First Contact

Chapter 454

"Barrel locked in," Erkolt said, stepping back.

Undrat didn't answer, just swung the heavy weapon into position and reopened fire. The heavy autocannon roared, flame exiting the barrel as heavy armor penetrating incendiary rounds hammered downrange to hit strange and twisted creatures that screamed as they blew into tattered rags of flesh. He had the nanoforge running battlesteel jacketed rounds with a magnesium-thermite core to keep the heat down and the slush nominal.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed and a set of fireballs rolled up only a handful of miles away. Undrat had learned, over the last few hours, the difference between heavy atomic weaponry and the directed nuclear explosions of the hellbore systems. He couldn't explain it, but it was something in the way the white flash cracked off.

Beside him his fellow Tukna'rn were firing from the firing slits in the fighting position. Ortnak was keeping up steady bursts from his light machinegun, standing in between two Tukna'rn who were keeping their rifles in play. On the other side the Gunny was firing his heavy 155mm cannon, the weapon shrieking as the "Bucktooth Wendy" rounds ripped downrange with a streak of color. The round would rip through nearly a hundred meters of enemy, sending gobbets of flesh high into the air, before exploding into shrapnel and flechettes backed with strange-matter white phosphorous.

Artillery was a constant thing, the air full of screaming as the big guns hammered away, rockets came spiralling in, and even mortars were dropping fury on the V part of the Y.

The Leebawian Commandos were still heavily engaged in the river, their commander commiting their reserves just after darkness and pulling back the groups that had been engaged the longest.

Undrat had seen spouts of water erupt for the rivers to the right and left as the frog-people had done their work.

A bracket of twelve illumination rounds went off, bathing the fire zone in harsh white light. Strange twisted creatures screamed in rage, some of them rearing up to a full twenty meter height. They were all spindly multi-jointed legs, bulbous thoraxes and abdomen, savage faces with huge maws, multiple eyes, bladearms, and multijointed arms ending in powerful hands. Most didn't carry weapons, the few that did seemed to fire them wildly, the rounds leaving purple streaks that hurt the eyes. The ones with weapons were often armored in a purplish warsteel, some of them with smaller versions riding on them.

He raked the Madame Three-Eighteen across the front row, the heavy rounds blowing them apart four ranks deep.

The ones behind screeched and pushed forward.

The fire support detonated in long ripples, sending up fountains of gore and shattered armor, but the holes in the ranks filled immediately as even more pushed forward. Air burst munitions ripped apart the enemy, high impulse thermobaric rounds exploded flesh as the water in the cells was converted to steam, anti-matter area dispersal bomblets exploded in ripples.

Still more pushed forward.

"Going to rapid fire!" Gunny called out. He stomped the fire lever, holding it down, and slapped the override when it beeped.

The big 155mm gun went from firing two every three seconds to firing three rounds a second. A steady THOOM THOOM THOOM that vibrated Undrat's bones.

His armor's system tossed a meme up on the upper corner of his vision. In front of a horde of Dwellerspawn a sweat soaked and battered Telkan Marine from the Second Telkan War was turned toward the camera, without a helmet, yelling 'we need air support!" and the picture below of three podlings pedaling a little tricycle with wings across the sky with a fluttering banner behind them that read: "Keep up the good work! You're Amazing!"

Undrat gave a sensible chuckle as he kept firing.

He liked the Vuxten memes.

"Close the shutters!" the Gunny yelled, slapping the button in front of him as he pulled his foot off the firing bar. "Incoming orbital strike!"

Undrat went hands up, off the gun, as the man next to him slapped the button.

The endosteel shutters, coated with superconductor, slammed shut.

The barrage outside picked up more fury, the ground shaking.

"In five!" the Gunny called out.

The shaking got heavier.

"Four!"

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

The ground heaved, rolling under Undrat's feet, as the heat increased in the bunker. He reached forward, taking the time to rotate the heat shield, making sure it cooled evenly even as the nitrogen sprayed across the whole system.

"THREE!"

