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  FOXTROT UNIFORM

  Squeezing down on the trigger, Jackson had opened the engagement up by targeting the large berserker alien at the front of the pack, sending a few rounds through the back of its skull.

  Oversized wall of muscle or not, it seemed that a burst from a MIX was still enough to drop one of those things.

  The other aliens, three of those avian-like things and another of those felines, quickly jumped into action, with the featherless birds opening up with counter fire against Jackson’s position.

  The Corporal had taken cover on a raised platform in an alleyway, with a stairway behind him and a maintenance-door to his left. It gave him some much-needed high ground, with the concrete and metal railings offering a hardened screen against enemy weaponry.

  Popping up to send another burst downrange, Jackson managed to hit one of the bird-things in the right thigh, sending it to the ground.

  Quickly dropping down again, the skydiver barely avoided being hit by the heated spikes that these aliens were firing out of their guns.

  As far as he was aware from their limited intel and his own observations, it was mainly the leaders that had long-range plasma weaponry. The underlings seemed to have some kind of railguns or other non-chemically propelled weapons.

  The result of that was that they didn’t send simple bullets or slugs downrange, but instead nasty looking spikes made from some kind of blue-ish crystal or alloy that Jackson couldn’t quite identify.

  He’d seen them glow after impact, but then quickly turn grey after a few seconds. Either way though, their size and velocity made it clear that getting hit by one of them was either a death-sentence or at the very least an incredibly unpleasant experience.

  Still, with the suppressive fire coming in from the other two featherless freaks, Jackson made the snap decision of leaving cover and gunning it down the stairs he’d come from, moving unto ground-level in the alleyway.

  Bolting it to the exit of the alleyway, the soldier took cover behind a pillar on his right and glanced out unto the street.

  The group of aliens he’d engaged had dispersed.

  One of the birds had taken position on an abandoned bus, using the overwatch it gave it to pepper the alleyway Jackson was in and keep him pinned down. The other, it seemed, was instead hiding behind some cars, perhaps trying to close the distance. The third one, whose thigh Jackson had hit, was still laying on the ground, quickly bleeding out.

  Concerningly though, he couldn’t see where the feline one had run off to.

  Either that thing was looking to flank him, or it had hurried off to grab reinforcements.

  Putting some blind fire on the approaching bird, Jackson quickly glanced down at his HUD, seeing it display that he still had a few rounds in his mag, before jumping from cover and sending a salvo towards the bus.

  The first burst had mainly been to suppress the alien. The second one, which Jackson readied after taking a knee and centring his sights on the featherless thing, found its mark.

  With the one on the bus slumping together into a dead heap and dropping down unto the street, Jackson quickly hid behind the other pillar to his left, just in time to evade a few spikes careening down towards him. Even though the entire engagement hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes, Jackson could feel his heart pounding against his chest.

  Changing magazines, the corporal considered his options: Hunker down and wait to get a good sightline on the one hidden behind the car or rush it down. The answer was pretty obvious.

  He had already taken a massive risk by jumping into this engagement – the patrol had not made any inclination of moving on and the droptrooper saw it as preferable to start the engagement on his terms than be boxed in – and for all he knew, the surrounding buildings and alleyways could be full of enemy combatants, barrelling down towards him.

  He needed to end this and end it quickly.

  So, Jackson sent a few rounds down towards his enemy from behind cover, before mustering up his courage and jumping into the open, immediately lining his sights with the car that oversized plucked chicken was hiding behind.

  Slowly walking towards it, Jackson let off a few rounds to supress it, while also trying to see if he couldn’t get a proper line of sight on it.

  Just as quickly, he got his wish, with the featherless bird surprising him by jumping atop the car.

  For a split-second, the two combatants stared each other down through their sights. Jackson squeezed down on the trigger, just as his legs had instinctually given out under him.

  His burst had found its mark, and his drilled-in tactics had proven right.

  The alien had been slightly quicker on the draw, but by letting himself drop to the ground, the human had barely evaded a chest full of spikes, the deadly payload instead lodging itself into the street right behind him.

  His opponent on the other hand, hadn’t had such luck, the burst of 6.8x51mm into its chest ending the featherless thing right then and there, its lifeless corpse slowly slumping off the car and crashing against the wettened street.

