First Contact

TARGET!

FIRE!

SHOT OUT!

HIT! TANGO STILL UP!

rang out across the entire BATACNET, each tank maneuvering superficially individually but as one rapidly shifting interlocked whole. Daybreak had come, passed, and night had fallen again. The entire surface of the planet was dotted with fires, some slowly going out, others blooming into life. The air was full of ash, scorched pollen, and burnt spores.

Out in the ocean missiles corkscrewed down out of orbit, deploying submunitions by the hundreds, all of which dropped into the ocean to fall through the water until they detected enough mass, which they detonated.

Not normal explosives, but 'fuel-water-charges' which used the highly pressurized seawater as fuel to burn, expanding a bubble measured in the hundreds of meters, then the icy cold pressurized water slammed back into the bubble, creating a massive shockwave.

Whole swarms of insects took off from mushroom hives only to be intercepted by missiles that blew them apart in chitin shattered blasts.

Subtlety, fanciness, sleight of hand, all of it had been thrown away as the two dominant forces on the surface of Telkan went at it with everything they had. The undersea thinking arrays, all that was left, fought to retake the surface while the surface dwellers burned and scorched away the plant life and directed their assault on the ocean at the same time.

For the surface dwellers, they had heard the voice, firm, with a warsteel core, speak out.

"This was our home, and I would rather the Terrans burn it to liquid rock than allow that obscenity to squat victorious upon its bones."

The gloves were off.

Biological weapons detonated, releasing drifting clouds of viral and bacterial weapons that shredded apart the jungle, collapsing cell walls, destroying nucleus, whatever it took to destroy the weapon that had destroyed Telkan.

In orbit General Nodra'ak looked at the holotank and blinked slowly.

"Madame Director, did I hear you clearly?" he asked.

Every other holographic representation of Terran military commanders in the system blinked and struggled to hide their shock.

"Yes," was all Madame Director Brentili'ik stated, lifting her chin in a motion that she learned carried weight with Terrans. "You heard me correctly, General."

Admiral Howell stared at the holotank of both planets.

Every single shelter was at yellow. They could be launched, they'd have atmosphere, but the food stocks were incomplete, the waste disposal systems were inadequate, the water treatment and storage was fine for planet-side but space had a tendency to sip away at everything.

They could be launched, could get to orbit, maybe even light off the jumpspace drives, but not one of them would reach the target planet.

"It will take centuries to repair your planet, decades with a full Elven Royal Court, Madame Director, if we go to full warfare," General Takilikakik, commander of Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 logistics and support said slowly.

"Those minor earthquakes are going to get worse. The creatures are boring tentacles into the ground to create new fault lines and to agitate existing ones, correct?" Brentili'ik asked. She barely understood the whole thing. Plate tectonics was not on the scholastic list and she'd only had an hour to brush up on them. "This world, both worlds, will be completely destroyed with those creatures providing the basic imprint of life, correct?"

Admiral Howell nodded slowly, staring at the seismic projections. "Six days before the seismic disturbances reach a resonance. After that the planet will be wracked by earthquakes for decades, volcanic vents will spew ash and gasses into the air to replenish and rebuild the atmosphere, the seas will be heated. After a period of time the ash in the upper atmosphere will reduce the planet's atomspheric temperatures into a deep ice age for a few thousand years, then it will completely rebuild the landscape as the glaciers retreat."

"They will destroy our homes," Brentili'ik stated, putting her fists on her hips. "More than destroy it, they will erase us as if we never existed. Somewhere, out there," she gestured toward the sky. "There is or was a creature that would have laid new life down on the planet, including newly genetically altered versions of my people."

"And in a few million years, you won't be able to tell your people even ever existed, correct," General Takilikakik stated, nodding. "You are correct, Madame Director."

Brentili'ik laid her ears flat. "And if you were to go to total war, blot the Jungle and its servants from our planets, how long would it take to restore the planets?"

General Vost stared at a holodisplay, twiddling with the data. "Will a full Royal Court, even if the entire planet was covered in lava with an atmosphere composed primarily of carbon dioxide with a temperature at the surface is 1272 °F and a pressure of 95 b it would be livable within ten years, completely reconstructed as if none of it happened within sixty."

