Noun

  “Phagocytosis, process by which certain living cells called phagocytes ingest or engulf other cells or particles.”

  Saint Gilles neighbourhood, Brussels. European Federation. July 2034

  Alessio Bruno greeted me warmly at his pizzeria, offering a firm handshake dusted with flour. He apologized for the slight delay, mentioning that a sizable order of 20 pizzas had just arrived for the evening rush, and he had been diligently preparing the dough. Since the official end of the conflict and the establishment of the European Federation, business in the capital had been flourishing. However, summer consistently heralded the peak season for small businesses. A veteran of the war, he caught my attention at a general assembly meeting of veterans of the conflict

  As he shouts to his son to take over the preparation of the dough he invites me to sit outside, pouring me a glass of coffee and offering me a cigarette.

  "Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but I’m surprised you came to me first of all people. Someone in your line of work, I'd expect them to interview the generals or the heads of states," he proclaims as he lights his cigarette.

  “Well, you were there from the start to the end, seems like you have a story to tell.”

  Alessio shrugs as he takes a long drag and stares at the sky. The sight of a bird gliding to the sky catches his attention.

  “Honestly, if that’s what you’re looking for you should ask the birds.” He says with a smile on his face.

  “The birds?”

  “Yes, those guys got out of dodge even before the ministers and the journalists.”

  “Could you explain further.”

  "Listen, it's not just the fact that I lost half my hearing and knee joints in that damn war. It's like it caused a short circuit in my brain. But one thing I know for sure is that those darn birds saw it coming," he remarked, exhaling the last drag of his cigarette.

  “One day they were there. Then, about half a day before those crabs landed they got out of dodge. For a whole day the sky was filled with flocks of them moving north, east, west, south, up and down. We knew something was up from that point on.”

  “Tensions were high?”

  “High? You’d drop a stack of boxes on the ground a bit too loudly and half the base would be jumping behind anything that seemed solid enough to take cover behind thinking we were getting bombed! Then, there's this guy who decides to light a candle in our chapel, and next thing you know, a part of it catches fire after he left! Before we could even dial up the firefighters, My staff sergeant yelled at me to grab my machine gun, lie down in the hallway, and be ready to fend off the Russians. Picture me, in my sport shorts and football jersey, all geared up with my plate carrier and helmet, tucked away in a dark corner, convinced Spetsnaz were about to storm the hallway in any minute.”.

  “2025 was that though?” I asked. Alessio seemed annoyed I interrupted him.

  The skirmishes we had at the border, we lost 30 soldiers. Sure it was a tragedy but during the war against the crabs, losing only 30 men in one day would be cause to pop champagne.” He took out another Lucky Strike cigarette and lit it.

  "But little did we know, the storm hadn't even hit us yet. I remember that evening like it was yesterday. I was holed up in my room, binge-watching The Sopranos on my cursed laptop. That thing was so noisy it could wake the dead, let alone my roommates. Suddenly, one of them calls me out to the hallway. Late-night briefings were nothing new to us; our platoon commander often briefed us after his meetings with the higher-ups. Our lieutenant, fresh out of the academy at 24, had a name none of us could pronounce.

  As I stepped into the hallway with my notebook and trusty foldable camping chair, I saw it written all over his face. Fear. He was trembling like a leaf. He ordered us to gear up for 72 hours straight. One guy was told to sprint to the ammunition depot and save us a spot in line before the other platoons swarmed in. Everyone was to grab their gear, drivers to bring the vehicles to the parade square, and the rest of us to rush to the armory and ammo depot.

  In those few seconds of silence, we all exchanged the same incredulous looks. 'Is this for real?' was written on every face."

  "We were like deer looking at headlights. And then, that kid with two stars on his chest and five years of military academy experience let out his first genuine panicked yell in his entire career. In a flurry, we darted to our rooms, snatching up our gear, stuffing our backpacks with everything we might need. Amidst the rush, I stole a moment to shoot off a quick text message to my girlfriend at the time." Alessio turns around to stare at his wife in the shop who’s overlooking the books.

  “Some crazy bastard once told me that the moment I knew I’d be getting into combat; that I should understand that I was already dead. That way I’d be less scared once the moment comes. Trust me, even with that I sat on one ass cheek the entire way to our TAA. My wife never forgave me for that message I sent her.”

  “TAA?” I asked.

  "Tactical assembly area, where we gather before the action kicks off. The vehicle I rode in, a CV9035, had been prepped daily for potential encounters with the Russians. We had bought them a year ago from the Sweeds. Despite the exhaustive technical checks and training drills, it was still a chaotic mess. The transition to the TAA resembled a Congolese farmer's market more than a meticulously planned military operation by the most formidable alliance in history. Vehicles left with tanks half-empty, ammo boxes vanished into thin air, and we discovered our infantry fighting vehicle had only half the water we needed because someone used our war stock to cook noodles during training. Then there was the German tank that accidentally flattened a parked military police car in route to the TAA. The craziest part? The commander didn't even bat an eye once he realized nobody was hurt; he just pressed on to join the rest of his platoon. Can't blame the driver, though—we were all pretty distracted."

