Chapter 322

Vuxten sat on a rack of expended missile pods, wearing only his adaptive camouflage and light body armor. It still made him snort that standard uniform was armor that covered his back, chest, the back of his arms and elbows, the front of his legs and knees. It was light, all angles, and let him have full range of movement without the plates sticking out.

It could also absorb the kinetic shock of a high-vee round that would have blown through the armor that Corporate Security had tried to give him back when he was just a janitor.

The magnetic accelerator rifle in his hands could have shot clean through heavy CorpSec armor on the lower power settings. The pistol on his hip could have done the same on low-velocity setting.

The weapons that the CorpSec had tried to give him couldn't shoot through the thin overlapping warsteel plates in the soles of his boots.

A heavy loading frame moved up and dropped another set of missile pods, still reeking of unburnt propellant, next to him and the driver thumped away, back to where the empty pods were being delivered.

One thing he had learned was how to be somewhat out of the way, but easily acceptable, when he had some down time. That way the troops could tell he was just sitting around, so they wouldn't feel that they were disturbing him.

And also that anything that might be said would be off the record.

Vuxten's datalink pinged to let him know that someone was looking for him. He was surprised to see it was a member of the Armored Herd.

He snapped his rifle back together and waited.

The Lanaktallan moved between the stacks of expended pods, dodging out of the way of the loading frame, then moved up to him. He was dressed in standard Unified Military dress, a flank covering, a vest over a sleeved shirt, sash, and helmet. He had on the equipment harness and Vuxten noticed the Lanaktallan only had a pistol that was flashing a purple warning that it was unloaded and on safe.

"You are Vuxten, the Telkan officer, correct?" the Lanaktallan asked.

"Yes," Vuxten said, putting a slight questioning tone at the end.

"Armored Vehicle Primary Gun Operator Ninth Class Ho'odaLo'o," the Lanaktallan said. "I am not sure I should be speaking to you, but I wish to and I feel a need to speak with a Telkan. Speaking to an officer will be seen as less of a problem, in my opinion."

Vuxten had been around Lanaktallan for most of his life so he easily recognized how nervous the Lanaktallan tanker was.

"Go ahead, Operator Ho'odaLo'o," Vuxten said.

As Ho'odaLo'o shuffled in place for a long moment Vuxten suddenly understood why so many Terrans took up bad habits like smoking, 'chewing', or twisting.

It gave a being something to do with their hands to fill out the awkward spaces.

"I was born and grew up on Telkan," Ho'odaLo'o suddenly blurted out. "My parents were sent there by the Penstentit Corporation and they worked as guest services at one of the resorts."

"I see," Vuxten said carefully.

The Lanaktallan was quiet for a long moment, still nervously shuffling.

"I joined the Unified Military Forces so my family would not longer accrue debt because of me and traded my promotions for waivers for my family," Ho'odaLo'o said quietly. He looked around and leaned close to speak quietly. "I volunteered for dangerous assignments in order to ease my family's debt so that my father and mother no longer had to work in risky factories."

"I understand," Vuxten said. He tapped the rifle. "That is kind of how I ended up here."

"I knew you would understand," the Lanaktallan said. "That is why I came to see you. My family was there when the Precursors attacked."

Vuxten just nodded, swallowing thickly as he remembered the crowd charging down the street, wailing, tearing at themselves and each other, killing anyone they encountered. "And afterwards?"

"I received a communications from the office of someone called, uh," he touched his datalink. "Brentili'ik, who is the System Director."

"Oh," Vuxten felt his stomach drop and resisted the urge to change his grip on the rifle.

"My family had survived," the Lanaktallan said.

Vuxten managed not to breathe a sigh of relief.

"You are with the Confederate military, correct?" Ho'odaLo'o asked.

"Yes. Telkan Marines are part of the Confederate military's order of battle," Vuxten said.

"The Most High in charge of my unit is working with the Confederate military," Ho'odaLo'o said.

"Yes."

"I am here to ask you, Lieutenant, who would I talk to in order to have my family taken care of by the Confederate military in case I am killed here?" he leaned forward conspiratorially again. "I do not trust the Unified Council to apply the payment for my death, after the cost of my tank is deducted from my death bonuses, to my parent's debt."

