Chapter 477: Dismay and Despair

It is rare for an entire Dinochrome Brigade to be deployed. Over a thousand of us, each of us capable of defending or assaulting an entire continent, it seems almost as if it is a waste of firepower. Standard doctrine is to deploy ten to fifteen to assault a world, five to ten to defend a world.

But the new enemy, they use tactics beyond normal scope of the modern battlefield. Temporal distortions flicker and blossom across the planet, bringing in more foes or perhaps just rewinding our foes to before they had been engaged and destroyed.

The Brigade had been in for refit, Service Life Extension Program mandatory upgrades to software, hardware, and a new armor laminate, meaning the entire Brigade, which was being deployed across the entire Unified Council War Zone, was being serviced by V Corps maintenance and service shops.

But then the humans, almost entirely, died within a single hour.

Which left us without human commanders.

The Dinochrome Division can fight, and prevail, without a human operator, but it degrades our performance by 42.284572%. Some strange quirk of the human mind, of naturally evolving neural tissue, enhances the combat abilities of a Mark XXIX-D9A above and beyond what mere mechanical engineering, computer programming, and weapons development can account for.

However, humans often prepare for a worst case scenario that often appears to only be possible if everything goes right for the enemy, or drastically wrong for humanity.

BOLO know of these preparations and counter-measures. While we often war-game them, it is more to indulge in the exotic than out of any real computation that such a thing would come to pass.

That every BOLO commander of the entire Dinochrome Division would fall down and die within an hour is something covered only in a few scenarios, and one we have never taken seriously.

Our makers, however, foresaw such a thing, and prepared for it.

Which is why I, and all of my Brigade mates, were now commanded by what appeared to be an adolescent female Terran Descent Human dressed in a school girl uniform. Cloned by the medical systems in the command couch, fed knowledge from my database, and implanted with neural engrams to be able to utilize that knowledge.

She is a Kentai Commander. No rank, just her name.

Her name is Miho, and she was Born Whole.

In that we are alike. When all BOLO undergo the first powerup at the GM facility, we too are Born Whole. We possess the sum total of battlefield knowledge of the human race and are programmed to be able to use it.

Miho asks for a verbal situation report, her expression serious as she listens to my capabilities.

I possess six 200mm Hellbore directed nuclear cannons, arranged in two triple-cannon turrets, each turret and each barrel capable of independent targeting. I possess eighteen secondary Hellbore in the 66mm class, all of them on individually deployable turrets. I possess 120 infinite repeaters of various types, from standard nanoforge fed kinetic hyper-velocity weapons, 12 kinetic shock weapons fed by dedicated creation engine ammunition production mechanics, laser and ion weapons, plasma weapons, and other esoteric infinite repeaters, all with dedicated heat sinks and heat dispersal systems.

Miho seems satisfied as she goes over my ammunition mix. She chews her lower lip as she examines the data and then moves on.

I possess four eleven-inch six-tube rocket pod launch systems, twenty-two 60mm mortar systems, twelve 105mm indirect fire weapons, eight 155mm smoothbore indirect fire weapons. I possess six 54-inch Vertical Launch Rocket Systems used for orbital denial and long range indirect fire, currently loaded with atomic weapons with phasic pulse enhancement jackets.

She looks the data over and orders the nanoforges to produce temporal weapon munitions, including temporal resonance weapons as well as temporal shockwave weapons. She nods to herself and moves on.

Heavy battlescreens, dual layered with individual algorithm dedicated systems, as strong as a Space Force Navy Battle Cruiser, as well as recently added sterifields capable of destroying virus weapons. Phasic shielding and counter-intrusion systems have increased in strength by nearly 325% as well as additional phasic shielding around my computing systems, including a passive phasic protective system around my survival core. My point defense has been thickened, with sixty laser, plasma, and kinetic energy systems capable of being reconfigured within 45 seconds to swap between ammunition types. I possess an upgrade of nine drone launchers, and fifteen electronic warfare has bays, twelve for attack programs and three for defensive/autonomous systems.

She orders the defensive systems to bake up temporal warfare hashes to track any temporal anomalies.

Finally I report on my eight tracks, running gear, graviton systems, as well as drive trains and engines, as well as reactor statuses.

