First Contact

The ground quakes were getting stronger under Vuxten's feet as he kept moving forward, firing the autocannon, the heavy barrel recoiling back with every shot, thudding out the heavy 20mm rounds approximately one every second, the heavy belt of rounds, connected magnetically to one other, feeding into the chamber to be fired at approximately MACH 5 at the creatures.

Around him the Imperium Marines were laying down heavy fire, directing it quickly, effectively, focusing on the bigger ones without letting up the pressure on the smaller ones. Fire was used to burn away plants that grew feet in seconds from seeds left behind in the ash.

Vuxten felt he was being battered back and forth between the rage pouring off of the Imperium Marines and the jungle itself.

The jungle itself hated all Telkans, hated all life that sprung up on the surfaces of Telkan-1 and Telkan-2, hated every broodcarrier, male, female, and podling.

Hated Vuxten himself.

"FOR TELKAN!" he roared out, pouring heavy shells into a massive armored flatworm. He not longer winced when one of the massive insects was killed and the snap of static hit him like he had at the beginning. He was beyond that, caring only about killing every. last. one of them.

The ground beneath him heaved and rocked, splitting open around him. 471 pinged he had a landing spot picked out and Vuxten just jumped, trusting in his mantid partner's judgement as he launched himself into the air. The ground beneath him parted to reveal a massive beetle, striated armor on it, mandibles clacking as it breached the surface.

Vuxten rolled in the air, switching his landing zone to right below him.

Right on the back of the massive beetle.

471 dialed up the grav-spike as Vuxten hit, anchoring the Telkan to the insect and driving the focused gravity deep into the insect. The beetle's armor resisted for a second then the gravity spike twisted and collapsed the internals tissues of the beetle, warping the armor beneath Vuxten's feet. Vuxten flexed his knees and got his balance.

"Keep us on it!" Vuxten called out 471 as he started running forward. 471 kept the graviton generators in Vuxten's boots engaged, switching them off and on in sequence as the Telkan ran up the massive body of the beetle.

The beetle lunged forward, grabbing one of the massive Imperium war machines and lifting it off the ground with its massive mandibles. The war machine roared in rage, aiming its cannon against the mandible and firing, cracking and shattering the armor's integrity.

Vuxten stopped at the slightly upraised armor crest at the top of the creature's thorax, 471 driving the gravity spike into it again.

The autocannon roared as Vuxten fired it into the base of the insects massive skull, where the neck would be on a mammal. The mass reactive anti-matter shells exploded, ripping through armor, into tissue, destroying the integrity of the armor and thus the structure of the insect.

The head fell from the body, the Imperium war machine managing to keep to its feet, staggering slightly but still firing its weapons, getting its feet under it as it moved to the side.

Vuxten jumped clear as the insect staggered and collapsed, somersaulting and twisting in mid-air so he landed facing the insect.

In death the carapace cracked open and dozens, hundreds of smaller versions poured out of the creature's body.

A sextant of the Sisters of Wrath poured fire over them, the smaller insects exploding as their armor held up but their innards converted to steam, expanding until the armor exploded outward from the pressure. A quartet of areospace fighters came in low, hammering with their guns, peeling off in a carefully coordinated and practiced maneuver as they fired their payloads, the jets kicking in the afterburners to gain altitude.

The hit the cloud cover only to find that the ash and particulate laden clouds were full of attackers. One of the aerospace fighters broke formation as 'bees' fired off the charges in their abdomens, converting a thin layered osmium dish into a liquid jet, the bees collapsing the aerospace fighter's battle-screens and pockmarking its armor.

The clouds sparked and glowed with discharges of electricity and power as the aerospace fighters dueled with massive insects that had finally made it into the fight. At first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of insects swarmed into the fight above each of the Imperium Marine's lines. Scraps of armor, both insect and aerospace fighter, ash, debris, cannon shells, and liquid began to rain from the skies.

Two of the aerospace wings, heading toward an active combat area to support the ground forces, spotted a massive shadow in the clouds. A close flyby revealed nothing more than clouds and particulates.

Just rain. Rain that began to fall all over Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 almost at the same time. Thick, sticky rain that steamed when it hit and left behind red streaks.

