Chapter 108: (Vuxten)

Brentili'ik found herself flung upwards so hard it took her breath away. Vertical light strips lit, she went by them, they went out, as she moved the three hundred feet to the surface. She screamed the whole way up, sure that she was going to smash into a bug or a steel plate or just the ground and be splattered. It was all she could do to not vomit as she suddenly slowed and came to a stop less than a meter from a spiralling hatch.

"Hi!" the word almost made her scream. She looked around wildly and saw a holographic face hanging in midair in front of her. "I'm EVI-2, I'm your Evacuation VI assistant for this anxious moment."

Brentili'ik just nodded.

A panel slid shut beneath her and she saw the edge was nearly two feet thick of black warsteel. She dropped a few inches onto it, putting her hand on the side of the tube and hyperventilating.

"Currently you are safe. The conditions on the surface, however, prevent me from raising your elevator. I wish to apologize for this inconvenience. Military units are currently enroute. The nearest one will be with you in minutes," the holographic face said, still smiling. "Please remain calm."

"Colonel Harvey, is Colonel Harvey," she managed to gasp out.

"I'm sorry, but Colonel Harvey is currently unavailable. Would you like to leave a message and he will get back to you as soon as possible?" the VI asked.

"Is he alive?" Brentili'ik gasped.

There was a slight hum and the holographic face blurred for a moment. "His datalink reports elevated heartbeat and blood pressure, as well as other data I am not at liberty to disclose. It is my opinion that he is alive and engaged in some type of physical activity."

"How many alive in the shelter or in escape pods?" Brentili'ik asked, finally getting her breathing under control.

"One hundred eighty-two datalinks are still broadcasting life signs. thirty-one are either reporting termination of life signs or vital signs in critical range," the VI said. "Should I file a situation report with command?"

"YES!" Brentili'ik said.

"I'm sorry. Command is unavailable. Is there any other assistance I can give you?" the VI said.

"My husband, Corporal Vuxten, Marine Corps, can you reach him?" Brentili'ik tried. She checked her wrist, just like Colonel Harvey had taught her.

"I'm sorry, it appears that at the current time the facility is locked out from outside communication. Please contact Director if this message appears in error," the VI stated.

Brentili'ik pressed the O2 check.

Six hours.

She took a deep breath. She had air, at least. She closed her eyes and ignored the VI, which was babbling about the internal temperature of the little capsule-like area she was now in. She started breathing deep and slow, like Harvey had taught her, tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth. She checked her water. It was at 100% and a single sip only dropped it to 99.97%. The survival pack on her hip was still sealed and the pistol on the belt was sitting there.

She was suddenly grateful that Colonel Harvey had made her practice shooting with it on the eVR range.

That reminded her of the last time she'd seen the human, being rushed by bugs.

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>PREDICTIVE COMBAT ANALYSIS WETWARE ONLINE

>DISABLE COMBAT LOCKOUT

>ALL BIOWARE TO 100%

>ENGAGE

Backfist to the side of the head, into the eyes, shattering chitin and the compound eye together. Step to the side, elbow into the thorax hard enough to shatter the chitin, rotate fist up.

Head pop off.

Spinning kick, step forward, hammerfist into the thorax. Half turn, elbow to the chitin over the lungs, half step, hip bump to throw off balance, heel of the hand under the chin.

Head pop off.

Colonel Harvey was poetry in the motion. For the first time since he'd transferred to this duty station he was at full 100%, every system unlocked, every lockout purged, everything running hard.

Bioware organs, adrenal pump, vat-grown epidermis that could shrug magack pistol slivers, bones as hard as warsteel, cyberware implants running at full speed.

Harvey knew what he wanted to do and the predictive combat software ran the options between one eyeblink and the next, even as he kicked the face in one an armored bug. He dodged under a bladearm, caving in the thorax with an elbow as he passed, putting two shots from his magack pistol into two different insects even as he moved. Lower leg kick to snap both forward legs off of a big insect that looked like an insectile lanaktallan, step through and under the falling bug, shooting two others through the eyes.