PHASIC PHASIC PHASIC

Undrat could barely hear the Gunny's voice as another set of roars went off. This one the psychic shielding sparked and crackled, the system becoming visible for a moment as rolling twisting fields of energy with scrolling and twisting runes forming in the energy. His helmet clamped on and he felt like his eyes were bulging out.

"TWO!"

NUKE NUKE NUKE

This time it felt like the ground beneath his feet was an animal trying to buck him off. The roof flexed and creaked, powder sifting down from between the plates. The outside radiation monitors howled and pegged all the way, dropping halfway down, then pegging again. Light seemed to seep in through cracks and holes in the wall that only existed for the harsh white light.

"ONE!" the Gunny yelled.

Everything went silent for a moment.

Undrat knelt down, one knee against the ground, opposite fist pressed against the flooring, other fist pulled back by his waist, one knee up, helmet tilted forward as he stared at the ground to present the thickest part of his helmet toward any threats.

"IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT!"

TEMPORAL TEMPORAL TEMPORAL

The world seemed to turn inside out. For a moment Undrat could see stars being born and dying, see galaxies spiral out of nothingness, see himself repeated over and over off into eternity, see everything that could have been and had been and might have been and would have been and what was before it all turned to glittering sand that poured from his armored hands to be whisped away.

Then the past and future smashed together into an eternal moment of now.

Duknark screamed, long and loud, and Undrat made a mental note to mention that to the Gunny the next chance he had. His eVI gibbered for a second, giving Undrat the feeling that the eVI was trying to climb up a digital wall.

"MAN THE GUNS!" the Gunny yelled out, standing up.

Undrat stood up.

"Duknark, get a hold of yourself," Undrat ordered.

"I I I I I I'm OK," Duknark said, his voice chattering in the beginning.

Undrat grabbed the firing handles of the Madame Three-Eighteen, noting his heat had dropped to 58% and his slush down to 34%. He put his thumbs on the butterfly trigger.

"GUN TWO READY!" Undrat yelled even as he tabbed his ready icon three times.

"GUN ONE READY!" Avtrenk called out.

"GUNS FREE!" The Gunny yelled, slapping the button. The shutters rolled up, exposing the battlefield again. The battlescreens were spinning up, the phasic shielding was coming back online, and the temporal stabilizers were resynching and powering up.

Outside was nothing but thick muddy slurry. A creature half heaved itself up and collapsed, its exoskeleton inside and its organs hanging off of it like meaty sacks. Meat was falling from the air, big inverted sacks of creatures that had been taking advantage of the point defense systems going offline for a second only to be turned inside out somehow.

"That was a temporal resonance cannon, boss," Duknark said. "Someone fired a battleship's main gun at the firing zone."

"It has served its purpose and performed its estimated effects," Undrat said. He saw his field of fire blink in his vision and validated it.

The clouds went from pink and orange, some striped, others with polkadots, to normal clouds.

"Nineteenth Brigade, Third Telkan is moving up to support us," the Gunny said. He already had his big gun firing, throwing out FASCAM rounds.

Steam was rising from the carpet of butchered meat, hot enough that it blocked Undrat's thermal sensors.

Undrat's armor tossed up a picture of what he had seen just before the shutters had closed. He even recognized his own armor HUD. The enemy had been throwing themselves against the battlescreens. It said, at the top, "What are you going to do to stop us?". The bottom showed the battlefield like it was when Undrat had seen it once the shutters had opened. On the bottom the text said: "BEHOLD! HUMANITY!"

"Drones up," the Gunny said. He opened his faceplate, lighting a cigarette, as the big 155mm gun went through a preloaded fireplan, chugging out FASCAMs. He looked at Undrat. "Navy's got our backs, boys."

Undrat nodded, turning his attention back to the field of fire. The steam was getting thicker and it looked to Undrat like the creatures were dissolving.

There was a thudding and the Gunny gave a shudder.

"These guys have always given me the creeps," he muttered.

There were were heavy footsteps on top of the firing position. Undrat could hear a heavy autocannon clicking as it went through self-checks but it didn't sound like any weapon he was familiar with.

"I AM BUOYED BY THE GIGGLING OF PODLINGS!" roared out, a scream of absolute fury and rage. "MY WRATH BURNS ETERNAL IN DENIAL OF DARKNESS!"