  “Because of the meteors?”

  "You should've been there to witness it firsthand. The footage doesn't do it justice. It all kicked off as we were scrambling onto our vehicles. Everyone hit the deck, seeking cover. It took a few minutes for us to realize we weren't in immediate danger and emerge from our tanks, basements, drainage pipes. Picture this: central Latvia, practically right under the impacts. Every few seconds, our tank would shudder from the sheer force of the explosions. The noise was deafening. No wonder the few survivors in the area ended up with tinnitus.

  Meteors, each weighing hundreds of tons, detonating kilometres above us, shattering as they broke the sound barrier. That's what I call shock and awe. Our first air casualties weren't from our or the Russian air defence firing blindly in the chaos; they were helicopters, fighter jets even two air liners unfortunate enough to be directly under those meteors transporting crabs. A buddy of mine witnessed an NH90 torn apart by the shockwave alone. Even the helicopters and jets that made it back to their airbases had to be grounded due to structural damage it inflicted."

  “As we left our base I had to see it, so there I was like a kid looking at the night sky. It was dark, but the meteors entering the atmosphere was like a second sun lighting up the surroundings. They exploded and became hundred of different smaller pieces each carrying god knows how many crabs in them”

  “Did you know what they were at the time?”

  "Not in the slightest, it was chaos. Radios blaring, everyone trying to make sense of the madness. Our lieutenant had to hotmic the radio at one point to restore some order. Initially, we thought it might be MIRV’s, Multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles. Nukes that separated into multiple different ballistics ogives that each could target a different city. Seemed like the closest match. But the meteors were not even 1/10 of the speed of those. And if they had really been nukes none of us would be here to tell the story, so we scrapped that theory.

  When we finally reached the TAA, my vehicle commander, a sergeant in his early thirties, stone-faced as ever. You couldn't crack a smile out of him if your life depended on it. Ask him anything personal, and you'd get the driest response before he walked off. Guy smoked like a chimney and could outdrink anyone. He hailed from West Flanders, a real 'boer' as we called them—only farmers lived there. Anyhow, he ditched his crew helmet, ordered us to hold tight, and bolted towards our platoon commander's tank. From where we stood, there was just one friendly Czech battalion between us and the Russian border. Not that it mattered, since we were clueless about those falling crabs all around us and landing from Kaliningrad to St Petersburg. 510 million square kilometres on earth and they somehow landed in the most heavily militarized region."

  “I was scanning the treelines, we didn’t have permission to fire but we still had to hold 360 degrees observation of everything around us. I had to watch a field, from what looked at the time like an abandoned barn to the start of a wood line That’s when I saw it.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  As Alessio took a long drag from his cigarette, his eyes lingered on the scene unfolding in the park before us. His gaze followed the carefree movements of a child chasing a small dog across the lush green grass. The innocence of the moment and the gravity of his memories seemed to weigh heavily on him. In that simple interaction between the child and the dog, there was a fleeting glimpse of normalcy. It was as if, for a brief moment, he found solace in the simplicity of the scene.

  “Silhouettes on my thermals on the ground about 400 meters away. I could only make out the shape of their heads above the mud. I still don’t know what they were doing. I still don’t know if they were waiting for us there or if we had caught them off guard as they were digging in to nest in the mud.”

  “I had the safety off, I damn near fired a shot when my sergeant unsealed his hatch and dropped in. That how much he scared me. As he was babbling on about how the lieutenant had no intel and that our orders were to keep our sector secured I was switching between thermal, night sight and normal camera trying to understand what the fuck I was looking at. It looked like they were digging themselves in. The squad we were carrying had dismounted and were digging in aswell. He shaked me as I was trying to get sense of what was being displayed infront of my eyes. That’s when I broke. My only defense at that point was to fall back my training.”

  Allessio took another drag of his cigarette.

  “UNKOWN CONTACT, 3 O’CLOCK, 400 METERS.” “I must have scared the shit out of him, he quickly switched his monitor on and looked at what I was seeing. After what seemed like an eternity of switching camera modes he grabbed the handheld radio and radio’d it in to our lieutenant. As he was trying to describe what he saw the meteors lit up the figures for a second or two. They had stopped moving and seemed to be watching us. He had to coordinate things with the lieutenant on the radio, the dismounted troops outside and with us inside. It was my turn to shake him to try and get his attention.”

