The second day of the invasion saw new horrors…

The Bane marched forward again towards the city centre, this time they had captured civilians in front of them, using them as shields.  The forward fortifications failed to fire, and were overwhelmed quickly, the 79th watched in horror from above as the military under orders used flame units against the approaching army.  When the last of the captured prisoners were dead the Bane seemed to panic, and stopped approaching, that is when we struck, hard.  We launched our missiles deep into their ranks, causing massive explosions and death.  After we’d depleted our missiles we turned to our guns, and made sweeping passes, mowing down the Bane in their hundreds.  The Flame units pushed the remaining Bane back, causing them to bottle-neck and then we made them pay for what they did.  The air was thick with smog from the weapon fire and burnings corpses, never had I seen such a thing before…

When dusk fell that night, the 79th Scythes took to the skies again, with intel about the nearest Bane landing/staging base.  We approached silently hidden by the fading sunlight, and came upon the base.  Dozens of dropships and Stalkers all packed together, with countless hundreds of Bane soldiers moving around, all lit by eerie yellow and red lights.  My remaining squad launched our Solarus Missiles, weapons designed to feed on the oxygen around them to create a chemical fire as hot as the surface of the Sun.  The flash of pure white light was blinding, and the sound of a thousand cracks of thunder echoed out, smashing windows in buildings and shaking the foundations of the city.  When the smoke cleared, nothing remained, we returned to base believing victory was in our grasp.

<Continued in #A-000X3>

AFS Command has decided it best that all serving soldiers maintain regular data logs, they think if we write down our inner thoughts it’ll stop us losing our marbles and trying to eat our own rifles one night…

My name is Grim Reaper, obviously not my name by birth, but actually my call sign back on Earth… Seems like a life-time ago.

Back before the Bane attacked, I was an Officer in the 79th Scythes, an elite helicopter squad based just outside Liverpool, England.  Piloting what was considered to be the most advanced aircraft in the British airforce we saw service in nation after nation, but we were not prepared for the invasion…

When the incoming ships were detected, our orders were simple, defend the local population centre at all costs, Liverpool.  The orders were strange at best, civilian life was listed as a secondary objective, instead the city centre was listed as a priority.  My squad waited in ambush for the first landing parties of Bane, we approached them at low altitude using buildings for cover, it was a massacre.  Our flame and anti-personal shells tore them into shreds, leaving nothing but smouldering streets and corpses everywhere.  For seven hours we continued to engage the ground forces, and were winning without any friendly losses, until they brought in the Stalkers.. 50 feet tall mechanical walkers, with energy weapons that seems to cut through anything in their path.  I lost four of my squad in under a minute, our weapons bounced off their shielded skins.. Realising the cost of this attack, I launched half a dozen swarm missiles into a building overlooking the Stalker patrol, causing it to collapse over and crush my enemy beneath it, it was a small victory.

That night, we landed in the city centre and rearmed, thats when we realised why the city centre was such a priority.  From beneath the ground military were bringing up a stored Wormhole Gate.  They activated the gate and began evacuating VIPs through it, I’d never seen technology like it before.  The troops guarding it carried weapons that glew in bright blues and yellows, alien weaponary.  The night sky was far from peaceful, every few minutes more Bane ships flew overhead, and the sky was lit by flares and Anti Aircraft fire streaming into the sky, bright explosions around the city would suddenly flare up and then fall silent. 

<Continued in #A-000X2>