Chapter 735: The Inheritor's War
He had fought the lemurs before.
He hadn't liked it then.
He didn't like it now.
Around him the slavespawn screeched, bellowed, roared, and thudded against one another in barely controlled dominance displays. Many were wounded, most were not, but still enough were wounded that the massive swarm had slowed noticeably. Four of the Ohm Class were moving little faster than a walking pace for a lemur, leaving behind chunks of flesh, viscera, and ichor. Two were mortally wounded but the Old One hoped that they would survive long enough to send against the lemur's combat lines.
The swarm had been attacked a dozen times, leaving behind close to a quarter of their numbers as the ambushes were pursued (to no effect) or the dead left behind.
The Quorum was down to a dozen Atrekna, consisting of the five Old Ones, one Ancient One, and a half dozen Young Ones.
It didn't count the Old One who had faced the lemurs before. It was cut out of the communal mind and, when they could, ignored by the Quorum.
The hill up ahead had large chunks taken from it, the dirt and exposed cracked bedrock steaming in the hot day's air.
From the other side of the hill the sound of heavy weapons could be heard.
Gathered together in a glittering phasic construct were the dozen Atrekna in charge of the assault upon the lemur's lines in this section of the primary continent.
The Quorum released the slavespawn to the communal mind of the Atrekna guiding the attack and drifted forward, eager to join the Atrekna in their hidden construct that was out of line of sight of the lemur military forces.
The Old One could tell they were talking about him, but he didn't care that they kept him from the communal mind and the Quorum, now Conclave, consensus.
Instead, he gripped his phasonium and warsteel staff and ensured that he was well shielded before drifting up the side of the hill.
A set of rippling explosions sent dirt and cracked rock showering over the hill, the debris bouncing off his shields.
He only rose up high enough for him to be able to use a phasic lens to peek over the hill without exposing himself.Follow the latest novels at novelhall.com
A trick he had learned one of the times he had faced the lemurs.
On the other side of the hill was three kilometers of absolute carnage, then the lemur lines. He focused on the lemur's presence.
They were at the top of a low hill, giving them command over the lower ground below. Their side of the low hill was obviously heavily mined with battlescreens flickering and wavering at different points.
Heavy berms, fighting positions with overhead cover and shutters over firing ports, dug in positions, trenchworks. Beyond the hill rockets and mortars were being fired into the valley.
The valley itself was a slaughterhouse. Slavespawn were everywhere, most of them dead. The Old One counted nearly sixty dead Ohm Class, most of which were missing large chunks of flesh and still being hit by artillery.
An Atrekna was behind one Ohm Class, obviously trying to convince the slavespawn to run around from behind the carcass and assault the lemur fighting positions.
With amusement, the Old One noted that the Young One was having little to no success at that.
With the booming crack of huge wings catching air two dozen massive flying slavespawn took off from behind the Old One, some shrieking but most silent as they beat their massive wings and began gaining altitude.
The Old One warned the Conclave's consensus what was about the happen but found himself rebuffed again.
He gripped the warsteel and phasonium staff and watched grimly.
Air superiority missiles flashed from behind the hill beyond, locked onto the flying slavespawn, oriented, and kicked in their sprint drives.
Each of the flying slavespawn took a dozen or more missile hits. The slavespawn's biologically generated battlescreens had not spun up to full power and most weren't capable of doing much more than triggering the missiles, much less protecting the slavespawn. Only two were able to deflect one missile, one was able to deflect two missiles.
The rest of the missiles hit home.
Scorched and burnt chunks of meat, showering blood, ichor, and rags of tissue, all rained down from the sky as the powerful flying slavespawn were reduced to scraps.
The Old One kept its slight amusement to itself.
His phasic lens suddenly shattered as a high velocity projectile round smashed into it and exploded.
The Old One nodded to himself. He had predicted that would happen.
The lemurs had snipers up that could see phasic energy.
Of course they did.
But that had exposed him to fire.
He wasn't the only one taking fire. He could see, down on the planet, that someone was tossing thermobaric heavy weapons in the high kiloton ranges as well as atomic weapons that sometimes edged over the megaton line.
The entire supercontinent was a war zone. The oceans were full of naval vessels and at any given time there were two or three mushroom clouds forming from thermobarics or atomics. The islands were hidden by heavy metal laden clouds.
That was their problem.
Max was dealing with the fact that the last set of hits, strange creatures that had hidden in the counter-orbit debris field, had damaged his last remaining reactors.
No power meant no creation engines and nanoforges, which were already running hot and heavily slushed, too hot to bake up some reactors.
But there was only one nautilus creature left in orbit. Everything else was small enough to hide in the debris of destroyed satellites, destroyed creatures, destroyed ships.
The icon beeped and it felt like a heavy weight dropped into Max's hand.
The last three C+ cannons were loaded.
Three shots.
One creature the size of a large city.
Max closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch, letting his datalink hook in.
**cannons ready boss** Aretoo told him.
"Get ready," Max ordered. He started applying thrust, feeling the frame warp and twist just being under acceleration.
**ready boss** Aretoo said. There was a pause. **boss**
"Yeah?" Max asked.
**you were a good boss couldn't ask for better** the eVI said. **I hope you make it**
"Same, buddy," Max said. He deployed missile pods, grabbed them with tractor beams, and moved them out in a spray to either side.
**ready here** Aretoo said. **its all prepped and ready just in case**
"Thank you," Max said. He didn't fully sink into the eVR of controlling his ship. It was too damaged and he was only one man, which meant he couldn't spread the injuries over several people. If he tried to fully interface he'd be overwhelmed by the pain and agony of the damage to the ship.
So he just stayed in visual with standard controls as he moved in counter-orbit of the planet.
The planet slid by slowly beneath them, the sun rising on the edge and blinding the cameras.
But not the sensors.
The huge bulk of the Atrekna biological warship came into view.
Max opened fire at the same time as the Atrekna warship.
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The five being crew of the space station watched the viewscreen as the bulky and clumsy looking ship engaged the last Atrekna obscenity. Missiles howled out, energy beams took an entire two seconds to cross the distance, and bio-ejected plasma floated through space, seeking a target.
"Oh, I hope he wins," the Lanaktallan matron said, holding a hand of each of her people.
They watched as the two massive ships went at each other with everything they had.
The Terran ship fired something and the whole station crew groaned with disappointment and concern when a large chunk of the ship tore away from the belly of the ship and broke up. Another shot and the gunport crumpled backwards, the hull bulging and tearing a hundred meters behind it. It fired a third time and the ship twisted, two of the engines breaking free.
They all watched nervously, the Terran females watching silently with them, as the Atrekna vessel suddenly began to break apart just as the missile swarm howled in. The Terran vessel was suffering small explosions that had debris and atmosphere streaming from the rips and tears.
Long seconds went by as the missiles detonated and the last of the energy beams and plasma streams found targets.
Something exploded in the rear of the Terran ship and it began to tumble. Part broke away.
"One life one plot," one of the Terran females whispered as both ships began to break up.