  As Alessio drew from his cigarette, his eyes fixed on the tranquil park surroundings. Across the way, a teenage couple sat, their gazes directed upwards, marveling at the expanse of the sky. In their shared silence, the world seemed to slow, offering a momentary reprieve from the chaos of his thoughts.

  “I’m sorry, we can stop here for now If you’d like.” I told Alessio. He quickly brushed it off and continued.

  "You know, I still can't figure out who fired the first shot. It definitely wasn't us, and the dismounts on our left weren't the culprits either. I'm pretty sure it was that 1-5 vehicle on our right that kicked things off. Anyway, they let loose a burst, targeting one of them. Then BAM! The third high-explosive shell hit, and its whole carapace just cracked open like butter. The ones before barely made a dent, but that last one? It was a game-changer.

  I still get chills thinking about it. Even munching on shrimp brings back that memory like it was yesterday.

  Afterwards, the whole field lit up. Picture this: a hundred of those guys, armed with their makeshift blasters, all aiming in our direction. It was like a scene straight out of a space western.

  They weren't exactly the most precise bunch but they made up for it in coordination. Half of them let loose their shots all at once, while the others waited for the first half to reload before firing. Even to this day me and my colleagues who survived think those were the first to land, their shock troops of sort. Precision wasn't their strong suit, but trust me, you didn't want to catch one of those 'geo thermal' blasts.

  It was like getting hit by a supernova in miniature form. The heat seared through tissue, wood and dirt like butter, leaving nothing but scorched earth in its wake. You could practically feel the ground tremble with each blast. A few shots hit our vehicle. Thanks to the armor we survived. They couldn’t take us out with those blasters. Still it made me shit myself. I didn’t even know who I was fighting but I started blasting. But the dismounts outside were less fortunate. Some fitness freak right infront of our vehicle. She caught one in the thorax and she was split in two. And that was just a ricochet. The driver described to me how her upper half was jolted into the air.

  I picked a target, fired a burst of HE shells. They were though. Shrapnel from the HE shells didn’t kill them outright. I realized quickly I had to get a direct shot.

  As I blasted that cannon, I saw those sneaky crabs pop out of the field ahead, wielding their weird weapons. So, I adjusted my aim real quick, targeting the closest critter. When I let loose that first shot, it tore through the air, smashing those crab shells like they were made of glass.

  But they were relentless I tell you. They retaliated, their energy weapons or whatever the fuck you want to call them hit our armored hull dead on. Each explosion rattled the vehicle, but the vehicle held its ground. I don’t know how long that first engagement lasted. A couple of minutes. Target after target I took out, the dismounts outside were having a very bad time. A few injured and crippled guys from our platoon dragged themselves inside. I remember my sergeant grabbing a tourniquet next to me as my cannon was reloading and throwing it outside to one of the lads who lost his leg. That was the only thing we could do during a firefight. In theory, if one gun is taken out, you don’t stop firing yours to help him out. As that first groups of theirs got quiet my commander ordered my turret to look further left, an entire other mob of those crabs was coming maybe 600 meters away. As I spinned my turret, that thing that looked like a barn lit up. As my gun was already firing on the other group, my commander overrid my turret controls and before I could have time to curse him for what he was doing he set my sights on that. The “tripod” as we called them later powered up. Its legs extended and he raised himself into the sky.

  Someone, I don’t know who the brave bastard was that fired a flare gun to the field, Illuminating it and the tripod.

  As I sat there, staring through my screen, I caught the sight of it—a strange, towering contraption that seemed like something out of an old science fiction movie.

  I muttered to myself, squinting to get a better look. Its three legs, all gnarled and twisted like tree roots, dug deep into the muddy ground, anchoring it in place.

  At the top, there was this bulbous metal shell, all dented and rusty, like it had seen its fair share of scraps. Wires hung loose, and bits of machinery jutted out at odd angles, giving it a real patchwork vibe.

  And those legs... well, they weren't much to look at, all clunky and slow-moving, like they were held together with duct tape and hope. It looked cheap despite how tall it was. That cannon wasn’t stabilized so it had to stop to fire, and you could see its legs struggling to keep hold of the ground as it fired. But let me tell you, when they decided to hit shit with its leg, they packed a punch.

  It wasn't pretty, that's for sure, but there was something about it—something rugged and resilient—that made you think twice before crossing its path. A relic from another world, right here in our backyard. When we envisioned aliens arriving on our planets we imagined them coming with shiny silver space ships. Those guys seemed like they used recycled materials for everything. It’s why allot of people believe they came from a distant collapsing planet, or that they had lost their home world to war and now were trying to settle here. Before I could even think on how I was going to take it down it’s central hull fired a beam which met and hit the vehicle on our right. There was a scream on the radio, someone inside was describing the tripod before screaming as the heat blast boiled them inside before the ammunition cooked of and sent the turret flying ten meters in the air. I blasted it with all I got. HE, APHE, APFSD. The HE seemed to shake it. But the armor piercing rounds did the trick. When I say those thing were resilient I mean it. They traveled god knows how many galaxies on meteors and somehow survived the landing. I was blasting it as I saw its cannons heat up. My sergeant, god bless him popped the smokes. We had smoke cannisters on our vehicle pointed at every angle. He saw it heat up and order our driver to drive forward five meters as the phosphorous smoke cannisters flew and exploded in the air.

