Chapter 648: The Spoked Offensive

"Humanity, unlike us, wages a war on silence. To many of us, silence represents harmony, peace, unity with others and unity in purpose. To humanity, silence represents danger, a predator waiting for a sight of weakness, an enemy laying in ambush. So, humanity wages a war on silence. And uses the means of this war, as one of the most effective weapons against their enemies. In a later part of the lecture..."

"The weapons on the war on silence are numerous, ranging from the sophisticated sonic weaponry, called rock or metal music, used on encircled enemies, through the less, technologically, sophisticated military chants and marches into the primitive act of banging their swords against their shields. The motivation is numerous. Scare the enemy, disrupt their spirits whilst bolstering your own..."

"But nothing can equal to the, excuse the use of the phrase, the weapon that broke the back of our ancestors, nothing can equal to the scream of primal rage, fury, promise of death, when humanity discards the cloak of civilization and throws themselves at you with nothing, but that terrible and liberating rage...." u/MooseSyndrome, russet Mantid philosopher, 125 PG

"You can tour the ruins of the Terran Invasion on Mantid Prime, what the humans code-named 'Anthill', and walk the wind-swept sand dusted battlements, walk through the buildings, even see the old craters from two hundred years ago.

"No Mantid will tour those places.

"To anyone else, those areas are a silent tomb, an empty reminder that even the strongest will eventually run into someone who wants it more.

"To my people, it is anything but silent. We can feel the simmering rage, the howling rage, the frothing insanity that consumed the Combined Military Authority Armed Forces. We can hear the scream of the last Pubvians. We can hear the barbaric ichor chilling undulating hunting cry of the universe's foremost omnivorous pack hunter.

"We can hear Speakers wailing in terror, hear Warriors attempting to defy the will of the Omniqueen and run from the battle, we can hear greenies, russets, black mantids, and gold all wailing within their own minds for freedom.

"We can see the shadows created by the flash of atomic weaponry, taste the tang of Terran blood and Mantid ichor, feel the pressure left behind by unrestrained phasic wrath.

"But most of all we can hear it.

"The echoes of rage and hatred.

"That we brought upon ourselves." - Mantid historical philosopher Ponders Upon What Was, 250 PG

"Several members of the Cult of the Defiled One claim to have had the first experience with the Mad Lemurs of Terra after it's re-emergence from the Atrekna Extinction Attack during the 3rd Lemur Reformation.

"Some of these are from their encounters with the Locusts. The Cult of the Defiled One believed the Mad Lemurs to have reemerged from the darkest depths of the universe itself with all their rage smoothed away like a stone in a river leaving nothing but their competence for violence and the need to visit it upon others, as a malevolent universe justly demanded. They viewed this as the final form of the Mad Lemurs of Terra, but they were flatly wrong. The Locusts are what happens when the Lemurs face the same inevitability of a dying universe as the Atrekna themselves had faced.

"Others believed their encounters with Earthlings to be the first contact with the Mad Lemurs after the 3rd Lemur Reformation, and while they weren't quite wrong, they also weren't right. "Humanity" originated just prior to the 2nd Lemur Reformation, and were more-or-less, original humans. They had the Lemurs reduced Phasic abilities (1st Reformation), they also lacked the kindness that the Lemurs gave to themselves during the 2nd Reformation (what the leaked Lemur documents referred to as "Overproject Streetlights"). They were cold and calculating in the extreme, but were also limited in their capacity for change and growth. They were a force to be reckoned with in their own right, but their limitations made The Mad Lemurs feel sad for them - they had been crippled, but not re-built and they neither knew it, nor cared to learn about it.

"When the Mad Lemurs of Terra emerged after the 3rd reformation, it was only in ones and twos, spread across the entirety of the Galactic Arm Spur and most likely those who made contact with them didn't know that what they were seeing was exceptional. Lemurs after the 3rd Reformation were as if the 1st reformation had never occurred (their Phasic abilities were intact), but the 2nd had (and their compassion was eminently expanded), and it wasn't until The War in Heaven concluded and made public that the Confederacy found out why. It's because they had been dead when the 1st reformation happened and thusly not subject to it, and they had been within the SUDS when the 2nd reformation happened (and thus were within the purview of the Digital Omnimessiah, while Humanity was not). How they managed to re-emerge into the universe at large has never been fully explained, although many theories abound...

