Chapter 103: (Vuxten)

Vuxten got his men arranged in a fire circle, all weapons pointing outward, two meters apart, with himself in the center as he raised one arm up and 417 boosted his radio. They'd recovered three of the four 'speed-balls', which were crates that had used the mag-system to land safely. He'd ordered the heavy weapons split up. The worst injury he had was Private Jolek had choked on the piece of gum he'd tabbed up right before he'd been fired out of the drop assault ship. The Private was OK, just embarrassed.

"Striker One Alpha to all Striker elements, LZ Tango secure," he pushed through the static.

"Striker One Alpha, this is Striker Actual," Lieutenant Rogers said. His voice came through clearly and Vuxten wondered what he was using to broadcast. "We're on our way, hold what you've got."

"Roger, sir," Vuxten answered.

--incoming goobois-- popped in over the radio. --four coming in--

--SIMBAS ARE HERE-- roared through the static. --THREE INCOMING--

"Incoming friendlies," Vuxten snapped. "Four goodbois, three simbas," he turned to Lance Corporal Doxik. "Get the biteyfish up. Take three men, recover the speedball."

"Roger," Doxik said. He pointed out three men, one with a flamethrower. "You three, with me, we're going to recover the fishbois."

Vuxten watched the head out as seven blue dots, representing friendly forces, rapidly converged on his position.

The goodbois were vat-grown canine brains in heavy duty combat chassis, the simbas were something known as a 'tiger' done in the same way. They came in smoothly, silently, weaving between the wrecked vehicles, the glowing spores swirling around them. Vuxten closed his eyes to see the overlay of how everyone was laid out. He put the four goodbois at the four points of the compass, a simba ten meters to the front and the other two ten meters to the left and right.

"Go to wargear, weapons free," he ordered.

He watched as the seven black warsteel framed deployed heavy weaponry. The goodbois switched to warboi icons and the simbas's toothy grins just got wider on their icons.

"Case is lodged, deploying fishbois," Doxik said.

"Roger," Vuxten said.

There was a steady thudding sound, coming closer, along with the sound of gears moving. Everyone crouched down, looking for where the noise was coming from. The simba and warbois kept scanning.

"Heavy metal incoming, Striker One Alpha," Lieutenant Rogers voice came, clear as if he was standing next to Vuxten.

The searchlights were first, shining in the intersection, then the robot came around the corner. Thirty feet tall, wide shouldered, the head fashioned to look like a black metal skull. Five more came after, spread out, with warborgs and Terran Marines spread out around them.

Little ovals swarmed around the platoon suddenly, winking lights along the sides. Vuxten felt the oval machine's gestalt reach out to him, bump him several times, then 'Fishboi Alpha' pinged on his HUD. He ordered them to spread out, watch the flanks, and the sixty small anti-grav buoyed cyborgs swarmed away silently into the darkness.

"We've got V Corps coming in hard. They'll be boosting our security for the shelters and running fire missions. They're splitting up between Telkan-1 and Telkan-2," Lieutenant Rogers said and Vuxten nodded, knowing his armor would transfer the signal. "We're getting 3rd Armor Division and elements of 1st Recon Division and 8th Infantry Division. We need to clear the craters."

"Sir, I'm not sure that's wise," Vuxten said. "Those 'islands' were fairly large and the last time I saw that the creature underneath it was almost fifty meters high."

"Admiral Howell has targeted the craters for an orbital strike each. We're just here to guide V Corps in," Rogers answered. He got within 50 meters and Vuxten saw the dreaded "LOCKOUT" appear on his armor's weapon systems.

"Energy or kinetic?" Vuxten asked, thinking about what he'd encountered.

"Energy. You use orbital kinetics you might as well use atomics," the Lieutenant answered.

"The Crawlers absorb energy, sir," Vuxten reported. "Islands that big, those fibrous mats can probably absorb a lot."

There was silence.

"Popping a commo drone," Lieutenant Rogers said. A streak launched into the sky. Vuxten watched the drone unfold, the memory-duraplas unfolding into a bird with a jet engine. It shot upwards, toward the clouds so that Lieutenant Rogers could get better signal.

A dragonfly covered in chitin with jaws full of teeth swooped out of the cloud and grabbed the drone in its mouth, crushing the drone as it swooped back up into the poison laden clouds.

One of Vuxten's men snickered and Vuxten snapped a meme of a human dressed as a bat slapping a younger Terran in the face to the snickerer who just snickered again. Vuxten rolled his eyes and painted the LT with a whisker laser.

"Sir, if you're more than a mile from any repeater base you're on your own," Vuxten said quietly. "Nobody can hear us, nobody can see us. Until we get near a repeater, we might as well not exist."

"That wasn't in my briefing," The Lieutenant said. "Anything else I should know?"

