First Contact - Chapter 977: The Shadows of Twilight

Of all the races found so far, the Telkan and the Leebaw, despite obvious biological differences, are the closest to Terra-Sol species. Many point to the fact that they had not undergone endless rounds of “gentling’ at the hands of the Lanaktallan and the Unified Council. Others say it is their warlike nature, hidden under a thin veneer of civilization. Others point at the oppression of the Unified Council and then the cruelty of the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, claiming that those two factors brought out the same kind of element present in the species of Terra-Sol, who have known nothing but war.

No matter what the cause, the fact remains: The Telkan and the Leebaw are the most likely to become Enraged, with the Hesstlan and the Treana’ad right after. – Considerations of the Legacy of Terra-Sol, Ponders The Unponderable, Free Mantid Press, 8932 PG

They come to kill the Rooster, but he ain’t gonna die. – Steel Bound Alice, Terra-Sol, Age of Paranoia

The brain and experience drain after the Second Precursor War ended cannot be overstated. While only a handful of years passed for the inhabitants of the greater universe, some vets of the war lived up to three hundred years in a combat theater under fire every day.

The Terran Xenocide Event left vast swaths of territory undefended, and the enemies of the Confederacy moved rapidly to take advantage of that fact. With over two thirds of the heavy quick response units in Lanaktallan Space, it should have been possible to rebuff the new combatants quickly with the guard units, planetary and system defense forces, and the third of active quick reaction forces.

But the the Atrekna War had left nearly eighty-percent of the veterans unfit for duty, due to age or trauma.

In a normal war, the rotation of experienced troops into inexperienced units provides a good backbone for the new unit. Due to temporal disruption and the brain/experience drain, the plethora of experienced troops did not exist.

This led to very few experienced veterans, veterans of a war of a completely different type, to be seeded in inexperienced units.

The early cost was immense. – Post-Xenocide Conflicts of the Confederacy, 9921 PG, Free Mantid Press

Major Tut’el finished walking the HHC 992 line, checking the line of sodium chloride, taking a look at the red paint all over everything, and calming a few jittery officers.

His armor looked like the designer had decided to make red armor and everything else was a reflection of the fact that the armor was to be red. No scuffs, no marks, no scratches. Pristine armor without a single flaw. He had his faceplate set to transparent so that the troops could see his face, and made sure that they were armed with cutting bar and rifle, just as he was. His greenie battle buddy was sitting on his shoulder, leaning against the rocket launcher, waving at some of the other greenies.

HHC had picked up a separated mortar platoon, which Major Tut’el had overseen digging in, and he walked over to double-check the anti-fragmentation netting around the Fast Transport Site where the nanoforge was printing out mortar rounds, propellant rings, and fuzes. He checked the thickness by rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, then moved on to checking the distance between the ammo, the fuzes, and the prop rings.

Ya gotta make sure they’re far enough apart they don’t start arguing and blow you up, sir, he heard the big one-eyed Terran’s voice in his head. Ya don’t mix lot numbers, ammo types, or just pile it all up in a heap, or it blows up and kills everyone.

Tut’el nodded and lifted his chin as he walked between the 60mm mortar shells and the 4.2 inch mortar shells.

He could hear the faint snarl between the two of them.

“Stop that,” he said softly. “It’ll be your time soon enough,” he grazed his armored fingertips over the wooden boxes the rounds were inside.

The snarling lowered to a low growl to his senses.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Fraktexin asked, staring at the Telkan officer. The kobold mortar officer found himself oddly intimidated by the fastidious appearing Telkan.

“Just reminding the ammo that they’re to kill the enemy, not each other, not us,” Major Tut’el said, his voice distant and remote. “Make sure you have an enlisted move through the stacks and pat the ammo. Tell it that it’s all good ammo.”

“Uh… sir?” the kobold asked. In thirty years he’d never heard of anything like that.

Tut’el moved over and looked at an open box of fuzes. Variable setting. He nodded and closed the wooden box lid. “Soon, little ones,” he said. He looked at the kobold. “The ammunition knows the Enemy is coming and is eager. Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.

The kobold nodded jerkily.

“Carry on, Lieutenant,” Tut’el said, moving out of the FTP and heading toward the generator pit. The greenie riding on the Major’s shoulder waved.

