First Contact

The battle roared around Decimus Texarkana as he roared in wrath and fury back into the faces of the blasphemous unclean dwellerspawn. In his left hand he held a runed and engraved Gerber Close Combat Dual Purpose System chainsword with red hot warsteel teeth, in his right he held his Colt M2389A4 Close Assault Weapon System, the system linked up to the cybernetic smartgun system through his arm, into his brain, and displaying on his retina that somehow worked inside an eye of blazing fire. His armor, Pontiac Gravestomper IX Individual Powered Protective Equipment System, had been forged in the war factorium of Holy Detroit, coming off the massive lines that had once produced the war equipment to defeat the Sons of the Bent Cross and the Unending Warriors of Dragonfire Kyoto.

Around him the dwellerspawn squealed as the holy rounds, Remington 25mm APDSWSAM-T rounds (Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot Warsteel Anti-Matter with Tracer), blew huge hunks of flesh into ashen vapor. He kicked one out of the way, ripped its brother in twain with his chainsword, and short a fourth in face with his Colt Stubber at point blank range.

His mind was lost in the upheaved currents of memory and reality, of past and present, of crystalline shattered moments.

...his sister reaching out to him with one hand, his infant nephew held tight in her other arm, screaming, as the world turned white around her...

Decimus slapped an insect as long as his arm away, the chainsaw's motlen warsteel teeth ripping and chewing it up.

...tackling the Mantid warrior, stabbing stabbing stabbing with a broken piece of crysteel, rolling around in the red sand of Mars, breathing mask torn free but nobody cares all there is is stab and stab and stab...

A dweller-spawn reared up and Decimus put a burst from his stubber into the creature's face.

"FOR UNYIELDING TEXAS!" Decimus bellowed out.

...systems check on his black combine infantry armor and charging the beacon to appear on the sands of Wolf-359 and ANTS ANTS EVERYWHERE shoot shoot shoot kick and punch and scream and rage and rage and rage as Terra burns...

A larger one, larger than Decimus, rushed up on him, bladearms scrabbling against his chest pauldrons even as Decimus pulled the trigger on his stubber to blow the creature's back across the one behind hit.

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...his mother hiding her face as his father held her tightly in his arms as he stared at the oncoming white unwilling to look away...

An impact rang against his helmet but Decimus didn't care, sweeping the creature's arms off with a swipe of his chainsword and blowing it back with a single kick from his massive boot.

...a girl he knew in school holding her infant close, bending over the infant, trying to protect it from the oncoming wave of energy and whispering her husband's name with her final breath so the infant would know the name of its father...

Throwing his arms wide, Decimus roared in rage and a handful of the closer creatures spasmed, vomiting up their own cerebral tissue in a gouting steaming slurry of gore and blood.

Less than a dozen yards away a female, helmetless, clad in heavy ornate plates, scorched away the dwellerspawn with holy fire, her eyes glittering in the reflection of the fire she used to burned the heresy from the universe.

...her prepubescent son screaming for his mother as the Tharsis Bulge Dome ruptured, the scream turning to a gurgle as his lungs ruptured and blood filled them...

Sabina turned her flamer on an unrushing tide of glittering black beetles, all clicking their jaws as they charged her, intent on stripping the flesh from her bones. They all exploded beneath the white-hot burning core of chemicals so volatile they were never used but for the Sisters of Wrath's flamers.

...her husband coughing up blood as two bladearms transfixed his chest, his expression defiant as he was lifted up, spitting blood onto the triangular head before the jaws crushed his skull as a dying nerve spasm closed his fist to detonate the mining charges strapped to his chest...

"FOR WOUNDED BLOODY MARS!" she screamed out, turning her flamer on the dwellerspawn that reared up in front of her, its chitin cracking and melting even as its internal organs converted to steam. Its chitin, capable of bouncing a 120mm discarding sabot armor penetrating round, able to withstand burning napalm, suddenly began to burn as even its cellular and atomic structure surrendered to the horror of FOOF cored alchemical liquid hate that poured from the veins of wounded Mars.

...her father throwing a shipmate into a damaged lifepod as Mantid energy weapons raked the orbital research platform, explosive decompression reaching out and tearing him apart while the station screamed as it was murdered...

Sabina raised her burning sword, inscribed with the names of her children and husband, their names showing through the flame in burning white runes on the superheated warsteel blade. She thrust it deeply into the chest of the dwellerspawn creature that rose up in front of her, tentacles reaching out from its lamprey-mouth to try to drag her into the maw and grind her bloody chunks. The flame burned the creature's organs as even its blood became fuel for the wrath-filled fire.

