Chapter 123: (Telkan)

The whole jungle came alive with a roar, plants and insects waking up, fed a massive jolt of nutrients and chemicals to encourage growth, repair, and agressiveness. Trees shifted, some slightly some overtly, fungal blooms exploded out of the moss from underneath small lumps, bamboo-like trees and honesuckle-esque vines and neo-blackberry whips exploded outward.

Vuxten knew that they wouldn't be able to fight their way through it, the landscape was shifting too fast to be able to easily navigate.

"471, prep another drone, program it to stay above us, program a second one to hover in between General Ekret and us, and a third to get in between General Trucker and us. Second and third at near-max elevation," Vuxten snapped out.

--roger roger building-- 471 popped back.

Vuxten looked around, still keeping up the best pace, but it was hardly better than a jog. Too many plants were growing too fast, the paths changing before half of the scout patrol could move through, meaning he'd already had to move two of the Corporals and shift them to lead the other thirds.

There has to be a way. Know the enemy and you can, Vuxten thought to himself. He looked over to the side and saw it.

There was a layer of plants that were already spitting plasma and lasers at anyone who got too close, meaning everyone was starting to shift away from them.

But it was the middle. In between the two rows was the thick pipes of nutrient pumping the slurry in from the cliffs.

"First Telkan, Mount the pipes! Marines, break between the trees and pipes!" Vuxten yelled out, turning and jumping, a high arc, over the plants and landing on the thick heavy tube. It flexed slightly but held as Vuxten started running. "471, give me a tensile strength rating. How much spacing do we need?"

--computing-- 471 said. --first drone ready, next fabricating--

"Ten meter spacing till I know the tensile," Vuxten snapped.

Captain Clynes smashed aside a large tree before it could squirt acid across anyone, ducking under a wad of sap and moving next to the outside pipe.

--cyborgs five meters apart, telkan three meters, internal pressure is 120 psi, two meters thickness-- 471 said. --firing drone--

His shoulder mounted 40mm tube thudded and he heard it reload.

"Marines, ten meters apart, Telkan, five meters apart," Vuxten snapped. "All units, stop firing."

The pipe doesn't have moss on it, so no 'nerves', pressure is enough to make it so that we won't register any overpressure, Vuxten thought.

"They won't be able to tell where we are. No sensors on the pipes," Vuxten said, slowing down slightly.

Clynes jumped, landing smoothly, and began jogging after the Telkan in front of him. He knew there was one behind him by his internal IFF system.

--launching-- 471 said.

"Patch Captain Clynes into the first drone, laser commo only, we need to see around us," Vuxten said.

Clynes was startled when the drone pinged him. He opened a channel and saw the entire area around the recon team for at least a mile.

"Make sure the drone will highlight any vein strikes or power blooms," Vuxten told 471.

--roger roger launching drone two-- 471 answered.

"Try to tie in General Ekret. Have three contact General Trucker," Vuxten said.

--was going to try to download mantid pornography fap fap fap-- 471 shot back.

"Sorry, stressed," Vuxten chuckled.

--yummy gummy-- 471 answered.

"I'll probably choke on it," Vuxten said, jumping over a thick cable as thick as a human's leg.

--not dick you be fine-- 471 laughed. --launching three--

Vuxten chuckled, still moving, still jumping, dodging a low flying insect and batting it off to the side with one armored hand hard enough to stun it and send it flying but not enough to kill it.

Kill a bug it releases a death scent, Vuxten thought.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed across his screen.

Vuxten gritted his teeth and kept running. He knew the atomics meant that Trucker was engaging.

"TARGET, THIRTY-EIGHT MIKES MARK!" Trucker called out. "FIRE!"

"SHOT OUT!" his gunner yelled over the com-link, knowing that Trucker would be half deaf and 'in the zone' and probably knew whether or not the shot hit.

"IMPACT! TARGET STILL MOVING!"

"GO TO RAPID FIRE!" Trucker called out. "ALL UNITS! RAPID FIRE! BOLOS, UNLEASH HELL!"

"Sir, at rapid fire we'll..." Stacker/Broadsword started.

"FOLLOW THE FIRE PLAN, PATTON STAB YOUR EYES!" Trucker roared out.

We cannot discern the use in the fire plan, but carry it out regardless. VLS tubes slam open, firing 11 inch rockets into the sky. We admit, working with General Trucker is a high honor for any soldier but as a BOLO it contains an additionally difficulty. While he has never viewed the Dinochrome Brigade as expendable as so many other commanders do, we can feel Trucker at the edges of our shared battle net, his thoughts, plans, hunches, and impulses trickling across it. We have records of the Mark XXVII Command BOLOs and this feels much like what the records contain. It is unnerving, as if another BOLOs awareness is examining our thoughts and our actions even before we do it.

While humans describe serving under Trucker as incredible to a BOLO it is humbling.

The fireplan Trucker has filed with us keeps updating, almost in fits and starts, always minutes ahead of the current data I and my Brigade mates have access to yet it is almost as if reality conforms to Trucker's fireplan not the other way around. I should be out of date within seconds yet it is always correct. Corrections are filed in the fire plan constantly, yet, from what I have witnessed and been told, it only increases combat effectiveness and never breaks apart the cohesion of 3rd Armor Division.

