Chapter 287

Most of the dropships and virtually all of the aerospace assets were ripped out of the sky by highly accurate surface to air emplacements, the guns putting out a virtual hail of magnetically accellerated shards of metal. The missiles were just as bad, some of them exploding literally meters away and slamming an explosively forged penetrator through the aircraft, others detonating to spear the craft with javelins of metal that were aerodynamically designed to vibrate and shudder, tearing the craft apart that way. Still others just slammed a high kiloton non-atomic blast in front of the craft so the craft hit a solid wall of atmosphere or ripped at the craft with shrapnel.

The Lanaktallan were used to air defense systems using lasers, not projectiles, which were wasteful and cost prohibitive.

But the humans didn't seem to care.

eVI and DS attacked the craft, just bricking the flight systems and jumping to the next ship, but so many ships were in the sky, all of them with 'thin' computer systems that the DS and advanced warfare eVI couldn't actually jump from ship to ship but had to hit a ship, withdraw, hit the next, withdraw, over and over.

In orbit there was a ring being formed by the debris.

In the atmosphere it was a hell-scape of missiles, autofire projectiles, chaff, microprism, and fire. Atomic weapons were detonating in the upper atmosphere, destroying ships and the ozone layer in equal measures, but the humans didn't care.

WE'RE NOT TRAPPED IN HERE WITH YOU, YOU'RE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH US!

Still, the dropships and a handful of aerospace fighters reached the target zone. The houses were quaint, the streets all twisting but the highways straight, and the land largely forested. There were only a handful of cities and those separated by miles of forest or rolling plains. There was several targets in this part of the continent. Power plants, planetary defense shielding, orbital fire and system fire batteries. They had to be knocked out of the Lanaktallan Great Herd had any chance of victory.

The ships landed and the crews breathed a sigh of relief. The nuclear dampeners were online, the nanite suppression fields, almost never used, at full power, and the EM warfare suites running.

Vehicles, infantry, and nearly five thousand warmechs left the bays of the troopships. The infantry began digging in rather than immediately pushing for the facilities they'd been tasked with destroying. The units to the south had all gone offline, one group that had attacked a major city just repeating "everywhere... they're everywhere..." before going offline.

The night was lit by the lights on the dropships and mechs and vehicles.

"Where are we?" the Great Most High of the Infantry, Mo'osto'o asked.

"According to the data passed to us by Most High Executor of Covert Actions Yu'umo'o we are in someplace called Chromium MechaKrautland," the Second Great Most High of Intelligence, Hu'udismo'o said. He looked at the data in his map. "A largely peaceful area devoted to the manufacture of automobiles, clocks, small glass and ceramic figurines, and alcohol."

Mo'osto'o pointed at the mountains that reached up into the sky to the east of them. "Taking that valley through the mountains, combined with the men down in the Rind-Metal Plains, shall cut this area in half and prevent reinforcements. The factories on this side of the mountains will not be able to assist the war fighting going on to the East."

"Harumph, so much for their claims of being 'post-scarcity' if they still have manufacturing," the Great Most High of Armored Units, Erku'ul replied, making a nasally sound of laughter.

"That has always been debunked," Mo'osto'o said. "Post-scarcity is impossible. There will always be resources that are scarce."

"If we had brought atomics this fight would be over," Erku'ul laughed. "If a planet cracker did not depend upon accurate placement from orbit we could have detonated one here and finished Terra once and for all."

"My men are looking forward to engaging the Terrans. They are confident in their abilities to defeat the Terrans," Mo'osto'o said. "I hope we see them soon so that I can get the satisfaction of destroying them. I wish to show them the might of the Lanaktallan Great Herd."

"Well, you should have the chance soon," Hu'udismo'o stated. "I'm assigning targets for your various units right now."

"I do not like proceeding without air support," Mo'osto'o said.

"We all have our burdens," Erku'ul snorted. "Don't let the fear prevent you from carrying out your mission," the other Great Most High sneered.

"I more worry about your artillery unit's poor performance killing my men," Mo'osto'o said. "Make sure they load the shells the correct way in their cannons this time. The pointy end goes in first."

"How dare you!" Erku'ul snarled. "I'll have you know..."

"Silence," the Great Most High of the section of the invasion force snapped, trotting up. "All of you, take your mission assignments and..."

Shots were beginning to be fired and the sound of several tanks firing made everyone turn around.

Warmechs. Giant warmechs were wading through the forest, the tops of the trees even with their waists. They were colored red, black, and yellow, moving forward in formation.

Mo'osto'o stared, his mouth gaped open, as the rear rank fired a rolling volley of missiles that hit the hastily set up battle-screens. The shields flared and began to fail as the rear rank shifted forward and the previously forward rank stopped, obviously ran targeting solutions, and fired. The front rank was raking the battle-screens and the hastily seeking cover troops with weaponry.

