Chapter Seventy-Six (Old Iron Feathers)

His name was Na'atrek, an Ulvinstren servitor species, a neo-sapient from the labor worlds of the Unified Outer Rim.

His men called him "Old Iron Feathers", one of the toughest Air Mobile officers in the entire Unified Military Forces. He demanded his men train to the absolute edge, kept their armor in the best condition, and worked harder than anyone else. Anyone who couldn't meet his rigorous standards was dropped from his Air Mobile unit and reassigned somewhere else.

He was a veteran of a dozen police actions on nearly two dozen worlds, a veteran of a hundred battles and a thousand firefights. He had suppressed rioters, insurgents, and military forces alike. Speed, accuracy, precision, those were his watchwords. He never spent lives when he could avoid it, not even enemy lives.

It hadn't mattered one iota when the Precursor Djinn had swept him from the sky like so much pollen, leaving him broken and dying in a crater on the surface, his armor destroyed, his body crushed, his spirit bent but not broken.

The Terrans had mistaken his unit for Search and Rescue, had mistaken his top of the light Air Mobile Assault suits for SAR suits. They had pulled him out of the hole in the ground, put him back together, and he had not argued when they outfitted him with a SAR suit and sent him out to rescue soldiers and civilians alike.

He had not argued because he was Old Iron Feathers, and he did not question why the universe was the way it was, he merely strove to do his part as best he could.

Old Iron Feathers was proud of his service during the month long battle. From rescuing civilian children trapped in a breached shelter to pulling wounded soldiers out of their vehicles to making sure civilians were out of the crush and roar of battle, he had thrown himself into his duty as if the entire universe depended on every life he saved.

His men, what few ones had survived the attack by the massive Djinn, had joined him, renaming the 12th Air Mobile Assault the 13th Evac SAR. They had thrown themselves into the fray alongside Na'atrek again and again. Humans had joined him, including what was called "Medical Fire Support" which either drove heavily armed and armored vehicles designed to transport wounded and defend them or piloted mechanized combat suits capable of deploying massive amounts of weaponry or pilots the robot combat power armor that had a second chamber inside the torso designed as a surgical lab.

Old Iron Feathers had fought the entire battle in his own way. He had reminded his men that their true duty lay in defending the people of the system, not the Kestimet Corporation's factories and mining facilities. Reminded them that every civilian pulled from wreckage was more important than any medal they might received for valiantly, and vainly, dying to protect a plas-steel manufacturing facility.

Now the battle for the system was over and Na'atrek was to represent his men to the Terran Confederate Military, embodied in the Terran named Admiral of the Line Harold Askenite.

Which is why he sat in the heavy armored dropship currently screaming up out of the atmosphere and to the massive Fleet Carrier orbiting the planet.

The Precursors had been smashed. Those that had not fled were nothing but tumbling scrap being gone over by the Terran engineers.

Old Iron Feathers was proud of his men, proud of their accomplishments. He looked around at his surviving men. Fifteen total including himself. Kalikakan had transferred to driving the big Medical Fire Support vehicle after his arms had been replaced by matte black cyber-arms due to having them torn off by a Precursor machine that the saurian had then kicked to death. Boolek had learned to pilot one of the heavy armor combat suits that most of the weapons had been replaced by SAR equipment, but it had still mounted some impressive weaponry.

It did not shame Na'atrek that the humans had more powerful weaponry. They were a martial species, a species that had clawed their way up to be the dominant life form in their region of the galactic spur, defending themselves and their allies with primate viciousness and pack animal loyalty.

He was proud to be counted among their numbers now. He understood them. He had fought beside them, pulled them from the wreckage of their combat machines, or dug a partially buried damaged warborg out of the wreckage of the Precursor machine it had defeated.

The armored dropship passed through the permeable force screen that allowed ships to enter the bay but kept the atmosphere from escaping, moved through computer control to the landing zone, and set down gently.

The door opened and Old Iron Feathers stood up, his men copying him, and they filed out according to rank and squad. Two squads of six, two squad leaders, and he himself. Two columns of men following him.

In the bay were humans waiting. Large, heavy, muscular. Two columns on either side of Na'atrek, making a living corridor for him to follow.

They all wore the same Adaptive Combat Dress uniform Na'atrek and his men wore.

The uniform of the Terran Confederate Armed Services.

They all wore the same symbol upon their shoulders.

Two serpents climbing a crook staff with lightning bolts on either side.

They were at the posture that Na'atrek had learned was called 'attention', a respectful posture involving heels together, hands at the sides, chin up, chest out, spine and legs straight.

At the far end was the human Admiral Askenite. A female Terran who in charge of the Navy Medical Corps ships and personnel. Na'atrek had seen her image before, had followed her orders without hesitation, and now could see her in the flesh.

When Na'atrek and his men reached her they stopped, all going to their best imitations of attention as they could.

Na'atrek saluted with his cybernetic right arm, the joint purring inside the matte black metal.

"13th Evac SAR, reporting, ma'am," Na'atrek snapped out. "Permission to board, ma'am?"

Over fifty years of serving in the military made the new rituals comfortable instead of alien.

"Permission granted, Captain," the Admiral said. "Welcome aboard the TCNV Guardian."

Na'atrek had looked up the Guardian's specs before they had boarded the dropship. A massive hospital and medical ship, built around a super-dreadnought hull, armed with hundreds of point defense weapons as well as missile pods, shielded by the strongest battle-screens the Terrans could produce. It had nearly two hundred surgical bays, enough room for a hundred thousand beings to recover, and every supporting facility that the Terrans could think of.

The sheer scale would have been mind-boggling before the battle. Now it was just another big ship.