  Rolling off to the side and kneeling up, Jackson carefully watched his surroundings. The rain had picked up further in the last half hour and lightning strikes were lighting up the barren buildings around him.

  Yet, the skydiver couldn’t spot that last alien that had been part of the patrol.

  Content to leave it be, and more importantly wanting to get out of the open, Jackson got up and made his way down to the other side of the street. His goal was a nearby skyscraper that looked to be in relatively good shape. The main reason for his interest in the structure though, had been faint light coming from behind one of the windows.

  It hadn’t lasted for long, and it couldn’t have been more than a flashlight or large candle, but it was a sign of life. Someone was up there.

  And if any civilians were around, he could certainly use their help.

  Slinking away into another alleyway, Jackson once again looked back down the street he’d just crossed. But nothing had changed. Abandoned cars, flickering or even completely powered down streetlamps, traffic lights that were rhythmically blinking yellow and the bodies of those aliens he’d taken out.

  Seemed like the feline alien had run for it.

  Yet, just as he turned around, a powerful kick to his sternum not only sent the trooper flying backwards unto the street again but had also proven him woefully wrong about the last alien’s intentions.

  With his MIX flying off somewhere into the aether of his blurry surroundings as he tumbled down the street, Jackson instead focused on simply regaining his breath, feeling the straining in his chest and lungs, like someone had sat down an elephant right on top of him.

  Clambering backwards in a hurry, Jackson tried to make sense of things, blinking his eyes to regain focus, while the cloudy form of his alien assailant was slowly walking towards him.

  Something didn’t seem right, but for now he mostly just focused on trying to regain his footing.

  Standing up, Jackson tried to steady himself, but was met with a leg-sweep, followed by a kick to his stomach, sending him once again barrelling down the street and landing right in the middle of it.

  Fighting to keep his lunch inside his body, Jackson groaned as he tried to move, only to be rewarded with harrowing pain rising from his muscles. It was hard to tell if anything was broken, especially with heat and numbness rising in the abused parts of his body.

  Still, there was a thought that was screaming at him through the fog of pain and confusion.

  He hadn’t been shot.

  The alien would’ve had ample opportunity to shoot him as he was writhing on the ground, yet he was still alive.

  Something was burning in the back of his mind.

  His heartrate was racing, the organ pumping blood in a frenzy and his mind spiralling as the thought repeated over and over again.

  They wanted to take him in alive.

  Images of Langstrom and what they had done to the rookie flooded his mind.

  With that and a helping of adrenaline surging through his body, Jackson was finally able to will his body to move, rolling back away from his attacker and jumping unto wobbly feet.

  As he had finally regained his footing, some of his senses were also ready to start cooperating once more, the ringing in his ears subsiding and his eyes focusing in again.

  With it standing in front of him like this, it was easier to gauge his attacker’s size and build. The alien wasn’t necessarily that much taller than him, maybe by a centimetre or two. What stuck out was its lean build and shaped muscles under the armour. Especially the legs, as he personally could attest from the pain still stabbing through the veil of adrenaline and the instinctual need to fight. Those things had one hell of a kick.

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  It felt like he was facing down an Olympian athlete in build alone.

  Drawing his combat knife from the back of his belt, Jackson steadied his footing and took on a defensive posture, holding the knife in a low-ready position.

  “Come on ET… I’m ready, how about you?!”

  He knew the alien couldn’t understand him, but his taunting was more so to boost his own confidence than to affect his opponent.

  Still, his mind was racing, running through the scant details he knew about his opponent.

  Large and lean build, similar to a runner or basketball player. Mammalian origin and prefers kicks. Especially the feline characteristics made the soldier wonder if perhaps they had a similar thing going on to Cheetahs, with bursts of incredible speed and power, but abysmal stamina. Maybe he could simply wear the alien down?

  As the alien drew closer, the two fighters started circling each other, Jackson instinctively watching his opponent’s legs. His main priority was to prevent another leg-sweep, but he knew with its size and build, the alien could also easily deliver a powerful kick to his chest or head.