The report, delivered verbally as well as across her cybernetic neural linkage, takes seventy-two seconds as she asks for clarification on the new upgrades as well as reorders my ammunition loadout.

In that time the drop cradle has landed and then unfolded to reveal my bulk. While I am not a Continental Siege Engine nor a Integrated Scout Autonomous BOLO, I am still quite large as a Main Battle Tank, Ultra-Heavy Class.

Normally the Battle Tactical Network should have been full of situation reports, updates, and much more, but the Enemy has proven adept at jamming even the Dinochrome Division channels. However, drones are already going up, creating a complex web of interconnected communications hubs to allow the Brigade to communicate with one another, although it is only a semi-secure channel and cannot be used to exchange Tactical Battlefield Update Patches.

Miho senses it the same time as me.

There is another presence. It burns like cold fire, more sluggish than usual, overlaid with pain signals I would normally sense from a badly wounded BOLO.

Trucker. Driving 3rd Armor and 8th Infantry Divisions into the teeth of the enemy after landing in the center of the Enemy's strongest held area. No longer are his order the sharp clarity of near-battle code, but instead are sluggish feeling despite the speed, sticky feeling despite the crispness, leaving a strange tingle across my computing arrays and the taste of rotted meat and old blood in Miho's mouth.

Miho and I both shudder away from that dataset, the same with the rest of the Brigade.

The city that I have been tasked with defending is only ten minutes away, but I am already being engaged by biological Dwellerspawn units.

Miho gives the order across her cybernetic linkage at the same time as she gives verbal orders.

"Engage the Enemy."

The Atrekna watched as the massive drop-cradles made landfall, the sporadic ground fire they were able to guide doing little to stop the orbital drop systems. They could all sense the snarling prickly feeling of some kind of phasic shielding. While phasic shielding was something they had encountered before enough times to have made it into their shared memory, this was different.

It growled and snarled, slashed at anyone that touched it, and many times seemed to be able to almost instinctively counter-attack.

When the massive supertanks rolled out of the drop cradles there was concern. They were obviously some kind of superweapon, heavily armored and armed to bring about doomsday. Any intelligence driving them was shielded by meters of armor and multiple shielding.

The first protocol said to isolate any unknown in order to keep it from effecting the larger battle.

The second protocol said to use the mastery of temporal mechanics to force it to fight the same fight over and over in order to fully gauge its capabilities as it was slowly worn down in order to be able to successfully fight any additional enemies of the same design with the least use of resources.

The third protocol stated to use the exact same forces, in the exact same method, to clinically and imperiacally test the unknown until patterns emerged.

Sadly, the third protocol could not be used. Temporal fabric in the system was widely damaged, stabilized here and there, encouraging the rest of the temporal fabric to remain in the same state as the stabilized parts. Additionally, the main gun firing from orbit had created a temporal shockwave that was still cascading through the temporal fabric, preventing any future or past resources from being drawn into the conflict.

The Atrekna divided up the huge amount of what was obviously rolling fortresses and attempting to temporally isolate them.

Temporal stabilizers jump from 06.372% load to 11.3874% load and Miho agrees that the Enemy is attempting to place me in an isolated temporal 'bubble' in order to keep me from supporting or being supported by friendly units.

Miho has sensor array seventeen, normally used for far-orbit scans of any possible incoming starships, scan for any temporal or chronotron discharge or disturbance. I acknowledge and pass on the command to my Brigade Mates, many of whom have already been ordered by their Kentai Commanders to perform such an action.

Her mind is a dancing, sparkling, giggling butterfly made of rainbows, within the bulwark of my unyielding purpose and intellect. A warsteel spined moth to my flame.

She was Born Whole, as was I.

With her, I am whole.

The massive vehicle paid no attention to the attempt and the Atrekna dedicated their reserves.

Temporal stabilizers jump to 23.742791% load, peaking for 1.28 seconds before dropping to 7.281501% load.

Scanning Array Seventeen detects multiple chronotron particle decay and discharge as nearly spent chronotrons interact with more lively ones. Nearly one hundred and twenty point sources within the range of my scanner.

