Novices Alberto Martinez Garcia and Mistrach 47.
Operatives Poison25 and vaultboy8765.
Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.
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When the first rays of the Trisolis Rubrae system's three ruby suns finally crested the eastern peaks, the crimson morning light washed over the edge of a nascent empire.
As the nine hundred and thirty colonists began to stir, wiping sleep from their eyes and stepping out through the pressurized, thermally sealed doors of their newly printed modular homes, a collective silence fell over the basin. The world they had fallen asleep in was not the world they had woken up to.
Overnight, part of the landscape of the ten-kilometer clearing had been fundamentally rewritten by Mark, the Elite Guards, and the tireless night shift.
The trampled purple grass that had connected the elevated homes was gone, and in its place stood an immaculate grid of interlocking S-Alloy slabs, roughly six inches thick, made from the exact same composite as the modules themselves.
Rather than wide, open grates, these gunmetal-grey pathways were densely perforated with thousands of small half-inch holes, a calculated design choice that ensured heavy rain would never pool on the streets but would instead drain instantly into the alien soil below.
It also wasn't a random assortment of pathways. Anyone with a passing knowledge of ancient Earth history, or anyone who had spent time studying the architectural databanks Marcos had plundered, would have recognized the layout immediately.
It was a geometric grid that perfectly mirrored the lost ancient Roman city of Timgad. It was composed of long, wide primary avenues intersected at perfect right angles with narrower residential streets, creating a highly organized and easily defensible urban space. It put Marcos's calculating genius on display, seamlessly translating ancient military logistics into a modern settlement.
The colonists walked out onto the perforated S-Alloy slabs, the thudding of their boots echoing in the crisp morning air. They followed the primary avenues, their eyes drawn toward the center of the grid where the streets converged.
There, resting in a massive, perfectly leveled plaza, was the crown jewel of the night's labor.
A colossal skeletal frame of thick S-Alloy had been driven deep into the earth, establishing the footprint of a massive structure. Wide, grand steps had already been laid at the terminus of the avenue, leading up to a raised foundation. The structure was intentionally stepped back roughly fifty yards from the edge of the converging streets, leaving a wide, open courtyard of purple grass.
Word had already begun to spread that Mark had explicitly designated this empty space for a future monument, a towering statue to honor the three hundred and fifty-four souls who had bled to buy them this sanctuary.
And resting just behind the grand steps, humming with an earth-shaking power, was the 25x25-meter nanoprinter.
The civilians gasped and pointed in sheer awe. The machine had been transformed into a mobile industrial behemoth. Massive, airless honeycomb wheels, each taller than a grown man, supported the colossal chassis. Its four gargantuan hydraulic outriggers were currently deployed, their thick steel feet bitten deep into the soil, lifting the machine slightly off its wheels to provide stability.
The machine was actively working, making the air around it taste sharply of ozone, and a blinding white light leaked from its forward extrusion plane. Slowly, a massive, multi-ton architectural module was being pushed out of the portal-like interface onto the heavy-duty conveyor belt. It featured towering, arched window frames, thick, load-bearing composite pillars, and intricate, brutalist metalwork that looked like carved granite but possessed the tensile strength of a gunship's armor.
Marcos was printing a town hall, and not just any town hall. The architectural schematics were a direct, modernized homage to the legendary Philadelphia City Hall of ancient Earth, a towering and imposing, yet beautiful seat of governance that projected permanence and unyielding authority.
"By the stars..." Captain Vance whispered, standing with a cup of instant coffee halfway to his mouth. "He's actually building a city."
Directly across the wide avenue from the rising town hall stood another completed marvel. It was a single-story complex stretching nearly forty meters long. It shared the eight-inch-thick, heavily insulated walls of the residential modules, but it featured wide, reinforced panoramic windows, a secured courtyard with soft, synthetic loam, and multiple interconnected wings.
Sister Elara stood at the entrance of the forty-meter building, her hands covering her mouth as tears streamed freely down her face. Above the reinforced door was a perfectly printed plaque that read: The Horizon Orphanage. Mark and Marcos had prioritized the fifty most vulnerable members of their population, giving the children a massive fortified sanctuary.
Behind the half-built town hall, the architectural style shifted abruptly from civilian grandeur to military utility as high, thick perimeter walls were already being extruded by the smaller, newly mobile 3x3-meter printers. Barracks, armories, and training yards were being outlined in the dirt. It was the beginning of a fortified military installation, providing the Peacekeepers and the Elite Guards with a dedicated staging ground to protect the heart of the city.
