First Contact

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! rang off of every flat surface, roared from every speaker.

Every Lanaktallan on the planet jerked in shock, some dropping paddy or cud, others urinating in surprise.

The surprise only lasted till the roar was repeated four times more. A Lanaktallan in the Most High Command Complex hit the planetary alert button as it roared out again. The signal went out to the entire planet's defenders.

Red Alert.

Mo'orbys heard the klaxon wailing and galloped for the armory. More and more Lanaktallan surrounded him, all of them galloping for the same complex where the weapons, armor, and equipment was stored. By the time he reached it and found his place in lines thousands of Lanaktallan were waiting to get their equipment. The Company and Battalion Most Highs moved up and down the ranks, making sure everyone was in their positions and handing out stimpacks. Tabbing the stim calmed Mo'orbys down from the anxiety he had felt each time that the Terran battlecry sounded out.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! CLEAR THE WAY! roared out twice while he was in line.

At one point his datalink pinged and he checked it.

Once he drew his armor and weapons he was to report to the airfield. An armored hovercraft personnel carrier would take him to the perimeter of a lithium salt field extraction point where he was to dig in and help Sixtieth Infantry Division hold the extraction site.

He quivered slightly in excitement. There would be eight thousand Lanaktallan with him.

To face the Terrans.

Finally, a chance to show the Terrans that they were little more than jumped up lemur primates who got lucky a few times.

The entire system was devoted to resource extraction, refining, and manufacturing. The shipyards themselves had hundreds of thousands of

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! CLEAR THE WAY!

ships that Mo'orbys knew were being cleared for action even as he waited patiently to get his equipment. There were literally millions of troops to protect every important location. The cities would be evacuating to the hardened shelters, meaning the Terrans couldn't threaten the civilian populace. Tanks would be rolling out to scatter into company sized elements to prevent an orbital strike from wiping out an entire brigade or regiment.

Mo'orbys was part of the infantry. Part of the unending tide of Lanaktallan martial might.

He took comfort knowing that should he fall there was ten thousand to take his place.

All the Terrans had faced so far was neo-sapient and Near-Civilized military forces.

Now they would face the durasteel shod hooves of the Lanaktallan military might.

He got his armor and quickly donned it, years of practice making it almost automatic. He checked his drone launchers, his environmental systems, his battery charge level, and every other part of his fully environmental personal protective system.

There was no surprise to him that it was at 100% across the board.

At the equipment point he got his packs, draping them over his abdomen and checking the seals then the inventory sheet. Everything was there. Munitions for his drone launcher, extra food,

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! CLEAR THE WAY!

a personal shelter, an automatic fighting position mechanism, everything he needed for extensive operations. He received his power assist system, which went on his back to supplement his arm strength, allowing him to continue on much further than someone could without it. He was outfitted for long term combat.

Even operations that lasted an entire week.

He smiled to himself as he was handed his weapons. No neural weapons here to show mercy to the Terrans. He was gunner, meaning not only did he receive his rifle, he also was entrusted with a belt-fed plasma cartridge machinegun capable of fifteen hundred rounds a minute at maximum fire. He put the bag with the extra parts on his lower back, adjusting it and making sure it was fixed properly to his armor.

Fully geared up he trotted out to the hoverfield. Passing several windows he smiled behind his helmet's visor. He was imposing, fierce looking, the armored hoof of the Lanaktallan might. Mo'orbys found himself looking forward to combating the Terrans.

He had fought to put down more than a few rebellions. Never against neo-sapients or Near-Civilized, they could not put up a fight against the true warriors of the Lanaktallan. He had fought against rebelling Most Highs, against Corporates who had gotten too full of themselves, against those who possessed true martial might.

He had nearly eight months of

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! CLEAR THE WAY!

combat experience, eight marks on his armor to distinguish the grueling campaigns.

The Terrans will make an excellent ninth sigil on my armor, Mo'orbys thought to himself as he climbed onto the hovercraft. All three gunnery positions were manned, six-barrel laser rotary cannons able to shred plasteel with ease. They could shoot down a starship with a twelve second sustained burst at up to five kilometers.

Mo'orbys knew that the rotary laser cannons would sweep any attacking Terran aerospace craft from the sky like so much debris before the hurricane.

