October 13th, 2595, planet Nu Centauri 3, “Olympia”, city of Borealis, northern hemisphere.

Thirty-eight years prior the Olympian Republican Union (ORU) declared independence from the United Nations of Earth, beginning a wave of revolutions across the outer colonies of humanity. That time had come to an end. Thirty-eight hours prior, UN forces made landfall on the planet of Olympia, striking at key targets across the planet in an aerospace invasion.

Borealis was one of these targets.

Private Eladio Gantulga was a rifleman serving in the Olympian Volunteer Army 5th Infantry Division, 22nd Battalion, E Company. Eladio, often called “Lalo” as a nickname by his friends and family, was a 19 year old from a working class family in New Athens who volunteered in the OVA alongside many of his friends straight out of school a year prior.

This was his first combat experience, alongside many fighters in the OVA.

The time was 08:13. E Company was tasked with resecuring an anti-aerospacecraft missile battery located near the city center. Lalo and his squad were sheltering on the ground floor of a high rise apartment building. The cold air was heavy with dust, snow had begun piling in the streets with nothing to clear it but the deafening impacts of rockets and artillery.

Hundreds of pops and echoing booms could be heard in the distance. The roar of a low flying strike craft blotted out all other noises as Lalo sat behind cover with twenty-three other people.

A brief silence took over as the craft passed. They all sat still with anticipation. Their captain placed his index finger against his earpiece before breaking the silence with a shout, “Advance!”

Everyone stood up and rushed out to cross the empty street as an overwhelming chorus of gunfire, shattering glass, shouting voices, and heavy footsteps erupted around them on all sides. The building they were advancing towards provided a strong vantage point overlooking the courtyard where the battery was housed.

To get to it they had to cross over one hundred feet of open street with only a few barricades and vacant vehicles to act as cover. Other rebels provided suppressing gunfire from the upper floors of the adjacent building.

A visceral explosion ripped into the building behind Lalo. The shockwave reverberated across the street causing his skeleton to vibrate; the strike craft had looped back around and made a devastating hit with one of its air to ground missiles. He could barely make out a few screams amidst the gunfire as he sprinted across the street clutching his rifle.

A cloud of concrete dust spilled over them. His ears rang, his mouth had dried, he choked on the air around even with his bandana covering his face, and he could barely see in front of him.

The next few minutes after that were a blur, but eventually Lalo’s platoon had made it inside the corridors of the office building. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet as he cautiously peered around every corner of every hallway. Before they could advance they had to clear the building–room by room, corridor by corridor, stairwell by stairwell.

He and another rifleman cleared the floor, only finding the bodies of UN marines who had been killed by a mortar strike. Their faces were nearly entirely covered, their eyes obscured by lifeless yellow goggles and mouths masked by cloth wrappings.

He knelt down beside one of them. Their chest plate had been torn open; a heavy metallic scent permeated the air. He reached his hand out to lift their goggles but instead sighed and stood up.

“Don’t think too much about it,” the other rifleman said from across the room. “He would’ve done worse to you, think about which planet they’re on.” He pointed at the body. “It ain’t theirs.”

Lalo stepped away from the bodies and moved towards the stairwell.

A low, deep hum emitted throughout the air, getting louder and louder every second. Lalo looked outside one of the windows to see a hulking mass breach the clouds: a UN frigate, a hundred and eighty meters in length with fusion powered engines roaring to keep it in the air.

He ran down the stairwell to the first floor where his company had begun amassing. Officers were listening to their radios and the enlisted huddled around nervously.

“Listen up!” They all turned to their captain. “We are to continue our assault on the batteries in the plaza. First platoon will provide covering fire from this building, as will our mortar teams. Second and third platoon will advance to secure each battery.”

Lalo looked into the captain’s eyes. They were sunken and tired; decades had worn on the man and it looked like he had slept for none of them. A loud boom could be heard in the distance.

“Alright get to position! Stay with your squads!”

Lalo crouched behind a window in the lobby, looking out at the plaza. Craters scattered across it. The city hall was left ruined. To the right of him he could see a subway station.

The frigate loomed overhead ominously. Lalo took a deep breath as the company began to advance again. The same uproar of gunfire began again as they ran out across the stone plaza. The air had grown colder and the snow had picked up.

A light gleamed in the sky for a split second. It was emanating from the frigate, then another, and four more after that. No noise could be heard but the sounds of dozens of detonating cartridges and whizzing bullets.

Lalo stared at the frigate for about a second. He was able to catch the lettering on the side: “SEA OF SERENITY”. The vessel’s name–a lunar mare on the surface of Earth’s moon.

A gargantuan roar interrupted everything as a blast ripped into ground two hundred meters away from Lalo. The shockwave threw him to the ground as he scrambled to take cover. Five more of the same blasts erupted around him as concrete was turned to clouds and humans into viscera.

His ears rang. Everything went silent. He crawled forward not knowing what else to do. He sat up against a barricade and looked around. The little formation his platoon had was now shattered as everyone scrambled to take cover; some just ran forward in a daze.

The building behind them erupted, being struck directly multiple times. Its walls caved in and its support beams failed. More rebels ran out only to be torn apart by further shelling outside as the world had come crashing down around him.

He looked to his right and saw a lieutenant pointing forward and pulling soldiers on their feet. To the left he saw another group running away from the fire, towards the subway station–a place sure to be safe from the hellfire around them.

Lalo’s heart pounded, his ears rang, his face was covered in dirt and his uniform stained. He knew he had to do something, anything. Without time to think, he stood up and ran.

Lalo heaved as he made it inside the subway station. Blasts still roared outside around him. The building violently shook as it was hit directly and chunks of the ceiling fell down onto the floor below, narrowly missing him.

He fell to the ground. Muffled screams could barely be heard amidst the chaos as the piercing ring of his ears refused to fade. The planet shivered with every impact. The supports of the building had begun to fail and gravity was tearing it apart.

He crawled forward in a panic desperately trying to move towards a staircase that would lead him to safety. The glass cut through his gloves and into his hands as he pushed himself off the ground, moving forward in a desperate stumbling run into the station below.

A fog followed him as he descended. In his disorientation and haste, Lalo felt his footing fail just a few steps before the bottom. The world felt weightless and for a brief moment the shaking stopped, before everything went away.

After a brief reprieve from the world, Lalo was back. The shaking had stopped. He felt the cold floor of the subway station pressing against his face.

As he tried to stand he felt a nausea overcome him, so he quickly sat down against a nearby pillar. Looking around the station, it was completely desolate. Barely any sound from above had come through. Rubble had now enclosed the entrance above.

Without a direction, Lalo sat there. With a sigh he hung his head down and threw off his goggles, hoping to see a bit clearer. All it did was expose his eyes and make them water.

Eventually he heard voices, footsteps, movements, the whir of engines. The rubble began to shift.

He mustered the strength to get up, walking in front of but a distance away from the entrance. He preemptively raised his hands above his head as he saw the daylight slowly creep down the stairs.