Chapter 122: (Telkan)

The beetles didn't even rustle the leaves as they flowed down the clear area of the jungle, didn't even make the moss whisper as they moved like water on the slight bump in the floor of the vegetation. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of beetles each as large as a male Terran's hand. Armored carapaces, cruel and savage looking pinchers, stabby looking feet, the mandibles drooling acidic looking fluid as they flowed along the slight bulge in the mossy carpet.

It took long minutes for the final ones, a large group of a hundred or so, to go by after there was a gap for a few minutes.

The spores and pollen was thick in the air, some of the larger spores twinkling in red and green as they floated through the air. The air was hot, humid, and still. The plants were drooping and wilted looking, yellowish and waxy leaves, brittle looking stalks.

The thirty-one small black power armor troops stood up at a silent signal. The chrome larger figures moved only when the signal was given, and they kept moving through the jungle, walking only where the smaller figures leading the way walked. Each armored troop had one or two small green mantis creatures on their back, while four of the chrome ones had russet colored ones sitting in a complex cradle on the back.

Vuxten sighed as they started moving. Those beetles were new and he had the feeling they were biologically designed to go after armor seals. Breach the seal, get to the meat. Back of the knees, inside of the elbows were the weakest parts of the armor.

He still couldn't believe he'd been promoted to Second Lieutenant and put in charge of an entire platoon of Telkan troops, a platoon of Terran Confederate Marines.

471, his own green mantid engineer/partner, was wearing full environmental armor. Slight strenght power assist and jump capable rockets, but little else. It was mostly designed to keep the mantid from being exposed to spores or bacteria. The green mantid looked around carefully, letting the camera on the side of his tiny helmet pan over the foliage. He could sense the fluid veins, see the vegetation that would act as arterial pumps, hear the slight rustling of the vegetation shifting for better access to sunlight. 471 flashed icons for "be careful" and highlighted a thin layer of algae that was the same color as the moss. Fluid dynamics worked different than solid moss and 471 could see that the algae was covering liquid rather than dirt.

It also didn't move like water.

*hold here* Vuxten signaled with quick motion of his left hand. He knelt slightly so 471 could climb off his back. Vuxten pointed at the russet mantid and motioned.

The russet one, Joseph Lister Was Right, moved forward, reaching around to her abdomen pack and opening it up.

It only took a minute for the samples to be taken. The two mantids came back carefully, avoiding any slight ridges in the moss.

--acid pool nasty nasty-- 471 signaled once he plugged into Vuxten's coms.

The whole team had cut their broadcast links. Physical connection only.

*back up reroute* Vuxten signed.

The leader of the heavy chrome cyborgs, Captain Clynes, watched the Telkan troops move carefully. He'd been cybernetic infantry for nearly six hundred years and there was no way he was going to throw all the hard learned lessons out the window and get I/O-Port chafed because a Lieutenant with less than a year in service was the one leading the group.

The Lieutenant had been here since the first spore landed and Clynes knew he was the Johnny Come Lately, not the young Telkan Marine.

He noticed the way the lines kept moving together then spreading out. The lead would slow, allow the one following to touch, then pull away while that one slowed to allow the one following them to touch.

Curious, he shifted into the line to touch one of the Telkan Marines.

Immediately he got an -*-UPDATING-*- from his datalink through the induction link. He outranked 2LT Vuxten, so his system waited for him to approve. When he let it update it took a second or two.

Captain Clynes almost groaned out loud. The Vuxten kid had mentioned handing off data and Clynes hadn't known it meant literally. Targeting data used to highlight dangers, redoing marching orders, visual messages from the Telkan scouts who were all sweaty inside their armor, flashing iconography messages from the engineers.

Clynes added a "during handoff move to Marine who just finished handing off data" to the pack and slowly moved over to touch his XO, 1LT ROM, then slowly got back in line.

He wasn't mad, he reminded himself that Vuxten had probably been doing it for the last week he'd been patrolling and carrying out combat operations in the jungle so he had assumed that Clynes knew the routine. He'd talk with the kid later.

Vuxten didn't blink when the troop behind him, Corporal Mexter, touched him and data from the heavy assault cyborgs pinged his subconscious. He looked at real quick, keeping his good eye on the jungle. They were all running at 100%, with only 8% heat and 1% slush. He didn't like how they were positioned and tagged Captain Clynes to shift the formation as well as shifted his own. The heavy assault cyborgs needed slightly spread out to avoid getting more attention from the moss.

The taps moved down the line and the platoon shifted slightly. The heavy engineering cyborg at the back made sure it was all pulsed through the linkage cable he was extruding as he went. So far his heat had stayed low and the slush in the nanoforge wasn't bad.

Due to design the cable came out from a port slightly lower than where a tail would be, a source of endless amusement about the design.

