Chapter Ninety-Five (Cornelius)

The sky was still full of lines, red, green, blue, white, all of them frying biomass out of the air. The secondary biomass systems were landing, puffing out clouds of radar and LIDAR scattering spores that were rapidly adapting to the phased radar arrays. The air was still heavy with pollen-like structures that were landing across both entire planets of Telkan 1 and Telkan 2. The ocean hissed with incoming biomass, it made a crinkling sound as it landed on the ground, and whispered as it slid through vegetation.

Cornelius-2212 checked the icons for his CBRAN system, taking his anxiety down a point when it was all in the green. He hated CBRAN warfare. You couldn't really shoot it, half the time it was invisible, and a badly tuned femoral artery cybernetic blood cleanser had damn near lost him his leg on his first drop mission. Still, he knew to trust his armor, trust his wargear, and stop worrying.

"Stop," Genome Specialist Zira-4274 called out, suddenly flashing warning icons.

Cornelius stopped right in place, holding his balance without putting his left foot down.

"Hop back. That's not water," Zira said, moving forward and extending a probewand from her right wrist.

Cornelius hopped back awkwardly until he was behind Zika and put his foot down.

It looked like water to him. He squinted at it and realized that she was right, it didn't look right if you paid any attention.

He cursed himself again for being distracted.

Milo-8736 moved up next to Zira, opening up his chest-tray on his armor and joining her in examining the liquid.

Cornelius did a physical check of his magack, even though his smartlink said it was...

"Hey, can you check this?" Cornelius said, looking at the top of the external batty he held in his hand.

"Not now, Cornelius, this requires attention," Milo said.

"We've all seen your penis before, Cornelius. It is less amusing each time," Zira said primly.

"I'm serious. I have something strange here on my mackag aux-bat," Cornerlius said, looking closely. It was a brownish-red mold tracery between the two power studs.

Milo sighed, getting up and turning around to look. He half expected for Cornelius to be flashing some kind of purile immature meme of his own penis but instead saw the other Chimpy looking at the auxiliary battery for his weapon. Milo moved up, taking a close look.

As he watched there was a spark across the top of battery. The mold puffed as it spread across the top of the battery and down the sides toward Cornelius's hand.

"Great Googily Moogily!" Cornelius said, dropping the battery to the ground.

There was another pop and the mold explosively multiplied.

"That is quite... strange," Milo said, kneeling down.

Another pop from the battery and the amount of fungus increased enormously. The macroplast casing of the battery began to steam.

"Get your stuff. We are leaving," Cornelius snapped. He triggered his datalink. "Data-Scout 681 to base. Data-Scout 681 to base. Do you read, over?"

"Cobra Actual here, 681, go ahead, over," came back. The line was hissing, full of static.

"Sound immediate recall for all data-teams or any other unit carrying macroplast, over," Cornelius said. A puffball landed and exploded, microscopic spores filling the air.

Zira was protesting, but still putting away her scanners after pulling out the molycirc data-wafers.

"Can you repeat that, 681?" Command asked. Another puffball landed.

"Recall all data-scout and any teams using any macroplast gear, over," Cornelius snapped. "On my authority. Biohazard detected, level IV Delta. I repeat: Biohazard detected, level IV Delta. Transmitting video."

He stayed on the line, filming the fungus dissolving the macroplast. It was obvious now, the brownish red fungus eating deeply into the firm macroplast. When the ultra-dense lithium salt capacitor was breached the fungus died and went back, but before five seconds were over a yellowish edge appeared on the fungus, quickly spreading over the lithium salt. Cornelius recorded three puffballs landing and exploding into nearly invisible clouds of spores.

"Genome sequencing underway," Milo said, withdrawing a probe. "I saw the fungus switch to bacteria at the edges so we have data on that."

"Did you get all that, Cobra Actual, over?" Cornelius asked. Another puffball.

There was silence a moment

"DUGWAY DUGWAY DUGWAY!" sounded out over his datalink, his armor's comlink, and flashed on his own visor as well as across the back of his shoulders and across the front of his chest. He saw it do the same to Dr. Milo and Dr. Zira.

"We're leaving in sixty seconds. If you don't have it, you don't need it," Cornelius snapped. He checked his systems and reflexively looked for any Grodds to back him up.

None. They hadn't been needed. When he'd checked, the Grodds were working on their armor, getting ready for when the fighting was going to happen.

"Air mobile is the fastest way back," Zira said as a puffball landed.

"I'm not sure we should," Cornelius said. He had a hinky feeling, the same one he'd had right before his femoral implant bricked out on him.