"The crawlies soak up lasers and particle beams and ion slugs, but they overload if you put enough power into them. When they open their mouths you go for the mouth. If they get a good shot their chitin spikes can penetrate warsteel. They adapted quickly and the Navy battle started a lot of mutations," Vuxten said. "Those pods there, there, and there," Vuxten tagged different colored plants that looked like onions or round balls with a pointed top. "Those are chaff, plasma flares, and microprism launchers. They'll go off if they detect a strong sensor pulse. Everyone's going to need to run off of passive systems with whisker lasers for commo."

Vuxten pointed out the barnacles on the buildings. "Those deploy what we call 'firebees' which come in fast and hit you, exploding. In the more heavily patrolled areas some of them are starting to use crude EFP's backed by plasma, so consider them able to pockmark warsteel."

"None of this was in my briefing," The Lieutenant said, his voice growling with frustration.

"Then whoever did your briefing was incompetent and stupid," Vuxten said. He knew it was rude, but they had just dropped him into a ruined city with people who had no idea what they were doing. "Sir, what exactly is our mission?"

"Establish an LZ for elements of V Corps to build a firebase and log-base in this critical location," The Lieutenant said.

"The middle of a ruined city. At night. Where seven atomics have gone off creating half mile lakes that have what we call a 'monster island' in them. Where it is overrun by crawlers," Vuxten said slowly. "Thirty miles from any Telkan settlement or shelter. Where no Telkan will willingly go."

He paused for a second.

"That critical location?" Vuxten asked.

"Well, when you put it that way," The Lieutenant said.

Vuxten's stress management system tossed him an image of a cartoon human dressed in a suit, repeated one on top on one the bottom with the logo "Could Military Intelligence be That Out of Touch?" on top with the bottom reading "No. It is REALITY that is wrong."

417 flashed icons of disgust.

The company had gathered up, the searchlights on the big robot combat armors sweeping over the dark street, the CorpSec building, and the parking lot.

"Turn off those blasted lights before I shoot them out," Lance Corporal Doxik snapped to the robot jocks. "You're waking up the crawlies."

Vuxten looked at the walls and saw that several plants had unfurled their leaves and petals, trying to orient on the light to maximize their absorption.

The big mechs turned off their lights.

Vuxten tagged the LT's big robot with a commo laser. "Sir, you need to call this off. If V Corps lands here they're going to be fighting their way out. This place is thick with moss, who knows how many nesting pools and pods there are, and it's been growing this whole time. This mission's a no-go."

"Can't. They're maneuvering for a burn-in. We've got two hours," The Lieutenant said.

"Then we need to set up the beacon outside the city," Vuxten argued.

"We lost the beacon when Peacock went down," The Lieutenant said. "They're going to be using terrain mapping, land in the big crater, establish a base."

"That's the dumbest plan I've heard in my life. Who came up with that horse shit?" Gunny Wentmark broke in. "Sir, who developed this action plan?"

"Military intelligence," The Lieutenant said.

"That can't be right. They've been down here with us, they know the situation on the ground. They have the data on all the crawly types," Wentmark stated.

"It came from Hyperion-One, the orbital station," The Lieutenant admitted. "General Altair himself helped develop it."

"So, the plan came from guys who have been in orbit the whole time, who can't even see the fragging planet, and stated that our scout reports have to be in error because they can't computer model anything biological damaging warsteel despite the fact that Mantid warrior caste could?" Wentmark sneered. "We're following their warplan?"

"Do we have any atomics?" Vuxten broke in.

"What? No," The Lieutenant said.

"If they land near those craters the crawlies will go berserk. Any water source we've found, they defend it with five to ten times the amount of forces that we've seen at other places," Vuxten said. "Using atomics on the craters would clear them."

"We have to destroy the ecology to save the ecology?" The Lieutenant mused.

"I think it's a bit late for that," Wentmark said. "Sir, you've got us on lockout. Your armor still thinks you're in the base or maintenance depot."

"In a minute, gunny," the LT said, his voice edged with something that Vuxten had never heard before.

"What's the hold up?" a new voice broke in. Lieutenant Shayshes, the warborg CO. "Our weapons are locked out."

"It appears that our planners who came up with the warplan neglected to take into account facts on the ground," Lieutenant Rogers said. "I'm trying to figure out an action plan."

"Well, someone needs to take charge, the veining on the moss is starting to expand. My warborgs have to move around to avoid having vein work spread under their feet," Shayshes growled.

"Longer you stay in one place the more they bring at you," a fourth voice, Lieutenant Marxin, CO of the Terran Marine platoon.

"We haven't been spotted yet as far as I can tell," Lieutenant Rogers said.

"Sir, look down," Gunny Wentmark said. "See that carpet of moss you're standing on? It's full of nerve fibers, veins, and sensory tendrils. Trust me, they not only know where we are but roughly how big we are as well as how many of us there are."

There was silence.

'spore count up' 417 added. '320% increase' the little green mantid flashed a picture of a Telkan being covered by snow in a blizzard.

"They've already started attacking us, sir," Vuxten added. "Spore count is up, heat dissipation is down. They'll start with some probing attacks soon."

"We've got the firepower," Lieutenant Rogers said. "We can push through the to the LZ."

"We don't have any firepower, Lieutenant, you've got our weapons locked out," Lieutenant Marxin added. "We need to go weapons free."