The patrol moved foward, slowly, steadily.

Move with the jungle, not against it. Like you're a part of it. Don't fight it. If the trail feels like it should go all the around the loose clump of bushes, go around it, not through. The jungle doesn't fight with itself any more, Vuxten said, wishing he wasn't feeling like panting inside the armor. He already knew he was sweaty, the recirculated environmental not as humid as outside but still humid. He took a couple swallows off his internal water supply, tabbed a piece of gum, and updated the targeting data at a set of gossamer looking curtains hanging from some branches. He didn't like how clear the strands were, how there were what looked like hooks made of glass hidden in the major intersections.

It looked like it would drape on someone and suck all their fluids out.

Vuxten was thinking ahead, not just about what could threaten his men, all of whom were in environmentally sealed power armor, but what might threaten an unarmored being if the environmental shielding failed in one of the fire bases on the surface.

*precursor wrecks move carefully* Vuxten messaged back.

The wrecks were huge, the Precursor heavy vehicles the size of small houses. At least their size left enough room to easily keep a meter or two for any of the vines or plants hanging off the sides.

In several places orange and purple moss had eaten through the precursor armor like it had been wet cardboard smeared in nutripaste.

The team held still long enough for the mantids to get a sample of the moss and the spores.

They've done this before. Many times before, Vuxten thought to himself as he moved between two massive tanks. They'd been gutted by close range plasma blasts and now the interior was filled with slowly rippling and pulsing lumps of shiny glossy fungus pods that Vuxten just knew would rupture the second they were even touched.

*one mile to first lake move cautiously* Vuxten transmitted as he rerouted the team around a copse of trees that had no moss on the ground, the roots lifting up out of the dirt in places as far away as fifty feet. The branches trembled slightly as if there was a breeze and Vuxten annotated what looked like knots in the branches every foot or two.

He knew from experience that when the branch swung the knot would hit, causing pressure, which would cause the knot to contract pushing two types of sap togther, which would boil the water at the base of a nasty looking folded protein spike, causing it to slam outward.

He'd seen that seed-spike gouge warsteel before it shattered and threw sticky seeds everywhere that were coated in sticky caustic sap.

Vuxten knew they were slowing down but he couldn't risk it. There were a lot of new plants, lots of new growth, a lot of it looking like it had grown up in the rotting remains of previous plants.

In only a day or two the jungle broke down any 'failure' as if it had been rotting quietly for years.

Through his HUD he saw one of his men, who was walking next to the cyborg with the cable extruding, suddenly give the halt signal. Vuxten repeated it and watched as the entire group went instantly still.

There was motions to form a chain up to Vuxten and it took a minute or two for the patrol to line up properly. As soon as Vuxten connected to the contact chain his visor went dim and Trucker's face appeared.

"Vuxten here," the Telkan said.

"Vuxten, this is Trucker. Tik-Tac's engineering boys came up with a new 40mm grenade launcher deployed drone that can punch commo through the spores. It's a narrow SHF wavelength. I'm sending the template now. If you get in trouble, punch that drone up and we'll come in guns blazing. You've got heavy metal backup so don't forget it, over," the big human said.

"Roger, sir. Over," Vuxten answered.

"Trucker, out." the channel cleared.

"Vuxten, this is Clyben," the cyborg Captain said.

"Vuxten here, go ahead," Vuxten said.

"Listen, we're getting some static across our psychic shielding. Your boys reading it?" Clyben asked.

Vuxten did a quick check. Normally everyone pretty much ignored the psychic shields since there was often static near Precursor vehicles.

Everyone had been showing a steady uptick in the static.

"Roger, sir. We're showing a noticeable increase but it's below Precursor assault levels so it wasn't alerting us. I'm changing the threshholds now," Vuxten said.

"Make sure your men are ready for a psychic assault, Vuxten. Clyben, out," the Captain said.

Vuxten passed it along, making sure that everyone got the updated template for the drone then changing the psychic shield tolerances and threshholds.

It took nearly ten minutes, but Vuxten refused to rush it.

--pollen count rising-- 471 warned Vuxten.

Vuxten signalled and the scout team moved out, heading for the lakes. It was only a mile in a straight line but they had to move nearly two miles to around the suspicious copse of trees as well as a completely open area with flat looking moss, as smooth and level as a mirror.

Nothing in nature was perfectly smooth outside of biological, Vuxten had learned this.

Finally they could see the edge of the lake. There were rock clusters, all conquered by fungus and moss, to mark the edge. The algae slowly rippled as the water beneath it moved slowly.

Vuxten was proud of his men for not saying anything across the commo channels.

471 transmitted icons of shock.

The creature was massive. Huge overlapping plates, blackish gray in color like Precursor armor with wide spikes acting almost like teeth on the forward side of the plates. It had a dozen eyes across the front each eye wider than Vuxten was tall. It was easily a thousand feet long and at least two hundred feet of it was above the water of the lake. It was easily three hundred feet wide.

