First Contact

Vuxten stared for a long moment at the Terran as he turned and faced Vuxten, still holding onto the macroplas window. The other privates looked over, two went to attention and started to salute and a third stopped them since the motorpool was a 'no-identification' area, meaning that salutes and attention were frowned upon. It was training to keep an officer from being saluted or otherwise identified and then eating an enemy sniper round.

It taught the privates to know the difference between different areas.

"Afternoon, Major," Casey said, flashing a grin. "Just walking the privates through some different PMCS steps that can be difficult."

Vuxten just nodded.

He watched as the window was attached, Casey went over it with the private, then had it removed and had another private start again.

"Not bad. Only three cracked windows," Casey said. He pointed at the discarded macroplas. "Take those down to the grinder and toss them in, then go find Sergeant Terprat."

The privates nodded and hurried away, carrying the macroplas with them.

There was silence for a long moment.

"You're looking well, Lance Corporal," Vuxten said carefully.

Casey nodded, moving over and sitting down on the bumper of one of the LCUV. "Been a long few months, Major, but the Crusade, well, they took care of me."

"How's Peel?" Vuxten asked.

"Maternity leave. We have a little place in Frikliki Housing Area, down on the south side of post," Casey said. "She and the baby are doing well. The boys are with the Crusade, heading home."

"Heading home?" Vuxten asked, pulling down the tailgate on one of the utility trucks, the hinge screeching, and sitting down.

"Back to Tabula. The Crusade is going to clear it, toss out a Singer in the Dark beacon and see if they can get it restored. If not, well, the Crusade has singers of their own," Casey said.

"Last time I saw you..." Vuxten let the words trail off.

Casey rubbed his forearm. "Yeah, I was in a bad way. Lozen," his face made a slight grimace, "lost her shit and did a number on me."

"I saw you in the hospital before they transferred you. It didn't look good," Vuxten said.

Casey nodded. "Loss of 95% of my epidermis, warsteel nanite fiber intrusion on all my major organs, partial bone marrow replacement," he shook his head. "Should have been dead, but the Crusade, well, let's just say they hold secrets the rest of the universe should be glad are hidden away."

Casey looked up. "There were days I thought I was going to die, hell, days I wanted to die, but the pain just went on and on," he looked at Vuxten and gave a grin. "The Crusade's not big on pain killers."

Vuxten snorted. "Why dost thou wish to avoid the embrace of the glory of the pain our mother, the malevolent universe, seeks to gift thee with to allow thou to know thou art the most beloved and thou are the most alive thy hast ever been?" Vuxten said, pitching his voice low and gravelly. "Embrace the pain and give thanks for it as the gift it truly is."

Casey laughed. "You sound almost exactly like the doctor during my marrow reconstruction," he said. His face got serious. "Peel had to argue them out of making me into a Warbound."

Vuxten lifted and eyebrow. "You were that bad?"

Casey nodded. "Pretty bad. Peel reminded them that I carry Ringbreaker creation engine templates impressed on my DNA and that if they made me a Warbound the problem might start all over again."

"That would be bad," Vuxten said.

Casey nodded again. "Very bad, sir," he said, grinning afterwards. He looked around, then back at Vuxten. "How are you? Last I saw you, the medics were hauling you off with huge stripes ripped out of your fur."

Vuxten rubbed his left forearm. "The nerve replacements still ache and tingle sometimes," he looked around. "Sometimes I have nightmares that either Lozen is coming to get me, or that Aki is doing to me what Lozen did to you."

"You named your armor after your sister, didn't you?" Casey asked.

"Yeah. Aki'mi'hehrt. My baby sister," Vuxten laughed. "I was the runt podling of my litter, she was the runt of hers," he sighed. "She was killed during Second Telkan. Dwellerspawn got her, we only knew because of the video."

"Ouch, rough," Casey said. "Sorry."

Vuxten rubbed his forearm again. "Thanks," he looked around. "So, you back with the Telkan Marine Corps again?"

Casey nodded. "Crusade dropped me off. Went through medical checks, got put with 21st Replacement, they saw I was TDY to the Crusade and then on Temporary Disabled Retirement Listing, and just decided to put me back in the Telkan Marines," he shrugged. "They're busier than a one legged man at an ass kicking contest over there at 21st."

Vuxten grinned at the mental image. "Glad to hear you passed your medical checks. So, no board?"

Casey shook his head. "Naw. No medical board for me, sir," he laughed. "I had to go through some pretty invasive medical checks before they'd let me go from the hospital though. Wanted to make sure the Crusade didn't shove an atomic in my ass or something."

"Well, at least they know not to run a full genescan on you now," Vuxten said.

"How do you know they didn't, sir?" Casey asked.

"The hospital didn't melt down and Lozen didn't crawl out of a couple of nanoforges," Vuxten grinned. He saw movement and looked over to see a private hesitantly approaching. "You got an issue."

Casey looked around, sighed and shook his head, then waved the private over. "What happened?"

"Um, well, Lance Corporal, the... um.. the thing, you know," she leaned forward. "The thing, on the thing, you know? It did that thing you told us to watch out for when we use the thing."

Casey sighed. "All right," he stood up and brushed his hands off on his pantlegs. "Wanna come along, sir?"

Vuxten shook his head. "No. Carry on Lance Corporal."

"Sir," Casey said, nodding. He turned to the private. "All right, tell me what happened before we get there so I can figure out how to get it under control."

"Well, a few of us were doing PMCS on the thing, and we used one of the thing," the private started to say.

"I need a bit more detail than..." Casey's voice was lost in the sounds of a busy motorpool.

Vuxten looked up at the sky, then around.

For a long moment it was still. The sounds comforting and familiar. Voices nearby but nobody visible. The sounds of tools and hard work.