Brentili'ik thought for a few moments. "And if I told you to leave the ruins of the cities, rebuild them for the Telkan people, leave the scars upon the land to remind us of why we fight? As if we were Terra?"

General Vost nodded. "Twenty-two years with a full Elven Court. You'd need to leave the Court in place for a couple hundred years to prevent ecological or climate collapse or disaster, but your people could live here."

"And how long until the ships can make the journey without losing any of my people?" Brentili'ik asked.

"Two days," General Takilikakik stated. "Evey day afterward will increase livability and ease distress."

"Our planets, our homes, are being ripped apart, distress is going to happen irregardless," Brentili'ik said. She shook her head. "How long until the Elven Queen is ready?"

"If she isn't Born Whole? If she learns on the job and fights it as a war with only her citedal? Two days," General Vost said. "For Born Whole? She'll need nine days."

Bentili'ik nodded. "Then, yes, you heard me correctly."

She turned as if she was facing each of the soldiers. Each of the, to her, frightening Terrans, so resolute in their determination.

"I hereby, as the representative of the Telkan people, give the Terran Space Force and Terran Confederacy permission to go complete and total weapons free," Brentili'ik said slowly and carefully. "I hereby give permission for the Elven Queens and the Terran Genetic Warfare Division to engage in operatons on Telkan-1 and Telkan-2."

Brentili'ik closed her eyes for a moment, when she opened them she stared at the officers.

"This is our home."

"And we want it back."

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

On Telkan-2 the units of First Armored Division (Old Metal) fought against the massive insects, following Trucker's strategy. Lieutenant General Watts led his men from the massive main battle tank Boots On, hammering at the giant insects, pulling them around until the Bolos opened fire. 2nd Marine Scouts (Telkan) moved fast through the jungle, following the massive nutrient pipes to the thinking arrays and then marking them before running.

VII Corps (Old Metal) was one of the most powerful Corps in the Terran Armed Services. Normally a Corps only had three divisions, with V Corps being the exception of six, while VII Corps had ten divisions to its name, including 'cloned' units such as 1st Cavalry and 2nd Armored Divisions, which were part of III Corps and just replicated.

While the fighting was furious on Telkan-2, the overwhelming firepower of VII Corps had allowed them to hold the jungle at bay more effectively than on Telkan-1.

When the signal came to go guns free for a split second it was like all of the Terrans on the planet took a deep breath.

The remaining psychic arrays felt the Terrans pause, felt them almost go still, and misunderstood what they were seeing and feeling. They interpreted it as fear, as resignation, as acceptance of their eventual and unavoidable destruction.

Followed age old genetic program that had worked every other time they immediately pressed the attack. Flooded the skies, the seas, the entire surface with insects.

This time it wasn't the jungle that exploded in effort.

It was the humans.

Outnumbered? Yes. Outgunned? No.

"Normal" High Explosive Armor Defeating rounds were unloaded, dumped into the creation engines to be reclaimed, and ATAD (ATomic Armor Defeating) rounds began loading into the magazines. Gamma warheads were formed and racked into the missile racks instead of tungsten rod or explosives. Standard mag-ack ferrous coating rounds were unloaded and collapsed density depleted uranium were loaded.

Across both worlds the ammunition loadout changed from weapons that the ecosystem could easily recover from to full throttle weapons normally only used on enemy planets.

Even as the earthquakes became noticeable the humans loaded their guns, cranked up the battle-shields, and took aim.

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

"Are you sure about this, Madame Director," General Takilikakik asked the Telkan female.

Brentili'ik shook her head. "Do I have a choice? Do my people have a choice? We can't just run away, can't just cower."

"Trying to stay will put your people in great danger, Madame Director," Tik-Tak said, rubbing his hands and forearms together. "What about your broodcarriers and podlings?"

"There's no guarantee that the shelters will finish in time to launch before that, those, that stuff figures out a way to get to them. You've already detected insects moving around under the ground and have had to use seismic charges to collapse their tunnels. There's no guarantee of anything," Brentili'ik said. "We have to hold off several days and as we've seen today, things change rapidly."

Tik-Tac nodded slowly. "Indeed, Madame Director. They do."

Brentili'ik looked at the holotank of the continent the logistics base was sitting square in the middle of and found the small icon for First Scout Marines (Telkan) and reached out with trembling fingers and touched it.

