Chapter 290

"It's obviously bullshit but it's cool, so I choose to believe it." - Anonymous, Pre-Glassing Terra

And lo did he stride out against the invaders of his homeland, the feathers of a thousand phoenix and firebirds woven into his war bonnet. A tomahawk in one hand, his bow in another, astride his great horse. - The Tale of Crazed Horse Rider Titan, Pre-Glassing Terra, the Founding of the Hamburger Kingdom.

Tens of thousands fell in the battle, but at long last the Titan Rushmore was brought to his knees by the Thunder God Franklin in his lightning powered battle-mech. General George Washington, his teeth carved out of the bones of saints and prophets, uttered the words of power that would have killed any lesser man who had even once told a lie, and the Titan Rushmore collapsed into a deep dreamless sleep. - The Fall of the Mad Titan Rushmore, Founding of the Hamburger Kingdom.

And thus she was placed in the harbor for all to see that the New World was free of the terrible grasp of the Titans. On the plaque at her feet was inscribed: She feeds upon the tired, the poor, the hungry, the teeming masses who do not know what it is to be free. Guard against these sins, lest she awaken again. - The Legend of the Devourer of Liberty, Founding of the Hamburger Kingdom

"There is a powergun in every kitchen, a tank in every garage, and a Burgerlander behind every shard of glass with a rifle. They do not care if they die, they only seek to kill those who invade their crazed and insane lands. You may kill one, but the blood of a dozen of your brethren stain its skin." -Mantid Speaker Proverb

"Eh, they're our little brother. You know how kids are..." - Your'o'Goon General, Pre-Glassing

The Lanaktallan couldn't hear the laughing of millions, billions of Mantids as they managed to land on one of the most heavily defended continents on northern hemisphere of Terra. It seemed to the pilots that more and more air defense systems were coming online every second, every minute, to the point where not only were the ships being destroyed coming in but the debris from those ships were being swept from the air.

Nearly twenty dropships managed to come in hard, leaving behind them a trail of exploded dropships, plummeting debris, and Lanaktallan in armor screaming as they fell to the ground. They slammed down, the ramps opening even as the shock killed nearly 10% of the troops on board, and the Military Fleet Forces rushed out of the dropships, knowing that missiles would soon be targeting the dropships.

The Grand Most High of the Task Force looked around at the pitiful remnants. He had been forced to abandon ship when his beautiful Leviathan Class planetary assault ship the Glory of Complete Dissolution had taken multiple C+ cannon hits and broken up.

Now he was standing on the soil of Terra itself, a breathing mask over his face and a combat harness on to protect him from nanites. He looked around and frowned.

There was a statue of a nearly naked Terran on the back of some kind of riding animal that had obviously been carved from an entire mountain. It was over a thousand feet tall, the Terran looked like a fierce warrior with hair made from avian feathers. It was thickly covered in the purplish green glass of orbital weapon hits.

The Grand Most High pointed at the statue. "As soon as the artillery in set up, use that cultural site for target practice. The Mantid were not able to destroy it, so we shall."

"Yes, Grand Most High," the Great Most High of Artillery said. That was par for the course, destroy the enemies cultural sites, break their will to fight.

There was what looked like some kind of shop nearby and the Grand Most High clopped his way over to it. He went through it, looking at the objects for sale. Many of them featured that warrior, using a hand-axe to cleave through tanks painted red and white, swatting aerospace fighters from mid-air with one hand, and wading waist deep in water to destroy wet-navy ships.

The Grand Most High snorted. Such fables were for a weak and useless species, who insisted on having impossible legends to make up for their lack of accomplishments.

He did stop and stare at a large tapestry. It was titled "The Mad Titan Crazy Horse Imprisoned by the Hero Sitting Bull" and showed the giant figure half turned to stone as several groups of people were chanting and billowing up clouds of smoke.

He snorted and turned away. Foolishness.

When he trotted out there was a flickering and a human suddenly appeared. A hologram, but still the Grand Most High drew his pistol and almost shot the hologram before he realized what he was doing.

"Uh, whatcha doin?" the hologram asked.

"We have come to destroy your primitive peoples. We'll destroy your pathetic cultural site then move in and destroy the planetary defense batteries," the Grand Most High sneered.

"I wouldn't do that," the hologram said.

"Pfft, you are in no position to make demands of the Great Herd," the Grand Most High said.

"I'm serious. You mess with him too much you run the risk of waking him up. That wouldn't be a good idea," the hologram said.

"Begone, lowly one," the Grand Most High sneered and trotted away.

After some time had passed, which was strangely devoid of any attacks by the lemurs, the Great Most High of Artillery clattered up to the Grand Most High.

In the distance an aerospace fighter roared by but didn't come too close. Something that the Grand Most High had noticed.

"We are ready to begin test firing and calibration using that cultural site as a target," the Great Most High of Artillery said.

"Excellent. Begin at your leisure," the Grand Most High said.

The hologram appeared. "I wouldn't do that. You're going to wake him up."

