointing a laser at him for some time.
"IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT!?"
After screaming at the sky like a madman Dax used a captured knife to decapitate an enemy soldier and smashed open his head to eat his brain.
"Ugh. Needs ketchup…."
Having fought for G.o.d knows how long Dax had long since depleted his supplies, so he resorted to the meals that arrived conveniently every few hours in waves of 50 surrounded by a thousand or so hexapods, the only inconvenient ting about his meals was that they kept screaming stuff like "how are you still alive!" and "get away from me you f.u.c.king monster!". The only problem was the taste, which to the spare time gourmet Dax was worse than death (or surströmming, which is mostly the same taste), but otherwise there were no issues. Qitons being made for war were a race of omnivores in the truest and most extreme sense of the word, leading them to be shunned by other races as tails of them securing "provisions" in war after losing their supply lines spread and became common knowledge.
With the area once more silent, Dax picked up the sound of something flying towards him.
"Are they finally gonna nuke me?"
Looking around for cover as the sound grew louder, Dax realized that he had been lured out into open ground, completely void of cover that would save him from a nuke.
"Ha! Well played.."
Preparing for the end Dax wore a fierce smile.
"Come and get me you f.u.c.ktards!"
His expectations were betrayed however. What appeared from the clouds was not a thermonuclear warhead strapped to a rocket, but a formation of CAS-7"s that landed around him and deployed drones and marines alike.
"Y"all are f.u.c.king LATE!"
Collapsing onto his knees and breathing a loud sigh Dax closed his only remaining eye to finally get some rest, but quickly sensed someone walking over to him.
"There"s a spot on the first transport back if you want it."
What greeted Dax was undoubtedly a beauty, she looked to be a field medic judging by her uniform. She had short red hair, and her simually red eyes looked at Dax like she couldn"t be bothered to fix him.
"You look like a f.u.c.king mess.."
"Yeah well they didn"t play nice.. Can you do me a favor doc?"
"If your gonna hit on me I"m gonna leave you."
"Could you get me some food? The grub around here really lacks flavor."
"... Sure. Anything else?"
"Oh yeah a new rifle, I kinda broke mine."
"Why the h.e.l.l would you need a weapon?"
"The Invasion is not over is it? I"ll just need a second to eat then I"m ready to move out."
"Are you qitons immortal or what?"
"No ma"am. Just highly motivated."
In the end Dax was the only marine from the first wave to make it out of that h.e.l.lhole. The enemy had surprised their reinforcements out in s.p.a.ce, and forced them to retreat and abandon their now stranded and doomed marines, leaving them all to die. 9 days later Empire forces finally regained momentum and once more reached the Gemini system, to find a single survivor among a sea of corpses, machine and flesh alike. Dax went on to lead the charge of the capture of Gemini 5, and quickly rose to the status of a ideal symbol for the Galactic Empire marines. In response of his achievements he was hailed as the immortal hero, something he himself greatly despised, leading to no pictures nor his name ever being released. Declining every reward offered expect for the most basic of cybernetic prosthesis and a few months of paid leave Dax disappeared from the limelight, officially at least. Using his status as clan leader and marit gained from multiple successive black operations he had carried out over the years he gained an audience with leaders of the Galactic senate and leaders of Rex and Guardian industries. In the meeting, which never officially happened, Dax shared his general displeasure with the effectiveness of the current war doctrine and proposed changes to fix it, among with disclosing the survival of two Avoxaian"s. The Gemini invasion had revealed the Empire"s disadvantage in fighting a super cooperation it had relayed on for advancing warfare. Simply put Irongate industrial knew every tactic and trick the Empire could throw at them, so something new and radical was needed. Dax"s suggestion was to put the two surviving Avoxaian"s, Ra and Mu, in charge of a secret division with a blank check for funding to develop weapons of war capable of winning the war that was currently splitting the Empire in half. To prove the effectiveness of such a drastic and expensive measure Dax brought with him design doc.u.ments and scientific papers made in the few months the sisters had access to knowledge from the Empire. Next generation warp gates, advanced modular drone designs, highly advanced cybernetic prosthetics and even a theoretical paper on the feasibility of a handheld railcannon helped change the council"s opinion on Dax"s idea, leading the project to be approved. First Dax was put in charge of the now decla.s.sified 125th combined ops...o...b..tal drop troopers and promoted to field commander, although his name nor any other information would ever be released. At the same time Rex and Guardian industries secretly formed covert research and development divisions that would go on to develop awe inspiring weapons of war and innovations that would shape the century.
---
"f.u.c.k me…"
Noticing sunlight hitting him Dax realized he had been drinking all night and early morning lost in thought as the maglev train slowly started slowing down as it approached it final destination, a gigantic s.p.a.ce elevator that extend form deep into the planets mantel to out into deep s.p.a.ce. Glancing down on his artificial arm, it once more started bugging out Dax sighed to himself as he mumbled.
" I wonder if I can get those two sugar craving sisters to design me some new prosthetics if I bring them some of that ridiculously expensive ice cream they make around here.."
Going back into s.p.a.ce Dax brought a two liters of ice cream for a sum that amounted to half a year of his salary. Bring that, among with the two train cars prototype drones to a remote planet with a single isolated resort, which had all records of it been erased.
"So?"
"..."
Finding himself inside the mostly empty compound Dax was wordlessly bowed and presented to expensive ice cream in front of a pair of not-so-pleased sisters.
Ra, the older sister by about a year was about a meter 80 tall, which was tall for her race that was characterised by green and bluish skin with bright blue eyes and short blue hair. She was the most annoyed of the two, and looked like a wife that caught her husband cheating, with her impatiently tapping her finger on her crossed arms and showed anger as she demanded an explanation with a rage with was uncharacteristic of her race. Her younger sister Mu was a bit shorter at a meter 60 she had the same skin tone as her sister and had long green hair. She was however not as mad as her sister, and looked at Dax with an apologetic smile as he bowed deeply before them.
"You leave us here for what? two months without a word, and when you come back you not only lost a arm and one eye but also released the stuff we worked on, which you originally refused to do.. And now you want us to make you a new arm?"
"..."
"He did bring us this really good ice cream Ra."
"It is the best in the universe."
Hurriedly interjecting Mu"s comment, Dax desperately tried to crack the more tough cookie as he bowed another 5 degrees deeper.
"Not you too.."
"Please!"
"..."
"I can bring more of it."
"FINE! But we will be testing the hardware and other stuff we"ve been working on and you will help us test it, a lot."
"Anything but that please."
"What did you say~?"
"Please have mercy."