Two Soldiers

He tried to avoid looking at the disturbing sight before shrugging.

"Well, you know how whenever we get a decent foothold on the surface of a planet, there's always a series of massive quakes? The ones most people guess come from massive, subterranean detonations?"

She nodded.

"Well I always assumed they were just being pricks and trying to sink in the ground, because sometimes that's what would happen. I saw an entire city just collapse into nothing once after they set off those explosions... but maybe that's not what they were doing."

He reached up and grabbed one of the arms that spat out the gunk and it made clicking and grinding noises as it struggled to complete it's process.

"One thing that's always a constant with the Merkeb is that they do their best to keep the people they're trying to eradicate from figuring out how their shit works. We've been able to figure out so many of their strategies and tactics, but so far the only piece of technology we've been able to fully understand is one of their pistols. We also know that they don't ever come up with new battle plans, it's mostly just various forms of brute force and encirclements, so maybe they can't make any new technology either."

He let go of the arm and it went about it's business, although the Merkeb it was constructing probably wasn't going to function properly when it was finished with a bulbous, misshapen wrist made up partially of knotted up veins.

"Maybe this is the one thing they have that'd actually be easy for some of our guys to take apart and figure out, and maybe when they realize they might actually lose a planet to some opposition, they blow it up so we don't get the chance to look at it."

"But why not do it here?"

"Well they did do it here, remember? The only thing I can guess is they just missed this one. We were able to also get a decent foothold in space as well, we're stopping them from getting reinforcements from there. Maybe they also couldn't get the supplies down here to blow it up."

She slowly nodded.

"Or perhaps," -- she countered -- "perhaps they kept this one functioning because they had no choice. They couldn't get reinforcements from space, and on top of this we'd never encountered them in a jungle before, especially one as thick and inhospitable as this. You're correct in that they can't come up with new tactics, so they might actually be panicking and making mistakes. They only left a few patrols here to guard it, and so far there isn't even any completed troops down here to stop us from observing everything."

"Who knows? All I know is that we have to somehow shut all of these down without destroying everything so that somebody can take a look at it, and then we have to find a way to the surface without getting turned into chunks of bloody giblets by your artillery."

She nodded, looked left, then right, and then swung her rifle at a nearby panel repeatedly until it sparked and the machine it was attached to ceased to function.

"Fuck's sake, Molly, you think maybe there's a more subtle way to go about it?"

"Well it's the only thing I can think of, at least unless we find a main terminal or some kind of power source."

They both froze as they heard the sound of glass cracking and some of the massive organisms sloshing in their tubes.

"I think that some of them might be nearing completion. We have to hurry, even unarmored there's far too many for us to neutralize."

Caleb nodded and scanned the room, looking above he saw that the ceiling was a massive circuit of wires that all coalesced around one point, he followed that point down and saw what looked to be a massive computer.

"We can try that thing over there!"

They ran through the long hall of Merkeb printers until they finally reached the machine. It was probably a computer, although they didn't know where the interface was, not that either of them would know how to use it. Molly took aim with her rifle and fired a few times, only for the gun to stop working altogether. She raised it up and dropped it to the ground before kicking it away.

"It's run dry. I don't have the time to recharge it with the power unit in my pack, either."

Caleb began to pace back in forth before reaching in the front satchel on his armor.

"I just remembered, I found a single working proximity mine in my pack. I can just stick this on the side and shoot it, that should hopefully be enough to shut this place down!"

"Well then, proceed."

He pointed his thumb behind him as he set the mine on what looked like the screen of the computer.

"Go as far as you can that way, I don't know how big this explosion's gonna be."

He heard her set a brisk pace as he made the final adjustments to the mine. He followed in her wake and then when he felt he was as far away as he could while still being able to hit the mine, he took aim.

The first shot missed, but following some adjustments, he held his breath and fired the second shot which hit.

The explosion was pretty big, and the force of it managed to stumble Caleb a bit, but it looked like it worked. After the echoes died down they noticed that the machines had stopped buzzing and cranking, in fact they'd stopped moving altogether, except for a select few that still drizzled out a steady stream of the yellow goo.

