Chapter 215: (Ralvex)

The singer's voice was pure, perfect pitch, wafting through the roar of the autocannons, the shriek of the plasma guns, the crack of lasers, the howl of missiles, and the thunderclap of particle beam projectors. Her supporting chorus's voice moved in and out of the clamor of battle that almost seemed to run counterpoint to the songs.

Ralvex stopped firing, panting, listening to the Canticles of Fury as they played from the speakers around him. He'd backed up even further, maybe a hundred meters of road behind him before he'd be at the top of the mesa.

The steely light of false dawn was beginning to light a ribbon of the eastern horizon. The sky was full of contrails, tattered remnants of atomic hammerhead clouds, falling ash, bright sparks, and streaks across the upper atmosphere.

But to Ralvex, who had fought through the night, it was glorious to see the clouds on the horizon turn gold, crimson, and purple.

The Precursors were backing off, retreating out of the short range of Ralvex's remaining 155 snub-nose guns and the 60mm mortars. Thanks to Cutter's supply drops Ralvex had managed to keep the point defense, air defense, and counter-battery system up and running even with the Precursors trying to shift focus to his defenses rather than going straight at him.

He had enough point defense and air defense now to keep the Precursors back from what remained of the town. The fires were out, white smoke still wafting into the air, but the local fire department had fought through the night against the blazes caused by the rounds that got through.

"Ralvex to Cutter, over," the Telkan panted. His suit was cooling fast, but he still felt like his fur was crispinig.

"Cutter here. Go ahead, Ralvex, over," the big autonomous intelligent tank answered.

"Need another ammo drop. How's that autonomous system coming? Over." Ralvex asked. He could feel the pressure sleeve wicking away the sweat and almost gagged when he took a drink off his water tube and felt the sweat slide toward the middle of his back. It was purified and distilled, but...

"Retrieval unit has encountered difficulties. It may be some time before I can extricate the package from the crashed dropship," Cutter replied. "Are you still running solo, over?"

"Affirmative. They've backed off. They're all spread out. Looks like they're trying to think of a way to get at me," Ralvex said, looking through the eyes of one of his stealth drones. "Those two big ones have been holding position. They're just sitting there."

"Menancingly," Cutter broke in, transmitting a weird meme of a pink cartoon starfish pointing at a shadowy figure.

525 transmitted a laughing emoji.

"Exactly. They're staying far back enough I can't really get them with my main gun and any missile or artillery I try they're sacrificing light units. They're too close to the city to use Stampty's mini-bore since we sawed it off," Ralvex said. He was finally cooling down. "Any advice, Cutter, over?"

Ralvex let go of the autocannon and stretched, rolling his neck then his shoulders, then doing a quick set of low squats to get the blood flowing again. He tabbed up another piece of stim gum and made a huffing noise of disappointment when his armor told him he'd have to wait another 10 minutes.

**STAMPY HELP!** the little warboi beeped, and fired his sawed off hellbore, the thermal bloom that was normally dispersed by the end of the muzzle washing over Ralvex in a snap of fire. Several small Precursor vehicles moving slowly through the wreckage of the old ones took a 25kt directed explosion straight to the grills and vanished into scrap metal.

**TIMMY HOT** the other warboi sent, sending an emoji of a panting canine with floppy ears.

"I know you are, buddy," Ralvex said, reaching down and patting the warboi. 525 was replacing the heat sinks, they'd cracked during the fighting and were only running at 20% capacity.

"I am currently reloading my VSL cells, estimated time till completion twenty minutes. Drone scan shows that the reinforcements from the city are slowing down. It appears they are preparing to charge your position in hopes that overwhelming numbers can force the issue," Cutter said. "I cannot come to your assistance, I am currently engaged with three vehicles the size of Type-I Jotun vehicles. Over."

"Any messages, over?" Ralvex said.

"Telkan Second Marine Division orders are as follows: Proceed on independent command. Rally and link with available units if possible. Report position when able, over." Cutter said.

"Did you give them my position? Over," Ralvex asked.

"I have received no response beyond an reciept of message notification, over," Cutter said.

"Guess that'll have to do," Ralvex said. His drone was showing movement again. The Precursors were being careful, smaller vehicles hugging close to the larger ones and a lot of seismic sensor work via ELF going on. "They're coming. Ralvex, out."