His punches hit hard enough to dent durachrome, chitin of these biowarfare insects didn't even slow his blows down as he moved across the room and into the hallway. He'd slagged the main computers out of security reasons, but the emergency systems were still up and running and his datalink was keeping the map up in the upper right of his vision.

Eight people were trapped by insects thirty meters away.

He flung a desk through the doorway, two of the insects shattering, the desk on its side. When he got into the hallway he put his hand on the tipped over desk and vaulted over, shattering the back of the worm that had barely been missed by the desk.

He flipped it up with one hand, spinning it, so it was stuck in the hallway, then kicked the middle to slam the desk against the doorframe, blocking it.

He missed this. The clarity of purpose, the singing stillness of the soul, the rightness of what he was doing.

Colonel Harvey, Delta Company, 75th Regiment shattered the chitin of the insects he ran into with feet, fists, elbows, and knees. One he hipchecked hard enough it burst against the wall.

The guts and fluids were caustic, singing his active camouflage, but he didn't feel any feeling of the acids eating into his biomechanical weapon's grade skin, so he wasn't much worried. He knew how insects were made, knew that the really dangerous caustic spittle fluids would be close to the top of the thorax, lungs below to act as bellows in insects this large.

One reared up in front of him, scrabbling its bladearms in mid-air as it tried to compute that the human was coming straight at it.

Harvey grabbed the bladearm at the joint where it met the upper 'arm' section, twisted it while shoving his thumb into the joint, popping the bladearm off.

He stuck it through the insect's head and moved on.

Fifteen meters.

Men had gotten to the armory. The initial shock of the bug's explosive entrance passing, training and experience locking into place. His link was pinging more and more of the non-combat civilian assets had reached their evac-lifts.

To the part of Harvey that wasn't engaged in full on combat against insectile horrors surveyed the map. It looked as if the initial death toll happened in the commissary/food court.

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Geneka had taken the job working for the humans because she had no where else to go. Her husband and one of her broodcarriers had been killed by Precursors and the only reason she was alive was a group of humans had pulled her, her injured broodcarrier, and her three surviving podlings out of a collapsed building.

For the last year she had been telling all the old stories she could remember that she had heard as a child. The forbidden ones that you weren't supposed to whisper to podlings in the quiet of the night. To repeat the soft quiet songs the broodcarriers still sand when they thought nobody could hear them to little podlings as they slept.

Songs about deep cool forests, about nesting among the ferns, about climbing trees, about dancing and singing and loving and caring.

The humans wanted her to sing them for them. Had wanted her broodcarrier to sing them. Her broodcarrier would only sing it she was there, it was dimness, and she could whisper the songs to the podlings the broodcarrier would hide in her tail.

She had been sitting with Hanti'ma'ir, her broodcarrier, petting it, when the wall across from her had exploded. It had knocked down the two humans interviewing her and slammed her against the wall. She'd lifted up her head, dizzy, blood dripping from her nose, when she saw the big bugs rush into the room. Before Geneka could even react Hanti'mai'r scooped up the three podlings that had come in with her that day.

Both humans jumped up, grabbing the chairs, and started swinging them. One looked back and kicked the table perfectly so it spun in mid-air at her, making Hanti'ma'ir scream in fear, and slammed down so they were protected by the legs of the table and the top facing the hole.

The sounds were horrible. Crunching, grunting, hissing, and splattering. The podlings kept trying to see but Hanti'ma'ir covered them with her fluffy tail.

Suddenly the table was snatched away, making Hanti'ma'ir screech again as the human kneed it in the center, folding it in half, and slammed it into the hole, following it up with the kick that jammed it hard.

"Old Man's popped the comp-core," One said, breathing heavy. Geneka noticed he had blood running down one cheek and one eye swollen shut.

"We need to get them to a lift," the other said. He held out his arm, the first human took it, lifted it, and slammed the heel of his hand against the front of the other's shoulder. There was a loud pop and the human let go of the other one's arm.

"I'll take point," the one how had done the hitting said.

Geneka couldn't understand why they had hit one another and just stared.

