First Contact

If, in your career as an officer, you think you have seen every type of trouble the enlisted can get up to, you have not been paying attention to what is really going on in your unit.

You'll consider drunk and disorderlies, drunk on duty, and fighting to be childish play once you find out what they can get up to.

And before you think that one sex of your species won't be as bad as the other, in the case of social or biological dimorphism, be warned.

They are among the worst. - General T'Prek, Memoirs of Clownface, Smokey Cone Press, 8535 PG

"Every first work day after leisure days is a nightmare that they cannot prepare you for in officer's school." - Unknown Lanaktallan Commander, Operation Iron Piglet, Confederacy-Atrekna Conflict AKA The Big Cac.

"I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN!" - Unknown Special Forces Soldier, during chemical detox, House Mouse War.

Vuxten saw the flashing of annoyed emojis and looked over to where 471 was sitting on top of the desk, staring at a hologram that Vuxten couldn't quite see.

"Problems?" Vuxten asked.

--428 Maintenance Battalion-- 471 said, the font showing his irritation. --someone stole three armored fighting vehicles played destruction derby repaired them from nanoforge tried to conceal--

Vuxten sighed. "How bad?"

--hacked nanoforge template restrictors reset levels now every other nanoforge template reads 1025 on the counter not responding to reset-- 471 complained. He looked around. --where toolkit--

Vuxten shook his head. "Not you. Call the Chief Maintenance Officer for 428th, tell him to check the security feeds from last night, find out who did it, then have them help him reset the nanoforges," he said. He sighed. "We give orders now, buddy."

--sucks-- 471 said.

Vuxten nodded. "Yeah, it does," he said. He turned and looked out the window at the pristine lawn and the street beyond.

An infantry company of Tukna'rn slowly went by, jogging along on a fitness run. They were all dark green from exertion. Vuxten watched them as they went by, slightly jealous of them.

His terminal beeped and he swung back around, checking his messages.

The Maintenance Section NCOIC had sent in a request for more warsteel fabrication. His OIC had approved it, it had gone to his battalion's S4, who had approved it and sent it up to Vuxten. He frowned. It was the temporary limit waiver that had been passed to him. He checked the clock. 1532 Hours. He checked the request. Since 0800 they had requested nearly eleven tons of warsteel fabrication outside of standard uniform specs.

He opened a window and checked the nanoforges for what they were printing out and just stared.

Warsteel skulls. Separation walls. Candelabras. Scroll dowels and caps. Floor tile.

There was also nanoforge printing of candles of various thickness, color, and composition. Vellum scrolls as well as datascrolls. Tassels. Wall hangings with oddly embroidered stitching.

Vuxten frowned.

What the hell are they doing? he wondered.

The problem was, the new request put them over the 10 ton overprint waiver that he could authorize. Which meant he needed to send a message to the Regimental S4. He sighed, checked the list, and found the duty message link as well as the S4 priority link for a Major Jerklift. He fired off a quick message.

He then fired off a message to one Chief Warrant Officer Two Hel.grak, the 138th Maintenance Battalion's Chief Maintenance Officer, requesting a reason for the request for a warsteel printing limit waiver as well as a request for a reason that the 'esoteric items' had been printed out.

At that, he started to get up to get himself a cup of stim, then remembered that he hadn't gotten any caff grounds or remplut puffs or anything like that to run through the stimbrewer. He sighed, pulled open the drawer, and got out a can of fizzystim, cracking it open.

"Why do they have a limit on what the nanoforges can print out? They've got the mass tanks, the mass grinders. It isn't like we're having each part manufactured in some ultra-expensive high end factory," Vuxten asked, looking at 471.

--dunno probably dumb-- 471 answered.

Curious, he called Colonel Ashwarkek, who was a floor up and more toward the center of the building.

His S4 office was on the ground floor at the far end of the building, past the decon units and the storage lockers, all the way at the other side from the cantina and vending machines.

The Colonel's secretary put him through to her.

