Chapter 217: (Foxtrot Niner Two)

The multi-role strike hovercraft slipped through the air, dropping altitude quickly. The intact ships of the squadron were smoking, over half of them the battle-screens were down and the particle screens were so overloaded they were flickering and snarling.

Mukstet, pilot of Foxtrot-Niner-Two, lead striker of the squadron due to their unorthodox launch, looked around, the window shields covering the smart-armaglass retracted. The trees were whipping by and so far there hadn't been any Precursors popping up on the sensors.

That could be because our sensors are hashed, he thought to himself. He saw a faint glimmer of sparkling blue and did a slow bank toward it.

The controls were mushy, slow to respond. The two fifty-gallon reactor mass tanks were empty, used to power the afterburners, which meant his fusion reactor was offline. He was running on the auxilary zero-point reactors now and they barely had the power to keep the ship in the air. They were at over 80% heat, which left the alarms pinging in his ear. The hotter they got the higher the impedance and the less power the reactors produced due to the power being converted to heat.

It was a vicious self-sustaining cycle.

Terrans have been able to beat everything but heat, Mukstet thought, dropping his altitude even further. He was barely skimming above the tree-tops now. He glanced around him, doing a visual on the other striker craft. Four of them were streaming smoke, one white, one bluish, the other two black smoke pouring from where the weapon covers had torn free. A glance at the squadron icons showed him that of the twenty strikers besides his all of them were yellow or amber.

"973, can you do field repairs?" he asked over the link.

--need time and mass nano-forges too hot too slushy slushy-- the green mantid sent back along with a picture of a half-dozen green mantids standing on the lid of a top loading clothes washing machine with bubbles pouring out from the edges of the lid. The caption read "C17H35COONa/H2O!!!!!" Mukstet didn't get it completely but he got the gist.

The blue glimmer came out to be a large lake surrounded by manicured lawns, decorative tree groves, shrubs, and estates for Lanaktallan. There were wrecking equipment near the manors and over half of them were in the middle of being demolished.

"All Foxtrot-Niner elements, all strikers on me, we're going land near the lake and do field repairs," Mukstet said. "All dismount strike team leaderss give me a status report on your dismount teams once we're on the ground. Have your green buddies reconfigure your suits for intra-atmospheric combat. My appreciation to your green buddies for keeping everyone alive during our insertion."

Blinks came back from the squad leaders.

"Foxtrot-Niner-Two, this is Foxtrot-Niner-Twelve, my center-line gravitons are out and my zero-point heat is at 92% and rising. Tell me we're setting down soon," came Dulketit's voice.

"Five mikes, that's it, just five mikes, Foxtrot-Niner-Twelve," Mukstet said. "All squadron strikers, drop speed to two-hundred kay."

The icons blinked and Mukstet went back to keeping his battered striker in the air.

He managed to get his landing gear deployed and set down on what was obviously a manor's ornate back lawn. The striker hovercraft settled down slowly, bumping, and Mukstet killed the power. The vehicle made a whining sound that slowly went silent. The other twenty striker craft settled down on the lawn, not quite dress right dress but close enough.

Foxtrot-Nine-Seven and Foxtrot-Nine-Eighteen both had fires erupt. Black armored troops jumped out with fire extinquishers, hosing down the fires with white powder.

"How's she look?" Mukstet asked his mantids.

--couple hours need mass good to stop at water you run hoses-- 973 sent back with an image of armored Telkan wrestling umbilicals from the lake to the strikers.

"All right. How's the engineers? You all make it?" Mukstet asked.

--some injured two lost legs three lost bladearms be okie okie-- 973 transmitted back with a sweating smiley face.

"All right. Make sure they get first aid," Mukstet said. He reached down and popped the umbilical connecting him to Jekib. He turned on the system, feeling cool air flood in. He hadn't realized how overheated he'd gotten during the insertion. He undid his five-point harness and hit the release stud for his neural jack connector.

It felt weird being disconnected from the striker. Light he was lighter somehow. Aches and pains vanished for a second to be replaced by other aches and pains. His shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers hurt from the vibration through the stick and how tightly he'd gripped everything.

