Chapter 392

HEAVY METAL INCOMING!

How to describe those three simple words? Do I tell you about how loud it was, roaring across every frequency, every audible sound range? Do I talk about how it roared from every speaker, every flat pane of macroplas and glasteel and armaglass as well as any flat surface thin enough to vibrate? Do I tell you how the three words were full of such malevolent fury that it made my Shavashan driver, Karelesh whimper in fear? Do I try to explain to you how it was, all at once, a threat, a promise, an offer of salvation and a warning of incoming devastation?

It was not, gentle reader, a simple empty statement put forth by emotionless computers. It was not empty of emotion and flat sounding. It roared and bellowed full of lemur rage, primate aggression, and purely Terran menace.

It told you: The Lemurs of Terra Are Coming and They Are Pissed.

Recordings, simulations, even high fidelity recreations do not carry the sheer weight those three words carry when they are bellowed out to let a being know that the lemurs are coming with guns. There is something completely... human... about their three word warning.

Human trading, diplomatic, and civilian vessels arrive quietly, with a sparkle of jumpspace energies.

The Terran War Machine arrives with a roar of hatred and an explosion.

Those three words had reduced more than one being into hanging their head, surrounded by their own waste, mumbling "the lemurs are coming" over and over to themselves as they shuddered with terror.

I had no time for such things.

Our tank was badly damaged, to put it mildly. Less than 32% of minimum recommended armor plating was left, half of the interior systems down, the crew spaces open to the outside in three places.

And completely out of ammunition.

The "refugee and rearming point" came into sight and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been wracked by fears of the lemurs destroying the place with orbital strikes or even landing in order to tear apart the shelters and kill the refugees.

Instead, there were tanks being worked on, the robotic repair systems running on each of the ten repair bays, neo-sapients working at the jobs they had been trained on, ammunition being brought over from the safety pit I had ordered dug for the munitions I had taken from the lockers to be put into.

The tank slid to a stop, the skirts grinding on the asphalt. We had enough armor breaches that I could see around the tank quite easily. Which was a good thing, since the majority of the sensors were nothing but fused circuitry and melted alloys.

I was able to scramble out of the hole in the side that we had gone into battle with, somewhat ungainly, but I had left my dignity back with my modesty and my arrogance. I staggered and nearly fell when my hooves hit the ground and I realized that somehow I had lost not only one of my hoofshoes, but the hoof itself, landing on the soft flesh normally hidden and protected the hard material of my hoof.

When I limped over to the aid station I stopped and stared.

The neo-sapients that had started work there were still there, joined by even more. I saw two fillies working with them, one wearing the jewelry and clothing of a high ranking matron. The other was barely mature, her nervousness evident as she moved from patient to patient.

Around me were slings and cradles and beds and cots, all containing wounded people. A tanker who's eyes had been burned away along with the crests on the back of his head and neck. A Telkan missing an arm and burns across the same side of his muzzle and torso. A Savashan missing her tail and one leg.

And so many more.

I stood there, feeling a crushing feeling in my chest as I stared at all the wounded. The young filly made a low moan of pain before stepping away from a Tnvaru for a moment, then moving back to cover the Tnvaru's face with a cloth.

They had died. Despite all of my efforts.

The matron moved up to me, running the beam of the medical scanner over me.

"I can treat the minor burns and contusions and bruises if you take off your armor, but I should take care of your missing hoof first," she said.

"Just the foot, Matron," I said, limping to a sling.

I'd like to say I was stoic during the procedure, but I cried out in pain twice as she debrided the dead flesh, sprayed sealant on it, then wrapped it in a protective cast.

The painkillers were for those who were wounded worse than me.

And, of course, the dying.

While she was wrapping my foot Lu'ucilu'u came in, removing her helmet. Her fur looked slick, almost like plastic, and her whiskers just behind her little triangular nose were bent. She looked exhausted as she sat down next to me, out of the way of the matron working on my arm.

"Does it hurt, Most High Ha'almo'or?" she asked me.

"Very much," I admitted, wiping the tears from my face. "But it could be worse. We saw that it was worse for many."

She nodded slowly.

I looked at the Matron, shuddering with exhaustion. "I need something from you."