"You're giving into fear. I thought Marine Scouts weren't so fussy," Milo said, turning around and facing an opening in the clearing.

Is it just me, or did those vines move? Cornelius wondered, staring at the gap in the foliage.

"Not yet," Cornelius repeated. "We should move to somewhere with a larger exit gap."

"Don't be afraid, Cornelius, we'll protect you," Milo snickered.

He hit his engines, the jet turbines howling even as the graviton systems spun up. Wings snapped up into place and he squatted slightly. Behind Cornelius Zira did the same thing.

Cornelius reached for Milo just as the scientist threw himself into the air, turbochargers screaming. He missed, his fingers grazing the calf-mounted wing. He kept moving, spinning, taking a step forward and grabbing Zira's arm.

"No," Cornelius snapped.

There was a loud coughing noise and Milo's jet system failed only three hundred feet up. He fell, but before he could fall much more than ten feet the vines writhed, catching him.

Zira gasped as Cornelius turned and looked at Milo. The vines were wrapping around his arms and legs, around his waist, around the wings, around the other primate's neck. Milo was kicking, trying to pull his arms free as more and more vines fell from the trees.

"It's co-opted local vegetation already," Zira gasped.

Her engines gave out with a cough.

Cornelius turned and looked. She had yellow fungus spilling out the back of her air intakes. He turned and looked at Milo, zooming in his vision. The other scientist had the same thing going on.

"Trigger your see-que-cee shields, Milo," Cornelius snapped. He could hear Milo screaming over the datalink. "Milo! Trigger your..."

The vines seemed to bulge to Cornelius's eyes and then they yanked, the doctor's limbs ripping free in a spray of blood, his head ripping from the body. Cornelius had the magnification already turned up and could see short, thick thorns gleaming on the inside of the vine's loops.

"It could not have adapted this quick. It's only been a few hours," Zira gasped, turning away from the sight of the parts of her colleague falling the ground. The torso fell and Cornelius moved quickly, holding his arms out. He caught the dead doctor's body, lowering it down.

That's the problem with you big brains, you don't listen to the Simp-Chimps like me, Cornelius thought darkly. He popped open the doctor's chest plate and removed the datablock, opening a thigh panel and slapping the block in place.

"We need to get moving before the plants decide we're next," Cornelius said, glancing up.

Yup, the vines were starting to get closer, hanging like they were drooping. That meant explosive growth. THe trees they were hanging on were beginning to look dried out some-how and Cornelius wondered if the vines were a parasite rapidly draining the host for nutrients to grow quicker.

"That can't have happened," Zira stated primly.

"Well, it did. Activate your CQC shields and lets get going," Cornelius said. "You can't fly anyway, your turbines are out."

Zira flashed icons for disgust, but her armor glimmered anyway, like tiny shards of quartz crystal were floating in midair around her.

"Let's go," Cornelius ordered. He triggered his com-link again. "Cobra, this is 681, do you read, over?"

"We read you, 681. We've got a blackout here on a suit. Can you confirm, over?" Base asked.

"Milo got strangled by vines. Looks like the incoming biomass is weaponizing local foliage and flora," Cornelius said. "Some kind of spores took out our flight turbines. We're going to have to walk, over."

"We might have a squad of graviton bike scouts in the area, over," Cobra answered.

"Keep tracking us. We're going to try to get out of here, out," Cornelius said. He checked his magack and noticed he was down 10% of the main battery charge.

Without saying a word he started jogging, back toward main base. It was eighty miles away, but he could run at a steady sixty miles an hour in his suit and sprint at nearly a hundred miles an hour. He checked the upper part of his HUD to make sure that Dr. Zira was following. She was, getting too close and dropping back before getting too close. It was obvious that she wasn't use to running.

This'll shave a few kilos off that lab-girl ass of hers, Cornelius thought to himself, trying to use a little black humor to cheer himself up. He was glad he was in scout armor, it had as little venting and open air seals as possible but also had joint systems like the heavier suits.

He wouldn't get pulled into pieces so easy.

A few times they passed forest animals, laying on the ground, on their sides, panting, their eyes open but bloodshot, their tongues hanging out.

"We should stop and investigate them," Zira said the first time. She sounded out of breath.

"No. We keep moving. Either they are turning into something dangerous or they are gestating something dangerous or both. I need to get the data you and Doctor Milo gathered back," Cornelius said.

His comlink had quit working ten minutes into the run and Dr. Zira had said it looked like it was partially melted, the macroplas soft and sticky.

