The planetary defense forces saw the advance and threw everything they had into supporting it. Artillery shells screamed overhead, tearing massive holes in the creature ranks. For a moment, it looked like the push might actually break through.

But... as always, nothing... nothing in this war was ever as easy as it seemed.

While the Aegis advance and the allied artillery carved a bloody path through the void creatures, something else was happening above. High up on the hive city’s upper levels, a massive void vessel descended through the burning sky. It was wounded, with its hull cracked and sections venting atmosphere, but still very much alive. The Kaelzar defensive fleet in orbit had damaged it, but not enough to stop it.

It dropped into the lower atmosphere like a falling mountain, and its weapons came alive.

Nearby Kaelzar frigates tried to scatter, but the void vessel’s firepower was overwhelming. One by one, they erupted into fireballs, their shields buckling under the relentless onslaught.

Then, from beneath the vessel, four massive black tentacles unfurled, writhing with terrible purpose. They slammed down into the hive city, punching through steel and rockcrete, burrowing deep all the way down to the lower hive, where Cleo’s forces still fought for control.

One tentacle pierced the already fractured roof directly above the battlefield. It crashed through with a deafening roar, sending a shockwave that buckled the ground and threw soldiers off their feet.

Cleo felt the tremor through the hull of the Mauler Juggernaut beneath her. The shockwave raced toward her together with a wall of dust, debris, and twisted metal.

The imperial bot maids around her reacted instantly. They raised their arms, their energy shields flaring to maximum output, forming a protective dome around their lady. The wave hit a heartbeat later, howling like a dying animal. Dust and shrapnel battered the shields, but they held.

When the roar faded, Cleo stood untouched in the center of the storm with her eyes fixed forward. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"My lady." The head imperial maid stepped up beside her, a holoscreen already flickering to life on her hand. "Scout drones have identified a massive unknown vessel that broke through our orbital blockade. It is now attacking the hive city with organic tentacles of unknown composition." She placed the image among Cleo’s other open displays.

Cleo didn’t nod. She didn’t even look at it.

Her gaze was locked on the larger holoscreen before her, the one tracking her Aegis units. The four thousand she had sent forward. The ones that had been pushing through the enemy ranks just moments ago.

Now, their markers were blinking out. One by one. Faster and faster.

"Something inside the dust cloud is taking out the Aegis units," Cleo said, her voice flat, but her processors were running at maximum, trying to find a pattern. She cycled through her vision modes, from infrared to X-ray and electromagnetic, but the cloud was a blank wall. "Strong electromagnetic jamming," she muttered. "I can’t see anything."

She turned to one of her bot maids. "Go to the portal and mount—"

But before she could finish her words, something tore through the energy shield barrier as if it were wet paper. The projectile struck the imperial maid, next to her, hitting her square in the torso. Metal and synthetic flesh parted like cloth. Her upper half vanished in a spray of sparks and oil. Her lower half stood for a single, terrible moment and then crumpled.

Cleo’s eyes widened.

For one frozen heartbeat, she stared at the remains of her servant. Then her protocol took over. Her own honeycomb shield burst to life around her, layers of hexagonal energy panels snapping into place. She spun, scanning the dust cloud, her weapons systems primed.

But there was nothing to target. No heat signature. No solid form. Just the howling dust and the screams of dying soldiers.

Half a kilometer away, at the allied artillery position, the scene was also chaos.

A young soldier stared at his datapad, then at the impenetrable wall of dust where the Aegis units had vanished. He wiped grit from his face and shouted over the thunder of cannons.

"Sergeant! Our sensors can’t detect anything inside that dust cloud!" His voice cracked with desperation. "Should we keep firing? We might hit our own people!"

The sergeant ripped the datapad from his hands and glared at the blank screen. Her knuckles went white around the device.

"Doesn’t matter, keep firing! The coordinates haven’t changed. If we aim in the—" A sharp crack split the air. Something punched through her helmet like it was made of paper. Her eyes went wide. "Wha—"

Then her head was gone.... just gone in an instant, leaving only a wet spray of red mist and shattered bone before her body crumpled.