"We're going to get you to an evac lift. Both of you," the other one said, rubbing his shoulder with one hand. "Can you calm her down?"

Geneka nodded, turning and licking the broodcarrier around the eyes. It took a moment and the whole time there was screaming, crunching, the shriek of insects, and the roaring of enraged humans. The human came back, holding a silvery blanket.

"Wrap yourselves in this. It's ugly out there, but we're getting people out of here," the one that had rubbed his shoulder said.

Geneka just nodded, wrapping the blanket around them both. She urged them forward, sniffing at the air. She could smell that Telkans were fighting, in danger.

"sshh podling hush podling quiet podling safe podling" Hanti'ma'ir whispered softly. She wasn't shrieking loudly any longer, her ears flicking constantly, her eyes wide as she kept looking around.

Two humans burst through a door, the plasteel shattering.

Hanti'ma'ir made a barking noise that Geneka had never heard before. Both humans snapped a look at the broodcarrier, nodded, and caught up. Both had bladearms snapped away from insects in their hands.

The humans stopped and one put their hand on the wall. A black door opened, showing a tube that went up. Hanti'ma'ir saw the blood on one of the first human's face, stood all the way up, put her front paws on the human's face to hold it still, and licked the wound twice before letting go.

"Get in. It'll get you to the evac capsule. It's warsteel. We've got evac units on the way," one of the humans said.

"human come" Hanti'ma'ir whispered. "human come"

"Can't. We've gotta get others out," one of the humans said.

"podlings look humans podlings remember humans" Hanti'ma'ir said. She flicked her tail out of the way, so the podlings could look at the humans with wide eyes, then covered them again. 'broodmommy and podlings and momma run love humans'

The human nodded, motioning.

Geneka could hear gunfire as she hurried into the tube. Hanti'mai'r hurried after. One of the humans hit a switch and the door closed.

Gravity threw them up.

'WHEEEE PODLINGS WHEEEE'

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Another bug, this one the size of a refrigerator, slithered out of the hole blown in the wall. It raised up, unfolding four sets of bladearms as it turned on six legs to stare down the hallway with eight red compound eyes, its upper thorax covered with cilia and close set plates of chitin.

Two missiles the size of a human pinkie finger hit it dead center and blew it in half.

--target down-- 824 clicked.

--reloading slush nominal heat nominal-- 493 clicked.

--launcher reloaded-- 348 clicked.

Two of the green engineers pushed the rocket launcher, the size of a large remote controlled truck, down the hallway. A thin battle-screen wavered in front of it. Four others were behind them, two pushing a creation engine the size of a softball that was mounted on wheels with cooling fins off the side of it. The one of the left working at a holographic workstation, tapping rapidly as it worked. The other had a heavy weapon harness and a magack 2.2mm rapid-fire autogun that it scanned the hallway with.

Behind them a dozen Telkans moved down the hallway, wrapped in emergency blankets, shivering even as the greenies blew another crawler into pieces with a pair of missiles.

--victory through technology brothers--

--TECHNOLOGY--

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

Fights the Dreaded One had been working on psychological memes designed to help calm Telkan broodcarriers when she'd heard the explosion.

Worse, as she looked up from her terminal at the six humans and dozen Telkans in the office, she felt something she had never ever wanted to feel.

Her implosion wire pulsed twice and went dead. Ice cold down her thorax and abdomen.

She tapped two keys on her workstation and shoved herself back, sprinting toward the door. Humans were already moving, two shattering chairs and throwing lengths of durachrome to the others.

"Get behind us. We'll get you to the evac-lifts," one of the humans, Captain Montgomery told the Telkans.

"Stay low, we'll be behind you guys," another human, Teeleeekikik snapped, rolling his thick shoulders and making his neck vanish for a second.

Fights noted that every human in the room had bright green eyes. She could sense, could smell, could taste the scent of human war-chemicals flooding off of them.

The door opened at a touch. At the far end of the hall was the grav-lift.

Three humans and four Telkan were down, the shift change. One human had his remaining arm lifted up, firing his magack at the insects that poured out of a hole in the wall.