The Grand Most High sneered. "Begone, holographic pest."

"Don't say I didn't warn you. The Red Warriors of the Plains National Association takes no responsibility for any injury or death incurred by your actions," the hologram said before winking out.

The Great Most High of Artillery gave the order and the massive self-propelled guns of the Lanaktallan Military Fleet began to roar. Each shell that hit blew off chunks of the glass covering it, showering the area around the gigantic monument with shards of purplish green glass.

Overhead clouds started to gather.

After a few minutes the guns went silent while they were being recalibrated.

"Um, do you see that?" the 14th Most High of Military Intelligence said, looking at the giant monument with his vision macrobinoculars.

"See what?" the Grand Most High asked.

"Follow my laser designator, Grand Most High," the lowly MilInt technician said.

The Grand Most High snorted with exasperation and lifted up his macrobinoculars, following the UV laser to where the lowly one was designating.

The Grand Most High frowned.

The glass, nearly six feet thick, had broken away from... something under the glass.

In the middle of the spiderweb of cracks that covered the glass, a large enough chunk was missing to expose what looked like bronze colored flesh. There was a tiny gash in it, tiny at this distance, and it was beginning to seep red fluid.

"Water and iron oxide perhaps?" The Great Most High of Power Armor asked.

"I'm unsure," the Great Most High of Artillery said. "Second battery is ready to fire."

"Permission granted," the Grand Most High stated.

For long minutes the artillery pounded the glass covered monument.

Then a shell hit just to the side of the lemur's nose and a huge chunk of glass fell hundreds of feet to shatter on the ground. The guns kept firing, exposing animal hide on the strange mount, exposing skin beneath the glass on the chest and leg.

The guns stopped. It was silent for a moment before a loud KA-RACK filled the air when another massive chunk of glass fell from the face of the monument.

Revealing a closed eye.

That opened.

It was the color of storms.

The Grand Most High stared in shock as the eye slowly became bloodshot and began to look around. The glass shuddered and squealed as it began to crack and fall from the figure.

With a roar that sounded like the world was ending the glass shattered and a vast figure raised up, blotting out the sun. It was a bronze skinned Terran, his black hair held beneath a bonnet of colorful feathers, his flashing eyes the color of storms, his muscles rippling as he twisted and flexed to break his way free of the glass.

The Lanaktallan artillery opened fire, the explosions smashing into the massive figure as it looked around. Astride the great mount he was almost two thousand feet tall. He looked down at the Lanaktallan.

Most of the Lanaktallan were just staring in shock.

Some were running away.

A handful died of fright when the massive figure had shook its way free of the glass.

It raised its hands up, lightning arcing down from the clouds to wreath the figure's hands and arms, even as it stared at the Lanaktallan.

The Grand Most High of the Task Force just stared, his nose and one ear starting to bleed.

The vast creature opened its mouth and roared in rage.

A third of the Lanaktallan died when their psychic shielding gave out and their brains boiled from their ears or their psychic shielding itself killed them.

It threw an object at one of the dropships.

A tomahawk.

Or rather... a Tomahawk.

The dropship exploded into fragments and the spell was broken. Lanaktallan started shooting even as the huge figure surged forward, throwing Tomahawk missiles with one hand and gathering lightning with the other.

The hooves of the massive horse shattered troopship armor, crushed tanks and Lanaktallan alike. The Tomahawks thrown by the massive figure blew apart dropships, warmechs, artillery pieces.

In the gift shop the VI watched and shook his head as he watched the Mad Titan Crazy Horse, driven mad by the Spirit of Jack Daniels, rout and then pursue the Lanaktallan forces.

"I told you so."

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As far as the rest of the Lanaktallan that landed in the Hamburger Kingdom were concerned, the ones that were destroyed by releasing imprisoned 'titans' were lucky.

The rest faced off against a nightmare.

Tanks, aerospace fighters, grav-strikers, artillery, artillery, mortars, rocket attacks, missiles, drones, warmechs, warborgs, infantry, offshore bombardment by wet-navy vessels.

They were everywhere.

And all of them were armed.

No matter where they landed they were met by military forces that had left a military base only an hour or less from the landing zone. It didn't matter where it was: a city, a desert, rolling plains, a swamp, a forest, the Terrans moved into attack as if they had been waiting for it all their lives.

Not one Lanaktallan reported seeing a civilian.

Just Terrans armed to the teeth.

The Hamburger Kingdom used those teeth and chewed up the Lanaktallan and swallowed them.

Screams of terror could be heard in orbit as the people of the Hamburger Kingdom went to work.

The ghosts of billions of Mantid just laughed.

The Hamburger Kingdom had been born in blood. Blood soaked the dirt. Blood and sweat was in every building, every road, every dam, everything. Blood was the coin of the Hamburger Kingdom.

Blood made the grass grow.

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North of the Hamburger Kingdom was a quiet land. The people who lived there just wanted to be left to themselves and their culture. They were a hardy people, used to savage winters and a savage wilderness full of savage creatures.

