First Contact

Chapter 450

471's instruments were hash. It was more than the howling radiation, graviton surges, and debris in the air. The only clear signals were from Vuxten's suit and even then he kept getting hiccups. Twice the suit had reported serious breaches, once from liquid warsteel oozing in through cracks in the chest plate to scorch and burn the internal systems. Another time the suit reported it was under water and the bottom half of the suit was filled with water.

He recognized both of those from the aftermath of the fight under the mountain.

As for himself, Vuxten was leaned forward, surrounded by howling wind, his hand on the shoulder of 2LT Hexpuz, using direct communications linkage rather than try to push anything through the absolute hash.

Outside was whipping cinders, ash, dirt, and howling winds that kept gusting up to 110 kph.

"Make sure everyone's grav-spikes are working. I don't want anyone else thrown," Vuxten ordered. "Get the heavy weapons crews to use their ammo forges to fab us up some more grab stabilizers."

"Can't you tell Casey to ease off the munitions?" the junior officer asked, his face covered in sweat.

"I don't think he can hear me," Vuxten said.

A bright string of white flashes went off and Vuxten's radiation alarms went off again. Casey had just fire nine shots that had each gone off at 45 kt with a phasic and temporal shockwave enhancer.

2LT Hexpuz's gauntlet was on 2LT Yzerk's shoulder and the other junior officer looked up. "My team entered that building, now they're not reporting and the building is gone according to the rest of the platoon."

"Pass it around, stay out of any non-Marine buildings," Vuxten yelled.

He noted out of the corner of his eyes had he an unread archive message from nearly five hours before. He blinked at it to put it back in storage for a few minutes.

"Command says they're dropping Army squad and platoon pods. Those things have nanoforges and built in templates to fab up fire bases," Vuxten said. "Get every officer to crank up their suit ID's to the max. When they get a pod per platoon, crank it back down."

"Do you think it'll help?" 2LT Olpnor asked.

Something exploded with enough force that Vuxten's helmet squeezed tight and he rocked in place despite his grav-spike turned up high enough that he was standing in a small crater.

"Right now, I'll take anything," Vuxten yelled. "Keep an eye out for Dwellerspawn. Right now they're just as uncoordinated as we are."

The ten junior officers in the daisy chain all nodded and Vuxten lifted his hand off of Hexpuz's shoulder, turning and looking toward where he knew the human was at.

"471, can you clear anything?" Vuxten asked.

--nope nope nope-- 471's one's icon had steam leaking out of its ears and was bright red with a bubble of #&%@ above it.

Another archive message popped up, from three hours ago, before even launch, priority with an unread marker.

"471, what is with all the archive messages popping up?" Vuxten asked, setting it to the side and trying again to raise Command on anything.

471 looked at the message database and flicked his antennas in surprise.

There was several messages with time/date out of range, and four of them from the last six hours. Another one popped into the queue, top of the list of messages but the time/date was from an hour ago. The system went to put it in the proper order, shift it from the commo request inbox to the archive folder, but 471 stopped it.

--looky looky message-- 471 one told Vuxten. He adjusted the parameters on the

Vuxten frowned, bringing up the message. It was an hour old. He looked at his drop status timer and saw that the message had been sent to him while he was on the dropship making the insertion.

He remembered that ride. He hadn't gotten any messages.

Vuxten blinked at the icon.

Casey appeared, his face sweaty, he had thin watery blood running out of his empty eye socket.

"Veer the birds off, Vux," Casey said. "I'm going to have to go full atomic, these things are everywhere. Uploading IFF taken straight off my datalink. Pass it to the Fleet."

"My sensors don't detect any enemy, Casey," Lozen said, appearing as the box containing Casey expanded to the side.

"I know, Lozen. I'm running 45% heat and 22% slush, sir," Casey said. "Veer off to the south or east, I'm going full atomic."

"Closing faceplate," Lozen said.

"No," Casey snapped. "You close the faceplate, I can't see. Vuxten, if you're talking, I can't hear you. Casey, out."

Vuxten frowned. "471, can you verify when that came in."

--thirty seconds ago-- 471 one said.

GRAV SHOCK GRAV SHOCK GRAV SHOCK appeared and Vuxten went down on one knee.

The world heaved around him, but thanks to the profile he'd loaded earlier he was in a small circle of stability.

"Play the next message in order of receipt," Vuxten said.

Casey appeared again. Blood had run down his face and there was a warsteel datacable embedded in his eye socket.

"Dammit, Lieutenant, I said veer off," Casey swore. "The landing zone is hot. If you're going to insist on landing, here's an autorepair template. It's an old Mantid/Terran War phasic sensor, it'll let your men see these things."