"Cutter, out."

"Time to earn our pay, boys," Ralvex said.

There was silence except for the sweet purity of the woman's voice for a long moment.

Then the point defense weaponry opened up, the battle screens began to snarl as kinetic, plasma, and laser weapons probed for any gap, and air defense systems began firing on any craft that matched certain characteristics, such as: is more than ten feet off the ground and heading in a vaguely southern direction.

##NOW?## the Big Mommas asked.

"Not yet," Ravlex muttered. He glanced down at his weapon. The barrel was at 80% condition, the heat sink shroud that 525 had slapped onto it was still good. Thermal cores were cood. Ammo hopper nano-forge on his back was at 8% heat and 2% slush.

He looked back up at the Precursors. They were advancing steadily, the smaller ones in the lead. They were really hammering their legs in the dirt and trying to crowd the two triple-wide lanes. The big ones were staying in the middle. There was a beeping from Drone-455 so he glanced at the window on his visor with the drone's feed. It was circling the city, keeping watch for any reinforcements.

Tanks were coming in from the north, armored troops moving with them, clusters of three to six armored troops behind each tank. There were APC's and AFV's mixed in, the treads all kicking up dust.

The drone ID'd it as 3/67 Armor, 1st Cav.

"Well, not like you're gonna be much help," Ralvex muttered. He opened a channel and tried to raise them but got no reply. As he was doing that he started dropping grenades, letting them roll down the tarmac and spray out their payload.

Prism, smoke, masker.

--we 2nd telkan we got guns we come here to bring fun-- 525 said.

Ralvex felt stupid, in weird way, for apparently standing out in the open. There was the remains of a public toilet to either side of him with parking spaces. The vehicle that had been abandoned in the southbound one had been dragged out into the road, blown up, the pieces used as cover, and those blown up.

Now the road was clear as the sun broke the horizon and the Precursors reached where Ralvex was waiting for.

"NOW!" he called out.

The smart-frame mortars and 155's went to full rapid fire, Stampy and Timmy played happy tunes and began firing, and the mines, quiet for the last four hours, jumped up out of the ground and raced at their targets or just exploded underneath the vehicles passing over them. Timmy and Stampy's indirect fire weapons cut loose, throwing a mix of HEDP, maskers, and dazzlers.

Ralvex squeezed the firing grip and the autocannon started roaring again, the rate of fire dropped to 250 rounds a minute, with a three APHEX to on APHEX-T, meaning a tracer went out every second, giving it an odd look, like he was throwing streaks of light at the vehicles.

The big problem, as the night proved, was that tracers worked both ways.

Which is why he started shuffling to the left and right at odd times, following a randomized string that 525 had whipped up a few hours prior. He'd fire for 2-5 seconds, till the string beeped, move, fire again.

The cloud of masking smoke started flashing as lasers were blocked by the microprism mist scattering the frequency (which 525 had cracked during the night and ordered the nano-forge to build crystal set for those specific frequencies), particle beams scattered on the ionized water vapor, and the high-velocity rounds cracked against the battle-screens.

Still, Ralvex felt like he was disregarding his training as he basically stood out in the open and ran his heavy gun like he was invincible.

The enemy unit in the draw was tenacious. It had managed to bring up reinforcements during the night to provide artillery and defense support. The mobile attack units were extremely effective and had massed during the battle. At least one weapon had been knocked out, the heavy nuclear cannon, forcing the enemy to rely on a lighter and shorter weapon.

However, the enemy was still holding the draw, and the air defense was extremely effective, using a variety of munitions as well as detection methods and frequencies. So far, in the artificial cleft in the mesa that the road had been laid in, the enemy had at least a dozen vehicles, all armed with a heavy kinetic weapon with what appeared to be bottomless ammunition stores. Resupply was being provided by the damnable armored unit nearly three hundred miles away but the possibility of that much ammunition being provided was slim.

The enemy's artillery was effective and devastating, many shells penetrating the upper deck armor of combat machines and either detonating inside or puncturing clear through to detonate on the ground underneath.

The fact that the enemy kept sending out a single scout to reconnoiter before laying down highly effective scan denial aerosol so that the main body could move up was annoying. The enemy had at least a dozen vehicles in addition to the scout.