She raised one eyebrow.

"I need a shot of stimulant. I must return to my self appointed task," I told her.

She frowned at me and I could see her looking at where the mechanics were using a winch to drag my much abused tank to a repair cradle with her side eye. She lowered her head slightly and stared at me. "And how long have you been awake, 'Most High'?" she asked.

I knew right there that she knew I was no Most High and I sighed as I checked my datalink's chrono.

"Forty one point three two hours, Matron," I said softly.

She stared for a long moment. "You are the one who was protecting the bus that rescued my daughter and I, are you not?"

I nodded. "Yes, Matron," I said. She knew of my dishonor, knew that I was actually a prisoner that had just been deemed too minor and inconsequential to jail in the face of a Precursor assault.

She held up an injector, fiddling with it. "This injector contains powerful stimulants, Ha'almo'or," she said softly. "If I were to inject you, say, in your forward left flank, with this, you would feel your fatigue and hunger drop away for nearly twenty hours," she set it on the tray next to me. "I cannot in good conscious administer this injection, and I must warn you: you risk heart and brain damage should I inject you. It would put you in danger, you may very well suffer cardiac muscle damage, your lungs could fill with fluid, you could suffer blood clots in your brain," she turned away, closing her rear eyes. "Do not inject yourself, Ha'almo'or, and heed my warning and understand my reasons for not injecting you."

I nodded. "Of course, Matron, how foolish of me," I said softly.

Lu'ucilu'u's eyes burned like fire as I picked it up, stripped the safety cap off of it, and stared at it for a long moment.

I slammed the autoinjector into the thick muscle on my flank, ignoring the fact that it stung.

My heart started hammering and my chest filled with pain. I groaned, and found that Lu'ucilu'u held my two left hands while Feelmeenta held my right hands. My breath came in painful gasps, feeling like glass was stabbing into me. My injured foot burned with pain, my eyes felt like they were going to explode in the sockets, and for a moment I thought I was going to die as the synthetic hormones coursed through my system.

Then it was past.

I closed my eyes and slowly opened them, the fatigue, the numbness, the gnawing of hunger pains swept away.

Karelesh ducked into the tent, flinching slightly at the cries of pain and suffering, but moved over to me.

"We have another tank. The crew abandoned it and fled in a grav-lifter," he told me. "It is fully loaded with ammunition and the armor is unblemished."

I nodded, gently untangling the sling.

"We will go forth and save more people. How much more space do we have?" I picked up my helmet, the surface gray and pebbled from too many near hits.

"Enough room for nine thousand more. The technicians are working on the last two bunkers, if they finish while we rescue people, there will be enough room for fifteen thousand," he told me. He looked into the distance and I knew he was checking his datalink. "That's thirty trips with the bus."

"Any priority concentrations of civilians?" I asked, moving toward the tank that Feelmeenta was standing next to. She had painted "CIVILIAN PROTECTORATE SERVICES" on the side with an auto-painting drone.

"Two habs. Roughly three thousand living beings in the habs. A mix of species," Lu'ucilu'u said softly.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! HOLD THE LINE, BROTHERS!roared out and many cried out in pain and fear as the sound echoed from hundreds of sources.

"We do not have long," I said. "Soon the Terran will be here," I pointed at the sky. "They will attack the Precursors and us. We must get the civilians to shelter."

"The Terrans have no reason to attack us," Julkrex, who had ridden with me and helped me run the guns that first terrible night, said softly. "They are here to kill the Precursors and only those who attack them."

"My people attacked theirs. They are at war with the Unified Species Council," I told him. I triggered the personnel ramp and watched it slowly unfold.

"Terrans are a strange people," Julkrex said. "If we do not attack them then perhaps they will not attack us."

"Pray to your benevolent digital deity," I told him, trotting up the crew ramp. "I will curse the names of the Forgotten Ones, the Gods that perhaps my people worshiped before we left them behind."

Julkrex joined us, getting into the secondary gunner position to take over on the secondary guns, including the mortars and missile launchers. Lu'ucilu'u got into the electronic warfare position, activating each system.

"At least this time we have chaff, flares, and drones," she said. "The mechanics are installing additional battlescreen projectors, the ones used for the heavy tanks."

