First Contact

"I AM WREATHED IN LOVE AND GLORY!" Warbound Sigma roared out, turning at the waist to fire the heavy autocannon at the lake even as the algae heaved up. The algae sprayed away from the impact points, mixed with glowing green blood, the shells exploding deep inside the flesh of the creature that was heaving itself up from the bottom of the lake.

"Keep pushing forward!" Vuxten yelled out.

Around the elves and Telkan warriors pods cracked open, dropping strange and half-formed creatures to the mossy cave floor, still dripping with birthing juices. Flowers opened to allow unfinished creatures to be vomited forth, still covered with embryonic slime, their wide eyes blinking in the flashes of light as the group of Telkan Marines unloaded with firepower.

Vuxten was slightly aware that one of his rockets hit a grouping of pods that looked like they had disgorged confused broodcarriers, but his brain had noted their fur patterning was wrong, their tails long and flat like a beaver's tail rather than the fluffy comfort of a broodcarrier.

Warbound Gamma fired a chugging burst of six rockets into the lake, fountaining up blood, tissue, and shredded plant matter.

The group pushed forward, the Telkan Marines engaging with their weapons at range, the elves sticking close to the Marines, slashing, stabbing, striking with their swords, blocking strikes by bladearms, tentacles, claws at the end of powerful limbs, sprays of acid and pollen.

Vuxten had the heavy SMG in one hand and his roaring clattering chainsword in the other as he led the group forward. 471, inside his compartment, fired off a magazine of 40mm grenades, the last one an illumination/flare round that bathed the entire cavern in white light as the sticky grenade stuck to the ceiling and magnesium-thermite bloomed brightly.

The teeth of the chainsword started glowing red as he ripped apart a massive lizard that roared at him when it reared in front of him. It blinked its eyes in surprise as the chainsword ripped through its rubbery hide, through the dense fat, carving through muscle, and shredded internal organs. The SMG blew apart a handful of creatures that looked like scaled and fanged Telkans, the mass reactive anti-matter shells blowing them apart in white actinic flashes.

Vuxten kicked the lizard's dying body away, yanking the chainsword free, splattering blood in a wide fan around him, and pointed the roaring blade at the far exit.

"FORWARD TO VICTORY, BROTHERS!" Vuxten roared out, still pressing forward.

The Warbound's guns were firing, a distinctive high pitched whine underlaying the hypersonic crack of the rounds and the explosive fury of the hits. The first creature that had lunged up had already collapsed back into the lake, the massive corpse floating in the middle of a slowly spreading pool of green blood.

Ripping through a thick mushroom and pushing his way between the stalks Vuxten saw that there was less than a hundred meters to the cave opening. It was clear the whole way, devoid of any half-birthed creatures or any major plants, just a smooth bed of moss.

Except for the boiling steaming river at the far end, only ten meters from the cave entrance, with a thin arc of rock over it barely two meters wide.

His rearview in his HUD showed another two creatures looming up out of the lake. One was showing green electricity crackling between the three horns on the front of its long jawed skull, the other was making horking noises, its throat convulsing, and rearing back.

471 locked the missiles on and guided them via whisker-laser into the throat of the horking one and fired the newly printed 40mm grenades at the other. Vuxten tagged the two creatures as priority targets as he ran for the stone bridge.

Thirty missiles slammed into the throat of the creature as the Telkan Marines ran for the bridge, and forty 40mm grenades slammed down on the head and the surface of the lake around the other creature.

Bile fed acid exploded in a fan around the neck of the horking giant lizard as the head was explosively severed by the rocket, the head falling backwards to bounce off the armored and spiked body. The creature began to sink, the water boiling around it as the acid ate into the algae, lily-pads, and the flesh of the other creatures that had surfaced or were surfacing from the water.

The grenades, HEDP and HEX and HEAP mixed, all barely missed the roof of the cavern and dropped down to explode on the head of the one with horns. The main long and thick horn, at the end of the long nose, only cracked and chipped from the force of the explosions but the two smaller and thinner ones, shattered. The gathered bio-electricity ravened out, scouring flesh from the skull of the half-formed creature. Flesh exploded away, blood was turned to steam, and even bone was scored and cracked by the out of control lightning.