It was the largest, in the middle of the lake, surrounded by a half-dozen in various states of growth.

Massive nutrient 'pipes' extended from the jungle and into the water.

*back we'll circle around* Vuxten signalled, updating the map. There was a half mile to a mile thin strip of land between the lakes to the large section in between.

It had been an Overseer resort area before the Precursors had arrived.

There was a series of thick 'pipes' side by side, eleven total, moving to the section of land between the lakes. There were plants, the types that threw out plasma or focused lasers, on either side of the section of pipes, but in between some of the pipes, as well as on top of the vein covered pipes, there was only a thin layer of patchy moss.

Moving between the lakes was nerve wracking. The giant bugs were in each lake, surrounded by heavy algae blooms, their eyes dark but the slight shifting of the insects hinting at far larger sections beneath the lake as well as showing signs of life.

Trucker looked at the images, which slowly became a 3D wireframe as well as a 3D image of the bugs. He closed his eyes and examined it in his head.

The way the plates moved would cover back up any major impacts. He could see 'teeth' under the forward edge of the plates that would undoubtedly shift to cover an major impacts. The shell sections were thick, easily ten to twenty meters. He knew that it would contain small air pockets to allow the section of shell impacted to crumple rather than allow kinetic shock to push through.

He was willing to be that the 'horns' on the leading edge of the plates were capable of generating the equivalent of a battle-screens. Multiple projectors meant it was harder to drop the battle-screens with one good hit. He knew it had hundreds, thousands of strong legs underneath and probably a large mouth full of grinding plates that could shred apart Precursor armor as easily as vegetation.

Those were the jungle's answer to his tanks and maybe even the BOLO tanks.

The big problem was that he couldn't use the heavier weapons. The goal was to save something for the Elven Queens to work with, not leave them a blasted irradiated hellscape that would take centuries to fix.

But looking at the massive insects, which reminded him of Terran 'pill bugs', he knew that might not be an option any more. They were big enough to easily crush the walls of the fire bases.

And each lake held between a dozen and twenty of them. Five lakes total, for a total of eighty-three.

And if they had to use hellbore rounds or nuclear penetrators, the ecology of the planet would be forever altered unless the Elven Queens were brought in.

I'll have to destroy the planet to save the planet, he grumbled to himself.

Ekret looked at the feed, examining the insects, watching as annotations appeared from Trucker, estimating armor thickness, battle-screen projection ratings, possible speeds. Ekret knew that Trucker was right. It wouldn't need to spit plasma or acid, just its size alone was a weapon.

Any of his tanks hit by that massive creature would be shattered and crushed beneath it.

BOLO Descartes looked at the data and engaged hyper-heuristic mode with his commander, looking at the images of the insect and the estimations by Trucker as to the threat.

Descartes was sure it wouldn't stand a chance against his guns, but the sheer mass of it, if it hit, would be devastating. BOLOs had been damaged, even destroyed, by ramming attacks before. Everyone knew the story of LNC, how he would have destroyed his Brigade-mate with a ramming attack.

Descartes estimated, even without battle-screens, that it would take 4-8 shots with his main gun to penetrate the forward armor of the massive insects. That would be twenty to forty seconds. Depending on how fast it was moving, how close he detected it, he could stop two to three before a fourth hit him.

Descartes commander, Major Blaine, noted there was eighty-three of the massive bugs just in those lakes, and only twelve BOLOs on the planet, eight of them attached to Trucker's forces. That meant roughly ten bugs per BOLO, bugs that would be moving under the cover of chaff and other biological shielding. It would require plain line of the sight, which was less than a mile.

Deploy seismic sensors, that will be our best sensor system with everything in the air, Blaine/Descartes ordered the other BOLOs.

60mm mortar tubes deployed and began firing, creating a web of seismic sensors around every BOLO on the planet.

"I want the same around every fire base, logistics base, and forward observation post," Tic-Tak ordered, staring at the screen.

The bug was a monster. He'd already run the weight estimations, then compared the tensile strength of his walls to the massive insect. If it could survive a head-first crash into the wall as well as reach the speed of sixty-miles an hour, they would breach the walls.

He stared at it, trying to figure out if there was anything to do besides seismic sensors.

Tic-Tak silently brought up the ammunition stocks for the artillery units. He started adding bunker-busters and deep penetrator rounds for the artillery units. Normally used on hardened enemy positions like command centers and ammunition bunkers, they could penetrate up to ten meters of warsteel before detonating. He ordered napalm cannisters for his air assault units. Perhaps the it wouldn't bother them, but it might keep any pollen or spore tricks for assisting them.

It was the best he could offer.