Before Mo'osto'o could get his thoughts gathered, his brain trying to use parts that he didn't have due to the neural template overlays, the Terran aerospace elements came in, fast and low. They didn't just use missiles or their guns, they dropped munitions that exploded in flame and covered everything with plasma-enhanced fire that even melted endosteel and Lanaktallan battlesteel.

The combat lasted less than ten minutes, the mechs pounding the dropships and heavy armor, neutralizing the anti-air systems with directed fire. The napalm slagged even the tanks and personnel carriers.

Mo'osto'o got his wish.

But the Terrans have a saying: Be careful what you wish for.

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East of the burning napalm and plasma making up Mo'osto'o's pyre was forest. There were only a few cities, all of them heavily defended with shielding. The Corporate wave that landed found themselves under assault by heavy artillery that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

A squad managed to video back what they'd found right before they were killed.

The squad had moved into a small clearing between buildings. Their suits were flashing "NANITE HAZARD" on their visor but the nanite suppression fields were working according to specs and none of the squad had been killed by the shining metal needles that had ripped apart half of the first lander's dismount crew.

There was a fog that coalesced then puffed away to reveal small waist high robots. Robots that immediately began shooting hypervelocity projectiles and tiny missiles that blew big holes in armor and the Lanaktallan underneath. Once the squad was dead, before the camera went out, the robots rolled up to each helmet, fired point blank into the top of it, the puffed into dust.

Va'arno'os, in charge of the Military Fleet landing zone, watched the video and swallowed thickly. Every other culture that allowed nanites in the atmosphere of a planet only used them to deal with biological threats, emergency medical services, and benign things like lighting and pollutant control.

The Terrans apparently had other ideas, Va'arno'os thought to himself, watching each little combat drone puff back into black mist.

He had seen it over a dozen times, from a dozen different teams that had gotten wiped out.

Right now he had ordered the nanite suppression fields pushed out to nearly a half mile from the vehicles and dug in troops. Even then little drones kept puffing into existance, firing off a volley of missiles, and dissolving.

The missiles and bullets didn't dissolve. They hit like they hadn't been made of nanites only a few moments before.

Battlescreens kept snarling as the drones continually probed the nanite field and the battlescreens themselves.

Opening up another video stream Va'arno'os groaned. The damnable Terran "adaptive camouflage" was giving his men fits. Even civilians had it. Apparently once they pulled up the hood and stretched across a cloth the whole thing just shifted into the background. They all had armor and he had to admit, he was somewhat jealous of the armor's design and effectiveness.

He saw a short female take a plasma rifle blast straight to the chest and get knocked down. The flyspy cam followed her as she crawled around the corner, popped the damaged plate off and replaced it with a plate from her carry bag. She then dumped a vial of glimmering dust on the plate, wrapped it, and shoved it into her carry bag.

You shoved it in there to be repaired by nanites, he thought to himself.

Another flyspy cam had followed some Terrans down an alleyway. The six Terrans had not only knocked out an armored personnel carrier with shoulder fired rockets, they'd then used a crew served weapon to rake the Lanaktallan that had dismounted the vehicle. The flyspy had caught them tapping the side of the rocket launchers, causing them to turn to dust, then doing the same to the crew served weapon, turning the entire thing to black dust. It had followed them into a small town, down the alley, to the back of what looked like a bakery of all things. Inside they had moved up to what looked like a line waiting to get food from a food dispenser.

The inside of the food dispenser had glowed red, swirled with black, and as Va'ano'os had watched the people waiting in line drew weapons and equipment from the food dispenser. That annoying 'adaptive camouflage' first, then a rifle, then a pistol, then an equipment belt. Then they drew rockets and parts to crew served weapons before leaving.

He'd ordered the flyspy closer and an airborne insect electrical zapper killed it.

He watched the video of the Terrans arming themselves again. The resolution was good, he could see the weave of the clothing, see the dust in the air.

They use nanites to create objects with dedicated nanite factories, he thought, staring. They don't need lines. They have no supply lines. If this kind of thing is in a bakery it is every house, every business, every basement, every street corner. It could probably be used to create a reactor to power another one, or at the very least solar panels.

He scrubbed his face and checked another flyspy. The combat arms Most Highs wanted to rush the city, but he'd insisted on going through and running close in recon.

The flyspy was sitting on a windowsill watching as three people set up a crew served weapon on the second floor of a building. They drew a square made of lines on the wall, then made diagonal lines across the square.

The wall shivered and the square was suddenly empty.