The scream of rage shook the cavern. Two of the elves went down on one knee, as did one of the Telkan Marines, but the men next to them grabbed them and heaved them to their feet, half dragging if they had to.

Rifle fire scythed down plants, elven swords sliced apart or impaled lurching creatures, fast-print grenades and rockets ripped out to shatter armored creatures that charged out from the ferns and overgrowth.

"I HAVE NO LACK OF FAITH AND AWE AT THE BEAUTY OF SCARRED TELKAN!" Warbound Sigma roared out, backing up slowly and firing both its flamer and its autocannon even as one of the green engineers hosed down a splatter of acid with a foam dispenser.

"IN DEATH WE SING OUR FURY!" roared out Warbound Gamma.

"Let's go, men, let's go!" Vuxten yelled, motioning at the his team even as the first two Telkan and elves ran past him, throwing themselves against the wall to either side of the cavern beyond.

One of the elves staggered, a thorn as thick as his leg through his abdomen. He tried to chop at it with his sword as he went down on one knee.

Private Second Class Yotlit let his rifle slap onto his back and grabbed his magac pistol with one hand and one end of the thorn with the other. Two shots and the thorn broke away, then he repeated the action on the other side of the elf. Private Baltip knelt down next to them, providing covering fire and helping Yotlit lift the elf and carry him toward the bridge.

One of the creatures, a large biped with a head made of spread out branches, lunged at Warbound Sigma, who bathed it in fire ejected from in between the heavy warsteel claws at the end of its left arm. It reached into the flame, grabbed the biped, and bent its elbow. With a quick sharp pumping motion Sigma snapped its back and threw it to the side, even as it fired its autocannons, the rocket packs on the shoulders still reloading as the nano-forge ran hot.

One of the Telkans went down on one knee under the impact of a clenched fist blow from a creature made up of rock and thick dense cellulose. An elf scooped up the Telkan even as the elven sword flickered out three times, severing the clenched hands at the wrist then the arms at the elbows.

Putting his chainsword at his hip and holding the SMG with both hands, Vuxten hit a giant made of rock and lizard flesh with plant-vines coming off of it with a burst from his SMG, blowing huge craters in the rocky armor that successive rounds blew out sprays of burning blood and tissue.

More Telkans and elves streamed by him as he got down one knee to aim better, aiming at the creatures that were getting too close to any of his troops. His men had knelt down and were adding their own firepower to the defense.

"WARBOUND! LET'S GO!" Vuxten called out.

Both of the Warbound, easily the size of a Terran warborg, turned away from their assault and ran for the bridge with pounding footsteps.

A glance and three blinks and the entire team emptied their grenade launchers into the lake again, blowing gouts of water and glowing green blood into the air.

The hate was a pounding, physical thing now, hammering at Vuxten's brain, but he pushed it back, gritting his teeth and feeling the hate for whatever was down here become infused with rage.

The Warbound ran past him and he jumped backwards in a maneuver that had become almost instinctive, twisting and rolling during his arc so he landed in front of the entryway, facing the moonlit glowing cavern. His knee buckled slightly but he ignored the pain. 471 saw the slight buckle and increased the pressure of the sleeve around the knee.

Glowing pale mushrooms, ferns, and lacey plants sprung up from the pale fungus on the floor. Twisted, folded and ridged cabbage-like plants protected by "leaves" of biologically extruded battlesteel were scattered through the cavern, the nutrient pipes thick enough for a Telkan to stand upright in with brushing his short stubby ears on the top of the pipe.

The heat was sweltering, nearly 130F, the humidity so bad that even the heated suits of the Telkan were cooler. The elves began panting as their bodies weren't hot enough to evaporate the water, instead cool enough that their sweat mingled with condensation from the air.

Despite feeling pulsing anger and disgust coming from the compact vehicle sized brain corals Vuxten could tell that these ones weren't what he was after.

But that didn't mean they got to live.

