Southern Frontline HQ, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

The smell of antiseptic assaulted his nose, and the man hugged his legs closer to fight off a wave of nausea. His eyes, rubbed red in the night past, gazed vacantly at a star-shaped rock resting on the ground of the infirmary tent. Aside from the infrequent nurse that glanced in his direction, no one in the infirmary took any notice of the traumatized young Corporal sitting in the corner. There were far too many other patients to take care of, living, breathing, and screaming.

Next to the quiet Corporal was a deceased patient, his white handsome face unblemished except for the missing ear and the necessary bloodstains resulting from that injury. His lips were grey, their life color having been drained a couple hours past. His chest was bare, the skin slightly singed from the electric discharge that tried to bring him back to life, along with a big red X drawn by an exhausted army surgeon. Clutched in his hand was his dog tag, Sergeant Thomas Treadwell.

Two soldiers trailing a nurse came over, covering the late Sergeant's body and face with a white sheet and began the motion to carry him out for the mass burial. The Corporal shot up, asked for them to wait, to allow him to button up the Sergeant's uniform, trim and official as he had liked it to be in life. The nurse gave the Corporal a sad smile, pressed the late Sergeant's dog tag into his hand, and then directed the two soldiers towards with the exit with the body. The Corporal, running his thumb over the dog tag, slowly slid back down into this corner, a small tear threatening to form in the corner of his eye.

A figure stepped into the tent, her hands holding the tent flap open such that the descending sun brightened the dusky interior. The ray of sun drove into the Corporal's eyes, stunning him momentarily and chasing away the threat of tears. The figure, a female officer, the Corporal noted, was carrying a clipboard.

"Sergeant Treadwell?" The female officer called out. "Sergeant Thomas Treadwell?"

The Corporal felt his heart jump into his throat, a wave of grief and reality spread throughout his body, leaving him weak and powerless. The officer was still holding the tent flap open, and that sunlight still shining into his eyes. The officer called out for a third time, and somewhere inside the Corporal, a little voice that sounded suspiciously like the late Sergeant, bid him to standup, look sharp, and answer the superior officer. It was a voice that the Corporal latched onto, and obeyed.

"Corporal Alexander Treadwell, present, ma'am!" Corporal Treadwell shot up onto his feet once more, his back straight, his head front, and his right hand rising into a sharp salute. Picture perfect, as his brother would have liked it, except for the red eyes and the unkempt hair.

"At ease, Corporal Treadwell, let's see here." The officer consulted her clipboard, before facing the Corporal once more. "Right, you are in Sergeant Treadwell's squad, says here you are a grenadier. Where is your Sergeant, and the rest of your squad?"

"They are all gone, ma'am. I am the last of my squad. PFC Bondon, Davis, and Pym died yesterday, Sgt Treadwell only a couple hours ago." His face, due to a lack of necessary inhalation, was growing faintly red. A small tremor ran up and down his body.

The officer consulted her list once more. "That's all of them, alright. Grab your gear, Corporal, and follow me, we haven't got a whole lot of time to waste."

"Yes ma'am!" Shoulders square, abdominal muscles tight, the Corporal gave another quick salute before bending over to pick up his pack, helmet, bandoleer, and his drum-fed grenade launcher.

"And my name is Lieutenant Pearson, Corporal." The Lieutenant stepped out of the tent, followed immediately by Corporal Treadwell.

---

Beachhead Command Base, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

The prefab command center was alight with holographic projection tables and full-brightness LED screens. A small army of flag officers stood or sat at their stations, handling the thousands of logistical and intelligence tasks necessary to fight an entrenched enemy while still landing the necessary equipments. The command center itself was a single large room, with a raised platform in the center, where the commander in chief of the operations at and around Serenity Valley was currently standing.

"So you have met and welcomed our new tactical strategist, Major Baker. I trust he is comfortably accommodated?" General Jarvis Lawrence asked, his eyes still reading the report the nearby Colonel Vincent had handed him moments earlier.