"Thank you, Ma'am," Na'atrek said. "My men are honored to serve."

The Admiral nodded, then waved at the human next to her. "This is Commodore Astley, he'll show your men where they will be staying and teach them what to do coming up."

"Thank you," Na'atrek answered.

The human seemed pleased by his formality.

"Let's go to my office, time to brief you," The Admiral said.

With that, she turned and led him away as his men followed the Commodore.

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Na'atrek sat in the quarters he had been assigned. The Terrans considered his men and him part of their military now. He had been surprised until he learned that human lawyers had purchased all of their contracts, including the contracts of the dead members of his units, and had them reassigned.

The Kestimet Corporation had been too busy dealing with the massive drop in their stock as well as the loss of so much of their manufacturing and industrial platforms. Na'atrek assumed that the Corporation was probably glad for any income they could get.

The Tri-Vid was on and Na'atrek watched interestedly. There was a Lanaktallan on the screen, relaxing on a couch as he spoke to a human interviewer. Beneath the human was "Caventkala - Licensed and Bonded Journalist" and below the Lanaktallan was "Lo'omo'nan - Former Kestimet Senior Executive".

"I just want the record set straight, Human Caventkala," Lo'omo'nan was saying.

"That your nephew was not a criminal," the human said.

The Lanaktallan chortled and shook his head, a very human geusture that Na'atrek was sure he had been coached for. "Oh, my nephew Ullmo'ok was a criminal, without a doubt. He oversaw many unsavory businesses. That is not my protest."

"Explain for the viewers at home, if you would, Lo'omo'nan," the human said.

The Lanaktallan straightened slightly, his hands brushing at his sash, which only had a small holo-pic of a young male Lanaktallan rearing up and firing a pistol in each hand.

"My nephew cared little for the restrictions of our society. However, when he heard that the Precursors were coming, he built shelters for over a quarter-million beings, all Kestimet employees and their families, and defended those shelters to the death," Lo'omo'nan stated.

"Did he not detonate the facility's nuclear reactor?" The journalist asked.

Lo'omo'nan shook his head. "No. He called in an air-strike and General Trucker authorized and fired the atomic weapons."

The journalist turned slightly, so she was facing the camera and the Lanaktallan both. "We have, through the Freedom of Information Act acquired a recording of that radio call. Be warned, it is not for sensitive viewers."

The screen wavered, to show a young male Lanaktallan in the cockpit of a mech on one side and an overhead view on the other. The overview showed Precursor machines everywhere. Dead mechs, exploded Terran combat machines, and Precursors littered the field. Only one mech fought on, missing an arm, most of the weapons torn away, the cockpit covered by a crudely welded piece of armor.

"Trucker, come in, Trucker," the Lanaktallan gasped, identified as Ullmo'ok - Known Criminal.

The Lanaktallan repeated it four times. Na'atrek had learned enough to be able to tell that the young male Lanaktallan was paralyzed from his torso/abdominal flank joining down. Finally another voice added, this one identified as "General Trucker, 3rd Armor Division Commander."

The conversation was short and to the point.

Ullmo'ok requested that Trucker use atomics to scour the site.

Na'atrek watched the Tri-Vid as the mortally wounded Lanaktallan got his overheated mech to restart and kept fighting. The satellite showed it perfectly, in 64K resolution, as a Precursor machine grabbed Ullmo'ok's upper half and tore it free from his lower flanks. Ullmo'ok was still firing when the atomics went off and blew the facility from the face of the planet.

The scene faded, returning to the human journalist and the Lanaktallan.

"As you can see, my nephew, for all his faults, was a hero, fighting to keep the Precursors from gaining entry to the shelters. A hero that the humans had to use one of the great BOLO tanks to replace," the Lanaktallan said clearly.

"Well, we're glad to help set the record straight," the human journalist said.

The show went to commercial and Na'atrek turned it off, leaning back in the chair.

The entire Unified Systems are going to be thrown into chaos, he thought to himself, staring at the wall.

A medal, an iridium star with a gold heart in the middle, hung on the wall.

He had been awarded it by the Admiral herself, for leading his men during that long battle.

His men had also earned medals and his unit, 13th Armored Evac SAR had received a unit standard that he would have to approve of as well as a battle-standard honor.

Na'atrek sighed, closing his eyes.

The CFNV Guardian would be leaving the system soon. Heading to another system where a battle was already underway. It would be eleven transit days and fighting was furious.

Using his new datalink he began drawing up schedules.

Armor inspections. Vehicle inspections. Maintenance. Training. Doctrine examination. Interlink and BatTacNet planning.

Old Iron Feathers was content.

It was, after all, his profession.

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The human fleet, with the exception of a few ships in orbit around the planets, had left to go assist other Terrans with a battle in another system.

The Lanaktallan knew his job. He had received his orders via secure GalNet link.

Standard SOP would wait until all available resources had been extracted from the planet.

The humans, however, had somehow convinced the Unified Justice System that the planet, the solar system, should belong to them by right of defending it from the PreCursors.

The Kestimet Corporation had no intent of allowing the Terrans to take over the resource rich planets in the system.

The Lanaktallan using two keys to unlock the keyboard shield. He activated the keyboard and typed in the complex codes.

The signal went out, transmitted to a hyperpulse generator hidden in a comet orbiting the gas giant.

The hyperpulse, undetectable by any system the Lanaktallan's had ever discovered, sent the signal.

The Lanaktallan type in the last code.

The atomic charge ten feet below his hooves went off.

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In the darkness between solar systems something heard the hyperpulse and slowly began to awaken.

It was harvest time.