The Lanaktallan who landed to disable the shield generators in that place mistook silence for fear. The first landing force smashed down in a forest, the pilots breathing a sigh of relief that they reached the ground. The infantry, tanks, battle mechs, and vehicles poured out of the ships and began to dig in. The network was alive with the screaming of other Lanaktallan Task Forces to the south who were begging for reinforcement or dustoff.

Overlaid with the sound of lemur laughter.

The Grand Most High of the Landing Forces ordered the radios switched off from those channels and had his two hundred thousand Lanaktallan strong forces use a different frequency.

Still, the broadcasts had disturbed him.

He had faced a dozen neo-sapient insurgencies or genocidal purges in his 400 years of service. He had the neural templates of war stallions loaded into his brain.

But none of them covered this.

None of them covered losing 80% of his forces to even reach the ground, and that was discounting the complete loss of his aerospace assets.

None of them covered insane primates, lemurs who had a gun in each hand as they ran at the Lanaktallan screaming blood crazed war cries.

At least the forest was quiet.

He ordered his men to dig in. The two Task Forces that were supposed to hit the two other shield generators had been wiped out before they'd even crossed the orbit of the fifth planet. The three task forces set to take out the dampener facilities that would prevent foreign atomics or antimatter had been destroyed before they had reached the fourth world's orbit. The five task forces set to ensure battlefield dominance had been destroyed before they could even attempt to land.

His Task Force was all that remained out of a dozen.

He would have to have a base of operation to resupply at. His supplies were thin as it was, the majority of the logistics vessels having been blown apart before they could even cross the asteroid belt. The rest ripped apart by that damnable moon.

Trying to get orbital systems up proved fruitless. The systems were blown out of the air before they could get more than 5,000 meters up.

Any drone that got up more than 2,000 feet was blown out of the sky from launchers beyond the horizon.

Any ground based drone that got more than five miles out was destroyed and the ring was getting tighter.

The first warning the Lanaktallan had that they were in trouble was the sighting of the huge Terran warmechs, which immediately caused concern in the Lanaktallan ranks.

After all, nothing had prepared them for 250 meter tall warmechs covered in winter woodland camouflage.

The Lanaktallan guns opened up and the battlescreens in front of the mechs rippled, becoming visible around each impact.

The warmechs just kept walking forward, through the forest, their footsteps making the ground tremble.

More and more Lanaktallan weapons opened up, the warmech's battlescreens were a living thing, snarling and snapping, sparking and cascading lightning.

The Lanaktallan's hastily setup point defense began screaming, destroying shells nearly a mile away.

With each step by the warmechs the artillery shells aimed at the Lanaktallan were destroyed a little bit closer.

The gunnery Most Highs in charge of the point defense systems ramped up the firing rate. Ammo consumption meant that soon the Terran artillery should slacken as artillery pieces had to reload their ammunition bays.

They pushed the wall of explosions back.

For a moment.

The warborgs exited the woods first, nearly five miles away, all spread out at least two meters apart. Behind them came the heavy Terran tanks, some of them weighing over a thousand tons. Then the warmechs stepped out.

All of them started firing, their weapons highly accurate, striking at the point defense systems and surface to air missile emplacements first.

To the Lanaktallan's surprise, the artillery impacts hit in front of the advancing Terran forces, which moved in complete silence, in complete lockstep.

Lanaktallan plasma rounds were hitting defense screens of the warborgs, hitting the battlescreens of the tanks, hitting the battlescreens of the warmechs around the feet and ankles.

And doing nothing but exploding.

The artillery was hammering down in front of the advancing Terrans, who were advancing into their own fire, even as the artillery fire kept coming closer and closer to the Lanaktallan lines.

The Lanaktallan tensed, knowing from the Hamburger Kingdom broadcasts that missiles should start raking their lines.

Instead the Terrans just kept advancing, walking forward as if they were trying to catch up to their own artillery fire, which was ripping into the ground only a few meters in front of them.

Less than a hundred meters out the force stopped.

"Surrender or be destroyed, eh!" roared out from the warmechs. "Throw down your weapons and put your hands on top of your heads, eh!"

In answer the Lanaktallan kept up the fire.

"Well, sorry about this then," the Terran warmechcs broadcast from their speakers.

The artillery crashed back down and the Terran forces charged the Lanaktallan lines.

Some groups of Lanaktallan were smart enough to throw down their weapons and surrender.

The rest died.

The Grand Most High survived, having been knocked out by a Terran soldier weaing only body armor back handing him across the side of the face.

He was brought in front of a Terran, dressed in official looking red and white, with a brown hat.

"It's over, eh," the Terran said.

The Grand Most High bowed his head.

It was unthinkable, that the Great Herd would be defeated.

But he was on his knees, with a Terran patting him gently on the head.

"There there, it will be all rightaruno, chumerino. Just be gladily-addily you aren't in the South, eh?"

The Grand High Most realized that, strangely enough, he was.