Another nuclear blast, this one in the 30 kiloton range, slammed into the lead heavy assault vehicle, blowing it into scraps as if its eight inches of armor was little more than tissue.

There was no choice. The town beyond had to be of immense military or cultural significance for the ground forces to devote so much firepower and manpower to defend it. The buildings and the defending unit had to be destroyed in order to prevent the unit from staging a counter-attack, supported by the base on top of the mesa, into the city and disrupting what had been an excellent harvest.

The orders were sent.

Push through, break their lines, defeat them in detail.

Casualties were of no significance. The data did not lie.

Ralvex swore as he saw all the weapons mounted on either side go to rapid fire. The enemy had shifted his vehicles, less than half were still moving, into a wedge and were streaming up the draw. What Ralvex hoped were the last of his airmobile vehicles all jumped for the air. He saw a couple dozen get jacked by spider-mines jumping up onto them and detonating, but over a hundred took to the air, firing their weapons at the emplaced weapons. Battlescreens flickered and sparked and the guns all oriented on the air-mobile units even as Ralvex combined his overwatch drone's feedback with his LIDAR and RADAR systems that were able to see through his masking grenade's output in order to target vehicles.

The vehicles finally hit the upward grade and Ralvex tagged the base of the ravine.

"Get 'em, Stampy!"

**STAMPY HELP**

The sawed off 80mm hellbore cut loose with another 25kt blast, detonating on one of the vehicles in the middle. The fusion reactor in the vehicle went off as Stampy's weapon cycled, liquid nitrogen spraying the chamber to cool it. The blast threw the other vehicles against the ravine walls, crushing them like paper mache against the rock. The integrity fields, still present, flickered, howled, sparked but held.

A heavy HV-round punched through the smoke and slapped Ralvex in the upper right pauldron, but the graviton anchor kept him in place even if it did howl. The pauldron, like the rest of his armor pieces (except the backside) stayed firmly in amber.

Ralvex fired back, holding down the lever, hosing for a full second back at the origin of the round, his onboard computer immediately telling him where the round had originated from.

He dropped an EM-spike flashbang and jumped to a new position a split second before a barrage of hv-rounds hit where he had been, the em-spiker going off with a sharp crack that emulated the em-discharge of a breached micro-fusion plant.

Ralvex set his footing, holding the autocannon with one arm, trusting his tired but still functional smartgun harness, his other hand driving a grav-spike into the rock along with his boots.

Hanging off the side of the cliff he hosed a full two second burst then jumped down, hit the ground, dropped another em-spike, then onto the other cliff to repeat the action.

His armor was heating up, leaving him panting and sweating as he fired, moved, fired again, moved again. Dropping em-spikes at random intervals, adjusting his cyclic rate back and forth, swapping the tracer color to red then green then amber then red again in a random pattern with the cyclic rate.

The Precursor vehicles were still advancing.

**TIMMY HOT** the little warboi beeped the warning it had to reduce the cyclic rate of its dual guns. The barrels were starting to glow red.

--swapping barrels-- 525 said, the cover on Ralvex's back snapping open. The little mantid dropped off Ralvex's back as he jumped past Timmy and onto the ravine wall again, firing as soon as he was locked in.

The advance was being slowed. The enemy had revealed dug in firing positions on the cliff walls. Analysis had shown there were at least eight firing positions that were able to be quickly recovered after each destruction.

The enemy was taking casualties, but not enough.

Push through. Destroy the building complex beyond.

Ralvex tabbed a piece of stimgum and two pieces of regular gum, chewing at them as he dropped down into the middle of the road, behind his battlescreen, and cranked the cyclic rate up. The Precursors were flooding up the road, ignoring the casualties the Big Momma's little offspring were inflicting on their rear ranks. They were under the elevation of most of the weapons, the 155's and 60mm's having to fire high parabolic arcs.

The right upper arm strut started flashing red as the vibration increased and somehow picked up a harmonic that rattled Ralvex down to his bones. His left boot graviton generator started whining and fluttering, trying to keep up with the harmonic.

Ralvex kept traversing it right to left, not even bothering with the smartlink cutout, just laying down a steady string of nearly 2,500 rounds a minute, the gun shrieking, his ammo pack howling, and the creation engine actually starting to whistle like a teapot.