The overwhelming reality of the progress ignited a fire in the colonists' bellies, replacing the despair of the crash with a unified purpose that burned within them.
As the morning progressed, the city truly came alive.
Breakfast was a communal affair. The nuns and the civilian volunteers set up long, printed metal tables in the center of the Timgad grid. Nine hundred and thirty people gathered, eating their MREs and drinking hot, filtered water. But there was no complaining about the rations. The air was thick with animated chatter, laughter, and the rhythmic hiss of the nanoprinters working in the background. They were eating in the streets of a city that hadn't existed yesterday.
When the meal ended, nobody had to be ordered to work. The civilians and the Vanguard mercenaries flooded the streets, coordinating seamlessly with the Peacekeepers.
The 3x3-meter printers rolled on their own heavy-duty wheel rigs, stabilized by outriggers, and were moving systematically down the remaining avenues. And because they could now simply roll to the next plot, their efficiency skyrocketed.
Kenjiro, piloting the twenty-foot-tall loader mech, focused solely on lifting the finished modules from the printers' conveyor belts and stacking them onto the pre-laid foundations, where the mercenaries and civilian engineers would swarm the modules the moment they touched down, striking the seams with pneumatic thermal sealers to permanently weld the homes together.
By the time the three red suns hit their zenith, radiating a dry heat across the basin, lunch was served. The sweat-drenched workers gathered in the shaded walkways beneath the elevated homes. Mark walked among them, his presence boosting the camp's morale. He handed out water canteens, clapped the exhausted workers on the back, and listened to the civilian captains' reports.
Thanks to the printers' mobility, math had been conquered, and by early afternoon, the final residential module was locked into place. They had officially reached their required number of homes, and every single man, woman, and child now had a permanent electrically powered roof over their head.
With the housing crisis solved, Mark immediately redirected the three 3x3-meter printers to join the 25x25-meter behemoth at the town square. The smaller machines began churning out the interior walls, staircases, and reinforced flooring of the city hall, while the gargantuan printer continued extruding the massive exterior load-bearing architecture.
As the afternoon bled into evening, the golden hour painting the alien canopy in breathtaking shades of violet and deep red, the camp transitioned from a frantic work site into a living, breathing community.
The heavy thudding of the printers was finally paused to let the hyper-advanced machinery cycle its thermal vents. The quiet that descended over the city was peaceful and deeply satisfying.
Dinner was served under the fading light of the three suns. The atmosphere was light, almost festive, and for the first time since the ambush by House Volanti, the colonists felt like they could finally take a full, deep breath.
Mark sat on a cargo crate near the edge of the town square with a plate of rehydrated beef stew balanced on his knee. He had switched back into his clothes, though he had to go with lighter ones due to the dry heat they experienced during the day. He was dressed in a simple, tight-fitting white t-shirt that stretched over his massive, broad chest, and durable dark cargo pants tucked into combat boots. Part of the pendant rested securely against his sternum. He wanted the people to see him not just as a heavily armored leader, but as a man. As a neighbor.
"I still can't wrap my head around the plumbing," Elias, the veteran IUC structural engineer, said, taking a seat on a crate next to Mark. The older man shook his head, staring down one of the perfectly straight avenues. "It defies every logistical law I was ever taught."
"You're going to have to throw out a lot of the old rulebooks, Elias," Mark smiled, taking a bite of his stew. "We aren't building a corporate asset here. Meaning we're not skimping out on anything."
Juan, the Vanguard mercenary commander, leaned against a nearby light post, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked relaxed, the perpetual tension in his shoulders finally unwound. "My boys are getting soft, Shephard. Half of them spent the afternoon arguing over who gets the top bunks in the new modules, and the other half are trying to figure out how to rig a makeshift still using the frigate's excess coolant tubes."
Mark chuckled, the sound deep and resonant. "Let them rest, Juan. When the military base is finished, you'll have plenty of drills to run them through to burn off that excess energy."
A few yards away, in the wide, grassy courtyard that had been left open for the future memorial statue, the sound of pure, unadulterated joy echoed through the twilight.
Lyra was running through the purple grass, her bright laughter floating over the murmur of the crowd. She was playing a frantic game of tag with a dozen of the orphans from the new facility. Sister Elara stood on the edge of the street, watching them with a warm, contented smile and her hands tucked into the sleeves of her habit.
Mark watched his daughter run as a sense of peace washed over him. This was exactly why he had fought so hard. This was why he had bled, why he had lied, and why he had taken on the weight of leadership. So that a little girl could run in the grass without fear of corporate assassins.
He took another bite of his stew, leaning back against the metal crate. The sky above was shifting from deep violet to a rich, luminous indigo as the twin moons began to rise.
