The Mammut shock regiment, also known as the Winged Hussars, is the only purely offensive Mammut unit in the human Army.

The Winged Hussars are deployed to the combat area predominantly via Sky Cranes, a delivery system that breaks the fall out of orbit via parachutes and retro thrusters. The origins of this landing technique are unknown to Federation Intelligence, but sources claim it was developed before humans even achieved faster-than-light travel.

The fact that humans developed a method for landing supertanks on other planets is another example of humanity's inherent aggressive nature.

Excerpt from Know Thy Enemy. Mandatory course material for Federation officers, date: sometime after 50 P.I.

Nirfir sat back in his seat. The briefing room was full of other Shraphen who had volunteered to join the Humans in their endeavor to free Burrow from the Hyphea.

Today, they had a lecture on the importance of intelligence on the battlefield and the many ways humans use to gather it.

The lecture was almost over when the human colonel, with his broad shoulders and nearly square face, looked intensely into the crowd of recruits.

"Lastly, there's one thing you must always remember. Intelligence is half the battle!"

A Shraphen officer in the first row asked, "What's the other half?"

The colonel grinned a predatory grin. "Extreme violence."

Nirfir's ears rose. He remembered this. All of this. He was in this briefing already, two months ago.

Then other memories came back. Him, storming the Isthmus of Martife.

The counterstrike in the defense of Shratora.

The whole brigade was trapped by mutated Burrow Rats when they attacked Point Charlie.

The ancient legendary hunters sailing from the sky with golden wings. No, not the Ancient Hunters. Humans…

Are the humans the ancient hunters?

He was confused. The memory of the briefing room disappeared like a dream.

The brigade was trapped. Then Kali said something about reinforcements. When he looked up, he saw them—eighteen points of light, falling from orbit.

When they were only half a kilometer above the Ground, they opened golden wings, or were they glowing?

Then Mammuts appeared on cables, slowly, almost softly, released onto the Ground.

And then the carnage began.

Nirfir shook awake. He was in his suite, hanging upside down in his command chair, and the HUD was full of flashing, waning lights.

Something burned inside his Tank.

From outside, he heard machine guns firing, grenades exploding. The Ground shook violently, and someone was barking orders over the comms.

He remembered everything now. The Mammuts had landed and were immediately attacked by the Burrow Rats.

But the tanks were too big and heavy for the usual burrowing attack. The first tank attacked by a Rat from below crashed through the ceiling, smashing the Burrow Rat's head. From outside, Nirfir could only see a red cloud of blood erupting when the Mammut fired point-blank at the next rat.

The Mammut crew didn't even bother trying to get out of the tunnel they were in; they just started hunting the other rats.

This was when the enemy released the other troops.

From the hills, Firbugs and Scrin appeared and opened fire on the brigade down on the flat plain.

This was the start of the most confusing fight he was ever part of. Both sides were instantly engaged, without any frontline or unit formation.

Russo leaped forward with Monkey King, trying to get closer to another squad's IFV so they could cover each other.

Nirfir directed Rokla's fire to strategic targets marked by Kali, so the human forces created interlinked fire.

The fleet in orbit released Rods of God, smashing the biggest Firebug the enemy had ever deployed. One of the beasts was almost a hundred meters high. It was about to crush a tank under one of its enormous legs when the hypersonic tungsten rod hit its body.

Ichor and meter-thick chitin shrapnel erupted from the exploding bug, covering everything around it in the green, slimy remains of the monster.

Then a plasma bolt hit Monkey King. The enemy had fired from five locations at them, as if they knew that Nirfir's IFV had the highest kill score.

The bolt grazed the two wheels on the left side and detonated under the tank, throwing them high into the air, only to crash down upside down.

"Monkey King 50, come in. Monkey King, respond!" Nirfir was about to drift away again when the platoon commander's call came over the radio.

"Nirfir here."

"Get your squad out of there, you're about to be swarmed by Scrin, goddamn."

"Roger, sir." Nirfir's head was still fuzzy. His suit's diagnostics showed he might have a light concussion. His headache concurred.