"It's our world."

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

The grenade launcher on his shoulder chuffed out three rounds, each grenade hitting an insect full in the face, leaving a smoking crater under the armor as the EFP blew through the crab-like insect to exit out the back.

471 was holding on with one blade-arm in the socket, swinging out to fire his micro-launcher into a cloud of moths that was spiraling in on Vuxten. His micro-rifle fired off, popping dragonflies as he swung back in and locked his other bladearm back into place.

Vuxten kept his hands on the handles of the heavy rotary autocannon, sweeping it across the insects that were rushing the walls of the logistics base. Battle-screens rippled, sparked, screamed, and glimmered. Ablative shells on the insects burned away as they crossed the screens, leaving the streamlined hard carapace insects to try to charge across the field of fire.

The mines were all gone, the creation engines under the ground that supplied the regenerating minefield overheated and overslushed. The APERS strips on the walls were depleted, those engines steaming with heat rippling off of them.

Around him the artillery had lowered their barrels with the battlecry "ACTION FRONT!" firing canisters of ultra-dense flechettes straight into the faces of the insects.

Vuxten eased off the trigger, hearing the nanoforge built into the ammunition hopper whine.

His nano-forge managed to wet-print off another six-round stick of 40mm grenades and his launcher fired them off.

First Telkan was on the walls, manning the guns, next to the cybernetic infantry.

Without the intelligence arrays controlling the hive-mind the insects had reacted with instinct, going for the nearest enemy. In some cases they attacked their own kind, but for the most part they charged the human fortifications. Insects burrowed up out of the ground around the shelters, abandoning their futile attempts to bore through warsteel. Burrowed out from under hills. Erupted from the sewers and maintenance tunnels beneath the ruined cities. Swarmed out of the lakes with wet carapaces. Pushed free of the genesis plants whipping antenna and clashing mandibles. Swarmed into the air from hives and nests.

It was as if both sides knew that this was it. One way or another the fate of both planets would be decided in one big convulsive battle-royale to the death.

Vuxten didn't care, he just kept tapping the trigger on the heavy eight barreled autocannon he was manning, spitting out fifty to a hundred rounds a tap. His missile launcher beeped with reloaded satisfaction and Vuxten felt the launcher fire. He wasn't paying attention to his two should mounted weapons, they were tied into the integrated battle net.

Every minute or two there would be a bright eye-watering flash, sometimes bouncing over the horizon, other times within sight, and a boiling cloud would rise up, like the fist of an angry god. Vuxten had felt himself shiver in fear the first two times, now he just knew that it was one more next or large creature that wouldn't be back.

A 'dragon' came swooping in, followed by five of their fellows, and Vuxten pulled the gun around, following the dotted line in his vision, doing his part in the fireplan, and hitting the trigger. He knew it was going to go solid blue before it did, his reactions meshing up.

The rounds from his gun raked into the dragon's wings, shredding them, ripping at them, destroying their aerial lift capacity.

A missile fired from one of the warborgs hit a dragon in its open mouth, the head vanishing in a bluish white flash. Vuxten's rocket pack let all four of the missiles go in a rush, hitting the body of another, blowing out its abdomen so its guts dropped out before the body crumpled.

One managed to get close enough to vomit up its own guts on the wall, covering two of the warborgs. Both borgs just jumped up, out of the mess, then dropping back down to clear the wall with a twitch of their battlescreens, going right back to firing their heavy weapons.

Vuxten was glad it had the warborgs, who were nearly invulnerable to that kind of damage. He'd lost two of First Telkan to an attack like that.

The heavy chrome cyborgs were all wielding heavy weapons, heavy laser weapons that ripped out in nearly one solid bar of light as the barrels rotated through, plasma guns that kept up a steady stream of fire, and something new, something that Vuxten had never seen before.

It was in the atomic class, some kind of weapon that as soon as the beam of whitish blue fire hit ripped apart everything around the impact point in a haze of molecular particles. Nobody but the warborgs were allowed within fifty meters of any of the heavy infantry using the weapons, nobody from First Telkan was allowed within a hundred meters.

Vuxten had no idea how it worked, only that it was used on the bigger creatures.

