First Contact

Chapter 770: The Inheritor's War

I took part in terrible things.

I regret nothing we did.- Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

The round hit hard enough to collapse the battlescreen, throwing a shower of sparks away from the hull of the tank as the screen's last ditch effort was to redirect the liberated energies in a 'safe' direction.

Sma'akamo'o gritted his teeth, his feeding tendrils curled tightly next to his mouth, and kicked the lever to swivel the TC's mount to the right. The smart-sight was gone, lost during the last ninety-six hours of Operation Iron Piglet. He'd stuck a ration tin to the post where the sight had been and ran two lines of quikweld. The TC's mount whined as it turned slowly and Sma'akamo'o wished, not for the first time and probably not for the last time, that he had the strength of a lemur or at least cybernetic arms.

The crosshairs lined up as another round hit the side of the tank, making a loud WHANGing noise and fluttering off into the sky, leaving behind a bright streak as the air fluoresced. The AAWM was turning, its forward guns fixed for gross adjustments and the tracked behemoth Sma'akamo'o commanded too fast for it to rely on the aiming gears.

Sma'akamo'o held down the butterfly trigger on his mounted quadbarrel. The tracers connected the gun's barrel to the AAWM. For a moment there was nothing but white flashes from the ammo hitting, then the AAWM's battlescreen collapsed and Sma'akamo'o was putting rounds across its front glacis.

A round from 1-1-238 hit it dead center and blew a hole clear through it that a Treana'ad infantry squad could have ran through. Molten metal and shattered internals gouted out in a fan from the side of the AAWM.

Sma'akamo'o ran through the rest of the belt, less than fifty rounds, ripping at the forward guns, just in case. He reloaded fast, his hands having become very familiar with the process since the Unified Military Council had declared war on the Mad Lemurs of Terra even as the Precursor Autonomous War Machines had been burning systems.

Now, five, almost six years later he led what had been defectors and were now an official part of the Confederate Armed Services (Army).

The Atomic Hooves.

A four hundred thousand tank strong armored division with two additional divisions entirely dedicated to support. From bandages to fuel to close air support and medivac, the other two divisions made it so that Sma'akamo'o and his men could fight for days at a time, only stopping when the stims ran out and they had to sleep.

Sma'akamo'o admitted he might have overdone it on the stims, he could taste tengelberries on the back of his tongue and there was a light shimmer on the edge of his vision.

But the Atomic Hooves had the Atrekan Autonomous War Machines on the ropes. The Atrekna were able to bring through less and less reinforcements and it was starting to show as the AAWM lines became ragged, thin, and couldn't repulse the Atomic Hoove's firepower and maneuvering.

Another AAWM tried to line up a shot, but Sma'akamo'o's driver just ran the 150 tonne war machine over, crushing and grinding it beneath the treads of the kiloton warbeast.

You were created by brain suckers from beyond space and time, my tank was created by the Mad Lemurs of Terra from beyond the grave, Sma'akamo'o snorted as he slapped down the feed tray and yanked the lever three times to load the quadbarrel.

He spit over the side, a bad habit he'd picked up from a fellow tanker, tobacco juice arcing just in time to hit the battlescreen as new projectors were rotated up out of the stocks.

It's good to be me, he thought.

-----

"Get on the flanks!" Ekret yelled over his headset.

Slippery feathered the fans, dragging one of the heavy fans into the dirt, which yanked the tank around violently enough that Ekret's rib cage slammed against the side of the TC's ringmount hard enough that if Ekret hadn't been wearing his armor it would have cracked his chest rings.

The strange crystalline structure, all fairy-tale castle on top and a round half-sphere for the bottom, tried to get some distance between Ekret and the rest of HHC Company of First Recon. It was launching strange crystalline winged shapes that darted away on nimbuses of phasic energy. The castle was making for the treeline of thousand foot high trees with trunks nearly as thick at the base.

"MI says they don't know what it is. Probably something new," Ekret's radioman yelled.

"Gee, ya think?" Ekret yelled.

The purple of phasic energy was wrapped around a bright red core as the beam, easily 200mm wide, whipped by the tank and shattered trees for nearly a half mile before the end of the beam detonated.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheapshot yelled from inside.

The barrel of the tank roared, the big 155m gun making the hovertank lift slightly even with all the recoil suppression. A line connected the front of Ekret's tank and the crystalline palace for a second.

Thick phasic battlescreens flared up, blocking even sight, and the round detonated.

"NEGATIVE HIT!" Cheapshot yelled as the autoloader whined.

HHC-11 fired its gun and the shields flared again.