  The fight proper started with another sweep by the alien, this time at head height, to which Jackson crouched to evade, springing forward and driving his knife towards his opponent.

  The feline alien quickly jumped back and instead drove its other leg towards Jackson at terrifying speeds. Still being mid-lunge, the trooper decided to keep going and used his own momentum to roll under the attack and land back on his feet.

  But, as soon as he had been back on his legs and facing his opponent, the soldier saw a hand-full of claws coming down towards him.

  Definitely feline if they could retract those.

  Putting thoughts of species identification aside though, Jackson stepped back and deftly evaded the attack at his throat, slashing his knife in front of him to dissuade another attack like that.

  Pressing the offensive, the alien stepped forward and slashed at him with both hands now.

  Evading two of those slashes, Jackson saw the aliens left hand race towards his face, feeling instincts tingle somewhere in the back of his mind.

  Angling his left shoulder forward, Jackson stepped slightly aside from the forward slash, before grappling the alien arm carrying its momentum right over his shoulder.

  His opponent had clearly not expected this move and immediately lost its footing, falling forwards as the human wrenched it to the ground with his shoulder throw.

  Yet, Jackson hadn’t been able to press the advantage.

  Though the alien was on the ground, as soon as he had closed in to bring the knife down on it or perhaps even restrain it, one of its powerful legs had found itself lodged in his stomach, delivering another kick that left Jackson reeling and sent him stumbling backwards a few times.

  Standing up on wobbling legs, Jackson returned to circling his opponent as the feline also returned to a ready stance. He could certainly see some heavy breathing from it, but if that was a sign of exhaustion or just similar to his own, he didn’t know.

  At the very least it didn’t seem like his adversary was too fond or too familiar with the concept of grappling, at least not the way he had used it. So far, the alien had always attacked him from some distance, kicks and slashes intended to be quick and devastating attacks, putting him down with potentially one good hit.

  Putting issues of stamina aside, they clearly didn’t have a preference for slugging it out in a prolonged grapple.

  Maybe that’s where his opportunity lied.

  Twirling the knife in his hand, Jackson tried to get his opponents attention focused on the sharpened utensil as he slowly closed in. Alien or not, it had to know how potentially dangerous a blade was.

  It seemed to do the trick.

  Even without any visible eyes beneath the mask, Jackson could see the subtle movements in its head as it evidently tracked the knife.

  Flourishing it one last time, the trooper feinted an attack, the alien immediately falling for it and trying to defend. Instead, the human had stepped back, flipping the combat knife in his hand and throwing it at his assailant.

  It had mostly just been to buy himself an opening, but a warbled shrieking from his opponent had confirmed that Jackson’s weapon had evidently found its mark in the flesh of his enemy.

  Sprinting forward, the human kept low, evading a defensive slash, before tackling into the alien at stomach height, bashing his weight and power into it to get it off its feet.

  As the world circled wildly around him, instinct and inner ear both let Jackson know that he and his opponent had indeed met the floor.

  Quickly switching position, the trooper moved behind his still disoriented foe, locking one arm around its neck, while using the other to wrestle its right arm behind its back, locking it there with his knee and pushing it against the alien’s spine.

  Different physiology or not, they were bipedal and probably not too dissimilar in structure from a human. Getting one’s arm potentially dislocated and pressed against the back was going to hurt either way.

  Though the alien wasn’t going out without a fight, trying to slash at Jacksons left arm with its free hand, before he could lock it down with his other leg. Having now both hands freed, the corporal brought his right arm in as well, pressing down on the alien’s airway with as much power as his abused muscles allowed him to.

  Still, his foe was struggling fiercely, wriggling its entire body around to try and somehow get free, kicking its legs wildly as it tried to gain some kind of purchase and release itself from the human’s grapple.

  For a moment it looked like the thing was finally starting to give out, when it had started to move less, before the world around Jackson started spinning wildly again, his senses quickly losing track of where who was in their desperate struggle.

  Before he knew it, the alien had freed itself from his grapple and was now on top of him, clawing at his form. The first two slashes were caught by his uniform and overcoat.

  It was the third one that sent his instincts spiralling.

