**Haji

  I was woken up by a vicious kick to my leg, causin' me to instantly reach for my machete in the backpack I was huggin'.

  Only the dead sleep in a Gate without having one eye and one hand on your weapon.

  My eyes widened to see what the threat might look like, as I hastily drew out my weapon.

  But instead, I saw a person in front of me, who jerked back as I swung out my machete.

  She didn’t seem all surprised or frightened by my paranoia, just reacted promptly to my action.

  “Get the hell up, there's a debriefing,” she said nonchalantly.

  “…And wake your friend up,” she casually left, after that last statement.

  I shook Daigo awake, who also reached for his weapon as he too expected a threat.

  I relayed what the Guard told me to him, then we gathered ourselves and followed the crowd of Mercenary-Guards heading toward the front of the cramped camp.

  Everyone gathered in front of an LTAT combat vehicle, and on top of it stood a massive figure: the guy our ‘Team Leader’ reported to when we entered this Gate – his boss.

  I guess he wanted to give a speech or somethin'.

  “Good day, Guards… I know a lot of you want to know what comes next for us in here, and that’s what I want to tell you personally,” he said in a booming voice, once everyone was quiet.

  “Yesterday was the fifth and final stand against the Aggressors known as Zipper-spines in this Gate.

  Our scouts and other reliable sources have confirmed this fact, but there is still a colony of an entirely different invader that needs to be vanquished.

  As all of you know from your various briefings, they are called Flea-gloats.”

  He paused, then continued.

  “Now, there are some difficulties in estimating their remaining population, even after 3 operations that lasted hours in the last two weeks.

  So be prepared for a real bloody fight when we go up against them!”

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  He paused again, as ‘his’ men – the Viper Guards – roared in agreement.

  He then rubbed his coarse chin with his hand before continuing.

  “This Gate must be conquered and closed, no matter what.

  Though we have sent word for strong reinforcements for that objective to be more realistic, time races against us as Flea-gloats reproduce very fast.

  We might be alive when reinforcements arrive, or we might all be dead, but we must make sure their numbers plummet instead of increasing!” he yelled fiercely.

  “As Vipers – this is what you bloody signed up for, don’t you fuckin' forget that!

  And for the visitors amongst us, the so-called ‘Mercenary-Guards’ – you don’t get a paycheck until the mission is over, so sit tight.

  We'll be glued together for a while,” he said coldly, giving a mischievous smirk as his eyes moved through everyone in the crowd.

  “We leave in 5!” was his final piece, jumping off the vehicle, causing it to jerk from the sudden loss of weight.

  The crowd immediately scattered; everyone started gearing up.

  As promised, after 5 minutes we began to move.

  Trucks carried ammo and heavy guns while all the Guards trekked – everyone.

  We walked for about 2 hours, until there was a command from the front row to halt.

  As we all stood there, another command was given out, and the Viper Guards began to move, setting up machine guns and other things.

  Our ‘Team Leader’ made his way to us - his squad at the rear.

  After a very long march, he turned and said to us, “This is the theatre.

  Let’s move ahead of the rest to our position.”

  The place where the entire battalion came to a stop had large, glowing stones all over its 50-foot roof.

  The path, which had widened when we first ventured deeper, now began to divide into smaller and narrower paths.

  Many interlocked with each other, forming crisscrossing tunnels, but the Vipers didn’t seem confused about the direction.

  They got to have one of ‘em echo-location devices or somethin'.

  The wired lightbulbs weren't installed in this area; instead, there were several floodlights attached to individual poles, separated by a solid 5 meters or somethin'.

  The poles’ height was about 15 meters, makin' the light cover almost everywhere… almost.

  “You see those glowing round things on the roof?” the Team Leader asked, pointing up, prompting everyone to look up too.

  “Those are Flea-gloat eggs.

  The mature ones can sense when intruders get this close to their eggs and will show up in numbers any second now… So, get ready,” he warned, makin' most people reach for their weapons.

  But one guy instead raised a question to the Team Leader.

  “If those cunts are as bad as you guys say, why scrap with ‘em in tunnels?

  How will those at the rear be able to assist us if it’s this freakin' tight?

  How the fuck do you expect ‘us’ to hold off hundreds of 'em?”

  I kinda chuckled inside as the guy just started puttin' pieces together, but it wasn't like I had any idea what was goin' on in the head of the guy in charge of this small army.

  “Look behind you,” the Team Leader just said.

  A couple of us looked behind us to see what the Team Leader was talkin' about, but I didn’t.

  I waited to see if the Team Leader wanted to put lead in the guy’s head for being too smart for his own good, then probably threaten us to obey if we didn’t want to be diced up.

  It has happened to me before.

  After seein' he wasn’t makin' any move like that for a few seconds, I turned to see what the others saw.

  We could see Viper Guards and two LAV-25 light-armored vehicles followin' us from behind, leavin' the rest of the battalion behind them.

  Though they kept their distance, it was a different tactic than they’d used previously, which wasn't what I imagined since there was no update on any strategy.

  Everyone soon returned their gaze to the Team Leader in front of 'em.

  “Your job isn’t to fuckin' think, just do what you’re told to do,” the Team Leader said coldly to the guy that spoke up, giving him a death stare.

  The guy in question did not flinch or argue; he just acted like no one was speaking to him.

  The odd thing was, it was at that moment I decided to count what was left of our ‘group’.

  We were 60 yesterday, now we are 27.

  It made me start thinkin', like I normally did anytime I noticed a serious reduction in the group I was in.

  I tend to do this every time I fight in Gates; it's not like somethin' I want to do.

  I just do it.

  The soakin' thought of how it could have been me, or how it could be me one of these days, drenched my entire mind.

  I instantly got filled with dread, fear, and doubt – an intoxicating darkness I barely had the power to overcome.

  Then the ground began to shake a little, and loud, disgruntled snapping noises echoed from the darkness at the far end of the tunnels.

  Even if I and some of the others had never faced a Flea-gloat, we instinctively knew they were what was makin' that unnatural sound and vibration we were hearin' and could feel on our skin.