"What's the problem, Major?" Colonel Ashwarkek asked. To be honest, she was surprised that this was the first time the Major had called her. He'd been at work a week and usually officers new to a position like S4 called constantly for every little thing.

"Ma'am, 471 and I have a question," Vuxten said.

"Fire your powder, Major," the Colonel said.

"Why do the nanoforges and creation engines have limits on the amount of material that can be printed out? Even something as simple as hydraulic fluid is limited by weight and volume," he asked.

The Colonel was silent for a long moment. "Hang on, I'll send you something that will explain. This was done after a Brigade S4 just found it easier to remove the nanoforge template replication limit than authorize it every twenty printings," she said.

Vuxten saw his messenger ping and opened the window.

It was a picture of a pair of Tukna'rn and a Hikken sitting in a big pile of what he recognized as reflective physical training belts, normally worn by troops in garrison to make sure they were easily visible since a lot of PT took place before dawn. The caption was "At Last: Full Visibility".

Vuxten just shook his head.

"Do you get it?" the Colonel asked.

"They printed out a couple hundred belts just for a joke," Vuxten said. "I get it. If it was a more difficult, time, energy, or more mass intensive item it could run through a lot of slush and drain the power grid unnecessarily."

"Good. Anything else, Major?" the Colonel asked.

"No, ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am," Vuxten said. He looked at 471, who was flashing annoyed emojis.

The Colonel just cut the call.

Vuxten hung up and put his head in his hands. When he looked up, he turned around in the chair.

Another Tukna'rn infantry company was running by.

Vuxten noted that every single one of them were wearing their reflective safety belt.

Vuxten gave a low groan and put his head in his hands again.

His terminal beeped and he turned around and looked. Another request from 138th Maintenance Battalion's Third Shop. This time for a refresh on the allowance for RGB LED spraypaint. He reached for the accept key and frowned.

What did they go through fifteen gallons already on? he wondered. He put his head in his hands and sighed as two more battalions requested more template increases or counter refreshes.

His terminal gave a priority beep and he looked up.

His terminal was flashing that he had a reply from Chief Hel.grak.

Vuxten opened it, half expecting it to be a quick message that was extremely vague about why such items were needed.

Instead, there was a picture of one of the armor maintenance rows. The gantries were all festooned with vellum ribbons with spidery writing on them, there were candelabras with burning candles sitting on warsteel skulls, banners with what looked like old unit insignias.

That wasn't what caught his eye at first.

The armor in the center.

Big. Bulky. Armed to the teeth with a heavy gun in storage position.

"471, did you know Lozen's in 138th Third Shop?" he asked as the camera zoomed on several figures in robes kneeling in front of the armor, extended scrolls in their hands, with another robed figure swinging what looked like an incense brazier behind them. He paused the video and looked up.

--Lozen where Lozen-- 471 asked. He ran and jumped off the desk, fluttering his wings so that he was able to land on Vuxten's desk. Vuxten waited until 471 was next to him before resuming the video.

The video shifted and Vuxten felt his jaw fall open in shock.

Purple smoke was wafting away, revealing that someone had painted an ornate rune filled circle in the tarmac in front of the Third Shop Primary Maintenance Bay.

It wasn't the circle that got the attention.

A massive Telkan Warbound stood in the circle, the purple smoke disappating. Its armor plates were scorched, pocked, and warped in places. One leg gave off a steady hiss of steam and the dual barreled rotary autocannon had a cracked barrel. Thin wisps of black smoke were eeking from the primary hull and it was missing a toe on the right foot.

Vuxten recognized the symbol on the chest.

KAPPA

It stomped forward, pausing for a moment in front of the four robed figures that hustled out in front of it.

Vuxten noticed they had omnitools in one hand and scanners in the other. After a moment they led it deeper into the bay, where there was an empty maintenance spot. The big Warbound backed into the space and Vuxten could see it drop down to standby readiness mode. Robed figures moved up, affixing strips of ribbon and vellum with wax or mag-tacks or 100 MPH tape. Banners were unfurled, showing the various campaigns and units that Kappa had fought as part of. The candles on the skulls were lit, and two robed figures moved around the massive war machine, swinging a brazier. Another came forward, a heavy book in their hands held up by a grav-lift pod.