  With a threatening glisten reflecting from the extended claws, he saw them coming down right towards his visor. Unable to stop them, Jackson was hit full on, his ears ringing and head pounding from the brutal impact. Despite the awful ringing abusing his ears, he made out the sickening noise of abused metal and scraping.

  It was only when he felt rain, that he realized that the hit had managed to fling his helmet off of his head, leaving him woefully exposed.

  Trying to block the next attack, his arms were instead swept away, with two unknown hands gripping his throat. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, a voice chuckled.

  Two powerful hands wrapped themselves around his airway and started squeezing.

  It looked like his enemy wanted to return the favour for that earlier choking.

  Still, it didn’t matter if it wanted to incapacitate him or choke the very life out of him, every instinct in his body was screaming at Jackson to do something. Yet, his hands couldn’t find purchase.

  For as unfamiliar as this thing had seemed with the concept of grappling, it had an iron grip around his throat, crushing his windpipe and setting off alarm bells and every animalistic instinct that his ancestors had passed unto him.

  He kicked, but that didn’t do anything.

  He punched, yet his hands only hurt against the hardened armour.

  He gripped its arms, yet his burning muscles couldn’t muster the strength to wrench its grip away from his throat.

  He tried to replicate what the alien had done, turning the situation around, yet its weight was bearing down on him, pinning him to the ground as his vision faded.

  Air. He needed air.

  He needed it now.

  Panic.

  Frustration.

  Fear.

  Then suddenly, a familiar sensation.

  Somewhere in the ever-distant growing aether, his fingers had found a familiar form lodged in his opponent. His knife.

  Running mostly on animalistic dread and instilled instinct, Jackson pulled it out and rammed it into his opponent’s assumed oesophagus.

  At once its grip lightened. Yet, with Jackson still running on a heady mixture of adrenaline, fight-or-flight and simple panic, he pulled the knife out and rammed it into his opponent again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Warm blood splashed against his face, mixing in with rain and sweat, hot and cold sensations sending his nerve endings into overdrive. The trooper blinked, something irritating his eyes, as he finally allowed himself to bring a hand up and wipe at his own form.

  It was only when the alien’s bleeding shape fell away from him did his senses somewhat recompile themselves.

  Finally, the animal inside retreated, and the man was allowed back on the helm.

  The alien had slid off of Jackson and now lied on the ground next to him, bleeding profusely from the wound he had given it.

  Warbled noises coming from beneath its mask reminded him of choking and coughing, as it desperately grabbed at the open wound from where blood was rhythmically spurting.

  To his surprise, Jackson recognized the blood to also be crimson, tough a bit lighter than it would be in a human, almost leaning into a slight pink.

  With his heart still pounding in his ears, Jackson tried to make sense of what to do, when he noticed his MIX lying on the ground not too far from him, having been punted there by the alien’s first attack.

  Standing on shaky legs, the human waddled over to the weapon, still unsure of himself and his surroundings.

  Something in Jackson’s mind was trying to remind him that he was coming down and that he now needed to steel his mind all the more. Wandering the streets in a confused post-battle stupor wouldn’t do him any good. Instructor Steele’s voice appeared from nowhere, yet everywhere.

  You’ll kill. You’ll kill plenty. It’s your job as a member of the Skycorps. What I don’t want to see is one of you shitheads losing your mind over it. It’s do or die out there! So, either get your head out of your ass Jackson, or get the fuck out of my unit!

  Supressing the need to yell out his understanding of the drill instructor’s teachings, Jackson instead grounded himself in the here and now. And on what needed to be done.

  The alien was still lying there, in a puddle of blood and rain, evidently drowning in the fluids filling its lungs.

  Langstrom’s screams appeared in the trooper’s mind, but just as quickly disappeared again.

  Checking the safety on his MIX, Jackson wandered over to his dying opponent with renewed vigour and brought the barrel of his rifle to bear. There were no pleading eyes looking back at him, no wishes for mercy or an outstretched hand.

  Only that unnerving featureless mask and the inhuman gurgling coming from behind it.

  Squeezing that trigger felt, at the same time, like the most normal thing in the world, yet also like the weight of this action might shake the entirety of Odessa.

  Jackson decided to stick with the first feeling.