"Go to incendiary rockets," Vuxten ordered. He looked at Tran-Due-Ill. "Keep your men back unless you have fire weapons." Vuxten noticed that the dangling crystal earring in Tran-Due-Ill's ear glowed a faint blue whenever Vuxten used his comlink to talk to the elf.

Tran-Due-Ill turned to his men. "Prepare your Greekfyre Cocktails," he motioned at the brains. "Burn these unclean things from the bones of our mother, Scarred Telkan."

The elves nodded, reaching into pouches and withdrawing elegant bottles of fragile looking crystal.

It took a moment for the squads to reconfigure for flame weapons. The two Warbound stood still, only hissing and clicking as their nano-forges reclaimed their rockets and grenades and printed out incendiary weapons.

One by one the squad clicked they were ready. Vuxten looked at Trand-Due-Ill, who nodded, his face expressionless. Vuxten went through and tagged the brain coral growths, including the nearer ones for the elven warriors. Once that was done he started a countdown, fifteen seconds.

His armor beeped at the same time as his rockets and grenades fired. The entire Telkan force let loose with their own even as the elves tapped the bottom of the crystal bottles against their thighs and threw them.

The entire cavern erupted into flame and the entire force heard/felt the screaming of the brain coral as fire ate into them. Not the holy fire of the Sisters of Wrath, nothing matched that hellish dangerous mixture, but far more than the brain corals were prepared for. Fire that burned white-hot, converting the plant-life to steam that debonded into hydrogen and oxygen and even burned that before eating into the dirt and bedrock. The battlesteel soften and sagged, its molecular structure eaten away by that hellish mix that the Telkans and the Elves coated the brains with.

They ran for the far side, where Vuxten could see Bellona standing, in her full armor, the torches of Lossflame burning bright even through the hellish flames that filled the cavern.

As they passed one clutch of burning vegetation a beetle, its carapace burning away, its guts started to boil, lunged out and tackled an elf warrior. Before anyone could come to his aid he was dead, burning with his killer as the beetle collapsed and began to steam and boil.

"HE WALKS IN GLORY AND BEAUTY, BROTHERS!" Sigma roared out, still washing flame from the nozzle between his warsteel claws over the vegetation around him.

Still they pressed on. Through the fire and flame, their armor heat rising. The elves run, following Vuxten's jog, hurrying through the cavern as the flame reached the massive nutrient pipes, which exploded, the nutrient liquid inside converted to burning hellfire.

A spray of flame hit 692, on Gamma's back, and the little green mantid engineer was almost instantly incinerated, leaving nothing behind but soot and ash. 403 on the back of Private First Class Zikux lost his rear right leg to a burning droplet.

One of the Telkan was covered by the liquid fire, collapsing as his armor overheated and boiled him alive inside his warsteel coffin. His green brother managed to jump clear, landing on Sigma then jumping to Gamma, reaching out plaintively with one hand toward his fallen brother. He flashed icons of loss and wailing as the group hustled out of the cavern, leaving two of their ranks behind. 662 touched antenna with him and they both set to work on keeping Gamma's heat down.

"They stand forever beside Queen Gal-And-Del, dwelling within her Hidden Court, there undying amid song, dance, feast, and celebration," Trand-Due-Ill said as they hurried down the passage.

"FOREVER IN GLORY!" Gamma rumbled, the two quad-barrels in his right arm still spinning.

They kept moving deeper and deeper, through tunnel and cavern, fighting their way through creatures half formed and rude. Flame and high explosive destroying creatures even as they struck back, rarely killing, but killing still. Vuxten leading them, following the ghostly transparent vision of Bellona deeper and deeper into the earth.

They were passing wrecked mining machines, the walls of the cavern thick with iron, cobalt, nickle, titanium, aluminum bauxite, copper, tin, and even the odd diamond.

Three times Vuxten had everyone break away chunks of the unrefined ore so that the green mantids could cram the resources into their creation engines. At the far side of the cavern Bellona stood, ghostly and deathly beautiful, next to a battlesteel plate over the end of a short tunnel.