Caleb pumped his fist in triumph and turned to face Molly.

"I honestly can't believe it was that easy."

She held up a single finger and he gave her a confused look.

"Wait just a moment... yes, it's working! You must have shut off power to this whole facility, I'm getting contact with my forces!"

"We're gonna make it out of here?"

She nodded and began speaking to them in her own language. Caleb watched her as she slowly walked away and felt a sense of melancholy. After all of this crazy shit they were going to survive after all.

But before the day was over it would be time to say goodbye.

Morosely he looked down at his boots when suddenly he heard a massive cracking behind him as one of the tubes burst open. Swiftly spinning to face what had made the noise, he looked in terror as a fully complete Merkeb slid down onto the ground, before slowly pushing itself up to his feet.

"Fuck me."

He raised his pistol and fired while slowly walking backwards, aiming for the head, the chest, the stomach. Every shot resulted in a splash of yellow viscera flying in the air but it wasn't slowing him down in the slightest. It was like he was throwing snowballs at a tank.

"Fuck me. Fuck me. FUCK ME!"

His pistol clicked dry and he ejected a magazine, struggling to load a new one.

"Caleb? Caleb?!"

"Molly, get the hell out of here, try to-"

He groaned in pain as a massive fist collided with his chest and knocked him flat on his back. His ribcage shattered, and Caleb's sidearm clattered uselessly away.

The monstrosity kept walking towards him. The mouth closed tightly in a vicious sneer, eyes burning with hatred and contempt.

Caleb struggled to get up but to no avail as suddenly the Merkeb was close enough to stomp on both of his legs at the same time, instantly crushing his armor and breaking both of them. He cried out in complete agony as the bones shattered, his joint implants coming out of his knees, sending sparks and blood flying everywhere.

"Molly... Molly, I don't wanna die. I don't-"

Suddenly he saw Molly leap through the air fists first directly into the Merkeb's torso. She screamed in primal fury as her momentum caused him to stumble and fall backwards.

She pounded on it's head with all her might, yelling viciously the whole time. Her fists eventually broke through the skull, but she just kept going. The giant beast began to convulse on the ground and bellow in pain and confusion, it's arms flailing upward but not far enough to be able to grab her.

She punched again and again and again, eventually shooting an open hand forward to reach in and grab... something, to tear out and toss to the side. This was repeated with the other hand. Then again, and again. And again a few more times.

Finally, her screaming stopped, her hands were still, and the Merkeb was dead.

She stood on top of the corpse and turned to face him, her hands and arms dripping with yellow blood. She hopped down and rushed forward, looked him up and down, then kneeled down and as gently as she could scooped him up.

He groaned again, his legs uselessly hanging down as she jogged towards... somewhere? It was hard to stay awake. That hurt a lot, and he had lost a lot of blood.

"Molly?"

"Yes, Caleb?"

"Am I gonna die, Molly?"

"No. You aren't."

He coughed weakly.

"It hurts really bad."

"I know. You aren't going to die. I won't let you."

He tried to reach an arm up to grasp at her, but the energy just wasn't there. He slowly lost consciousness to the sound of her voice shouting his name.

CHAPTER 8:

Caleb's eyes slowly opened. It took him a while to actually process that they had opened and that he'd woken up, but eventually he was actively looking around, at least as far as he could while he was prone and keeping his head still.

He instinctively tried to move his legs and winced in pain. He tried his arms next, and they worked. He'd been in the infirmary a few times before, and he reached to his side to try and find the nurse call button, but instead just reached across even more bed.

Since when did medical tents get king sizes?

He slowly sat himself up, holding onto his stomach and groaning as pain shot up and down his body.

"Woah, hey, easy there."

He felt a hand press down lightly on his chest, pushing him back down onto the pillow.

"You got fucked up pretty bad, man. You need to lie down."

Molly?

No, that wasn't Molly. But he did know who that was... that wasn't possible, though.

He looked down at the pink, webbed hand on his chest, then with great effort craned his neck to the side. If he wasn't in traction he would have jumped for joy.

"Jex? Is that you?"

He nodded and pulled himself closer. He on a wheelchair or something.