The bottom of the floating castle flashed and a dozen heavy AAWM appeared, dropping from inside the half-orb.

"I think they're gating them in from inside that thing!" Ekret yelled over the headset. "That's how they're doing it. Mobile TZ's!"

Another shot went wide, but close enough to cause the battlescreen on Ekret's tank to flare for a split second.

"Whatever it is, they hate us!" Slippery yelled back.

In his combat engineer's armor, 453 climbed out of the hatch, standing on the edge of the ring mount, holding up a pair of macrobinoculars to his eyes.

Ekret could hear the engineer channel chirping rapidly.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheapshot yelled. "SWITCHING LOADS!"

The round hit and the purple phasic shield flared again.

The AAWM got past the shield.

But HHC had gotten time to maneuver and the guns from the other tanks of Headquarter's Company hammered them into junk in less than 60 seconds. They got off a few shots, but nothing that penetrated the battlescreens of the scout tanks of First Recon.

453 suddenly reached out and tapped Ekret's wrist.

--recompute munitions loadout-- appeared on Ekret's visor. --forward to all units-- There was a blink of a file load afterwards.

"ALL UNITS! BATTLE BUDDY UPDATE!" Ekret yelled out, forwarding it to his commo officer, confident his crewman would forward it to the other tanks.

--hold until vehicle launch to target superstructure hold till aawm drop to target lower sphere-- 543 transmitted, then dropped back into the tank.

Ekret felt the little Mantid climb over his boot.

"Keep moving!" Ekret called out, knowing the order was largely unnecessary.

The floating castle was still trying to get away and for a moment Ekret felt a sinking feeling when two more crashed out of the huge trees, already firing.

One beam hit HHC-1-19 square, the battlescreen flaring outward in a shower of sparks even as the coherent energy stopped the hovertank in its tracks, the back lifting up.

1-19 slipped to the side, bobbling, and even though the warsteel was scarred and pitted and smoking Ekret didn't see any armor blowthrough.

A pair of fliers glowed as the crystalline filaments lifted them up on the deck. They lifted slightly and the launcher strip glowed purple.

Twelve tanks of HHC opened fire at the same time, the heavy rounds slamming into the crystalline structure. Whole chunks were blown out of the fairy-tale fortresses. Ramps, arched catwalks, shimmering tubes, graceful towers, all were shattered by the guns of the recon tanks as they slid on their hoverfans, maneuvering for the best shots.

Ekret tapped his datalink mentally, shooting the results to his commo officer with the order to relay the findings to the nearest military intelligence analysis unit.

The crystalline structure began cracking, sides of the fortress collapsing. Something exploded with a spray of purple sparks and flames.

More rounds hit the castle.

The sections opened in the bottom to drop more AAWM onto the field.

A third of the tanks with clear shots opened up on the smooth half-orb of the bottom.

Ekret raised his eyetufts at the instant confirmation that the bottom was completely lacking in armor.

The holes punched deep, the gold of chronotron cascades and the purple fire of phasic constructs exploding out of the holes.

The massive floating fortress crashed to the ground, crushing the AAWM's they had just deposited.

Someone hit it with a 35kt directed armor defeating shot and half of the fortress exploded away from the backside.

"We can kill them, get on the others!" Ekret ordered.

The tanks of HHC 1-1 shifted rapidly, getting into a staggered firing line, pouring the firepower into the newly arrived fortresses.

Ektret could almost taste the Atrekna's dismay as what Ekret figured they thought was an undefeatable fortress suddenly came under heavy assault.

You can't launch attack vehicles to attack us, you can't run away from us, you can't catch us. All you can do is hide behind your shields and I will find a way over, under, around or through those shields, Ekret thought, chewing on the end of the empty ration tube as he leaned back, taking his fingers from the triggers of the TC's gun.

Every adaption you do we will adapt to, Ekret thought. You have proven to us that as long as you exist we cannot hope to survive.

-----

When he had been a colt he had loved to run. In the parks, down the streets, to feel his hooves pound against grass or pavement, feel the wind whipping through his hide and his hair. He would lean his upper torso into it, all four of his arms pumping, as he ran as fast as he could.

When he became older, he was no longer allowed to run outside of scholastic events such as physical fitness class. Running was frowned upon for adolescents and adults, something only the fearful or the impulse control impaired performed.

But he was running now.

He was surrounded by his men, in full armor. He had a pair of quad-barrel electric motor driven miniguns on his lower back, a set of mortar launchers on his back hips, and a backpack that contained electronic warfare countermeasures. On his shoulders were a rocket launcher and a grenade launcher.