Undrat looked at the Gunny. "What is it?"

A hologram flickered on for a moment in front of the Gunny's face. "His name's Kappa. A Telkan, or what's left of him. A Warbound."

Undrat frowned.

"Warbound? Those are real?" Dunkark said. "Look through the periscope, I want to see!"

Undrat connected to the periscope's wireless linkage, seeing he wasn't the only one. Someone had already moved the periscope to show what was standing on top of the fighting position. Undrat had expected a heavily armored Telkan, maybe in the ornate armor like in some of the memes.

Instead was a massive war machine, done in the black and red of the Telkan Marines. It's chest was blocky, all strategically angled plates to provide maximum deflection, covered in burning runes of molten warsteel. It had no head, just a single sensor pod extended up on an armored column. The legs were thick, powerful, with four-toed feet where the toes were spread around the 'ankle' to firmly anchor it to the ground. The two arms were heavily armored, more runes running down the arms. One arm terminating in a powerful four fingered clamp with the stubby tube of some kind of ejector projecting only an in or so from the palm. It had a heavy tri-barrel 30mm autocannon instead of another hand, the barrels covered in burning warsteel runes. Its chest contained mortars to provide indirect fire support, battlescreen projectors better fit to ships of the line, and was covered in runes. On a burnished copper plate in the middle of the chest was a single rune done in burning warsteel/copper alloy that Undrat's armor translated as "Kappa".

"Impressive, isn't he?" the Gunny asked.

Everyone on the channel murmured that it was.

Undrat looked around and saw that there were multiple ones along the firing line, eight total, all of them looking rough and unfinished but baroque and artistic.

"What is he?" Ewmruk asked.

"Warbound," the Gunny said. "Dead Telkan brought back to life and service to protect and defend. Made through dark science that some say is magic that was taught to a religious order of Telkan by the Imperium of Rage itself."

One of them, down the line, took that moment to make an inarticulate scream of rage, raising its arms and shaking them at the low hanging clouds as if to threaten them.

From the back of the bunker a half dozen Telkan Marines came streaming into the fighting position. Undrat noted that their armor was scuffed, marred, slagged in some places. Their weapons had the dull matte look of heavy use. Undrat noted that one of them was a Rigellian Saurian Compact Kobold with Major rank on his helmet.

"Echo Company, Third Battalion, Nineteenth Brigade, Sixth Regiment, Third Telkan Marine Division," the Major said. "I've got a dozen in the back getting their armor and weapons worked on," the Major said, his faceplate opening up. "We brought our greenies."

"They want the planet bad," the Gunny said, his tone light.

"Well, they can't have it. The bunny people were here first," the Kobold Major said. He took off his helmet, steam rising up out of the collar of his suit. "We're high heat and slush right now."

"Thank the Digital Omnimessiah for the Navy," the Gunny said.

"Indeed," the Major said. He looked at his arm, where thick claw marks scored the armor from shoulder to elbow. "We got overrun. Thankfully, most of the boys have experience from the Dweller War, so we went back to back."

"All engineers, check temporal and phasic stabilizers," came over the command channel.

The greenies hurried out of the little shelter room they'd taken cover in, their antenna still tingling with the aftershocks of an orbital bombardment. They had left the greenies of the Telkan Marines back to recover, most of them having been outside when the Temporal Resonance Cannon had hit, just the Telkan armor's compartment protecting them.

"All NCO's, do biometric checks on all soldiers in blast area," came another command.

Undrat saw the channel go live and a little window of what was being looked at. It paid attention to scars, tattoos on his body, lingering over his barcode birthmarks.

"Dread Corporal Stenpi'irlik, post," the Major said.

One of the Telkan came out of the back passage. To Undrat, it was glaringly obvious that the Telkan's armor was different. There were Imperium of Rage eagles on their shoulders, their weapon was not one that Undrat recognized. They had a missile launcher on the wrong side and instead of the grenade launcher they had a small six barrel low caliber minigun.

"Looks like you're with us now, Corporal," the Major said. "Were you deployed to Hesstla?"