They were almost clear when the creature burst out of the fronds, which were beginning to look decidedly unfriendly, catching Cornelius just under the armpit with an armored brow ridge that extended a full meter to either side of the head and was nearly a half meter thick. It lifted him up and threw him against the tree.

It tried to hold onto him with sticky gluey sap.

Cornelius brought up his magack and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The display was dead, his smartlink unable to find the weapon.

The bark of the tree ripped free from the trunk, staying on his back as the big creature, formerly a docile plant eater that nuzzled through the forest for tubers, roared at him, blowing ropey spittle everywhere.

Cornelius slapped his rifle on his back and drew his chainsword, thumbing the ignition key. The chainsword roared to life and Cornelius used the speaker to roar back.

The creature pawed twice and Dr. Zira panicked and gave into primitive instincts, jumping for a tree branch.

Roaring, the creature charged. Cornelius pivoted out of the way, unwilling to test his scout armor against what was possiblely four tons of muscle and bone. He raked the side of the creature with his chainsword, biting deep into flesh, fat, and muscle, blood spraying from the chainsword as the rotating collapsed density teeth ripped and tore.

The branch that Zira landed on suddenly snapped forward, throwing her off of it as the bark just slid away, sizzling with acid. She flew across and hit the opposing trunk head first, embedding her helmet into the truck, which collapsed slightly around her. She put her hands agianst the trunk and pushed, collapsing the hollow structure of the tree, more akin to balsa wood than the heavy oak it had resembled merely a few hours before. She struggled as sap started pouring over her.

The creature tried a kick and Cornelius ripped across the back of its leg.

With a roar the creature tried to turn around but was hampered by having one leg hamstrung. It charged, a jerky three legged gait and Cornelius stepped to the side then stepped forward, slamming the tip of the chainsword into the creature's side and triggering the saw blade to high speed.

Meat, gristle, and bone spewed out. The creature's charge just added to the severity of the wound as Cornelius ripped open the entire side of its belly, spilling intestines and organs out onto the forest floor.

It was still tough enough to take another ten steps before it collapsed.

Cornelius turned and looked up at Zira. She had quick straining and struggling in the thirty seconds he had been fighting. He was panting hard as he zoomed in. Her hands were stuck in lumps of sticky looking sap and looked fuzzy. The same with her head and shoulders.

It took two tries to hit her armor with a mag-cable. He had to put the cable over his shoulder and get his legs into it before he pulled her, and a good section of the trunk free.

She crashed to the ground and didn't move.

He moved over to her, looking at her. Her face shield was gone, the macroplast melted away. Her bare skull grinned at her, the cybernetics on her head gleaming in the sunshine.

Sighing he knelt down and popped open her chest plate, yanking out the molycirc databank and slapping it into his own armor.

He was just glad it was durasteel casings.

Without having to worry about Milo or Zira, Cornelius put on more speed. His instincts leading the way.

Jump over the water there, it didn't have algae, that meant it had something meaner. Avoid those tree branches, they looked under tension. Skirt around those bushes, the vines already had gleaming toothlike serrations on them. Avoid that, a bed of fungus or moss is never good. If it doesn't eat you it's hiding something that would.

Twice he went perfectly still. Kneeling down and curling slightly, even turning off his CQC shield.

Once a flock of birds, eyes red, feathers half molted away, beaks full of rough formed fangs and chewing teeth, flew by. Two rest on him, pulling back and forth on a thin bone, before taking flight. It took nearly five minutes before the flock moved on.

The second one it was almost the wrong plan. The giant tree spider, twice his size, breathing heavily through crude book-lungs on the top of its abdomen, moved by him. Stopping to pant for a moment in the clearing. After nearly ten minutes it began moving, heading deeper into the forest.

Cornelius thought about it while he was kneeling the second time.

Rumor Control says this is Lanaktallan biowarfare genejacks. That makes sense for why it adapted the local ecosystem so fast. It has the data already. Hell, the ecology could have dormant genes priming it for all of this since the last time it was done, he thought to himself.

The spider just breathed heavily.

They'd collapse the ecosystem, turn it against whatever species was being troublesome, then they've probably got some endgame where they let the ecosystem just fight it out and the race that is the winner is the newest neo-sapient, he reasoned out.

The spider didn't answer.

Hell, with the proper tweaks, you could get a new species to arise in only a few million years rather than just wait fifty or a hundred million years. Any ruins could be 'Precursor Artifacts' that they could seed with dead-end tech to keep later scientific era species busy, he thought.

The spider finally decided the conversation was boring and started moving.

He got clear of the forest, running across the grass. It crackled under his feet like chips of ice on pavement.