They put up two small projectors and then a battlescreen projector that glistened like it was wet, then started moving bags of what looked like granulated silicate against the walls.

Va'ano'os snarled to himself. The silicate would cause the plasma rounds to liberate all their energy right there. There would be no penetration and no backblast explosion. It would just turn the silicate into glass.

"Are we attacking the city or not?" Mo'olo'op, the Great Most High of the Ground Combat Teams asked.

"No. Not yet. There are complications," Va'ano'os said, watching through another flyspy as a laser emitter was activated across a street, connected to tripod mounted rockets. "They're waiting for you."

"Your centuries with the Executor Survelliance and Security Forces are blinding you, Va'ano'os," Mo'olo'op sneered. "They may be able to put up a fight against an Executor Direct Action Team, but this is the military might of the Great Herd."

Va'ano'os looked at another flyspy. It was showing a team of Terrans placing large thick discs on the ceiling of a tunnel. He pointed at the screen and snapped his fingers, getting Mo'olo'op's attention.

"Do you see that? They have mined the entire street. Look at the design of those mines. They are not some poorly built creation made by a neosapient in the basement," Va'ano'os said. "Those are professionally built military grade mines obviously designed to blast upwards through the street. Knowing the Terrans, the street itself will be some kind of explosive enhancement, make the blast and the damage worse."

"So they'll destroy a few vehicles, so what?" Mo'olo'op sneered.

"And then the street collapses, turning the whole thing into an impassible area," Va'ano'os stated. "Making this street, right here, one of the main arteries to get into the city, completely impassible and preventing your troops from entering the city from that direction."

"Bah, one street. You delaying us is giving the Terrans time to think they can put up a resistance," Mo'olo'op snarled. "I'm tired of your delays. I will be ordering my men to advance into the city so that the shield generator can be eliminated."

"Then they will die," Va'ano's said, leaning back in his chair. "We did not arrive in time to prevent the Terrans from preparing to repel any enemy attack upon their system."

"When should we have attacked then, Great Most High?" Mo'olo'op asked, sneering on the title.

"Ten thousand years ago, before even the Mantid attacked, before they developed superluminal travel," Va'ano'os said. He sighed. "Maybe even before then."

"Regardless, I am ordering my men to take the city, destroy the field generator, and do our part to make sure we can crack this planet and leave," Mo'olo'op said.

There was a twinkle in the air and a Terran suddenly appeared. The hologram was in high fidelity and Mo'olo'op almost drew his pistol and shot it.

"We have you surrounded. We have for some time, but we have you in an untenable position," the human said.

"Bah, this is just a human trick," Mo'olo'op said.

The human gave a noncommital gesture. "Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Many have attempted to take our nation away from us, take our cities away from us. Some, we could live with as an oppressor, but you intend on destroying our planet, so you, we will not be able to live with."

"Drop the shield. Surrender and be destroyed," Mo'olo'op said, putting all the authority he could into the statement.

"Pologne does not surrender. I can see there will be no discussion between equals," the human said. He looked around. "We regret the loss of life but you have left our people no choice. Do it."

"What do you..." Mo'olo'op started to asked.

He, and every bit of Lanaktallan hardware as well as the Lanaktallans protected by the battlescreens were converted to steam as the human male snapped his fingers.

If the Lanaktallan present or in orbit had been on Telkan for the war, they would have recognized it and shuddered.

It was an older attack, an older weapon.

But it still checked out.

Hellfracking.

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Ta'arnoo stared at his screens as his dropship roared toward the ground, the heavy engines pushing it faster, trying to get under the air defense systems. Three quarters of its sisters were already spreading debris and falling garbage.

The network was spotty at best. The data couldn't be run through analysis VI software, that would give the Terran attack programs room enough to 'flex' and work, so it was images only, the bare amount of processing power it took to show images and save them.

So far he'd noticed.

If the Great Most High rushed in: He died.

If he dug in: He died.

If he delayed: He died.

If he tried manuevering: He died.

As near as Ta'arnoo could tell, the whole planet was a deathtrap.

He understood why the Mantid had been beaten. The Terrans were insane.

Intelligence stated that the Terrans had adjusted the satellites that controlled the weather over this part of the continent. Despite the fact it was summer in the northern hemisphere, they risked damaging their ecology severely.

It was snowing, a blizzard, over the interior northern section of the continent.

Already the early reports were stating there was a foot of snow on the ground, more coming in constantly, with high winds and even lighting.

He looked at his datapad. It was his job to put together the intelligence necessary to allow the Great Most High to take victory and disable the defenses. To make sure that at least one assault managed to complete its mission.

He wasn't sure about this though.

Snow. Heavy snow.

In a place called the Vodkatrog Empire.

He had a bad feeling.