It was chaos incarnate as the defenders reached the wall. Even though it only took a few seconds to get from the barracks to the barricade, the bugs were already there, a seething, shreiking horde of black and yellow and deathly white, clashing against the churned up dirt of the planet Persephone. But, above all the noise, above the scream of the rockets, the explosions from the exploding mines, the horrible sound of the plasma streaking overhead, the crackle of rifle fire, the steady chirp of the machine gun nests in the towers above, the hiss of acid- Above all this the screaming.

The screech of bugs as they died, the screams of humans as they fell. That was what would give Tracey nightmares for the rest of his life, however short it may prove to be. Men literally melted as they were hit by the Spitters, six foot high monstrosities that scuttled about on six legs. Troopers had long learned that if you hit one just right in the thorax, it would go up like a gernade. Unfortunately, the Bugs knew this, too.

Amidst the onrush of tiger and leopard warriors, the close combat grunt of the Bug army, the Spitters hid themselves in the stripes and spots and black, until they could reach the wall. There, they impaled themselves on the wire that was the 57th's second line of defense. The all purpose steel, supposed to entangle any bug that got through the now silent mine field, melted faster than a snowball in Hell. They poured through.

Make no mistake that there was no resistance. Not by far; Tracey and the sentry gunners checked the onslaught in any way they could, lobbing the odd gernade amonst the seething masses to cause destrusction on par with their rapidly dwindling supply of ammo. Still, they came on, just from that one side through the pass, the only way in or out from the front. Soldiers lined up on the last line of defense, the Wall. It was a hollow shell filled with dirt, making any base a viable defensive posistion. Filled with dirt, they could witstand the atta