Chapter 970: The Shadows of Twilight

Chapter 970: The Shadows of Twilight

Plans always fail after contact with the Enemy, that's why they're the enemy. - Confed Doctrine, 8400 PG

Any plan that survives contact with the enemy is the plan that gets you fucked in the ass by the Detainee's strapon. - Infantry Maxim, 8480 PG

If you are short of everything but the Enemy you are in combat. - Arch-Demon Murphy's Laws of Combat

Bit.nek looked up from where he was reading on of the FM's on fire and manuever that he'd never even heard of before when he felt a tap on his leg.

On the arm of the chair next to him, a one foot tall green mantid wearing an adaptive camouflage abdominal and thorax wrap was staring at him.

"What's up, buddy?" Bit.nek asked.

--am 299 assigned to bit.nek-- it said over the datalink.

"That's me," Bit.nek said. He smiled and set down the manual.

It was boring anyway.

"What's up?" Bit.nek asked.

--wanted meet you--

Bit.nek nodded. "Good to meet you too. You my battle buddy?"

--affirmative--

"Anything I should know?" Bit.nek asked.

--excited first drop hope we live-- the greenie said.

"We'll be fine. My last greenie survived to retire," Bit.nek said. He thought for a moment. "How long have you been in?"

--just grad fifteenth in class-- 299 answered.

"Hell, that's good. Got a regular genius riding with me," Bit.nek said. "679, he was like 50th in his class, but he kept us running and gunning even when the Detainee slung her tampon on the wall."

The greenie showed a disgusted emoji between his antenna.

"You know much about shade and shambler combat?" Bit.nek asked.

--no not covered-- 299 answered.

Bit.nek sighed and looked around, then checked his chron. It was two hours before lunch.

"All right, sit down, I'll catch you up. You'll want to do some mods to your protective shell interior, keep them from reaching in and snatching out your soul," Bit.nek said.

--roger roger--

Bit.nek adjusted in the seat. "You'll want to keep the following templates in warm storage..." he started.

-----

Admiral of Upper Decks (Warsteel) Michael T'Relm watched as the 197th Fleet made the translation from hyperspace to realspace with the roar of "HEAVY METAL IS HERE!" that echoed through the subspace foam and reality. Vessel after vessel checked in, confirmed no shades had made the translation with them.

The system looked dead. No broadcasts from the planet that weren't automated. No emergency beacons.

He folded his bladearms behind his back and watched as the fleet broke up into discreet task forces, watching the crimson and silver images in the flag bridge holotank.

Taking out the ansibles, hypercom, and needlecast facilities were first priority.

He nodded approvingly as each ship reported that their vessel was locking out the data from the various FTL communication systems.

We don't want some shades jumping to the flag bridge to give their input on what is about to happen, he mused.

He saw the troop transports all notify that their cargo had been brought out of cryosleep with no deaths and only roughly 0.25% injuries, all expected to return to duty.

He lit a smoke and moved around the holotank, looking at the system.

There were hundreds of ships in orbit around the three habitable planets. All of them in parking orbits. As he watched, one started to tumble and go into a bad reentry orbit.

The system had possessed a population of 12.5 billion artificial sentients before Shade Night.

NavInt was estimating less than 10% had survived, putting the possible number of survivors down in the tens of thousands.

There were no Ultressian ships or beacons, which meant that the 197th had beaten them to the system.

He nodded again. Forty-Third Army would divide between the three planets and dig in.

It was more than just denying the Ultressian Empire the territory.

The last thing anyone needed was for something to go wrong and the Ultressian military to carry Shades back to their homeworlds. By the time anyone else knew it, they could be propagating across the galactic arm spur again.

Nobody knew how the Flashbang had been done, so nobody was sure if it could be done again.

So the Confederate Armed Services had to do a ground sweep, clear the stellar system, and prevent the Ultressian Empire from taking territory and keep them from accidentally carrying back a Shade.

The Admiral nodded to himself.

A much more complex mission goal that he was comfortable, but nobody asked him, and fuck him if he couldn't take a joke anyway.

He puffed on his cigarette, blowing smoke rings around his footpads, and just watched the holotank.

The Fleet would do their part on behalf of Space Force.

Groundside was up to the Army and Marines.

-----

Bit.nek looked up from where he was checking his armor's left leg.

"Hey, whose got the Stampy?" he called out across the Ready Room.

Private Kalralk lifted his hand. "I do."

"My armor's not registering your hellbore. Check your Stampy's IFF transponder," Bit.nek said.

The whole bay went silent, everyone turning to look at him.

"Hellbore?" the Company XO asked, stepping forward.

"Yeah, the 60 or 80 millimeter hellbore that a Stampy runs with," Bit.nek said, frowning. He couldn't figure out what the big deal was.

"The 'stampy' as you call it, is loaded with a 20mm autocannon," the Armorer said stiffly.

Bit.nek noted that the stick in the armorer's ass had apparently made it through cryo.

"If I needed Madame Three-Eighteen's support, I'd just pack one myself on a gunnery harness," Bit.nek said. He looked around. "What, you don't run a hellbore on the stampy?"