He and his men ran across the plain, their hooves thudding against the ground in perfect time.

Nearly a thousand Lanaktallan charged across the plains, their guns firing, raking and pounding the enemy.

Not quite just Lanaktallan.

Captain Cyba'armo'o and his men were more Lanaktallan than Lanaktallan.

Rebuilt time and time again after terrible injuries, their bodies had been replaced with the finest cybernetic and bioware the Terran Confederate Armed Services could provide. His lungs were a complex oxygen exchanger system coupled to enhanced bioware lung tissue. His throat was a highly efficient atmospheric scrubber. His legs were driven by pistons, gears, flatware motors, pulleys, and high pressure hydraulics.

His eyes could see everything. All six eyes replaced with cyberware that could see across multiple spectrum. His ears heard all, even high frequency transmissions and the lowest bass sound. His arms were strong, cybernetic limbs attached to bioware muscle and a warsteel skeletal structure.

He was half again as tall as biological Lanaktallan. He was longer, thicker, and made from warsteel and bio-mechanical genetically engineered tissue.

He was more Lanaktallan than Lanaktallan.

He was the first of the Warsteel Herd.

The Atrekna servitors were ahead, creatures that were a half-meter again taller than his two meter height. They had two arms, two legs, a single head. They wore heavy overlapping plates of crude, barely refined warsteel that was dull in comparison to the glossy black shine of Captain Cyba'armo'o and his men's warsteel armor plating. Beneath their armor they had scales, like a snake, with mottled patterns and winding stripes. They had four eyes and a mouth full of blunt teeth.

The servitors were firing their weapons.

Small arms, from pistols to carbines to battle rifles.

Crew served weaponry, from light and heavy machineguns to a plasma cannon.

Captain Cyba'armo'o took a plasma cannon hit to his chest and charged through it, the exhilaration of running at top speed still filling him. The hit didn't even mar his armor, his heat ticked up less than a tenth of a percentage point and dropped right back down.

The missile Captain Cyba'armo'o fired back dropped low, barely a foot off the ground, whipping around obstacles, to reach the crew served plasma cannon emplacement. It suddenly arced up, rotated on the grav-system, and detonated.

It used the explosion to fire a warsteel penetrator straight down. The penetrator sliced straight through the weak overhead cover and the charge at the rear of the round went off.

The emplacement exploded as Captain Cyba'armo'o and his men raced across the No Man's Land.

An unspoken command and Cyba'armo'o and his men raised their rifles to port arms, pressing the switch on the side.

A two foot long vibroblade popped out and the ear-piercing screech of the vibroblade going live filled the air with an unearthly howl as a thousand vibroblades were activated.

The firing was now sporadic and Captain Cyba'armo'o could taste desperation in the defender's fire.

It didn't matter.

They were the enemy.

Leaping over the berm Captain Cyba'armo'o landed in the trench, his rifle held in three hands, just like training, a pistol in his fourth. A shot to the side killed a running servitor. He bayoneted one, pulling the trigger to blow them off the howling blade, then turned and kicked a servitor that was charging with an axe. His kick was driven by hydraulics and pistons and the servitor sailed up and out of the trenchwork, a crumpled ball.

His men started landing around him, firing their battle rifles and pistols.

Captain Cyba'armo'o saw a servitor lunge for the communication's equipment and he shot the servitor three times with the pistol, running forward. He stopped and looked it over quickly.

A standard Atrekna dataport.

Captain Cyba'armo'o felt his phasic coprocessors come online as he stuck his finger in the port and the jack went through multiple configurations until it found the right one.

The password was laughable. Static single entry, nine characters.

He downloaded the data even as he kept up the fire, using two hands on his battle rifle.

The servitors were breaking, trying to run away as Captain Cyba'armo'o's men rampaged through the trenches. Several of his men had their Cutting Bar Mark-2s out, two per troop, swinging them two handed as they laid into the servitors crowding them with axes that did little but shower sparks upon impact.

A grenade landed next to him and went off, showering dust around him but little else.

Captain Cyba'armo'o pulled his finger free and put four shots into the radio. The design had already been captured multiple time across multiple battlefields and would provide no advantage. Eliminating it would hamper and communication relay, as the Atrekna forces could only use the same narrow FM band as the Confederate troops.

A servitor officer, obvious by the decorations on his armor, tried to run, firing behind him with a pistol as he ran in panic.

Captain Cyba'armo'o had always loved to run.

The servitor officer was the enemy.

And even if he was tired...

...the enemy only existed to be destroyed.