Fights screeched as primal impulses kicked in.

She rushed the insects, her bladearms slashing and striking. She had no fear.

She was a healer, she was a protector, and the humans at her back and at her sides, wading into the fray, were warriors like the warrior caste of old.

Every strike was deadly, instinct guiding her bladearms, her antenna able to sense the dim malevolent awareness inside the insects to tell her exactly where to strike.

Her uniform, which she normally kept immaculate, was quickly stained with ichor from the insectile creatures she moved through like a scythe through ripe grain. She stabbed repeatedly, twice grabbing them in her gripping hands and ripping their limbs off.

She was only two feet tall, but the insects that had a chance of standing against her were swept out of the way by the durachrome chair legs wielded by hairless primates that barked and howled with a bloodlust that matched her own.

Fights felt her soul sing as she stood over a wounded Telkan, slashing apart his attacker with three quick swipes of her bladearms, even as she pulled him off the floor and against her chest with her gripping hands.

"Get the wounded!" she trilled out. She could see the emergency medical kit on the wall only a little way away.

The humans picked up the Telkan wounded, tucking them under one arm, even as they fought.

Fights rejoiced inside as she moved forward with the humans, her bladearms stabbing. A human snatched the medikit clear off the wall in one snatching motion. She could see a deep gash in his arm, deep enough she could see the hair-thin wires buried in the muscle gleaming in the light.

The ultimate land dwelling tool using predatory primate, went through her mid as she followed them. The one missing an arm stood up, blood just dribbling from the stump of his arm, chunks of metal sticking out of his back. Another human groaned and sat up, coughing up a wad of clotted blood and spitting it on the floor.

Several of the Telkan screamed at the sight of what looked like the dead coming back to life.

FIghts had seen it before. The brain had ceased activity, their cyberware and bioware went into overdrive to fix critical injuries, then the SUDS would attempt to jumpstart the brain. It wasn't permanent, but a Walking Dead could carry the day.

The sight made Fights shiver, kicked at some primal impulse that made her want to scream and run away as she remembered what many Mantids secretly believed.

On the full moon after a human is killed another human will rise up from the pool of blood if it is not prayed over. Pray to the Omnimessiah that the war-scream had left the blood, echoed through her mind as a human female stood up, tilted her neck to each side to make the vertebrae pop, and pulled a piece of durasteel as big as one of Fights's bladearms out of her gut.

The warsteel lift opened up as a human slapped his hand against it.

"Get in, Fights. Take the medikit and the Telkan with you," the wounded human female said, her voice gurgling, one lung still full of blood that hadn't been reclaimed by her internal nanite emergency medical kit.

Fights wanted to protest, but a glance at the Telkans she had worked with for almost a year snapped her out of the blood lust.

Their eyes were wide, almost panicked.

They were afraid.

Not just of the bugs, but of the humans.

And of Fights.

The Telkan rushed in, gathering up close to Fights. One of the humans slapped the door control as Fights held tight to the Telkan she'd grabbed and the Telkan held tight to the medikit.

As gravity threw her upward she had to remember not to take a bite of the Telkan's head.

Three of the Telkan were badly hurt.

And Fights's oldest and most implacable and inevitable foe would soon crowd the elevator if she didn't get to work.

The Telkan and the doctor flew up in gravity's hand.

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Vuxten had never experienced anything like it in his life.

It wasn't just riding on the back of a huge Terran tank, it was riding on the back of the tank into combat with a Terran that seemed to know what the bugs and crawlers were going to do before they could even attempt it themselves. He saw the Terran, as big as warborg and Vuxten suspected having close to the same amount of warsteel cyberware, point at the treeline and yell to another tank, which opened up just as massive dragonflies with huge stingers took flight straight into the barrage of quadbarrel fire and two tanks fired main guns into the jungle, blowing huge holes that flickered and burned.

"Dom, Archer, I want napalm over the entire evac area for that base. Set it for three minute burn, when we get there I want the fires to be out so we can launch the evac pods," the big burly human yelled out. "Get me drones over the site, I need eyes up. Launch them until you can get them on station and keep them there. I wanna know if any eggs popped up early."

