Tick 30
All hell broke loose so quickly. I could barely focusing on firing my rifle as guys around me kept getting hit by enemy fire. Ketan’s men showed no fear as they charged at our defensive positions in the trenches, continuing to run at us as their comrades got picked off by sniper fire from the colony wall. Around thirty of them had already been killed during their charge, but now they were in the trenches with us. Two guys from my squad had been shot during the charge and were sitting on the ground holding their wounds, we didn’t have any medics. Mike and I were fighting side by side, doing everything we could to stop them from breaching our defense. As I sank my knife into one of the riflemen that had jumped down into our trench, I heard Mike gasp in pain. He had been stabbed in the side by one of the riflemen. I pulled out my rifle and shot the soldier who stabbed him, dropping my gun to pull Mike to cover next to the ammo cache in the trench.
We were losing. As I looked around us I could see nothing but guys I had trained with laying dead or wounded on the trench floor, and more fighting in the other sections of the trench. Our commander was telling us to retreat over our radios. Before I could request assistance to move Mike out of the trench two of Ketan’s soldiers started running at the ammo cache in the trench. My gun was on the ground where I had left it and I couldn’t get to it. I grabbed one of the MK48’s in the ammo cache and start loading bullets into it. The soldiers were at the door before I could get the bullets in and fire in time. Two snipers shots slammed into the side of them, knocking them into the side of the trench. I wasted no time getting Mike up and helping him get out of there. Our retreat was covered by sniper fire from the wall, there was only seventeen of us going back. While we were walking through the main gate of the colony Mike was shot in the back. One of the colonists trained in the medical field took Mike from me when we got inside the walls, my squad leader ordered me to take position on the wall. There was still sixty of Ketan’s men trying to breach the gate. Our snipers couldn’t keep up, and us riflemen were rushed in training so we couldn’t hit anything.
They began to plant explosives on the gate. Once they were finished they ran back to the trenches to take cover from the explosion. This was it, they were going to breach the gate and that would be it for us. I could feel the ground shake beneath me as the gate’s doors were blown off. Ketan’s men once again left the trenches and began charging at the colony. I could see my fellow soldiers around me give up as they got closer and closer. Some of the men even sat down on the wall and accepted their fate. A voice came over our radio telling everyone who was still on the wall to brace ourselves. We thought they meant brace ourselves for Ketan’s men getting inside the colony. But then a blue beam of light penetrated the clouds and cut into the ground right in front of the gate. It was so powerful many of us on the wall suffered burns from the heat.