Nearly two thousand hovercraft lifted off and Mo'orbys felt thrilled to look out the open side and see the perfect formations of crafts. A vertical V, allowing all five of the ranks to fire without interfering with each other.

Sixtieth Infantry Division shall be the rock the primates break their little lemur teeth upon, Mo'orbys thought to himself as the hovercraft screamed across the sky at nearly a hundred miles an hour. We will dig in and become impossible to dislodge. We shall be the anvil

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

the hammer of our armored divisions break the Terrans

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

upon, he sneered.

The roar kept coming. Curious Mo'orbys started to keep count.

Fifteen. Fifteen times the roar of HEAVY METAL IS HERE! sounded out from the flat surfaces. Mo'orbys knew it was because the Technical Corps had managed to cut the Terran signal out of the circuit.

Still, he tabbed up another stim and felt his anxiety release.

The lithium salt flats came into view just as his datalink pinged an update.

He'd be at the northwest edge, helping protect a heavy support position. He had experience with point defense and anti-aerospace systems, heavy rotary weapons, and infantry rifle support. Mo'orbys was a little disappointment that his field rank didn't change, but that was fine.

Lanaktallan rank structure was flexible, to be determined in the field to ensure that the most capable being was put in charge of the situation. Your pay was determined by the amount of time you had in service and the amount of time in combat.

Unlike the unwashed and ignorant masses, a Lanaktallan didn't need to be held in debt to ensure they fought. They fought for the good of the Lanaktallan people.

The hovercraft dropped down and landed. Mo'orbys jumped out at the height of almost a meter, feeling his legs taking the shock and gritting his teeth to ignore the pain in his knees and hips. He galloped toward the marker his datalink was putting up on his retinas. Around him his fire team dismounted the hovercraft at a safer height, galloping after him.

Within two hours they had the fighting position set up. Point defense, air superiority systems, electronic warfare systems, even dug in fighting positions where the duracrete was steaming as it quick-set.

Mo'orbys himself was behind a six-barreled heavy plasma rotary autocannon, the belt of plasma cartridges gleaming in the harsh light of the bluish-white sun.

Now we wait, Mo'orbys thought to himself, staring off into the distance. With my luck the Navy will keep the Terrans at bay and I'll never be able to force these primates to admit to the superiority of the Lanaktallan people.

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INCOMING METAL! rang from every surface, making Mo'orbys jerk awake. He had fallen asleep in his gunner's cradle, his implant set to wake him if there was any changes. The rest of the six Lanaktallan fire team were all moving their helmets to give their cameras the best view.

His datalink clicked a few times, then made a few odd metallic pings.

Then he heard it.

Music. Harsh, screaming, heavy percussion. Coming in over his datalink.

Six by twelve we make our stand

Armored might we take this land

"Go to local datalink only," Mo'orbys called out, reaching up and switching his datalink off.

The scope's display suddenly blanked, then came back up shot full of static, then flickered a few times before it went black again.

The speaker next to the weapon, used for warnings and the like, suddenly crackled to life as a digital face appeared on the scope.

"Six of you, huh? One for each barrel on this piece of shit plasma-gun," the voice said, it's tone condescending and mocking. "Stay right there, you've got some incoming presents."

Mo'orbys yanked the power lead off of the computer assisted scope, pulling the rest of the cables, leaving only the power leads for the power chassis and the gun itself.

"What was that?" Lo'otbul asked, his comlink sounding tinny without the processing power of the local node.

"Terran electronic warfare. Pay it no attention," Mo'orbys stated.

"What did it mean by 'incoming presents' do you think?" Yumo'op asked.

"Probably just trying to scare us," Mo'orbys snorted. "As if we have to worry."

Before any of them could say anything else the point defense and air defense positions started firing, the lasers and plasma ripping into the night sky. Mo'orbys opened his mouth to ask if any of his team could see anything when the impossible happened.

The point and air defense suddenly shut off.

And the missiles and artillery rounds started slamming home.

The battlescreens failed in the first second and a half. The power generators exploded on the third second. The fifth second the armored self-propelled artillery and the missile launchers all took direct hits and exploded. The seventh second, all still part of the same rippling, rolling, all consuming barracks, the ammunition bunkers were hammered until something gave and they blew up on the ninth second. In the first ten seconds all of the hovercraft were destroyed, transformed into twisted burning wreckage.