Despite laser communications suffering from lightspeed lag and code length delay, all of the Brigade quickly share the data on where those locations are.

They are all over the planet. Nearly twelve thousand point sources, in nearly two hundred groups.

That touch, that strange, cold, sluggish touch absorbs the knowledge with a cold, dare I say, obscene hunger and I can sense it infuse the cold purpose.

Trucker, again.

I take 0.25263 seconds to contemplate that perhaps the extremely talented human had taken a head wound and discard it. The thoughts are clear, just cold, and the taste reminds Miho of rotted meat, despite the fact she has never eaten.

I dedicate infinite repeaters three through eighteen to various solitary point sources, swapping out munitions types and breeches in order to test a variety of munitions against the point sources. My brigade mates comply and copy.

Miho's anger, her simmering rage, at the fact that humanity has been all but extinguished, is used to enhance phasic jackets, phasic cores, and to imprint some payloads.

It has been 0.58272 seconds since the second attempt to use temporal mechanics against Miho and I.

We are ready.

The Atrekna snarled as the massive machines ignored it. They were more stable than the orbiting warships and several of the Atrekna realized that another shot from the temporal superweapon in orbit would have no effect upon the protections of the massive machines.

Well, if they couldn't effect the machine directly, then they would attack the ground around it. Temporal mechanics were not their only weapon.

The concentrated, reaching down to the bedrock, and began to infuse it with phasic energy in a pulsating rhythm that would cause the rock itself to explode.

Across the planet, as if linked by one mind, smaller guns on the massive machines suddenly opened up, each targeting a single individual Atrekna, no matter how well cloaked.

Infinite repeaters open fire, mixed munitions fired by each. From alternating variable frequency lasers in the terrawatt range to kinetic weapons with multiple types of munitions in the belts, to various state plasma strikes, each of the eight targets of my infinite repeaters come under immediate fire.

Battle Reflex Mode and Hyper-heuristic processing systems are fully engaged, as is Predictive Combat Analysis Arrays, meaning for Miho and I the attacks stretch out into electronic forever, allowing us to examine each strike upon each target.

Phasic enhanced warsteel jacketing with an antimatter/incendiary core is the most effective at ripping through the purple nimbus that is a side effect of phasic shielding. Their bodies are able to be scanned by Scanning Array Two and Scanning Array Eleven for nearly an entire tenth of a second, enough for me to map their bodies down to spinal cord striations and neural linkages.

Despite their enormous control of temporal mechanics, manipulation of chronotrons, and phasic abilities, they are as vulnerable as any flesh. Four organs produce phasic energy, one produces chronotrons although those hyper-pseudo particles are strangely depleted. Multiple storage organs and it appears their bone marrow also stores phasic energy. Their brains take up the majority of their heads and their digestive system is largely atrophied and nearly residual, apparently without the ability to process anything outside of a narrow range despite their lamprey-like dentation.

The high energy pass of Scanning Array Eighteen blisters flesh, boils blood, and causes several micro and nanowave damage to the tissues in the split second before the phasic shielding drops. I file the data away, wavelength, strength, and pulse time needed and supply it into our light speed lag BTN.

Miho takes control of Scanning Array Eighteen and directs it toward a group of twelve of the Enemy that is slated for destruction soon.

The Atrekna reeled back from the highly accurate fire. Computers were unreliable at best, prone to floating point errors and even molycirc targeting computers suffered from particle drift. They knew there could be no fully computer control by the screeching rage infused in the Substance W that shredded the Observer's shields.

Before they could react, a temporal ranging group managed to scream in agony for nearly a half second as their skin blistered and liquified, their blood boiled, and their internal organs ruptured as energy lanced through their shields and struck directly at their bodies, boiling their cerebral fluid. Eyeballs ruptured even as cranial vaults sundered and steaming slurry exploded from their heat expanded brains.

Tactical Groups ordered full shielding, as if they were entering an unknown and potentially hostile timestream.

The massive machines were not letting up, raking at the other groups.

Worse, they were deployed in such a way that their fields of fire overlapped, the only way to avoid their weapons was to stay either upon the ground, use terrain features to block line of sight, or move to the primary arrival zone.