Vuxten paid no attention to the fact that the rain was leaving dark red streaks on everything as he ejected the thermal core from the massive autocannon, grabbed it in a motion that had become too easy for his reflexes, and threw it at the jungle line. The thermal core detonated, washing the entire area for a hundred meters around it with superheated matter. He followed it up with three grenades and a quad-shot of rockets as the blast revealed multiple massive insects that had been moving forward through the vegetation.

The Imperium troops were still spreading out as the earthquakes got more and more intense.

Trucker could feel the earthquakes even through his tanks suspension. The zero-point reactors were running hard, at 115% of maximum recommended output on all eight of them even as the mantid engineers tried to get the main reactor fired up. The main gun was still a problem even though two of the mantid engineers had managed to finish the work on the aiming gears so the barrel could move beyond which way the turret was pointed. There was a hitch in it when it tried to traverse up and right and a slight 'drop' of almost 2mm moving down and left, but the engineers were working on it.

The auto-loader was still down. The two mantids working on the wiring harness were replacing it wire by wire, fuse by fuse, circuit by circuit. The four nano-forges were offline, three of them were completely dead, a power surge having wiped out the template memory and one of the mantids was trying to cross-load the templates to the other three from the one that was intact.

The tank's deep-storage memory was completely fried out.

Trucker closed his eyes for a moment as Cry Little Sister dropped back into the center of the formation so The Bell moved into the point position. The point defense system of the entire battalion was already engaged, sweeping insects from the sky as the tanks of Headquarters Battalion charged toward where the forces of the Imperium Marines were under heavy attack. He had left Second Brigade at Log Base Echo based on a hunch that whatever was controlling it all was going to hit the logistics bases once the forces of V Corps were fully engaged.

Since 1st Armored Recon had wiped out the sub-oceanic brains the creatures had largely been uncoordinated, mostly defending territory, even attacking one another. No feed pipes had been discovered, the water bodies had been constantly scoured for any trace of another brain grouping, and no nerve cording had been discovered.

Nothing is ever that easy, Trucker thought to himself, bringing up the map of Telkan in his mind through the datalink. It was a pangea continent with several smaller subcontinents on the other side of the planet. The main continent was broken up by two mountain ranges that snaked across the main protocontinent, meeting in a tangle in the middle. In the southeast corner was a mass of mountains, covered by thick glaciation that covered six different peaks with one big glacier.

There. It's there, Trucker thought to himself. He checked his datalink. There wasn't any units near enough to support the Imperium's Iron Guard where a shelter was already starting to move. It would be nearly twenty-six minutes until he'd be able to arrive in support. His BOLOs were off covering other shelters.

He knew what they were going to do. The enemy was going to force the shelters to raise up by increasing vibration around them until it was mistaken for earthquakes too severe for the shelter's shock absorbers to handle.

But it the mountain took a few atomic rounds all it would do is bury the intelligence inside. It undoubtedly would have lakes of coolant, nerve fiber bundles, relay organisms, guardian creatures, and everything else it would need.

For a moment he had an impression of something large, something massive almost beyond comprehension, a great rude beast with a massive head and long tentacles trying to scoot away from him before he could see it.

Trucker spit over the side, his eyes still closed, listening to the crackle of vegetation and smaller creatures incinerating on the Cry Little Sister's battle-screens and he pushed that spot in his brain a little further, feeling sweat bead up on the back of his neck and almost like he was straining a muscle he didn't actually have.

Tentacles.

Trucker suddenly knew what it was doing. Knew why the jungle hadn't seemed to be regrowing as fast as it did prior.

He opened his eyes, everything gelling together. He knew how things had to go to carry victory.

They were on the edge of defeat and didn't even know it.

"Flank speed, Piledrivers! Serrated firing line! Pour it on! We'll sweep in on the southeast flank of the Imperium Marines," Trucker switched channels. "Little brothers, get that damn reactor working, I don't care if the back deck ends up hot enough to fry eggs on! Recycle and kick the mag bottle if you have to!" Trucker barked. He opened up to the Division Tactical Net. "Fifth Brigade, load white phosphorous FOOF warsteel penetrators. Fourth Brigade, load for air defense with only Charlie Company 5th Battalion loaded for anti-armor and Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot Company loaded for APERS."