"KIAJUS INCOMING! MANY MANY KIAJUS!" rang over the headset.

Vuxten swallowed thickly.

--ugly ugly ugly-- 471 said, slamming a bladearm against the 40mm launcher to get it to close. --stupid stupid design stupid designer-- the 40mm slammed shut again.

Vuxten checked his HUD, there were over a dozen of them coming in, eight from the ocean, two from the city ruins, two from the jungle.

All heading for the Logistics Base.

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

TARGET!

FIRE!

SHOT OUT!

IMPACT! NEGATIVE KILL!

The flash, shockwave, and thermal blood from the 22 kiloton shape charge that had hit the massive pillbug washed over Cry Little Sister and Trucker less than two seconds after the impact. The bug shrieked loud enough he could hear it through his helmet's protection and turned to try to cut inside Cry Little Sister's turning radius.

Trucker snarled, spitting blood. A seed had gotten through, slicing his cheek, ripping through the helmet strap and almost taking off his ear. Manny, the russet mantid medic had stitched the gash in less than three seconds with a single pass of her cybernetic blade-arm. The automed in the cybernetic hitting it with antibiotics, quickheal, and stitching it up. She'd tapped him on the helmet and vanished back into the main battle tank.

Cry Little Sister had taken everything the planet had thrown at her in the last twenty hours. She was down a track, half her port sensors were gone, two of her VLS packs were shot dry and the nano-forge overflowed and spilled, and the driver's coax had been recycled twice. The APERS strips were gone, used up, the creation engine spilling heat across the back deck, and her armor was stained, warped, bent, and, in places, rippled and melted slightly.

Still, the crew fought on, Cry Little Sister still roaring as it moved through the battlefield. The giant insects were still coming, still fighting, but the number was depleting.

Trucker felt everything suddenly shift. The giant pillbugs receded slightly and he felt the ground, the jungle, the alien life covering everything suddenly tense and rejoice as if the battle had turned.

"STATUS CHANGE! EYES OUT! SOMETHING COMING!" Trucker roared out.

The main gun fired again just as the insect shrank slightly. The tank was on the inside of the corner, the insect's inside arc pushing the plates closer together so they were slightly overlapped. The round didn't penetrate but it did blow huge shards of extruded armor free from the insect, penetrating through one plate and denting it deeply into the second one. The gun fired twice more before the insect tried to turn away from the painful hits.

The joined plates stuck together for a second then ripped apart, tissue sticking to the underside of the armor plates.

Trucker had stomped the fire override, switching to 250kt armor piercing round. A warsteel tip and case over a fused atomic round. The explosive crack of the armor plate pulling free of the body was lost in the explosive retort of the gun firing when Trucker stomped the firing stud.

His gunner took the few seconds to rub his face with both hands, clearing away soot, propellant exhaust, sweat, and grime.

The round punched deep into the body and detonated. The bug bulged, as if the back raised up like a caterpillar moving.

"PILE DRIVERS! ON ME!" Trucker said. "FLANK SPEED!"

He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but somehow he was sure that the Bugs had realized that the majority of V Corps heavy hitters were too far away from the Log Base to provide protection. He checked his fireplan, editing it quickly, throwing it to his units and the Bolos. It would take another twelve minutes to knock out the last of the big bugs.

Cry Little Sister heaved as the driver just ran over a fifteen foot caterpillar, crushing its midsection and armor into paste.

The engines howled as they pushed the massive tank toward the Log Base, the tank getting up to nearly 130 miles per hour. The battle-screens flared as Trucker put as much power as possible to the forward screen and let the side, rear, and topside screens run at 20% power.

The airflow over the hulls of the tanks of Headquarters Company, Headquarters Battalion, hurried the cooling of the internal systems. Airflow vents opened up and fins lifted up, hurrying the cooling as the tanks drove hard for the Log Base.

Trucker's driver suddenly swerved the tank.

"TARGET!" Trucker yelled as the ground exploded from where the map said their used to be a swamp. He stomped the battle-screens to full power even as he slid off the commander's seat, slapping the emergency hatch button. Trucker slammed down on his ass even as the seat whined and lowered. The seat slammed into the top of Trucker's head, ringing his bell, but his helmet saved his skull from cracking and his brain from a concussion.