In orbit Smokey-No looked at the big bugs and slowly got out a cigarette.

If they can grow something that big to offset the tanks, they're growing something to reach out and touch my ships, and they're growing something that could threaten a Jotun or Devestator or Balor, he thought to himself as he lit the Terran tabac-stick. The planet is 60% ocean, with depths up to 1,000 meters. That's a lot of area to grow weapons.

He brought up the templates for water planets and wet-navy warfare.

They needed intelligence, and soon.

Back at the lakes Vuxten sighed as they moved off of the strip. Ahead of them was a layer of plants ringing something they were hiding. As he watched the trees swelled slightly then deflated as they plumed spores into the air, thickening the soup around the trees.

You're hiding something important, Vuxten thought to himself.

There were gaps between the trees. Small ones.

Small enough for a Telkan to slip through. Too small for the big cyborg infantry, but...

He signaled for the troops to move up.

A quick conference decided it. They'd move up to the hundred meters from the trees, then Vuxten would lead a handful of Telkan Marine Scouts through the trees. The cyborgs would be ready to back them up.

It was agreed. If everything came apart, then they'd run, as a group, in formation, not pausing to engage the enemy, just keep moving. If they got bogged down, they'd get overrun quickly.

Vuxten sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and recited his calming mantras before opening his eyes.

He'd take half of first squad with him.

The Telkan Marines moved forward in jumps. Oddly spaced jumps, designed to not overlap with a ten meter circle, bringing them all down in the same place after between five and eight jumps.

471 cocked his micro-rifle as the Telkans slipped through the trees, avoiding the trunks, the wads of moss, the upthrust roots, and the low hanging branches.

**WARNING! PSYCHIC PRESSURE EXCEEDING THRESHHOLD! ENGAGING PSYCHIC SHIELDING! WARNING!** flowed across the top of Vuxten's visor. He motioned for everyone to stay still, give the psychic shielding a moment to spin up and synch with everyone.

Inside the circle of trees was a mile diameter area. It was full of what looked like durasteel armor clams surrounded by rippled plate-like growths that stuck up out of the ground from an angle. There were huge tubular outgrowths with fringe, some bulged and squat others tall with the fringe curled tight to the opening.

A neural array, Vuxten thought. There's eighty of them, four major arteries coming in to feed them, and almost five hundred of those weird plants.

*back* Vuxten signaled.

471 slowly brought up the power to the creation engine and two nano-forges in Vuxten's armor, waking them up and bringing them to 5% heat they needed for the fastest replication. He loaded up the templates for armor defeating rockets even as his own micro-missile launcher warheads reconfigured.

The team slowly moved back out, following their trail in.

Vuxten could feel the sweat moving down his back as they skirted the trees.

He was almost out when he noticed it.

The leaves were unfurling. Slowly, almost sneakily, as if he wouldn't see it. From the upper sections and slowly moving down the trunks. Vines were slowly lowering into place.

Vuxten loaded his 40mm launcher with a drone and loaded all the data he had so far into the drone.

Almost out...

He skirted two trees and ducked under a branch.

...almost out...

He skirted another trunk. He could see there was only two more 'rings' of trees to go.

...almost out...

Past the next tree. He glanced at the psychic shielding. It was picking up more static coming from behind him.

They were past the trees, jumping into the same places they had jumped in.

The second jump every trooper his the ground with a crunch.

Beetles swarmed out from beneath their feet as green mist poured out from under their boots.

Glowing green nutrient flowed from the pipes, filling an intricate tracery of smaller and smaller and smaller veins and capillaries.

Vuxten glanced at the nearby lake.

The big bug's eyes were no longer black.

They were red.

The water was churning around them as they slowly began to shift.

"WEAPONS FREE!" Vuxten yelled. "FALL BACK!"

He fired the drone.

Trucker cursed.

"LET'S GO, PILE DRIVERS!" Trucker yelled out, grabbing the coaxil with both hands. He raked a line of bluish fungal pods, watching as they puffed out spores. After a second there was a spark and the entire line turned into a fuel-air explosion.

Cry Little Sister didn't even shudder as the driver drove it straight through the explosion, the battle-screens draining away the energy.

The BOLOs fired fuel air munitions across the previously agreed pattern.

The Telkan Marines and the Terran Cyborg Infantry took off running, staying together and in the pre-agreed formation, heading due south, toward Ekret.

Ekret tensed, then forced himself to relax.

It wasn't time for him to do anything but wait.

The jungle exploded into fury everywhere but the area between Ekret and the oncoming Scout Marines as Trucker and the BOLOs hit the jungle like a ton of bricks.

Vuxten looked behind him as he ran as fast as he could.

The giant bugs were turning away from him, all of them turning and looking toward where he knew Trucker would be hammering into the jungle.

According to plan, but Vuxten knew how plans and the enemy went.