Trucker turned his attention to the rest of his units even as Cry Little Sister roared and bucked as it pushed its speed almost to a hundred and fifty miles an hour and slammed through the jungle.

General Takilikakik heard Trucker giving orders, changing the line of battle, even tossing orders at 8th Infantry, 5th Armor, and 31st Infantry, their Generals just shifting their battle plans to accommodate Trucker's newest orders.

He frowned, staring at the tactical displays.

Then he saw it.

Afterwards, he could never explain what it was he saw, how he had seen it, or even what exactly he was looking at.

But he saw it through all the data.

He touched his implant out of habit, opening a command channel to all Base Commanders, even the Operations, Combat, and Logistics Bases.

"ALL COMMANDERS! BUTTON UP! GO TO FULL ENVIRONMENTAL! FULL ENVIRONMENTAL ONLY ON THE WALLS! PULL ATMOSPHERE! EVERYONE ON INTERNAL!" he yelled.

Everyone turned to look at him as he kept shouting.

"All environmental officers, pump all atmosphere and purge, replace all filter systems via wet-print and hand replacement only! Canned air for all personnel! All VI's and DS, run full diagnostics on all atmosphere and environmental systems! Purge all water and waste tanks. Get someone into each tank for a visual inspection as well as flamer teams into water and waste tanks! All dropships and aircraft, get into the air! Abort all landings! Launch refueling drones! Get everyone on the walls and at mission locations! All mobile maintenance teams gear up and report to your dropships!" General Takilikakik ordered. "Button up and get ready! All units! All units! Prepare for imminent combat!"

Tik-tak did something he never thought he would ever have to do.

He activated the entire network.

"All personnel, all personnel," he said, his voice somehow calm and relaxed. "Prepare to defend yourselves."

Colonel Harvey turned to Brentili'ik. "Madame Director," was all he said before she was in motion, running for where the emergency suits were stored. The last of his words floated behind her as she ran, stripping off her jumpsuit. She slapped her hand against the panel on the wall as he finished speaking. "It's time."

The panel slid open and she did the quick visual check of her suit, looking for something, anything. When she didn't see anything she climbed in, sealing the suit up. As soon as it was on she signalled she was clear.

Most of the other officers and enlisted and non-commissioned officers were still moving to the suit storage as Brentili'ik moved over to her assigned station. A shock cradle. She buckled the five point restraint harness, her own breathing loud in her ears. She could hear people talking over the comlink but ignored them, focusing entirely on her own situation. She would normally grab the umbilical to attach the base life support to her system but her visor was flashing "ENVIRONMENTAL LOCKOUT" in bright red letters and the umbilical was still pulled tight against the side of the cradle.

Colonel Harvey came up and checked her, pulling on her restraints, already dressed in armor. When he was satisfied he slapped her thigh, reached up, and shut the clamshell.

For a moment she was trapped in the dark.

Then the interior of the command cradle came alive, showing her the diagnostics. She'd only practiced using the system at Colonel Harvey's insistence, confident she'd never need to use the system.

Now she was glad she had.

She closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the implant. There was a moment of disorientation and she was back to standing in the middle of the Operations Center, only dressed in her jumpsuit. Around her the rest of the personnel were standing with their arms straight out, staring straight ahead, legs together, or just dropping their arms down or starting to move slowly.

Brentili'ik dropped her arms to her side and moved over to the holotank that displayed Telkan-1 and Telkan-2.

One by one the personnel dropped their arms and blinked before moving around.

"Telkan-2 command reporting in," one of the techs called out.

"Telkan-1 stations reporting in," another tech called out.

Brentili'ik's eyes went automatically to not only First Telkan, but her husband's icon, where it was surrounded by icons that kept flashing and error coding.

Above the shelter where her broodcarriers and podlings were.

Please save them, Vuxten.

Vuxten kicked the insect back, firing point blank into it, blowing it apart in a shower of gore. Artillery was hammering all around them, the ground was heaving, the air was full of fire, acid, pollen, mold spores, more fire, ash, blood red rain, and death. The comlink channels were full of chatter he could barely make sense of. Instead he paid attention to the external microphones.

