Chapter 399

Captain Stelgart held tightly to the 'oh shit bars' on the side of her command couch, the lights flickering on the bridge as her 'little' frigate took a small section of the nCv cannons fired by the Harvester that was breaking orbit from around the gas giant. Sure, it was only a 'fraction' of the guns in that salvo, but when the array firing that salvo was measured in the tens of miles rather than by the barrel, the concept of 'only a fraction' became largely moot.

"No damage! Cycling out projectors in section 9-G! Hull integrity is still nominal," her DCC officer called out.

It was worth it as the little frigate and its brigade mates came out of the maelstrom of hellfire, still tightly interlocked in formation, guns still hot.

"TARGET LOCK!" Guns called out.

Stelgart heard Rear Admiral (Lower Decks) call it out and gave her own input.

"OPEN FIRE!" she yelled.

The frigate shuddered as the fireplan was activated. The massive C+ cannons fired, rotated barrels, loaded a ground-car sized slug, and fired again, each of the six guns spitting out a C+ round every fifteen seconds. The inverted tachyon particle beams ripped out, transferring almost instantly across the hundreds of kilometers to impact almost before the C+ shells. The frigate flushed its missile pods, the pod itself turning into a C+ slug, and dumped more out. The creation engines ran overtime, producing a shell every second and a missile pod every five seconds, the heat rising rapidly.

The Harvester being targeted took hits from the entire brigade across the engines. The C+ shells hit inside the shields, detonating inside the engine spaces, which were not protected by the armor/battlescreen/armor technolaminate like the hull.

Over a third of the engines went out or exploded. The rear battlescreen failed, lightning bolts the size of trains ripping across the hull of the Harvester, tearing huge canyons in the armor.

"Fireplan updating!" Guns called out. "Decoys out!"

Stelgart felt the ship slide to the side as it warped space around it, the 'little' frigate's mass sliding into the warped gravity well it was projecting to move rapidly. The entire brigade moved like a flock of birds, each one's engines supplementing the engines of the others, allowing them to move quickly and smoothly through space.

The Harvester's return shots whipped through space where the brigade had been, hitting nothing but echoes of the ships that were a hundred kilometers away. The decoys that survived spun up to full power and 'fired' off. Dozens, hundreds of ship profiles and energy signals scattered from the target area, completely obscuring the small flotilla of two dozen 'light attack' ships as they changed targets to the undamaged engines and maneuvered for a better shot.

"HELLCORE CHARGING!" Guns called out.

General No'Drak heard the call, preceded by "STATUS CHANGE" from the ground-side tactical analysis teams.

Ge'ermo'o turned around, his hooves thumping on the variable hardness flooring. He looked down at the large hologram of the planet. The thirty or so icons representing the more massive Precursor machines were starting to flash, alerting those who were reading the map that they had changed their activities and demanded attention.

"Precursor ships are engaging engines and starting to lift off," someone else called out.

Only the lemurs of Terra could break a machine's will to fight, Ge'ermo'o thought. Two hours ago that realization would have filled him with horror.

Now, it was just one more shock and horror piled upon everything he had witnessed.

White filled a holotank as Third Armor gutted another Precursor ship, turning the superstructure into fuel for the fusion hellfire the consumed it. The feed cleared and the recon drones and sats focused on how the battlesteel of the Precursor machine was burning like anthracite coal exposed to plasma.

You murdered and terrorized your way across the Rim Systems and now that someone can hit back you scurry away like insects. I hope the Terrans destroy every one of you butchers and that you feel every moment of it, Ge'ermo'o thought, completely unaware of the irony of a Lanaktallan thinking such things.

The floor rumbled slightly even though the blast was nearly a hundred miles away.

Die, Ge'ermo'o thought, his tendrils curling with anger. Don't say goodbye, just die, Precursor trash.

An aide touched General No'Drak's arm. The big insectoid shifted, pulling Ge'ermo'o's attention from the holotanks.

"Sir, 108th MI has a data pull request from Sergeant Casey," the aide said.

It took Ge'ermo'o a moment to remember who Sergeant Casey was, and his eyes went to the holotank that was tracking the subterranean progress of the massive Precursor mining machine.