"Rest here," Vuxten told his men and the elves.

They numbered only nine now, not counting the Warbound and Vuxten. Vuxten had ensured that his armor had captured images of the deaths of each being, had recorded their names, and for the Telkan, their service numbers and ranks, in his armor's memory. Half their number lay dead behind them. The elves had taken it worse, being unarmored. They numbered only four, while the Telkan numbered five, the elves having lost nine and the Telkan having lost only three.

The green mantids wore heavier now, with micro-thermal cores. As the Telkan Marines rested the Mantid moved through the ranks, spraying the armor with liquid that left behind a slight sheen, taking time to reconfigure the thermal core ports to handle larger cores, adjusting heat mitigation. Once that was done, they moved through the ranks of the elves, spraying their armor, giving them cloth to wrap around their bare flesh that the nano-forges of the two battered Warbound had created from their nano-forges.

The hatred was a pounding, living thing that infused the shadows, filled the darkness, pressed and cut at the survivors. Preventing sleep, barely allowing rest.

Worse, was Vuxten could hear faint whispers just beyond his hearing. He turned off his mic to the outside and listened carefully.

It wasn't coming to his ears, one of which he was pretty sure was the wrinkle under the left angle of his jaw. It was pushing into his mind, a sibilant corrosive whisper that demanded that he listen closer, that he devote attention to it.

Vuxten snarled and focused on the pain in his knee and in his scalp, focusing his hatred on the whisper.

I know you. You're not different than the machines, and like I killed them, I'll kill you, Vuxten threw into the whisper's teeth.

A scream answered that made three of the elves hold their heads, their noses starting to bleed right before the end of the scream.

Vuxten felt embarassment as he realized his mistake. They knew now just how close the strike team was.

"471, how quick can you and your boys cut through that battlesteel wall?" Vuxten asked.

--hours-- 471 answered. --melty melty fast--

Vuxten nodded, opening a link to Sigma. "Sigma, I'm going to need four high intensity incendiary rockets, non-EFP, printed up. When you're ready, let me know. Don't wet-print them."

"I SERVE SCARRED TELKAN!" Sigma bellowed. Vuxten just nodded and moved over next to Tran-Due-Ill, who was kneeling, praying and coloring his face with chalk and powders, forming a skull with red around his large eyes.

"Are you all right?" Vuxten asked.

"I will resist the evil one's influences and tricks for I walk in the light of the Mad Arch-Angel TerraSol, he of the burning sword and all seeing eyes, I dwell within the grace of Queen Gal-And-Del, who's beauty and grace are my sword and shield, who serves High Queen Loo-Thee-In, who's wisdom and perfection guides my sword," Tran-Due-Ill answered, looking up at Vuxten. "While carrying out her will may bring me pain, I am born whole and shall be reborn whole."

Vuxten nodded. "We'll be moving out soon."

"As the queens will it," Tran-Due-Ill said.

Vuxten had no idea what was on the other side of the battlesteel wall, he just knew that whatever it was, it was what he had been sent to destroy. That if he failed, Telkan would fall, be taken from his people for decades or even centuries. Even if he won the battle the war would be far from over, but Telkan would be and remain his people's.

He dropped down a repeater relay after having every member of the group put their palm on the induction link.

As he was thinking his hand went to the hilt of his chainsword, wrapping around it to comfort himself. He didn't notice that the teeth of the blade slowly began to glow a dark red.

Podlings and broodcarriers enjoying the sun Daxin's voice went through his mind.

This is our world and I refuse to let some disgusting creature from beyond the stars take it from us Brentili'ik's words floated up from his memories.

"I STAND PREPARED!" Sigma roared out.

"You ready?" Vuxten asked 471, who was resting in his armored casing between Vuxten's shoulders. The little mantid engineer had lost a bladearm below the elbow and his left rear leg below the knee as well as an antenna from when he had dragged one of his fellow engineers from the burning jaws of a beetle five times his size.

--ride or die-- was the reply.

"ON YOUR FEET!" Vuxten bellowed out.