The creature was massive, ten legs, heavy thick rubbery skin, patches of glowing bioluminescence streaking down the sides, and it roared as it cleared the soil. Rotted, dehydrated peat-moss like dirt fell to the ground and out of its jaws as the nostril's sphincter valves opened to let it inhale. The roar ended with a choking retching sound as it blew the oxygen-rich nutrient that had filled the lungs.

Trucker's gunner had already fired before the creature was even clear. It was a point blank shot, less than a hundred meters from the tank, less than eighty meters from the battle-screens. The loaded shot was for the big heavy bugs.

The creature brought up bio-battle-screens a split second before the gunner fired, the creature's battle-screen was as strong as a Terran frigates, nearly as strong as Cry Little Sister's shield running at 30%.

Both screens blew out as the round traveled the 100 meters, drove deep inside the still wet and rubbery hide that would have hardened thick enough to resist even a Gojira Beam Strike, reached the internal spaces.

And exploded at 320 kilotons.

The atomic explosion vented out the side, washing over Cry Little Sister, which rocked up on two tracks before slamming back down.

703 blew the two port tracks before the half melted battle-steel tracks could bind up and rip apart the power train, leaving the treads behind.

"KIAJU! MANY MANY KIAJU!" rang over Trucker's headset as he pulled himself into his command chair. Manny climbed on his chest, checking his eyes, injecting an anti-inflammatory into his neck to short-circuit any brain swelling and anti-brain bleed nanites. She tapped the crack across the top of his helmet and jumped down to where the EW officer was lifting his bloody face from his warfare board.

"GUNS FREE PILEDRIVERS!" Trucker yelled, shaking his head. Everything cleared up, he inhaled, and everything shivered and gelled back into place.

One of the sub-oceanic brains had figured it out.

Figured out the real enemy.

Takilikakik.

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

Vuxten fired the cannon, ripping it across the face of the huge creature coming straight at him. Three others were being wrestled with by reconfigured dropships. As he watched one of the dropships managed to grab the upper jaw of one of the massive creatures, pull the head up, grab the lower jaw, and breathe atomic fire down the throat of the creature.

The one Vuxten hit recoiled as two of its eyes exploded, roaring in agony.

Smaller creatures swarmed at the bottom of the wall, trying to get purchase to climb the walls and get at the defenders. Mortar tubes chugged as fast the barrels could be cooled down and the nano-forges could pump out rounds, dropping thermobaric rounds into the No Man's Land outside the walls. Artillery units that weren't doing Action Front were throwing FASCAM (FAmily of SCAtterable Mines) over the walls. In some places cyborgs where thumping the fuse and throwing them by hand out so the mines rained down just outside the walls.

A Telkan, a warborg, and two of the chrome borgs were dragged over the wall. The Telkan, with his engineer, kept shooting all the way down. The warborg and two cyborgs were twisted by the tentacles, sheering in half, while the smaller Telkan was held by one tentacle. The Mantis was crushed against the armor, the tentacles pulling the four troops and the mantids into the mouth until suddenly the Telkan crossed his arms, activated everything on the suit, and hit eject just as the tentacles lizard thing went to swallow.

The blast blew the creature's head off.

Two more burst out of the tattered jungle vegetation line to take its place.

Vuxten kept his fire on the one that kept lunging forward then got driven back by the rotary autocannon, keeping his fire on the eyes, kicking the ammo selector to HEDP (High Explosive Dual Purpose) so the explosively forged penetrators could go to work on the damaged armor and eyes.

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

In orbit Admiral Howell and General Nodra'ak stared at the holodisplays for the two planets. On Telkan-2 it was still largely uncoordinated, the distance from the oceanic psychic arrays still leaving it largely spastic as it tried to reconnect and figure out the strategy.

One Telkan-1 the brains were throwing everything they had at the massive Log Base. It looked like every bug and creature on the continent and from the nearby ocean were all converging.

It was looking bad.

"How close are the nearest reinforcements?" Nodra'ak asked.

"9th Guard, three days away," Howell answered. "13th Task Force is five days away."

"No way Takilikakik can hold for that long," Nodra'ak said. "Trucker's good, so's the others, but this is... this is some serious shit."

