Chapter 415

General No'Drak stared at the holotank, leaning back from the table and pushing the plate to the side. He picked up his pack of cigarettes and opened it slowly, looking at the data that he had been looking over while he ate.

Almost every unit was no longer engaged in fighting. There was some mopup, mostly being handled by the light infantry, mechanized infantry, and the light attack craft units. Third Armor was undergoing refit and examination.

The tanks of Third Armor and First Armored Recon had long lists of malfunctions, errors, and breakdowns, most of them overlapping.

The meme of "Your old tank" and "Your new high tech supertank" had millions of likes, recasts, and other engagement metrics.

No'Drak knew anger when he saw it.

He compared the maitenance lists for the old tanks that Third Armor and First Recon had swapped out after the Telkan Campaign to the current list, then compared it to the new armor that First Telkan Marines and Fifth Powered Infantry Division was using.

Third Armor and First Recon had nearly six times the amount of part and software failures that were standard across virtually 80% of the tanks. The biggest piece was the battlescreen frequency algorithm software had been patched in the field by an enlistedman from 27th Maintenance Brigade.

No'Drak opened the reports on the software. Corps software analysis stated there was nothing wrong with the algorithm, everyone below Corps stated bluntly that the software was trash. The enlistedman from 27th's report was more in-depth. While most of it was formula and went over No'Drak's head, there was one part that he noted.

Every 82 seconds the software restarted at the same frequency before rotating through six different frequencies within a thirty second interval, afterwards randomization improved.

The second part was that the early frequencies all matched the mining lasers used by most mining systems, including Precursor systems.

While the system should have discarded that set of frequencies and not used them further, it did not lock those frequencies out.

Corps Maintenance claimed that the software did and showed simulations where it did so.

The enlistedman had countered that after approximately 185 to 383 seconds it reset completely, wiping out the frequency lockouts and returning to factory baseline.

The One Star General in charge of Corps Maintenance had recommended that enlistedman be punished for insubordination due to fact that when the General replied that Corps simulations did not show that, the enlistedman replied "Actual use is different and you'd know that if you'd been in a tank in the last three hundred years instead of hiding behind a desk."

No'Drak sighed. It was a clear case of insubordination in writing. He wrote a quick recommendation to the enlistedman's commander to fine the enlistedman one narcobeer, require ten pushups, and force the enlistedman to recite the Corps motto ten times at high volume as a punishment.

He then penned a letter to the General, telling him that he would be personally looking over the after action reports regarding the new armored vehicles and armored infantry suits.

Next up was the logistics report. General No'Drak sighed. The current General in charge of logistics was a perfectly servicable subordinate, but he lacked General Tik-Tak's flair for producing two bullets when he had only had an expended shell casing. The General was complaining about nanite depletion, work performance metrics dropoffs, morale issues, retention issues, and, of course, the fact that he had busted black market rings twice and a prostitution ring another time.

General No'Drak just signed the receipt and promised himself he'd look over it real soon.

Clone Warfare was reporting that they were no closer to solving the issues with rapid growth clones and the Born Whole system, and as of the writing of the report the two systems were to be considered unavailable. Simba, Goodboi, and Purrboi production was starting to have problems with neurological system collapse but Clone Warfare was checking the issue to see if it was a possible mutation in the Friendkiller Virus. Additionally, there were now issues with transferring SUDS templates across hardwired systems and it was possible the entire system would go down.

That one was an issue. No'Drak signed the sheets and ordered the entire Clone Warfare Division to be taken out of the order of battle, despite the problems it would cause with reinforcement and replacement.

General No'Drak punched up his Table of Organization & Equipment, looking for an older section. There, 21st Replacement Battalion. He reactivated it, pulled men from retention offices, medical oversight judgement boards, and other places, and ordered the old unit's colors uncased and the unit brought back online.

The FTL needlecast superluminal communications system was back online. He sent memos to the other units within a month's travel distance, advising the other Generals of the issues currently plaguing V Corps (Old Blood) and 7th Army (Old Blood) as well as his ideas on how to mitigate the problems.

He suggested that reactivating 21st Replacement and doing Old Blood/New Blood calls could relieve some tensions, as well as recruiting from the former neo-sapient populations for integrated forces.

