Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers)

Na'atrek was born on one of the Inner Systems. From a factory world that produced everything from TriVid systems to tank parts to diapers to pesticide, Na'atrek had known that he had two choices in life. Either start working at the factory floor after six years of school, get good grades and get high enough in education to qualify as a manager, or become a citizen.

His father had died on the factory line. A high pressure chamber had thrown a bolt, it had shot through eight Ulvinstren on the line and almost turned them inside out. His mother had been informed that she had priority if she wanted her husband job and the rest of the living block had been informed that eight new positions had opened up.

His mother had died on the way to work. Struck by an executive's limo and killed instantly.

Na'atrek and his siblings were billed for the damage to the limo. They were already in debt and Na'atrek and his three siblings still had two years of schooling to do before they were adults. That meant time in the Corporate Creche, which they would be billed for once they began working. By the time school ended, they already each owed six year's pay to the Corporate Financial Agency. That meant no further schooling and they were expected to go to work in the factories.

Na'atrek was sent to an orbital refinery where he learned new meanings of Hell. His little sister was put in the pleasure dome and took her own life a year later. His brother, hatched at the same time, was killed when he fell from a catwalk (there were no railings) and into the metal grinder. Ha'atrek and his brother were billed for the idle time and the cleaning expense. His brother died a year later when the hab he was staying in suffered a spontaneous rupture, killing 243 of the 600 workers, the entire amount who were not on shift.

Na'atrek decided the only way he would get old enough to see his own eggs hatch was to try to become a citizen. During a recreation time he went into the offices and took the tests. It took three months, using up his entire recreation period each day, and his supervisors mocked him and wrote him up for poor Company Esprit, docking his pay.

At the end of it, the Citizen Office gave him two choices: Corporate Security or the Unified Military Forces.

He choice the military.

The choice between being dumped on a random planet and passing the military testing drove him. He knew he wouldn't be automatically selected as an officer like those from the Unified Civilized Species, he was classified as a neo-sapient species.

But he studied. And he studied hard. He took the tests, exercised in his free time to score higher, and did everything asked of him without a single complaint. Where the beings of the Unified Civilized Species would complain and refuse to do work or training, Na'atrek did everything asked of him without a complaint.

He watched his "civilized" classmates get testing scores that allowed them to be whatever they wanted, even officers. The rest of the neo-sapients were offered such things as the military equivalent of a janitor, a secretary, or a boot-licker.

The instructor checked his scores twice. He had something different.

Power Armor Pilot (Airmobile).

He took it.

His first day the shower stripped off his feathers. His beak was removed, an extremely short prosthetic grafted to allow him to breath correctly and keep his mouth and sinuses from being a mucus covered hole and he received a feeding port. His claws were removed. A dataport was sunk into the base of his skull.

Just like everyone else.

What followed was a year of what everyone else considered grueling training.

But Na'atrek had worked at the orbital yards for four years, in a vac-suit made up of more patches than original material, eating thin gruel, and living in habs without gravity. His species were flightless bird/lizard hybrids but the small part of his brain that remembered flying came alive during training.

The trainers watched him excel where most of the others failed out.

In the end, out of 1,400 beings, he was one of 120 who finished.

He found it ironic that his 'contract' was purchased, at great expense, by the same corporation who had charged him since robots turned his egg to make sure he was smoothly warmed. Even more amusing to Na'atrek, the company could not garnish his wages and the Unified Military Forces would pay the entire debt after two years of service, which had been swollen by the deaths of his siblings and the fact the company charged his the cost of training his replacement and the replacements first year wages.

Even more amusing was when the Executives rioted and the System Most High had sent in the Unified Military Forces he had purchased contracts for.

Na'atrek's squad mates cheered him on as he executed the Executive who had ran down his mother as she walked down the sidewalk, crossing three lanes of oncoming traffic to kill her as she walked with her arms full of groceries.

Na'atrek had spent nearly fifty years in the Unified Military Forces, his debt long paid, earning officer rank, being sent to schools, getting longevity therapy, and his contract price increasing. At twenty-years he was entitled to 10% of his contract fee, with his share rising by 0.5% every year, with bonuses for schools and rank. He knew beings who had come from places just like he did that earned 120% of their contract fee in bonuses.

He always turned down selecting his own duty station and took the 0.05% contract rate increase every five years. He piloted a single-man recon and air cavalry suit capable of MACH 3 in standard atmosphere at standard gravity and armed well enough he could destroy a building with ease. His enhanced strength meant he could tear open vehicles with his bare hands and a stomp from his armored foot could crush the engine of a limo.