He closed his eyes, just like he'd been trained to, and took several deep breaths, giving his brain time to synch back up to his body. A count of five, opening and closing his hands each count, and then he opened his eyes again. He reached out and hit the stud on the side to open up the cock-pit side door.

Air rolled over him, smelling of water and alien green things. He could see the dismount strikers spreading out at the pointed directions of Sergeant Kuplo. Some of the scouts were running for the construction equipment, others were opening up panels on the striker craft and pulling out hoses, still others were kneeling down while a handful of troops with the red cross, red crescent, and red square of medical personnel were checking their armor's statistics.

The next two hours passed with a blur. Pulling the hoses out to refill the reactor mass with filtered water, the debris caught by the filters passed to the nano-forges, the greenies making repairs as rapidly as possible. Telkan Marines helped put mass into the hoppers for the nano-forges to tear apart once the creation engines had cooled down and deslushed.

"You get anyone yet?" Mukstet asked Kanpuk, his Technical Specialist operating the com-system.

"No. Tegket's working with the other EW guys to try to cut through the interference, but these Precusors are a lot better at jamming than the other ones," Kanpuk said. "So far we've heard some chatter, including a Telkan Marine Heavy Assault Battalion that got dropped into the wrong zone and are protecting a refugee center or ammo dump or something, as well as a couple of Terran Pacific Rim Class warmechs just jumping from the Boop and making landfall via impact."

Mukstet shook his head. They'd barely made it, he couldn't imagine dropping free fall to planet-side in a three hundred foot tall ten thousand ton mech. But then, those mech guys were a whole different breed of crazy. Mukstet's brother had tried out for the war-mech program and now was the pilot of a heavy assault class mech.

But then, he'd always been a little weird, even before the Terrans came.

"Keep me posted. Let me know if we find anyone that needs close air support once we get the strikers reconfigured for intra-atmosphere work and as much of the field repairs as we can do are done," Mukstet said. He'd opened the faceplate on his armored vac-rated flight suit and was enjoying the cool fresh air after all the hours sharing Jekib's air.

The Marine Scout armor used a laser to stimulate a small fungus to produce oxygen from CO2 and CO with enough efficency they could operate in total vacuum for months.

That was something that Mukstet had noticed. During comparisons to Lanaktallan equipment, he'd noticed that the Overseers had created all of their equipment under the assumption that everything would run perfectly. Terrans on the other hand, designed all their equipment as if the world was coming to end and whoever was using the equipment was in the worst possible conditions in the worst possible situation.

Which Mukstet was glad for now.

--refabbing ordnance-- 973 reported. --airframe repairs during wing repairs done--

Mukstet looked over and could see the green mantid engineers, in their hard-shell extreme environment armor moving off the wings of the strikers. They'd been forced to weld the wings in the open position to prevent an actuator failure from allowing the wings to slide into the retracted position. Now that they were ground-side the mantids had to cut the welds and smooth the armor again to allow the wings to deploy and shift properly.

"Everyone get something to eat. Sergeant Kuplo, make sure your men take shifts, eat, and get some water into them, that was a rough landing," Mukstet ordered.

"Yes, sir," the Scout Sergeant said. "You heard him, men. Squad leaders, take charge of your squads. Get with me in half an hour and I'll have guard rotations."

There was a click as Sergeant Kuplo switched to the leadership channel. "What's the ETA on the strikers being ready?"

Mukstet checked the chron display on his retinal link. "Eight hours for full repairs, two more to combat capable. We had to strip the ordnance to run the afterburners in vacuum."

"I'll assign shifts as if its eight hours then, sir," Sergeant Kuplo said.

"You know I'm just a Private First Class, right?" Mukstet said.

"You're striker a pilot and you're in charge of the squadron, that makes you 'sir', sir," Sergeant Kuplo said and then shut off the link to stop any more discussion.

Mukstet sighed and went back to overseeing the striker hovercraft being worked on. The weapons were all deployable, able to be rotated back up into the airframe to increase stealth then deployed when live fire time came.

One thing that Mukstet had noticed is that Terrans really liked kinetic weaponry. His striker had two six barrel rotating autocannons, two door guns, and an underbelly deployable cannon. Missile pods, sure, but he noted there wasn't any laser, plasma, or maser systems. All kinetic.