"How long till we can launch?" Howell asked.

"We can launch now, but there will be injuries, possibly among the broodcarriers and podlings," Nodra'ak said.

Howell sighed. "All right, that's unfortunate but I'm not sure how much longer we can hold the ground. Those ships need at least thirty minutes to reconfigure and that's 30 minutes they're defenseless."

"Sir!" one of the sensor techs called out. Both staff officers turned around.

Icons were glimmering on the screen, denoting Helljumps.

"Tell me it's not Precursors, tactical," Nodra'ak snapped.

"Unknown signatures, unknown ship types and..." the Tactical Division Chief said, staring at the holotank with one hand pressed against his ear.

"FOR THE IMPERIUM! FOR LOST TERRASOL!" roared out over the comlink.

"Oh, shit," Howell said.

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

"MAT-TRANS INCOMING!" rang over the comlinks. "Watch your fire!"

Vuxten saw a half dozen rectangles appear in his vision, locking out the weapon's targeting it it.

All of them were on top of creatures.

"STARFALL! INCOMING STARFALL!" rang over the com-link.

Vuxten switched fire to the one of the creatures that was trying to trip up one of the dropships. He had no idea what either one of the two were. He'd never heard of either one.

Which made him frown slightly as 471 suddenly cranked his psychic shield to max as well as the mantid's own.

IN THE NAME OF LOST TERRASOL!

rang out across everything, almost driving Vuxten to his knees. More than a few of the creatures spasmed and went still, one of the smaller ones the top of the skull blew off, showering the legs of the dropships with gore.

Armored figures appeared in the rectangles, crude armor welded and bolted onto their green skin. Some of it was red and yellow patterns, other pink and white. All of the massive green figures were heavily armed, machineguns in each hand or stacks of guns on a body frame, or heavy rotary rocket launchers, some with heavy flamers that were gouting out white and yellow fire.

Is that one wearing wigs? Vuxten asked himself as the huge muscular green figures began shooting at every bug on the field.

"WAAAAAAGH!" came the roar from the newcomers.

"KAWAAAAAAAGH!" came the reply.

Vuxten didn't bother staring, keeping his fire up, hammering at the bigger ones with his cannon.

Armored pods slammed into the ground, firing rockets to slow themselves right before they hit the ground, the impact blowing away vegetation, insects, and creatures. The sides of the pods unfolded, disgorging massive figures in heavy plated armor, ornate plates on some of them, twisted and blackened plates on others. The female humans came out of the pods firing flamethrowers, plasma guns, raising burning swords over their heads. One set of females were all pink and white armor, banners over their unarmored heads, firing heavy weapons, flamers, and rocket launchers.

"DOKI DOKI DOKI!" the feline-looking youthful appearing girls screamed out, firing around them.

The ones armored in red and black, with spikes and chains hanging off of them, many of them were firing red and purple lightning from one fist while firing their heavy hand-cannons with the other. Some were whipping at the creatures with long lengths of barbed chains crackling with red and purple energy, ripping huge chunks from the creatures flesh.

One figure, a female in black sleek armor, stepped into the open area and raised her arms above her head. She threw back her head, raising her face to the sky, and screamed.

"LET THIS WORLD SHAKE IN THE RAGE OF LOST TERRASOL!" she screamed out.

The bugs rushing around her convulsed, neural tissue exploding, half of them writhing with purple and red fire. The ground rippled, exploding every ten meters, rippling outward from the human female. Lightning ripped from the larger creatures around her, flowing into her hands as she slowly brought them down to either side of her. The massive creatures shrieked in agony as the woman tore their very life force from them.

There was a flash, eye watering and searing. The ground rumbled and a screaming sound from the very sky.

Vuxten didn't pay attention, keeping his fire on the belly of a massive creature that Peacock had kicked over onto its back. The gun blew big bleeding holes in the guts of the creature, sending gore fountaining out.

The sky went black and the stars went out.

It bulged.

It screamed in pain.

It tore open, hands clawing out, skeletal looking and clawed.

A figure dropped from the sky, smoking black warsteel chains falling from the bleeding wound in the sky, sunk deep into the armor of the falling figure.

It hit the ground, the chains shattering into pieces of night.

"HE HAS COME!" the woman shrieked.