He also made sure to annotate that while the various units of 7th Army had not taken many casualties (less then 1% of force levels) during the last few battles it could not be assumed that there would be no serious mass-cal events in the future.

Ge'ermo'o watched with interest. Dealing with force level issues was never a problem in the Great Herd. For every lost soldier there were millions, billions more to take their place. He was interested in seeing how General No'Drak would handle the issue.

The warning was something that made Ge'ermo'o nod.

While there has always been billions of replacements awaiting any Great Herd that took casualties, I can no longer rely on such a depth of replacements any longer. The new tanks being developed for Great Grand Most High A'armo'o will take weeks, possibly months of retraining to use, which means that any replacements brought in from other Great Herd units would require the same training, Ge'ermo'o thought to himself. He quickly opened his dataslate's message application and began drafting a report to Most High A'armo'o that the Great Armored Herd might be facing retention, replacement, and recruiting issues in the near future, highlighting the fact that the new weapons and vehicles required training that needed to take place outside of a combat zone.

Ge'ermo'o nodded to himself as he sent the message.

He was a most observant commander, which allowed him to see issues that others may not.

General No'Drak saw the message go out and opened it. He looked it over and nodded to himself, restraining from looking over at Ge'ermo'o, who was going over the estimated casualties from the long battle to save the planet.

He could tell from the phrasing that what Most High Ge'ermo'o had been suggesting was tantamount to heresy to Lanaktallan sensibilities.

But the Lanaktallan had learned.

More than that. Had applied what he learned to spot a potential problem in the making.

He forwarded it to MI and CID to add to the undoubtably growing files on Lanaktallan and Most High Ge'ermo'o both.

That done he turned his attention back to the map.

Below the mountain still burned 1st Platoon, HHC, 1st Telkan and two other icons.

What is happening down there? he wondered.

He reached out, tapping 108th Military Intelligence Battalion, requesting a situation report. It came back within minutes, complete with video.

No'Drak checked the templates first. Templates for Mantid cryosleep fluids, parts for cryosleep pods, templates for precooked turkey, chicken, goose, and ham. A question of whether or not a suckling pig could be produced by a template-cracked Class III Nano-forge. (No, it could not, not alive) A request for a template of a "Goddess Pele Succulent Fire Walking Roast Pig Feast" for a Class-III nanoforge. A request for templates for UV lights calibrated to solar output of the planet prior to the Precursor AWM attack, templates for a holoemitter that could provide eVR non-hookup works with a "Pre-Attack Surface Park".

It looked weird but No'Drak changed the order of the data requests several times, then went back over the requests one at a time, complete with any images sent back by Casey.

One was a helmet cam from 1LT Vuxten. It showed an armored Sergeant Addox with at least thirty little green mantids huddled around him. Most were asleep, but a good number of them were eating strips of grease dripping still steaming meat.

When No'Drak heard the audio he groaned and turned it off.

"So the kid, right? He totally rocks sixth grade. Letters in track and field and grav-skiing, is voted most popular, even has top mark grades, and his dad, right, his dad decides that the kid deserves the bangingest reward possible," Casey was saying.

No'Drak wasn't falling for that one again.

Instead No'Drak paid attention to the displayed troop stress levels as Vuxten's cam panned over them. They were all well within resting baseline, even if all of them but Vuxten and Addox were paying attention to Casey, who was talking while he was messing with something on his loading frame.

No'Drak opened up a file and started moving data. Pretty soon he had a good idea what was going on.

There was a facility beneath the mountain that dated back to the initial Precursor War. The Mantid upper class had rebelled against the Queens for unknown reasons. The remaining upper class had been relegated to a hell of cryostasis and revival since then. Vuxten and Addox, with the help of that lunatic Casey, were bribing the Mantid upper class remaining with turkey to surrender.

No'Drak shifted his attention, looking at possible exit points for a deep level mining vehicle leaving the facility. He ordered Clone Warfare Division to run off from pigs, turkeys, and other food animals preferred by mantids and have them on standby.

He then copied what he was doing to a memo and sent it to Casey's contact in 108th MI, to forward to Casey.

-------------

"Your blinky is flashing," Private Nulfret said, pointing at the round device on Casey's loading frame.

"Oh, nice," Casey broke off the joke, reaching down and tapping the device while turning over his left hand so it was palm up. The holoemitter implanted in his hand twinkled and he stared at it for a long moment.