At the generator pit he just traced the line of heavy cables with his eyes, walked by and looked over the gauges. His greenie jumped off to scurry around the generators, pausing to talk rapidly with two other green mantids. He looked over the connections, not touching the cables, but checking to make sure the locking rings showed red for full lock and no unlocked green coloration on the paint indicator. He looked over the junctions without touching, then walked around and looked at the grounding rods.

Several privates saw Major Tut’el looking and rushed off to get their OIC.

The lieutenant came in to see Major Tut’el looking at the open power switching box, a greenie on top of it talking rapidly, the Major’s greenie on his shoulder.

“May I help you, sir?” Lieutenant Dremkri’ik asked, feeling his spines raise up to tap inside his helmet.

The Major made him nervous. He rarely raised his voice, he never made threats, he rarely cursed. His movements were precise, controlled, and the Major always appeared thoughtful and considerate.

But the Major still made Lieutenant Dremkri’ik very very nervous.

“Just making sure that everything you need has been provided and there is no difficulty,” Major Tut’el said, not taking his eyes away. “Six two two here says everything has been going well.”

The Major turned to face Lieutenant Dremkri’ik and nodded slowly. “I realize liquid fuel generator backup is unusual, but Terran psychic impression shades can disrupt fusion and zero point reactors. Fission is also risky.”

“Oh,” Lieutenant Dremkri’ik said. “Uh, I wasn’t aware of it, sir.”

Major Tut’el just nodded again. “The SOP for power generation hasn’t percolated through TRADOC yet, as they appear to still be putting out doctrine from lessons learned from the Mar-gite War,” he looked around. “You should be receiving doctrine updates from the Atrekna Contested Zone in, oh, five or six hundred years Galactic.”

It took a moment for Lieutenant Dremkri’ik to realize it was a joke.

By that time the Major had moved on, heading for the gap in the berm. “Carry on, Lieutenant,” the Major said.

His greenie waved.

He moved silently to the commo shed.

Two of the privates standing guard saw the Major shift his off hand to the grip of his cutting bar when the Major glanced at the commo shed and the massive uplink dishes. He moved around the shed, checking the paint, looking at the thick sodium chloride lines, then moved away.

Both privates exhaled a sigh of relief when the Major moved on.

“Ever feel like he’s just waiting to get a bunch of us in a group so he can just go all Enraged Phillip on our asses?” one PFC asked the other.

The other one just nodded.

Tut’el nodded to a pair of Captains and an SFC as he moved toward where the TOC was buried in the ground. Both hurried away.

He ducked through the thick reddish mylar strips and moved into the TOC itself.

“Ah, Major, there you are,” Lieutenant Colonel Ssalressk said from where he and Sergeant Major HsstSsar were standing by a holotank that was projecting the surrounding area in red and silver.

“Just doing a few spot checks,” Tut’el said.

“Now now, you don’t want everyone to think you don’t trust them, Major,” the Colonel said.

Tut’el shook his head. “It is not their skills and dedication I doubt, sir,” Tut’el said. “It is the fact we did not have proper training time before deployment. I have to ensure that there is no questions or difficulties with these on-the-fly adjustments.”

The Colonel chuckled. “An excellent answer, Major,” he said. He waved, come over here, help me figure out what to do with Nine Nine Two.”

“New problems?” Tut’el asked.

The Sergeant Major poked the holo-display. “We’re scattered across a teardrop shaped area eight hundred miles across and, at its widest, two hundred miles thick,” he said. He tapped a city. “Kilo Company got dropped in the city.”

He looked up. “As of two hours ago, there was a group of over a hundred Kilo Company elements right here, with the rest that are mobile moving toward that point,” he said. He looked back down at the skyraker apartment building. “An hour ago, every single transponder and IFF on that roof just cut out.”

“Flyby recon?” Tut’el asked, moving up and looking down.

“Drone gave us this ten minutes ago,” the Colonel said. A window appeared above the skyraker, done in silver and red, showing troops moving around. “Looks like they towed a drop pod to the roof.”

“When the drone got within a half mile, it started getting heavy UHF signals. Signal platoon figured out that it was a fairly wide band analog transmission of the transponders,” the Sergeant Major said.