"Tell me," No'Drak sighed, pulling out another cigarette. He was highly stressed. The weapons being used shredded atmospheric gases, blew holes in the planet's magnetic field, and shattered the ozone layer. The weapons were "Total War" option weapons.

You usually didn't use them on a planet you planned on having anyone live on before an Elven Court or Genesis Device could be used.

They'd been used on Unified Council military targets prior, the Mar-gite before that.

Now they were being used to show the Precursors that the Terrans still had the ability to hurt them.

"MI reports Casey filed a data pull request for an older creation engine template," the aide said, combing her whiskers with one slightly trembling hand. "It's a problem."

"What's the problem?" General No'Drak asked. Part of him wanted to snap at his aide, ask her why she was bringing a request from a Senior NCO to him instead of gong to his Company Commander.

A glance at the holotank showing the progress of the Precursor mining machine heading toward the mountains along a path miles below the surface reminded him that he wasn't dealing with some Private asking to use the latrine.

"The request was very specific, but not something in our decrypted and active template data archives," the aide said. "Current network and mainframe usage rates mean it could take a couple of hours for even one of the BOLO's to find the correct files in their archives since it's going be a low priority file."

"Anyone else who might have something like it?" General No'Drak asked.

"There is someone in-system we can ask, but..." the aide went silent for a long moment.

"Spit it out. Who?" No'Drak lit his cigarette as another Precursor machine was gutted, the city sized bulk falling a half mile into the ocean, still burning.

"The Crusade of Wrath likely has the template loaded in systems that they can datamine a lot faster," the aide said.

Ge'ermo'o opened his mouth to ask the question, but General No'Drak beat him to it.

"What is he asking for?" the big Treana'ad asked, putting away his pack.

The aide consulted her dataslate. "A set of Second Terran/Mantid War creation engine templates for, and I quote, 'M-428e9 High Frequency Phasic Scrambler' and 'High Frequency Phasic Disruption Munitions in the multi-spectrum range'. Both sets are real old, we're talking archive databanks old."

"How would he know of such things?" Ge'ermo'o asked.

"Aside from being like nine hundred years old? It's a pretty big piece of history for our people," General No'Drak mused. "He's probably seen it referenced in manuals and documentaries and history works."

"Sir, should I contact the Crusade of Wrath?" the aide asked.

Smokey No nodded. "Get me Joan Mentissa," he said, exhaling smoke around his feet.

Ge'ermo'o stared at the holotank as another Precursor made it to orbit, its hull burning, only to run face first into the ships of the Crusade of Wrath, which began pounding it with their guns even as it tried to get clear of the gravity well to safely make a helljump.

The holotank in front of him wavered then cleared, to show an archaically designed ship's bridge, all black metal with dark green, blue, and red markings. No hologram projectors there, only bulky looking flat screens. The crews at the stations ranged from female Terrans in heavy armor to rough looking, almost skeletal appearing full conversion cyborgs. The well lit bridge still seemed to give off the aura of being dimly lit, shadowed, and hidden due to some dark purpose.

"General," the Joan said, nodding. "How may the Dark Crusade of Light assist you?"

"We believe there may be justification to deploy ancient technology only you would be in possession of," General No'Drak said carefully. "Technology that we require the creation engine templates for."

"What type of technology?" the Terran woman asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. "The Crusade possesses many forgotten and forbidden technologies. Be wary with what you ask, General."

"High frequency phasic interrupter technology," No'Drak said. "We have reason to believe there is a statistically insignificant but still valid change of encountering Precursor War Era Mantid technology," No'Drak said.

She turned, her mouth blurring slightly as the audio cut out. After a moment she nodded and turned back to General No'Drak.

"We have such technology templates," the Joan stated. "We shall transmit Terran Imperium Era templates as well as Combined Military Authority templates to your people."

The lights on the deck of the ship flashed around the Joan and she turned away.

"I have a battle to fight, General, and the enemies of life to destroy. May you seek honor," she said.

The channel closed.

Ge'ermo'o swallowed around the lump in both his long and short throats.

