Chapter 388

"THE FIRES OF WRATH NEVER WANE!" the heavily armored Terran roared, slamming the Precursor combat machine against the thick battlesteel wall with one massive boot. The compact stubber roared just as loudly as the Terran triggered a burst down the side of the Precursor opposite of his boot, gutting the machine and hammering craters in the battlesteel of the wall on the other side of the robot's body.

Palgret fired his rifle, gritting his teeth together at the pain as the recoil, which felt completely uncompensated to him, drove the spiked buttplate into his shoulder. The .70 caliber shells thumped from the end of his rifle, blowing huge craters in the combat robot rushing him.

The combat robot spun, tracks shedding sparks, as the upper half broke off and collapsed.

Culvit yelled "FRAG OUT!" and threw a grenade, barely ducking down before return fire would have ripped his head clean off. The grenade flew out, bounced off the ceiling, hit the wall, and bounced around the corner.

The Terran turned from the gutted Precursor, lashing out with the cutting bar that clattered white hot warsteel teeth down its length, and ripped two other combat robots in half even as he fired his stubber with the other hand. The Imperium Eagle on his chest burned with white fire as he roared in rage.

"HATE! HATE YOU! HATE FOR ALL MECHANIKIND!" the Terran roared as Precursor fire sparked off his armor, bouncing off to explode against the walls and ceiling and floor after having less affect than droplets of rain.

His return fire blew huge craters in the robots.

Palgret ducked down again, taking cover behind the large slab of twisted black material that felt slightly tacky to the touch, that oozed clear slime. What it had been was a mystery, now it was just some kind of biomechanical extrusion from the body of the Precursor they were moving through. He pulled the empty magazine out of his weapon, tapped it against the side of his helmet.

"MAG OUT!" he yelled, throwing it underhand over the block he had taken cover behind.

It flew less than fifty feet before it exploded in a gout of plasma as the micro-battery that kept the ammunition stable detonated.

He could see his breath steam out in front of his armor's faceplate, could see the fog that was knee deep on the floor, see the liquid slime drip from the ceiling, down the walls, down what had probably once been equipment. He could hear the helmetless Terran roar his warcries.

Even though his suit reported that the interior of the Precursor was a near-total vaccum.

It was cold outside his armor.

1.11111∞ Kelvin.

Well, his suit actually kept blinking 1.1111∞2 K but he was ignoring that last number.

The cold seemed to seep into his suit, seep into his skin, making his bones and joints hurt, seeming to squeeze his chest, wrap invisible bands of frost around his heart.

He ignored that TAARA was inscribed in flowing elegant script on the side of his weapon, written with burning warsteel.

Palgret peeked over the top of his cover and saw that the human was advancing on the Precursors. The human released the chainsword and it snapped onto his waist, pulled there by some tech that Palgret didn't understand. The Terran grabbed the stubber's underbarrel shroud with his off hand, putting highly accurate fire into the mob of Precursor machines streaming into the room.

"HOW MANY OF YOU CAN I MAKE DIE?" the Terran roared and purple, blue, and white electrical arcs snarled around his thick plated power armor. The fire in his eyes was bright enough to light up the grey skin of his face. The stubber in his hands flashing as the human raked the oncoming Precursors, sending them crashing backwards, gutted and dismembered.

Palgret ducked back behind his cover as his helmet's psychic suppression system clamped down painfully, filling his mouth with the taste of ripe tangleberries and zingy metal foil. He curled up slightly, holding tight to his rifle with both hands, trying to push away the images that were fading from his mind.

Images of atomic explosions, orbital kinetic strikes, plasma cannons lancing down through the atmosphere to blot away cities, humans and Treana'ad and other species being ripped apart, Mantids being crushed by bigger Mantids, weird five limbed creatures devouring humans and Mantids and fat brown waterfowl.

The stress of combat was bad enough, slowly devouring his strength and endurance, raking at his mind with cruel talons.

The human's psychic output made it worse. Made him taste blood and ashes.

He glanced over and saw that Two was on his knees, hands pressed to his helmet's sides, bladearms limp, his four legs folded underneath him, his weapon dropped on the ground. A look around showed that the other black Mantid was the same way, the little greenie was holding tight to Palgret's ankle, and 030 had one hand on Palgret's helmet, the other holding his micro-rifle. The Lieutenant was down on all four knees, hugging himself tightly with all four arms.

Palgret closed his eyes as another wave of heat rolled over him.

"YOU ARE MECHANICAL WHEAT BEFORE THE SCYTHE OF MY WRATH!" the Terran roared.

--psychic attack recovery positions-- 030 ordered over the link. --let the Terran handle it--

Palgret pulled his knees up into his chest, his rifle held tightly between his legs, his helmet resting against the barrel's heat-shroud slash handgrip.

He wasn't sure how much time went by, it seemed to take forever, but maybe it was only a few heartbeats before he felt the psychic suppression system drop and the level went from 150% to 76% load.

--hold positions-- 030 said.

Palgret felt the tiny Mantid officer climb up on his helmet.

"Report," the green mantid officer grated out.

"Enemy destroyed," the Terran said, his voice a bubbling choking gurgle of a man drowning on his own blood. "Armor and weapon system integrity at 98%."

--everyone up-- 030 sent, looking around.

His squad was still intact. He hadn't lost anyone yet, although Two's vital signs were shaky. 030 ordered the black Mantid trooper to activate his medikit and watched as the Mantid's vitals leveled out after an anti-anxiety medicine release.

Palgret stood up, his knees feeling shaky. Behind his eyes felt bruised and he glanced at his weapon.