In the time I have been mulling over the disturbance 0.053 seconds have passed and my Battle Reflex Mode disrupts the train of thought.

The logical plan of attack is to go after the massive insects that have left the lakes and have steadily picked up speed until they are moving at roughly forty miles an hour. With their size, mass, and density, a physical hit upon a Mark XXXI Bolo will destroy or at least mission kill it upon a direct head on impact or a direct side impact.

Yet that is not Trucker's plan. Instead he has us firing upon almost random seeming places.

My Brigade-mates share my slight discomfort as we continue to fire according to Trucker's plan.

He is our Commander's commander. We follow orders.

The missiles leveled out just beyond the cloud cover, using inertial navigation to track their target. Their warheads primed, and the eight flights of 11 inch missiles, using solid fuel systems, split into multiple groups.

The Bolos shifted, moving from a head-on fight to fighting their way through the jungle, shifting to get to the side of the massive insects while they shifted to move straight at Trucker, who had gone to rapid fire on the guns. General Ekret was reporting the scout patrol was moving straight at him, moving as if they were on a road rather than through the jungle.

The missiles began detonating in sequence. The first set, with Azidoazide Azide / chlorine trifluoride warheads, hit the lakes that the giant insects had been resting in. The water exploded then caught on fire, the breaking down of H2O into hydrogen and oxygen which then exploded, causing the water to start a chain reaction that kept the conflagration going.

The next set covered the entire brain coral array with orange thermal powder, coating it liberally in powder designed to prevent fire from spreading. The third set exploded next, over the massive set of growths shaped like brain coral. Fire retardant foam spread out, covering the entire area. None of it was caught by the psychic shielding that had come up, all of it coating the coral, the shields, the thick nutrient full veins, all of it.

Finally came the artillery strikes.

The biological array had spun up a psychic shield strong enough to glimmer in the air and every single round pounded the shield, keeping it flared up even as artillery shells pounded at the psychic shield. They had no chance to penetrate, but the biological array kept the shield up.

Trucker poured fire into the forward plates of the bug, mixing smoke rounds that cracked off in front of the bugs. The bug's battle shields flared, throwing burning vegetation away from them as they charged through the jungle toward Trucker's heavy tanks.

Artillery shells that had hung in the air for almost three minutes came dropping down, outside of the array, hitting the pipes and veins. Submunitions detonated, stripping away moss, tree branches, vines. The second layer were penetrators, slamming deep and throwing huge gouts of vegetation and dirt in the air. The third layer, following on the second, was good old fashioned high explosive thermobaric rounds.

The veins feeding the array were blown apart, even the secondary ones. The ground outside of the psychic array was nothing but churned up, smoking, steaming, and in some places, still burning dirt.

The massive bugs put on more speed, heading straight for Trucker, less than ten miles separating them now. The Bolos were being ignored, doing little more than maneuvering and providing limited fire support.

Trucker's plan updates and we hold our breath with our Brigade mates. Long seconds go by as we finally bring up radar, lidar, and even ultra-sonic ranging on the insects, which have accellerated to nearly seventy miles per hour. They are lengthening and shortening to help the tens of thousand of legs beneath them propel them at what is obviously their maximum velocity.

Finally we fire as we all understand as the evidence appears.

We fire, not at the heavy forward or topside armor, not even at the thick bands of armor on the side, but rather the shots impact as the plates are extended as far out as possible. Two shots each before engaging the next one, as fast as we can fire and change targets. It is faster to both turn and change the angle on our main gun, turning as if we are following the giant insects, our shots at a slight angle which punches it through the armor.

Hellbore rounds do not just hit the surface and explode like a nuclear round. They penetrate a significant distance before detonating. They are an anti-armor round, although they can be used for area of effect and airbursts. These rounds slam deep into the insects flanks, punching past armor, connective tissue, and into the internal organs that all living things need to survive.

Trucker watched as the insects swelled slightly, steam and ichor gouting out of the sides. They all slammed into the ground, thousands of tons of bioengineered flesh, and slowly scraped to a halt, their shells pushing up the dirt all the way to the bedrock for nearly a quarter mile before they came to a stop.

He swung the quad-barrel and fired, sweeping glittering winged beetles out of the sky before they could swarm his battle-screens, the whole time calling out orders, updating the fireplan with his implant, and assigning targets as he saw the opportunity.

Vuxten and the others burst out of the jungle, jumping high up. 471 fired his micro-rifle at the moths swarming from the side and 388 riding a Terran Infantry borg behind him threw a micro-missile into the swarm, destroying it in a bubble of fire and soot.

They all landed, caught their balance, and jumped again, this time landing on the hover-tanks of 1 Armored Cavalry Scouts.

Ekret saw the Marine Scouts land, their icons going blue. Each tank, as soon as it had four on board, kicked their fans to full speed and started racing for the logistics base. Infantry cyborgs running smoothly behind, taking advantage of the pureed vegetation making an easy road.

"Last one!" Vuxten called out over his loud speaker, slapping the cupola with one armored hand. 471 flashed -go go go- as he reloaded his micro-missile launcher.

Brentili'ik watched the glowing icons of her husband's unit sweeping toward the logistics base and wrung her hands. She counted the dots.

They were all there.

She closed her eyes, shivered, and opened them again to watch the dot that was her husband's.

She didn't take her eyes from it until she saw him arrive at the logistics base.