"Welcome back, man. You've been out of it for almost a week now."

"No, you died. You got blown in half. I saw... wait."

Caleb reached his hand up and scratched behind his ear.

"Did I die? Is this heaven?"

Jex laughed and shook his head.

"No, this isn't heaven. We're in a Lunar Sister medical facility. They picked me up about two weeks ago, and I've just been hanging around and regenerating. They had some PDE medical supplies just in case, so they managed to get me a wheelchair."

"Wh-what? Regenerating?"

"Well yeah, I'm a salamander. Of course I can regenerate."

Caleb blinked a few times and then rubbed his eyes.

"I always thought that whole regeneration thing was bullshit."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know, man."

He closed his eyes again and then grabbed his head.

"Hey, Jex?"

"Yeah?"

"Did... did she... is she still here?"

"Huh?"

He let his hands fall to his sides limply.

"Eh, forget about it, it's nothing."

Jex shrugged and wheeled to the other side of the room. Caleb heard a few beeps as Jex presumably messed with a terminal.

"There's somebody else who's gonna want to see you."

"Oh yeah?"

He heard footsteps rapidly approaching outside the room, then a door sliding open and closed. The footsteps approached his gurney, and then he saw her.

"Caleb, you've woken up!"

He blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't dreaming, and than a big grin spread on his face.

"Hey Molly. Is everyhing okay?"

She reached down and gently stroked his cheek, returning the smile.

"It is now. At first there was some doubt that you would survive the ordeal, but after you managed to survive the first two days and nights, your prognosis was positive."

She took a few steps away and dragged a chair over beside the bed. Even sitting down she was still practically towering over him. Again her hand resumed stroking his cheek.

He reached up and grasped it, wincing as he pushed his face into her palm.

"Try to stay as still as you can. You're still not fully recovered."

He grunted in the affirmative and let his hand drop to his side again. She reached behind his head and adjusted his pillow a few times.

His expression of happiness and contentment was soon replaced with one of sadness.

"Is something the matter, Caleb?"

He slowly blinked.

"So, when do you leave? Or, I guess, when do I leave? Do I only get to see you until I'm done healing, or are they gonna move you somewhere else?"

She stared at him blankly, then her eyes widened in realization. She smiled again.

"Caleb, when you've fully recovered, we're both leaving."

She leaned closer to him.

"Together."

"What? But, but I thought-"

Jex interjected.

"A lot of shit's happened while you've been out, man. The counteroffensive was an amazing success. Although we probably won't be able to repeat that kind of progress too many times in the future considering a lot of it was helped by the fact the Merkeb were flying blind in a jungle, one thing that is gonna help us out from now on is that facility you captured."

"Captured?"

"Well yeah, I mean it doesn't work but most of those machines are still completely intact. As of this moment, there's some Grand Fleet machinists coming down to check the place out. Hopefully, we'll know all about how these bastards are put together, and that'll only make it easier to kill them."

"Okay, but I don't see what that has to do with me and Molly."

Jex reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out an embroidered patch before placing it in Caleb's hand. It looked like the design on it was drawn by someone in the PDE, a fierce eagle crushing a skull in it's talons, but the writing surrounding the eagle was a language he didn't understand.

Wait... it was Lunar writing.

"The brass for both our sides realized that all of this was possible because of you two, specifically you two working together. They're bumping you up to a new SOF unit, and you and Malldeka here are both gonna be in the same squad."

Caleb looked to the patch, then to Molly.

"Is... is he serious?"

She nodded.

"Yes. Jex is correct. We won't be leading the squad, at least not yet, and we're both going to have to go through some incredibly intense training, but it's going to be an integrated unit made up of Lunar Sisters, humans and hellbenders."

Caleb looked over to Jex expectantly. He held up his hands.

"I don't know, I might volunteer, but I got blown in half, man. I'll get better but it still hurt. I actually have a chance to go home after all of this. It turns out losing both of your legs in combat gives you the option of dropping out of the army."

Jex looked up at Molly.

"Besides, I don't wanna be the third wheel between you and your new girlfriend."