Cutting the restraints on his chair, he tumbled down. The crew compartment was a mess. Crawling over to Russo, he grabbed his gun from the weapons locker. Russo was also unconscious.

Nirfir touched the driver's suit to establish a connection, then administered a gentle shock to wake the driver.

"Huh?"

"Wake up, Scrin are on their way." He passed another gun to the driver. "You grab Chibuike and Rokla. I get the rest. We have to hold position until we can get away."

Russo shook his head. He wasn't fully awake. Nirfir decided a second shock might help.

"Fucking hell." Russo almost jumped up.

"Get your ass out of here." Nirfir trusted that training and a commanding tone would overcome confusion and pain.

"Yes, sir." Nirfir followed Russo out of the driver's compartment into the larger crew section. Rokla was already waking up, opening his restraints at the weapons station.

Nirfir had to climb over overturned ammunition boxes to reach Frolox, waking him with a shock and sending him to help Hirko, who was also slowly coming to.

When Nirfir tried to shake Kumar, the head of the lance corporal bobbed unnaturally loose.

The stabilizing ring of his suit, connecting the helmet to the torso section, was open.

When the tank turned, the soldier must have been hit in the head by something while preparing ammunition for the main gun, breaking his neck.

Nirfir connected to the suit, confirming his suspicion.

"Dammit, Kumar, we told you!" The lance corporal always opened the neck ring so he could move his head more freely while supplying ammunition to the gun. Of course, this was against regulations.

There wasn't any time to mourn. Later, if—no, after they survived this mess.

The squad left the IFV through the rear Hatch.

The blast of the plasma bolt had left a crater; the IFV had crashed to the Ground only a few meters away. Nirfir signaled the squad to take up positions inside it.

The six soldiers reached the crater after a short sprint. Now the question was: stay or go?

They could defend the three-meter-wide crater for a time, especially after Rokla had mounted his heavy machine gun, but the battle around them was too confused to make any future-proof decisions.

Nirfir lay on the Ground, peeking over the dusty crater wall. From the southeast, more and more hordes of Scrin came down the hillside.

There were also the largest concentrations of enemy troops. North of him, three Mammuts had just opened the Ground to enter the tunnels below them by firing on it to collapse the ceiling.

South of him, another Mammut fired all its impressive auxiliary guns to get rid of Scrin. The brigade was slightly retreating to regain unit cohesion.

Retreat or stay?

Too late, he saw a large group of Scrin exiting a wide opening in the ground northwest of their position. Only then did Frolox and Hirko begin firing at the three-legged pests.

Nirfir ordered Russo and Chibuike to support the two. He and Rokla would cover the other side to prevent flanking.

The Scrin stopped their advance, for now, but Nirfir had gained access to a drone above the tunnel entry, and he saw more and more of them climbing up from the hole.

They will overwhelm us, fuck!

The enemy had prepared a perfect trap. Nirfir would never underestimate them again.

Back when he was protecting the Isthmus from his old bunker, the Hyphea had seemed slow to adapt, set in its ways. But now, it was different. Something had changed, and he began to understand why humans wanted to find out what.

Battlefield Rule number 1: New enemy tech is bad. New enemy strategy is bad.

He saw the head of a Firebug appear at the entry; that was what the Scrin were waiting for: fire support.

Kali immediately made it clear, showing that the VI had recognized the threat as well.

"Reinforcements arrive in 4 minutes."

The HUD message from Kali was cold, but a mental lifeline. Kali was sending someone, something, and it would be here soon. They just had to survive long enough.

He prayed to every Ancient Hunter and the old Dog himself that the enemy would wait long enough.

Ten seconds later, the Scrin began their attack.

Frolox opened fire together with Chibuike. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

The Scrin died in scores, but the next row crawled over the dead bodies of their comrades and stormed on.

Rokla repositioned his heavy gun and opened fire, the bullets cutting through multiple rows of enemies at once, stalling their advance.

Nirfir knew it couldn't last. They didn't have enough ammo for all of them.