"Yes, General. I have seen to his accommodations, and the Brigadier General was quite pleased!" The Major replied, a false smile plastered on his face. After catching up to General Weir and handing over the confidential Ident. Codes, the Major was once again left on the tarmac without a word.

"That is certainly good to hear." The response from General Lawrence was given halfheartedly; a frown was beginning form on his brow. "Please inform the good general that once he is settled in, I would welcome his opinion on my plan of assault." Apparently finished with the report, General Lawrence handed it off and looked straight at Major Baker. "And I hope you will make that point very clear to General Weir, to come see me."

Major Baker looked slightly apprehensive at the command, but was quick to salute. "Of course, sir. I will make it clear to General Weir of your summons right away."

General Lawrence waved a hand of dismissal, and Major Baker disappeared out of the command center. Colonel Vincent stepped forward to hand another report to the commander in chief, and the planning for the two pronged assault on the Independent southern headquarters resumed.

---

Southern Frontline HQ, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

Corporal Treadwell silently followed Lt. Pearson through the encampment, his mind a maelstrom of emotions, mostly negative ones. Out of the infirmary sector, past the massive billet tents, through the impromptu armor pool set up in the area between command and ammunition tents, and then finally out to a small clearing just outside of the established camp boundaries. There, Corporal Treadwell saw about 40 other individuals, sitting or standing around wooden ammunition crates.

"Well, here you are. Get acquainted, ammo up, and I will be back with orders." Lt. Pearson waved her arm in the general direction of the gathered men, before turning and leaving.

Treadwell looked around some more, and looked in on a group of soldiers carrying the same rusty brown colored grenade launcher as his. It was nearly silent; the only noise came from crates being sifted around. Everyone had a somber look; everyone had lost a lot of important people in the past few days.

"Hey, name's Treadwell. Got ammo?" Addressing a fellow Corporal who was sitting on a crate, Treadwell tried to inject some familiarity into his words, to start the conversation without this sense of oppression pressing down on them. It was what his brother had always done, and succeeded in doing.

The other Corporal looked up, gave a wary smile, and pointed to the crates around him. "I'm Johnston. Here we got the best grenades in this gorram sector. Take your pick. HEAT grenades are over there by McLean, disc grenades are under Field, Richardson's got ammo drums, and I'm sitting on the satchel charges." Each of the named individuals waved or nodded in acknowledgement, and Treadwell plastered on his own greetings smile as he made his way around to fill up his pack and bandoleer.

"So, who's in command here?" A glance at the rest of the grenadiers showed that they had no clue. Richardson looked like he was about to comment when there was a small commotion as the soldiers sitting closest to the camp scrambled to come to attention. The rest of the gathered men stood up in curiosity, and in walked a Colonel, followed by two aids and Lt. Pearson.

Treadwell was on his feet in a second, body posed for a salute. Everyone in the clearing did the same, welcoming the Colonel with a sloppy but still somewhat unified salutation. The Colonel stopped at the center of the clearing, bidding the men to come closer. The formless body of men walked into a circle around the Colonel, and Treadwell suddenly found himself near the center of the ring.

"Men, I am Colonel Donovan, commander of the battalion tasked to guard this here valley. I know you all came here for refuge, and I wish I could offer you better accommodations, but the Alliance is not that considerate. They are trying to move an armored battalion through our western flank, and if they succeed, it would make our situation here quite untenable."

The Colonel paced a small circle, meeting eyes with every soldier surrounding him. There were bags under his eyes, but his gaze was sharp. Here was a Brown Coat who had to singlehanded bear the burden of the incoming invasion, and he was still fighting strong. Every soldier felt their back straighten, their chest pump out, as the Colonel swept his eyes over them.

"The boys on the western flank, they got their work cut out for them, but one of our snipers already took out their commanding officer, and a minefield has been laid out to cover the main road leading to Emerald Glen, the abandoned mining town where our boys are billeted at. They got multiple machinegun bunkers with overlapping field of fire setup on nearby high ground, a kill zone for anything that walks in."