Vuxten felt sick. He reached up and tapped his comlink, going through the retinal menus quickly. It took him a second to find it.

"Go talk to Confederate Military Legal Services," Vuxten said, tossing the Lanaktallan the directions. "They'll be able to help you."

The Lanaktallan shuffled nervously for a moment.

Vuxten sighed. "Trooper Ho'odaLo'o, report immediately to Confederate Military Legal Services to have them examine the status of your family still residing in the Telkan system and to ensure they are correctly listed as your next of kin."

"Thank you, sir," the Lanaktallan said. He gave the two fists to the pectoral salute of the Lanaktallan and trotted off.

Vuxten shook his head and dug in his top pocket. He lucked out and had a piece of stimgum left.

Being an officer is complicated, he thought to himself.

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A'armo'o trotted into the battle center that two days ago had only been partially finished, stopping just inside the door and looking around. It should have taken weeks or months to get the massive room online but the Terran Confederate Military Forces were all at stations. A'armo'o could see multiple holotanks set up, two places for virtual meetings, and multiple monitors all manned.

He was only standing there a few moments when a Terran moved up and nodded.

"How can I help you, sir?" the Terran asked.

A'armo'o liked the Terran honorific. It had a certain weight and feel to it that even the long drawn out restating of ranks of his own military did not have. It was short, quick, and carried everything he needed.

"I wish to access the digital battlefield. I am interested in the tactics of the Confederate military in taking their objectives," A'armo'o said.

"One moment, sir," the Terran said. He had interesting looking markers on his lapels. A'armo'o couldn't remember all of the Terran ranks, but since there wasn't crossed rifles he knew the Terran wasn't a Marine, since the middle point of the marker didn't have a circle with a star, he knew it wasn't Aerospace. No fierce bird at the top of the rank meant it wasn't Navy. The insignia was point up on the 'stripes' and was missing a weird little wedge in the middle, so he wasn't Space Force.

Plus, it was the angled line on top and the round line on the bottom all in black, rather than the gold or black weird ones for officers.

A'armo'o was proud of himself that he was able to quickly deduce that the Terran in front of him was Terran Army Enlisted.

Now if he could just remember what the three pointed bars over two rounded bars meant beyond 'Sergeant' he'd feel better.

"All right, sir," the Terran said. "I've verified your ID and ensured you are cleared for this area and the information you are requesting. Any live streaming data has a sixty second delay for non-commanders, just so you know that."

"Ah, security. I approve, Sergeant," A'armo'o said, seeing if he was correct about the ranks.

The Terran nodded, then turned and made a waving motion. "If you will follow me, sir."

A'armo'o trotted over to a single station, his tendrils curling in surprise when the seat turned liquid looking and reconfigured to be more comfortable for a Lanaktallan. The screen unfolded five more screens that arranged themselves in a highly expensive but optimal configuration.

"All right, sir, have a seat and the interactive enhanced virtual reality system will guide you through what you are looking for as well as assist your understanding," the Terran said.

"Thank you," A'armo'o said, settling down in the seat.

The Terran back up and the small area suddenly grew walls and a ceiling, muffling and then eliminating the sounds from the rest of the room. The screens waited until he was comfortable, then moved to the proper positions and made minute adjustments until they were perfect. He knew that somehow the system was tracking his eye movements.

A virtual keyboard and touch context menu popped up right as a voice, a Terran female voice, spoke in his ear.

"If you need assistance, simply state 'Assistance Request' and I will assist you immediately," the voice said.

"Thank you," A'armo'o said.

"You are welcome, Great Grand Most High of Armor A'armo'o," the voice said.

A'armo'o tapped his way through the menus, slowly picking up speed as he got more comfortable.

The system was amazing. It had all the data he could possibly want to learn about.

A small part of him was surprised they would risk an intelligence failure on this scale.

Then he realized, with a chill, that the Terrans didn't care if he knew the specifications of the Terran Main Battle Tanks, the maximum effective range of a magnetic accellerator rifle, the blast radius of a standard implosion grenade, or the flight ceiling of an aerospace striker.