The young soldier beside her stood frozen. His ears rang. His brain refused to understand what his eyes had just seen. She had been talking. She had been right there.. but now...

Another soldier to his left screamed and clutched his chest. Then another fell, clutching a leg that was suddenly missing below the knee. Soldiers dropped one after another, each hit by something invisible, something too fast to see.

Then he heard it. A soft clink at his feet, like a pebble landing on metal.

His head snapped down, and there, he saw it, buried against the edge of his boot was a small, almost clear crystal. It glittered in the dust-choked light for a heartbeat, a light that was oddly beautiful yet strange. Then it dissolved into a fine, harmless-looking mist that curled up toward his face.

His lungs filled with it. For a second, nothing happened. Then his throat tightened, his vision swam, and he understood with terrible clarity. His hands flew to his comm. "Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm! We’re und—"

His head snapped back. And then there was nothing more under his shoulders, the red mist drifted upward, joining the cloud.

But the allied forces were a real army. They had fought through worse than this. Even as their comrades fell around them, training took over. "Contact! Contact! Return fire! Protect the artillery!"

Soldiers threw themselves behind whatever cover they could find, be it sandbags, vehicle hulls, or the broken bodies of their fallen. Their rifles swung toward the direction the shots had come from. Laser bolts and solid rounds tore into the haze; each shot was desperate and wild and totally aimless thanks to the panic.

And then they saw them. Emerging from the dust like nightmares given flesh, the new creatures moved with terrible purpose. They were nothing like the mindless beasts that had come before.

They were thin, almost insect-like. Their bodies were angular, all sharp edges and hollow spaces. Long bone spikes jutted from their backs and shoulders, clicking softly against each other as they walked. Their heads were the worst part of their nightmarish form; they were split open like cracked eggs, revealing something dark and wet inside. A thick, black fluid dripped from the fissures, sizzling where it touched the ground.

Their eyes, if they had eyes, were hidden in that darkness. But the soldiers felt them watching.

One of the creatures raised an arm; it was too long and, at the same time, too thin, and from it, a crystalline shard materialized in its grip, humming with barely contained energy.

The soldier behind the sandbag pulled the trigger and didn’t let go. "Kill them! Kill them all!" His voice cracked with fear from the look of the creatures and fury for his fallen friends that were standing next to him just a second ago.

The allied artillery defensive forces poured everything they had into stopping them, but the creatures kept coming in big numbers, never stopping, never slowing. They flooded from the left side, climbing through a vent deep in the lower hive. Their numbers seemed endless, and their firepower was stronger than anything the allies could throw back.

But the artillery forces were not alone.

From the sky, one of Cleo’s imperial bot maids descended, landing right on the front line of the allied defense. The creatures turned their weapons on her at once. Crystals and small explosions burst against her, but her energy shield held, and the crystals collapsed like rain against glass.

"My lady," the maid said, her voice calm and clear even as the battle raged around her. "I have reached the position. It is just as we thought. Something ambushed the allied artillery. We will now move to stop the hostile forces. I will keep allied casualties to a minimum while capturing some of the creatures alive for further study."

She closed the holographic window with a flick of her wrist.

Above her, the sky broke open. A rain of golden plasma fell onto the enemy lines, and countless Aegis units descended through the firelight, their armored forms cutting through the smoke. They landed in perfect formation before the imperial maid.

What had been a desperate defense became a proper war. Now both sides took losses, but the Aegis units had the edge. Their energy shields made them tougher than the void creatures that snarled and clawed against them.

Back in her command post, Cleo received the maid’s confirmation and closed her own holoscreen. She no longer tried to see through the dust with her own eyes. Instead, she reached out, her mind connecting to one of the Tyrant units inside the cloud.

Through its eyes, she saw the battlefield clearly. The Tyrant advanced steadily, its sensors scanning the ground. It moved past the wreckage of a cathedral that was once beautiful, now torn apart by the allied shells. The stone and metal lay scattered like broken bones.

Then something moved from inside the debris and pounced toward the leading Tyrant unit.