The forward handgrip of his weapon was wrapped in the chain of a cutting bar, the toothed chain welded to the macroplast with heavy beads of badly welded endosteel. BHU'ULI'EENA was written in flowing archiac looking script on the side of his weapon. A Telkan broodcarrier name.

He wondered for a moment who she had been.

--281 check the route replot if needed-- 030 ordered.

--roger roger-- 281 said, launching a pair of microdrones.

Palgret noted, for the twentieth time, that his armor reported that outside was getting colder again. He felt a chill push into his armor and the environmental system whined as it flooded his armor with warm air.

Yet the external temperature monitor held the same temperature.

--mile left to go not far now-- 281 stated when the microdrones sped back.

"He knows we're here now," Three said.

Two lifted up a severed head of one of the Precursor combat machines, looking it over.

"That might not be true," he said softly. He tossed it to the Lieutenant, who clumsily caught it. "Ever seen one look like that?"

The head was long, like a Lanaktallan skull, only covered with cruel spikes, the mouth full of curved and jagged saw teeth, heavy pistons on the sides of the jaws. It only had four eyes, two stacks of two. The jaw was limp, and another set of jaws set on a piston was inside the mouth.

The human's grip had left finger deformations in the battlesteel of the 'skull' and the base of the skull was twisted like warm taffy.

"No," the Lieutenant said. He made a noise of disgust and tossed it away.

"These are all like that," Two said.

--move out-- 030 ordered.

The green mantid officer knew his troop's morale was shaky. That the long journey through Hellspace, the changes the human had gone through, the foul and twisted mockeries of the Precursor combat machines, the almost wet biomechanical looking structure of the Precursor, the mist on the floor, the dripping water, and the cold were all wearing on his troops.

030 knew that even trained Mantid combat troops could only keep up operational tempo for sixteen to eighteen hours before needing three times as long at rest unless they were being pushed by psychic control.

The Lanaktallan and the members of Sword Hoof were only rated for six to ten hours with four times as long for rest.

It was close to hour fifty, with only two rest periods of six hours. They had been forced to backtrack so many times that 030 was considering heading for the exterior of the Precursor machine instead.

Only the human seemed, well, as unaffected as an Enraged One could be.

I need to get them out of here somehow, get them somewhere they can desuit. Every hour after this exhaustion, physical and mental, will dilute their combat capability, he thought to himself, riding on Palgret's armored shoulder.

Palgret felt his gonads retract into his abdomen as he led the way into the dark corridor. The human was in front of him, sure, but Palgret didn't exactly find following the massive Terran very comforting. The walls had slime oozing down them, water dripped from the ceiling, and his breath steamed out from in front of his mask despite the fact that his armor was 100% environmentally sealed.

The corridor twisted repeatedly, sometimes splitting into multiple intersections, and twice they had to move up stairs completely covered by the blackish pulsing biomechanical material.

The color started to shift in the corridor, turning into a dark red, as 030's map showed they were less than two hundred meters from the Strategic Intelligence Housing. The corridor twisted, turned, looped in on itself by tucking over and under itself.

The walls were a dark crimson, almost black.

The human was in front as the group moved into a room. At the far end, only fifty meters away, was a wall blocking off what should have been a twenty meter run to the outside armor of the Strategic Intelligence Array housing.

--spread out-- 030 ordered, feeling exhausted. "Scan the walls."

The Terran started to slow down, slowly looking around himself.

--what wrong-- 030 asked.

"I... I remember..." the Terran. "I... I remember..."

--what-- 030 asked. Something was bothering him.

The entire room was twisted looking biomechanical material, dark red, pulsing, with nodules scattered around. The veins and tubes snaked around each other, over and under one another, pulsating as some kind of dark fluid moved through them. Water (or worse) dripped from the ceiling.

Palgret saw that his armor was registering a temperature of 316.483∞ Kelvin, an R humidity of 86% and rising, and atmospheric pressure of 1067 millibars.

"...hate..." the Terran rumbled, slowly drawing his chainsword. "...hate..." The hooked chain was still, the teeth slowly beginning to glow a sullen red. "I... I remember..."

Palgret ignored the big Terran even as his psychic shielding ramped up to 92.55% and he could taste tangleberries again.

"Hot in here," Jagler said.

"It's a dry heat," Two joked, lifting us his weapon, which had started beeping. He stared at it, then smacked the display. "What?"

--report-- 030 ordered.

"I've got movement. Lots of movement. All around us," Two said softly, slowly rotating in place. "Fifteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-two point sources."

"Precursors?" the Lieutenant asked.

"No, it's different," Two said.

"That can't be right," Culvit said, from where he was standing next to the wall.

"That's what it says," Two said, banging the side. "That's what I'm reading. Twenty meters, that's inside the room."

"Maybe you're reading it wrong, then," Culvit said.

"I'm reading it right! Fifteen meters. Ten," Two snapped.

--short controlled bursts-- 030 transmitted.

"Five, what the hell?" Two said.

"I REMEMBER!" the Terran suddenly roared. The chainsword roared to life and the eagle on his chest began burning brightly.

"Can't you shut him up?" Culvit turned to face the Terran.

His arm bumped the wall.

The black bumpy patch of wall bulged, twisted, let go of the layer of biomechanical tissue. It tore away, five equal spaced arms around a thick center, bloodshot eyes opening up at the end of each arm, the side attached to the wall bright pink cillia. In the center was a mouth ringed by heavy calcium grinding plates.

"MAR-GITE!" Three screamed.

The Terran opened fire.