"Dropships are ninety seconds from troop disembarkment," Lozen said.

"Lieutenant, I'm going to clear the LZ so you can land. Going atomic again, Casey out," the human said.

The message ended.

Vuxten looked up as another set of flashes went off. This time it wasn't Casey's doing, it was multiple hellbore shots.

"Sir," 2LT Olpnor came out of the dust. "Drop pod hit. We're setting up a TOC," he said, his voice full of static. "There's something weird going on."

Vuxten nodded, following the junior officer. "Yeah, I'll bet."

Vuxten switched over the 471's private channel. "I want you and every other greenie to run up temporal stabilizers. Casey's out of synch, and I don't want any more of the division to go with him."

--tick tock tick fight sucks dick-- 471 sent back. --hate t-fights--

"Lieutenant, I want every troop with a temporal stabilizer. Group up by company, tight starfish configuration," Vuxten said. "Pass this template, have it run off. It's a phasic thingy, should let us see the enemy."

The command channel went live.

"Vuxten!" the voice sounded like Smokey No but Vuxten knew the Treana'ad General had been rushed to the medbay for emergency surgery less than 24 hours ago.

"Vuxten here, sir," the Telkan said.

"We're not receiving you, First Telkan," Smokey No said. He coughed. "Be advised that temporal destabilization is getting worse. We cannot provide medivac or orbital support at this time. Surrounding terrain may or may not stabilize. Stop."

"I'm reading you, sir," Vuxten said, frowning at the 'stop', which wasn't regulation.

"Message section begins. Negative friendly or civilian forces in the forest but you've got Dwellerspawn coming at you from multiple directions. Be advised, there is a lake two miles north of your position acting as a Dwellerspawn spawning pool. Stop."

"Forest, sir? I'm in the middle of a dust-storm," Vuxten said.

"Message section begins. Do not enter the city, First Telkan. Ignore the distress signals from the city," General NoDra'ak said. "They aren't real, they're temporal echoes. Atomics and other heavy weapons are authorized. The civilians are temporal echoes, you won't be killing them. General A'armo'o confirms that the city's Most High codexes are nearly a million years out of date. Guns free, First Telkan. You have heavy neural interlocked enemy presence."

"Sir? City?" Vuxten looked around.

"The enemy is using temporal echoes of the Welkret to acquire neural wetware. During urban combat ROE is modifies as follows: Eliminate civilian temporal echoes to deny the enemy resources with all prejudice. Stop."

Vuxten swallowed thickly.

"Message section begins. Jungle flora contains heavy metals and Dwellerspawn are harvesting. Pull back to shelters. Take cover, First Telkan, incoming orbital support, we'll airburst the jungle," Smokey No said. "Spawning pools in force, orbital bombardment is authorized. Stop."

"Sir, you're out of phase," Vuxten tried.

Smokey No's picture rezzed, the big Treana'ad still talking.

Nothing but howling dust and dirt surrounded Vuxten.

"Orders are as follows. Reform your Division and dig in, that's an order, Marine," Smokey No said. "Right now it's hold what you've got until we can figure out how to help you. Your terrain has repeated three times. Message will not repeat. Stop."

His icon vanished.

That's it, Vuxten thought to himself. The Army pod was in sight. It had already dug down, slammed down mass extraction drills, and was happily vibrating away. There were two greenies in full environmental armor climbing on it, holograms flickering and sparkling in the dust.

"Get drill moles running. I want fiber-optic linking the entire division. Temporal stabilizers at every junction box and repeater," Vuxten snapped.

One of the greenies looked up and flashed a thumbs up.

"Put the word out. Fall back to company size. Use date of rank, date of entry, age for determination of company command. Do not stray further than fifty meter radius from the Army drop pods. No maneuvering in less than company size," Vuxten said. He could feel the sweat slickening the fur on his back.

The other greenie flashed a thumbs up but didn't stop working.

One of the Heavy Weapons Marines cursed and cut loose with his autocannon. Two others joined him and Vuxten trudged forward, hurrying as best he could through the sticky-mud feeling of the grav-spike.

The fire cut out before he got there.

"What was it?" Vuxten asked the Lance Corporal that had opened up first.

"Dwellerspawn, sir," the Lance Corporal said. "I know I hit it, but my tracers went right through it."

"Keep an eye out, watch your heat and slush. Use single round for recon by fire," Vuxten said. He turned and moved back to the pod, which was the size of a cargo hauler. "How's it look?"

"It's at 100%, we're setting up a command area," 2LT Ergtik said.