"We will need them," I said. I loaded a round into the chamber on the plasma cannon, shuddering at the memory of how my first shot had been virtually ignored by the Precursor machine.

I had learned how to strike at them. Their battlescreen projectors were weak at the seams, the armor was vulnerable to kinetics and I could use the plasma cannon to strike at them with shrapnel.

The sun was rising as we entered the city, a red orb in the sky hidden by smoke and worse that filled the sky. It looked like a great bloody eye staring at us as we drove into the city. I was leading the massive hoverbus with my tank. Behind the bus was the wrecker and nearly a dozen cargo lifters driven by neo-sapients, some of them injured.

The immature filly was inside a cargo lifter marked with "EMERGENCY MEDICAL" in blue paint on the side, driven by a pair of Tnvaru, with four Telkan on the top of the box cargo area, all carrying plasma rifles dropped by fleeing infantry.

A Hamaroosa with a loud-speaker called out to people we passed, urging them to follow the road to our refugee point, urging them to abandon the city as fast as possible. Many of them were weeping, staggering, many of them dressed in rags that had replaced their clothing.

One by one we began emptying houses, the habs, any building we could.

It was noon when I heard it over the communications bands.

The voice of A'armo'o, the Great Grand Most High.

"All commanders, perform a fighting withdraw toward the nearest populations centers. All infantry commanders who still command men, who are to be commended for their valiant actions and gallantry, are to sweep through the cities, creating fighting positions," the calm voice of the grand commander of armor stated. "All armored vehicles, move to the coordinates I have sent. We will create a fighting line around the population centers and seek to keep the Precursor machines away from the population as long as possible."

I breathed a sigh of relief as my tank hummed around me. We had grounded it, letting the guns cool, letting the slagged armor on the rear port flank cool, giving Lu'ucilu'u time to load in new algorithms for her EW systems.

My datalink clinked and pinged, a message coming in directly to me.

"Ha'almo'or, are you there?" the voice was A'armo'o, speaking directly to me again.

"Yes, Grant Most High," I said, feeling awed. I rubbed my chest, working to banish the ache.

"I cannot spare you any forces for the task I have set you upon, this task you have shouldered yourself," A'armo'o stated. "How are your plans proceeding?"

"We have not rescued as many as I wish in the six hours since dawn," I told him truthfully. "Only six thousand living beings," I gave a slight shudder. "My medical center is overwhelmed, I have no doctors, only the medical kits from abandoned tanks and lifters, and I cannot save the badly injured. I am forcing them flank to flank, haunch to chest, into the shelters," I gave another shudder. "Most High, they all weep as I lock the door."

"You have rescued six thousand beings in six hours, Ha'almo'or?" he asked me.

"I have, Most High," I replied.

"You said it was not as many as you wish. How many did you wish to save?" He asked me.

"All of them," I admitted. "All of them, Most High. What use am I if I cannot save them?"

There was silence a moment.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! MAKE WAY!roared out.

"Save the civilians, Ha'almo'or, as many as you can," Most High A'armo'o said softly. "Gunner Fifteenth Class Ha'almo'or, I am proud to call you, and those who labor with you, brother. A'armo'o out."

I sat for a moment, putting my face in my hands. I wanted to weep, my mind racing, my thoughts jumbled together, memories jangling in my brain.

The Terrans were coming.

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

No. The Terrans were here*.*

"Soon, we will face the mad lemurs of Terra in addition to the Precursors," I said, reaching out and taking hold of the controls of my tank's massive main gun. "The vehicles are loaded, the hab has been emptied. We must return."

"We are nearly out of ammunition," Julkrex said.

"The battlescreen projectors are nearly burnt out, we have no spares to rotate in," Lu'ucilu'u stated.

"We will guard their rear," I stated.

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!roared out again.

I shuddered again, remembering that each roar was not a single ship, but rather an entire combat group of them. Dozens of them.

Armed to the teeth with weapons dangerous even to those who fired them and armored beyond reason to withstand even Precursors main battery fire.

It would have taken nearly an hour to reload the tank, the robotic systems working as fast as they could.

We simply moved to a new tank that Feelmeeta painted "EMERGENCY SERVICES" on the side again in blue paint.

