Aux 2 - Beach fun

'We don't know what we're exactly fighting against yet, but that doesn't matter. You have all been trained well in the last couple of years, and to be fair: aliens can't be that different from humans, right?' The pep talk Vulgar gave was supposed to hype Miles and his squad up, but even he, who was a general in the army, didn't manage to sound very confident now.

'What if they don't die because of our bullets? Maybe their skin is like a… pantser or something.' Miles nodded, that was a fair question of Bonu.

'Well…' Vulgar paused for a second, he didn't know what to answer. 'I guess that there's only one way to find out.' He wanted to open the tank they were gathered in, but Tardo's hand stopped him.

'General, I'm sorry to stop you from opening that door, but… what if we just don't go? We can just… live, you know?'

'Tardo…' Vulgar stared the young man deep into his eyes, but then he looked away, to the rest of the group. 'Not just Tardo, actually. All of you. We, we are the army. We have been trained for years, just for this moment. Right now, it's not just about us, this is about the world. These… things, or whatever they may be, have already shown to be aggressive. We need to stop them from whatever business they think they have here. It's not just about our squad, our tank. It's about all the dozens of tanks that are here today. We need to destroy those… those bastards.'

Morus, who was by far the shortest of the group, was sitting in one of the corners. Everyone was clearly afraid for what was to come, but he was the only one who actually showed his fear. He wasn't exactly popular in the group. In fact, no one really liked him or his presence, and he wouldn't have surpassed the army test under normal circumstances, but he managed to get in because of his father. He slowly raised his hand.

'General?' he said doubtful. 'Why don't we just use the tanks to shoot at them? Why would we even leave our own tank?'

Before the general even answered, everyone was looking irritated at him. This was already explained.

'As I said, like… five minutes ago, it's because the aliens managed to shut down our tanks, we can't drive any further.'

'How did they do that?' A few sighs followed his question.

'Do I look like I know?' One of the veins in Vulgars neck started to rise, he was damn mad. A detail even Morus catched up on.

'No, general, I'm sorry. I mean, not that you look dumb or anything, you're pretty smart, I guess. But… yeah I can understand that you don't know this. I mean, I don't either, right? In fact, none of us probably do. Cause the…' he only now saw the glances that were thrown at him. 'Yeah, maybe I'll just… stop talking.'

'Alright, no more talking, we're going out as soon as I get a command.' Vulgar grabbed the lever that was meant to open the door, and waited a few seconds. Those were probably the longest few seconds of Miles' life.

Suddenly he heard 'Alright, go,' and before he knew he and his mates were running outside on the battlefield. He expected it to be pure chaos, or something, cause he had heard some cannons firing previously. Instead, he and his squad found themselves in the middle of a large beach, surrounded by other squats who didn't know what to do.

'General Vulgar, what do we do now?' Miles scared up. Clarus was about ten meters away from him, but he was communicating with his squad through the little microphones each one of them got.

'I don't know yet, I'm going to discuss it with the other generals. Wait a second, I'll reach out to you all back soon,' a deep voice answered.

Vulgar turned around and started talking, leaving the rest of the squat a bit uncomfortable. This was not how they imagined that their first mission would go.

Miles grabbed his gun, because something about the whole situation unsettled him.

He looked down, and realized that this was the first time that he ever got to be on a beach. The sand looked amazing, way better than the crap that he used to play with. His eyes scanned the entire area and ended their journey at the sea. It looked amazing, probably about ten times better than the pictures he'd seen of it.

The blue color of the water was quite matte, making it looked endless, except for the waves that occured here and there. And the stone that arose from the water… Wait, what? He peeked a bit better, and suddenly saw that something huge was rising from the water. It looked exactly like the spaceships that he always saw in comics. His head started overflowing with thoughts. He looked around, some other dudes had now seen it too and were starting to scream, so that's what he did too.

With a *bleep* his microphone turned on. 'Look at the sea. Look at the fucking sea! Vulgar, what's that? Are those the aliens we're hunting?' Vulgar, who was in the middle of his conversation, turned around, looking quite irritated. Nonetheless, he did what Miles asked of him, a second later his mouth fell open.

'Gentlemen, I think we have quite the problem here.' The man talked so loud that Miles could hear him, even though he was about ten meters apart.

'Sir, what do we do now?' Bonu asked.

'The other commanders have demanded us to spread, so that's what we're gonna do. Follow me.'

Everyone ran as fast as they could. Without realizing it, they left Morus behind.

Suddenly Miles heard general Vulgar again through his microphone, he was panting like a young dog. 'Gentlemen, we got new orders to…' But a loud explosion ended his sentence abruptly. A light blue blur filled his sight, right before he lost his consciousness.