Chapter 397

We drove back into the city, myself and my companions in a tank loaded with new Terran munitions, my faithful crew in the recovery vehicle, others who had chosen, for some maddened reason, to follow me into the city driving two of the mass transit vehicles and a score of grav-lifters. The grav-lifters were sporting new weapons, the pintle mounted plasma machineguns previously arming those craft having been dumped into "grinders" and replaced with Terran kinetic weaponry. The grav-lifters sparkled with battlescreens, powered by a reactor sitting in the back, just as my tank wavered behind Terran light tank battlescreens.

The wailing of the damned could be heard even through the hull as we drove into the smokey ruins of the city. The entire planet was burning, the Precursor machines having forced the Great Herd back until their backs were pressed against the ferrocrete walls of the buildings. The communications net was full of Most Highs panicking as Terrans made landfall, sometimes into Great Herd fire, their soldiers and combat machines attacking the Precursors without mercy or hesitation.

A platoon of light powered infantry was with me to protect those I rescued.

To my surprise there were several flight capable power armors, all in flat gray, with a red crescent on one side of their chest and a red cross on the other, moving with the makeshift ambulance that now glimmered with battlescreens and sterifields. To either side of us bounded huge cybernetic creations. Goodboi's and Simbas, they were called. Canine and feline brains, respectively, in heavy combat chassis capable of fighting the Precursors as well as sniffing out survivors buried under rubble.

And there was so much rubble.

The recovery vehicle used its equipment to pull aside rubble and chunks of buildings. I saw Terrans in armor wade into the rubble, using the strength provided by their power armor to throw aside the rubble. I saw Goodbois stand on top of rubble and bark, calling out that they had found survivors.

Each Simba and each Goodboi carried packs of Purrbois, another cyborg, these polymorphic alloy chassis wrapped around a feline brain. The purrbois descended into the rubble, oozing through the slightest cracks. They provided medical care when necessary and alerted us to the living and dying.

Several times I got out of my tank to help pull people from wreckage, helping move rubble, helping hold back debris. I watched the Terrans wiggle into holes barely large enough to fit them in order to talk to the person we were rescuing. Purrbois were curled up on the chests of those trapped when we managed to reveal them, subsonic rumbling calming them and their injuries treated as best the tiny cyborg could manage.

Late in the afternoon, as the sun was lowering, I stumbled climbing down from the rubble. My cast caught wrong and I almost tumbled, caught and steadied by one of the power armor clad Terrans. I managed to limp back to my tank, my leg aching. I broke into the medical kit and got out a painkiller, dry swallowing them, and looked over my scanners.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!echoed out.

The Terrans raised their voices in defiance:THEN DIE ALONE!

But still we worked.

There were still more emergency calls, emergency signals, all over the city. I could hear their wailing, crying out for help, even through the tank's armor.

The Terran concept of "Hell on Earth" had come to us.

I was sweating, the hatch open and half out of it, as we moved deeper into the city. Flames whipped up around us as we passed streets that had been torn open. A skyraker gave a loud groan, like a dying animal, and collapsed to the street.

The life signs calling for aid there suddenly winked out and I wanted to weep.

Still, we headed into the destroyed streets, my tank pushing rubble out of the way, the tracked recovery vehicle and I forging a path for the rest to follow.

The smoke was so thick that it was like night, thick enough to make the battlescreens snarl. Even with the filters in my suit my mouth and nostrils felt thick and greasy, I could taste the tang of burning metal and scorched meat.

We pushed on regardless, the Terrans assisting in finding just one more group of survivors.

Just one more.

That's all I wanted, just one more, as we drove through the streets of a murdered city.

Just before the dim red orb of the sun slipped below the skyline of the city I was helping carry surviving children, hidden in shipping containers by a Lanaktallan warehouse manager, to the flitters, when the snarl and crack of Precursor lasers sounded out.

I took a hit on the flank, stumbling, as the armor shed the sudden energy transfer with a flare of light. A kinetic round hit the side of my helmet and I almost went down, hugging the box of Hashenesh squirmlings tight to my armored chest. The light and sound made them start slapping their tails against the bottom of the box and make little barking squeaks even as they huddled together.

I was staring at their wide eyes as I stumbled down the wreckage, heading for my tank, my head swimming, my thoughts incoherent and disconnected.

A Terran in a suit of light powered armor interposed his body between the three Precursor machiens targeting me and the squirmlings in my arms.

I felt a weird sensation, like tape being pulled from my skin, around my ankle, where the cast was, but kept moving. I stumbled to the flitter and held up the box. The Kivyan inside was trilling in fear, her feathers ruffled, even as she took the box from me.

Two kinetic rounds hit my back, bouncing off my armor.

When I turned and looked, I could see the Precursor machines were approaching us from under a bridge overpass, advancing on us rapidly. The Terrans were putting up a fierce defense, but they were out of position, all to many of them holding children and infants.

I galloped for my tank, scrambling inside.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" I yelled out over the tank's loudspeakers even as I turned the turret, trying to get into position even as I scrambled over the gunner's couch.

The shot lined up.

"SHOT OUT!" I warned.

And stomped the fire bar.

The shot hit the bottom of the bridge/overpass and it collapsed with a roar, thousands of tons of ferrocrete thundering down on the Precursors.

I knew it wouldn't kill them, but it would delay them, give the Terrans time to regroup, time to get the survivors into the flitters and the buses.

"SHOT OUT!" I fired again, just for good measure.