And then, a sudden spike of pure adrenaline flooded Mark's system, tasting like copper in the back of his throat. The enhanced biology inside him suddenly screamed in instinctual alarm and the hairs on his arms stood on end, his pupils dilating rapidly and adjusting to a threat his conscious mind hadn't even registered yet.
The peaceful hum of the camp suddenly felt wrong, and Mark dropped his plate. The metal clattered loudly against the grates, spilling hot stew over his boots.
Elias flinched. "Mark? You alright?"
Mark didn't answer. He stood up slowly, his body going completely rigid as his eyes snapped toward the western mountain range, the very same peaks where the Horizon had met its end.
Then, a piercing screech came over the camp. It sounded like the tearing of thick canvas mixed with the deafening shriek of grinding metal. It echoed across the basin, a sound so purely hostile and predatory that it physically vibrated Mark's teeth.
The children's laughter instantly died. Lyra stopped dead in the grass, looking toward the mountains with wide, terrified eyes.
"WARNING." Marcos's synthetic voice suddenly blared over the Shepherd's external PA system, stripped of its previous warmth and replaced by tactical urgency. "MULTIPLE INBOUND BIOLOGICAL THREATS DETECTED. MASSIVE SWARM APPROACHING FROM THE WESTERN RIDGE. ENGAGING COUNTERMEASURES. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY."
A moment later, the rhythmic *THUD-THUD-THUD* of the Shepherd's dual-barreled autocannons shattered the evening quiet.
The massive weapons mounted on the frigate's dorsal ridge snapped toward the west and opened fire. Tracers lit up the indigo sky, drawing bright lines of fire toward the mountain peaks.
"Get inside!" Mark roared, his voice booming with terrifying authority over the gunfire. "Everyone, go inside! Now!"
The camp erupted into pandemonium.
The festive atmosphere evaporated in a millisecond as mothers screamed, grabbed their children, and sprinted across the metal streets. The Vanguard mercenaries dropped their food, their combat instincts taking over as they vaulted over tables, drawing the sidearms they had salvaged from the frigates and desperately scanning the sky.
Mark sprinted into the grassy courtyard, his legs chewing up the distance in a fraction of a second, and scooped Lyra up into his left arm just as she began to cry, tucking her tightly against his broad chest.
"I've got you, bug! I've got you!" Mark said, turning and sprinting toward the nearest modular home. He practically threw her through the reinforced door into the waiting arms of Sister Elara. "Lock the door! Do not open it until I say so!"
Mark heard the heavy composite door shut, the pneumatic seal hissing as it locked into place. The eight-inch-thick walls of the homes had been designed to withstand extreme planetary conditions and were functionally bunkers, so Mark didn't have to worry.
Mark turned back toward the square, his eyes tracking the lines of tracer fire from the Shepherd, and saw a swarm crest over the mountain.
They looked like nightmares pulled straight from the prehistoric depths of Earth's history, but twisted by an aggressive alien evolution. They were massive, Pterosaur-like flying beasts. Their leathery wingspans stretched nearly twenty feet across, and their bodies were covered in thick, dark, iridescent scales that seemed to absorb the moonlight. They dove toward the camp with terrifying speed, transforming the screeching into a deafening cacophony.
"All combat personnel, form a firing line!" Valerius's voice roared over the comms.
The seventy burgundy-clad Peacekeepers poured into formation, their discipline holding despite the terror descending from the sky. They hit the S-Alloy slabs, dropped to one knee, and raised their AK-947-ASRs toward the sky.
Mark stood in the center of the avenue. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and mentally commanded his pendant.
The simple black t-shirt and cargo pants instantly liquefied, and the material surged over his body, hardening into thick, interlocking plates of composite armor. The matte black and blood-red plating sealed around him,and the helmet encased his head as the red-tinted visor flared to life with tactical data.
Glancing around to ensure no one was watching, Mark opened his inventory and equipped the AK-947-ASR, which materialized directly into his hands.
He racked the slide, and an armor-piercing round chambered with a satisfying metallic clack.
"Light them up!" Mark roared over the comms.
The Peacekeepers, the Vanguard mercenaries, and the seven Elite Guards opened fire simultaneously. The camp was instantly bathed in the strobing flashes of muzzle flares and the sky above the colony turned into a meat grinder.
The Shepherd's autocannons were doing the bulk of the butchery, sending high-explosive rounds to tear through the alien flock with merciless efficiency. The twenty-foot beasts detonated in mid-air, sending a horrific rain of shredded leathery wings, shattered bone, and wet viscera falling across the roofs of the modular homes.