"Lieutenant Vuxten, sir," Casey said.

"Go ahead, Sergeant," Vuxten said.

"Commands creating a 'temporary EPOW site with live animals, Mantid rated shelter, and everything else, including psychic dampeners for our soon to be defectors," he said. "Coordinates incoming, but we have a place to take these guys in the sun."

Vuxten nodded. "Do your meme magic. Let's keep memeing these guys to life."

Casey nodded. "I'll get right on it, sir."

Vuxten looked over at Addox, who had every green mantid that had wandered into the room clustered tight around him. "How you doing, Sergeant?" he asked.

"All right. Most of them are asleep. Its hot and sweaty in my armor, but their color's getting better," Addox answered.

"All right. We're going to lay a heating pad on a grav-dolly once the work crew gets back and they can transfer there. We'll put some low power phasic inhibitors on it," Vuxten said. He turned to where 471 and some of the other greenies were gathered together around a data-cable.

"How's it going on your side?" Vuxten asked.

--own this thing-- 471 said. --hemming in vi right now--

--tough security-- 568 said. --five digit password/login single entry combo--

That made Vuxten snort. His pay-card had a six digit PIN and had thumbprint verification.

--oh no how we outclassed-- 834 said. --asking for three digit number only passcode--

"Gotcha. Just taking time to figure it all out. Keep it up," Vuxten said. He moved over and sat down on a large piece of computer equipment that the greenies had cut out of the system and had pulled away.

Is it weird that I miss being enlisted? he thought to himself.

His suit's VI tossed up an image meme. It was blank, just a line in the middle, with "TOP TEXT" at the very top and "BOTTOM TEXT" at the bottom.

Vuxten sighed. They were out of range of everything. That didn't bother him so much, back during the Second Telkan War he'd been deep enough in the jungle enough times that he didn't have communication with anyone else.

But back then it was mostly just keep him and his squaddies alive, follow orders, and fight the good fight.

He knew this was part of the good fight, sitting and watching Casey twiddle with his hologram, Addox pet a little greenie that had stopped in place, turned to look at him, then asked for food, and watching the rest of the platoon sitting around playing cards. Three of them were using their palm mounted holo-emitters to toss a glittering ball back and forth.

Vuxten had seen the training films, knew that despite the urgent feeling to do something that what he was supposed to do, as a leader, was simply project an aura of calm and control. He was tempted to do a maintenance check on his stubber, but knew that would increase his platoon's anxiety and he didn't want anyone else following his example and taking apart their weapon only to have something, anything, attack and catch them unarmed.

Training films are different, he lamented. I'm starting to understand Casey's pink golfball joke and why he keeps starting it over and over. It's not supposed to end. It's supposed to be a kind of touch stone to keep everyone grounded, help pass time, and relax everyone because things have to be going good if a Senior NCO can start the joke over to make sure everyone's in on it, Vuxten suddenly realized. He almost groaned out loud at how obvious the whole thing was.

"Sir," Casey's voice broke into Vuxten's thoughts.

"Go ahead, Sergeant," Vuxten said.

"I need you to come with me. I need to move as far away from those little guys as possible," he said.

"What's going on?" Vuxten asked.

"Finished my meme. Gotta go with the rest," Casey said. "Well, it's less a meme and more a pictograph series to convince those big guys something."

The big human got over and started moving to the far end of the room, on the other side of huge banks of computers. Vuxten followed, curiosity starting to well up. When he got over there Vuxten saw Casey holding a piece of warsteel in his bare hand, his gauntlet sitting on the barrels of the minigun.

"Crank up your phasic inhibitors the greenies installed on your armor to max and max out your psychic shielding as high as you can without passing out," Casey said. He opened his faceplate and took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

"Uh, all right," Vuxten said. "Should I bring over 471?"

"No. Just us, sir," Casey said. He clenched his fist around the piece of warsteel as Vuxten cranked his internal psychic shielding up to almost 140%, the max he could handle before he started getting tunnel vision.