Casey appeared again in the corner of his vision. Vuxten noted that the blood below his missing eye was dried and crusted.

"Sir, am engaging the enemy who are in overwhelming strength," Casey snapped. "IFF file ready for dissemination."

"Casey, can you hear me?" Vuxten asked.

'You're hammering us to pieces, Sergeant," Vuxten said on the communications.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed on Vuxten's visor.

"Switching to non-atomic munitions, sir," Casey replied.

"Casey, fall back and regroup on nearest First Telkan transponder," Vuxten told the human.

Casey seemed to ignore him.

"I do not recommend that at this time, Casey," Lozen said.

"Casey, fall back!" Vuxten snapped.

"You heard the orders," Casey said. "Fab and load Gridharvolur rounds," he seemed to look at Vuxten. "Going to 30mm. Antimatter warning,"

GRAV GRAV GRAV appeared in Vuxten's vison.

"471, I want you to run a replay of all of Casey's munition expenditures," Vuxten said. "Look for any pattern."

471 sent back a face-palm emoji.

The green mantid ran the numbers, basing it off of seismic activity, distance to flash, radiation output, gravitic output, and phasic output.

Another message appeared and Vuxten opened it.

It was Casey telling him to veer off.

A rolling ripping tear of firecrackers went off in the distance, atomic weapons detonating in one long chain.

--after Gridharvolur usage casey resets to t-minus fifteen minutes from first telkan landing-- 471 said. --same messages same weaponfire same detonation same seismic tracking of his suit--

"What's different?" Vuxten asked. The drop pod was already creating half-buried buildings and running cables.

--Gridharvolur detonations have temporal and phasic detonations-- 471 said. --enemy interaction maybe--

Vuxten cursed and thought for a moment. "Can you fab up a custom drone?" he asked.

--need class II nanoforge or better--

Vuxten moved back over to the Lance Corporal, touching his shoulder. "I need your primary ammunition nanoforge."

"Roger, sir," the Lance Corporal answered. "I'll tell 992."

--what need-- 471 asked.

"Mylar stealth drone, do an ultrathin coating of warsteel, just enough to hold a phasic charge. Add a temporal stabilizer for it just enough to create a bubble around it, and a temporal resonance charge," Vuxten said. He closed his eyes. "Do a half dozen. Fire them off and head toward Casey. Try to get it near him as soon as I start speaking on the message then fire off the resonance charge."

--tough order need help-- 471 said. He tapped the greenie datastream, looping in as many of his fellow engineers as were available.

Almost immediately the discussion had a half dozen projected ideas for the shape of the drone.

Vuxten turned back to the Army drop pod, seeing that the grinders were hard at work chewing up the dirt and pumping it into the mass tanks. One of the lieutenants were motioning him into a large blocky structure that was half buried in the dirt.

He was halfway there when it happened.

Trees suddenly appeared, along with large rocks. The dirt and grit and howling wind was gone, the interference suddenly vanished. He could hear First Telkan all talking to one another. In several places the trees appeared in the same place as a Telkan.

In each case there was an explosion that cartwheeled the Telkan away.

He suddenly remembered Smokey No's message.

"All Division elements, status report and GPS coordinate!" he yelled out over the command channel.

The three Telkan who had been thrown by the trees when they had exploded slowly got up.

"Jamming will recommence. Fiber optic linkup underway. Group by company on all Army drop pods, fabricate a fire base," he ordered. "441 field artillery, fire off mapping shells, we have a limited time to get a scan of the area. I want the whole thing done in a grid squares, no landmarks. We go to local grid," Vuxten said, running for the drop pod. "Be advised, heavy enemy presence. 661 Field Artillery, two miles north of my position is a lake, I want HIT and FOOF rounds on that lake, I don't care what your spotters see."

CONTACT started being called out and weaponsfire began to pick up.

"Avoid contact with Sergeant Casey at this time. He's under temporal attack, which means they're focusing on us," Vuxten called out. He was almost to the shelter.

A Dwellerspawn burst out of the brush, charging him, its teeth gnashing, antenna whipping, and six legs churning. This one wasn't covered in warsteel plating, just heavy chitin. Its arms ended in whip-like structures that were glowing purple and snapping at him like a whip.

A burst from the stubber sent it crashing to the ground, blown into chunks.

"This is going to repeat at least twice," Vuxten said. "Get near your officers and NCOs, Vuxten out."

Another creature lunged forward, dripping and greasy, looking almost like a Lanaktallan but a huge mouth at the torso lower joint and the head nothing but a fleshy nub. Before it could get two steps Vuxten put a grenade into the mouth.

