First Contact

Chapter 446

General of the Copper (1-Star) P'Kank had been in charge of the 3283rd Infantry Horde less than twenty-four hours before, largely tasked with defending the eastern flank of the capital city of Hesstla.

Now he was in charge of the whole damn planet.

The big Treana'ad warrior turned slowly, shuffling his feet, and he nervously puffed on a cigarette. The damage from three Enraged humans attacking each other was largely repaired, just slagged and carbonized pathways on some of the walls from where one of them had thrown lighting at everything that had caught his attention and ire.

His command staff, if you could call it that, consisted of almost every species in the Terran Confederacy, barring the Terrans themselves. There was exactly zero Terrans in the command center, as the highest ranking Terran on the planet still alive was the Mosizlak of the Hesstlan Diplomatic Liaison Team and he wasn't exactly an officer.

The Atrekna were engaged with Space Force across the system, huge ships larger than even a Goliath Class Harvester were going toe to toe with the major capital ships of 52nd Task Force. For the first few hours everything had been under control, with the heavy guns of the 52nd destroying Atrekna ships as they made translation to real space inside the resonance zone.

Then the ships started going dead, no longer responding to communications.

Then the Terrans groundside started dropping dead.

P'Kank breathed a sigh of relief as he dropped the cigarette but in the disposal and lit another one. Thankfully, Terran Confederate Military regulations stated that at least 35% of all ship crews not on special duty were to be non-Terran officers, enlisted, and crewmen.

The Atrekna had ignored the Terran ships long enough for the TCM to regain control of the ships.

In the meantime, the Atrekna had started making landfall and P'Kank had been forced to take the lives of several longtime friends as they succumbed to Enragement.

Finally, P'Kank turned and looked at the gathered members of his 'command staff.'

"How bad is it?" P'Kank asked.

A Rigellian stood up, her right arm marked with paler skin from a lightning graze that had been quikhealed. "It's bad. As you know the Terran Confederate Military is largely made up of humans. Roughly eighty-five percent, some units are entirely Terran Descent Human."

P'Kank exhaled smoke around his feet. "So we've taken 85% casualties before the enemy even made landfall in strength?"

The Rigellian nodded. "Eighty-three point six two two, to be exact," she said. "With the cloning banks and the SUDS relay out, we can't rely on clone forces either."

P'Kank frowned, tapping his antenna together. "What happened there, do we know?"

The Rigellian sat down as P'Kank looked over the other officers. A gold mantid stood up, nearly thirty little green mantids behind her.

"Security charges. The operating system for the cloning banks, fast growth, medical, and standard tanks followed their programming and melted down the systems," she said.

"Why?" P'Kank asked.

The gold mantid turned and looked at the greens, who were all flashing icons and mathematical formula. After nearly a minute she turned back.

"The cloning bank operating systems have, when combined, three hundred billion lines of code, much of the backbone written in extremely secure proprietary language. The backbone doesn't even use modern quantum computing but rather binary and hexidemical," she said.

"All right. So what happened?" P'Kank asked.

Chief Warrant Officer Four I Understood That turned back the green mantids, then back to P'Kank.

"After several hours of examination, they believe they have not only isolated the systems that ordered the meltdown, but the 'coding age' of the programming, as well as why it melted down," she said. She took a deep breath. "The systems that ordered the meltdown were the cerebral tissue generators. The coding looks like original programming. You have to understand, just the original backbone programming, which is fundamentally unchanged since before the Second Clone War, is still billions of lines of code. The coding reacted to preprogrammed instructions by not only shorting out all the tissue generation systems but also by attacking the medical system's clone tissue databanks."

"But why?" A Rigellian Saurian asked, slapping his tail nervously on the floor. He fanned out his ears, then reached up and stroked them till the folded back against his head. "Why would the system self-destruction?"

Understood looked around. "At the same time as the Terrans began dying or becoming enraged, the tissue samples, including digital and holographic memory storage records, all altered to the same thing. That new structural design is what caused everything."

P'Kank turned as the holotank flickered and came up. One it were two different profiles. One of the previous commander of 28th Army, the other of a Combine Marine. Below them was a breakdown of the medical profile.

