The lunar surface was silent as always—silent and vast. But silence here never meant peace.

  CT-6641 stood on top of a ridged crawler, its hull now covered in a layer of hardened black resin that shimmered like obsidian glass.

  Rows of other armoured vehicles idled nearby, their surfaces similarly transformed. Each one pulsed faintly, alive in a way that unnerved many of the clones.

  Inside each vehicle, a small black sphere sat nestled in a control alcove. The orb had only a wide, lipless mouth that spoke. It connected the clones to the BCUs, acting as a translator, a liaison—and in many ways, a commander.

  No one liked it, but they got used to it anyway.

  “You ever fed one of those things?” CT-6641 asked, climbing down to the lunar surface.

  CT-6642 stood nearby, wiping blood from his gauntlets. “You mean the resin? Or the mouths?”

  CT-6641 gave a short laugh. “Either. Both. I'm still not used to this.”

  A new clone approached, freshly reassigned from an infantry group—CT-9193. He looked at the column with a mix of confusion and dread. “Why does our armour look like that? What happened to the standard plating?”

  “We don't talk about 'standard' any more here,” CT-6683 said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Since the resin is more effective.”

  “It’s alive,” CT-6666 muttered, arms crossed. “We started feeding corpses to it. It hardens around the hull, makes it tougher.”

  CT-9193 frowned beneath his visor. “That’s… wrong.”

  “We feed them our cheap replacements or BCUs,” CT-6650 said, flicking several stones. “Others feed them our chipped brothers. Doesn't matter. The resin doesn’t care.”

  “I do,” CT-9193 replied. “We used to fight those things. Now we’re them feeding them our brothers.”

  CT-6641 cut in. “Don’t romanticize it. You’re here now. Infantry’s being pulled back to defensive roles. Armoured columns like ours? We’re still the teeth.”

  A click sounded in their helmets—comms link open.

  “Seer to Column 78. Status report,” came his calm voice.

  “Scrap here too,” another voice chimed in, head of maintenance. He always sounded annoyed.

  “We’re in the eastern plains, moving north. Armour’s holding. The resin’s hardened again. No visible fractures,” CT-0041 reported.

  “Sphere functionality?” Scrap asked.

  CT-6666 answered. “Responsive. Feeding patterns matched. Communications still synced to BCU network.”

  “Good. Keep the spheres stable. Don’t agitate them.”

  CT-9193 looked around again. His gaze lingered on the distance striders advancing in a skirmish line ahead of their vehicles. “Still can't believe were allies we used to kill those things.”

  CT-6678 grunted. “Yeah. That's what happens when they outnumber us five hundred to one now.”

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  The clones moved quickly, boarding their assigned vehicles. Each vehicle bore a name, painted in scratchy alien script or etched into the new black shell.

  “You want to know how they got their names?” CT-6641 asked, seeing CT-9193 eyeing the fleet. “Might as well learn.”

  He pointed at an armoured vehicle near the front. Its resin covered in white stripes “That’s 'Kraal-tok'. Took out fifteen Hexapods by itself in the Riven Pass. Shell got so hot it glowed. Name stuck. Means 'silent firestorm'.”

  “And that one?” CT-9193 gestured to a hulking beast with a larger cannon and a deep gouge on its left side.

  “'Vel'kaar'. Named after a shrieking lizard-thing we ran into on Imreth. Wouldn’t die even after three mags. The vehicle’s the same—kept running even after we lost half of the left side tracks.”

  “What about the one behind us?”

  “'Droktis'. CT-6683 named it. It's slow but unkillable. Got rammed into a cliff once. Still drove back.”

  CT-6683 nodded solemnly. “We name them after how they act. Not for sentiment or how they survived.”

  CT-6650 held up a blue cake from a ration pack. “Speaking of survival… why do these taste like scorched polymer?”

  CT-6678 laughed. “Because they’re not food. That’s ammo packaging.”

  CT-6650 blinked. “Explains a lot. Never had them before we got any BCU rations.”

  “Still better than nothing,” CT-9193 said.

  “That’s not nothing, that’s a war crime,” CT-6641 chuckled. “Could use 'em as actual ammo. Probably more effective.”

  Twenty minutes later the ground beneath them vibrated slightly. The distant booms of orbital strikes illuminated the vacuum.

  Explosions bloomed in the upper atmosphere like red blossoms. Shadows stretched long behind the column as light from above and forward flickered over them.

  “Orbits lit up again,” CT-6666 said, peering at the sky. “North battlefield’s getting worse.”

  Their radios crackled.

  “Units in Sector 33 report heavy resistance,” came a clone voice. “Striders engaged. Reinforcements needed.”

