Atlas Abandoned

Invasion (3 years since crash)

"Sir," Private Young had left the training simulator and approached Pallas who was watching the news stream intently.

"What is it, Young?" he replied without needing to look to see who it was.

"I've got a headache. A few of us are getting headaches."

"Why do you think that is?"

"We've been in here for hours," complained another Private, rubbing her eyes with one hand with her VR helmet in the other. Pallas turned around to them and spoke loudly enough for the rest of the room of trainees to hear through their simulators.

"Would you like me to ask the first wave if it's alright if we take a break? Should I ask the second wave? Maybe the third? Fourth? Maybe one of the waves coming for us will show some sympathy." Pallas' soldiers got the message, but Private Young looked especially exhausted. Pallas sighed.

"Is anybody bleeding from the nose or ears?" There was no reply.

"Let's put in one more hour and I'll give you credit for two. Mess hall at 0900. Gods of War!"

"8-9-4!" Pallas' squad rang out as they'd been conditioned to. Pallas smiled. He liked his little 894th battalion's little chant.

Pallas had pushed his squad on the simulators harder than any other young battalion. He was even outpacing some of the older troops. Everybody told him it was a waste of energy. Squads as young as his would never see any action anyhow. He had a feeling, though, and he had convinced his squad of it. They believe in him so they trained hard and often. Oversight and regulations had slipped over the last year. With the potential invasion becoming more real, and more likely as time passed and more waves were spotted following the same course, policy took a backseat to preparation. That's how Pallas got away with slipping in extra training hours in the records every now and then. That's how he knew his squad would end up in the fight whether they wanted to or not. That's why he pushed them so hard.

You couldn't walk down a hallway without someone running by you ferrying important files that were too classified to transport wirelessly or carrying word-of-mouth messages from one commander to another on the other end of the station. Pallas sensed the tension in the air like an electricity. They were in the Window now. 'The Window' is what leadership had decided to call the window of time where the first wave- the first green cloud- could appear through their warp gates at any time. Nobody knew what to expect when it happened, so once humanity entered the Window, everything started degrading into panic and chaos. As hectic as things seemed aboard The Mammoth Pallas cringed when he saw reports of how civilians were handling things on the other colonies. He tried to focus on the news stream, which included a constant surveillance of the portal, to avoid thinking about the rest of humanity.

"894's one of the only bats in your tier that haven't signed up for police duty on the colonies, you know," a sergeant clearly responsible for getting battalions to sign up was bothering Pallas about this required volunteering while he ate.

"No way, not now."

"I know it's exciting, watching that dead spot in space, but people are tearing each other apart on the Northerner and Southerner. It's not looking great on the other colonies either." Pallas looked at the sergeant with a mouth full of bread.

"Yu thn thre gnna hits heror onthe surfs?"

"Swallow your damn food, boy!" Pallas swallowed his food.

"You think they're gonna hit us here or on the surface?" It was the question everyone asked everyone else these days; the biggest variable in the strategy of the response to the invasion. The current plan was to prepare hundreds of surface dropships and only hit 'Launch' to send them down to Earth if and when the clouds passed the colonies by. There weren't enough Mammoth soldiers to fully defend both the surface and up at the colonies. It was the subject of some controversial debate.