Tut’el nodded. “Is that the company PFC Bit.nek was assigned to?” he asked.

The Sergeant Major nodded.

“He’s the reason the IFF and transponder have cut off. There’s shades in the city and his CO must be taking his advice and moving to shade protocols,” Tut’el said.

“Sir, the Ice Cream Heaven is in position,” one of the techs said, looking up from their commo board.

“Do we have satellite in the area?” the Colonel asked, not turning away from the tank, just magnifying one section.

“No. Ice Cream Heaven said they’ll report on the results of their orbital strikes,” the tech said. They put their hand to their ear. “Firing in three, two, one…”

Tut’el saw that the heavy battle cruiser was firing at the planetary communication uplink field outside the city.

“Volley One fired. Volley Two fired. Volley Three fired,” the tech said.

There was a simulated explosion in the middle of the field. Three spaced plasma cannon volleys.

There was silence for a moment.

“Planetary defensive shielding was successful in diverting the shots,” the tech said. “No damage to the uplink field.”

The Colonel shook his head. “We have to disable that field. Tell fleet that they need to figure out a way to disable those defense shields.”

He moved over to the hologram of that skyraker that Kilo Company was on top of.

“If worse comes to worse, we’ll use high speed drones with message packets to tell Kilo Company to destroy the planetary defense system,” he tapped the city marker. “It’s in the city, they’ll have to fight their way in, but once that’s disabled we’ll be able to use orbital strikes to…”

It floated up on the holotank and in Tut’el’s vision.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

The detonation warning was at the uplink field.

An icon appeared on top of one of the tallest buildings at the edge of the city.

XM388A9E12/W58A2E3 – SALTED

25-240KT YIELD

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

The Colonel looked up.

“Your boy, I assume?”

Tut’el just nodded, his face remote and uncaring.

—–

“Stupid cheap ass template,” Bit.nek cursed, banging on the side of the heavy box he had been carrying. He looked up at the satellite field.

The plasma volley had lanced down out of the atmosphere and Bit.nek had been close enough to see the defensive arrays go to work.

At the edge of the city, it looked like a faint wall of hexagons interposed itself between the field and the city. A dome appeared above the uplink dishes, with what looked like an hourglass of burning white fire above it.

The plasma lances had been diverted through magnetic and gravitational forces into the hourglass and Bit.nek had seen the energy twisted and fired straight back along their paths.

Bit.nek shook his head even as the shockwave from the thermal energy transfer washed over him, not even rocking him in his armor.

–what happen why no work– 299 asked.

“Planetary defenses are still online,” Bit.nek said. He narrowed his eyes. “They didn’t shoot their way in,” he mused. He shook his head. “Might have come in at the poles or over the heavy ocean side. That’s the problem with this single super-continent planets.”

–oh–

“You’ve got to disable the planetary defense matrix if you want to use orbital weapons,” he said. He pulled at the launcher harder.

It made a pop noise and the latch popped open.

“Finally,” Bit.nek said. He reached in and picked up the weapon inside.

A James Bowie launcher.

–oh shit–

“Take it easy,” Bit.nek said.

–where power– the mantid asked.

“This one’s completely mechanical. No digital electronics, no power,” Bit.nek said. He hefted the launcher, checked it over, set it down. He lifted up the single warhead and inspected it.

–what doing– 299 asked.

“Setting it for sixty-five kilotons, enhanced burst,” Bit.nek answered. “This one has a thorium salt jacket.”

–why–

“Radiation cascade does a number on Terran cells,” Bit.nek said. “The shambler’s skin will melt off and their organs will turn to liquid shit. Give it 72 hours and every shamber that caught a burst of rads will be fucked.”

–oh– 299 waited a moment. –uh atomics not authorized–

“Yeah, well,” Bit.nek locked the round into the launcher. “Things change.”

He aimed the launcher, going by eyeball and mechanical sight.

The rocket would reach the field, five miles away, detonate two hundred meters up.

He did it all by eye and memory.

He triggered his radio.

“ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC!” he called out.

He saw it flash up in his vision.

“Fire in the hole,” he said.

And pulled the trigger.