Lieutenant Milena Batista.

Milena was lying on her stomach, next to a tree in a thickly wooded forest. Her Barrett M107 sniper rifle was trained down wind on a large alien frigate, that the Omega interceptors had taken out of the air less then an hour ago. King, her spotter was lying next to her his own MK 12, resting on a bipod, sighted the same direction. However he was busy using binoculars to scan the area for trouble. Behind them hidden in the brush Woods was keeping a look out, to make sure no one snuck up on the fire team.

The rest of her platoon had already entered through a breach in the side of the frigate, and was moving to eliminate any hostiles that they might find inside. Alien SOP was to send small fire teams to patrol the perimeter while others tried to repair the ship and get it back in the air.

Lieutenant Batista remembered her first engagement with the alien invasion. They had dropped canisters in a suburban area in Italy, when she and her team were deployed to investigate. The horror of finding civilians cocooned in green substances had shaken much of her crew, but nothing prepared them for the onslaught that came next. Drones capable of firing energy projectiles from their turrets, had set upon them from above, while Grays had torn into their ranks with plasma weapons strapped to their wrists. Half her crew had died that day, but she managed to come out of it alive. Many didn't in that first month.

Near the end of the month a second alien type appeared, and they realized they weren't just being invaded by one species. Red skinned aliens slightly reptilian in appearance, with so many cybernetics it was hard to tell what they had looked like before. The Reds only had an upper torso, while the bottom of them was composed of a giant thruster system that allowed them to fly. Between their technology and their tactics, the Italian military was on its back foot, trying to keep up with the small incursions occurring all across its country.

When a heavily funded global organization named Omega came knocking, she answered the call, and joined the ranks of other world military veterans in their battle to drive the aliens off their world. After the incident in France with La Mort Finale, the Commander had wanted for all the innocents that had been lost that day. Having heard the reports of her success within the streets of Paris after the ship was brought down, he promoted her to captain, and sent her platoon to North America to bring the fight to the aliens.

Using advanced fighter technology they were taking down alien vessels at a surprising rate. Her platoon's job was to hit the LZ, raid the ships, and kill the survivors. Then salvage teams would come and pick the bones, in an effort to increase their capabilities. Today though was an auspicious day. This was the first frigate they had been able to take down. It had taken three interceptors, one of which had been destroyed during the fire fight.

Approaching the ship, they had taken down three patrols of aliens. A set of drones, and two sets of Reds. Grays seem to be more intelligent and better at fixing the ship, while Reds were mostly an unit. They were hoping that only Grays were left inside, though the Reds would be limited in the small halls of the ship.

“Anything?” She whispered to King.

The big black man shook his head, continued to scan the area. It was important that they watch for any errant patrols, that could sneak up on the platoon. So far this one had been quiet.

Suddenly the radio went off with gun fire, as the team made contact with the aliens. Milena listened patiently for a sit-rep. Her team were veterans, she had faith in them. What felt like eternity passed in the span of a minute or two before finally Owens called over the comms.

“Clear. Grays, six down, moving...”

Banks cried out cutting Owens off. “What the fuck is...”

“New alien, take cov...” Owens tried to call out before his comm went dead.

Milena was up and running rifle in hand, as she dashed toward the ship, less then half a klick out. She wasn't going to make it in time, she knew it, but she had to try. Owens, and Banks were likely dead. Which meant she needed twenty more kills. She owed them a debt of blood. She owed so many debts, yet to be paid in full.

She could hear King and Woods chasing after her. King was a big man, with long legs, but he wasn't as fast as the smaller agile women. As they charged toward the breach, no one questioned her decision. Where she went they would follow. Gun fire continued to ring out, and the screams of her dying companions echoed through the radio waves, as she reached the smoking hole the team had entered. Dropping her sniper rifle, she pulled her twin Beretta M9's from her thigh holsters and dashed through the hole, guns coming up, as she scanned the halls.

Moving quickly down the halls, she knew that King and Woods would be watching her flank. King still had his smaller sniper rifle, which was better for close quarters then her big ass cannon. Woods carried a standard M4 as she watched their backs. Cutting through the halls, as quickly as possible, Batista became distraught when the screams of her team went silent.

Entering what looked like an engine room, she saw three large clear cylinders, with a blue glowing energy that lit the entire room. There was carnage everywhere. Half her team had been blown to bits. Alien weapons fire for sure, but something somewhat bigger then they had seen before. Seeing Owens propped against one of the three giant columns of glowing green energy, she dashed over to him.

“What happened?” She asked checking his side.

“It was, big, huge, armored.” Owens gasped quietly.

The wound in his side was from a plasma weapon. The good thing was that it cauterized the wound, the bad part was that a large part of his side was missing. He wasn't going to make it. Suddenly she heard a heavy plasma weapon go off behind her. Flipping around she was just in time to watch King get blown in half.

The creature was huge, at least 2.4 meters tall, thick as hell, and dressed in some sort of heavy armor, that was riddled with holes. Woods turned, and flipped her M4 to full auto, and began riddling its chest with even more holes. Milena raised her own pistols and began firing at the behemoth as well.

The giant creature fired a second shot and took her friend in the shoulder, blowing off her left arm. Batista screamed enraged and stood up, her guns firing wildly at its thick red skinned face. Its thick skull withstood two grazing shots, before it threw its hand up in front of its face to block the incoming fire. Leveling its gun it began blasting its huge plasma gun at her, starting from one side of the room and fanning it to the other.

The third shot hit one of the large energy columns, and the soldier realized she was standing between three of the things. Eyes wide with fear, she ran toward the creature, as the world seem to slow down. Launching into a roll, she ducked under the next wild shots, and as she rolled through she saw a second column get punctured, just as the first one, which seemed to implode first, exploded outward. Rolling to her feet, she sprang up toward the alien, just as the of the first wave hit her, lifting her up into the air.

Spinning through the air, as the wave of energy came cascading toward her, the second engine exploding outward to join the first wave. Jamming her right pistol into the temple of the giant alien, she smiled softly, and pulled the trigger.

“Sixty eight.” Milena murmured, as its head exploded out the other side.

As she spun over onto her back, she felt the pistols fall from her hands, and saw the large wave of blue energy rushing toward hers, the second engine's explosion cascading on its heels, and the third engine just now exploding from the last shot fired by the freakish mutant. The invisible wave of the third explosion hit her first, and as the interacting forces crushed her body between them, she seem to float in the air, as the the three waves slammed into her in rapid succession, and the world went dark.