The order to move came without ceremony.
No speech.
No countdown.
Just a crackle in the earpiece and a voice already strained thin.
"Advance to the line. Keep spacing. Do not bunch."
Ethan Cole tightened his grip on the rifle and stepped forward with the rest of his platoon.
The ground was uneven, torn apart by earlier bombardment.
Chunks of asphalt and concrete littered what used to be a road.
Somewhere beneath his boots was a city.
He tried not to think about what it looked like before.
Smoke hung low, thick enough to taste.
It burned the back of his throat with every breath.
His visor kept fogging despite the anti-condensation coating.
He wiped it with his sleeve and immediately regretted it now it was smeared with something dark.
He didn't check what it was.
To his left, Martinez stumbled, caught himself, kept moving.
To his right, O'Neill muttered something under his breath, a prayer or a curse, Ethan couldn't tell.
They advanced in silence, rifles up, eyes forward.
The first shot came from somewhere ahead alien fire, a sharp crack that sounded wrong, like metal snapping under pressure.
It hit the ground ten meters in front of them and punched a hole clean through the pavement.
"CONTACT!" someone shouted.
They scattered automatically, training taking over where thought failed.
Ethan dove behind the twisted shell of a car, chest slamming into the ground hard enough to knock the air out of him.
He sucked in a breath and tasted dust.
More shots followed.
Not wild.
Controlled. Measured.
Ethan peeked over the hood.
He saw them.
Tall figures moving through the haze, armor catching the light in dull reflections.
They didn't rush.
They didn't hesitate.
They advanced the way machines advance step, pause, adjust, fire.
Ethan raised his rifle and fired.
The recoil jolted his shoulder.
The round sparked against alien armor and did nothing.
"JOINTS!" a sergeant screamed somewhere behind him. "AIM FOR THE JOINTS!"
Ethan adjusted and fired again, aiming lower.
The shot hit near a knee joint.
The alien staggered not much, but enough to notice.
He fired again.
The alien dropped to one knee.
Something hot slammed into the car beside Ethan, shearing metal like paper.
The hood peeled back, glowing red at the edges.
Ethan rolled away just as the car exploded.
The blast threw him onto his back.
His helmet slammed against the ground. His ears rang so loudly he thought he'd gone deaf.
When he tried to stand, his legs didn't respond.
He lay there for a second two seconds panic clawing up his chest.
Get up.
He forced himself to roll, to crawl, fingers digging into dirt and debris.
His legs finally obeyed, trembling but functional.
Around him, the line was dissolving.
Martinez was down, clutching his side, blood soaking through his armor.
O'Neill was firing in short bursts, screaming something Ethan couldn't hear.
A figure sprinted past them too fast.
Alien.
It leapt the distance between cover points with terrifying ease and landed in the middle of the platoon.
The thing moved like it knew exactly where everyone was.
It struck O'Neill first.
One clean motion.
A blade or energy edge Ethan couldn't tell passed through O'Neill's torso.
O'Neill folded in half and collapsed without a sound.
Ethan fired at the alien's back.
The rounds hit. One struck a joint.
The alien twisted, arm jerking unnaturally.
It turned toward Ethan.
For half a second, they looked at each other.
The alien's visor glowed faintly, unreadable.
Not rage. Not hatred.
Assessment.
It raised its weapon.
Something slammed into it from the side a rocket, fired point-blank by someone Ethan didn't recognize.
The explosion tore the alien apart in a spray of armor and viscous fluid.
Ethan stared at the remains, chest heaving.
The man who fired the rocket didn't get to celebrate.
A beam cut him in half mid-step.
There was no time to react.
The line was breaking.
"FALL BACK!" someone yelled. "FALL-"
The voice cut off abruptly.
Ethan grabbed Martinez under the arms and dragged him toward a collapsed wall, every muscle screaming in protest.
Martinez gasped, blood bubbling at his lips. "Don't… don't stop…"
"I won't," Ethan said, though he wasn't sure it was true.
They reached cover.
Ethan pressed Martinez against the wall and ripped open a med pouch with shaking hands.
His fingers slipped on blood.
He packed the wound as best he could, hands moving automatically, training overriding fear. Martinez screamed, then went quiet.
Ethan froze.
"Martinez?" he said.
No response.
Ethan pressed his fingers against Martinez's neck.
Nothing.
He closed Martinez's eyes without thinking.
A shadow fell over them.
Ethan spun, rifle up.
Human.
A lieutenant, face streaked with blood.
"We're reforming two blocks back," the lieutenant said quickly. "If you can move, you move. If you can't—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
Ethan nodded and followed, leaving Martinez where he lay.
The retreat was worse than the advance.
Aliens pressed forward relentlessly, firing with precision.
Every street became a killing lane.
Every doorway a gamble.
Ethan saw a squad get pinned in an alley and wiped out in seconds.
He saw a soldier trip and disappear in a flash of light.
He saw a medic try to reach a wounded man and die halfway there.
They regrouped behind a shattered building that still had three walls standing.
The lieutenant someone else now, older, rank unclear tried to organize a defense.
"Ammo check!" he shouted.
Hands went up.
Numbers were called out.
Ethan checked his magazines.
Two left.
The aliens came again.
Closer this time.
Ethan fired until his rifle clicked empty, reloaded, fired again.
His shoulder burned.
His hands shook.
His breathing came in ragged gasps.
An alien vaulted the rubble in front of him.
Too close.
Ethan didn't aim.
He fired from the hip, rounds tearing into the alien's midsection.
It stumbled, still moving.
Ethan dropped the rifle and drew his knife.
The alien lunged.
They collided, crashing to the ground.
The alien's weight crushed the air from Ethan's lungs.
Clawed fingers dug into his armor, trying to find purchase.
Ethan stabbed blindly.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The knife met resistance, slid, punched through something softer.
Hot fluid spilled over his hands and forearms.
The alien convulsed, then went limp.
Ethan shoved it off and scrambled backward, gasping for breath.
He looked at his hands.
They were shaking uncontrollably.
He wiped them on his pants and forced himself to stand.
There was no pause.
No moment to process.
The fighting continued, block by block, room by room.
By nightfall, Ethan had stopped thinking in terms of before and after.
There was only now.
Only the next corner.
The next reload.
The next breath.
He no longer knew how many hours he'd been fighting.
He no longer knew how many were left.
All he knew was that the enemy kept coming, and stopping meant dying.
So he didn't stop.