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

previously.
    “Yes Cole. Their armor is made to deflect advanced weaponry. If we used lasers and plasma weapons like them the casualties would have been much higher. They didn’t expect to meet us with our armor piercing ammunition.”
    “Well beg my pardon sir but it seems that we primitives kicked their alien but.”
    The major smiled at those words and so did the rest of the marines.
    “It seems so doesn’t it? It seems so.”
    “Semper Fi, Major. Semper Fi.”
    The marine’s motto brought another smile on the faces of the marines.
    Half an hour later the last Dacarians on the ship were dead. Not one of them surrendered.
    “Sir Colonel Stevens reports that the alien vessel is secured. All resistance is eliminated. The aliens fought till the end. They don’t have prisoners. He further reports that they are of reptilian origin and that light weight ammunition can’t penetrate their armor. Armor piercing ammunition should be used against them.”
    “Colonel Ivory reports that the marine detachment suffered fifty two casualties and forty nine wounded. The SF teams lost six, four among the Seals and two the SAS.”
    The admiral just nodded with his head and turned his gaze toward the alien ship. It was clearly damaged but he knew that the technology that that ship held would advance mankind beyond its wildest dreams. But he also knew that this is only the beginning and he feared from what was coming next.
    “Do we have any contact from our birds about the last ship?”
    “Yes sir. The ship crushed in southwest Macedonia. Teams from our base in Kosovo are headed there as well as units from the Macedonian and the Greek army. They should be on site in about fifteen minutes.”
    The planes are staying in the area to provide cover in case it is needed.
    The admiral looked at the young officer.
    “Inform the teams going after the crushed ship about the enemy. Relay everything colonel Stevens told you.”
    “Yes sir.”
    As the officer went to his station to relay the information, the Admiral turned his gaze toward the deployed fleet. Dozens of rescue ships traversed the waters between the ships picking up survivors… and the dead. He still didn’t have the exact number of casualties but he was sure that it was going to be in the thousands. He knew that other US and NATO battleships were headed this way and he was sure that soon ships from the Russian Black Sea fleet will join them. He knew that the world started to change before his eyes.                                   
     
                                          CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
     
     
    Fillip looked at the beautiful landscape that stretched in front of his eyes. Although the summer was officially coming to its end you could still feel the summer heat. The green forest that surrounded him gave him peace. After the long years of service and the tours he did in Asia with the Macedonian contingents this was his first real break. He smiled. Twenty seven years old and he already had enough experience to last him a lifetime. He had two more weeks before reporting back and he planned to use them well. This trip to the mountain brought him back some good memories of his childhood and the trips he and his friends made almost every day. As he surveyed the landscape he heard a distant sound of jets and something that sounded different. He heard the sonic boom long before he could actually see them. The planes didn’t surprise him. They were an almost every day experience here. But what was surprising was the different sound that accompanied them.
    He could feel the hair on his body starting to rise and his trained instincts warning him. He looked to the place from where he guessed the sounds were coming.
    He heard a strong explosion in the sky to the south as the large black object broke through the lower atmosphere. The object was burning and plummeting at an incredible speed toward the ground. At