I Survived 500 Days of THE INVASION (NOT MINECRAFT)

Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript, with sensitive content removed or altered for appropriateness:

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A stream of high-speed projectiles stitched a pattern up the concrete wall and towards the spot my head had been at a moment ago. If the elf machine gunner had been a half-second quicker on the trigger, the outcome could have been disastrous. What impressed me most, though, was the aim—I’d encountered combat veteran elves before, but something had changed. I could hear the excited sounds of other elves as they advanced on our position. They were using tactics, with machine gunners providing cover fire while their squads moved forward one by one.

I was up, they saw me, I was down—every infantryman knows it by heart, and these elves did too. I had never seen such a well-coordinated group in over a year of conflict. From somewhere a quarter mile away, there was the sharp crack of a single rifle, and I instantly recognized it as Santos’. An elf machine gunner, sitting atop one of their vehicles, had been taken out. I could tell from the way the debris splattered that the shot had come from our two o’clock—Santos must have found an excellent sniping spot, but she had positioned herself slightly ahead of our main defensive line.

Another shot rang out, and another machine gunner was neutralized. Then there were no more shots, and I knew she was moving to a new position—the sign of an expert sniper. I was grateful the elves hadn’t yet learned how to implement snipers of their own.

Our position was in the ruins of a row of town homes, facing the elevated metro rail a few hundred meters away. To our backs was the river, a dangerous place to be—but that was on purpose. We had secured a strong position on the west side of the river and were giving the elves a hard time as they attempted a crossing from this area. We would inevitably lose this position, but we had several fast boats ready to take us to the other side. The point was to make them pay.

With the enemy machine gun fire slackened off, it was our turn to respond. Courchaine popped up from behind cover a few meters away and opened fire with a borrowed M240. The big machine gun fired at a frightening rate—I had seen what it did to humans during previous conflicts. But what it did to elves was different—they were skinnier, their bodies not as dense. The rounds blew straight through them, sending them spinning. I suspected they weren’t doing much internal damage, especially since the elves didn’t wear body armor, but that didn’t seem to matter—the bullets created gaping holes that quickly led to them bleeding out.

I popped up and fired a grenade from my launcher, then ducked down to reload. I didn’t even bother to see the effect—that’s the type of rookie mistake that gets you killed. I was up long enough, though, to see that two of the elf squads had finally made it to the parking lot of the former town homes, a big communal space that ran about seventy-five meters wide and two hundred long. There were still wrecks of vehicles from people who had never fled the city or perhaps simply abandoned them, and the elves sought the safety of these wrecks just as we might have done.

As the elves ducked for cover, seconds later there was a rapid series of explosions. Improvised explosive devices we had planted in the wrecks went off via a remote trigger, spraying shrapnel across the parking lot. At least a dozen elves were immediately taken down, and another two dozen were scattered around, dazed and bleeding from shrapnel wounds. We didn’t even bother executing them, even though they were easy targets—instead, we waited for their comrades to try to pull them to safety and shot the rescuers instead.

There was a certain irony in our use of the same tactics we had fought against for years, here on the outskirts of the nation’s capital. Now we were the insurgents, up against a vastly superior foe—but we were having much better success. If previous groups had written the asymmetrical playbook, we had mastered it, taking the best of what they had to offer and adding our own technological sophistication.

I could hear the hum of the drones before I saw them, and I was impressed at how quickly they arrived on-scene. The small quadcopter drones had been available by the thousands in stores across war-torn Washington, but before the invasion started, the Army had disseminated millions of them to anyone who wanted them. Just like others had handed out rifles to fight the invading forces, we had given out drones—complete with guides on drone tactics.

These were militarized drones, complete with artificial intelligence on board. I only got a brief glimpse of the swarm as it flew overhead, flying low to avoid detection. It seemed there were about three dozen of them, buzzing like a swarm of very angry bees. Only a few of the drones were actually piloted—the rest were synced up via radio to these ‘pilot drones’ and had onboard AI. All the human pilots had to do was mark targets, and the AI drones handled the rest.

The first group of drones swooped down on elves hiding behind cover, detonating on impact. A struck elf was almost certainly instantly neutralized, but his buddies nearby had a good chance of getting wounded. The onboard AI ignored elves in the open; we could handle them ourselves, prioritizing any elf behind solid cover.

The second group shot straight up and then began to dive down at high speed. These were larger and carried a specialized warhead. Upon striking an elf vehicle, the warhead created a molten jet that pierced through the armor. The crew inside would suddenly find themselves in a dangerous situation, raising the heat to nearly a thousand degrees for a brief moment, long enough to incapacitate any occupants.