The Sublime of DNA moved forward, delicately walking up to the tank and climbing up on the provided ramp so that she could point at the holograms. The russet mantid was the Chief Medical Operations Officer, a General in her own right, but by the Terran Confederate Unified Code of Military Justice, she could not take any type of combat command.

She pointed at the deceased General's medical profile, bringing it up.

P'Kank noted with interest that it had two different medical scans.

"The General went through Preparation for Interplanetary Military Movement, PIMM, and had a full medical scan. That is here," the russet mantid said, tapping the scan on the left with one bladearm. She brought up the cerebral tissue scan and the neural electrochemical scan. "This is his brain scan, including a SUDS backup scan made six months ago," she tapped another box. "This is ten years ago. As you can see, he did suffer minor effects from what's being called Neural Archeobiological Reversion at that time, but it was easily correctable and fairly minor."

She turned and tapped the second one, immediately opening up the cerebral scan.

"This is his neural scan and SUDS backup scan at the time of his death," she said.

Several of the gathered staff murmured. They could see the differences, even though they were fairly slight.

"Cause of death was cybernetic implant rejection, implantation cascading error syndrome, implant induced aggressive auto-immune disorder, and neural scorching," she said.

P'Kank lit another cigarette. He had liked the General, who had mentored him at one point, and seeing his death scans made P'Kank aware of his own mortality.

She touched the other one. "This is Lancer Second Class Mateo Rojas, Combine Armored Infantry, from his Combine service records," She tapped the neural section and it expanded.

There was silence for a long moment.

"While they are not exact on a one by one comparison, they are structurally the same," she said. "In particular, these sections of the brain that are largely atrophied and suffer from calcification at roughly the age of seven in Terrans."

"What exactly does that control in the Terran body?" a Kelkark asked, nervously nibbling on the end of his tail. Major Freezik was nominally in charge of fuel logistics, pulled from the position of Executive Officer of a Sustainment Battalion.

"Now? Nothing too deep of note," Sublime said. "However, since the Sixth Precursor War started, more and more Terrans have begun suffering headaches, and this tissue, which had undergone calcification and gone dormant, has begun regenerating."

The russet mantid did a slow circle so she could face everyone.

"It's the Terran Phasic Response Lobe," she tapped it on all three scans. "As you can see, the General had the nominal regeneration common in those exposed to Precursor Type-Two 'screams' here," she tapped the first one, waited a moment and tapped the other one. "At the time of death, the full Terran Phasic Reponse Limbic System in charge of autonomic and endocrine reponses to phasic energy exposure, had appeared in his cerebral tissue at the same density, folding, and ridging," she tapped the neural scan for the Combine soldier. "as Lancer Rojas."

She turned and looked at P'Kank. "We believe, and have believed, for the last year, that there was an attack by the Atrekna against Terran Descent Humanity that altered their brain, in minor ways, in an attempt to 'gentle' TDH."

"So is this another attack?" P'Kank asked.

Sublime signaled both assent and negative. "It is, but the response isn't," she sighed. "At first, we believed in the initial two hours following the attack that the Atrekna had figured out a way past the temporal stabilization and dampener systems in use," she wiped away the scans. "We believe that this is the end result of the attack, which was interrupted here on Hesstla before it could be completed."

She opened up an image of the Atrekna, robed, slippered, standing on a disk of purple light. Below it was one of the massive ships that Space Force was engaged with.

"We believe, and Space Force concurs, that there was a massive phasic burst occurred from two of the capital ships before they blew up," she said. "There was no overload to the temporal stabilization systems."

She brought back up a Terran again. "It was the Enraged status of the survivors and a crosscheck by myself that provided the key," she turned and faced the command staff. "My primary field is biological counter-warfare, with a subspecialty in genetic warfare. One of the reasons I am in the field is due to the Lanaktallan history of 'gentling' through biowarfare. Which means, I was able to easily identify a few key things."

P'Kank watched with interest as she brought up several schematics.