The XO moved up, looking down at Bit.nek. "We'll be fighting on a planet we'd like to keep."

Bit.nek shrugged. "Chase the elves out of the orgy pit and make them earn their pay," he said.

"Nobody's going to authorize hellbore usage on a friendly planet," the XO said.

Bit.nek shrugged. "Your call."

"You expect me to believe you were using hellbores on a semi-autonomous gunnery drone?" the XO sounded personally offended.

"Tukna'rn heavy infantry usually packed a 30mm shoulder mounted hellbore," Bit.nek said. He shrugged again and went back to checking the knee on his armor. "Had a Novastar using Grind-haw-veh-lar rounds more than a few times. You'd roll through where the Knight Aesir had been slamming and see tanks that were squished to about four inches thick and a thin smear of jelly that had been Dwellerspawn."

The XO's eyes bugged out slightly. "You expect me to believe that?"

Bit.nek just shrugged, frowning at the return on the diagnostic on the knee. "Up to you, sir."

"Lieutenant, a word," the CO called out.

"oh man oh man oh man" someone was whining.

--cant cant cant got it-- 299 said.

Bit.nek put the telemetry in the upper right of his helmet HUD.

135,000 meters and dropping by 250 meters per second with the velocity climbing.

Bit.nek threw it up on a timer. 540 seconds was nine minutes. As he watched it dropped to 8.2 minutes.

The pod was still head down, the main ion thruster driving it toward the planet. It hadn't flipped over yet for braking burn.

"299, run the burn angle, I want to be able to see a line where we're going to land," Bit.nek snapped.

--ok--

The pod came out of the clouds and Bit.nek started cursing.

There was a huge city below them and judging by the angle they'd land between the megalopolis and what looked like factory complexes.

There was tiny flashes from the near side of the city.

"Oh, Kalki's clanging balls," Bit.nek groaned.

Two seconds later there was a loud clanking sound and the pod shuddered.

"Fuck! We're going to get shot down!" Sergeant Namralak yelled.

"SHUT UP!" Bit.nek yelled back. "This is an M9E7, those are 30mm rounds. The armor will hold."

More clanking.

50,000 feet, 2.2 minutes.

The pod suddenly flipped, even as the clanking sound got more rapid and heavier.

Sergeant Namralak screamed. "PUNCH OUT!"

"NO!" Bit.nek yelled. "299, stop him!"

--roger--

45,000

There were several explosions that rocked the pod. A glance told Bit.nek that the armor wasn't even degraded. The battlescreen was starting to spin up.

35,000

The thruster fired, braking. Target lock alarms started beeping and more explosions rocked the pod. Bit.nek checked the telemetery and saw that they were anti-aerospace fighter, not heavy rockets.

"WE'RE LOCKED UP! PUNCH OUT!" Namralak yelled.

"DAMMIT, NO!" Bit.nek yelled. "IT'S AA, WE'RE IN A MARK NINE!"

--hes pulling eject lever--

"Override it!"

--cant manual system--

The pod suddenly blew apart and the thirteen man squad were thrown away from the pod.

27,500

--hardlight chute-- 299 said.

"No. We HALO it," Bit.nek said. He swallowed blood and tooth chips, cursed, and checked the terrain.

The pod was still broadcasting telemetry.

"Run our landing arc," Bit.nek said. He put one arm out, cupping his hand, slowing his tumble. He got it under control, arms and legs out, face down.

The line showed he'd land right in the city.

"Can you get me everyone else?" Bit.nek asked.

Twelve other lines showed up.

They were scattered. Six people had already pulled their hard-light chutes.

"Try to get telemetry from other pods," Bit.nek sighed. He thought. "If you can, send a message to Major Tut'el, Battalion XO, give him a sit-rep, full maps."

--ok-- 299 said. --we going to live--

"It's just a HALO, ignore the ground fire," Bit.nek said. "No shields, no em, we'll dead stick it."

--ok-- 299 said. --kind of scared--

"We'll be fine."

8,000 feet.

Bit.nek shifted, sliding to the right, to try not to slam into the side of a skyraker. There was a large building, multistory, that looked like a hab complex. He angled again.

He'd landed on a smaller target.

6,000 feet.

He checked again. The whole platoon was scattered to hell and gone. Kilo Company was worse. First and Third Platoon Sergeants were red-X'd. Second Platoon's Platoon Leder was X'd.

3,400 feet.

900 feet above the hab complex roof.

"RIPCORD RIPCORD RIPCORD!" Bit.nek chanted and activated the hard-light system.

The chute slammed his feet into the soles of the boots and his balls into the crotch of the armor as the system yanked him up. The grav-chute dropped him to only 30mph. He dropped his weapon case from between his feet onto the cord.

feet

calf

thigh

ass

back

roll

ON YOUR FEET!

He came up, slapping off the chute system, yanking the case to stop.

Bit.nek bent down, unlatching the case, grabbing out his weapons and ammo. He shrugged into the gear harness as he straightened up and walked slowly to the edge of the roof.

"External mics," he ordered.

The city was burnt in places, there were crashed cars and debris blowing around on the street over two thousand feet below.

--activating--

The wailing of the damned poured into his ears from the street below.

"Well... shit."