Chapter 781: The Inheritor's War

Chapter 781: The Inheritor's War

"Attaching a single Treana'ad Warrior Company to each infantry brigade will increase flexibility and mission completion analytics."Th.ê most uptodate novels are published on n(0)velbj)n(.)co/m

"Is that the whole reason? Do you really think they'll be that effective?"

"Think of the psychological impact upon the enemy."

"Do you think they'll matter that much?"

"Well... just look at them!" - Post Human-Mantid War 6th Generation Warfare discussion

N'Thrap stabbed to the left and right with his bladearms even as he took a step forward, chopping at the servitor with his chainsword that he held with both hands. The two servitors running up to join the melee went down, one holding onto his throat that was spewing green blood, the other sporting a ruined eye socket and a ruptured brain.

The larger servitor, a large insectiod who obviously held the mistaken belief he could go toe to toe with a Treana'ad Warrior, backed away, fluttering its vestigal wings in anxiety and N'Thrap executed a standard attack chop sequence, the cutting bar howling and throwing sparks.

The servitor gaped as the cutting bar ripped through its armor and out the back, gore and chitin fanning out from the blade. The servitor went limp and N'Thrap kicked it off the blade, turning and parrying another chop from a phasic enhanced blade wielded by a charging servitor. He set his footpads, cranking up the grav spikes in his boots out of training hammered in reflex. The clattering rotating edge of density enhanced warsteel showered sparks as it began chewing through the phasic blade.

N'Thrap stabbed with his bladearms. Right thrust, left thrust, right downward slash, left crossbody slash, HAH! GOTCHA SUCKER!

Hours of close quarters bladearm training had overridden his instincts for scrabbling and downward slashes, imparting modified Terran 'bayonet drills' to the Treana'ad people.

N'Thrap whipped his cutting bar around, slashing hard, stopping the two screaming servitors in their tracks as the chattering blades ripped through their armor and flesh.

His helmet beeped and he saw his miniguns were reloaded and his heat had dropped.

"STRAWBERRY SURPRISE TIME!" N'Thrap roared out as he turned back to the original direction of his advance. Lasers were snapping against his armor but the superconductor layer wicked away the heat across the entire surface before it could do much more than touch.

Both of his miniguns opened up, connecting the front of the berm to the miniguns with a solid shaft of light as the guns roared out the song of N'Thrap's people.

"GET SOME! GET SOME!" N'Thrap yelled as the rounds exploded against the berm.

Someone fired a flare, not up into the air, but at a bunker that was hosing hate at a squad of infantry, keeping them ducked down as the 30mm autocannons hammered out Atrekna hate at the Treana'ad. The flare was packed with em-shriekers that woke up and started screaming "LOOK AT ME! GIMME ATTENTION! WHO LOVES ME?" as the smoke poured out and the bright red light flared.

A Telkan striker banked hard, lining up, and N'Thrap shifted, putting 10mm minigun rounds from the two Vindicator autocannons on his back into the point defense and anti-air of the bunker even as it cooked off rockets.

The Telkan striker took all six rockets to the forward battlescreen, the striker exiting the greasy flames and returning fire with the rocket pods hanging under the short stubby rings. The ripple fired circular SRM pack cut loose with 38 2.75 inch rockets from each rocket pod that launched with a snarl at the 30mm cannon over an argument only a Terran would understand.

The point defense on the bunker couldn't decide to shoot at the rockets of the screaming flare that had started yelling the electronic warfare equivalent of "I'M A HOT SINGLE 3.35 MEGATON WARHEAD AND I'M SO LONELY AND CAN'T WAIT TO MEET HOT SINGLES IN MY AREA!" or to start shooting at N'Thrap, who was still concentrating fire on the side of the bunker with his miniguns even as he raked the berm in front of him with his trusty Ma-Deuce battle rifle.

A third of the 2.75 inch rockets exploded in midair.