"For your information, the majority of intelligent species in the Galactic Arm Spur use only a single multi-purpose cell for their immune system," she tossed up a quick picture of blood cells. "Terrans, on the other hand, have the most robust immune system in an intelligent species anyone has ever seen. Multiple immune system cell structures and types. Additionally, a signifigant part of their biology is dedicated to immune system response."

She highlighted two pieces of cyberware and a piece of bioware. "Terrans use three types of artificial immunosuppresants to keep their immune system from actually attacking non-Terran biospheres and biological entities. A blood filtering cybernetic, usually implanted into the femoral artery on the inside of the thigh. An immuno response inhibitor in the brain, and another multi-organ system that ensures that the Terran immune system only protects the Terran itself."

"Which led us to another problem. Terran bodies would aggressive attack cybernetic and bioware implants without the immune system suppressor," she highlighted another section, this time of the Combine soldier and the General's autopsy. "Here is the neural tissue dedicated to the immune system. It interacts with the Terran body's lymphatic system to help fend off diseases and remove waste."

She tapped another one, bringing up a picture of two nanofibers commonly used in cybernetics. "The Combine used a different type of nanofiber, mainly a synthetic system. Modern cybernetics and bioware use a biological nanofiber tailored to fool the immune system."

She turned and looked at the command staff again. "The Terran immune system is literally capable of degrading and attacking metal. The changed in the Terran brain removed the regulators on the Terran immune system and it immediately attacked their own implants."

"Additionally, it appears now, according to spot research, that the Terran immune system also contains a phasic response," she said.

"The Enraged Ones," P'Kank said.

"Exactly. An Enraged Terran is their immune system's response to foreign phasic and psychic attacks upon the body. In the same way as a Terran immune system will produce additional immune system cells and raise internal temperature to fight off an infection, they flood their body with phasic energy to counteract foreign phasic energy."

She was silent a moment. "The Atrekna did not precisely attack again. Imagine what the Atrekna did as an initial infection. The body's immune system starts to correct it, and the infection receives an additional boost in the form of more infected material. That would be what you could call a second attack, but was actually just re-energizing and revitalizing the first attack."

"And the Terran immune system went crazy," A Rigellian female said, tapping her leg with her long strong fingers.

"Correct. A Terran immune system that goes out of control will attack everything, including a Terran's bodily tissues, in the theory of 'scorched earth' to attempt to rid itself of the infection," Sublime agreed.

"So why did the SUDS and clone systems explode?" a Telkan asked from the back. He was the ranking Telkan officer of Third Telkan Marine Division.

Sublime waved at Understood, who moved up to the tank. "Because of this," she said, tapping the two neural scans she brought up. One of the Combine trooper, one of the General. "Notice that structurally, they are virtually identical."

"We got that," A Treana'ad Colonel said.

"Good. Now, follow," she brought up and brightened a box full of neural scans. "These are what we know of as Terran Descent Humans for nearly eight thousand years. Evolutionary micropressures have resulted in some changed, but not much. The cloning system and SUDS system use this cerebral tissue arrangement."

The green mantids flashed icons and formula for a moment before Understood nodded. "Now, stay with me. When the Atrekna attacked, the first one was basically the implosion charge of an atomic weapon. The second hit was the atomic explosion."

"We got that," A Skelmark officer said, ruffling his feathers.

"No, you don't," Understood said stiffly. "When the second charge hit, it turned all of the Terran cerebral tissue configurations into this," she tapped the Combine scan. "When that happened, the SUDS and the Cloning banks fired off security protocols, destroying the systems before any Terran could be rebuilt with that cerebral configuration."

"Additionally, Terran DNA underwent a massive mutation, changing their entire DNA," Sublime said. "Unless you want an explanation of genetic prosthetics and veneers, suffice to say that it unlocked some nasty stuff."

"When the SUDS system saw the cerebral and neural configurations, it locked out any and all rebirths. When the cloning vats found only altered, or should I say, devolved Terran DNA, it destroyed itself," Understood said. "Which leads to..."

"Why," P'Kank said.