The Peacekeepers' advanced rifles filled the gaps, their armor-piercing rounds punching through the thick scales of the diving beasts, sending them crashing into the tree line outside the camp's perimeter. Cassius, the Elite Guard sniper, was picking off the largest of the creatures with terrifying precision, his anti-materiel rifle echoing like thunderclaps as it blew their heads completely off their shoulders.
In less than thirty seconds, the overwhelming volume of disciplined anti-air fire had decimated the swarm. The sky, which had been thick with hundreds of the monsters, was rapidly clearing. Over seventy percent of the flock had been shredded before they even got within a hundred feet of the camp.
The remaining beasts, possessing enough animal cunning to realize they had flown into a death trap, broke off their dive. They shrieked in panic, banking hard to the north, desperately trying to catch an updraft to escape the wall of fire.
But one of them didn't pull up in time because its left wing had been shredded by a grazing hit from one of the autocannons. The massive beast spiraled out of control and let out a deafening shriek as it crashed onto the primary avenue, tumbling end over end until it slammed into the base of the half-built city hall, right in the center of the town square.
The beast, completely disoriented, shook its massive head and pushed itself up onto two thick, muscular hind legs, its twenty-foot wingspan dragging across the S-Alloy.
Mark didn't hesitate, dropped his rifle into its sling, and drew the large-caliber sidearm from his inventory.
"Hold your fire!" Mark ordered the Peacekeepers, his voice projecting through his helmet's external speakers. The crossfire risk with the beast thrashing in the center of the camp was too high. "This one's mine!"
Mark sprinted toward it, his boots slamming against the slabs without leaving so much as a scuff.
The beast saw him coming and let out a bloodcurdling hiss, its reptilian eyes locking onto Mark's red-and-black armored figure. Driven by pain and pure predatory rage, the creature lunged forward, its massive jaws snapping open to bite Mark completely in half.
From the safety of the reinforced, polarized windows of the surrounding modular homes, hundreds of terrified civilians watched the confrontation unfold.
They saw the beast lunge. And then, they saw why Mark Shephard was the undisputed leader of the colony.
Mark reacted with supernatural speed. As the massive jaws snapped down, he lunged directly into the strike, raised his left arm, and drove his armored hand straight into the creature's open mouth, grabbing the upper half of its massive beak.
The beast's momentum carried them both backward, but Mark's boots sparked against the S-Alloy, his sheer mass and enhanced strength anchoring them. He stopped the multi-ton beast dead in its tracks, and with a guttural roar of exertion, he twisted his left arm, sending the sickening CRUNCH of bone shattering into the night air as he literally crushed the creature's upper beak and dislocated its massive jaw.
The beast shrieked and thrashed wildly.
Mark jammed the barrel of his large-caliber sidearm directly beneath the creature's shattered lower jaw, angling it straight up into the brain cavity, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession.
*BANG. BANG. BANG.*
The back of the creature's skull blew outward in a shower of bone and dark blood, and the massive beast went instantly limp. Its tremendous weight collapsed onto the avenue, dragging Mark to one knee.
A deep silence fell over the camp. The only sounds were the distant, fading shrieks of the fleeing survivors and the soft hum of the cooling autocannons.
Slowly, the reinforced doors of the modular homes began to unseal. The Peacekeepers kept their weapons raised, scanning the dark canopy, but the threat was over.
Mark stood up, his breathing slow and controlled, and holstered his sidearm while looking down at the massive corpse bleeding out on the streets of his new city.
He crouched down, his armored fingers gripping the edge of the creature's shattered beak to pry it open further. His visor zoomed in as he analyzed the creature.
The creature didn't have a standard beak. Lining the interior of the mouth were three overlapping rows of serrated, razor-sharp teeth designed to tear chunks of meat from bone. And resting deep in the back of its throat, coated in thick, viscous saliva, was a secondary, pharyngeal jaw. A smaller and terrifyingly muscular mouth designed to snap forward and pull struggling prey directly into its gullet.
Mark dragged his gauntlet through the blood rapidly seeping through the small perforations in the metal slab, draining into the soil beneath. He held his hand up to the moonlight.
The blood wasn't the dark, oily black or acidic green of standard alien fauna he had expected. Instead, it was a bright, unmistakable red.
Mark stood up, his eyes sweeping across the silent expanse of the towering alien forest surrounding his small, fortified city, as the realization that they hadn't just landed on an uninhabited sanctuary set in. They had landed on a world where the wildlife had evolved for slaughter, and it bled just like they did.
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