He wondered why that was as he moved around Striker Foxtrot-Niner-Fifteen, noting that the mantids were repairing the pilot side smartglass and had the armor off the nose to expose where they were working on the airframe.

He took a moment to admit to himself that he really really really wished the Terran pilots and dismount leaders had made it off the Boop. He didn't have any orders loaded up, the only scans of the planet were the ones he'd managed to get from orbit and on the way down, and he had no idea of who had even made it groundside and who hadn't.

He was glad to hear at least some of his fellow Telkans had made it groundside. Second Telkan was largely unblooded with the exception of the power armor guys and most of those were in the infantry units.

Mukstet had joined the Marines after fighting on the wall of Log Base Gamma on Telkan-2 for nearly a month, dressed in an armored vac-suit and running a massive rotary laser cannon. He'd never felt so helpless in his life as when he'd been on that wall. He'd swore he'd never feel that way again and signed up when the Telkan Marine recruiter had come through.

It was slowly getting dark, the pale sparks of the mantid engineers becoming brighter and brighter as time went on and the night got darker. He could see holograms springing up where the mantids clustered together and went to work.

--airframe repaired armor repaired ordnance almost done-- 973 reported. --software checks done combat capable but fragile fragile need two more hours--

"You've got it," Mukstet sighed. My first combat command and the entire squadron is grounded. At least I got them onto the ground.

Mukstet kept walking back and forth on the grass, his palm turned up so he could look at what little ground-side data they had. A BOLO almost four hundred miles out but Mukstet's trainers had all stressed that unless it was coming to your rescue or had requested you a trooper never had a reason to go into the hellfire of a BOLO's combat zone. Off to the east, roughly a hundred and fifty miles, the sensors had picked up heavy Precursor movement almost three hours ago but Mukstet had no idea where they were now. To the west there was heavy groundfire that they'd managed to avoid during their orbits.

The nearest population center was over a hundred miles away to the south, what had looked like a refining facility next to a lake with close packed barracks. Next closest one was two hundred miles to the north, a city from the looks of it.

Mukstet looked at the scans he'd managed to pull of the Precursor vehicles, comparing them to the ones loaded in his striker's IFF. After a little bit he walked over to where Sergeant Kuplo was standing, watching his men who were dug into the ruins of the half-demolished manors.

"Sir?" Sergeant Kuplo asked.

"Do you have your Precursor profiles loaded?" Mukstet asked.

"Yes, sir," the Sergeant said. "Same with the men."

Mukstet held his hand out, palm up, and showed the most common type of Precursor machine that was estimated to be over 5,000 tons. "You have this in your database?"

The Telkan NCO leaned forward, examining it. It had what looked like three snail shells side by side with massive tracks on either side, crawler legs on the side and in front and what looked like a set of jaws up front.

"No, sir. It doesn't match any of my profiles," Kuplo answered. "Where was this taken?"

"Over a thousand of them, from orbit. It's about two hundred meters long and twenty meters wide," Mukstet said. "I've seen something like it before, though."

"Where?" the NCO asked.

"Log Base Gamma, Second Telkan War," Mukstet said. "One large shell at the rear, and made of meat and chitin, but it definitely fits the look."

"You sure, sir?" Kuplo asked. "I was on Telisminia, we mostly had the big layered plate ones."

"I'm sure," Mukstet said. "Which means, these aren't the Precursors from the First Telkan War."

"All right, sir," Kuplo said, nodding slowly. "What's the plan?"

"Give me a few minutes, Sergeant," Mukstet said.

"I'll be over here, sir," the NCO said.

Mukstet walked away, looking at the different types of Precursor machines they'd spotted on the way in, as well as the vessels that they'd passed that had been fighting the Boop and other ships.

More flowing, more like they were patterned off of something living. Lots of mechanical tentacles and pinchers and crab/insect legs. They moved in groups, smaller ones around the big ones, the smallest ones riding on the bigger ones.

These aren't related to the ones from the first war, these are related to those things that came from outer space. Maybe the things made them somehow? Mukstet wondered. A terrible thought bubbled up.

Maybe something else made both?

