[Bird-like screeches echo through the darkness around you.]
[More Kroot emerge from concealment. These are Carnivores, the primary warrior caste. They stand taller than humans, their bodies covered in mottled dark green skin. Thick black feathers crown their heads like war crests. Each one wields a crude but effective double-bladed weapon, part axe and part sickle.]
[They charge with inhuman speed, weapons raised.]
[You don't flinch.]
[Your Accatran assault shotgun roars again and again. Each blast sends a cone of shot spreading outward. At this range, nothing survives. Kroot Carnivores are shredded. Hounds explode into wet chunks.]
[You hold the line alone, standing like a bulwark against the alien tide. Your enhanced reflexes and the shotgun's devastating power combine into something approaching invincibility.]
[Behind you, the rest of your squad provides supporting fire while frantically setting up the mortar. Las-beams lance out, dropping any Kroot that slip past your field of fire.]
[The mortar crew works with desperate speed. Load. Aim. Fire. The shells arc high and slam into the building's rear wall.]
[Each impact sends shockwaves through the structure. Rockcrete cracks. Reinforcement bars snap. The wall buckles under the sustained bombardment.]
[Finally, after the last shell is expended, a breach appears. Large enough for a human to squeeze through. Barely.]
["Grenades first! Then flame! Everyone through that hole, now!" You bark the orders while reloading with practiced hands.]
[A Kroot Carnivore rushes you. It's missing an arm, the limb torn away by shotgun fire, but its remaining hand still grips that homemade blade. The creature screams its fury and swings.]
[The blade descends with lethal force.]
[No time to shoot. You raise your shotgun horizontally and block. The blade bites into the weapon's barrel, metal screeching against metal.]
[You twist, redirecting the force, and ram your shoulder into the Kroot's chest. Your carapace armor takes the impact of a follow-up strike, the blade glancing off ceramic plate.]
[Then you shove the shotgun's muzzle against the alien's skull and pull the trigger.]
[The Kroot's head vanishes. Hot blood and fragments of bone spray across your armor and helmet. The stench is immediate and overwhelming.]
[You glance around. The Kroot assault is breaking. Your squad is moving through the breach.]
[You turn and sprint after them, diving through the opening just as frag grenades begin detonating inside.]
[The timing is perfect. As your team breaches the building's interior, the company commander launches the main assault. The diversionary attack transforms into a full-scale offensive.]
[Caught between hammer and anvil, the T'au position collapses.]
[By the third day, your company holds the target building completely.]
[The entire freshwater facility is under Elysian control. Only sporadic fighting continues in isolated pockets. Cleanup operations, mostly.]
[You lie in the company's field camp, one arm wrapped in clean white bandages. The wound beneath throbs with dull pain, but it's manageable. You've had worse.]
[Your ten-soldier squad is now five.]
[Three dead. Two so badly wounded they've been evacuated off-world. Only half your team remains combat-effective.]
[For the results achieved, it's an acceptable price. War is math, and the numbers work out.]
[The company commander praised your actions personally. Recommended you for promotion.]
[You declined. Rank means responsibility you don't need right now. This simulation won't last long enough for advancement to matter.]
[Instead, you accepted a power sword the commander had been carrying since his own youth. A beautiful weapon, well-maintained, its power field generator still strong. And he agreed to distribute the combat citations among all your squad members, living and dead.]
[Fair compensation.]
[On the fourth day, disaster arrives in the form of intelligence reports.]
[The freshwater facility is more strategically important than Command realized. Your capture of it has drawn the T'au Empire's full attention.]
[A major counter-attack is inbound. Not a raid or probe. A proper military operation with armor and air support.]
[The Imperial Navy can't help. T'au aircraft control the skies, and Navy fighters are pinned down elsewhere on the planet.]
[The 23rd Elysian Drop Troops will face this alone.]
[You find the company commander immediately.]
[He's in the command post, staring at tactical displays with the haunted look of someone who knows his people are about to die.]
["Sir," you begin. "With respect, we can't hold this facility through conventional defense. Not with our current firepower."]
[He turns to glare at you. The power sword at your hip probably doesn't help his mood. "Then what do you suggest, Captain? Prayer?"]
["Trenches, sir. Underground passages. Use our mobility. The T'au will bring superior firepower, but they'll need to occupy this facility intact. They won't risk destroying their own water supply with orbital bombardment. That gives us options."]
[The commander's expression shifts from anger to consideration. "Elaborate."]
["Turn this industrial complex into a maze. Dig in, but stay mobile. Hit them from unexpected angles. Make them fight for every meter. Guerrilla warfare in an urban environment. It's what Elysians train for."]
