Thermobaric shockwaves rippled across the once placid pebble beach. Fireballs bloomed riotous and hungry. Explosions cracked the sky. In the span of a few hours, the world had descended into a mad cacophony punctuated by small arms fire, flashes of light and heat, and an Aristophanean chorus of coughs, barks, bellows, and batrachian trills.

Through eddies of fog, a hulking figure in matte-black Berserker armor darted along the west coast beachhead. Inside the heavily armored cybernetic suit, First Lieutenant Melanie Rowan was at the epicenter of chaos incarnate.

Within her helmet her breathing was heavy, and she caught the cloying scent of the seashore and rotting fish despite the suit air filtration. Emerald eyes flashed across the data on her Head-Up Display (HUD) as she checked on her platoon’s deployment.

Rowan’s training had become neurally-augmented reflex, and she moved fluidly across the shoreline in mechanically assisted leaps. A nearby anguilla-type Deep One observed her progress and lunged out of the surf to intercept. The horror lurched toward her in a spray of water, audibly snapping jaws in an immense moray eel head, its pallid, gray-green body rippled as it moved. The creature was easily three meters long and propelled itself across the beach using wiry appendages bristling with claws.

Rowan’s rifle was clamped firmly to the locking mechanism on her back, so she reacted instinctively. The unyielding fist of her power armor connected with the side of the abomination’s head in a sickening crunch, and the monster’s momentum drove it into the gravel beach, arms twitching and flailing in death throes.

“Hey LT!” chirped the comm, as First Sergeant Trent Mercer keyed open a private channel.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“Don’t get too friendly with the walking sashimi! Mr. Eel-face there looked like he wanted to get to know you better—”

“Ah, what’s the matter Mercer? Jealous that the fish-boys can’t resist my friendly disposition?” replied Rowan with a laugh.

Mercer chuckled. He and his supporting fireteam were spaced out at fifty-meter intervals — far enough apart to cover a wide swath of beach, close enough to quickly provide support to one another if needed. He knelt to the ground suddenly and fired his .50 caliber smart rifle effortlessly. A grouper-faced Deep One clambering out of the surf suddenly dropped and lay still in the wet sand.

In the distance a croaking refrain cut through the chill air, and was quickly taken up by dozens of other Deep Ones. “Brekekekèx-koàx-koáx! Brekekekèx-koàx-koáx!”

The effect was maddening, and Rowan began to curse profusely under her breath as another wave of monsters appeared.

Around Rowan, the half-dozen hovering Shrike drones linked  to her suit wheeled and spit 7.62x51mm NATO rounds with deadly accuracy, making a valiant effort to slow the advance of the slimy monstrosities. Rowan took cover behind a rocky outcropping and knelt to the ground. The HUD in her helmet flashed through virtual topographic maps, satellite imagery, and real-time enemy positions — then suggested a firing pattern with flashing red kill zones superimposed on enemy forces. The Tyr interface in her suit chirped for confirmation, and Mel keyed the firing initialization via a wrist keypad.

The tubes on back of her Berserker-armor began to cough parabolic death in the form of smart mortar rounds, and the beach lit up with the heat signatures of chrysanthemum-shaped explosions. Observing through a nearby drone’s camera, Rowan took no small degree of satisfaction in watching dozens of Deep Ones collapse unmoving into the surf.

The satisfaction was short-lived however, as a quick glance at her map indicated the approach of what the Tyr estimated to be tens of thousands of hostile targets.

They are going to overwhelm us eventually through sheer numbers, Rowan thought dismally.

As more Deep Ones began to crawl out of the roiling surf nearby, Rowan unlocked her rifle and bared her teeth in a snarl. Then a ping on her HUD announced a priority message in a phosphorescent font:

INCOMING HARPY STRIKE /

TAKE COVER IN GREEN ZONE /

ETA 5 MINUTES.

Rowan keyed the general comm, “We have incoming Harpy. Fall back into the green. Repeat. Fall back into green immediately.”

One by one the various fireteams keyed confirmation of the order, as Rowan retreated away from the pounding surf, flanked by her Shrike drones. Double-checking her maps to make certain she was well within the indicated safe zone, she found a solid looking outcrop of rocks and hunched low, taking cover. Around her the rest of the fireteam she was shadowing followed her lead….