"....The remaining Mad Lemurs of Terra who survived the Atrekna Extinction Attack, after having witnessed the power of those who came from the 3rd Lemur Reformation, raced to embrace and become that stronger version of themselves; in deeply problematic numbers." -I'mnotDro'onk, Lanaktalan Political Psychologist after The 3rd Lemur Reformation.

"Ever seen a Terran? Yeah? A Terran soldier? Yeah? Seen them walking around, talking, laughing, right? Yeah? Seen one mopping the parking lot in the rain because he got in trouble? No? Oh, yeah, that happens. Do you know how I know you've never seen a Terran on the battlefield coming straight at you?

"Because you're alive. Because your hands don't shake when you reach for the bottle. Because you don't flinch at a door banging. But most of all, because you're still alive.

"You're probably thinking that because you've seen Terrans exercising or climbing a wall or doing an obstacle course or maybe even close quarter combat drills you know what it's going to be like? You do, huh? Oh, you've seen the videos and the footage and practiced in VR have you?

"I faced them, boy. With a rifle in my hands and wrapped in armor. Tanks at my back, artillery one comlink call away, close air support within minutes. The might of the Great Herd facing a hundredth of a percentage of its unending numbers. There were ten thousand of us for every single Terran that landed on the planet. We went toe to toe as the planet died. I faced off against a human, not against the Treana'ad, the Mantid, the Rigellians.

"I faced off, under a dying sky, in the burning wreckage of a city, against a single Terran in unpowered armor versus my entire platoon. We had managed to catch him, cut off and wounded and unarmed, in the ruins of a hab-block. Thirty of us, fully armed and armored, against a wounded unarmed Terran.

"Yeah. I see you looking at those cyber-prosthetics I'm sporting, boy.

"You better hope you do half as well as I did if you think you're going to fight the Mad Lemurs of Terra.

"My advice? Put down the gun and go home." - Kil'rmo'o, 14th Cybernetic Infantry, Warsteel Herd, 3C War.

On'trak slammed the bar against the crushed armor of the combat robot one more time, just for luck, and backed off, breathing heavy. His skin was scraped here and there, bruised in spots, and he had two thin cuts that leaked dark blood. He was sweating, breathing heavy, and a tingling feeling ran down his spine from the base of his skull.

"We're clear," the lemur said. "Take five."

Natraya stabbed the spawn one more time just to be sure and stood up slowly. She wobbled for a second then sat down, crossing her legs like the lemur had taught her. She closed her eyes, visualized her body, and ordered her blood to move from the core of her body to her injuries, to carry nutrients, sugars, and everything else she needed. She visualized her immune system as red hot wires running through her body and ordered the wires at her injuries to heat up.

The whole time she breathed slowly and steadily, overcoming her instinct to gasp.

On'trak followed suit. He looked at the lemur. "Can you describe the initial entry to biofeedback meditation."

"Huh, you need repetition, don't you?" the lemur said.

"Yes," On'trak said.

The lemur repeated it as it moved around the corpses, picking up weapons and examining them. On'trak watched as the lemur broke any weapons it didn't take over its knee or twisted it to shatter it. Twice it stomped on robots with a strange kick that directed its body's power straight down into the kick with enough force that battlesteel collapsed.

"Oxygen and sugars are the catalyst, the fuel for the burning fusion reactor in each cell," the lemur said, moving over to a Dweller and lifting it up by the shoulder of its armor. The head lolled bonelessly, the neck broken. "Your lungs intake the oxygen, infuse your blood with raw fuel used to power rockets. Your heart or hearts pump that oxygenated blood through your veins to your muscles and organs, combining with the sugars and carbs and other fuel, delivering it to the cells, where it's added together. The cell acts as a tiny reactor, creating power from the fuels, the power radiates out from each cell, linking them together, turning your entire body into a bioreactor powered engine of destruction."

Natraya knew that his description of how a body worked was wrong but she wasn't sure how. Still, she threw aside everything she had been taught, breathing deep and visualizing her body's cells full of white fire that spread out.

"Repair chemicals are in your blood already. Feel the building blocks flood into the injured areas, instruct your blood to reclaim the damaged cells and order the cells at the site of the injury to divide, replacing the damaged cells," the lemur was saying as it shook the dead Dweller. It pulled off the chest plate, dropping the dead body so it could grab the chest plate in both hands.