He took a minute to calm himself at the unspoken declaration of superiority. That he was laughably outclassed to the point that the Terran military doubted the data would even do him any good.

He started simply, tapping the icon for Task Force Angry Duck.

From there it broke down into various units: The Space Force Fleets, the Aerospace Wings, the Navy Fleets (He was surprised to see there was wet-water surface and subsurface craft in operation on the planet), the Marine Expeditionary Forces, and the Army, well, Armies.

It took him a minute to navigate 7th Army, V Corps. He sat and stared. V Corps had nine infantry divisions, three tank divisions, aerospace assets, artillery divisions, two cavalry divisions, the Telkan First Marine Division, and even more units.

He was surprised to find his forces listed in between 3rd Armor and 38th Armor.

A'armo'o checked quickly and found that his units were all listed as "Depot Maintenance" and not in combat. He did further checks and found out that the "Maintenance" part wasn't some polite fiction, but virtually all of his tanks were undergoing heavy maintenance, something called "Service Life Extension Protocols."

Curious, he tapped Third Armor and immediately blinked at the sheer size of it.

So far it had been pretty standard. A foreign interface, sure, but pretty standard data.

There were three tabs that A'armo'o had never seen before.

GESTALT SYSTEM STREAM (WARNING! COMBAT ENGAGED)

SOCIAL MEDIA STREAM (WARNING! COMBAT ENGAGED)

BATTLE TACTICAL NET STREAM - TRUCKER UPDATES AND PATCHES

The last one was locked out and he watched at the sheer amount of data that was registering on it.

A'armo'o sat for a moment, thinking about the fact that the Confederate military had a dedicated channel entirely for one person's input into the tactical network.

He had to admit, he was curious about what the raw data looked like, but decided not to go down that route.

He checked the social media stream, curious about it. It required him to load up three additional pieces of software into his datalink, all of them digitally signed by Confederate Intelligence.

Why not? he thought. The software and firmware installed and he entered the social media stream.

Immediately he was bombarded by short messages, text emblazoned pictures, short videos, all started streaming by. Each one had hearts or smiling/laughing/crying/angry faces, green arrows pointing up, green arrows pointing down, all streaming past it.

Along with small icons of Terran male genitalia.

If you built it, they will draw a dick on it, floated up in A'armo'o's mind and he snorted in amusement.

He idly wondered if his Second Great Most High had realized who had drawn the Terran genitalia on the back of his helmet yet.

I did it and it amused me, he thought. His datalink replied with an image of A'armo'o laughing, tinted and angled as such a way as to seem slightly malevolent. He recognized the image, it was from where he had been talking to Trucker three days ago.

"Assistance required," A'armo'o said.

The eVI popped up. "How may I help you, Great Grand Most High A'armo'o?" she asked.

He told her quickly what he wanted and she helped him put it together and then send it anonymously to his subordinate.

After he sent it to the intended recipient, he went back to looking at the stream.

One caught his eyes.

It was of a fearsome looking Terran Main Battle Tank shooting at everything around it, surrounded by explosions and fire. At the top of the image it read "YOUR OLD OBSOLETE TANK". The bottom half of the image was a yellow citrus fruit on small weak looking tracks, a rubber band shooter made up of a piece of wood and a single rubber band on the front, and a pathetic looking flag with a crudely drawn Space Force logo on a broken tree branch at the back. The bottom text read "YOUR MODERN STATE OF THE ART SUPER-TANK!" Underneath the image was the saying "It's an older meme but it checks out."

A'armo'o laughed at that one. He understood and got that.

He added a heart logo from his personal account and let the images and text scroll by.

The next one that caught his eyes took a moment for him to understand.

On the left was a female Rigellian in a flexing pose that showed off all of her muscles and her impressively swollen mammary glands (A'armo'o frowned at that. He didn't remember them having mammary glands. He checked the database real quick and say that, no, they didn't. The males did. For some reason the highly detailed drawing was inaccurate but still was accumulating approval), clad only in a thong. Above her head it read "YOUR PREVIOUS DUTY STATION". On the right was a malnourished looking Terran female all muddy and dirty with small insects and wavy lines coming off of her (A'armo'o looked it up. Apparently the lines stood for foul odor) and the logo "YOUR CURRENT DUTY STATION" above it.