The rest hit the bunker, the anti-armor missiles slamming through the armor and through the open spaces to hit the floor and explode, filling the interior spaces with shrapnel, fire, and the sharp snap of chronotrons.

N'Thrap turned his attention back the enemy line, setting himself. He blew the whistle and heard answering whistles as he kept firing at the enemy berm.

Two, then three, then four more of his men ran up next to him. Lesser Sergeant Y'Kyllr ran up, breathing heavily, his foot missing from a land mine.

N'Thrap glanced at him, glanced at his foot.

"FIT TO FIGHT, SERGEANT!" the eager young Warrior shouted.

More had gathered up. Someone had a guidon and raised it up and pumped it several times. More whistles burred.

"LET'S GO!" N'Thrap shouted, turning and racing for the berm.

His men ran with him in a wedge, firing as they force the blade of the wedge deeper into the cement wall of the Atrekna defensive site.

Captain Cyba'armo'o saw the Treana'ad charge the far berm and triggered his beacon. He had been trained on Treana'ad whistle signals, as had his men, so he ran the burring whistle sound over his external speakers even as he raised the gore smeared guidon.

"RALLY TO ME!" Captain Cyba'armo'o bellowed out over his speakers and across the hash filled radio channel.

A servitor charged him and Captain Cyba'armo'o whipped around, kicking out once, twice, three times in less than a second, the hoofshoes on his warsteel hooves glowing blue with graviton energy and the heavy rapid cycle pistons in his legs and hips thumping.

The servitor flew away in several pieces and a spray of ichor and gore.

His men were streaming toward him. His unit had taken heavy casualties, but already the Undying Asclepius had returned all but two to the fighting line in new chassis even though the battle was only three hours old.

When twenty had joined him he whirled in place and pointed the guidon.

"BEER'S ON ME FOR THE FIRST TO BEAT THE WARRIOR TREANA'AD TO THE SLAUGHTER!" he roared out.

His whole company roared as they burst into motion, their cybernetic limbs flashing, their hooves smashing against the ground, graviton sparking and crackling around their hooves.

The Telkan striker dropped a line of popping EM flares and banked hard, close enough to the ground that the grav-lifters ripped dirt from the ground and threw it behind the striker as it ejected chaff.

A group of servitors, the big lumbering ones with the scaled, stood up from the foxhole they'd been hunkered down in, firing weapons and screaming at the oncoming Lanaktallan.

The return fire ripped them apart before Cyba'armo'o cleared the foxhole in a single jump.

They were catching up to the Treana'ad, Cyba'armo'o passing the closest one. He raised the guidon, the flag snapping in the wind, and pumped it twice in the air.

"GEDDUM GEDDUM GEDDUM!" two of the Treana'ad Warriors shouted out to Cyba'armo'o as he passed the middle ranks. The two Treana'ad in the lead were a big, even for a warrior, NCO with a guidon in his hand and a Treana'ad Warrior missing a foot.

Cyba'armo'o fired off his hip rockets in a ripple when the Treana'ad NCO blew the whistle for artillery suppression of the berm they were racing for. He emptied his mortar tubes even as he caught up to the NCO, running next to the huge Treana'ad, both of them waving their unit guidons in the air and blowing whistles.

Rockets and mortar rounds were hammering the Atrekna defenses, the point defense having less and less time to react as the origin point for the missiles got closer and closer, more firing angles were generated as the Treana'ad and Lanaktallan spread out their flying V formation, firing rockets, mortars, and back mounted miniguns.

N'Thrap emptied the rocket and grenade launchers on his shoulders, hearing the beeping of his heat warning start to sound but he flexed a muscle that didn't exist, overrode it, and wet printed another set of rockets.

There were two stunned servitors and Vuxten shot one in the chest while the man behind him shot the other in the face.

"COMING IN!" a Telkan yelled and a six man team burst into the room from another passageway.

"Major," the Colonel's voice snapped across the command channel as Vuxten gave the hand signals for the fire team to split up and move down the two unsecured tunnels.

"Sir?" Vuxten asked, preparing to follow the last man.