The timer showed 2:30 left.

A nearby Mammut fired into the crowd with two of its side-mounted auxiliary guns, giving the squad a short reprieve. The Mammut was obviously waiting for the Firebug to appear.

Before the Ground under it collapsed, it was sucked into another subterranean tunnel.

Nirfir saw on the battle map that the tank was unharmed and now hunting the Burrow Rat that had dragged it in.

Too bad. They could have used the guns.

1:50 left.

Nirfir internally screamed for the counter to move faster. Then he saw the Firebug's head slowly rising up from the Ground. It was one of the smaller ones, but still a thirty- to fifty-meter beast, too large and with too much armor for him to do anything.

Either the fleet or a tank would take it out, or he and his squad were dead.

A suicide drone swarm appeared, ripping through the waves of Scrin as they dived down and exploded.

"Monkey King, this is Lizzard Wizzard. Are you guys okay?"

The sudden radio call distracted Nirfir, who was on his last magazine.

"For now, Lizzard Wizzard." He didn't know who the unknown caller belonged to, but the drones had the same callsign.

"Sending you a few drones and will do an ammo drop. You guys are dishing out hell over there. You must be low on supply."

"We're on our last strip. Any chance for a lift?"

In the center of the crater, three drones dropped a crate full of ammo and grenades—the promised ammo drop.

Lizzard Wizzard had to be a Mammut. No other unit was capable of this sort of ammo drop.

“ETA ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. In less than two, the bug would have fully exited the entry, and a few seconds later its plasma would grill them in their suits.

"Thanks, Lizzard Wizzard. ETA of enemy Firebug two minutes.”

"Fuck, sorry bro. I'll send every drone I have."

Nirfir could hear the pain in the human operator's voice, being unable to help.

While he had talked, his squad had already restocked.

Rokla laughed over the radio. The ammo the Mammut had supplied for his gun was all high-explosive protomatter bullets.

Each hit vaporized everything in a radius of three meters around the target.

Chibuike was the first to notice something dark in the sky: a massive swarm of drones, all targeting the Firebug, which was almost out of the cave in the background.

The drones dived, targeting the beast's head and eyes.

Hundreds hit, cratering the thick chitin armor, but none penetrated.

Rokla steered the Machine gun fire to the Firebug; the protomatter had some effect, but the Biest seemed more annoyed than harmed.

Nirfir could see the typical pumping movement of the head as it prepared a plasma bolt. Then streaks appeared from the sky, one landing inside their crater. For a microsecond, Nirfir thought the fleet had fired a rod at them, but then he wouldn't be alive to think about it.

A massive, three-meter-tall black armored figure suddenly stood at the center of the crater, still covered in the remains of ballistic gel.

Then Nirfir saw the counter on his HUD.

00:00

"You got a bug problem, sir?"

Nirfir's fur bristled. The figure in the armor looked dangerous. Alien, even.

The HUD overlay said: Heavy Infantry. No name. No unit.

Rokla screamed, "Yeah, if you could do something about that bug instead of standing there, that would be nice!"

In that moment, Nirfir saw another heavy infantryman jump onto the back of the bug. He couldn't believe it.

Something orange, like a sword, shot out of the soldier's lower arm and cut into the bug.

The pumping motion stopped, and the bug shook violently, as if in pain.

The black figure stopped cutting with its glowing blade and started stomping with one foot.

While all this happened, two arms unfolded from the soldier's back. Mounted on them were heavy machine guns. They opened fire on the Scrin infantry below.

Nirfir stood there, watching a single man, covered in ichor, decapitate a Firebug while raining down hell on the Scrin beneath him.

The other part is extreme violence, he remembered his trainer saying with a grin.

Author's Note: Ugh, fresh from the press guys.

I just about finished this chapter. I usually wait a day before posting a finished chapter, but I promised an update, and here I am.

Today I fell asleep while writing when my dog cuddled next to me, so, yeah, I guess I needed sleep.

I hope you enjoy the chapter. The next one should arrive on Monday, the usual time, if everything works out.