The barrage moved on, swept across the defenses, hammered at the lithium salt extractors, the raw material storage area, the mag-lev train system, the buildings, the fuel dump, the vehicle storage. Mo'orbys reached out and yanked a lever that the Twentieth Most High was sitting underneath, rocking back and forth, hugging himself with his armored arms.

The fighting position lowered itself into the ground and closed the armored lid above it.

Mo'orbys looked out through the periscope in time to see the mag-lev train explode.

Then it started again at the line Mo'orbys was on. Hitting out in front of him at a range of only ten meters and sweeping inward. The missiles went by overhead, continuing on, flying insanely close to the ground as they vanished into the night. The artillery, fired on parabolic arcs and no longer having to worry about point defense, slammed down on the dug in lines of the Lanaktallan.

The pattern repeated, hitting things that were already burning, shattering bunkers and positions already gouting fire, slamming into collapsed buildings. The salt flats themselves started taking hits, blowing bluish-purple sand high into the air.

Mo'orbys tapped his forearm, triggering a stim, feeling the chemicals race through his bloodstream. The panic that had been surging up dissolved and he ground his teeth on the cud in his jaws.

The artillery stopped, even though missiles kept screaming by overhead, following the terrain, close enough that Mo'orbys saw, through the periscope, a Lanaktallan trooper panic and leap from his burning fighting position only to have his upper torso ripped off by the sonic slipstream of a missile going by so fast it just appeared as a flash of light.

"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!" Mo'orbys yelled out, triggering his loudspeaker. His implant was full of warbling screeching, clicks, antonal sound patterns, and digital noise.

He grabbed the heavy plasma rotary autocannon and yanked on it until the damaged gears snapped and the weapon moved freely. It wouldn't be as accurate, but it was usable.

Silence descended as the artillery carried on and the hypersonic missiles found other paths. The system clicked in and the fighting position rose back up, the shutters opening.

The only sound was the crackling of flames and the screaming of the wounded and dying.

Long minutes passed, smoked covering what had been a carefully created fire base that was now nothing more than burning or smouldering wreckage.

"Where are they?" Klo'oky asked, lifting up his head to look out over the edge of the damaged fighting position.

There was a loud KA-RAK! and Klo'oky's armored head liquified and sprayed behind him. His corpse fell to the ground, his neck, head, and a divot where his shoulders connected missing.

"Out there," Mo'orbys said, triggering another stim. "Stay down."

There was a buzzing sound and the five surviving Lanaktallan looked around, wanting to look up and see what was going on outside but the steady KA-RAK! sounding out warned them exactly what was happening to anyone looking out of their fighting position.

Feeling anxiety and a sudden gut feeling, Mo'orbys reached out and yanked the lever, lowering the firing position down again. He looked out through the periscope and felt his tendrils coil in horror.

Thousands of little drones, little more than a frame around a fan, were sweeping over the battle lines. Any Lanaktallan they spotted three or four immediately oriented on, suddenly pulling upright, and fired a shaped charge that blew through armor. Most Lanaktallan started to sag after two hits, one if the drone had targeted the head.

The drones swarmed the fighting positions for long moments then rose up as one and streamed away, heading past the salt mine.

Without power to run the atmospheric system the little computer the size of a grain of rice detected dangerous levels of atmosphere, pulled back the shielding, and lifted the fighting position back up.

It was silent except for the crackling of flames.

"We haven't even seen them yet," Yumo'op said softly.

"Tab a stim," Mo'orbys ordered.

There was a weird sound, like large winged creatures fluttering above them.

Instincts from months of combat kicked in and Mo'orbys slapped the lever again.

The 20th Most High giggled and stared at his fingers.

The fighting position lowered as there was a rippling cracking sound in the sky. It barely got below the surface when there was a clicking noise on the armored roof. The armored panels snapped shut.

The entire ground heaved as the carefully dispersed microcharges went off and used the oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere as fuel.