"What is the technology do?"

Casey looked up at Vuxten, his armored breathing mask making him look strange to Vuxten's eyes.

"Sorry, what, sir?" he asked, turning his attention from the holographic wireframe projected by Addox's hand to Vuxten.

"What does the tech do? Even my greenie isn't sure," Vuxten said.

Casey tapped the hologram as if it was a physical thing. "It's old tech. There's civilian versions, but those are the size of small spaceships, designed to cover entire cities in an interlocking field, we need smaller ones, ones that can handle the punishment of combat."

"OK, but what does it do?" Vuxten asked.

"It's a high frequency phasic disruptor," Casey said. Before Vuxten could comment that he had heard that but it didn't explain what it did, Casey pointed at a small scaffolding walkway. "We've got overwhelming evidence that this is a Mantid machine, and I doubt it's from Premik-8. That means our greenies run the risk of being hit by ruling or warrior caste psychic attacks."

Vuxten nodded even as 471 flashed icons of disgust.

"These were designed just prior to the Second Mantid War," Casey said. He finished tapping icons and wrapped the object he was modifying in the hologram in a casing. "They won't do much more than make our little green buddies itch, maybe a light headache, but it completely disrupts psychic control signals from upper caste."

The nano-forge attached to Casey's heavy loading/work chassis began to hiss, the untold trillions of nanites contained inside building the template Casey had modified.

"These are Imperium make. I used the Combine circuitry, the Imperium disruptors, and wrapped it in warsteel, which can hold and disrupt psychic energies," Casey said. He grabbed the small cylinder as it exited the creation engine, waved it a second to cool it down, and moved over to Addox. "We attach one of these to each armor, we crank the detection up, and if there is any type of upper caste Mantids running around, they can't force our little buddies to do anything."

--i die free-- 840 transmitted. Icons from every other greenie flashed in agreement.

Vuxten watched as Casey used a fusion torch to attach two different types of cylinders to Addox's armor. One was round with a flat side, the other was a hexagon. Both had green lights down the side.

--ouchie-- 471 transmitted to Vuxten.

"You OK, buddy?" Vuxten asked on the private channel.

--tingly achey-- 471 replied. --taste like copper vapor--

"It's going to be thick when they cut in if our buddies get hit," Casey said, moving to Vuxten. "From here on out, our battle buddies need to stay in the shells, especially if we end up deploying the munitions."

Vuxten nodded, looking at the grenade on his harness that Casey had handed out. It had the Confederate logo of a hand crushing a planet on it, but it seemed older, somehow malevolent, just sitting there.

"Try not to shoot random robots you see. Most of them will be extremely task oriented," Addox said. "More than likely they won't even be able to process your existence beyond being some kind of obstacle to move around."

Everyone nodded as Vuxten felt a slight twinge in his head, a couple of inches behind between his eyes.

"Right now, they're set to stealth," Casey said, moving to the next person in line. "The Crusade was nice enough to give us the specs and they had a stealth mode in the templates they handed off, just needed a little tweaking to work with our systems."

Vuxten closed his eyes for a second as a mention of the Crusade made the taste of Gen-0 stimgum rise up in his mouth and the scar around his cyberear ached for a long moment.

He could remember the fear and rage of the Imperium/Crusade/Combine troops landing on Telkan in the middle of an all out assault by the Dwellerspawn creatures and plants upon a shelter that had undergone an emergency surfacing.

"Your vitals just spiked, Lieutenant, are you all right?" Addox asked.

Vuxten swallowed. "I'm all right. Just reminded me of something."

"Second Telkan War?" Addox asked.

"Yeah," Vuxten said.

"You were there when the Imperium troops made their landing, right?" Addox said.

--no shit-- 471 said privately.

"You could say that," Vuxten replied.

I AM ENTIRELY FORMED OF WRATH! echoed in his mind, along with the memory of a huge Terran wading into the Dwellerspawn.

Vuxten waited, consciously taking control of his breathing to keep it steady and reciting the mantras he had been taught. A couple of times his datalink tossed up memes, but they were all pretty bad, pretty basic ones, which told him he was either out of range of the main psyops system or it was overloaded.

