The Megaships unloaded a magazine of five hundred thousand iron balls directly into the mass of spiders below them just as the Red Warriors disappeared. Brez ordered, “Advance in odd numbered teams; even numbered will advance second.” Half of the warriors moved five yards forward, kneeled and fired their auto cannons non-stop. Two seconds later the other half moved through their ranks and did the same. The first group used their arm guns to hit any individual targets still moving and then moved five yards forward. Brez noticed that Juck had the area in front of his two auto cannons clear for more than a hundred yards. “General, we have another mass approaching from your rear. I am calling in two more ships for support but they will not arrive for two minutes. Try to keep this mass out in the open in the square around you.”
“Will do our best, Navy. Even number teams will continue to fire forward; Odd numbers turn and move fifty yards and prepare to hit the mass coming from our rear. Eighth and ninth companies, teleport to my coordinates and support one of the two groups.” Brez knew that he was leaving only nine thousand warriors in the town he had just left but felt that they were in better shape to handle what remained. “Juck come join me in the middle; we will support the side hardest hit.”
Juck stood and ran to Brez’s side and said, “It appears that the group coming at our rear is much larger than the one just hit by the Megaship.”
“Only momentarily, there are additional spiders moving in from the front joining the survivors. Let’s try to slow the ones down in the rear and then move to the front.”
Brez keyed his com, “All warriors, the Navy will arrive in a minute and fifty seconds. We have to make this mass of spiders stay in the square and that means we can’t jump out before they arrive or this mass will scatter. Set your systems to automatically teleport in one hundred seconds; we will fight until that time arrives or we will die holding this ground. If we can take out this mass then we will save millions of the local population. If they get inside our lines, draw swords and try to survive.”
“Here they come, Juck yelled over the link.” The warriors facing the rear began firing in unison and began hitting the spiders a hundred yards out as they rushed into the square from the surrounding buildings. Huge mounds of them began building which only slowed the ones jumping over them slightly.”
“The front mass has just arrived, General.”
“Hold out, Captain. Use your links to fire your cannons.”
The two hundred and fifty warriors in each group released their grips on their shoulder mounted auto cannons and allowed their armors computer to take over firing. They then pulled their long swords and waited as the mass moved closer and closer. The two lines of warriors began slowly giving ground until the two groups were literally back to back. Then the spiders hit their lines and the killing became up close. Brez swung his sword and cut off a spider’s head then turned and jammed the eight foot blade directly into the mouth of the spider leaping to bite him. He ripped the sword out and slashed at another spider leaping at the back of the warrior beside him and then ducked as a spider passed over his head and hit another warrior in the back taking him down to the pavement and biting through his armor. The spider died as another warrior cut it in half with a sword slash. Brez’s auto cannon turned and fired twenty rounds into a spider leaping at his head and then shot two more that had hit warriors beside him. The killing was happening almost faster than Brez could follow. Brez saw a four foot circle around Juck as the small Cainth walked through the green mass swinging the four swords faster than eyes could see. Suddenly, Brez was hit and fell to the ground with a spider thrusting its fangs at his neck. Then he found himself on the ground with the spider gone from his chest. He looked up and saw a solid curtain of iron balls falling out of the three megaships above the giant mass of swarming spiders. “Move in among the building around the square. Use your links for your locations.” Brez had verbally told his command link to cut off any escape routes from the square and the computer automatically assigned the surviving Red Warriors to their positions. Only a hundred and fifty warriors survived but they prevented any of the spiders that survived the rain of iron balls from escaping. Someone would tell him later that his group was responsible for killing more than a million invaders in that square; but for the moment Brez fought to keep the deaths of his brothers out of his mind.
“General, you are in the clear for the moment. We do not see any large number near your location.”
“Thanks, Navy. You’re making the difference.”
“We are needed near the housing district, General. Call us if you need us.”
“Will do, Captain.” Brez looked at his tactical display and saw that there was not any more large concentration of invaders in the city. There were still hundreds of thousands of individual spiders swarming around but the worse of the battle ended at the square. He keyed his com, “Colonel Ytds, come take command of this cleanup; download the links of this unit.”
“On my way, Sir.”
“Juck, are you still alive?”
“I’m really not sure, Sir. All I can see right now is a vision of a spider pasted to my face plate.”
Brez smiled, “Are you having fun yet?”
“My ancestors would kill each other for this kind of fun, Sir, where now?”
“Back to the government center.”
“I’m locked in on your signal, Sir.”
Brez appeared at the government building and found the leaders of the planet staring at their displays. The large leader of the group turned when they appeared and said, “We would all be dead but for your arrival. My planet owes you a debt we can never repay.”
“I need your armed forces to start helping us now.”
“What would you have us do?”
“I am going to teleport a shipment of hand weapons that will kill these creatures. I need your troops to take them and start eliminating any green creature on sight.”
The commander of the armed forces looked at Brez, “Thank you for saving my life. I will communicate with my units about the weapons.” He punched a button and handed Brez a disc. “If you will send the weapons to the sites listed in the numbers beside each site we will welcome the opportunity to join you.”
Brez scanned the disc with his armor’s scanner and sent the information to the weapons factory on Cross. “Teleporting now, Sir.”
“The weapons are arriving now at the sites you gave me. Tell your troops to just aim and shoot. The guns operate very simply. Don’t waste the munitions. One shot will kill these creatures.”
The commander listened to his communication device and said, “They are being distributed now around the planet. We will be joining you immediately.”
“Thank you Commander.” Brez turned to the planet’s leader. “We will talk after we have control of the ground. We haven’t won yet but with your help I believe we will.”
“What if they send another ship?”
“We have destroyed all of their ships in our universe. This one just launched ships before we could hit it.”
“How many ships did they have in our universe?”
“There were more than two million of the big ships like the one floating in your outer system. Only three planets were actually invaded; we were able to stop the rest. I am truly sorry we weren’t able to prevent them landing here.”
Brez and Juck disappeared from the room. The planet’s leaders in the room looked at each other and then went and looked at the display showing the thirty thousand mile wide ship floating in space. They wondered how these beings were going to treat them after the conflict was over. The Leader looked at the group and said, “However they choose to treat us; it would not be anything like those green creatures planned. We should be thankful.”