Understood nodded. "The code has been in the operating systems for as long as the operating system has existed. As near as we can tell, it dates all the way back to the Second Clone War."

A Leebawian raised his hand. "Legion's War?"

Understood nodded again. "Correct. Legion's War."

P'Kank had a sneaking suspicion of why. He glanced at the scorch marks and the long trails of slagged warsteel on the walls.

"But why?" the Skelmark asked.

"Because it brought back something that all of us are secretly glad is no longer part of the Terran makeup," she said.

"What?" the Skelmark said.

"Psychic powers and phasic energy channeling and control," the Leebawian officer said.

"Like the Crusade," the Telkan officer added.

Understood nodded. "Both the SUDS and the cloning banks had deep level core programming to prevent any recreation of a human from the Combine or Imperium Eras."

MY WRATH BURNS HUMANITY FOES ETERNALLY, sounded in P'Kank's memories. For a moment he could smell hot warsteel and vaporized armor.

The Leebawain commando officer raised one webbed hand. "What if we bring them back anyway? Bypass the safeguards and bring back the ones we know aren't enraged?"

"You're talking about bringing back the Imperium or the Combine," another Skelmark officer snapped. "No, fuck that. We're lucky their gone."

"I'm not talking about bringing back the Imperium or the Combine, I'm talking about bringing back our comrades," the Leebawain countered. "Don't you ruffle your feathers at me. I'm talking about restoring our comrades. It's jawnconnor time, I'll reach for any rock or stick I need to win."

"So you think, in your long experience with Terrans, we should just bring back the Crusade, the Idiots?" A Verprit spat, the spikes on his back lifting slightly.

"I'm saying, if we don't, we're going to get our brains sucked out, and you know, I'm kind of emotionally inclined to keeping my brain," the Leebawian answered.

P'Kank rapped his bladearms on the holotank. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, enough."

He turned to Understood. "Are we sure the Lazarus Systems won't kick in?"

Understood and Sublime both shook their heads. "No. The fact it works is strange enough," Sublime said. "I know medically how it works, but to be honest, it shouldn't."

"Then I want all Terran corpses disposed of," P'Kank said. "The last thing we want is Enraged Walking Dead attacking everyone, and we don't have the cryo equipment or space," he flicked his membranes over his eyes real quick. "Do a final SUDS scan on them, then destroy the bodies."

He turned to the others. "It's up to us, gentlemen, to defend this planet and their occupants," he said. He waved at the holotank and cleared it before bringing up an image of the protocontinet.

"The Hesstla have a high nervousness and anxiety index. Most of the shelters are at between 60 and 80 percent capacity. In some cases the facility managers, when the Terran supervisors collapsed, panicked and locked down the shelters," he said. "Which means that nearly a fifth of the native population is not in shelters."

He tapped an icon and a Hesstlan appeared, with bloodshot eyes and bruised flesh around the eyes. "They also have a high vulnerability to Atrekna 'screams', which causes brain damage, increased aggression, loss of impulse control and inhibitions, and anti-social behavior. Prepubescent and adolescent Hesstlan are by and large nearly immune to this, with adults suffering the majority of the symptoms of the attacks."

"So they're phasic sensitive?" a Treana'ad officer asked.

"Yes and no. Not to Mantid or Terran, although Terran exposure seems to increase their resistance to Atrekna assaults. They suffer a disproportionate response to Atrekna, which is ten to fifteen times as effective compared to exposure to Type-I or Type-II Precursor psychic assaults," General P'Kank said.

The Leebawian commando's hand came up and P'Kank nodded to him.

"Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk, Fifth Amphibious Commandos, sir," the Leebawian croaked.

"Go ahead, Captain," P'Kank said.

"I propose that this means that the Hesstla were, in times past, a food species for the Atrekna, as there is suspicion that, as one of the three Precursor species, they put such a high priority on this planet," the captain said.

P'Kank looked at the holotank. "This is where the Atrekna ruling class first appeared. This is where they've thrown the majority of their metal and combatants at," he mused. "I think you may be on to something, Captain."