One got through that made him laugh, even though it obviously wasn't meant for him, which made it even funnier.

A heavy tank with markings of Bravo Company, 6-28 Armored Battalion had obviously driven into a large ditch and broken its tracks, tried to back up, slid sideways and left its tracks bunched up before somehow having the cupola jump its track and having then gotten stuck on its side. A green mantid was in the foreground with a commo headset on saying "Have you tried turning it off and on?"

"What?" Private First Class Sultrek asked, making Vuxten aware he'd laughed over the platoon leader channel.

"Fighting must be easing up on the surface," Vuxten said. He passed around the meme and everyone laughed.

Vuxten saw Casey shake his head. "Not gonna work, they're gonna need to release the IP and acquire a new one."

--try running a network ping-- 884 offered.

--diagnostics on my board says your tank is fine please clear channel-- 737 informed the tank in the picture.

--must be a factory defect-- 013 decided.

Another meme popped in, obviously from 3rd Armor Divisions Morale section and Vuxten burst out laughing as Casey attached another set of disruptors.

This one was of a Precursor with "ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE" written on its hull, staring with wide eyes at another Precursor that was completely engulfed in the white fire of an uncontrolled fusion reaction. The one with wide eyes slowly went transparent as it slid off the side of the picture. The caption read "When see your boy get roasted by another squad and realize you're next."

"It's an older meme, but it checks out," Casey chuckled.

"I've never seen it," Pvt Renklant said.

Addox shook his head. "That's a genuine Pre-Diasporia meme right there, boys."

The link cut out and Vuxten could see "No Connection" on the BATTACNET icon.

Addox filled the time while Casey attached the parts onto the armor telling a series of profane jokes that made the tip of Vuxten's ear heat up with embarrassment. It was over two dozen jokes that involved a greased up Rigellian body building midget and a pair of confused cat boys. Vuxten knew it was supposed to be jokes but they were so shocking he couldn't even laugh.

Ranklant snickered though.

"All right, done," Casey said, straightening up. His frame hissed as pressure relieved in the heavy pistons that provided strength enhancement.

"Everyone ready?" Vuxten asked, more to Casey than to anyone else.

Icons flashed ready as Casey nodded.

"Lead the way, Sergeant," Second Lieutenant Plunex said.

"All right, let's move out," Sergeant Addox ordered. "Casey, take the rear."

There was silence on the channels as the platoon moved through the larger maintenance tunnels, following the maps made by the recon drones. The drones had found what looked like engines as well as massive fusion plants that provided power but both of those possible targets had been set aside by the very obvious target.

In the heart of the machine was a huge egg shaped area that the doors were closed, the vents did not access, and there was no access outside of what appeared to be airlocks designed for Mantids.

Big Mantids.

It took nearly two hours to navigate the large area before they reached the heavy airlock door. When they got there Addox ordered it cut open but Casey shook his head.

"What?" Vuxten asked.

"Need a greenie to check this seal. It's got some pebbling, looks age related. Might give us an idea of the last time this door was used," Casey said.

--will do-- 471 said.

"My buddy says he'll do it," Vuxten said. He half expected someone to object because he was the ranking officer and was grateful when nobody said anything.

471 popped the armored housing, climbing out and jumping over to Casey's frame, hanging off of it for a second.

"Visual only, don't touch it," Casey said.

--not tell you how to be ape-- 471 shot back.

Casey just chuckled.

After a moment 471 moved back into the shell, sliding his bladearm into the computing node built in. He ran the tensile strength and other factors.

--356 years approx-- 471 let Vuxten know, feeling a glow of pleasure in figuring it out. His fellow Mantids stuck their tongues out at him via emoji for getting the be the one who did the work.

"It's been awhile," Addox mused. "Hopefully there isn't a surprise on the other side of the door," he looked at Lieutenant Plunex. "Orders, sir?"

"Open the door," Plunex said, managing to keep himself from looking to Lieutenant Vuxten for guidance.

"Casey, handle the door," Addox said.