Na'atrek thought himself and his men as hardened combat troops.

When the word went out that the Precursor Machines were advancing steadily toward the world he was stationed on to enforce the security of the factories, he was not worried. He and his men were the best Air Mobile unit in the entire Unified Military Fleet.

Then the Terrans arrived.

Na'atrek didn't think anything of them at first. They called themselves "V Corps (Old Metal)" and wore the markings of a blue pentagon cut into five separate triangles with a border. Their fleet carrier was 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) and their air units were 18th Air Wing (Atomic).

None of that impressed Na'atrek. He was 12th Air Mobile, a new corporate military force. Outfitted with the best armor, weapons, and ammunition the Unified Military Fleet could provide. His men were the toughest, with the most experience, and he drilled them ruthlessly, known as "Old Iron Feathers."

The Terrans had offered to conduct joint training operations. Na'atrek's supervisor turned them down. He could see no reason to expend military/corporate resources for practice. The Precursors had been stopped in many systems, they would be stopped here.

The Terrans dug in, creating interlocking fire bases, forward operating bases, logistics bases. The interlocked and trained with the various parts of V Corps (Old Metal), undergoing training constantly.

Na'atrek wasn't impressed by Terran tech. It seemed slow, clunky, and only seemed to fire lasers.

He wasn't impressed by the 'vaunted' Terran Confederate Armed Services.

In briefings he was told that the Precursors would follow standard, most logical attack patterns. Arrive at the jump boundary, sweep inward, forcing 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) to engage them at range in the outer system. Reports of the Precursor machines being able to jump inside the boundary were anti-Unified Civilized Council propaganda and was ignored as such. The Unified Naval Fleet (Corporate) would support 5th Fleet, stopping any "breakouts" toward the inner system. His troops, non-space capable, would be on the primary manufacturing world and support combat operations to protect corporate assets, of which the population was not part of.

The battle plan was transmitted to the TCAS.

The TCAS AI's rejected it.

Na'atrek had been in the offices of System Command, had watched the System High Most's face when the TCAS AI had put a laughing face emoji over the entire dataplan and kicked it back.

Na'atrek felt personally insulted that even when he put in his own battleplan for Air Mobile, it was rejected. No emoji, but still rejected. The AI refused to answer questions, just stated that the plan was incomplete and inadequate and the AI would not forward it to his biological superiors in Fleet Command. The System High Most had reminded the Terran Fleet Command that he was in charge, to which the AI simply put up its wallpaper.

The System High Most was still holding a focus group meeting when the alarms went off. Na'atrek was a professional, he excused himself, taking only an hour which was borderline rude, and headed for his command post. He donned his armor and rushed into the situation room to find red lights flashing and his men staring at the carefully crafted Corporate approved plan that had gone so wrong.

The Precursors had arrived.

The rumors has turned out to be fact.

A massive weight of metal slammed into the system. Twelve Goliaths at the outer planets, twenty at the mid-point of the system, fifteen in the Green Zone, and ten between the first planet and the star. As Na'atrek watched the system scanners reported that five Goliaths were heading for each world, with the moons each having one approach. The Goliaths were all shedding Jotuns, Devastators, Demolishers, Juggernauts, and other craft even as they approached.

Na'atrek ordered the Air Mobile base VI, the best Corporate money could buy, to run a predictive combat analysis. Hours passed and 12th Air Mobile waited patiently for the war-codes for their armor to be transmitted. As he watched, his men waiting, a Devastator landed only fifty miles away, crushing a city of 2.2 million under its bulk. The predictive combat analysis array double-checked with the overloaded System Defense VI, waited nearly 12 minutes, and finally had its plans approved. It loaded their attack profiles into the power armor of the Air Mobile unit and gave them the war-codes for the armor.

Na'atrek and his men launched only three minutes before an orbital missile strike managed to penetrate the ground defenses and destroy his base, his logistics, and his supporting units.

12th Air Mobile was on its own.

Their orders, from a System Defense VI that was processing data up to a two hours old, had them going against a Devastator that the predictive VI assured them did not have its anti-air (ground to air or air to air) or point defense systems running or interlocked yet.

They flew to 34,000 feet, their max ceiling, and Na'atrek looked down at the chaos below.