His men, including the elves, stood up. The sound of loading weapons was loud in the cave. The elves drew their swords, some of them blackened and still smoking, and hefted their shields.

"Sigma's going to hit that battlesteel with rockets, Gamma's going to fire his rockets three seconds later to give the battlesteel time to soften. As soon as the gap opens, we go through, and we finish this," Vuxten said. He laid out everyone's positions and in what order they'd move forward and which direction they would go on the other side with plenty of latitude for adjustment depending on what was on the other side of the plate.

"Ten seconds," Vuxten warned, throwing up a countdown.

"The quest is never over when the dark one is overthrown, the hero must still return home and face the consequences of his valor," Tran-Due-Ill told Vuxten softly over the comlink.

"But the dark one must be overthrown if the hero wishes to have a home to return to," Vuxten answered.

"Wisdom indeed," Tran-Due-Ill answered.

The countdown hit zero and Sigma fired the rockets. The sticky warheads exploded, the majority of the incendiary striking and sticking at one point. Two strands shot out at a 90 degree angle, reaching out and touching the other blots left by the other warheads.

They burned with a harsh white light as the burning gummy fluid flowed down the plate to form a square of burning white. Vuxten activated the repeater, which went live, broadcasting back to the next one. One by one the repeaters went live, transmitting, all the way back to the drone launcher, which fired off its drones.

Three seconds passed and Gamma fired the rockets, two rippled launches of five. One for each corner of low explosive, the middle high explosive.

The drones managed to establish links through the ash and clouds.

The second set blew the battlesteel, almost liquid, into the room.

The third set of rockets exploded around the ripped open gap and on the ground in front of and on the other side of the gap, liquid nitrogen spraying the area. The sudden transfer of thermal energy made the rock crack and break, throwing stone and battlesteel shrapnel into the room.

The scream staggered the Telkan and the Elves, even Gamma and Sigma lurching slightly as they followed Vuxten, who just gritted his teeth and yanked free his chainsword and submachine gun even as he ran through the gap.

The massive convoluted ridges and furrows were half-buried in black stinking fluid that bubbled and rippled. Nutrient pipes of black and purple liquid flowed into the lake, bubbles and half-dissolved creatures sliding down the pipes and into the vile fluid surrounding the biomechanical thinking array squatting in the lake.

"YOU DARE NOT!" rang out in everyone's head. Images assaulted their minds, of torn apart podlings and broodcarriers, of massacred males and females, of screams and pleas for mercy by the damned.

One elf went down, his eyes melting out of the sockets from the savagery of the assault. Two of the Telkan staggered as they went left and right, almost falling into the vile fluid. Sigma and Gamma stopped in place, their rage and hatred stilled for a brief moment.

"FOR SCARRED TELKAN AND LOST TERRASOL!" Vuxten howled out, clamping down the trigger of his SMG, firing mass reactive anti-matter warsteel casing slugs into the giant brain. He swiped across one of the nutrient pipes with his chainsword, the teeth smoking and glowing bright red as the engine roared and the chain clattered.

Vuxten's war cry broke the paralysis.

"SIR! SIGNAL FROM FIRST TELKAN!" Captain Drader called out, throwing it up on the holotank.

Tik-tak and Brentili'ik spun in place, staring at the tank.

Gamma and Sigma roared out their battle cries as they opened fire. The elves screamed and pulled free crystal bottles, smacking the bottom against their thighs and throwing them on a high looping arc. Even the blinded one struggled to his feet, pulling a bottle free. The Telkan Marines opened fire with their magac rifles and shoulder launchers.

"FOR SACRED TELKAN!" Hal-Deer cried out, throwing a crystal bottle.

"FOR GETNITI'IK, SHAMARAZI'I, AND TELMITIZI'I!" Corporal Wikwin yelled, the images of his wife and broodcarriers appearing in his mind's eye even as he fired his magac rifle and emptied the 40mm grenade and the rocket launchers into the brain coral.

The Dweller Mass-Tem-Ha flinched, not only at the physical assault, but at the psychic lashings of pure raw and fury from the Telkan. They had supposed to have been gentled beyond that several cycles ago, but something dark, something hateful, something consumed by wrath, had touched them and awakened the rage that was supposed to be gentled away.

