Chapter 540: 4th & 10

General of the Copper (1-Star/Brigadier) P'Kank was a warrior of large size and excellent coloration. His eyes had two more hexagonal 'rings' than most warriors, his antenna had one additional sensing section than most warriors. His fore-brain was slightly larger, more dense. His mid-brain was connected to his fore-brain by a spinal cord slightly thicker than other warriors.

His pedigree matched his superior physical advantages.

He had come up artillery, with a stint in 75 Rangers and eight tours with 7th Special Forces. He was orbital drop qualified as well as having recertified only a year before hostilities had broken out. He could drive a tank, a grav-lifter, an aerospace striker. He was as adapt in the jungles of an over-active yellow star as he was running through the deserts of a cool silicate world orbiting a red sun. He had been active military for nearly four hundred years of his allotted (roughly) five hundred years of lifespan yet could complete the Confederate Armed Services Physical Performance and Fitness Test as if he was a warrior caste of less than 15 years.

He had theater defense and offense citations, he had been awarded for personal bravery, and had been wounded six times during his career badly enough to require time in a regeneration cast.

Twice, as a staff officer, he had led his men directly, himself, into the howling inferno of modern combat. Once, as a Company Grade officer, he had been vidded raising the Terran Confederacy's banner over the ruins of a Dark Elf fortress, his armor still smoking, his weapon discolored, and the pale fibrous appearance of a 'field dressing' across his chest where the medics had resealed his cracked and damaged armor.

He had taken part in the final battle of the Mithril Nebula Conflict, the Clownface Nebula Conflict, and dozens of others.

He had spent 15 years as a High Matron's Ceremonial Cattle Guard. Ten years as the personal guard of a diplomat.

Just before his deployment to the Lanaktallan Conflict Zone, back when it was just Precursor Autonomous War Machines, he had been promoted from Field Colonel, his beloved 19th Combined Arms Regiment and placed in the staff of III Corps, where he had been put in charge of 3283rd Infantry Horde, an honorable posting with a distinguished unit.

When the Great Die Off had occurred, he had found himself the highest ranking officer in the entire Corps.

Humans were less than 10% of the Confederacy's population.

They were 82% of the Terran Confederacy Armed Services, if one discounted the greenies and the vast Treana'ad Infantry Hordes. If you counted those, they dropped to 45%.

That over representation of the known universe's most aggressive omnivore predator had been almost fatally wounding to the Terran Confederate Armed Services. Entire military bases were left with nothing more than a handful of Telkan or Rigellians looking around going "Uh... hello?" to a base filled with corpses.

Worse, from P'Kank's point of view, III Corps had been involved in close combat with the Atrekna over the ownership of the Hesstla System.

He could still remember, with a chilled shudder, how nearly everyone in the command center had either suddenly sighed and slumped to the floor...

...or worse.

He had fought, side to side with the remaining non-TDH command staff, against every beings worst nightmare.

Enraged Humans.

They had won, but the cost had been tremendous. Yes, less than one out of every five hundred TDH had gone enraged.

But one naked Enraged Human could take on a heavy tank bare handed and unless the tank crew got lucky, the human would rip the crew out of the tank and tear them apart with his teeth.

But General P'Kank had done it.

He had rallied the non-TDH, killed or captured the Enraged TDH, and even managed to get control of the battlefield and push back the sudden Atrekna counter-attack.

Which is how the 2.5D mural on the wall of the III Corps Tactical Operations Command Center ended up painted by several people. A mural that embarrassed P'Kank every time he saw it.

It was of P'Kank standing on top of the Command Center, firing a flare/commo-drone combo into the air to signal all units to rally and hold what they had, his other hand waving the guidon of Phantom Corps over his head.

That, in P'Kank's opinion, was bad enough, but the fact that the painter had chosen to draw P'Thok's head in the clouds looking down approvingly was enough to make P'Kank duck his head in embarrassment every time he passed the mural.

P'Kank slowed down, looked around, and saw that nobody was in the hallway.

