Kamp Kuzma: The Operators' Campgrounds (For Operating)

Chapter One: Sea of Blood, Beaches of Bone


“10 minutes until take-off point. All units, stand by.”

Adam Grey silently breathed out at this. This was it. In about 10 minutes his squadron would take off and be hurled to sandy beaches of Mediterrean Sea, handling the most recent BETA incursion. As more islands fell to relentless invaders, so did Greek governments (or what’s left of it) increased pressure on the U.N and E.U to lift at least part of the burden from overwhelmed Greek forces. Hence for past several weeks, U.N Task Force 108 made hundreds of sorties over to Greek mainland, all ending in protracted bloodbaths with aliens. It was hard to call the “battles” – the sea would be far too stained in dark purple hue for that.

Adam looked to the sky, where frightening display of lights played overhead. BETA’s laser-class organisms were already busy handling the mass of ordinance that Royal Navy cruisers and battleships were spewing towards mainland. For a long time, these lasers denied Humans air superiority and limited fighting to ground and seas alone, forcing TSFs to become the next backbone of humanities armies. Artillery bombardments were equally useless, but command long has learned that as long as BETAs had any shells to shoot at, they weren’t doing so to the ground troops…

Most of the time.

The ship to the starboard side suddenly exploded, breaking Adam away from any thought he might have had.

“God-dammit!” The voice of group’s captain echoed over open comms. “Small Heavy Laser-class group detected at sector Charlie-3! All TSF units, emergency launch! I repeat, emergency launch! Get out while still can!”

Adam cursed and immediately activated his F-15E Strike Eagle’s engines, as engineers frantically disconnected various docking clamps that still held the machine on the deck. Behind them, another ship exploded, superheated fuel and munitions churning the makeshift carrier into a mass of superheated metal.

†˜Clamps unlocked. Godspeed out there.”Simultaneous with that, the ship violently shook, and Adam could feel the vibrations of explosion directly behind him. “Direct hit to the starboard! Get out! Now!”
“Kestrel Squadron, all units move out!” Adam’s commander barked over squad channel, and Sea-green machines begun to rapidly take off from the sinking giant, into the hell before them.
“Kestrel 4, taking off.” Adam whispered not trying to look at the pandemonium behind him.

---

There are some things no amount of training can prepare you for. Or so an old adage said. Combat against BETA was one of them. Fighting in one of most demanding tactical courses was one thing, but actually fighting these monstrosities in person?

It was terrifying. Let’s just leave it at that.

The other thing, was getting well and truly into deep shit.
I swore under my breath as all four guns of my Strike Eagle blazed ahead. The dammed horde of aliens wasn’t stopping at all. It didn’t matter how many bullets would splatter their comrades against the ground – the horde would continue advancing, as if oblivious to the torrent of fire.

“Go Go Go! Advance forward and form a line!” Our commander shouted, his own Eagle recklessly moving forward. I’d call him a retard, but I was too busy trying not to get killed.

“Dammit” My wingman, Leo swore on squad channel “We get those little red fuckers running in between the big guys!”

The “little red fuckers” as impolite as it was, referred to Tank-class BETA. A misleading name, given they were barely larger than a car. While their hides offered protection from most hand-held firearms, they were nothing compared to might of 36mm depleted uranium shells fired at high velocity. But they were fast. Very fast. On flat terrain they could run as fast as over 100 kmph, and only slightly less on hills. And then, there were their central mouths. An ugly, disgusting entryway to whatever passed for stomach in this thing. But it’s teeth were sharp enough to bite into composite armor, and the strength of their mouth muscles was enough to rip hole through it.

More than one soldier was devoured by these little beasts, screaming as his or hers TSF was literally eaten to death. I had no intention of joining that club.
One of hand-held guns shook as I fired a 120mm shell. The explosive round flew far in-between BETAs, before exploding in considerable radius, sending chunks of earth, dirt and alien flesh flying. With front of enemy column torn open, we could focus on main dish.