The problem with the Primary Arrival Zone was that a strange force of primitives had landed there in a howl of atomic engines and were driving straight for the Great Conclave.

The Enemy is taken aback by our attack. I drive toward the city, my infinite repeaters raking at the Dwellerspawn biological warfare units. Mechanical units are starting to appear, many with the signature blue lights that inform Miho and I that the mechanical unit had extracted the cerebral tissue of a biological sentience.

Miho targets those specifically. They are more tactically and strategically aware, so I do not fault her.

I understand her horror and anger.

The Enemy in the sky is rapidly dropping to the ground, almost as fast as my Brigade mates and I can kill them, quickly getting out of line of sight. Miho notes that some vanish without the corresponding spray of liquefied tissue, supporting the thesis that the Enemy can more through space and time with ease.

The city is within range of my guns and I send drones in. I cannot move through the city streets with ease, as I am too large. However, the 7219th Combat Horde is moving toward me as fast as some vehicles, all ten thousand Treana'ad Warrior Caste soldiers putting on a burst of speed to reach the city. The massive PacificRim Class Jaeger Mechs with them are devestating and effective combat machines. Ten can seriously challenge a Mark XXIX Bolo.

They are excellent allies and effective combatants, the Treana'ad, and Miho and I both feel pleasure at the sheer amount of transponders heading for us.

The Enemy in the sky either retreats or is turned into slurry by my infinite repeaters, all the while my guns rake the Enemy biological and mechanical weapons, destroying them before they can do much more than waste resources against my thick and heavy battlescreens.

Miho and I are both on the lookout for an enemy trick.

It is the only card they have left they can possibly play in the face of the might of the Terran Confederacy.

The Atrekna were forced to retreat from the cities as the massive mobile fortresses steadily moved forward. Logic stated that the machines should have been slowed to a mere walk but instead they roared forward on tracks up to eighty kilometers an hour, sometimes rushing to as fast as 150 kph. They moved as a single interlocked whole, as did the entire military of the damnable primitive ferals.

The Atrekna had seen hive minds move with less organization.

The orders came. Shift to the Primary Arrival Zone and help defend the Grand Conclave. Leave the harvesters and the war machines to face the primitives. As soon as the shockwaves ebbed, the planet would be abandoned until plans could be made for a second invasion. Already too much of the Atrekna themselves had been killed fighting the insane primitives, the Law of Diminishing Returns had reared its ugly head.

The mass retreat is obvious with the sparkling of chronotron charge balancing.

According to sensors, the Enemy has all moved to one location. A quick examination of the battlefield shows that they have moved to the Eastern Plains of the protocontinent.

Into Trucker's assault.

Miho and I consult with our Brigade mates and the other Kentai Commanders.

Orders are to avoid contact with Trucker's Area of Operations.

Strangely enough, the disturbance and distaste the Kentai Commanders feel is echoed within the circuitry of our Personality Centers.

Unclean.

That is the only way to put it. Trucker's thoughts are somehow unclean and his area of operations feels contaminated.

We confer, and agree with our Kentai Commanders, to continue on with the primary mission, to succor and rescue the citizens of the planet.

We are moving 145.827 kilometers per hour as we hit the bridge that covers the wide flowing river now full of debris and corpses. The bridge is missing the middle section and I could easily go around. Logical movements would be to ford the river, as I am waterproof.

Instead the laughing giggling shrieking spark of female Terran adolescence urges me forward. I can hear her whisper from between parted lips 'go go go go' as the bridge cries out in agony as my kiloton bulk rushes up it. The graviton generators howl as we leave the remainder of the bridge.

For a long moment we are completely airborne, the graviton generators howling. The sun gleams off of our warsteel hull, our battlescreens flickers with rainbow hues, and our massive tracks clatter in mid-air.

Below me a skimmer of the Atomic Hooves are chasing a waterborne Dwellerspawn. I can see one of the crew members of the skimmer looking up, shading his six eyes with two hands, and within our shared minds I see Miho wave even as she sends a ChibiCon avatar to his datalink to repeat her action.

Then we slam down on the bridge, the pavement whiplashing, the Atomic Hooves skimmer flashing away. We race down the bridge even as it collapses.