The sun was high in the sky, but hidden, just a glimmering red circle in the sky that was hidden by smoke and ash, as we drove back into the city.

We did not listen to the channels, they were full of panic and dismay.

I was ashamed of my fellow soldiers as I saw them run by or drive by, their weapons and in some cases, even their armor, abandoned as they fled the battlefield.

"Where do they think there is to go?" Karelesh asked as he narrowly avoided hitting a fast infantry assault grav lifter full of panicked troops.

"Where there are no Precursor machines," Feelmeenta said quietly.

We were silent as we moved up to the last hab. We had two buses now, over a dozen heavy lifters, and nearly a score of infantry lifters, all of them containing armed neo-sapients.

Twice they had been forced to shoot panicked Lanaktallan troops who tried to take the lifter from them. Following my orders and shooting to kill, not wound, not maim, not frighten.

Shoot to kill was the phrase of the day.

We were heading back, following the wrecker, the lifters, when the starboard battlescreen gave a rippling snarl as the Precursor machines stormed out of a half-collapsed building.

I kept calling "SHOT OUT" reflexively as I stomped the firing bar as fast as I could convince the loader to slam ammunition into the chamber. Julkrex ran all three guns at once, his hands moving rapidly. Two hand operated and one slaved to his helmet visor. Karelesh kept us moving, dodging as many shots as possible, sliding us to the side.

He was pulling the Precursors to the side of the hover-bus's path, the path of the refugees.

The tank was taking hits, more and more. The forward battlescreen collapsed and Karelesh turned us around even as I spun the turret to keep the Precursors in sight.

"Battlescreen projector two reload jammed!" Lu'ucilu'u called out. "Trying to override!"

"SHOT OUT!" I answered, stomping the firing bar, converting an abandoned luxury limo into slashing shrapnel, the second shot pushing the shrapnel on a wave of superheated protomatter.

We took another hit, and another, and another. The gun was beeping but I stomped the override and shut down the computer assist, running the gun by eye.

The front of a building crashed down as a Precursor machine ten times the size of my tank pushed through the bottom of the building.

I put a shot into its face, then a second.

Its return fire collapsed our battlescreen and ripped the armor off over the back deck. Particle beams vomited from a dozen cannons tore into us. Nacelle seven and eight's housing was vaporized and we scraped to stop. Another hit ripped enough armor off of the turret's starboard side that a hand's width gap appeared. Another hit and the tank spun as the massive energy transfer from the particle beam caused our armor to explode outward.

I stomped the bar and the computer refused to fire, the barrel snapped off only a meter from the armor of the turret.

I slapped the override and stomped again.

"SHOT OUT, DAMN YOU!" I bellowed.

"My friends, it has been a pleasure," Julkrex said, running the two remaining guns.

"I will see my family again soon," Lu'ucilu'u said.

"WE AREN'T DEAD YET!" I roared out. I reached up and tried to open the gunner's hatch. It was jammed and I slapped the emergency button. The hatch blew off on the explosive bolts and I stood up, poking my helmeted head out. I aimed by eyeball and fired again.

The plasma just washed over the massive machine.

It slowed and I could feel its cold malevolence.

It knew there was nothing we could do.

Another stomp and I heard the beeping telling me that the gun was empty.

There was no more ammo.

I reached down and grabbed my plasma rifle off the rack, lifting it up and aiming through the sight.

There was a roaring sound, a high pitched shrill whistling shriek with the roaring sound of thrusters right at the last second.

Explosions suddenly bracketed my tank as large objects slammed into the ground. They were eight sided cylinders, a heavy retrothruster at the base surrounded by smaller guidance thrusters. They hit the ground, blowing tarmac and gravel into the air.

I kept firing at the Precursor machine, yelling at it.

No words, for I had none. Just maddened yelling and screaming that had no words, only sounds.

I would not go quietly into the darkness of death.

No.

Lanaktallan are silent when born. I had been quiet and silent all my life.

No more. Not now. Not in my last moments.

I would go out screaming like an insane lemur.

The sides of the objects dropped and out came nightmares.

The Mad Lemurs of Terra had arrived.

--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.