The Icarian Legacy Collected Edition: Brave Souls - First Strike (Volume 3) by Kocho Trajchevski

ranks they rushed in firing.
    Kal el Miur looked at the door from which the enemy soldiers opened fire and started coming inside the chamber. Or more accurate would be to say that he looked at where he thought that the door was located. He couldn’t see anything through the white smoke that clouded the room. And as the smoke blocked his view dozen grenades exploded among the front ranks of legionaries and tore them apart. More than twenty legionaries died in the explosions. The rest of his unit opened up with their plasma and laser guns. And the first humans started dying as well.
    Jackson noticed as one of the marines was hit by the enemies’ fire. The plasma weapon burned right through his Kevlar vest and through his chest. The marine didn’t even utter a scream. His smoking body just fell down. There was no blood flowing from the wound as the heat from the plasma cauterized it instantly.
    He lowered his head and ran in the room. Several marines were down.  But he could also see that a lot of the aliens lay dead as well. He took aim and opened fire. A large alien screamed as his rounds tore through his body.
    Kal el Miur looked at the rest of his men. More than half lay dead or dying on the floor. More than a dozen humans were dead or wounded as well. But his loses were much more severe. As he looked a new group of human soldiers entered the room and from the opposite side a squad of legionaries entered the chamber as well.
    As they moved in several humans opened up and threw grenades at them. The human weapons tore through the legionary’s armor like through paper. The armor was made to deflect plasma and laser weapons. But it was expected to be able to deflect even the projectile weapons that the humans were using. At least that was what they were told. But it was obvious that the humans were more advanced than they thought. They were clearly using some kind of armor piercing ammunition that had no trouble of penetrating the Legiona armor that he and all the soldiers of the empire were wearing.
    “ May the gods give strength and protect our brothers when they fight them... ”
    He turned toward the soldiers that were trying to trigger the missiles to explode. He knew that they have to give them time. He looked at the rest of his man.
    “Maul, call the rest of the soldiers and tell them to move towards this room. We must hold the humans here and give time to the ship’s crew to trigger the missiles to explode.”
    “It will be as you order my lord.”
    The younger centurion spoke in to his com link.
    From the rest of the deck more than four hundred legionaries started moving towards the most important room on the ship.
    The rest of the human soldiers moved towards it as well.
    Stevens looked at Zip. The seal was talking in the radio.
    “Sir the marines located the enemy and engaged them. The SAS teams and Lt. Atkins and Lt. Ellis teams also confronted the aliens. The marines report that they have casualties and are requesting reinforcements. They are saying that the aliens are manually trying to trigger an explosion and destroy the ship. The SF teams are reporting no casualties so far. In total thirty five aliens eliminated.”
    Stevens thought for just a second.
    “Tell Atkins and Ellis to keep searching this part of the ship. Call the others and tell them to head directly in that chamber. Tell the marines that we will try to hit them in the back.”
    “Yes sir.”
    Without a thought all SF teams except the two on the top decks headed towards the arms chamber.
    Jackson looked at the remaining marines. Of the sixty men he had only twenty were combat effective. The rest were either dead or wounded. And it seemed that there was no end to the alien reinforcements that kept on streaming in to the room from the doors on the other side. As he was planning to withdraw the rest of the marines started flowing in the room from behind him.
    Kal el Miur looked at the dead centurion that fell right next to him. He tried to