He looked around. The field was good sized, large enough that all the strikers could be landed on it and then some room. The lake was important, if there was one thing the strikers were it was thirsty. There was plenty of debris to salvage to stuff in the hoppers, the trees on three sides would provide warning of anything large coming in.

I need to think of more than just now. I need to consider that we might not be able to regroup for several days. The strikers will need repair, reloading, remassed. Flight crews will need sleep and food, Musktet thought to himself, looking around.

He checked his armor's database and ran a search string for the terms he needed.

There were six field manuals detailing creation of an operations base. He stood by the lake, looking at the 3D wire-frames, reading the manuals quickly. There were some conflicting thoughts, some stuff that he didn't quite understand.

"Sergeant Kuplo, join me if you would," he sent over the comlink.

"On my way, sir," the NCO said.

It took a few moments for the NCO to join him and he kept scanning the field manuals the whole time.

"You needed me, sir?" Kuplo asked.

"Our current situation is one we've only lightly trained for. I don't doubt we would have trained for it when we arrived here but right now we've got some problems," Mukstet said.

"Aye, sir," Kuplo answered.

"Right now we have no support base. The squadron is based off the Boop, and the Boop is gone. That means right now, all we'd be doing is flying in circles squawking 'DOES ANYONE NEED HELP?' like jumping lizards with their heads cut off," Mukstet said.

"True, sir," Kuplo said, nodding.

"Everyone landed under fire. We passed heavy ground fire repeatedly, which means III Corps and Second Telkan landed into the teeth of heavy fire. Right now, we have a secure area," Mukstet turned and motioned at the field. "We don't know how far we are from any front, but even if this isn't a strategic area for a strike base we can still start a logistics base right here."

"How so, sir?" Kuplo asked.

"Foxtrot-Two-Twenty-Two has bad airframe damage. It's combat capable under the current conditions but to be honest I wouldn't want to have the crew risk it," Mukstet said. "I'm saying we have one active wing at all times, doing recon patrols. Two wings on standby, one on repairs. We pull the nano-forges from Twenty-two, Seventeen, and Eight, and start fabricating the things we need to fabricate a strike base."

Mukstet turned and waved at the area. "We already have construction equipment. You told me that there was construction supplies, that it was obvious something was going to be built out here on top of the Lanaktallan estates that are being torn down. We construct an airfield, rearming point, remassing point. Establish an urgent care clinic, mess hall, and at least get some tents up for sleeping so you don't have to sleep in holes."

Kuplo nodded slowly.

"The Corpsmen on standby will run the urgent care clinic. We've already got wounded little brothers, so we pull the worst wounded to work on building the camp, take the strikers in with the teams we can put together," Mukstet said. He pinged the hasty file he'd put together over to the NCO.

Kuplo turned his hand up, looking at the proposed idea.

"Wish we had something bigger as far as nano-forges go, but the little brothers care capable of damn near miracles with the stuff we've got," Mukstet said. "Right now, we'll break into wing shifts, the ones on standby work on the striker base, one in the air, one grounded. Four wings of four strikers each."

Kuplo nodded. "It could work. Even if we have to abandon the base due to the front shifting or being reassigned another place, digging in is our best bet, at least till the commo channels clear up or we can get something on the command net."

"Let's get it done, Sergeant," Mukstet said.

"Ayut," the NCO said. He put his hand to his helmet to signal he was speaking to the dismount crews.

Mukstet stared at the night around him, made bright as day by the electronics in his suit.

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"Foxtrot-Niner-Two, taking command of Foxtrot Wing One," Mukstet said, checking over his instruments. He knew he'd need to be careful of the port-side graviton generators, but it beat not having the striker up and running.

"Roger, Foxtrot-Niner-Two. You are green to begin mission," Pv2 Dektol, communications technician for the grounded Striker-Twenty-Two said over the headset.

"Establish link with us when you get that commo-antenna up," Mukstet said.

"Roger that, sir," the Pv2, only one rank below Mukstet, said into the mic. "Good luck."

Mukstet got the striker, fully loaded and with a compliment of dismount light scout Marines aboard, into the air. He started moving forward, the rest of the Wing-One following him, then banked to fly low over the lake.

Let's go see if we have any neighbors, Mukstet thought, tabbing up a piece of stimgum.