The Enemy is in force, but has no chance against my tracks and sheer mass, much less my infinite repeaters. My hellbores have been silent, although they all have rounds loaded in the chamber.

Miho's fierce joy fills us both as the Enemy is torn into gobbets of flesh and ground into paste beneath our tracks. As our infinite repeaters sweep airborne enemies from the sky and shatter ground troops alike.

We cannot enter the city, but we can shoot down the large wide avenues and boulevards.

We round a large warehouse where we can detect massed lifesigns of the local species and Miho and I see the mass group of Dwellerspawn and AWM machines approaching. Behind them are buildings where the local species is sheltering in place

Miho gives the orders and despite the illogical nature of them I comply, feeling her humanity reach out around me, feeling able to do more than logic and science insist we could do.

I swerve in place, the ground nothing but churning mud beneath my tracks, a combination of destroyed vehicles, Dwellerspawn, dirt, and mechanical fluids.

Skidding, I reorient, facing an open avenue to race through. Dust billows up in front of my skidding port tracks, sparks and fluids and worse spray from under my starboard tracks as my action rips up pavement and sends it flying through the air.

Miho's maneuver took advantage of the loss of traction to enable us to turn, reorient, and redirect our momentum. We gain traction as my forward tracks grab ceramacrete and ferrocrete and we lunge forward.

Miho gives a yell of excitement that I feel deep in my personality core.

We shoot out from between the massive warehouses, schools, and housing blocs, crashing into Dwellerspawn, most of them exploding into superheated steam on our battlescreens.

Miho screeches in joy at the sight of one of the massive pillbug creatures I fought on Telkan.

The creature screams at the sight of me and lunges forward.

Hellbore Five roars and the armor piercing shot drives deep into the insect, exploding nearly ten meters back, causing chitin plates ten meters thick to rise into the air on a cloud of boiling tissue and blood.

Combat is fully engaged, the Treana'ad Warrior Hordes are sweeping into the city, parting gracefully around me, my guns raking the Enemy from the sky.

Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of Dwellerspawn had been chasing the Treana'ad Horde, waiting for them to flag.

But Confederate Treana'ad Horde Training forced them to build endurance until they could run almost as fast as my flank speed for hours at a time.

"GUNS FREE!" Miho yells even as I sweep for any Enemy leadership units.

I find none.

But that is fine.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF Unit-9823JWS AKA Jaws.

She is Miho, my Kentai Commander.

We were Born Whole.

Together we are much more.

We are Death to the Enemy.

The Atrekna felt something new as they vanished from the howling battlefield where those massive mobile fortresses were destroying anything that even attempted to put up a fight. They had figured out a way to target the Atrekna themselves, despite all previously successful tactics.

As one the remaining Atrekna agreed to depart the planet. True, the space combat assets were engaged in combat, but planetside was lost.

The newcomers recoiled slightly from the almost miasma feeling in the air, like curdled swamp water mixed with the cloying stench of decaying flesh. It was more than in the air, it permeated the phasic spaces.

And it was getting closer.

The Grand Conclave gave the orders.

They attempted to shift out.

The cold feeling had spread. There was nothing to reach for.

For a moment, it reminded the Atrekna of trying to reach past the entropic barrier that had protected their home systems.

Death covered everything.

The remaining Dwellerspawn shifted nervously as the Atrekna tried again.

And failed.

With shock, they realized what was keeping them from moving through space or time, what had them anchored in place.

The massive, although much much smaller than the mobile fortresses, tanks approaching, as well as each individual staggering forward toward the Atrekna, fighting their way through the Dwellerspawn.

Behind the death, behind the decay, was something else, growing as the primitives got closer and closer.

Hunger.

One Atrekna looked through the eyes of one of the slavespawn and immediately disconnected, falling back.

The primitive was a primate, bipedal, armed with a hypervelocity kinetic weapon.

But that wasn't what made the Atrekna withdraw.

It was doing something. Not alone, but all of them were doing something. Something that touched something primitive and primal even with the Atrekna. Touched the most basic survival instinct of 'eat' that existed in all living things.

They were gnashing their teeth.

The Atrekna discovered they were able to feel emotions and one swept through them.

It was one they didn't like.

Not one bit.

Fear.