http://i.imgur.com/nSvimXV.jpg

Three more days until I can get out of bed and back into a hardsuit. They dug out the lead pellets and the holes are mostly healed up but I'm still waiting on that lung. In the meantime my day consists of shitting into some dextrous unseen orifice beneath the bed that's lined with memory gel (I'd recognize the feel anywhere) watching the same few apps over and over on the ceiling panel, and being patronized by shitty plastic medical robots.

Some designer somewhere probably wrote his doctoral thesis on the importance of adding a sympathetic inflection to the voice synth software these things use. But I guarantee he didn't test it on himself, because after a few days of it they just sound like they're talking to a baby, or a puppy that's shit on the rug. 

You have to swear at them for about a minute and a half before some internal "patient frustration" dealie is triggered and they go fetch a human nurse. Or sometimes if it's late, they just shoot you full of sedative. No, sure, don't ask me. Just shoot me full of drugs. That's cool *you piece of shit*. 

I made it through the assault, obviously. Adonis wasn't as lucky. He's in critical condition one room over. The other two hardsuit pilots are dead, crushed under machinery rigged to topple over when explosives inside were detonated. These squatters, they're crafty. I say that without even grudging respect, because two of my squadmates are dead and one may yet die. 

The four of us in the hardsuits were on point to draw all the fire as we busted in. It was a pants-shitting thirty seconds as lead shot seemed to shower my suit from every direction, making a sound somewhat like pots and pans falling down stairs. My ears are still ringing. 

The moment we got inside, a quadrupedal drone carrying a hive unloaded about 400 bee drones, each carrying a small explosive charge. For the next half hour or so, you could hear panicked screams in the distance followed by muffled pops, and then silence. Bee drones landing on some hapless squatter and detonating. The intervals between screams became longer and longer until there was only silence. 

We were relieved, and like idiots we figured we'd got them all and began securing the complex. Turns out, there were more than 400 and we'd simply run out of bee drones. The rest sought refuge on the network of catwalks that snaked around the enclosed fabrication towers. 

I was distracted by an array of tiny, precise arms inside the vacuum-sealed tower struggling to complete a half-built drone torso even though the assembly line that would normally feed it materials had been shut down. That's when the rocket hit me. The suit took most of it, directed explosive charges in my shoulder armor detonated the moment the rocket struck and pretty much negated it. 

I stood there wide eyed and gormless as a lost child before realizing what happened, and looking for something I could use as cover that I wasn't also instructed to protect. Kind of hard to avoid collateral damage to costly machinery in a fucking autolabor complex. Of course, the squatters knew that and were using it to their advantage.

They were like so many monkeys taunting us from the safety of the forest canopy, darting between the tops of the fabrication towers, raining down makeshift grenades and rifle fire from the convoluted tangle of catwalks. 

Eventually Adonis got the bright idea of taking down the catwalks entirely with a well placed burst of reactive munitions at the support beams. After the racket subsided and the dust cleared, we were able to pick off some of the cheeky motherfuckers who didn't expect that we'd rip the ground out from under them. 

The satisfaction was short lived. A series of explosive charges toppled multiple fabrication towers, which crushed two hardsuits entirely and pinned mine. Adonis' suit had been spared, but wasn't moving. 

I tried to raise him on comms but he wouldn't respond. The suit turned around and began to lumber towards an exit, a sign that the auto-return kicked in and the suit was functioning autonomously, carrying Adonis' unconscious body to safety. 

Meanwhile mine had begun to heat up. The backpack EESU had been ruptured when the tower fell on me and it was in the process of melting down. As both legs and one arm were pinned anyway, I split the canopy and pried my bruised, singed body from the wreckage. I shut the canopy behind me in the hopes that they'd waste time prying it open. They did. Must've been eager to get a little payback, but surprise! No cream filling! 

Flashing orange patterns on my forearm caught my eye. My cell showed "general retreat, East exit". The loading bay, where finished goods are packed into cargo PRTs and sent off to whatever hab the order came from. 

I was nearly to the exit when I turned the corner just as one of the squatters did. We both froze. One of those awkward, panicky moments where you both momentarily forget that you have guns. 

My memory proved a bit quicker than his. By the time his fingers reached the grip, I'd unloaded a few million volts into his nervous system. I can't be sure but I think I smelled a load in his pants as I darted past his twitching body. I made it to the loading bay in time to see Adonis' suit hauling his fat golden ass outside. 

Everyone else was bunched together on the beach, shouting angrily and at a loss as to what to do next. No waypoint had appeared on our implants. There was only beach in front of us, and the outer wall of the complex behind us. Both seemed to stretch for miles in either direction. 

What remained of the squatters began cautiously ducking out of the loading bay and approaching us with rifles drawn. We raised our hands, and for the first time since New Jerusalem I seriously entertained the possibility that my life was about to end. 

Then their expressions changed. They went from menacing, to confused, and finally their jaws hung open. We all looked at one another, arms still raised, and then turned around to see what had commanded their attention. It was Iron Hill.

Much bigger than I have any point of comparison for, except perhaps some of the larger habs. At first only the top poked out of the waves, gliding towards us, leaving a huge wake behind it. 

But as it approached it seemed to rise out of the water, bringing more and more of the structure into view until what looked for all the world like a gigantic, angular metal mountain climbed out of the sea entirely on an array of armored treads that we later discovered were *just* tall enough to peek over the treeline. 

The squatters were about halfway back to the loading bay door when intense light shot forth from one of about a dozen turrets arranged at different 'tiers' of the beast before us, and bathed them momentarily in its blinding glow. We knew enough to shield our eyes, and when we felt it safe to look at the spot where the fleeing squatters had once stood. 

We saw only a round mat of dull red glass and the brittle, carbonized remains of the squatters. One of the lune recruits wandered over and nudged what looked like thighs, a spine and a ribcage jutting up from the partially molten goo. It crumbled. I can't describe the smell and I don't care to. 

Moments later, five hatches in the front of the monstrosity slid open, and ramps descended from them. Row after row of humanoid, quadrupedal and heavy tracked combat drones issued forth. They passed us as if we weren't there. Some entered the compound, others proceeded to surround the outside. 

Meanwhile a black cloud of aerial drones in all shapes and sizes had taken flight from the upper decks of Iron Hill, and we watched in awe as the buzzing mass stretched out towards the compound. I had a million questions. 

Why wait until now? Why feed us to the grinder like that? Just to draw out the remaining squatters? How did Unisec kept a weapons project like this secret? None of my questions would be answered, at least not to my satisfaction. Unisec works in mysterious ways.