Casey squeezed the warsteel and Vuxten watched as muscle spasms made the muscles along the side of Casey's jaw ripple. Vuxten suddenly smelled dry dusty air, a hint of stale sour human body odor, scorched molycircs and warsteel. His reactor level twitched and he saw his psychic shielding suddenly go amber. Casey was whispering something to himself in a language that Vuxten didn't understand and that his suit's VI didn't translate. It felt like heat was emenating off of Casey, an almost physical pressure against Vuxten that seemed to push through his armor to press against his skin.

WARNING! PSYCHIC DANGER! WARNING!

flashed on his visor, in his cybereye, was announced in his ear.

Casey opened his eye and Vuxten tried to resist stepping back but was unable.

Casey's eye was glowing a bright steady crimson, bright enough to illuminate the eye socket. More, there was a dull red shining from behind the patch. Casey transferred the piece of warsteel to the frame for his minigun and picked up another, squeezing it and then repeating the whole thing twice more.

Vuxten watched as Casey closed his eye, took several deep breaths, and relaxed.

The bar for his psychic shielding's load dropped from reddish amber to yellow to green to blue.

"Everyone OK?" Casey asked, slowly standing up.

"What was that?" Vuxten asked.

"Just bad old memories," Casey said dismissively. "Nothing major, nothing important."

"Oh," Vuxten felt completely out of his element.

"Just don't tell the Colonel you saw me do that, it freaks her out," Casey grinned.

It freaked me out too, Vuxten thought to himself but kept the thought to himself. "So what is that for?"

Casey flipped his face shield back down. "Imprinting a piece of warsteel," he said. He opened his hand and Vuxten saw that it was squeezed like a piece of taffy. "This is going to convince the Mantid big boys not to fight us."

"How?" Vuxten asked.

"So, warsteel can be imprinted by intense exposure to anger, love, fear, other intense basic emotions," Casey said. "So, I just imprinted it with battle fury."

"You're going to have your meme warn them if they fight you'll rip them in half, provide the piece of warsteel as psychic proof, to convince them to go into cold sleep till we can get them somewhere they can be unthawed," Vuxten said. putting it all together.

"You're quick, sir," Casey said. "I don't want to fight these guys, I don't think they want to fight, but getting them to the surface has problems."

Vuxten nodded. "Close quarters in one of the mining machines to travel to the surface. Who knows how they'll react to our battle buddies, you and Addox, not to mention all of us Telkan."

"Exactly, sir," Casey said. He moved over to the little robots he had built. He put a piece of warsteel in each of the robots, putting the warsteel in a grasper claw.

"All right. The pictogram basically says that me and Addox are dangers. We aren't mentioning you or the battle buddies. That we don't want him to get hurt," Casey started.

Vuxten listened to the rest of the plan.

"Sounds good, Sergeant," Vuxten said. "Let's hope it works."

-----------------

Cordexen stood under the air vent, eyes closed, fantasizing about standing in the long waving grain of where he had grown to maturity in the service of the queens. About the warmth of the sun on his carapace. How the wind smelled of ripening grain tended to by the russet and golden mantid of the servitor castes.

In the long forever he had been trapped in the facility he had admitted that given what he now knew, he would have preferred to have become a crop tender, overseeing the gold and russet mantids working the fields to provide grain for the herds.

The little robot rolled back in, beeping.

Cordexen looked up, happy to have his thought interrupted.

The hologram appeared and it took Cordexen a moment to take it all in.

It showed Cordexen next to a cryostasis tube. Then it split in two. One side showed Cordexen refusing. A bipedal primate came in, trying to be friendly. Radiation, marking psychic danger, radiated from the biped's head and Cordexen exploded. On the other side Cordexen got inside. It then showed the primate carrying the cryopod up to the surface where it opened and Cordexen got out to eat turkey in the sunshine.

Cordexen scoffed slightly. After all, he was the premier psychic predator in the galaxy?

The robot beeped and a robotic clamp raised up.

Cordexen recognized it as Substance W.

He reached out with one bladearm and tapped it.

YOU CAN NOT STOP ME! NOTHING CAN STOP ME! YOU CAN'T KILL THIS MOTHERFUCKER! NOBODY CAN SAVE YOU FROM ME! MY HATE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES THAT YOUR ILK CAN FLEE BEYOND! YOU CAN NOT STOP ME! MY WRATH, MY RAGE, WILL NEVER EVER STOP!