But a moment like that doesn't last forever, and a Sergeant popped around the corner.

"Chief needs your help, sir," the Sergeant said.

Vuxten gave a long suffering sigh and stood up. "What's the Chief need."

"One of the things malfunctioned, now we've got two Warbound with the exact same chassis stencils and they're on the edge of going toe to toe over whose the one who gets those tats," the Sergeant said. "Some of the other Warbound woke up and are arguing with them."

Vuxten lengthened his stride. "We better get in there before it gets to fighting."

-----

Vuxten watched as the telltales changed color to show that the last of the Warbound had calmed down and re-entered what everyone called 'slumber'.

That made him snort. He's seen what went on. They weren't actually asleep, they were just in extremely limited VR, watching old holodramas, playing games, hanging out in virtual chat rooms and talking to each other, and, of course, watching pornographic videos.

He turned and walked over to a bench, sitting down and blinking to bring up his context menu.

The meme channel was still low bandwidth and low rez, but he was able to put the meme together quickly and toss it into the Brigade social media stream. He watched to make sure it uploaded then set to making the second one he had thought up while making the first and toss it in too.

A quick glance of the social media feed showed that people had high engagement, good morale, and no real complaints beyond the standard garrison complaints.

His meme popped up and he laughed at his own joke.

It was a single panel meme of a Warbound in an aggressive posture, leaning forward, weapons live. At the top in bold impact it read "DO NOT DISTURB MY ANCIENT SLUMBER" and at the bottom in small letters it read "The K'Nank Moo Moo Tender Power Hour eighteen day marathon is on."

It was getting lots of laughter emojis, upvotes, and hearts.

The second one popped up.

A simple two panel top and bottom format meme. At the top it was a warbound engaged in combat.

"I AM A EONS OLD ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION!"

at the bottom was a drawing of a scantily clad male Terran with high muscle definition, laying on cushions and eating candy while typing on a keyboard. The clothing and cushions matched the coloration and pattern of the Warbound in the top picture.

"Just Warbound Things..." was on the bottom.

A few "best girl war... best girl war never changes" memes tossed out.

Another made him laugh out loud as he opened a fizzybrew that a Warrant Officer Grade One handed him as the Rigellian female walked by.

It was two rows of three pictures. The first five were all of the same Warbound just wrecking everything around it. Firing missiles, raking the enemy with its autocannon, spewing flame across Dwellerspawn.

How the Enemy Sees Him. How the Press Sees Him. How Command Sees Him. was on the top. How We See Him. How Civilians See Him! were the first two of the bottom row.

The last one was of a waifish Terran girl with pale skin and long white hair, dressed only in strips of gauzy white cloth, dancing and twirling, surrounded by glitter and rainbows, throwing out handfuls of sparkles from her hands as she danced.

"How His Fellow Warbound See Him."

That one was getting a ton of good engagement. Vuxten looked around the maintenance bay and spotted the Warbound that was the subject of the meme. An old Crusade Warbound, across from another one with the same heraldry markings but a different hull number.

Vuxten realized, without knowing quite how, that the Warbound opposite of the meme's subject had made the meme using old battlefield footage to good-naturedly tease the subject of the meme.

A private came up with a dataslate of requests that had to be signed off on. Vuxten gave them a once-over with an experienced eye and saw that only two were suspicious. He tagged those to be watched by the system, then authorized them all.

Vuxten got up, tossing the empty fizzybrew can into the garbage and then wandered around the motorpool.

He helped a few troops correct defects, helped ground-guide a crane putting a new fusion engine in one of the big Juggernauts, then watched as everyone streamed out of the motorpool and across the street to the parking lot or just hung a right to walk down the street and head back to the barracks that was only a little over 2 miles away.

He'd gauged the troop's mood over the day, listening here and there, lurking a lot, and watching the social media stream.

It was improving.

There was less and less troops feeling like the medical boards were just there to put out people at random, or to get rid of problem people.

He didn't like the rumor that was going around.

That the boards were putting out troops with a high level of awards or combat experience to make sure that the new blood had a 'fair chance at promotions and assignments'.

That could turn into a problem real quick.

He tabbed a note to himself and dropped it in his own datalink to remind him to see if he could get a list of the troops who were being medically boarded out so he could check the award and deployment listing against the long term injuries.

Vuxten did a slow check of the motorpool. The only troops behind were the night shift in the maintenance bay, the tool van, and the parts shed.

He made his way to the gate, saluted the gate guards back, and stood on the sidewalk for a long moment. He saw Bit.nek sitting on the hood of the groundcar, reading a glossy covered still-image magazine with a Treana'ad smokestick in his mouth and a fizzystim in his other hand.

He crossed the street, walking up to the private, and shook his head when Bit.nek looked up.

"It's a nice night. I'm going to walk back. Go ahead and take the night off," Vuxten said. "Be at lunch formation. Try to get some sleep and not wake up in a jail cell."

"No promises, sir," Bit.nek said, jumping off the hood. "471 already headed to the greenie barracks about a half hour ago with some of his buddies. Some kind of e-sports competition."

Vuxten nodded. "All right."

"Goodnight, Major," Bit.nek said, moving over to the driver's side door. He paused. "Sir, I know you're married and everything..."

"Yes?" Vuxten asked after there was a second or two of silence.

"Well, Big Mike and Cathy figured maybe you'd like an invitation to go with us to the strip club tonight," Bit.nek said, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Thanks anyway, Private," Vuxten said. He reached into his wallet and pulled out one of the blue inked fifty credit military script bills and handed it to Bit.nek. "You three get a couple dances on me."

"Thanks, sir!" Bit.nek said, brightening up. He slid behind the wheel and fired up the vehicle. "See you tomorrow."

Vuxten nodded and turned away, walking toward the barracks and the chow hall.

It had been a good day.