While he'd been speaking he'd pinged targets three times for Vuxten to engage with rockets and once for 417 to hit with a micromissile.

Vuxten half expected the massive tanks to go around to the north, where the jungle thinned out and General Tik-Tak kept it thinned out with napalm and fuel-air launches.

Instead the Terran tank commander ordered his tanks straight through the densest part, ordering his tanks into four staggered ranks of ten, overheating tanks falling back, as the big Terran not only used the guns of the tanks as a weapon but had his tanks crash through the jungle itself, the two lead staggered lines of tanks firing their guns straight into the jungle.

Vuxten was half-deaf even with the sound baffeling produces by his armor. He could see why the Terran, hanging half out of the hatch, kept yelling as the guns on his tanks kept filling the world with fire and thunder. Vuxten himself could barely hear his comlink.

A firing target appeared on Vuxten's HUD and he aimed and touched the firing stud at what was empty air. A bloated insect, barely able to fly on its stubby wings, popped up, intending on throwing itself against the battlescreen.

Vuxten's rifle fire hit it square in the face, blowing clear through the insect.

--take that-- 471 flashed icons, firing his 4-pack missile launcher at what looked like nothing.

The rocket hit a crab that had launched itself from a tree a split second before.

Vuxten's entire world devolved into nothing more than point and fire, his rocket and grenade launchers on his shoulders firing almost on their own. He just followed orders or approved fire plans that popped up.

The tank under him heaved and rocked as he kept firing, slapping a new amblok in twice when his ammo got down to 20%.

"POPPING EGGS! WATCH THE SKY, WAR HORSE!" Trucker bellowed out. "Vuxten, watch the six!"

The path behind the tanks was massive, a solid road of dirt and plant matter crushed into near concrete by the weight of the massive behemoths. Even then, the tanks kept firing back along their rear arcs, killing any insects that dared tried to enter that highway. The guns fired to either side, half of the time Vuxten didn't even see what they were shooting at.

The two massive super-tanks, the BOLO's, had dropped back, firing weapons into the jungle that caused massive mushroom clouds to rise up even as their weapons streaked across the entire sky.

The dawn had not even come, only the steely light of Telkan's false dawn, but the sky was lit by the hammer of the massive main battle tanks like the one Vuxten rode and the anvil of the two massive super-heavy tanks.

The two massive tanks braked, slewing around, and began to back up, firing back the way they'd came, their side and upper weapons raking the sky. The tanks like the ones Vuxten was on shredded up the charred moss and plants.

A shadow passed over and Vuxten looked up to see a scarred, battered, and beat up assault shuttle dropping out of the air.

"FIRST TELKAN, DISMOUNT AND COVER THOSE PEOPLE! BIG SISTER INCOMING!" Trucker yelled. There was a click. "Vuxten, get up here. Stand next to me. That's an order, Marine."

Vuxten swallowed, climbing up on top of the turret, putting one hand on the hatch to balance himself. He scanned, seeing the air mobile assault suits kneeling next to warsteel capsules that had cracked open at the touch of the armored humans. The assault shuttle landed, its ramps dropped, and gray air mobile suits with a red cross on one side and a red crescent on the other rushed down the ramps, deploying grav-stretchers.

Vuxten saw her and it took everything he had not to run down to her.

She had a pistol in one hand, two podlings holding tight to her, a broodcarrier wrapped around her legs with its tail covering her back.

He swayed and he felt Trucker grab his arm as relief so intense he almost fainted filled him.

"Stand there. Let your people see you. Let your people see your spouse," Trucker's voice over the comlink was intense. "Do your jobs. Do your duty."

Both Brentlili'ik and Vuxten nodded, each thinking his voice was only for them.

471 fired off micro-flares as nearly thirty of his fellow greenies raised their bloody bladearms in salute to him.

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3 ARMOR DIVISION (OLD METAL)

Rescue of surviving civilian and military personnel accomplished.

ETA to base is 12 (twelve) minutes.

--GENERAL TRUCKER

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