They were full of roars of wrath and hatred, roars that Vuxten knew he was answering with the same bellows of fury.

You shall not be victorious! he screamed in his mind and out loud, hammering with the autocannon on another insect. 471 was on his shoulder, one hand attached to the jammed grenade launcher the other one holding onto his micro-rifle and firing quick bursts at the bees that kept trying to make attack runs. Twice he'd stabbed moths out of the air with his bladearms.

The only air support they had was 11th ACR's War Horse battalion, which were still making sweeps with their full auto-fire railguns. The artillery had suddenly gone offline.

--drone drone drone-- 471 flashed as he yanked the 40mm straight up, no longer bothering trying to get it to move according to the mechanical systems. The launcher made a "thoomp" noise and 471 yanked it back down, firing off the wet-printed HEDP rounds straight into the face of a large creature that was pulling itself out of a crack in the ground. Only three of the five rounds went off, the others slamming into the creature's head.

The body slid back into the crack which slammed shut on the next upheaval, showering the area in greenish blood.

Vuxten had already turned his attention to the next creature, firing the autocannon as best he could. He could barely see out of one eye, sweat running down his body, creating a thin layer of liquid between his skin and fur and then his fur and the armor sleeve.

--shit shit shit-- 471 pinged at the same time as he threw an alert up on Vuxten's visor. Vuxten managed to lift his shoulders and relax his knees.

A bladearm hit his helmet hard enough to almost drive him to his knees. He felt the scar around and below his ear rip open again, his meat eye went unfocused, and he staggered back.

The creature was the size of a large vehicle, reaching down to try to stab Vuxten with one bladearm even as it lunged the other one toward the back of an armored Imperium.

The bladearm came down and Vuxten parried with the barrel of the heavy autocannon even as he fired it. The rounds hit where he was aiming, shattering the bladearm aimed at the Imperium Marine, but cut off when the bladearm sliced through the barrel.

He felt it again when the bladearm hit. The screech that the creatures, the dwellerspawn, always let loose when they attacked. There were purple sparks from where the bladearm hit, the edges of the sliced barrel glowing red for a moment, as half the barrel went one way and the gun jammed from the barrel being yanked sideways against the chamber.

Only this time he knew it wasn't through the speakers or through the comlink.

He'd experienced it before. Only at the cold steel claws of machines.

Vuxten screamed back as he dropped the disabled autocannon, yanking free his cutting bar. In his mind he could see podlings dead at the cold battle-steel claws of the Precursors, dead from the atomic blasts, dead from collapsed buildings. Always near a dead broodcarrier.

His mind's eye was full of images from the Precursor War and the Dwellerspawn Invasion.

It didn't fill him with despair. It didn't fill him with horror or fear.

It filled him with burning white hot rage instead.

"THIS IS OUR WORLD!" Vuxten roared out, parrying the bladearm with the roaring cutting bar. Clattering warsteel teeth met protein folded bladearm edge in a shower of purplish sparks.

The creature screamed at Vuxten, both out loud and in the Telkan's mind.

Vuxten screamed back as his knees started to buckle.

The warsteel teeth of the cutting bar, still clattering against the bladearm, started to glow a deep red.

The creature shrieked and brought down the shattered bladearm, trying to force the cutting bar down even as 471 kept firing his micro-rifle at the creature's eyes, the tiny rounds blowing apart facets of the compound eyes. The little mantid fired a micro-missile that hit it on the side of the head, blowing a crater from the chitin surrounding its jaws.

With a scream of rage Vuxten pushed himself up, thumbing the cutting bar to maximum, the warsteel teeth against the chitin bladearms howling.

The bladearms snapped and Vuxten twisted the cutting bar so it went into the massive skull from the bottom, spewing out ichor and tissue. Vuxten ripped the chainsword free and spun out of the way as the giant creature collapsed, trying to crush its killer beneath its bulk.

Vuxten didn't retreat, instead waded into the insects that were crawling from cracks in the ground, using his suit's hardware to jump from stable area to stable area, sweeping the cutting bar back and forth as he bellowed in rage.