The elf fire had slackened significantly, and then died down completely. I looked up from behind cover and could see a few drones moving slowly at high altitude—a sure sign that the assault force was finished. We left our cover and began to advance across the parking lot, inspecting the fallen elf assault force. Moving from body to body, we checked for survivors. Any that we found, we finished off quickly—no point in wasting resources.

We knew they could gain knowledge from our fallen soldiers, so we were ordered to execute any survivors of an engagement if we could. Satisfied that the grim work was done, we headed back into the ruins. Another team would conceal the fast boats we were to have used if we were under threat, while we headed underground through a secret hatch built into one of the former town homes. It was part of the old Cold War underground tunnel network that spanned across Washington D.C., with entrances hidden away in government buildings and sometimes ordinary homes.

Before taking my turn to duck underground, I looked back across the ruins to the elevated train track. Suddenly, it hit me—I had ridden on those tracks once, when I was a kid visiting Washington D.C. with my dad.

There was a hard line in one of the command bunkers built into the secret D.C. underground shelter system. It linked up all the other command bunkers, and you could either ring one specific one or all of them on the network at once. It was old-school technology, impossible to hack, and tapping it would require drilling through several feet of concrete. We felt pretty safe that the elves had no clue it existed.

Despite being confident the comms system was secure, we still kept to strict procedures—no names, no locations, nothing of any intelligence value. I didn’t need a name to recognize Major Hulbruck’s voice on the other end. Ever since the barracks raid that had resulted in nearly a hundred dead or wounded, the Major had taken command over the Washington resistance.

“Scouts say you’ve got elf forces moving on your position, redirecting from up north. You did a great job holding that ground, bought time for a little raid we pulled off to get our hands on some new supplies.”

I knew better than to ask the questions I wanted to over the landline, but my eyebrow shot up. What kind of supplies had the Major gotten his hands on?

“Sir, we’ve got a few wounded, but no casualties yet. Drones saved us. We figure we can hold out another assault or two before needing to cross the river.”

Somewhere in what had been the main command center of the underground Washington resistance, Major Hulbruck shook his head slowly. “Not with what’s coming at you. Remote cameras show they’re moving creatures on your position. You’ve angered them.”

I couldn’t help but gulp involuntarily. Creatures were the nickname we’d given to the genetically engineered beings the elves had created to supplement their losses.

We had first encountered them in the midwest, on our original raid on a breeding facility. They were terrifying and disgusting, and I would rather face an entire elf force than a group of those creatures.

But that wasn’t the only horror the elves had created. They had set up factories in occupied territories, but those took time to fabricate. So, in the meantime, they put their genetic engineering skills to work.

I licked my dry lips, but kept my voice steady. “How long do we have?”

“They’ll be there in three, four hours. Get some rest while you can, thin their numbers, and get across that river before they overwhelm you.”

I nodded, then remembered the Major couldn’t see me. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m sending you some supplies, don’t have much left to spare. Put them to good use.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The line was silent for a moment. “Don’t die out there.” Then the line went dead.

A few hours to rest. I went to break the news to the squad and sought out Sergeant Jackson, one of the special forces guys who’d originally found us after our landing in D.C. He was in command of second platoon, which was now technically made up of the second platoon and survivors of the first platoon.

On my way to Jackson, it finally dawned on me—if the Army was still keeping rank the way it had before the war, being in charge of this company technically meant I must have gotten a battlefield promotion to Captain. I made a note to have a word with payroll about it when we won the war.

The shelter we’d commandeered must have been built to house a few hundred VIPs and their families; now it housed barely a hundred of us. The resistance had a big recon section here, but they had been the first to know what was coming and were well through packing up their gear.

I found Wood helping Courchaine clean his newly adopted M240.

“Where’s Santos?”

Wood nodded behind one of the privacy curtains we had set up. On cue, Santos stepped out from behind the curtain, with a clean bandage on her left arm.

“Nothing major, just a cut on some debris while repositioning.”

“About that. You were too far out front out there.”

She shrugged. “It was a better position.”

“It was exposed, and if we’d gotten pushed back to the river—”

“I would have found my own way across.” Santos set her hands on her hips, locking her eyes with mine.

We’d all been stressed out lately, but this was borderline insubordination.

“This is my company now. And you’re part of that company, a very important part.” Santos went to speak, but I silenced her with a finger in the air. “I trust your instincts, but you take too many chances sometimes. Stay closer next time.”

Santos’ shoulders relaxed, and I was relieved. The last thing I needed was a power struggle right now. She nodded grimly and tossed me a quick acknowledgment, which wasn’t a great sign—here in our little sanctuary, we’d largely made rank not matter.

I shrugged it off. “We’ve got major incoming.”