Dakgorim roared back into the faces of the dwellerspawn as he held his massive heavy machinegun in his heavy muscular hands. Green flesh had thick warsteel plates bent into armor and directly fixed with heavy bolts taken from enemy war machines. The plates were painted red, black, white, and yellow, each of the holy colors making the plates stronger, thicker, tougher, and letting him ignore wounds that would fell a lesser. On his head were three wigs, one taken from the head of a loathed and defeated rival another taken a scalp taken from one of the hated Dokigrrlz.

...the azure ocean exploding as a beam of white fire struck down through the clouds to hit the endless rolling water, converting millions tons of water into superheated steam that blasted out toward the scattered islands, boiling and destroying the plants, the precious plants, that he had nutured for decades...

"FOR THE DISFIGURED GODDESS VENUS!" Dakgorim bellowed. "MOAR MOAR MOAR DAKKA!"

A backhand with a spiked glove ripped the face from a dwellerspawn and crushed its skull, throwing it aside as the massively muscled green warrior steadily stomped forward, firing the heavy machinegun, ignoring the brass flying from the weapon, feeling the mat-trans auto-loaded fizz as it reloaded the gun.

...his tribe screaming as superheated steam boiled away their flesh and the shockwave scattered their gleaming bones into the ocean even as the plants themselves cried out in agony...

He stomped on a bug almost knee high, his spiked boot crushing chitin, guts and ichor spewing out from between the ruptured plates, still firing his heavy gun, turning the fire upon a massive creature bigger than even an ArmorBoyz tank, the heavy shells making divots of flesh explode outward.

...grabbing a warrior mantid with both hands, ignoring the bladearms slicing at his face and shoulders, and wrenching it into two pieces on the broken glass that had been a white beach...

Dakgorim bellowed his hate into the face of the dwellerspawn who dared twist and defile a holy jungle into breeding grounds. Who dared mock him, he who wore three wigs, who dared attempt to profane his memories of disfigured Venus.

"MOAR DAKKA BOYZ!" he bellowed out, advancing into the face of the twisted jungle. "FOR OUR DISFIGURED MOTHER, LOVER, GODDESS SCARRED VENUS!"

Cryspus firing directly into the mouth of the creature that was trying to lift him up, severing the tentacles with a sweep of his chainsword. The creature fell to the ground, twisting and writhing as the brain was destroyed. He turned and faced another creature, levelling his sword and reaching out with his rage, his hate, his wrath, and channeled red and purple lightning into the face of another creature, scouring away flesh, exploding eyes, and tearing bone to splinters.

...writhing with pain at the two bladearms pinning his chest as the warrior caste mantids tore apart his wife, his husband, his four children in front of him, dropping him a pool of his blood and mocking him by pushing the memories of what just happened back into his brain, their screams echoing echoing echoing...

"IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME, BROTHERS!" Cryspus roared over the screams in his brain, the screams of his children as they were pulled apart. He leveled his burning blade at another dwellerspawn and roared out his fury, tearing at it with lightning.

...crawling across the sand, loops of intestine sliding across the millions of slicing jagged silicate particles, his armor beeping warnings at him as he pulled himself just a little further toward the rifle, unwilling to die here on Anthill at the hands and bladearms of the mantid...

"FOR THE MOLTEN SKIES OF BETRAYED MERCURY!" Cryspus bellowed, kicking off into a leap, firing off to the side with his heavy gun, his sword brought back, to slam the burning blade deeply into the skull of the dwellerspawn that had emerged, still wet and dripping, the fire consuming flesh and bone.

He landed with a shower of ichor and fluids as his boots crushed a beetle the size of a car beneath him.

Vuxten found himself swept up in the madness, screaming inside his armor as the visions of podlings being murdered by Precursors, broodcarriers shredded by Precursor claws, females crushed beneath the boots of the Overseers, males being ground down beneath the weight of debt and slavery.

"FOR TELKAN!" He screamed, firing the strange heavy weapon, watching the rounds, five rounds to each tracer, form an almost solid line of light as he advanced with the heavily armored troops around him. The shells blew huge holes in the armor of the creatures, destroyed flesh and bone, converted blood and ichor into steam.

...the table legs had held, protecting the dozens of podlings, even as the rubble had crushed the broodcarriers that had put their own bodies between the edge of the table and the podlings they protected...

Vuxten fired a brace of rockets into the chest of one of the larger creatures even as it burst out of the jungle, the EFP's driving molten metal spikes clear through the creature, the entry wound the size of a quarter but the exit wound the size of a manhole cover.

...holding up a table with one hand while he fired his magack at the window while Sergeant and LT Bent Spoon shoveled wailing podlings into a big plastic tub while the Precursors screamed their terrifying cry ofTHERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONEinto his face.

"THERE IS ENOUGH FOR ALL!" Vuxten screamed, launching himself into a leap into the fact of one of the larger creature. 471 activated the grav-spike just as Vuxten landed, driving the focused gravity into the brain of the creature, anchoring Vuxten to the creature's massive skull even as he fired the minigun down the back of the massive creature.