  Seer broke in again. “Maintain course. You are to hold rear-guard until a full push to Ridge Axis. Expect heavy casualties.”

  “You think the BCUs care if we die?” CT-9193 asked.

  “No. That’s the point,” CT-6666 said. “Better them than us. Let the BCUs lead the charge.”

  “They’re not us,” CT-9193 snapped. “They don’t think like us.”

  CT-6678 shrugged. “Neither do we. Not much left to feel any way about this whole conflict.”

  “Our lives are meant for the frontline,” CT-6683 said, staring at the horizon. “Always have been. Taking us off we feel… empty.”

  The black resin on the vehicles pulsed faintly as the striders moved in formation ahead, kicking up lunar dust in ghostly clouds.

  The vehicles hummed. The convoy advanced, the darkened moon around them stretching endlessly under the cold light of the distant star.

  CT-6641 leaned forward, muttering into his comms. “We’re not a frontline force any more. We’re just they reserve in this campaign.”

  CT-9193 said nothing. He only stared ahead, watching as another flash of light rose above the northern ridge.

  ———

  CT-6641 braced against the commander's chair of Vel’kaar, his eyes tracking the faint glimmers on the ridge ahead. Dust clouds curled into thin spirals where impacts had struck moments ago.

  “Contact in thirty,” CT-6678 called out from his gunner's seat. The clone's voice was even, dull from routine—but his fingers tightened around the controls like a vice gripping for a lifeline.

  From the ridge, the first drones emerged from the dust and smoke. New tracked units, standard-issue from the Grithan forges—black hulls, firing lines already aligned as they crawled into firing positions.

  Their weapons hissed in the vacuum, heat signatures flaring across everyone's HUD. Behind them came the loyalist armour.

  “Hold formation and be ready to fire,” CT-6641 ordered.

  The enemy fired.

  Lines of lunar rock erupted into molten sprays. Two vehicles, Kraal-tok and Zisven, shuddered under the first barrage. The resin plating flared, pulsed, and hardened again.

  Shouts filled the comms as their crew moved away from their position, The resin rapidly healed the area.

  “Kraal-tok is alive,” CT-6683 said with quiet pride.

  “Return fire!” CT-6641 barked.

  Turrets whirled. The striders ahead raised their long-barrelled cannons and fired. A roar of kinetic impact shook the land. Five tracked drones vanished in clouds of shredded metal and shattered ground.

  The Striders held their ground, unleashing steady volleys as enemy drones advanced with a wall of overlapping firepower so dense it tore through two Striders in seconds.

  Clone infantry surged forward alongside them, their weapons blazing to meet the oncoming wave. Despite their efforts, more Striders fell under the focused barrage.

  Still, they gave as good as they got—dozens of drones were obliterated, and countless loyalist clones were cut down in the carnage.

  But the loyalists were endless.

  “For everyone we crush, three take their place!” CT-6666 shouted over comms. “Our flanks are folding!”

  Droktis, named for its stubbornness, took a direct hit to its right tread and kept moving. Its front rammed a loyalist vehicle and flipped it skyward in a slow-motion dance of twisted metal.

  When Droktis finally stopped CT-6638 emerged and stood in the hatch of his fallen vehicle, his rifle barking shot after shot. His aim held, killing and wounding several loyalist clones until enemy fire finally took him down.

  A massive shell struck the side of Vel’kaar. The entire tank lurched sideways. CT-6641 hit the deck hard, ears ringing, and visor cracked. The resin hissed, healing slowly over the wound, but systems blinked red.

  “They’re pushing us back!” CT-6678 roared.

  Seer’s voice came across all comms—calm, commanding, cold. “Begin withdrawal. Striders to the rear line. Form a break wall. Armoured units fall back and regroup on vector 8.3.”

  “You heard him!” CT-6641 shouted. “Pull back! Striders will delay them!”

  The remaining striders held their ground, their back legs planting into the ground like anchors. Weapons raised. As the clone forces retreated, the striders held their own firing back.

  Missiles streaked in from afar, spiralling through the void before slamming into the line of Striders. Explosions tore through their ranks—some were destroyed instantly, others staggered on, fighting despite catastrophic damage.

  One by one they fell, until the last Strider, riddled with fire from all sides, finally collapsed under the relentless barrage.

  The clones didn’t look back.

  As they crossed the ridge, the battle below faded into smoke and distant screams. What remained of the forward armour grouped under a jagged rock formation—vehicles battered, resin scorched but not broken.

  CT-9193 sat slumped in Droktis, helmet off, face blank. “We were losing even before they outnumbered us.”

  CT-6641 leaned back against the hull, smoke curling from a cracked vent. “We survived that's what matters. We just need to survive.”