"The psychic attacks would prevent Hesstla 'cattle', so to speak, from organizing any resistance forces or any way to form large groupings to resist any oppressor," the Leebawian said. "Much like the Type-II Precursors instilled hopelessness and despair in my people, the Atrekna may have somewhat of the same effect upon the Hesstla. When you add in Lanaktallan 'gentling' protocols, it may now cause aggression and violence."

P'Kank looked at one of the gold mantid xenobiologists, who was looking thoughtful. She gave a slow nod.

"Captain, I want you, after this meeting, to work with Chief We Are Much Alike," P'Kank said. "I want you to follow this idea all the way through, as far as you can."

He turned back to everyone else. "All right, lets get back to planning on how to win this war and smash these motherfuckers into junk."

--------------

Undrat saw the warning on his visor, affirmed by Duknark's examination of his suit's radar and LIDAR system, that there was incoming friendly artillery. It would impact starting ten meters past the outermost battlescreen and extend out three kilometers, as well as cover the landscape of the entire V part of the Y.

The rounds started bursting a hundred feet up, a rippling muted crackling in the air, and bomblets started dropping.

"FASCAM AD-APERS," Gunnery Sergeant KaLa'aki said, referring to the artillery delivered "FAmily of SCAtterable Mines" that the big 11 inch rocket pods were firing. AD-APERS meant "Armor Defeating Anti-PERSonnel."

Undrat knew that the fact those rounds were used meant that the enemy would be at least moderately protected by full suit armor.

Undrat saw what looked like moving line of puffs of dust out in the kill zone and squinted, bringing up the magnification.

There was an explosion as a mine went off and he was looking right at a little robotic creature as it was flung up into the air shedding parts.

It was a blue light lit rounded top crysteel tube sitting on a base that had six legs, a saw arm, and a grasper arm. It flew up in the air, fell down, and shattered, the blue light going out.

"Did you see that, Gunnery Sergeant?" Undrat asked.

"No, I missed it. What was it?" Gunny KaLa'aki said.

Undrat rewound his video, sliced out the section, and tossed it to the Gunny.

"Looks like a scout probe. Blue light," the Treana'ad mused. "Shit, it already harvested a Hesstlan. Hang on, I'm sending this to command."

Undrat nodded slowly, reaching out and grabbing the handles of the Madame Three-Eighteen. He cleared the chamber and barrel then waited.

"Command says that 6th Battalion, Third Telkan are being overrun. Their slush and heat is maxed out. They're falling back to the Six Seven Seventy Two Mobile Infantry Horde right now," Gunny said after a few moments. "They going to fire beyond our field of fire, lay down more mines."

"Roger," Undrat said.

"How come we didn't see it?" Duknark asked.

"Military Intelligence says that the Atrekna use some kind of cloaking system. Terrans can see through them, but not anyone else," Undrat said.

"But I'm not a fleshy. My sensor should see it regardless," Duknark protested.

"Hm. You are right. I will inform the Gunnery Sergeant," Undrat said. He pinged the Gunny.

"Yes, Private?" the big Treana'ad said, not looking up from where he was running a check on his 155mm cannon.

"I could not see it. I saw a slight disturbance in the dirt then the mine went off," he said.

"I noticed," the Gunny said.

"But my suit, which is not biological and thus should not, according to protocol and intelligence reports, be subject to phasic cloaking systems, did not detect the scout either," Undrat said calmly. "Which means, according to field observation, that either through correlation or causation, the Atrekna light scout was able to prevent ground sensors, laser detection systems, and suit sensor systems from detecting it as well as prevent observation through biological means."

"All right," the Gunny said, drawing out the words slightly.

"As the Terran soldiers are able to see them with the naked eye as well as with their visual sensor systems, data suggests, through correlation, that the Terran optical nervous system provides them an advantage neither you nor I possess," Undrat said. "I suggest that this information be relayed to Command where they can determine I merely observed data already observed by others, already determined by Military Intelligence, or I have observed important data."

Gunnery Sergeant KaLa'aki noted that the Tukna'rn's voice never changed from the nearly monotone stentorian delivery the entire time.