All the times a Lanaktallan Overseer had walked by the floor he had just polished, only to drop feces on it or spit out a wad of half-chewed cud. All the times his wife had come home weeping over her sore and reddened hands. All of the times he'd seen an Overseer tease a podling. Berate a broodcarrier. Sneer at some Telkan working hard on a menial task.

The time when he and his podsiblings had been playing in the high grass, giggling to each other, and a Lanaktallan Overseer had ran into the middle of them, roaring and rearing, then laughing as Vuxten and his fellow podlings had all screamed in terror, his mother and father and broodcarriers paralyzed with fear.

Rage filled him, every slight, every injury, every hurt rushing back as he bellowed in rage, the teeth of his cutting bar red hot and smoking.

He ripped through the thorax/abdomen joint of a massive beetle, sawing his cutting bar back and forth, roaring at it, his vocal cords aching and burning and still he roared out his rage at a lifetime of a boot on his face.

An Imperium Marine fell crashing to the ground, two massive bladearms in the Terran's chest as he coughed and fired his weapon into the creature's chest even as a swarm of crabs covered him, ripping and tearing and slicing. Vuxten jumped into the air, focusing the spike, and slammed down on the creature's back, the gravity spike twisting and crushing the organs as the creature collapsed. Vuxten jumped off, using one hand, his armor's strength assist screaming as he lifted the creature partially off of the Marine, ripping the bladearms apart with his burning cutting bar.

"To your feet, brother! For Scarred Telkan!" Vuxten roared out, holding one small hand out to the wounded Imperium Marine, focusing his gravity system to let him have leverage as the massive Terran grabbed Vuxten's one hand with both of his, letting the Telkan heave him to his feet. The Terran held out his hand and his weapon flew into it. Ignoring the bladearms piercing his chest the massive Terran waded back into the fight.

Vuxten turned, his magack pistol in one hand, plinking shots off the armor of a beetle rushing Sister of Wrath, turning its attention to him. It charged him and he set himself, slamming his burning, smoking, howling cutting bar deep into the beetle's mouth. He yanked it free of the skull, kicking out with a boot.

It seemed like forever, it seemed like no time at all, as Vuxten jumped from spot to spot, his pistol in one hand and his smoking roaring clattering cutting bar in the other, using the gravity-spike anchor and the graviton generators in his boots in ways far outside of what he had learned in training.

When his cutting bar shattered he slammed the remainder against his waist, letting the magnetic adhesion system hold the wreckage in place. He grabbed the chain off the ground and wrapped it around his fist and forearm.

When his pistol jammed he used it as a hammer to break open the brain case of a massive flatworm and smashed it with his chain wrapped fist.

One of the Marines had been dismembered, his massive hand still holding onto his Magack submachinegun. Vuxten reached down and grabbed up the hand, pulling the fingers open even as he kicked a beetle a quarter of his size back into the crack in the ground that had just opened up.

The weapon went live in his hands as he aimed it at an onrushing fireback. He clamped down on the trigger, emptying out the rest of the magazine, feeling the fizz of the mat-trans autoloader going to work. He had to use both hands with the weapon but it didn't matter. The massive shells exploded whatever they hit, and that was good enough for Vuxten.

All there was left was rage and hatred as the shelter suddenly erupted from the ground less than a mile from where the Imperium Marines and Vuxten were fighting wildly.

INCOMING MAT-TRANS! flashed on Vuxten's visor.

"FOR LOVE AND GLORY!" shouted one of the Sisters of Wrath, clearing the jungle with her flamers as she walked into her own flame, paying it no mind, blazing a trail toward where the top hundred meters of the massive shelter extended from the ground. The huge drillbits on the top smoked and dripped ichor from where they had torn through insects as it surfaced.

"GLORY TO THE FIRST MAN TO DIE!" rang out as hundreds, thousands of green armored troops rushed out of the mat-trans gate, firing laser rifles as they came, scouring the insects and creatures off of the warsteel surface of the shelter.

Vuxten blinked blood out of his eye as he ran through the steaming burning jungle, chasing after everyone else, knowing that he had to get to the shelter before the insects swarmed it and pried open the doors.

"YOUR FAITH IS YOUR SHIELD!" was roared out.

"FOR SCARRED TELKAN!" Vuxten answered.