The two images were repeated on the lower half, only the text was different.

Above the Rigellian was "YOUR CURRENT DUTY STATION" and above the foul smelling small dirty malnourished Terran female was the logo "YOUR NEXT DUTY STATION AFTER TWO YEARS".

It took him a minute to understand it, and when he did, he added his own approval icons as he laughed.

It's true. It's so true.

The video he stopped on was strange. It showed a Lanaktallan tank firing desperately at a Precursor that was pushing it back until the sheer face of a cliff blocked it off. Suddenly there was an annoying tune played on a horn and the camera angle changed to show the edge of the cliff from the bottom, as if the viewer was the tank commander. A massive Terran Main Battle Tank flew off the edge, then went to slow motion, the tracks clattering, the guns firing. The Terran tank commander was plainly visible as she gave a wink, a thumbs up, and smile that made her white teeth glint from the backwash glare of the tank's guns.

The Lanaktallan TC looked up and said "It's so beautiful" as it flew overhead.

It went to full speed as the Terran tank landed on the Precursor tank, which had wide opened shocked white and black eyes that were spinning in surprise. Debris flew out as the Terran tank played the annoying abrasive tune on the horn and roared away.

The video made no sense of A'armo'o, but it was apparently popular and had been shared to the Armored Herd network, where it had been watched nearly fifteen thousand times and had six thousands approvals.

Curious, he checked the timestamp for when it had hit the Lanaktallan channels. First, he was surprised to see that the Terran battlefield network now included a "Great Herd Social Media Stream". Second, that as the Great Grand Most High, he had access to such things as 'morale baseline', 'engagement level', 'troop stress level', and other socio-science data.

When the video was seen by the first Lanaktallan it had been rapidly been shared. As it had been passed around, morale saw an actual uptick. A'armo'o checked a few videos and was startled to see even the most grizzled and hardened tanker watching the video and bursting out with laughter as the Terran tank crushed the Precursor and raced away.

Another video popped up, crossing from the Third Armor media stream to the Armored Herd channel.

It was a short video of a Terran female tanker, in her body armor and uniform, leaning forward and touching the side of a cringing Lanaktallan tanker's face. She said "Just say my name..." as the image zoomed in on her mouth and the Lanaktallan's ear. The image switched to the same Lanaktallan, desperately firing his TC's weapon as the main gun fired, hitting a Precursor machine that far outweighed and outgunned the tank. The Lanaktallan looked up and screamed "INSANE FEMALE LEMUR!"

A Terran Main Battle Tank dropped out of the sky and crushed the Precursor tank before roaring away in a cloud of debris and dust.

"Commo and Co-op Play Saves Lives!" flashed on the screen.

A'armo'o found himself laughing, adding his own approval to the image. He saw that his men's morale raised slightly again.

He had meant to come in and watch the battlefield from Third Armor's point of view.

Instead, as he asked the eVI for assistance, he found himself helping craft image macros, memes, and short videos with the help of 432nd Psychological Warfare Company.

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Second Great Grand Most High of Armor Va'arna'ash saw he had a message on the base datanet. Curious, he opened it.

It was a still image of when he found his helmet, with Terran male genitalia drawn crudely on the back side in glow in the dark green paint stick, with the caption "Who drew a dick on my hat?" His tendrils were curled and his crests inflated with anger.

There was more to the image and he scrolled down.

It showed him glaring at the Terrans around him, holding his hat, his body language offended.

"You thought it was the lemurs" it said.

There was more to the image.

He scrolled down.

It showed an animated image of the Great Grand Most High of Armor, A'armo'o, laughing wildly, almost insanely, all six eyes wide open, braying his laughter.

"BUT IT WAS I! YOUR SUPERIOR!"

Va'arna'ash curled his tendrils and inflated his crests in annoyance.

Surely the Great Grand Most High could act his age and rank.