Cordexen was almost overwhelmed by the images that slammed into his mind and threatened to tear him apart like cardboard trying to hold back an atomic explosion.

Ruined cities burning, blasted landscape, scorched skies. The sound of millions screaming in terror and agony. The terrible silence of being the only living thing.

He was wrapped in Substance W, in strength enhanced armor, wading into his foes. Screeching things, warped things, that his fists crushed, his hands tore asunder, that his guns shattered. Their jaws snapped at him, their caustic drool flooded from their jaws, poison billowed around him, fire surrounded him.

He was surrounded, overwhelmed, cut off, alone, by twisted mockeries of life that gibbered and howled and capered and danced even as they killed and destroyed.

But that wasn’t the worst to Cordexen’s senses.

The rage that filled him. The all consuming fury. A need to destroy, to smash, to hammer the enemy into nothing more than carbon paste that would drip from his fists. To howl and bellow his rage and fury at an uncaring universe even as he thirsted for carnage and mayhem.

His thoughts were charged with it, buoyed by it, flooded with it. Images of men and women and children being slaughtered did nothing more than fill him with even more rage, more anger, more fury, stoking into an all consuming fire that burned hotter than the atomic explosions that roared to life around him.

Nothing could quench that all consuming fury, that need to destroy.

It needed fed.

Cordexen slammed back, against the wall, panting. His abdomen heaved with each breath he took and he was aware that he was rubbing his vestigial wings together in anxiety as he stared in horror at the piece of Substance W as it slowly lowered down into the robot.

The front of the robot opened to show more turkey.

He moved forward, picking up the turkey, and went to sit on his command couch.

The robot turned and moved away, taking that piece of unbridled fury with it.

He suddenly found that he did care if he lived or died.

When asked, he would allow himself to be put in cryostasis.

Anything to avoid the creature that had touched that piece of Substance W, infusing it with more than wrath.

Cordexen knew he had tasted another being’s hate.

He did not wish to taste it again.

------------

Vuxten looked at Addox, who had just finished putting the last little green mantid on the grav-dolly, setting it gently on the warming pad. Two privates were covering the little greenies with another warming pad.

“They’re in cryostorage pods and being loaded onto Gobbler,” Vuxten said. “The rest of the pods are already loaded.”

“We’ll load these guys up then,” Addox said. “How long till we get to the surface?”

“Four hours,” Vuxten said. He looked around at the computer and control center. “The computer system will shut this facility down into standby mode in six hours, in case we have to come back.”

Addox nodded. “I’ll just be glad to get out of here.”

“Me too, Sergeant, me too,” Vuxten agreed.

------------------

General No’Drak had just returned from the latrine when the icon started flashing.

“Sir, Adder-One has made surface. They’re requesting mantid capable medical services and evac,” one of his aides said.

No’Drak felt a wave of relief fill him knowing the mountain was going to stay intact.

“May I ask a question?” Ge’ermo’o asked the Treana’ad general.

“Go ahead,” No’Drak said.

“Does it bother you that it seems anti-climatic?” Ge’ermo’o asked. “I have spent the past several days nervously awaiting an explosion that would turn the central mountain range hub into a fiery pit of doom but yet nothing happened.”

No’Drak gave the Treana’ad equivalent of a smile. “Yeah. It’s almost disappointing, isn’t it?”

Ge’ermo’o nodded. “Indeed.”

“Well, let’s find out what they found down there,” No’Drak said. He turned back to his aide. “Get medical teams in there. I want a full debrief as soon as possible,” he said. He turned back to Ge’ermo’o. “Why don’t you accompany me.”

“I would like that,” Ge’ermo’o said.

----------------

Casey stood next to Vuxten, watching the medical personnel unload the cryostasis pods from the massive mining machine. Glory was sitting behind them, mechanics going over her left leg and hip.

“You know, I thought we were going to end up shooting our way out, not bribing them,” Vuxten said.

“Shooting our way out would have been the easy way,” Casey shrugged. “We were ready for that. We got lucky.”

“How so?” Vuxten asked.

Casey looked down at the Telkan officer. “We had an arrangement of skillsets and knowledge that normally isn’t available without prior preparation. Between all of us we had the skills necessary to get out of a jam without having to resort to combat. That’s rare.”

Vuxten nodded and filed the information away.

Next time I might not be so lucky.