The entire front of the Precursor force dissolved into shrapnel as the APHEX rounds hammered everything, sometimes punching clear through two vehicles to detonate inside a third. The first of the massive ones recoiled slightly as the heavy rounds slammed into the front, punched through the armor, and started detonating inside.

**STAMPY HELP!**

The mini-hellbore round hit the largest leading on dead between the forward sensor nodules that looked like massive compound eyes, the directional shaped nuclear blast exploding deep into the massive vehicle.

For a second there was only a smoking hole between the eyes as Ralvex's rounds bounced and howled off the heavy facial armor, the armor around the hole smoking white and dripping.

Then the middle of the massive vehicle hunched up, light started leaking from the cracks, it seemed to almost swell.

It exploded, sending a mushroom cloud up into the sky.

Ralvex hit the graviton anchor, ignoring the beeping as he kept laying fire into the onrushing Precursors.

He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

This was it.

The chamber suddenly slammed shut and the overheated bolt warped, jamming the chamber. The puff of liquid nitrogen to cool the barrel instead hit the warped metal and the weapon immediately went dead in Ralvex's hands.

**TINY TIM HELP!** the other warboi chirped out, adding a little tune as it opened up with its twin guns, the barrels and one bolt carrier replaced by 525, who scrambled across the street, hot footing it across the shimmering nearly-liquid asphalt.

Ralvex slung the dead weapon aside and dropped the overheated ammo-forge. He jumped next to Stampy and grabbed the ammo forge off of the cradle, swinging it onto his back and locking it in place. 525 scrambled up his leg, signalling little icons of boots with flames under them, and locked himself into the clamshell to check all the autonomous weaponry as Ralvex grabbed his last 20mm autocannon.

"BRING THE FUN!" Ralvex yelled out, clamping down on the firing grip and cutting loose with 600 rounds a minute. The autocannon roared, lashing at the smaller vehicles clambering around the dead giant one. On the top of the mesa the guns were firing and signaling *DANGER CLOSE* and *ACTION FRONT* as they swept any Precursor machine that crawled up the face of the mesa back off to land, shattered, on the reddish sands of the desert below.

The fire back was intensifying as 525 ordered up more masking grenades. Lasers were starting to get through the smoke, a particle beam ripped at one of the 'fighting positions' that Ralvex kept jumping too, and Ralvex took a light anti-vehicle laser hit to the hip but the armor piece stayed a stubborn amber on his HUD.

**STAMPY HE--OUCH** Stampy chirped, tilting forward as the lower half of one leg blew away. Stampy crouched down so he was level again. **STAMPY HELP**

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed across his visor and Ralvex just snarled, keeping up the heat, taking two steps closer to the flashing and howling battle-screen.

The blast hit the wreckage of the big one, which was being slowly pushed up the ravine, and the mushroom cloud clawed for the morning sky, for a split second the explosive hellfire outshone the morning sun.

The second round hit the wreckage before the blast cloud from the first could even fully form, before the shockwave could travel the quarter mile to Ralvex. The third hit right afterwards.

The shockwave hit, the battle-screen lighting up brightly and crackling. Sparks started showering from the right hand projector and the left hand started smoking even as Ralvex kept up his fire. The screen spluttered and flickered as the blast wave passed by, rolling over Stampy and Tiny Tim's battlescreens. As soon as it passed the little robots dropped the shields and resumed firing. Stampy's minihellbore was out of ammo, the compressed deuterium darts used for fusion depleted, but it still kept shooting the 10mm hv-magac rounds from the single gun left on the side of its head.

A HV railgun round slammed through the battlescreen and Ralvex took a step back, the barrel of the autocannon dipping for a split second before training slotting in and he yanked it back up into position and kept firing.

--still fight?-- 525 asked.

"In it to win it. Play us a song," Ralvex snapped, bracing his feet and twisting at the waist to traverse his autocannon to rake the draw again. It was overheating, something going wrong with the cooling system of both the weapon itself and the ammo pack.

"I AM KRATOS THE DESTROYER I'M THE HARBINGER OF DEATH!" roared out over the speakers, the Preglassing War Lament echoing off the cliff faces and buildings to sound out across the mesa.

"Really?" Ralvex panted, sweat running down his face. The pain was all consuming, a fire, but he ignored it, concentrating on maintaining his fire.