"Quit dicking around in those bunkers like an enlistedman with an erection and a gut full of Bingo Cola," the Colonel snapped. "Help me get the company commmanders back in the fight."

"Roger, sir," Vuxten said, hustling out of the bunker, passing by another squad sweeping the bunker.

--snicker-- 471 said.

The whole battlefield was covered in smoke when Vuxten exited and he almost got ran over by a tank that loomed up out of the smoke.

"MOVE, BITCH, GEDDOUDDAWAY!" the tank commander, half out of the hatch, yelled at Vuxten in the time honored warning, shaking his fist as the huge tank rumbled by. On the side was a picture of a Terran rabbit and on the barrel was written "Little Bunny Foo Foo" in white paint.

Vuxten hustled toward the pips of the company commanders, exiting the smoke and seeing everyone crouched down behind a smoking bunker with the top blown off.

"Major," the Colonel said. His face plate was open and he was chewing a piece of stimgum as he looked around. "Take Alpha and Bravo Companies and follow the tanks," the Colonel ordered.

"Yes, sir," Vuxten said. He looked at the two CO's. "Get your men rallied."

Both nodded, chinning their radios and talking rapidly.

Vuxten hurried over to Little Bunny Foo Foo, opening the back panel and slapping his palm against the induction link.

"Fuck you want?" someone asked.

"Major Vuxten here," he said.

"So?"

"My men are going to go with you on the advance," Vuxten said.

"Stay behind us, we've got authorization for pancake rounds," the speaker said.

"Roger," Vuxten said, pulling his hand back and slapping the panel closed. He chinned his radio. "Alpha and Bravo Companies, form up behind the tanks, two meter interval stacks, four per tank."

Acknowledgements flashed on his HUD as he waited, the tank moving slowly forward at a slow walking space.

A heavy gunnery position was hammering fire into the front of the tank, but the tank ignored it, just the engine roaring as the driver drove the tank into the front of the bunker, then up over the rubble, and down the rubble that had been the back side.

The Telkan of Alpha and Bravo company gathered up behind the tanks, keeping the space out.

GRAV GRAV GRAV appeared on Vuxten's HUD and he hunched down slightly even as he followed the tank.

The serrated line of tanks all fired at once and Vuxten felt his stomach flip and swallowed thickly.

Artillery rounds dropped from the sky but the heavy Hesstlan tanks point defense raked them out of the sky even as the infantry braced for incoming shrapnel.

It was slow, but the Telkan Marines were advancing again.

-----

"Telkan Marines are taking heavy fire from an arty unit," Cyba'armo'o heard over his link as he parried a slash from a phasic enhanced sword and thrust with his other cutting bar, lopping the servitors arms off.

"Distance?" Cyba'armo'o asked.

"Six miles. Have to fight your way there. You're closest," the radio, with the Corps HQ logo flashing on his visor, told him.

"Roger. We'll deliver these sorry bastards to the Digital Omnimessiah and push toward the artillery unit," Cyba'armo'o said.

The link clinked and Cyba'armo'o looked around.

The big Treana'ad Warrior that Cyba'armo'o had ran next to was tossing grenades into the crack in the top of the bunker his men were stomping on. The flash of the grav-boots made Cyba'armo'o understand why they were dancing on it. Enhanced gravity foot stomps to break open the bunker like the shell of a shellfish.

Cyba'armo'o triggered his radio.

"Hey, T-Bug, wanna come with us?" Cyba'armo'o asked.

"What's up, centard?" the T-Bug, one Sergeant of the Bladearm N'Thrap asked.

The friendly insult made Cyba'armo'o smile.

"Artillery raining hate on the Telkan Marines. Nobody else in position. Six miles," Cyba'armo'o said.

"Lemme round up the boys and we'll race to it," the Treana'ad said.

"Sounds good," Cyba'armo'o said.

He had no doubt that the Treana'ad Warrior would carry his part of the mission.

After all...

...just look at him.