"Affirmative, sir," the heavily synthesized voice said.

"895, check the Dread Corporal's temporal stabilizer. It must have blown out," the Major said.

--roger roger-- one of the Mantid said, climbing up on the Telkan's back.

"MOS?" the Major asked.

"Heavy assault infantry, sir," the Telkan said. "Director's Wrath Regiment. The enemy's teeth shall shatter on our unyielding purpose."

The major nodded. "We'll catch you up to here after the battle. Welcome to the Third Telkan Marine Division."

"For Scarred Telkan, the Widow, and the Elven Queen, sir," the Marine said, crashing a fist against their chest.

--temporal stabilizer blew out-- 895 said. --repairing--

Undrat considered it, mulling it over. The versions of himself that he had seen extending into eternity must have been real, only his temporal stabilizer ensuring that the version of him that belonged here returned. The Dread Corporal's had blown out and they had replaced the version of themselves from this place and time.

Undrat found that interesting and promised himself he would think upon it, perhaps ask the Gunny if that was common. The biometric check suggested that it was not unheard of, but Undrat suspected that this current battle was full of things that were unheard of.

"Request permission to ask a question, sir," the Marine asked.

"Go ahead, Corporal," the Major said.

"Does Terra still stand?" The question, to Undrat, seemed urgent, burning with purpose.

"It does," the Major said.

"Praise be to the Second Coming of the Digital Omnimessiah and his disciple Undying Vuxten, praise be unto their names," the Dread Corporal said.

"Go back, let the greenies do maintenance on your armor, fab up munitions," the Major ordered. "As soon as they give me your specifications, I'll know where to put you."

"Where the enemy is, sir," the heavily synthesized voice answered. Another fist against the chest. "By your orders and holy ordained command."

The Marine moved off, heading back deeper into the bunker.

"Well, there's something you don't see every day," the Gunny said, exhaling a long stream of smoke. "Sounds like it went pretty bad on Telkan in that timeline."

"Second Coming, huh?" the Major said. He shook his head. "That makes my ears fan out."

Undrat kept watching the fog that had covered the battlefield as the creatures dissolved.

"One and one is two two and two is four Warbound Podling will hold the door," roared out above him.

-----------

General of the Copper (1-Star) P'Kank stared at the holotank. Only a last minute orbital bombardment by the battleship Time After Time had kept the entire northwestern sector from being overrun. He stared at the holotank, noting that the entire planet had "The Enemy Has Broken Contact" icons flashing over virtually every unit. As soon as the orbital bombardment had started it seemed to ripple out that the enemy just dissolved.

He made an annotation and tossed it to his threadbare Military Intelligence Battlefield Analysis Section to follow up on the fact that it appeared the temporal resonance cannon had done more to stop the enemy's endless waves then anything else.

"Signal from Admiral Thrush," one of his men said. For the life of him, P'Kank could not remember the Captain's name.

"Put it here," P'Kank said, waving his bladearm through the holotank and dismissing the image of the planet.

The Admiral was an uplifted Ursine, massive in their Confederate Space Force uniform.

"P'Kank, you scrawny plotter," the Ursine rumbled. "Good to see you, bug-nuts."

"Oh great, four Pubvian cuddles in a bear costume stole a Space Force uniform," P'Karnk retorted.

The massive ursine gave a rumbling laugh.

"Time After Time's guns are recharging," the Admiral said. The lights flashed behind him. "We're still heavily engaged up here, but I wanted to let you know something odd happened."

"Pray tell," P'Kank said.

"Time After Time started its orbital bombardment and after each firing of its main guns probes and scanners spotted massive temporal energy flares from the Atrekna ships. By the time the bombardment was over, two of the five massive ones had broken up, two others were venting debris, and the last is tumbling," the Admiral said. He reached up and scratched his head with a gauntleted hand, wrinkled his nose, and stared irritably at the blunt ends of the fingers of his gauntlet. "Damn armor. Anyway, those shots give you breathing room?"

P'Kank nodded. "The enemy disengaged across all fronts. Broke contact or were killed," he said. "My men needed the breathing room."