"Yeah, yeah. Hang on, let me see," the LT started mumbling, forgetting to go offline. "Um, standby mode. No, I don't want to restart. Where is weapon lockout?"

Lieutenant Shayshes brushed Vuxten with her whisker laser. "Oh. My. God. He's never been outside the wire. He has no idea that the entire crawl is one big mass."

"Corporal, we need to move out, we're seeing itty-bitties in the air," Lance Corporal Doxik said. "Turn your auto-filter down, use this profile. My 742 worked it up."

Vuxten's armor dinged with the datapacket receipt and 417 loaded it. It lowered visibility but showed just how high the pollen and spore count was and edited out only the spores and pollen. There were moths, bees, and little dragonfly like creatures moved through the air.

"We need to get moving, sir, right now," Vuxten snapped into the discussion about how to deploy the firepower. "We've stood in one place for too long and their scouts have found us," he tossed out the filter profile 742 had worked up.

"Shit," Wentmark snarled. "Sir, we need to move out. Lift the lockout."

"Give me a minute to think," LT Rogers snapped back. "Just a minute."

"We don't have a minute, sir," Wentmark told him.

"Stand fast, Marines," The LT said. "Just... wait a minute..."

"VEIN BOLT!" Came the warning. Vuxten's icon said it was Impton, his gunner from that FTL engine beacon run.

Vuxten turned, heading the warning, seeing the moss and fibrous mat bulge down the street, heading straight for them. One of the nodes was pumping nutrients into the system, forcing explosive growth in the nearby pods and buds, pushing nutrients through meter thick veins that were normally flat widths of fibrous material.

"Sir," Wentmark snapped.

"Move all bois to Telkan attached! All Telkan units! Weapons free, override!" Vuxten snapped, chanting out the code.

"At ease that, Vuxten, I'm trying to get it done!" Lieutenant Rogers yelled out.

The simbas and warbois roared, the fishbois clicked, and all of Vuxten's men's icons flashed to display that their weapons were hot. With a trickle of concern he noticed that half the warborgs had been redesignated as Telkan attached.

"Parking garage! Crawlers in the structure!" Vuxten snapped, immediately turning and pointing at the structure that so long ago he'd had to enter and exit the building through. "Cut the artery!"

The warborgs and the Terran Marines immediately spread out. Four of the heavy warborgs ran toward the parking garage, kneeling down as their shoulder mounted weaponry came online.

Two of the Telkan marines cut loose with 40mm grenades, blowing out the moss ahead of the swelling bioluminscent cabling of veins buried in the moss.

"Vuxten! Vuxten!" the LT roared out over the line. "Cease fire!"

The crawlers burst from the parking garage in a winged cloud, flatworms with massive jaws, wings every twenty feet, sliding out from where they'd been feeding on the armored limos. Smaller ones swarmed out of the top story and from the roof, ones as big as a truck started moving out of the lower parts of the garage.

"LET'S ROCK!" Shayshes bellowed out, the heavy 20mm minigun she was carrying opening up, smashing the crawlies. Her men joined her, cutting loose with weaponry that Vuxten's men would consider heavy weaponry, wielding it like a greenie handled his microrifle.

"Air units get up!" Lieutenant Rogers called that. A half dozen of the armored Terrans flexed their knees, crouching slightly, the shields over their fans retracting.

"No!" Wentmark snapped. "Your turbofans will blow out."

"Bolt disrupted," Fanit called out.

"More vein bolts incoming!" Private Lukel called out. "Two, six, eight, MANY MANY INCOMING!"

"Sir, we have to get moving! Disable the lockout!" Wentmark snapped.

"I'm trying," The LT snapped. "I'm thinking! Um, I can't disable the lockout. 18th MILINT on Hyperion-One has control of the lockouts."

"AND WE CAN'T TALK TO THEM!" Wentmark yelled.

The warborgs were pouring the cannon fire and mini-missiles into the parking structure, the front of the CorpSec building. The warboi FIDO frames were engaging any airborne enemies that slipped through, the simbas handling the little ones.

"INCOMING VEIN BOLTS!" another one of Vuxten's men called out. Vuxten whipped his head around. The glowing vein pattern was rocketing down three of the the four streets that made up the intersections on either side of the parking lot, with the traceries covering the entire parking lot and over the parking garage staring to glow.

"I'm trying, I'm trying! There's gotta be a way for me to disable the weapon lockout."

'robot armor didn't unlock during drop no brothers launched pilot only' 417 told Vuxten.

"Sir, a greenie can unlock your systems! You didn't disengage right from the dropship!" Vuxten snapped.

"POWER BLOOM!" some yelled.

'shit shit shit' 417 called out.

Around the Marine company the moss erupted in plants that had gone dormant, denied nutrients to be put into a quasi-hibernation. The spores thickened up as the ejectors spewed out their guts, fires burst into plasma enriched life as tailored spores erupted out of a plant's bulb before a bioplasma ejection cause them to explode.

The whole world seem to erupt into greenery.