  As we pushed through the smoke I started unloading again. As I saw the cannon heat up, some brave bastard fired a rocket at it. I believe it was a Spike. A tv guided anti tank rocket that can pierce pretty much anything human made. It tried to stand tall for a few seconds again before falling in the mud.

  Not like we had time to breathe, the other group of crabs was closing in.

  “May I ask why you call them crabs?”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s just for the record”

  “Well, with their armor and helmet. They looked like shrimps with crab shoulders. Not much thought behind that name. We needed something fast to call them. Pretty funny most grunts in the world all gave them the name of crustaceans.”

  Our conversation is interrupted by a couple greeting him as they walk by, Allesio shakes their hands. I notice burn marks on them.

  After exchanging some courtesies in French, the couple continue their walk. Allesio turns back around towards me.

  “We were starting to run low on ammo. We still had the ability to fight but the situation we were in stank. There we were in a small wood in the middle of the Baltic farm country. One destroyed vehicle, countless dead and injured. And fighting an enemy we didn’t even know existed half an hour ago. Our lieutenant told us to load up the wounded and who ever was still alive. Because one of our three vehicles got destroyed its dismounted infantry sat on top our IFV during the whole drive back.

  We drove by our barracks, set ablaze. The light from the meteor strikes an hour ago was supplemented by countless fires on the horizon. We just drove into the night. Our vehicle filled to the brim with men, some wounded, some even dead. We had orders to regroup north, our high command was still trying to gasp the situation. Entire villages and forests aflame. Keep in mind that was March in Latvia, you could barely start a campfire without it turning off because of the moist. Yet those devils had ordonnance that could set entire forests a blaze. That’s what hit us on our way into ‘Valmiera’.

  “We really don’t have to talk about this right now.” I protest trying to calm Allesio down.

  "No, I'm glad you're here to put this down on paper. Grunts like me, we're usually the forgotten ones. Sure there’s fifty different podcasts exclusively listened to by other veterans. Each of us believes we're the hero until we come to terms with the fact that nobody but us really cares about our story.

  "Sure, there are our kids who enjoy hearing us talk about anything, and our partners who hold us tight at night after we wake up from nightmares. But apart from that..."

  I look at him as he grabs hold of another cigarette.

  “We were driving down a provincial road. We had met up with the rest of our bataillon an hour back. Must have been 200 vehicles. One third of us was unaccounted for. Even then, maybe 200 vehicles but we were high tailing it for Estonia. None of that bumper to bumper shit the americans and Russians like to do. I was in the group of the first 40 vehicles. Praying our vehicle wouldn’t break down as we drove at 40km/h through the countryside. If one broke down its entire platoon had to stay and wait for it to be fixed or abandoned before continuing. Must have abandoned one CV90 and two trucks. We just wanted to get out of dodge. From what little info we had, those things only landed in Latvia. Sure that info was wrong and it aged like milk. But the hope in us saw a warm shower and a hot mess hall in Estonia. As we drove along the quiet road, the only sounds were the hum of our engines and the gunfire and explosion in the distance. We drove by four destroy M109 artillery vehicles and half a dozen utility trucks. All blown to bits and still burning. Some with its crew still smoldering in and outside of the vehicles. It’s hard to understate how critical the position the crabs landed in was. In modern, peer to peer conflict. Your enemy doesn’t appear in your back, front, north, east, south and west. You don’t have enemies parachuting in your back yard all of a sudden, that only happens in Hollywood movies. Had they landed on the Russian side, we might have had a fighting chance that week. I was on the turret, peeking out with that sergeant I told you about on the side. At first I thought it was a firefly because of the way it flew in the air. It peacefully glided in the air from ground with a weird flight path. That why I thought it was an insect at first. Until I realized it was at a distance and was coming straight for us. I barely had time to yell “Get inside!” that it exploded in the air into multiple fragments. It hit our convoy. My right hand was still holding the hatch handle and was exposed outside. The burn I still feel from time to time. I am lucky to still have control of the arm. I am even more lucky I managed to get the hatch closed. Second degree burns, I wept and felt like I was about to pass out from the pain. All while we fought our way out of that ambush. Thank god that ordonnance didn’t take out our engine. I wept all the way to the border. Took me a few weeks to get my hand in order.

  He smiles as he finishes his cigarette

  “Doesn’t mean I didn’t take part in all the fighting”