--step off-- 525 sent a smiley emoji.

From out of the atomic fires the last one burst through the wreckage, flames wreathing its head, half of the spiderlegs in front of the jaws blown away, the jaw twisted and torn, teeth shattered, one eye a flaming pit of molten metal and circuitry. It ignored everything as it rushed up the draw on its treads and centipede legs.

"ALL THE GODS TREMBLE BEFORE ME AS THEY DRAW THEIR FINAL BREATH!"

With a roar the final one crushed the few crippled secondary machines between it and the enemy lines, rushing through the annoying smoke, slamming into the battlescreen and causing it to fail in a cascading hellfire of ravening energy, and slowly coming to a stop to analyze the situation as the heavy cannon fire stopped.

A single figure all in black stood at the top of the road. In its right hand was a long bar with black metal teeth that ran around the bar. Two little secondary machines limped up next to the lone figure, beeping little tunes even as the sonic assault continued.

Ralvex stood at the top, able to see the last of his battlescreen projectors protecting two LawSec vehicles behind him where a handful of male and female Hesstlin were crouched down with weapons that Ralvex had asked Cutter to drop during the night. They were dressed in makeshift combat armor, the best Cutter could wet-print, but determined to defend their little town.

Nemarlie might not be much of a town, but it was theirs, dammit.

"Ave Caesar morituri te salutant!" the lone armored figure between the frightened citizens of the town and the massive Precursor vehicle said, holding aloft the clattering chainsword with his single remaining arm.

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

Staff Sergeant Utini stared at the wreckage around him as his tank slowly clattered south from the city. He could see dozens of spider-mines running on either side of him, the massive amount of Precursor wreckage littering the road and the surrounding desert. His driver kept having to weave between the craters of light hellbore blasts, but the particle screening on the light tank kept the radiation at bay.

"This place is dead. Looks like we missed it," Utini said, looking around, using her visor's magnification to search the area surrounding it.

"Got literally a dozen self-replicating minefield master control units out there. They're all complaining about heat and slush levels," his Commo Tech called out from inside the tank, her voice tight. "ID's say they're part of Cutter's inventory."

Utini swept around again. The spider mines were scuttling quickly from cover to cover, like he couldn't see them rushing between each chunk of debris.

The problem was, there was a lot of debris.

"Got a beacon, pretty chewed up. Second Telkan Marine Division," Utini said, magnifying the image to get a closer look. "Looks like Marine Corps drop cases."

"These guys ran into the Telkan Marines? That explains all this," Utini's driver, PFC Merrimot said, guiding the tank slowly into a set of four overlapping blast craters. "They pack four hellbore drones per weapon's platoon."

Utini nodded, doing another sweep of the desert. "Just two canisters though."

"Probably buried the others or used them for cover. You know the crayon eaters. Waste nothing," his Commo Tech, Spec-Five Torgunsun said. "This area is hashed. Lots of chaff in the area."

"Marines ruin everything," Utini laughed.

"Looks like they pulled back into that ravine in the side of the mesa," Merrimot said.

"We're being scanned. LIDAR and RADAR, Confed," Torgunsun called out. "Looks like ranging and artillery systems."

"Make sure our IFF is squawking. These guys obviously have been in the shit all night. Locals said the entirety of the clanker forces left the city to hit these guys," Utini called out.

The ride was silent, just the crackling of the tank's protective fields and the clattering of its tracks. The tank had slow down repeatedly to move around large piles of debris or push through it.

The draw had been scoured clear by hellbore fire, the destroyed clankers thrown against the sides. Half-failed integrity fields crackled on the surface of the stone and an overloaded battle-screen flickered weakly in the northbound lane.

Merrimot slowed the tank as it reached the top of the ravaged highway.

Utini saw the lone black armored figure struggle to its feet, using one hand on the LawSec vehicle it had been leaning against, the weight of the armored figure pushing the car down on its shocks for a moment.

Helmets peeked up over the edge of the car and light weapon barrels were poking up.

"Hold your fire," the figure said, holding up his hand.

Utini noticed the voice sounded tired.

"You with Second Telkan?" Utini called out.

"Yeah. You with First Cav?" the figure called out.

"Yeah." Utini answered. Before he could say anything the one armed Telkan spoke.

"You're late."