Digging in his pocket, he pulled out two objects and slapped them on the mural, then hurried down the hallway to return to the Operations Center from his bathroom break.

The Operations Center was extremely busy. The local Hesstla had stepped into the gap, training literally tens of thousands of volunteers in the last four years. Everything from office workers to computers to intelligence analysts to grav striker pilots to tankers to infantry.

P'Kank welcomed them warmly. III Corps and 2nd Telkan and 5th Herd could use all the help they could get.

P'Kank moved up to the biggest holotank that showed the entirety of the planet. Yellow and red concentric rings were pulsing from dozens of points around the planet, signifying combats at the Regimental level or higher.

"Anything out of the ordinary?" P'Kank asked.

"No, General," 2nd Lieutenant Cretmee, a recent graduate of the Hesstla Officer Candidate School, said, shaking her head.

P'Kank spun the globe, letting it slowly rotate. So far everything was in expected tolerances and below projected casualty estimates for Hour Twelve.

Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk, Fifth Amphibious Commandos, came limping in, his right leg in a regen cast. He moved up to P'Kank and leaned close.

"Sir, someone defaced your mural again," the Leebawan said softly.

"Oh no, did they?" P'Kank said, not looking away from the map.

"Yes, they put googly eyes over your eyes again. I'll have some enlistedmen remove them later," the Leebawan officer said.

"Very well. Make sure that you use enlisted assigned for extra duty due to non-judicial punishment," P'Kank said.

"Yes, sir," the Leebawan commando said. He nodded respectfully and moved over to the holotank where the amphibious commandos were being shown.

P'Kank turned his attention to where III Corps was locked in combat.

Multiple Atrekna Leadership Caste had been sighted and he regretfully reminded his commanders that it was not quite yet time to knock them out.

In the last twelve hours nearly two thousand Atrekna Leadership Caste individuals had been identified. They usually were in groups of four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, or one hundred-twenty eight.

Which made sense to P'Kank. Hey had four fingers on each hand, including their thumb, so the fact that their numerology was Base-8 was the first clue they had needed. The new technology out of CENTCOM and it's use as defined by TRADOC had enabled P'Kank to identify individual elements of the Atrekna Leadership Caste by their phasic signature. MILINT was quickly able to identify groupings as well as who was part of them.

The constant pressure, and Operation Lock Stock six months ago had wiped out half of the Atrekna Leadership Caste. Over the last six months steady pressure as well as rebuffing Atrekna assaults had identified not only the new reinforcements the Atrekna had brought in, but now MILINT was sure of where they were bringing them in.

One month ago during Operation All The World, P'Kank had ordered the Time After Time to simulate a weapons malfunction. During the month the Atrekna had carefully tested to see if the Time After Time was inoperative. First moving in Dwellerspawn light units, then the larger units, then the Atrekna Autonomous War Machines, the finally, in bright sparkles hidden by the influx of larger Atrekna Biological Warfare Units and AAWM's, more Atrekna Leadership Caste.

Each time the Time After Time had just swung by, even the temporal scanners inoperative, just standard active sensors sweeping the planet. The heavy battle wagon was still spilling debris after the 'explosion' from the interior. Debris that quietly moved under full stealth until the entire planet was covered by the passive sensors on the massive slowly deployed sensor vanes.

The Atekna had learned to counter the temporal disruption rounds that could be fired by tanks and even crew served weaponry and P'Kank had followed orders not to issue out new versions. He had followed additional orders to have a lot of activity around a large 'factory' building, then start producing munitions delivered to tank and artillery units, that fired off temporal disruption rounds.

The Atrekna had thrown wave after wave until they were able to force the Confed forces back from the factory. They had destroyed it and retreated in the face of a counter-attack.

CONFEDMILINT had played puppet-master with P'Kank. He had a ground commander's leeway, but they still had given him orders that had looked conflicting, looked crazy, but slowly the pattern had emerged.