"Roger that," Casey said. He worked for a few moments to get the control panel off, examining it. "No power. Probably controlled from inside," he mused. He pulled wire out of the creation engine, ran it from his frame to the door, and toggled the power.

The door slowly ground opened, moving more smoothly by the time it was halfway open.

"We're going to have to divide up to go through that airlock unless you want me to cut open the far door and risk this thing's systems going full breach alert," Casey said.

"We'll move through by three man groups," Addox said. He looked a Plunex. "First three, sir?"

Plunex felt the sweat break out under his fur. "Uh," he started.

Vuxten stepped forward. "Casey, me, and Private Renklant," he said.

Plunex felt relief even though the idea of putting a superior officer in danger bothered him slightly.

Casey handed the wires to Plunex and walked in, pulling the panel off the door and starting to work on jumping the power leads. Vuxten waited for Renklant to move through then moved through himself. When saw Renklant reach down to take his weapon off of safe Vuxten reached out and put his hand on the weapon.

"Not yet," Vuxten said over the point to point link. "Go in ready, but not hair trigger. Move to the right."

Renklant nodded, swallowing, as Casey stepped back, the wiring bypass ready.

"Close the outer door," Vuxten ordered. He closed his eyes as the massive door hissed shut, taking a deep breath and centering himself. When he opened it Casey stood by the door, staring at Vuxten, simply waiting.

"Open the door," Vuxten ordered. He felt loose but ready to move in any direction, not on edge but ready to react with his weapon at any second.

The door slid open and Casey stepped in, taking a step straight into the room beyond and Vuxten knew it was to clear the firing arc for the big minigun the human was packing. Vuxten went left, rifle in his hands, thumb on the fire selector.

The entire sphere was open. Work stations covering the walls and a massive computer core suspended in the middle of the room with what looked like some kind of horseshoe shaped command console wrapped around it. Heavy cabling was festooned everywhere, over consoles, across chairs, in mid-air as it moved from point to point.

"Negative movement," Casey ground out. Vuxten noted how the human's voice had suddenly changed. "Not much power in here with the exception of our big friend in the center," he turned and Vuxten could see the cold amber glow in Casey's eyes was fading. "I'm pretty sure we bring everyone through."

Vuxten radioed back and waited as the lock cycled to bring the rest of the platoon through in threes, with Addox coming in last. During the time spent bringing everyone in Casey moved around slowly, walking on the catwalks, careful to never brush any of the wiring. A couple times Vuxten saw him duck or step carefully over nothing and changed his visor.

Laser commo in the high IR range.

Using that data Vuxten started tagging up places for everyone to sit down in such a way that they'd be covered by at least three other members close by. Each time one of the Telkan Marines came through the airlock he guided them over to sit down.

"Sir," Casey's voice broke in. Vuxten looked up and saw that Casey was standing on the middle platform, one hand holding one of the heavy cables that held the platform up.

"Yes, Sergeant?" Vuxten asked, noting that Casey had linked in Addox and Plunex to the conversation.

"I've seen tech like this. It's old Mantid tech for sure, but I'm pretty sure this is what's affectionately referred to as 'after market modifications' by the mechanics," he said. "Computer's Mantid make, systems are Mantid make, machine's Mantid make," he swung slightly and faced Vuxten. "Circumstantial evidence suggests that this thing might possibly have a chance of being built by Mantid."

"You don't say," Addox drawled. "Smartass."

"How's Glory?" Casey suddenly asked.

"Fine. She said for you to quit screwing around and hurry up," Lieutenant Plunex said. "I left a squad with her, she'll be fine."

"Oh," Casey said. He swung a couple of times back and forth and launched himself through the air, landing on the catwalk with a clang.

The pose, the way he seemed to hang there, reminded Vuxten of the Imperium of Rage Marines.

"We have commo outside?" Plunex asked.

"I've got slow commo, text and data only. Having to go full error correction on it," Casey said.

"File a sit-rep, let Command know we're still alive," Plunex said. He looked around. "Where do you think it's going?"

"Somewhere terrible, I'm sure," Vuxten said softly.

The last time I was underground, it didn't work out too well for anyone involved, he thought to himself, staring at the computer arrays on the central platform.