Massive Terran combat robots vomited nuclear fire from their jaws, fired particle beams from shoulder mounted cannons, and scores of heavy missiles from their chests, filling the air with high-tech death. Super-stadium sized tanks rushed toward the Devastator, and as Na'atrek watched nearly a half dozen exited the sea and began pouring fire into the the Devastator. Huge combat robots engaged Precursor machines and the hundreds of missiles the Precursor was firing at the Terrans and the city Na'atrek was supposed to protect was being cut down by a mathematically precise air defense system.

"What are you doing?" A sudden voice asked. "You are not interlocked."

"Who is this? This is the Most High of the 12th Air Mobile Combat Team. I demand you identify yourself," Na'atrek answered.

"You can call me Oracle-872, I was assigned to you to try to interlock you into the BatTacNet," The voice answered. "You're in the meat-grinder zone."

"Our battle computers have predicted this is the way to get closest to the machine. We shall strike at it and disable its guns," Na'atrek said, unable to keep the sneer from his voice.

"Yeah, you do that? You're gonna die. You're about to pass under a Djinn Class Precursor. That's an air superiority unit and you're blocking the shots from the Dinochrome Brigade. File a combat plan, please," The voice said.

"Under which authority?" Na'atrek snapped.

"Terran Confederate Armed Forces. We're responsible for the defense of this system and the planets," The voice, Oracle, said.

"WE are responsible for the defense," Na'atrek started.

"Look, buddy, no offense, but you're wearing search and rescue gear, not combat gear. If the thermal bloom from the Dinochrome Brigade's shots doesn't knock you out of the air, that Djinn will," Oracle snapped. "Drop to two hundred meters, get under their point defense scanners. I'll try to hook you into the BatTacNet," Oracle said.

Na'atrek almost choked on his outrage. His men had the best equipment money could buy and the Unified Military Forces could provide. "I will do no such thing."

"You are ordered to drop to two hundred meters and file a battle plan. Any deviation from these orders can result in friendly fire or unsupported enemy contact," Oracle's voice was stuffy. "Get those SAR suits out of there, you can't do anything but get in the way."

"I will do no such thing," Na'atrek answered.

"Then file a battle plan," Oracle answered. "You have about fifteen seconds before you get in range of the Djinn's guns."

"I will not. This is a Precursor trick. Disengage from my network," Na'atrek ordered.

"Your funeral," Oracle answered. "I loaded an evasion plan. Use it. Oracle, out."

Na'atrek ignored it, ordering his men to hold formation.

Who did the Terrans think they were? His battle plan had been formulated by the best predictive analysis VI that money could...

The world shattered. The Dinochrome Brigade held their fire, tried to provide point defense for the 12th Air Mobile Wing, held off their fire as long as they could.

Na'atrek's men lasted just over 11 seconds, mainly because constant training saved their life the first five seconds, Na'atrek forwarded Oracle's evasion plan, and some of them got to at least load the EMCOM and EW profiles.

The Djinn raked them out of the sky like a flock of birds.

Decades of experience allowed Na'atrek to land, his upper intakes blown away, missing a stabilizer wing, his point defense ripped away, and missing his right hand micromissile launcher. He got to his feet, took two steps forward, unlimbering his magnetic accelerator cannon, and brought up his sensors.

Everything was hash. The only thing that worked was optical and the smoke and haze cut that down to only a mile even with his armor's enhancement package.

A round bounced off the arm of an armored warborg that Na'atrek could barely see with a flash of sparks and an thunderous impact.

And blew open Na'atrek's armor, rupturing his abdominal wall, sending shrapnel from his armor into his torso, and throwing him nearly fifty meters.

He landed in a crater.

He laid there for a long moment, staring up at the sky. It looked like dueling beams of light. Air mobile suits, like his only chunkier and heavier feeling, roared by overhead, less than ten meters off the ground.

"Hey, you alive?" Oracle's voice sounded.

Na'atrek opened his com-link but could only groan. His diaphragm was ruptured and one of his lungs collapsed, not to mention ass his hollow bones in his chest were broken.

"OK, hang tite, I'm sending you and the twenty-three men that survived medical care. Your suits don't have the onboard systems to handle the kind of damage all of you took," Oracle said. "You know that your med-kit's drugs are more or less water, right? Your supplier ripped you off."

Na'atrek just groaned.

One of the massive combat robots stepped over him.

"OK, help's on the way, I had him drop some. Just stay put. Stay with me, champ. I'm putting Med-Com on the line. It's a VI, but he's good, all right?" Oracle said.

A new voice broke in. "Hello, Commander. I'm Nightengale-6021, a medical VI. Let me just access your armor's systems... and... there we go," The voice said.