Discover the capabilities of the Atrekna beyond their ability to move in reinforcements from time periods past in some type of 'copy' of previously existing units.

P'Kank understood it. He had a 5 to 6X temporal dilation effect going on planetside and a 30X effect in orbit and in the system itself. That allowed him to spend months or weeks testing CONFEDMILINT's crazy ideas and reporting back a wealth of knowledge.

He glanced at the logistics plan.

The rounds had been fabbed up by creation engines in heavily shielded areas, moved under the cover of darkness, in heavily shielded vehicles, and loaded into vehicles that had been 'destroyed' during the last few months.

Some of the templates had started out, four years ago, as legacy templates from the last Temporal War. Now they were streamlined, more effective, and in some cases, miniaturized.

He rolled the planet again to take a look at it.

Thirty Two Temporal Zones where the Atrekna were furiously bringing in reinforcements.

Twelve hours in and the Atrekna did what P'Kank knew they were going to do.

Brought in exactly one-hundred twenty-eight ALC elements.

Then two hundred fifty six.

P'Kank reached out and touched a hologram.

A button rose up out of the holotank, a plastic shield over it.

P'Kank slowly lifted the shield as he took a key from around his neck.

512

He inserted the key into the lock and turned it.

1024

He put his finger on the button.

2048.

The fighting on the surface was furious, the AAWM and the ABU trying to force the Confederate Forces from the TZ's.

4096

Every TZ had at least 128 Atrekna Leadership Caste at it.

Brand new reinforcements.

He heard someone call out "STATUS CHANGE! TYPE-V AAWM - TYPE-III ABU DETECTED IN ALL TZ!"

8192

That meant the new Atrekna Autonomous War Machines would be coming through, same with the Atrekna Biological Units.

16384

P'Kank opened his mandibles in a snarl. He could practically feel the greasy cloying surge of victory from the Atrekna.

almost...

32768 individual Atrekna Leadership Case units.

One thousand per TZ.

"FIRING HOME WRECKER SHOT!" P'Kank called out.

He pressed the button.

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In orbit the satellites released by the Time After Time had started charging their weapons when P'Kank had turned the key. The heavy gun was shielded with the best tech that the Confederacy had been able to develop in the few months that P'Kank and III Corps had been pinned down in Hesstla.

Chronotrons were spawned, charged, and streamed into the chamber. Phasic energy was used as a 'suspension fluid' for the chronotrons. The compression chamber was readied. Targeting was checked, double-checked, triple-checked, then moved to real time tracking. The weapon would be precise enough that it could hit an eighteen digit grid coordinate.

The nuclear compression charge fired. The heavy warsteel chamber recoiled into the primary chamber. The mass of chronotrons were compressed until they were almost a plasma-like semi-solid. The nuclear propellant charge was fired, the warsteel ringing out with a clang.

The beams hit at the exact split second they were fired, a bright yellow shaft with a white and brilliant violet core.

Each beam hit one of the Temporal Zones.

---------

The Atrekna knew they had the upper hand now. They were flooding Dwellerspawn and Servitor Machines into the planet, forcing the defenders back from their initial push against each of the Temporal Shifting Zones. Multiple shift-seeds had been deployed until an actual gateway to where they had grown millions, billions more of the Dwellerspawn, where they had manufactured tens of thousands of the Servitor Machines.

There was a bright flash as the heavens reached down and slammed a hammerfist down into the Atrekna controlled zones.

The temporal cloning gates collapsed as the energy from the beam washed through it, disrupting the targeted cloning area. In all but a single zone the connection back to the Prime Systems were severed and the next wave of thirty-two thousand Atrekna were torn apart by the violent rippling and shuddering effect of the temporal resonance with a phasic 'twist' enhancement that slammed down.

One TZ stayed open. Only one gate, where the Atrekna managed to hold the portal open even as they reeled under the onslaught of out of control chronotrons liberally loaded with phasic energy vibrating on a frequency that caused crazing, splintering, and shattering of the phasic crystals used in every piece of Atrekna technology.