The roof of the shelter bulged inward and all four of the Lanaktallan still in shape to fight looked up at it nervously.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT!" the 20th Most High suddenly screamed, jumping up and hitting the lever. He pulled his pistol and started shooting.

Yumo'op took a plasma packet to the face and went down.

Lo'otbul leapt forward, grabbing the Most High's wrist and pointing the pistol upwards as the fighting position popped back up. The shields pulled back and the Most High gave a convulsive yank, turned, and leaped out of the shelter, scrabbling to get out of the fighting position and into the smoke that was seeping into the position.

A half dozen rounds hit him, punching through his armor, tearing him into chunks of hamburger.

"HERE THEY COME!" Mo'orbys yelled, grabbing the handles of the rotary autocannon. He couldn't see anything but smoke, his armor reporting that it was full of laser refracting microprisms, multi-wavelength chaff, and hot enough to render thermal and UV useless.

He didn't care. He just pulled the trigger and began traversing the gun from left to right, firing at Lanaktallan knee height.

Flashes erupted in the smoke and Mo'orbys knew his plasma packets were hitting something. The remaining two Lanaktallan joined him, firing their rifles into the smoke filled darkness.

Mo'orbys tried launching a drone but it was whacked out of the air before it got out of the smoke.

Then he heard them.

Bestial, brutish roars of sheer raw aggression. Howls of victory and triumph. Raw pure aggression vocalized by a pack hunting adrenaline fueled primate on the hunt.

The he felt them.

A raw, snarling, biting and scratching feeling, starting a slight pressure that felt like a faintly itchy blanket touching him, then slowly enveloping him.

He got his hand up and slapped the psychic shielding active, then tabbed three stims in row.

The other two Lanaktallan in the fighting position with him collapsed as the tsunami of rage rolled over him. He could almost hear words, laughter, screams of delight, inside of the psychic assault that hit him.

He grabbed the handles of the rotary autocannon and started firing, using all four hands to hold it steady.

One of the primates threw a grenade that arced up, through the smoke, and landed in the fighting position.

It went off, slamming Mo'orbys face first into the cannon, lifting up his hindquarters and almost breaking his spinal torso joint.

He fell unconscious to the bottom of the pit as the first of the Terrans jumped over the pit. One paused to hose a burst into the pit, then moved on. Another tossed a grenade as they walked by.

Mo'orbys didn't know any of it, half buried under his dead fire fireteam, the autocannon pulled down on top of him.

He didn't even hear one of the Terrans yell out "I think we've got a live cowtaur here!"

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When he woke up all he knew was pain. His lower torso and his upper flanks hurt. His legs hurt and his head was pounding. It took him a second to realize he was restrained and he struggled for a moment before he heard a voice.

"Easy now, trooper," the voice was Terran, using a translator. "The war's over for you."

He managed to get one eye open. A male Terran in some kind of blue coverall uniform with a blue cloth cap on its head was looking at him.

"If you can understand me, blink," the Terran said. Mo'orbys blinked. "All right. Your neck is braced, same with your upper spine. You were late in getting treatment, but we saved all your limbs."

Mo'orbys tried to speak and only gagged, something up his nose, in his mouth, both tubes down his throat.

"We've got you on support systems right now," the Terran said. He shook his head. "Don't worry, you won't be harmed."

The anesthetic rose up and Mo'orbys slipped back into slumber.

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Moorbys was in a healing ward with almost a hundred other Lanaktallan, all of them in carefully designed slings. He had learned he was on a space ship entirely dedicated to medical treatment that had been repurposed for the Lanaktallan.

His legs had broken when one of the Terrans had thrown a grenade into the damaged fighting position, two of his arms had broken when the gun had fallen on him, one had been mangled by shrapnel.

But he had one functioning and was using it to slowly eat the food in front of him.

I barely even saw them. I wasn't even a speed bump, he thought to himself. The entire division and less than thirty of us survived. We never even got close.

He stared at the stuff called 'tapioca pudding' and slowly ate, refusing to look up at his fellow division mates.

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15th ARMY -SPACE FORCE- MEMO

System pacified. Resistance was light. Resource extraction and processing units to be replaced.

Forward logistics and supply base to be manufactured within 14 standard days. Space asset manufacturing and repair systems are 58% complete.

--LEADING THE WAY

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