Na'atrek watched as his face-shield, cracked and depowered, suddenly came back on. It displayed his armor's status, his vitals, and a scan of his body and his body suit.

"OK, you're going to need outside help," The voice said. "I've got someone coming to help you right now. You may start to feel dizzy, that's not from bloodloss, that's a bioweapon, two chemical weapons, and shock. Don't worry, your new friend has the counteragents to all that. I'm going to shift your armor into trauma position for your species."

Na'atrek just groaned as the armor suddenly stretched his arms out, put his legs in the optimal position, and locked the joints.

"There you go, stay with me, champ. OK, here comes your new friend. I'm going to stay on the line, but you'll be OK. I've got a medical retrieval unit heading your way," Nightengale said. It paused for a moment. "Man, going out there in SAR gear, that's fucking brave."

Na'atrek wanted to protest, but he was getting dizzy and feeling like he was burning up. His mouth felt dry and he kept seeing streaks of color.

When the little robot slipped over the lip of the crater, Na'atrek giggled even though he wanted to scream. It moved down the crater wall like it liquid, staying low, emitting no signals. He watched it move up and a face appear. It was feline, with long whiskers that were glowing faintly. As he watched it ejected a half-dozen tubes.

The air filled with chaff, micro-prism cloud, and EM pass-through nanites.

The small robot, four legged with a tail it stuck up into the air, moved up. He felt it brush his guts with its whiskers, then lick something inside him.

The pain went away.

It began kneading his intestines, pushing them back into the rupture, hacking up some kind of blue foam into the wound.

Na'atrek didn't feel like panicking. He liked the little robot. He'd always liked little robots, but this one he liked especially. He knew it wasn't hurting him as his intestines pushed back into the muscle. The blue foam soaked into his guts and he could suddenly breathe easier. It horked up more stuff, this stuff mottled brown and black, like the dirt of the crater he was in, and he felt it harden over his wound.

He trusted the little robot, liked it a lot. They were friends, after all, and friends took care of each other.

The little robot sprouted fur, short hairs, and moved under his unresponsive hand. He discovered that his hand was moving, petting the warm soft fur, and it began to make a subsonic rumble that made him feel better.

Every few minutes it would deploy more chaff and cloaking.

A large armored vehicle pulled up and two warborgs, with a red crescent on one side of the chest and a red cross on the other, jumped out. They grabbed him as the robot moved to his chest, and carried him into the vehicle, which was firing weapons through gunports.

They got him in and he could see some of his men, in cradles, in there, each with a furry little robot on their chest.

"We're over-full. This is the last of them, get us out here," One of the borgs yelled in the audible range.

Another one leaned over Na'atrek, hooking wires and tubes to his exposed flesh, using laser cutters to slice away his beautiful armor.

"Taking SAR gear out there, that took balls, buddy," The medborg said. "We'll get you back to MedCom, get you fixed up. You'll be back pulling SAR and saving lives by tomorrow."

Na'atrek fell asleep before he could answer.

When he woke up, less than eight hours later, his body fixed as if he'd never been injured, he found out that the Corporate Military Council had attempted to flee the system and the entire system was under the authority of the General of V Corps (Old Metal). The Unified Military Services were either dead or had attempted to flee and were under arrest.

Na'atrek didn't know whether to be ashamed or not.

Not for his men. Not for himself.

But for the actions of the Unified Military Services. Who had thrown men like the 12th Air Mobile Wing away as they'd tried to flee for their own lives.

He sat, with his men, in a dining facility, and listened as his men wondered.

Did it have to happen the way it did?

He knew the answer.

No.

--------------------------

The Unified Military Council determined that the failure of the Unified Military Armed Forces at the battle of Ludmira'ak-624 was the fault of the Terran Military Forces, who had only presented unreasonable system defense plans and refused to follow the orders of the System High Most.

Unified Military Council has determined that the Terran Military Forces Command is, at best, incompetent and have put forth the demand that all Terran Military Forces be put under local command rather than Joint or Autonomous Commands.

--------------------------

V CORPS (OLD METAL) REPORT

System under heavy attack. Over fifty (50) Goliaths and supporting ships attacking all planets and facilities. Local forces outmatched, outgunned. Will rearm, retrain, and return to combat what local forces we can. More integration with local forces is recommended to all (Old Metal) units. Civilian casualties are expected to be moderate to high despite best efforts. Suggest deployment of Nagasaki Class Drill Shelters for civilians in all sectors as Corporate shelters exist only on paper and tax forms.

We will hold the line.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------