“Target the tanks! Nothing gets past us!” With hindsight, I would say it was needless military chest-pounding, but the truth was, when people were scared (and there is no-one who would ever face BETA and wouldn’t be) simple things like that sounded much more convincing and rousing then you’d think.

And thus a torrent of fire poured down on Tanks. The little creatures were far away from us that their mouths had no use. And it showed. Dozens were mowed down by sweeping chain gun fire, staining ground with odd shades of crimson, purple and even green. With most bigger strains lagging behind, Tank-class were all too easily targeted, thanks to cheerfully bright colors that nature so gleefully bestowed on them. Speed or no speed, but by the time first came within 50 meters of our platoon, they were nothing more than sacks of meat flying forward by sheer force of momentum.

Now we were getting somewhere.

“Light †˜em up.” I ordered, and the TSF next to me fired off a pair of 120mm shells, kicking up tons of dust in process – soon overshadowed by two monumental explosions. But even that would soon be drowned in staccato of our chainguns, as our platoon slowly advanced, viciously biting into BETA group. There was none quarter given. None expected.

But in a war against BETA, such small victory was only a brief respite.

“Destoyers are coming in hard! Captain we must, OH SHHHIIIIIII-“ The transmission was cut almost as soon as it broke out, followed by indistinct scream and sounds of twisted, ripped metal and composites. We all knew it meant one less of us.
“Kestrel 3 is down! Oh-oh God! Grapplers are getting at the Captain!” A panicked, feminine voice that I recognized as Meredith, the youngest of our squad rang out. “I’m not going to make it!”
I turned my machines head to get front back into my field of view. It wasn’t good – the advancing platoon was caught by a charge of Destroyer-class BETAs – large, hulking rhinos, whose frontal carapace looked very much like an anti-tank wedge. It might have as well been one. The several of things rammed straight into middle of formation. Before anyone could react, the rest of BETA fun group joined up, turning front shooting gallery into chaotic melee.

“Captain’s down!” Meredith scream. “They just..they just…” The rest of her communiqué was lost on us as another group of BETA came into our view, mingling in with other strains that flawlessly split from the front in order to flank us.

Not good.

“We’re falling back!” I yelled, hoping my platoon could hear me over the pandemonium of gunfire. “Two machines at the time. One elements stays and suppresses, another runs”. It didn’t took a second before two of my colleagues took to the skies, while me and Leo poured salvos into advancing horde. Even though each salvo caused dozens of casualties, the mere eight lines of fire from our combined element looked laughable compared to sheer volume of BETA.
And so we ran. 400 meters on boosters to the back. We than jumped down, hitting the dirt as Eagle’s legs screamed against forces of gravity and momentum, Turn around, reload, fire until next elements gets ahead, rinse, repeat.

“This is Lieutenant Javik!” A deep, male voice boomed over our squad comm., as we made it closer and closer to core of our squadron. It was one of those accents that immediately go “wassup mah rastah, got any weed bro?” Sadly, as me and rest of our squadron found out, Javik was a hardass. As in incredibly †˜stick-up-the-ass-hardass-that-he-can’t-even-bend” hardass. But right now, I was glad that this sucker was alive. If anyone knew how to get us out of this failure of assault, it was him.

“I have assumed control of Kestrel squadron. All surviving elements withdraw to point Delta-4.”
“He thinks it’s so easy, doesn’t he?” My other squadmate, Helen, answered “Like a fucking vacation trip at Red Flag maneuvers.”
“Because it is.” I involuntarily groaned as the thrusters on my Eagle lit up, sending the not-really-aerodynamic mecha into rapid hover slide across the ground, away from clawing horde. “Just more purple paint”.

And so we ran, retreating to small, cragged hills some several kilometers behind us. Ultimately, the squadron lost only three people. For a war of this scale, it was really little.