Two of the Telkan hovered on the edge of death, kept alive by dark technology, hatred, and all consuming love for their people. Their minds were fortresses, the thoughts cleaved to the songs of broodcarriers and the giggling of podlings, the crenelations of their souls guarded by spears and slings and arrows. Their thoughts and rage ripped at Mass-Tem-Ha and filled the Dweller with rage.

"I CARRY THE SONGS OF BROODMOMMIES IN MY HEART AND SOUL!" Gamma roared.

"I AM WREATHED IN LOVE AND GLORY OF SINGING PODLINGS!" Sigma bellowed out.

The great creature Mass-Tem-Ha flinched, it's tentacles clenching in agony as not only the fire and munitions rained down upon it, but from the sheer hatred and wrath being screamed from the throats of its attackers.

Deep inside Telkan tentacles fifty miles long, nearly a mile thick, flexed in agony. Other tentacles, buried in the earth, beneath the ocean, only attached to a small brain coral that was a receptor only, reacted on Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 to the agony of the brain-coral and flexed.

Both planets shuddered. Several mountains exploded, blowing their guts out in lava and ash.

From beneath the vile black blood of the earth surrounding Mass-Tem-Ha rose the creatures final defenders.

Two dozen warborgs, smoking and dripping noxious black and purple fluid. Two massive Terran warmechs, black fluid running down the shattered and ruined cockpits, the armor bent and warped. Two Precursor machines, puppeted by writhing wormlike tentacles that clacked massive mandibles.

None of Telkan's defenders flinched.

"Gamma, Sigma, keep up fire on the brain. The rest of you, targets incoming," Vuxten snapped, highlighting each enemy with a carat and assigning a target. "471, you know what to do."

"FOOT ON THE PEDAL!" roared out over Vuxten's speakers as he jumped forward. He hit the wall at an angle and sprang off, feet leading the way into the knee of the Terran warmech. 471 dumped the kinetic energy into a spike as Vuxten kicked back off against the wall.

The massive joint, already softened from the caustic black blood of the dweller, shattered and the warmech went down on one knee.

"NEVER EVER FALSE METAL!"

Corporal Wikwin fired two rockets into the chest of the warborg, jumped forward, and drove both heels against its chest, bouncing off as his green brother flared out the kinetic energy. The warborg slammed against the wall and Wikwin did it again, crashing into the warsteel zombie. The blind elf stepped forward, skipped forward, a long ballet leap that took him beneath the durasteel body of the Precursor machine. He kicked upward after his sword sliced the length of its belly, his booted toes telling him the line wasn't completely through as he cartwheeled through, turned at the end, and sliced away the bottom of the back leg in a sweeping bow.

"ENGINE RUNNING HOT AS A BOILING KETTLE!"

Sigma and Gamme both fired their rocket packs dry, shooting through the reloads as fast as the mechanical trays could cycle, their autocannons and flamers bathing the Dweller in firepower.

One of the elves was thrown to the ground, his chest crushed by the warborg's fist, but he still snapped off the warborg's foot with a flick of his crystal and silver sword. The elf coughed up blood, drowning in his own blood, and still managed to disembowel the warborg, the warsteel softened and weakened by the caustic black blood of the earth. It fell on him, but the elf's sword, even as it shattered, pierced its heart, transfixing the fungus wrapped brain floating inside the armaglass globe.

"MY JOB AIN'T A JOB!"

Private Peklak went down, torn in half when three warborgs grabbed him and pulled in different directions. His green brother was half-crushed when they dropped his torso but managed to help Peklak get off the last of his wet-printed missiles, HEDPFP rounds blowing one warborg in half. Peklak died, hearing his lost broodcarriers singing to him and his dead podlings rushing toward him with their arms out to be picked up, his dead wife smiling to him. 783 struggled out from under the body, grabbed the grenade launcher, slammed a bladearm deep into the circuitry, and kept firing grenades into the faces of the two remaining warborgs. One went down, chest shucked out like an oyster. The other managed to stomp on the mortally wounded little engineer but that gave Figgy-Whip time to snap its head off with his crystal and silver sword before slicing down the warborg's spine, spilling out vile fluids and severing the vines and fungal weave still animating it. The warborg went down even as a swipe from a Precursor machine's claw snapped Figgy-Whip's arm off.