The base was up ahead. He put on speed then slowed down.

The spider.

It wasn't breathing heavy because it was out of breath.

It was breathing heavy because something else was gestating inside of it. It would head back to the nest most tree spiders lived in, even though they were only hand-sized, and infect the rest.

"Cornelius, Data-Scout Team 681, to command, do you read, over?" he asked. He was using datalink, and those could be finicky without a boiling mass of airborne spore stew.

"This is Cobra-Five-Ten, we read you, 681. Where's the rest of your scout team, over?" The link was staticy as he kept heading forward.

"Eaten by the plants. My armor might be compromised. If nothing I need decon, over," Cornelius said.

"Roger. Sending decon team grid now, over," Cobra answered.

Cornelius watched his HUD until the grid point pinged on his HUD. He jogged to it, seeing durachrome plates put up in a makeshift shelter. When he got inside fire washed over him for a second before UV clicked on.

Small creatures dropped off his back, curling up, squealing as their internal fluids boiled.

The airlock opened and it was a small area with a maintenance bay suit cradle. He stepped into it, raising his arms, and the cradle took off his suit as humans dressed in armored biohazard suits sprayed him with a disinfectant caustic so strong his fur crisped. The air they dried him with smelled of ammonia and blew off his damaged fur, leaving him as naked as a human infant.

Eye drops, ear drops, nasal drops, gum to chew, inhaler to take a hit off of, then the paper suit.

"You're going to have to go into quarentine. Your suit had micro-breaches," one of the techs told him.

Cornelius just nodded. He was glad to get out of that forest. In only a few hours it had gone from boring and benign to actively malevolent.

In isolation he developed a fever and a slight blood infection. The data he had brought back proved critical to war effort. The fever was strong when he was told and Cornelius wasn't quite sure what all da humies in the suits were saying.

But his femoral artery cybernetic blood filter did its job.

Fourteen days later, he left quarantine.

The Grodds nodded respectfully when he, a lowly Scout Simpy Chimp, passed by.

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

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I hereby do, officially and formally, withdraw my objection to the deployment of a biomass fleeet.

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

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I, officially and formally, withdraw my objection to a biomass fleet and genome cracker fleet.

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

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Yeah, we got no problem, on the record, to Biomass and Genome Cracker fleets being deployed.

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

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

We withdraw, free of threat or coercion, our protest and concerns as to a Biomass Fleet and a Genome Cracker Fleet being deployed to Warzone Alpha.

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

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We had no issue with it to begin with.

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

TELKAN GESTALT

I'm going to lose my homeworlds, aren't I?

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

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

You might have to stay at the neighbors for a bit, but don't worry, kid, we'll fix it up, even if we have to send in the Elven Queens.

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

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Hell, I've seen worse messes than this. Even if it's covered in goop, me and Bubble Bass can fix it.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

What did I tell you about calling me

COMBINE MILITARY AUTHORITY

warm podling safe podling one by one is one two by two is four three by three is nine rolly sphere stacky block funny pyramid icon for food icon for mommy icon for daddy sing podling learn podling smart podling brave podling warm and soft warm and soft this is our learning song

Bubble Bass, smart...

Did anyone else hear that?

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

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What in the name of the Unhatched Egg? The Combine's gone. They've been gone!

>MANTID FREE WORLDS runs back and forth waving her bladearms in panic

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

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Umm, maybe it's an ol

IMPERIUM OF RAGE MILITARY AUTHORITY

smart podling clever podling shhh podling safe podling right shoe left shoe red shoe blue shoe this is up and this is down yummy fruit yummy bread good for growing podlings smart podling clever podling brave podlling shhh little podling don't be afraid Terra's not gonna let you fade and when that battle ship comes by Terra might give you a little ride there are homes all through the sky all you have to do is try smart podling safe podling clever podling brave podling safe and warm safe and warm

d signal coming...

OK, that's it. Who's doing that?

The Imperium's been gone for 7,000 years!

>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS hides behind the CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Don't make me use this!

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

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS

This is impossible. Those channels have been dead for millenniums. It's not even on the same wavelength any more.

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

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Yeah? Well tell the broodcarriers that, smart guy.

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

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Something... something's not right. Their signal is slowly getting stronger.

What if, what if the broodcarriers aren't the one's who's broadcasting, but someone listening to them is?

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

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Like who, sis? The ghost of Warlords past?

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

TELKAN GESTALT

What about whatever made sis start screaming at everyone? What if its that? Whatever it was was on her channel for a couple of minutes.

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

MANTID FREE WORLDS

oooooh, I hope not.

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