There was silence, just the background wailing, the cracking of burning synthetics, and the groaning of stressed ferrocrete and alloy structural beams.

I rested against my sight, closed my eyes, and sighed.

There were so many left.

I wanted to go back out, help more, but when I stood up pain washed up my leg. I looked down and saw that my cast was missing, pulled free from my ankle and leg. My soft inner foot was resting against the armored floor of the tank, a pool of blood slowly seeping out.

I felt ashamed that I was unable to stand up, the pain too much for me.

As night fell we had emptied the last of the large buildings that were still intact, taking the survivors back to the refugee point. Repeatedly, off in the distance, there was the flash of atomic weaponry as the military clashed with the Precursors. Craft roared overhead, sometimes Precursors pursued by Terran craft, other times low flying Terran craft, sometimes Terran air mobile power armor.

When I parked, I managed to stumble out, limping, and help guide the refugees to the medical station or the bunkers.

People were afraid. Afraid of me, afraid of my people, afraid of the tank, afraid of the Terrans. Afraid of the lights and sounds of distant combat. Afraid for themselves, for their families, for their neighbors.

I pushed it away. I hardened myself against their pleas to not march them into the lifters and buses. I shut each door personally, staring at them as the heavy blast door closed in their faces.

I heard their pleas, their sobbing protests, and their weeping cries to not lock them in.

I had to.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!roared out as I closed the doors.

THEN DIE ALONE!came the enraged roar back.

It was after dark and I was beginning to feel tired. My bones hurt, my head hurt, my muscles ached, and my chest had a dull burning ache through it. I couldn't seem to get enough air into my lower lungs no matter how deep I gasped and my all four of my hands shook as I gripped the controls of my gun, my eyes blurred as I watched through the scope. I was out of stimcud, the shot was wearing off, and my fatigue was catching up with me.

The Matron refused to give me a stim-shot. She wrapped my foot, my leg, chiding me. She attempted to convince me to stay, to be one of the wounded, but I refused.

My cast thumped as I walked out, ignoring her demands that I return.

I couldn't stay in the medical tent. The cries of the wounded, the moans of the dying.

The silence of the dead.

I staggered out and leaned against the tank, crying tears of frustration, banging my helmet against the tank's thick armor to banish the wailing from the city that was still audible.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!screamed out, echoed across the sky, making the psychic filters in my helmet clamp down hard enough my sensitive ears hurt as they were pressed against my skull.

THEN DIE ALONE!was roared back.

I thumped my head against the armor, trying to drive the thoughts out.

"You OK, Lanky?" a human stopped and put their hand upon my lower spine. "You've got an impact streak on your helmet."

"They need me, Terran," I said. I pointed at the city, which was still burning, lighting up the sky, adding its own light to the burning clouds above us, adding to the ash that drifted down around us.

The Terran nodded. "Get in. I'll get the platoon, we'll make another run," they said. The voice was too synthesized for me to tell if they were male or female.

"I cannot," I admitted. I thumped my helmet against the tank.

"517, check his helmet," the Terran said. they patted my back. "It's all right. I'm here with you. You can ride in the flitter if you can't ride in your tank."

I was dimly aware of something climbing up my back.

--damaged will fix-- appeared on my visor.

THERE IS ON...started.

It suddenly cut off.

--fixed-- the words appeared. I looked over in time to see an armored little foot tall mantid jump from my head to the Terran's shoulder.

"Better?" the Terran asked me.

I nodded, still feeling exhausted.

The Terran looked around, giving the feeling of slyness despite the fact that I couldn't see their face. "Look, man, I shouldn't do this, but get your crew, get in the tank, I'll get you a stim."

"What? How?" I asked them.

"Through the power of requisitioning equipment and supplies without proper paperwork and authorization due to emerging field expedient needs regarding the current theater and active operational tempo and operation operations," the Terran said as they headed toward the medical center.

I put the confusing words out of my mind as I slapped the panel and the back deck lowered so I could climb into the tank. My legs trembled as I lowered myself onto the gunner's couch before the seat back swung into place and I could buckle myself in.

I envied, for a moment, the Terran tankers. Being bipedal they did not require extensive seating, took up half the space, and could make do with much less space much easier with much more support and protection that I had.

But, to be honest, it didn't matter. I had something I had to do and I wasn't going to let something like discomfort stop me.

Using my helmet's radio I contacted my loyal crew and ordered them back into the vehicles.

Before anyone else arrived the Terran ducked into my tank, moving forward in an awkward way, shuffling up next to me.

"Don't ask," was all they said, taking my wrist and pulling my arm toward them. When my hand got close I opened it.

The Terran dropped three stim-sticks into my hand.

"Don't die. I'd give you a piece of stimgum but it would probably kill you," the Terran said. They shuffled in a half circle and waddled out of the tank. The little mantid waved from his back.

My fingers shook as I stripped the safety plug from the injector. It took me two tries to get the injection port open on my armor, but I managed. The injection felt like cold lava coursing through my veins. I could hear a high pitched ringing noise, feel my limbs shake, and a great pain and pressure descended upon my upper chest. I moaned, hanging loose in the restraining straps, shuddering and shaking as the stimulant coursed through my veins.

Mal-Kar got in just as the pain eased up and I sat up.

"Are we going back in?" he asked me.

I nodded. "We must. There are still more trapped who need us," I told him.

He just nodded.

My tank led the way as we moved back into the burning city, the darkness of the night replaced by the hellish glow of the flames.

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