"Girlfriend? I don't exactly understand."

Caleb looked to her, a small blush forming on his face.

"I mean, I am female, yes, but I was hoping to be more than your friend, especially after all we've been through."

Caleb shook his head.

"It means like, a romantic partner. We'd be together, you know? A relationship."

She nodded, understanding.

"Well in that case, I wouldn't mind being your 'girlfriend' at all, Caleb."

They stared into each other's eyes and Jex cleared his throat before rolling himself towards the door.

"I'll just leave you two alone. Take care of yourselves."

The door opened and closed, and Molly leaned in to kiss Caleb. With some effort and a little pain in his chest, Caleb strained to reach up and grasp the back of her head, pulling her in closer.

EPILOGUE:

Caleb leaned forward and felt the water cascade across his back and down his face. He watched as it dripped off of the artificial legs and knees that started just below his thighs. He was given the option of getting them painted the same color as the rest of his skin, but he'd have to keep going in every few months to get the paint touched up, and besides, he thought they looked pretty cool this way.

Maybe he'd been spending too much time talking to that one guy from the Grand Fleet. Whatever. He felt incredible, and in less than a week both him and Molly would be able to see try out some of their new SOF training in the field. A moon off the coast of an entirely lifeless ice world had been serving as the staging ground for Merkeb transport ships. There was too many orbital defense systems in place for a full scale bombardment of the moon, and considering that intelligence was all but certain that there were fabrication facilities beneath the surface, three of the new integrated units were going to be deployed to work their magic. The Merkeb wouldn't know what hit them, as far as they knew, there was no knowledge that the base even existed.

Suddenly Caleb noticed the water had stopped falling on his head, he looked up to see two massive breasts blocking the faucet.

Somehow, they managed to teach Molly how to sneak around.

She reached forward and placed a hand on top of his head, pushing down firmly, yet gently. He spun around and slowly lowered to his knees before pushing his face between her thighs.

He immediately dug in licking up the length before reaching her clitoris, then kissing and sucking on it, reaching up with one hand to grasp her ass and another to rub her lips.

She moaned in approval and squeezed her thighs, blocking out the sound of the shower. He pushed a finger in, then two. Sucking on her clit while he gently probed her.

She responded by reaching down and pushing his face in even deeper and thrusting against him. He loved being like this, trapped between her thighs. Knowing that she was so much bigger and stronger than him and had him in such a vulnerable position excited him. The fact that she could hurt him right now, hurt him badly in fact, but chose not to do so filled him with pride. She'd never hurt him because she liked him.

She loved him.

Her thighs progressively got tighter and tighter, until finally the orgasm ripped through her body and she released him. He fell back, sitting down on his ass and leaning against the wall. She stepped back so he could see her past her tits and smiled down at him. She was doing that a lot more now, and it was basically her default expression each time she saw him.

"Spread your legs, Caleb. I want to experiment with something new."

He looked up at her questioningly, but complied. She hadn't given him a reason not to trust her so far.

That is until she suddenly lifted one of her feet as if preparing to stomp.

"Hey woah, careful there, Molly!"

"Just remain calm. I promise this won't hurt you."

There wasn't a stomp, but instead her foot slowly descended down to press gently on his his erection and softly squish it against his stomach. He groaned as she began to move it up and down, teasing the head of his cock with her toes.

He reached forward and grabbed her leg, thrusting up into the sole of her foot. It's size allowed it to completely envelop his shaft, and she was careful not to press against his balls with her heel too hard.

Caleb never considered himself a foot guy, but this felt good. Really good. Then again, anything Molly did to him felt amazing. She always knew exactly what it took to get him squirming and begging for release before bringing him to a mindblowing orgasm. On the battlefield he was a killing machine, but alone with her he was just putty in her hands.

"Do you want to ejaculate, Caleb?"

He nodded eagerly.

"Well I don't want you to, yet."

Part of him regretted telling her that he liked begging for release, but he knew it would come out eventually. It was hard to keep any secrets from her, and his sexual fantasies were no exception.

She continued to smother his cock with her foot. How was it so soft? How was everything about her just so fucking perfect all the time?