Trucker swung his overheating quadbarrel around, laying fire across the fungal pods, which exploded into a cloud of spores that a half second later were ignited by the sparks generated at the base of the fungul pods.

He had it now, how everything was put together. He updated the plan, HHC Brigade turning like a flock of birds, shifting positions to allow the outer flank tanks to move into the middle and cool off while the inner tanks shifted to the flanks. He had three Bolos behind him, two on each side, and one in the lead. The gloves were off and wherever a target reared up nuclear hellfire reached out and blotted it away.

He spit tobacco, clenched his fist, and drove his armored knuckles twice against the feed mechanism to dislodge the shell casing. It flew free and Trucker got the heavy gun back into play just in time to blow a quad of dragonflies out of the sky.

He ordered 3rd Regiment to the north, ordering them to drive hard and run in staggered dragon's teeth formation. 2nd Regiment to southwest in a phalanx, driving hard toward the massive lakes, ordering the Bolos of 5th Company to link up with them and boil that lake down to scorched mud. 1st Regiment was to break in half, HHC and 315 Armor Brigade with him to break the back of the creatures pouring toward Log Base Echo, toward Tic-Tak's command. The other half was to drive hard toward the coast, to relieve 1st Armored Calvary Scouts in defense of Log Base Alpha. He gave the command to Ekret and felt the pulse in response. 4th Regiment toward Log Base Hercules, 5th toward FOB Anaconda to break the seige staring to form with directed main gun fire. He ordered FOB Medusa to hunker down, warned of incoming atomics and ordered 118 Field Artillery to spam 80kt artillery rounds for three barrages around FOB Medusa.

Trucker knew the battle wasn't won.

Not yet.

General Takilikakik looked at what the field commanders were ordering and began issuing orders of his own. Wet-print the cores for the atomics so they'd be 'duller' in the long-term radiation but 'sharper' with the initial explosion, double-checking the tensile strength of the walls to compare it and make sure the walls had at least 145% redundancy in the strength.

He ordered up more nutripaste to make sure that the troops at Anaconda could at least squirt a couple tubes into their mouths as they fought and ordered the mantis engineers to double-check the water filters and triple check to ensure that the creepy crawlies didn't get into the water system then make sure that they ran hydration lines to the armors on the walls, sunrise was soon and those troops would be dehydrated.

Takilikakik ordered the massive nano-forges at Log Base Alpha to start building what Ekret would need, adding in replacements for critical gear that would be showing wear after 22 hours of straight combat and 78 hours of constant use as well as alerting the engineers that the scout tanks would need priority repair and refit.

13th Evac was going to be overloaded with wounded within the next 22 minutes and Takilikakik ordered 4077 to take their direct overflow and 8063 to prepare for shuttle landing from the SFNV Comfort, and to prepare to hand off casualties from the sister units.

Brentili'ik watched the portly general, who had a weird habit of rubbing his forearms together, steady snap out directions even as his has hands twiddled with the controls on his holotank. He gave orders to his men even as he ordered units directly.

She could see the lines shiver, start to flex at the addition of unexpected reinforcements, then solidify before starting to, somehow, miraculously, start pushing the jungle and the creatures back step by step.

In orbit Admiral Howell watched the lines start to spread out and smiled.

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TELKAN GESTALT

AH! What is THAT? WHO IS THAT?

wait? what? what are you whispering? what are you saying?

wait, I can hear you... can hear your words...

yes... yes... I understand... yes... please come in... please help us...

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OW! OW OW OW OW!

MY GIANT HEAD! AAAAAAAAHHHH!

DEATH! DEATH TO THE DWELLERSPAWN!

SEMPER EVELLO MORTEM OMNIQUEEN

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

HE IS REVEALED! HE WHO HOLDS A CONE IN EACH HAND! FREEDOM! HORRIBLE HORRIBLE FREEDOM!

TELKAN GESTALT

IT'S OURS! GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF! OURS OURS OURS!

THIS IS OUR WORLD! YOU SHALL NOT REMAKE IT IN YOUR PROFANE IMAGE!

BURN, HERETIC! BURN WITH HOLY FIRE!

>TERRSOL HAS ENABLED ADMIN CONTROLS

>GESTALT MANTID IS DISCONNECTED

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, thank the Digital Omnimessiah.

>GESTALT TELKAN HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED

TELKAN GESTALT

What was that? WHAT WAS THAT?

>GESTALT TREANA'AD HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oh, wow. That was something. Blech, my mouth tastes terrible.

soft and warm and soft and warm and this is yummy and this is good and this is icky and this is yucky warm podling smart podling clever podling brave podling

TERRASOL

You guys OK?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yeah. Talk about feedback.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Advertisements

Yeah, yeah, we're OK. We only caught the edge of it. Wow.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

I'll give you guys a few minutes.

I guess Daxin Freeborn reached Telkan.