"IT'S A DAMN GOOD TIME!"

Corporal Fretik drove his howling chainsword, the teeth dark red and smoking, into the chest of the warborg that was trying to break open Private Yotlit's helmet with crashing blows of spiked fists. The chainsword erupted from the warborg's chest and Fretik sawed it back and forth as Private Yotlit staggered to the side, putting one hand on the cave wall even as his green buddy fired off his rocket magazine into the warmech Hal-Deer danced around. The HEAT rounds slammed into the chest of the machine, blowing it open, Hal-Deer dancing out of the way with elegant precision, catching burning warsteel on his blade and driving it deep into the dead reactor of the warmech, the burning warsteel consuming the energy producing vegetation pod and piroutted away as the warmech fell backwards.

"ITCHY TRIGGER FINGER!"

Vuxten bounced off the wall, the roof, and crashed down onto the back of the Precursor Machine, driving the gravity spike clear through it with his boots and the chainsword through it with one hand while he raked a warborg with his SMG with his other hand. Mass reactive antimatter warsteel jacketed shells blew the warborg apart even as the white hot teeth of the chainsword chewed through the Precursor armor with a scream.

"BUT A STABLE TURN TABLE!"

Private Zikux felt his engineer die as the warborg fired rockets detonated against his back. He staggered forward, staring at where vaporized flesh and atomized blood had blown out his chest to coat the warborg his burning chainsword had just bound up in, the red hot teeth shattering inside of it and bouncing around off the warsteel torso of the warborg. He turned, staggered forward, ordered his grenades and missiles to wet-print a load he had to override to get to print, clenched his jaws, and jumped onto the top of Mass-Tem-Ha, stumbling and going down on his face, sliding across the ridged and folded surface of the Dweller.

He didn't move even as the nano-forges printed out his order and loaded his magazines.

The tentacles flexed in agony again.

"I DO WHAT I DO BEST!"

549 stood on top of his dead partner, bladearms sunk deep into the dead Telkan's neck armor, through the Telkan's neck, and touching the nano-filament from his cyberjack, doing what he was never supposed to do and linking himself directly into the armor. His abdomen and four legs were in the dead fist of the warborg that had killed his partner, but the little green mantid was beyond pain.

He could hear podlings giggling and singing.

"BECAUSE I'M WILLING AND ABLE!"

PFC Ulkit's corpse stood up, magac in hand, and charged one of the warborgs, tackling it, crushing 549, killing the little mantid, but the impact of the frenzied dash crushed the warborg against the stone wall, bursting it like an overripe melon.

Ulkit and 549 held hands as they saw Gal-And-Dell hold out her hands to them, surrounding by a nimbus of golden light. In front of her were the podlings that had been his siblings when the atomics had gone off that he had never ever found. They sang to him and 549 both as they moved forward to take Gal-And-Dell's hands.

"AIN'T NO FAKING!"

Corporal Wikwin spit blood against his cracked faceshield as the creature that had just clawed its way free of the black blood surrounding the Dweller crunched him in its jaws. His vision fading he grabbed 221 and tossed him onto Gamma's chest. The creature closed its jaws around the dying Telkan and swallowed as Corporal Wikwin crossed his arms. The throat bulged as the Telkan activated all his suit functions and slid down into the creature's stomach.

Where he hit eject with a grin he couldn't even feel, a Terran baring of his gore streaked teeth.

The black blood exploded upward in a fountain and Mass-Tem-Ha screamed in agony.

"YOUR LIFE I'M TAKING!"

The last warmech went down as Vuxten's roaring chainsword tore apart its beating fibrous heart and the Telkan kicked it backwards, where it went slowly backwards into the black blood. Yotlit went down, his neck broken, but managed to run his suit just off of his implant, feeling his heart stop, uncaring as he pulled the warborg close, like they were lovers, and jammed his chainsword, the teeth glowing red and smoking, into the warborg's guts, sawing back and forth.