"Good instincts, Private," KaLa'aki said, rewinding the conversation and appending it to a quick message that also included the visual and sensor recordings of not only his own suit, but Undrat's and the weapon system's sensors, as well as the integrated sensor systems of the fighting position.

Undrat stood silently as he watched his area of responsibility. He was aware of the Gunnery Sergeant ordering the VI of the fighting position to keep watch for any visual evidence of movement such as dust puffs, lines appearing in the thin dirt, or debris deflection. He felt a sense of satisfaction for a job well done when he saw that the other fighting positions were being ordered to do the same.

It was starting to get dark when the Gunny spoke again.

"Sixty-Seven Seventy-Two is being overrun," he said, his voice holding an edge of disbelief. "They ran the nanoforges to slush and they're starting to suffer enemy forces breakthrough. They're going to break out to our east before they get surrounded. Third Telkan elements are with them."

"Affirmative," Undrat said.

Undrat was ordered back into the fighting position to desuit, stretch, eat, and nap. He did so stoically, taking time to add an extra set of stretches for his legs and lower back. When he woke up, mounted the frame, and returned to his position, the sun was starting to set.

"Gunnery Sergeant?" he asked.

"Yes, Private?"

"Situation report?" he asked.

"Our lines are starting to collapse. Orders are right now to consolidate position or go to movement, as well as all Army units are to dig in when able," the Gunnery Sergeant said. He had his face shield open and was smoking a cigarette. "The Warsteel Herd just jumped in-system and are estimating landfall in the next eighty to one hundred ten hours."

There was a crack out in the killzone and another one of the six legged things flew into the air. The crysteel globe was blue, but it shattered when the bot came down on another mine and was shattered.

Undrat stood and waited, running a function check on his gun.

"Incoming artillery," Duknark said. "Eleven inch rocket pods. They're dropping self-healing autonomous mine fields in front of us."

"Spider mines?" Undrat asked.

"Looks like it, boss," Duknark said.

"What is your opinion?" Undrat asked.

"To be honest? We've taken something like sixty percent casualties already. Some of the other VI say its as high as eighty percent," Duknark said. "By all data measurements the Confederate Army should be already defeated."

"Are there any humans left?" Undrat asked. He squinted and brought up the magnification just as another mine went off, blowing a blue glowing scout apart.

"Sepkret over at 5th Brigade says one of their humans is left, but he's doing a lot of pacing and mumbling to himself. He keeps refusing orders to report to the medics," Duknark said. "Sepkret says the Terran's eyes are glowing bright red and he keeps seeing non-specific energy leakage around the Terran's fists."

"Understood. Keep me posted," Undrat said.

"Will do, boss," the VI said, and went back to monitoring the sensors.

It slowly got darker, until the sky was full of stars, pinpricks, streaks that lasted only a second, and flashes that were born and died inside a heartbeat.

"Leebawian commandos are engaged in the river," Gunny said. "Get ready."

Undrat woke the Madame Three-Eighteen from her nap, held tight to the two rear handles, and put his thumbs on the trigger. He could feel the warm syrup feeling of the gun going live to his senses.

"An element of Eighty-Five Twenty-Two Armored Horde has been overrun," the Gunny said. Undrat's map swivelled and adjusted to show a position only nine point two eight miles away. "The enemy appeared right on top of..."

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed on Undrat's visor.

Spidermines suddenly erupted out of the ground, jumping up into the air. Undrat expected them to fall down and run.

Instead they seemed to grab onto something.

Six mines shot up into the air, getting up to almost a hundred feet. They went off with a strange hum and concentric circles of purple light burst from them. Undrat tasted gelfrenberries as the temporal stabilizer suddenly went live. He tasted blueberries when the phasic munitions went off with their purple flash.

Explosions lit up the killzone as machines the size of groundcars and strange armored creatures appeared.

There was a white flash that shredded away the shadows.

"OPEN FIRE!" rang in Undrat's ears as "Colonel Th'Krelt" appeared in his visor's broadcast ID box.

The big 155mm cannon roared.

Undrat pressed on the butterfly trigger.

>Madame Three-Eighteen has joined the server.