"Your mind is the master of your body. Your body is a meat machine crafted by evolution to be the apex predator on your planet of origin. A self-repairing meat machine piloted by the nastiest set of cognitive instructions your planet could create," he said. He flexed the plate and watched it. "Hmm, high tensile strength but low sheer strength," he flexed it again and it began to crack. "Low flex tolerance, not good for modern armor."

Natraya nodded slowly, visualizing the scrape on her cheek filled in by clotting fluids, visualizing the cells at the bottom of the scrape being recovered, the cells on either side of the cut dividing and joining. The cut burned coldly for a moment then began to feel warm.

"Command your marrow organs to produce more red blood cells, order your body to produce more plasma, push your blood pressure up a tiny notch in order to pack more clotting cells, more nutrient and gas exchange cells into your veins, push more plasma," the lemur said, twisting his hands.

The chest plate shattered.

"Warsteel threads," he mused, lifting up a few tangled black threads. "Hm, not Mark-One, looks more like half-refined warsteel," he made a humming noise. "It's grown, not forged. Means its not as tough as Mark One."

Natraya ignored his babbling to focus on the deep bruise on her thigh.

"Where did you learn this, human Carter?" On'trak asked. "It is strange and seemingly impossible yet my injuries are less painful and less restrictive now that I have followed your instructions."

"Combined Military Authority Man Amplification Training," the lemur said, picking up one of the rifles and examining. "Six point five two millimeter crystal shard. Longer than the Mantid ones but smaller diameter. No boring, no stabilization, looks like phasic projection. Huh, I can use that to my advantage."

"But... where?" On'trak asked.

"Various training facilities. A soldier able to heal himself with natural abilities he's unlocked is more battlefield capable than one who cannot," the lemur said. He lifted the rifle, pressed the stud to charge it, concentrated, and slapped the side of the rifle.

Sparks flew out and the rifle went dead as phasic energy erupted from the crystal power pack in a flashing cone.

"See, it's not only killing the enemy in a quick five second fight. You have to have battlefield endurance," the lemur was saying as he examined another rifle, pulling out the crystal ammunition and touching it to his tongue. "You have to be able to conserve your resources, including your body's onboard resources, replenish them rapidly, and have the endurance to keep on fighting."

The lemur grinned as slapped the rifle right in front of the trigger assembly and the whole thing fell apart in his hand.

"If you can reach the perfect state of unagi you can rawful-stomp anyone in your path," the lemur smiled. "Give me the chance to do a windup for my punch and I can punch a dent you could put your head in in six inches of warsteel," he smiled wider. "If I get one point one seconds and am in the unagi zone, I can strike the armor and blow apart the internal organs of the wearer."

On'trak shook his head. "That seems... improbable, yet I have seen you do it."

The lemur smiled. "I want you to repeat something to yourself. It's like what I was taught, but for your people. It'll increase your survival chances."

On'trak perked up. "I wish to repeat this thing."

The lemur leaned forward. "There's no such thing as 'only Tukna'rn'."

On'trak frowned. "I do not understand."

"Think of every time you were told you were only Tukna'rn, put down that way, mocked for weakness or whatever. How many times you were told 'only Tukna'rn.'"

On'trak nodded.

"Let that infuse you," the lemur said.

On'trak nodded.

"Now, repeat to yourself: There's no such thing as 'only Tukna'rn.'"

On'trak nodded. "I do not understand, but I will."

"Trust me, you'll understand when you need to," the lemur moved over to Natraya. "How's it going, sister?"

"My leg no longer hurts as bad as it did. I am healing rapidly because there is no such thing as only Puntimat," Natraya said.

The lemur nodded.

"Very good. You give me two weeks and I'll turn your two into high performance killing machines," the lemur smiled.

Shandaar turned to the Ancient One, who had revealed himself as Kandi'kayn.

**we cannot give him two weeks** she said.

**agreed** Kandi'kayn answered. **your plan may work**

**of course it will work** Shandaar said. **it uses primal instincts**

**WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY WON'T GO IN THERE! USE NEURAL WHIPS! PUSH THEM! ORDER THEM! I WANT THOSE THREE DEAD**

**it will undoubtably work better than the Chief Defense Officer's plans** Kandi'kayn mused.