One gate.

That led straight to the inhabited planet of the Prime System.

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

"PRIMARY GATE IDENTIFIED!" P'Kank heard. It appeared on the holotank.

Right where MILINT had estimated.

P'Kank motioned to his XO, his S2, and the Senior Command Sergeant Major.

All of them moved up to the holotank, pulling out keys as the holotank lifted up plas-shield covered big red buttons that said "DO NOT PRESS!" on them.

They unlocked the covers and flipped them up.

They then inserted their keys and on the count of three unlocked the button.

In orbit a single satellite warmed up the mass driver after triple-checking the targeting solution and then moving to real time targeting.

"Prepare to press," P'Kank said.

He disagreed with what was about to happen.

He had disagreed with creating such a weapon.

He had submitted his objections in writing to deploying such a weapon.

But while he objected to the weapon, it was not illegal, and his orders to use it did not constitute an illegal order.

"Target acquired," one of the techs said.

"Press button," P'Kank said gravely.

It clicked, the small noise of each button loud despite the bustle of the command center.

"Payload fired," the tech said.

"Digital Omnimessiah forgive us," P'Kank said softly, watching the holotank.

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

SP4 Melinvae held tight to the oh-shit bar, rocking back and forth slightly. She had managed to grab almost five hours of sleep during the holding pattern that 1st Cav was doing. She felt the striker dip suddenly and snapped to full wakefulness instead of the mostly asleep but not quite but I'm still getting a nap but I'm awake sergeant I think I'm dreaming but I know what's going on that she had been floating in for five hours.

The grav-striker she was on was dropping through the clouds.

"TWO MINUTES!" came the shout from her squad leader.

She chinned the button to signal green as the doors opened on the sides of the strikers and the door guns deployed.

A single lance of light speared down through the clouds. An object streaking through the atmosphere at high speeds, leaving behind a fiery trail behind it and a thunderclap as superheated air collapsed back into the path of the object as it cooled.

She expected there to a rumble, or a ghostly soft thud against her bone marrow, or maybe the taste of blueberries across her back teeth.

Instead, she tasted...

Oranges?

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

The object passed through clouds, lancing down, and striking directly on the gate that led from Hesstla to the Prime System. The outer layer of chronotrons was keyed to the same pattern as the gate, allowing it to pass through.

The remaining Atrekna pulled back in fear, more than a few fleeing for the crystalline fortresses in the mountains, as the object passed through the gate and impacted on the surface of the planet. Where it entered the atmosphere a supersonic shockwave of super-heated air rolled out.

The planet of the Prime System shuddered, the impact creating a massive crater and throwing gigatons of dirt into the air. The object blew a crater nearly a quarter-mile deep in the surface.

The Atrekna looked at the crater beneath a suddenly boiling sky. There was a bright half-dome in the middle of the crater, inside the inner ring of the dual-ringed crater. The phasic shockwave was still reverberating through the communal mind and most of the Atrekna were stunned, a significant amount of them had been killed outright by the phasically charged chronotron cascade that accompanied the arrival of the object that had impacted at over MACH 15.

The interstellar gate collapsed, severing the connection between the Prime System and the critical system that the Atrekna so desperately needed in order to firmly put over a hundred food systems under their dominion.

The blackblast cleared and there was silence across the section of the continent that the crater sat on.

The Atrekna watched.

A Thrint Stasis Field cut out.

The Atrekna using remaining survelliance systems saw a figure in heavy armor was kneeling in the just cooled bedrock. As they watched lightning, thick purple phasic lightning, wreathed the figure and it slowly stood up. It had a heavy short barreled weapon on its hip that its hand dropped down to even as the other hand dropped to the haft of a Mark-II Cutting Bar.

The planet was still shuddering from the impact as the Enraged Terran Descent Human wrapped in modified Imperium of Rage armor began walking toward the edge of the massive crater.

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P'Kank heard it from far away, feeling his stomachs churn with what he had done.

"Operation Florida Man Complete."