--ride or die-- 773 flashed in Yotlit's vision, helping the Telkan turn as he fell so that his 66mm rocket pack and 40mm grenade launcher pointed at the Dweller. He flash-fired both launcher's magazines, wet printed more, and kept firing even as Yotlit used armor muscles hold down the trigger on his magac.

They were both still firing when a warborg's foot crushed Yotlit's helmet and skull, killing 773 with him.

"471, it's time," Vuxten coughed, blood misting the inside of his faceplate.

There was the screech of a record scratch and the words rang out that made everyone in the Command Center of Log Base Echo flinch as they watched the holotank, transfixed.

"I'M A HIP HOP SOLDIER!" rang out.

"No..." Brentili'ik said, her hands covering her mouth and nose as her eyes opened wide and tears spilled from them.

A tentacle reached up out of the black blood, reaching for Sigma, and Vuxten jumped up, firing his magac SMG with one hand into the thick flesh of the tentacle, his 66mm rockets slamming deep into the Dweller's brain, his 40mm's hitting other tentacles that erupted out of the blood, his chainsword, the smoking white hot teeth tearing through the flesh, dropping the tentacle to the ground before it could touch the massive Warbound.

"ALL YOU WANNABE GANGSTA'S DRIVIN' VOLKSWAGONS!"

Sigma wetprinted another load of rockets and fired them deeper into the ragged divoted flesh of the Dweller, roaring out his love for Scarred Telkan as he did so. Hal-Deer danced away from a pair of swinging warborg fists, throwing his melting and battered shield to the side, into the black blood, gripping his silver and crystal sword and severing a tentacle thicker than his body with one overhand stroke. Gamma grabbed the tentacle reaching for it in its warsteel claw and burnt through it with his flame thrower.

"CHILLIN' AT THE HIGH SCHOOL BROKE BUT BRAGGIN!"

Vuxten landed on the ground, his knee giving out in a flare of pain, coming up to both feet, firing his magac with one hand, laying about him with his chainsword with the other, purple fire dripping from the blade like blood, the warsteel chain wrapped around his fist that held the magac was red hot and smoking. 471 had fired his rocket launcher dry, his magac till the barrel warped, and was now raving at the Dweller with icons and emojis even as he drew another micro-rifle from the creation engine on the back of his armor.

"I CARRY LOTS OF CASH I WHIP A SUCKERS ASS!"

Gamma and Sigma were back to back, firing their heavy weapons at the tentacles.

Vuxten was blind in his cybereye, feeling the hot lubricant joining the blood running down that side of his face, firing his magac SMG. At his back was Tran-Due-Ill, who was slicing at the tentacles whipping at them, trying to grab them, snapping at them like whips. Hal-Deer was next to them, his sword held in both hands as he laid about himself with wide strokes.

"I DRIVE A BIG CADDY AND I PULL THE TRIGGER FAST!"

Private Zikux woke up, floating on the pain, seeing his brothers and sisters holding out their arms to him, his mother and father with his broodmommys, all singing to him. He crossed his arms, activated all his suit functions...

Queen Gal-And-Dell lifted him in her arms as he hit eject.

"DOWN AT ARNOLD'S ON THE AVE I FIGHT TO THE DEATH!"

The explosion drove deep into Mass-Tem-Ha, then the FOOF mixture in the glass-case rockets and grenades decided that it wanted in on the fun and began to burn. The explosion slammed into the weakened ceiling of the cavern even as the hellish mixture of burning chemicals, molten warsteel, and an out of control fusion reaction went China Syndrome. The chemicals and the burning fission reaction tore Mass-Tem-Ha apart as something happened.

A warsteel atom split.

The cavern filled with white light and fire.

The ceiling collapsed.

The feed went black.

Tik-Tak heard Bentili'ik's scream of agony that was suddenly cut off as she fainted and Colonel Harvey caught her.