He turned over the local Company frequency. "Heavy weapons, go to plasma, burn the forest away."

Part of him yearned to turn around, go join his men on the line and push the Dwellerspawn back out of the slowly growing encampment.

But OCS had hammered into him that the time for sweat, blood, and bad breath was either the job of the enlisted or when everything had gone to hell.

He ducked into the shelter.

It wasn't until Vuxten got in, out of the wind, that he realized how loud it had been. There was a holotable just coming online and two greenies were working on adjusting everything that the Army drop-pod was wet-printing as fast as possible.

"Do you have an operational grid up yet?" Vuxten asked the Lieutenant standing by the holotank.

"It's coming in, sir," he said. He felt more than a little nervous at the sight of the heavy armor with the warsteel eagles and the bullseye on the chest.

"Let's take advantage of the enemy's strategic mistake to get our tactics together," Vuxten said. He closed his eyes, made sure he was muted, and took time to sigh deeply. He unmuted himself. "Get a tally of what armored vehicles made it down, what artillery we have, and was air defense we have."

"Yes, sir," the Lieutenant said, feeling awkward.

"And warn the men to watch out for trees. They don't like it if they materialize and you're standing in the middle of them," Vuxten said. The Lieutenant looked awkward and Vuxten shook his head. "It's a joke, Lieutenant."

"Oh, yes, sir. Ha ha," the Lieutenant stammered.

Vuxten looked at the holotank. From the looks of it, First Telkan had gotten down intact. Only minor injuries. Even Casey's rampage hadn't injured anyone.

Vuxten suddenly realized he wasn't seeing any atomic or graviton warnings.

He frowned at first, wondering where Casey went, and suddenly gave a sharp exhale.

That's it. They're shifting the terrain forward and backwards to keep Casey from ripping everything up. That's why he's caught in a loop, he thought.

"471," he said.

--go ahead for papa palpatine--

"If I'm understanding command's message, we'll have a city, jungle, then back to that dust bowl. When we get to the jungle, I want you to launch the drones near where you think Casey is. We'll see if the drones survive," Vuxten said. "If they do, when the terrain returns to dust, fire the temporal resonance."

He leaned forward against the holotank, closing his eyes.

Eliminate civilian temporal echoes to deny the enemy resources with all prejudice, echoed in his mind.

Kill every civilian we can, he thought bitterly. It doesn't matter that they're shades, I'll be asking my men to slaughter civilians. Once they do that, you don't come back from it.

He reached out and tabbed up 17th Field Artillery. Lieutenant Jekti appeared.

"Sir," the Lieutenant said.

"Do you have Welkret and Lanaktallan biology profiles?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," the Lieutenant said, suddenly looking cagey.

"You see the terrain altered," Vuxten said.

"Temporal bullshit, sir?"

"Yes. The next one will be an urban center," Vuxten reached up and took off his helmet, setting it down so the Lieutenant could see him. "That city is from a million years ago. The people in it are dead. You will not be reaching back to kill them, they will be echoes pulled to us by the enemy."

"Civilians, sir?" the Lieutenant's eyes were hard to read.

"Technically. The enemy uses... well... they pull out brains. They want the brains and if they get them, their effectiveness goes up," Vuxten said. He stared at the Lieutenant. "Fab up chemical rounds, Lieutenant."

"Sir, I need you to repeat your last. Do you wish me to nanoforge chemical rounds specifically profiled for Welkret and Lanaktallan biology," the Lieutenant asked.

Vuxten swallowed. "Lieutenant. In an unspecified amount of time the terrain will temporally shift to an urban environment, during which the enemy will attempt to acquire civilian biological components. I am ordering you to nanoforge chemical weapons, specifically, nerve agents and blood agents, that will kill the civilian populace of the temporally shifted city as fast as possible. At this time we know that Welkret and Lanaktallan biologicals will be present. Any other...," he paused, hating the term he was about to use. "Any other neo-sapients observed will be added to the chemical weapon profiles."

"Sir, I ask again, are you ordering the use of chemical weapons within your area of operations," the Lieutenant ask.

"I say again, I confirm the use of chemical weapons. This conversation has been recorded and will be used for legal purposes," Vuxten said.

"Orders received, acknowledged," the Lieutenant said.

Vuxten held his breath.

"Those poor civilian bastards," he said. "Scorched earth, sir."

"Scorched earth, Lieutenant," Vuxten said.

The channel went dead.

Outside he could hear the sound of heavy weapons and Dwellerspawn screams.

As he picked up his helmet, he felt unclean.