"My men believe this is a primary thrust, not a diversion or a secondary attack," Thrush said, scratching beside one ear again. "Unfortunately the Time After Time is the only ship I have currently manned with temporal resonance cannons."

That gave P'Kank an idea and he tabbed the icon to summon General Melfunt and General Gu'unmo'o.

The icon flashed that the laser communications array was losing contact.

"Do what you can, ya big fuzzball. We'll hold them on the ground," P'Kank said.

"I know you will, ya smouldering plotter," the Ursine laughed. "Admiral Thrush, out."

"P'Kank, out," the Treana'ad said.

He pulled out a cigarette, bringing back up the map. He played the timestamps in slow motion, starting roughly a minute before the first orbital shot had hit. He'd requested the temporal resonance cannon since it would do the least amount of damage to the living. Time was a function of speed and gravity and the devastating weapon would do less damage than hard shot, plasma, or even particle beam.

Starting at ten seconds before the first gun fired several units reported that the enemy was breaking contact.

P'Kank brought up the armor telemetry of those units, looking through the eyes of the Telkan Marines fighting.

The Telkan was fighting hard, his rocket launcher jammed, his rifle broken, his cutting bar in one hand and his pistol in the other as he fought with his back against two others. The dwellers pressed them from every angle and he barely got his cutting bar up in time to rip the legs away from an attacker that dropped out of the sky.

The entire view was full of the dwellers surrounding pockets of Telkan Marines fighting back to back.

"HOLD WHAT YOU'VE GOT!" a Telkan with the icon of Lance Corporal Tpulkrit roared out over his armor's speakers.

The larger ones, the ones that looked like their brains were on the outside due to the way the biologically extruded warsteel was folded and ridged, suddenly exploded. The ones around them shrieked, some of them turning on each other. Another set of them exploded even as the Telkan Marines laid in the firepower.

One of the big ones, a biped, with what looked like an exposed brain and greasy hide had a Telkan Marine in its mouth and was chewing while the Marine had his arms and legs tucked in so they were in the fetal position.

That one suddenly exploded in a shower of blue gobbets and the Marine dropped to the ground, coming up with his cutting bar and laying into the creatures around them.

The temporal resonance cannon hit nearly two hundred miles away.

The camera went crazy, showing impossible images.

P'Kank drew back from the image of a Treana'ad Matron chewing on his own head, his body skinny and unadorned by awards.

It cleared up to show that the creatures had been ripped apart. Disconnected organs still throbbed and pulsed, some bags and hunks of meat that P'Kank realized were the creatures only turned inside out, still tried to move and struggle.

The Telkan who's camera he was looking through activated their plasma thrower and began guiding long jets of white hot flame into the surrounding meat.

P'Kank cut the archive feed and turned around as he heard the elevator open.

Melfunt had on his body armor where Gu'unmo'o was wearing adaptive camouflage. Melfunt's face was exposed, his helmet hanging off his belt, like most Pubvian leaders.

"Gentlemen," P'Kank said. "How was the trip?"

"Exciting," Gu'unmo'o said. "The Warsteel Herd came under fire as we entered atmosphere."

"We drop-cradled in," Melfunt said. "My men are deploying as we speak."

"Recall them," P'Kank said. He looked at the two new arrivals. "I think I know how to turn the tide. It's not a guaranteed victory, but it's going to have a disproportionate effect."

Melfunt took out a pack of Treana'ad cigarettes and lit one. "What might this be?" the Pubvian asked, puffing on it for a moment.

"My men haven't deployed," Gu'unmo'o said. Half of his face was black warsteel with engraving on it. "I wished to check on the effectiveness of the covering orbital bombardment."

"It's the orbital bombardment that gave me the idea," he said. He turned back to the tank. "We'll put one tank in each company with a different gun as soon as the engineers can manage it."

"What gun?" Gu'unmo'o asked. His men were trained and ready, decades or centuries of experience at warfare. Although the tanks were new and the doctrine was different, it was still war, and war never changed.

P'Kank rewound the holotank, stopping at sixty seconds before the bombardment commenced.

"Temporal resonance cannons," he said.