Courchaine didn’t look up from the components of his weapon as he cleaned. “Could’ve guessed that from the way recon’s getting out of here; let me guess, we’re in trouble.”

“We will. But we have to hold them in place as long as we can. We’ve got a good position to hold for a bit.”

Wood nodded knowingly. “It’s a good position until it isn’t because the elves take it, and we’re trying to get across the river.”

“Jackson’s got demo guys rigging up the place; when we leave, nobody’s holding it. Also, we’re not dealing with elves tonight.”

That finally got everyone’s attention.

“Are they finally doing it, sending the creatures on us?” Courchaine looked grim.

“Yes, and worse. Hulbruck says they’re sending a large creature.”

Wood let out a low whistle. Santos licked her lips nervously. Courchaine seemed to be the only one unfazed. “We’ve got supplies the Major sent across the river for us.”

“Three going to be enough?” Courchaine was back to cleaning his weapon.

“We’ll have to make them enough.”

“Or get overwhelmed.”

The gunfire was deafening in the underground corridors, but Hulbruck was unfazed as he shouted orders to runners hurrying to flee the compromised area. The heart of the resistance had been located not far from the capital itself, right under a major landmark—and the elves had found the way in.

The sound of the fighting was getting closer. Hulbruck’s gear was in the direction of the fighting; for now, his sidearm would have to do. He had no idea how the elves had found them after so long, but they seemed to have taken a leap in capabilities recently.

Something he blamed directly on the one person who had jeopardized the attempt to retake Washington and disobeyed a direct order.

Satisfied that the techs had removed as much of the equipment as possible, and destroyed what they couldn’t take, he plucked a grenade off his belt loop and prepared it. He had kept it on him at all times, always prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Closing the door behind him, the grenade went off with a dull blast before consuming the room in flames. The defenders were fighting as instructed. Despite being the nerve center of the resistance, it was minimally staffed with only a single company for security.

The loss of this post was largely meaningless; there were four others ready to go as soon as Hulbruck reached them. But taking this one would cost the elves dearly.

The security teams fell back from prepared checkpoint to prepared checkpoint, letting the elves continuously push forward. By the third line of defense, they began to take separate exits out of the facility through designated routes, sealed behind them by explosives. Each squad leader knew where to reconvene in approximately 48 hours, and if it was impossible, were under orders to link up with other cells of the resistance.

The elves were doing nothing but wasting resources; the narrow chokepoints of the underground complex had been crafted into strategic positions. The defenders lost one or two members to the projectiles, but dealt far better than they received before disappearing into hidden routes.

Hulbruck almost wished he could see the expression on the elf commander’s face as he hurried down his designated escape route. Lieutenant Mason joined him, barking out orders to a security team putting up one final bit of resistance before making their own escape.

Pistol in hand, Hulbruck was cautious of any elf surprise, but the attackers seemed to have discovered only one way in.

A filing cabinet stood in the way of a disguised escape tunnel, and Hulbruck squeezed through it, followed by Mason. They waited a moment, but nobody else showed up. That concerned Hulbruck; there should have been a squad of Marines to make the escape with them—they either got themselves killed or had been forced to use another exit.

The sound of elf noises was drawing close enough now that the decision was made for him, and he nodded at Mason.

Mason worked on the demolition charges set into the wall of the secret tunnel. It was just enough to collapse the tunnel without causing a wider disaster, but Hulbruck hurried down the tunnel anyway—he wanted to preserve what was left of his hearing.

At the end of the tunnel, a ladder went up to a hidden hatch that had once carried steam through various downtown buildings. Climbing to the top, he waited for the sound of the charges going off, and soon after, the Lieutenant appeared at the bottom of the stairs, face slightly red from having obviously sprinted the distance.

The pistol was still in his hand, and that hand twitched. Lieutenant Mason had jeopardized the entire military operation to retake the capital and rally the world’s morale in its war against the invaders. She had done it because she had been angry and vengeful, nearly a year fighting behind the lines and losing lives every day—and she had seen an opportunity to strike a major blow using the knowledge of the underground connections.

That operation had been a failure, and cost them the element of surprise. The facilities had been operational for two months now, and seemingly incorporated vast improvements in their designs judging by the vastly improved performance.

With the facilities operational, the army wouldn’t risk a prolonged fight in the capital with a steady flow of enemy reinforcements—they would already have the advantage of defensible terrain.

Lieutenant Mason had proven an adept commander in the time she’d been left to fend for herself, cut off behind enemy lines. And after her error, she’d been quick to fall in line as a very competent second. But she had disobeyed a direct order in wartime.

An offense that per the military code, carried severe consequences.

The Lieutenant looked up at Hulbruck from the bottom of the ladder, where she saw him looking down towards her with his pistol still in his hand…

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