The Book of Telkan.

Two robed figures moved up and the maintenance ports popped open. The two figures hooked heavy diagnostic cables into the ports and moved back, making slow signs with their hands.

The video ended.

Vuxten rewound the video and watched.

He recognized that kind of smoke.

Deadspace.

Somehow, combat damaged Warbound were using Deadspace to reach 138th's Third Shop. More than that, Vuxten had spotted a half dozen Crusade Warbound in the maintenance bays.

"Why me?" Vuxten asked, putting his face in his hands.

471 just patted his shoulder.

--there there--

-----

Colonel Ashwarkek walked down the middle of the Third Shop Primary Maintenance Bay, her hands clasped behind her, leaning forward slightly, as she looked to her right and left. Behind her was Major Vuxten, on her left, and Chief Warrant Officer Two Hel.grak, on her right, both of them silent as she headed toward the rear doors, which were now open.

She walked past heavy Imperium of Rage relics, Dark Crusade of Light armors, a suit of Ringbreaker armor, even a Lanaktallan Heavy Combat Cybernetic Chassis. She merely looked at each of them, her eyes passing over them a single time, before she was past and looking at another.

At each station, soldiers and Marines of 138th Maintenance Battalion knelt down on one knee, hidden by the robes they wore that all had sheer cloth over the faces, a one-way visual trick to make them all faceless.

To be honest, she disapproved of such things. She had an advanced PhD in military history, she knew what allowing religion to infect the ranks in an institutional way could do.

But there was enough self-aware hardware in the shop to rip a planet apart.

And the religious trappings kept the hardware calm, kept it from arguing with one another, kept them docile enough to perform high level maintenance on them.

She had seen an Imperium of Wrath Warbound getting its thorium salt fusion reactor replaced. The reactor was so old it still used blue-white laser stimulation for the thorium salt. She'd seen obsolete weapons had been pulled off and the mounts either replaced or reconfigured for modern weaponry, or the older weaponry repaired while the mount was cleaned.

One massive Imperium Warbound had been cleaned, hosed down with high pressure, to reveal that it was not black afterall. Centuries of carbon scoring had covered the white, gold, and crimson paint in thick millimeters of carbon that had been heated to the point that it was closer to diamond that carbon powder.

The Warbound's color scheme showed that it had been stationed on Mars itself.

When they reached outside Colonel Ashwarkek took a deep breath of the clean air several times, pushing the cloying smoke the incense braziers out of her lungs. She stood there, silently, watching the sun set on the horizon.

"That was... edifying," she said softly.

"Now you understand why I've been requesting production waivers all week," Chief Hel.grak said.

"Indeed, I do, Chief," Colonel Ashwarkek said. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, then stared at the setting sun again. "They're coming in from all over the front?"

"Yes. Once they're repaired, they march back out and vanish in a cloud of purple smoke," he said.

Colonel Ashwarkek nodded slowly. "Make sure you annotate every unit, every single resource used for repair," she said. "Make sure your people get time to go to Mental Health, this has to be stressful."

The Chief nodded. "I've ensured after every four shifts they get a shift dedicated to mental health care as well as recreation activities."

"How are the stress metrics?" she asked.

"Subsiding. Over the last two days more and more of the mechanics and technicians are just looking at what they are doing as routine," the Chief said.

"Even the most fantastical can become routine once someone is exposed to it long enough," Colonel Ashwarkek said, her voice quiet. She turned to Major Vuxten. "Make sure that it gets out. All Third Shop for standard conventional systems will be sent to the other battalions for the time being."

"Yes, Ma'am," Vuxten said.

Colonel Ashwarkek stared at the sun as it slipped below the horizon.

"It's a weird war."