[He's silent for a long moment, fingers drumming on the display table.]
["Come with me," he says finally. "We're taking this to General Sekawa."]
[General Sekawa listens to your proposal with sharp attention. He's younger than you expected for a regimental commander, but his eyes are old. Combat veteran, clearly.]
[You repeat your suggestions about trench networks and underground mobility.]
[When you finish, he nods slowly. "Good thinking, Captain. We'll implement this immediately." He glances at the company commander. "Make it happen. You have four days before they arrive. Use them well."]
[The fifth day sees organized chaos sweep through the facility.]
[Every available trooper is digging. Entrenching tools bite into soil. Portable excavators run continuously. The Elysians throw themselves into the work with grim determination.]
[You lead your remaining squad between companies, demonstrating proper trench construction. Firing positions. Communication trenches. Covered routes between strongpoints.]
[But progress is slower than you'd like. The Elysians are airborne infantry, not sappers. They lack proper engineering tools and the expertise to use them efficiently.]
[Anxiety gnaws at you. Four days isn't enough. Not nearly enough.]
[Then the female trooper with white hair finds you.]
["Captain, come look at this."]
[She leads you to the facility's water distribution system. Enormous pipes, each one large enough for a soldier to crawl through while crouched. They run throughout the complex in a vast network.]
[Understanding hits like lightning.]
["Perfect," you breathe. "Get me every engineer in the regiment. We're not digging all new tunnels. We're repurposing these pipes."]
[Teams immediately begin dismantling sections of pipe and burying them as ready-made underground passages. Others continue excavating trenches, but now with specific connection points planned to integrate with the pipe network.]
[The work accelerates dramatically.]
[By the end of the first week, you've completed perhaps a third of the planned defensive works.]
[It's not enough. Not nearly enough. But it'll have to do.]
[The T'au have arrived.]
[Devilfish APCs advance on the facility in formation, their smooth hulls reflecting sunlight. Each one carries a squad of Fire Warriors. Behind them come more forces: combat suit teams, drone swarms, support vehicles.]
[The Elysians retreat into their trenches. The few Tauros assault buggies you have race between buildings, trying to draw the enemy in, to tempt them into range.]
[T'au Pathfinders on Tetra scout speeders respond immediately. They're fast, incredibly fast, zipping around the lumbering Tauros vehicles. Blue pulse fire streaks from their weapons, trying to disable or destroy the Imperial vehicles.]
[The moment of opportunity is fleeting.]
["Fire!" General Sekawa's order crackles over the vox.]
[Mortar shells arc out from concealed positions in the trenches. They fall among the advancing Devilfish.]
[The T'au react with frightening speed. Crisis suits jet upward on their thrusters, pulse rifles tracking the mortar trajectories. Drones swarm forward, their burst cannons engaging the unexploded shells in mid-air.]
[Several Devilfish aren't fast enough. Direct hits crack their hulls open. Fire Warriors spill out, some already dead, others dying. The explosions consume infantry and vehicle alike.]
[But before the mortars can fire again, the surviving Devilfish reverse course and retreat to safer positions.]
[Now it's the Elysians' turn. Hidden troops in trenches and buildings open fire. Concentrated las-fire sweeps across the battlefield, targeting the exposed Pathfinder speeders. Several explode in brilliant fireballs.]
[You crouch in your section of trench, observing through your helmet's magnification. Your frown deepens.]
[The tactic worked. Barely. Caught them by surprise. But the T'au are adapting already, pulling back, reassessing.]
["We might hold," you mutter. "If the Navy arrives soon. If we're lucky."]
[Then the sky fills with new contacts.]
[Twenty Piranha light skimmers scream over the facility at high speed, flying in tight formation. Each one bristles with weapons: burst cannons, drones, seekers.]
[They strafe the Tauros vehicles. The Imperial buggies explode under sustained pulse fire, crews incinerated before they can bail out.]
[Then the real nightmare arrives.]
[Hammerhead gunships. The T'au's primary battle tanks, but with anti-grav systems that let them fly. They glide forward with terrible grace, their railguns and ion cannons seeking targets.]
[The Hammerheads open fire.]
[Buildings explode. Trenches collapse under plasma bombardment. Elysian strong points are systematically destroyed, one after another.]
[For light infantry with no heavy anti-armor weapons, this is apocalyptic.]
[You watch a Hammerhead's ion cannon charge up, brilliant white-blue energy gathering at its muzzle.]
[Then it fires directly at your section of trench.]
[The world becomes light and thunder and pain.]