Every now and then a soft clanking is heard, the sound of ammunition colliding against each other as bandoleers and backpacks shifted. The men grew more restless, for they knew the command was about to be given. The best they could hope for was to be sent as a reserve unit, to wait at the rear until the frontline is breached, and then move up to reform the line and reinforce the breach. But most likely, they were going to be inserted into the frontline, a battered frontline at that.

"I know you all are tired, but I am asking you all anti-armor specialists to go and lend our boys at the western flank a hand, to knock them back and let us keep our peace for a while longer. I know we would appreciate it, and I know the troops at the western flank would welcome your help. Sergeant Conner Hutchinson, as you are the senior NCO here, will you take command of this platoon?"

Sergeant Hutchinson, a tall man carrying a bazooka over his shoulder, nodded.

"Alright. Lieutenant Pearson here will debrief you more on the situation, and trucks are coming to take you to the western flank. Best of luck, men, and God Bless."Colonel Donovan took off his cap, saluted, and made his way out of the circle. Lt. Pearson stepped in, another clipboard in her hand. Treadwell felt for his brother's dog tag, his heart caught in his throat when an armored battalion was mentioned. It would seem that the nightmare wasn't quite over yet.

---

Academy Codex, Entry 3, Homo ascendus

The journey to the White Sun system was projected to be a long one, lasting well over a century. Most of the evacuated population was put into a state of cryogenic sleep in the early days of the Exodus. A very small percentage remained awake, performing navigational and maintenance duties. Each Ark also had a dedicated staff of doctors and other such health technicians, monitoring the life signs of the sleeping passengers. These workers were divided into shifts, rotating in and out of cryo sleep.

The predetermined path of travel for the Exodus Fleet was, for the most part, extremely monotonous. The Arks silently drifted in the empty space between star systems, the inertia from their initial acceleration carrying them onward. Due to a conscious decision by the Global Exodus Alliance leadership to travel the shortest possible route to the White Sun system, the Fleet did have to travel through several irradiated regions of space, the residues from stars that had gone supernova long before humanity existed.

For the maintenance staff of Artemis, the fourth decade of travel represented the sudden onset of medical emergencies in survivors sleeping in pods installed just under the inadequate outer metal shielding of the Ark. Spikes in vital signs were a daily occurrence, and even the advances in modern medicine could not successfully reverse genetic damage. Those dead were ejected into space, and the journey continued.

By the century mark, the Exodus Fleet was finally nearing the White Sun system, and more auxiliary members of the Exodus were being awoken. On Artemis, already famous and promising scientists warmed out of their cryo sleep, and the numerous laboratories saw light for the first time since lift off. The survivor population onboard Artemis stabilized just a decade ago, after passing through the final pocket of radiation. Out of interest, one research group took tissue and blood samples from the remaining survivors that were located under the outer layer.

A vast majority of those survivors were doomed to die of a swift cancer-induced death after thawing, and again the medical staff was powerless to reverse the damage. A small percentage, however, showcased genetic anomalies and no tumors of the malignant nature. The researchers were intrigued, and further experiments were conducted to decode the nature of these genetic anomalies, though progress proved to be impossible without an active, breathing subject to test. Under the guise of removing corpses from cryo pods, several of these unique survivors were taken to a remote lab.

What occurred in that lab was not recorded or acknowledged by anyone. The suspected researchers involved faded into the background, their names sneaked onto publications and reports by research groups that swear to the authenticity and accuracy of the list of participating researchers in their study. To this day, no one knows for sure who the visionary scientists that drafted the initial findings on Homo ascendus were.

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A/N: Not the last OC I will introduce to show scenes on the battlefield, but this is the last chapter dedicated to the slow start before bullets start flying. The action picks up next chapter, and the fighting will continue from chapter 5 to 7. Chapter 4 will be posted within the week.