Chapter 409

Ten Thousand bleed before me

Ten Thousand cry behind me

A Thousand stand beside me

War has destroyed us

The Hikkenite female's voice was soft and pure, wafting through the refit point. It merged with the howl of the cutting bars hacking down trees, the grinders working on vehicles, the shouts of the Terrans as they worked, and the sound of the ad-hoc crews doing what they could.

War has changed us

War has united us

Once he stood alone, called a cheat

Now we stand as one among many

Beside her an immature Welkret female was playing a slow melancholy tune to go with the Hikkenite's singing. She had a little wind instrument, the end against her mouth, the reed parallel to her face. Her fingers worked as played, strong fingers that I had seen holding down a Terran with a blown off arm as the medics worked on him.

A Herd of a thousand voices

Feral, primitive, Lanaktallan united

We stand with one purpose

To protect those that cannot fight

I sat in the mud, my legs folded underneath me, leaning over slightly to rest my shoulder against the expended missile pods. I felt exhausted, like I had been up since the dawn of time. I checked my chono in my helmet and saw I'd been awake for nearly thirty-eight hours. Over twice the recommended time for even sleep deprivation training.

Podling, Colt, Filly, it no longer matters

Every voice lost is one too far

Every inch gained is a thousand short

Every machine destroyed is a million too few

My biological eyes closed and I was loathe to open them. The two cybereyes let me see anyway, almost with perfect clarity.

I thought about how an old Lanaktallan on the sixty-third floor of the hab-complex I had grown up in had cybereyes and often complained that he could not see things clearly, only shapes and shadows and a slight bit of color.

My eyes felt like they were stuck together when I opened them again at a crash.

Yet we stand

We stand filled with rage

With loss

With the conviction that no more shall die

Another tank had been pulled in by the recovery vehicle and I knew I should get up, go over to it, but I couldn't seem to find the strength of stand up as I listened to the beautiful voice of the young girl singing such a melancholy song.

I saw a Telkan that I recognized from the first days, a Telkan that I had seen bring his family and watch me seal them away in the first shelter. He left where he was eating, shoving the rest of his Goody Yum Yum Bar in his mouth as he pulled a paint stick from his pocket.

Boot, Hoof, Talon, or Fin

Fist, Claw, Gauntlet, Blade

Nothing matters more than the lives behind us

I closed my eyes slowly, my cybereyes still watching the doctors working behind the cloth. I could see the two inch thick plates of armor that had been pulled off the Terran woman, hear the beeping of machinery.

Four times an arc of bright red blood has sprayed across the cloth, arterial spray as the doctor's struggled to save her life.

I could see the monitor where six lines moved steadily. A device to measure brain activity that I knew was connected to the fallen Terran who had led the foundlings out of the ruins, fighting alone, protecting them, calling out her faith to the Digital Omnimessiah to give her the strength to save them.

Skies burn

Innocents scream

Metal screeches

Rounds explode

The singer's voice was low, soft, as she sang the dirge.

Only one line of the brainscan had a single blip. Every few seconds it would give a little hiccup.

Only one.

I wondered if she was in pain.

I hoped not.

We we will survive

Not Confederacy, not Herd, not Hive or Pod

Our hearts, our peoples

We die so they can live

Into my vision walked three Terran females. Huge, covered in heavy armor, the torches mounted to their armor so they rose up over either soldier burning with a bluish-green flame. The bird of prey on their chests burning harsh white. They moved with the slow looking over-exaggerated movements of someone long used to power armor.

They went by me and into the tent. I could see them move to where the doctor was working. Hear the Matron protest and the doctor snap at them.

They can laugh and play

While we toil away

With gun and grenade

Blade and Hoof

One came out, moving toward me. I struggled to get up, failed, and tried again, my joints aching, my muscles unresponsive. I managed to get all the way up, my legs shaking like a newborn colt, but my back straight and my chin lifted as I looked at them with my visor clear.

"You are Most High Ha'almo'or?" one asked.

I nodded. "Nearly," I told her. "What is left of me."

"I am Sister Tiffany Dargetta, the Sisters of Wrath, fighting for the Dark Crusade of Light beneath the hand of the Immortal Osiris of the Warsteel Flame and Joan Mentissa," she said.

"I am Assistant Gunner Fifteenth Class Ha'almo'or, of the Great Herd," I told her.

"You have saved our sister from shame. Completed her mission after she fell to her foes," Sister Dargetta said. Her voice was stern, but held a hint of pain I could hear. "However, our sister now faces a choice she cannot make."

I nodded slowly. She motioned to me and I followed.

"Her head wound is grevious. Not enough to kill her, not now, not with your medical services treating her," the Joan said. She waited as I stumbled twice.

She did not offer assistance and I did not expect it.

The wind instrument played solo, the chainswords, the pounding of the sledgehammers, the yelling and shouts of the civilians and soldiers all providing a background. It was beautiful.

It had no place here. It was too pure.

"However, she has been grievously injured, and because of this, there are only two paths left to her," the Sister of Wrath told me. "As you are the one who saved her, you shall be the one to decide her path."

We moved into where the doctor was stepping back. He looked as if he did not approve. The other two were dressing the wounded one in her armor. Her chainsword was on her chest, her hands folded over it.

"What are the paths?" I asked, swallowing.

"Death," the Sister of Wrath said. She moved and made a motion. The other one shifted, and I could see the fallen Sister of Wrath's face.

She had whiskers. Short fur on her face. She had feline ears rising out of her dark hair.

"Or a fall from grace," the sister said. "To embrace what it means to be Enraged, to embrace what it means to be Wrath, more than anyone in the universe."

"Choose," they all said, facing me. "Choose her path."

I did not know her. I did not know her culture, her struggles, what she might have wanted.

"Choose, Most High Ha'almo'or," the Sisters said. "Will she die, or do you will her to live? You have saved her, thus you must decide."

For us victory or death

Either is fine

We fight as one

So they can live

"Live."

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