First Contact

Chapter 549: 4th & 10

"The Confederacy is what the Council should have been, had a hundred million years to be yet was not. Everyone together, as equals, all striding toward a future where everyone had safety, luxury, comfort, and the right to try to find happiness in a malevolent universe.

"Instead, we were monstrous.

"And the Mad Lemurs of Terra have always sought to slay monsters rather than hide from them.

"Their allies learned well." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

During the Clownface Nebula War General P'Kank had been a lowly Captain, a member of the vaunted 75th Rangers (Treana'ad), having transferred from the artillery to infantry. His first operation had gone so smoothly that he had asked the Team Daddy if it was always that easy.

The Team Daddy had simply said: "When the ops plan is good is it very very good, when it is bad it is horrid. But good ops plans can go bad quickly, rarely do horrid ones become good."

P'Kank had never forgotten that.

Now he watched as the fighting entered the twentieth hour. The Atrekna were collapsing on all fronts. He knew the Atrekna had expected him to send men into their fortresses.

Instead, he had ordered the sonic implosion charges used and watched as the crystalline fortresses vanished, to use a pithy phrase, up their own asses.

P'Kank wasn't interested in prisoners or enemy data.

The people of Hesstla had spent four years under threat, under attack, by the Atrekna. For four years P'Kank had been forced to husband his forces, carefully ensuring that he did not show his true strength, move them around so they were never where they appeared to be. He had presented the anvil to the hammer, had presented water to the blade, and fog to the searching eyes.

P'Kank watched as the green mantid Glider Corps (Death From Above) swept another fleeing Atrekna out of the sky, flashing "ENEMY DOWN" on the screen with video and phasic sensor evidence.

Not to say the battle had been bloodless. While he was under projected casualties, he knew that fate could turn on him at any second. He was careful to take no chances, take no risks, and assign overwhelming force against any Atrekna forces.

Second Armor had been masquerading as having broken down tanks, and the sudden line drive haymaker straight into the thickest of the Atrekna robotic war machines had shattered them all before the Atrekna knew what was happening.

When the Atrekna had mistaken Second Armor Division's feint for the main attack and repositioned their autonomous war machines, P'Kank had launched the real attack.

First Armored Division and First Infantry Division, along with the 5th Lanakallan Herd and 2nd Telkan Marine Division had hit across the planet, backed by air support, artillery, and orbital fire.

When the Atrekna had tried to disengage from Second Armor Division the tankers had pressed the attack, refusing to let the Atrekna retreat and reposition.

P'Kank had kept his attacks coming in steady waves, always holding back a third of his forces for refit, rest, repair, and sleep, always a third engaged, and always a third maneuvering. He kept them moving as one coherent whole, with sealed orders to keep the enemy guessing.

He had lost control in two places, briefly. Third Armored Cavalry Regiment had suffered a communications failure and attacked the wrong group, putting them out of position for artillery support for nearly eight minutes, but the 3 ACR commander had realized his mistake and quickly adjusted position under fire, pulling the Atrekna forces into an artillery barrage that had ripped them to shreds.

The 167th Treana'ad Armored Swarm had lost their orders and come under complete communications blackout, forcing the CO to use his best judgement as he ordered his tanks and heavy grav-skimmers into combat. P'Kank had managed to get a fast courier to the commander before he had moved too far out of position, but it had still allowed a sizable force to slip through a narrow corridor and make a lunge at a field hospital.

15th Forward Support Battalion had been providing support to the units around them for the first 2 waves and had gone into 'refit' mode when they had been informed that the Dwellerspawn were on the way. With no infantry, armor, or power support, the battalion had been ordered to withdraw to 11th Field Hospital, with P'Kank ordering 4th Infantry's Second Brigade to move at all speed.

P'Kank had watched as it became obvious within minutes that the armored fighting vehicles of 4/2 weren't going to reach the hospital in time.

P'Kank had ordered 15th to withdraw again.

To which the commander had replied, via the radio: "Service above self," and then disconnected.

P'Kank knew he should order the battalion out again, should feel anger that his direct lawful order was being disobeyed.

But there was nothing but a support unit between Dwellerspawn and a hospital with nearly a thousand patients still being evac'd, with 4/2's vehicles nearly two hours out.

P'Kank had merely transmitted: "Witnessed" and crossed his bladearms behind his back and watched with a cigarette in each mouth.

He had no reinforcements, nobody was coming to help, and P'Kank had experienced what it meant to have the want of a nail.

15th was largely full of Hesstla, Tukna'rn, Telkan, and Welkret, with only a handful of Treana'ad and Rigellian Saurian Compact troops.

P'Kank had watched on the orbitals and drones as 15th FSB had stopped the Dwellerspawn dead. The Dwellerspawn had pushed harder, but the troops of 15th FSB had dug in hard and refused to give an inch. Even when they were overrun they kept fighting, calling artillery on their own position and what little close air support that could be spared was called down on their own heads.

At one point someone Bowie-Spiked the whole battlefield with a shoulder fired 75kt atomic weapon, firing it 250 meters straight up. The purple 'snap' with the gold corona told P'Kank that it had been loaded with a phasic and chronotron kicker.

P'Kank had watched as the unit's casualties had mounted, spurring them to greater and great efforts even as they died with their fingers on the triggers.

But they had held until 4/2 had gotten there.

P'Kank doublechecked that sector out of habit to make sure everything was still under control.

11th Field Hospital was almost overloaded and was shunting casualties to 19th Evac Hospital.

He could feel victory, but could also feel the sour taste of defeat was still possible to ruin the ice cream cone for everyone.

"You should get some rest, General," P'Kank's aide said.

P'Kank nodded. "I should," he said, staring at the holotank.

He simply lit another cigarette.

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

"I CAN STILL FIGHT!" the Hesstlan male yelled, fighting with the two nurses trying to hold him down. The infantryman's left arm and right leg were covered by spray bandage and one of his ears were missing. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Melinvae moved up to him and looked down. "Control yourself, Lieutenant," she said.

The Hesstlan officer looked up at the gas mask covered face and nodded, going still.

"Take care of my men first," he whispered as Melinvae pulled the anesthetic beam projector into place even while the two civilian volunteer orderlies strapped him down.

"By triage," Melinvae said. "Worst wounded first."

"We held them," the officer said. His eyes closed. "The Digital Omnimessiah was with us. We held."

"I know," Melinvae said softly. She put her hand on his head. "You held."

She waited a moment, then moved away, going back to where she had been sitting.

The volunteer nurse sitting next to her looked at her for a long moment. "You can remove your gas mask, Specialist," she said gently.

Melinvae reached up and pulled off her helmet, then pulled the gas mask hood over her face before breaking the seal and pulling it away from her face.

The air tasted of scorched metal, burnt artillery propellant, and scorched biological tissue.

Melinvae folded the hood to the side of the mask and made sure it was in her carrier properly, putting her helmet back on.

"Boss, you should get some sleep," Canton said.

"So should you. Defrag and recompile," Melinvae said. "That's an order."

"OK, boss, just get some sleep, all right?" Canton said.

There was the three toned beep of the eVI going offline in her ear and Melinvae looked around.

The hospital was busy, to say the least. Grav-strikers landing and taking off, patients being unloaded, troops running up and climbing on the strikers, troops hauling mass containers for the nanoforges.

Melinvae wanted to help, but she was too tired.

She rotated her forearm, looking at the inside of her armored forearm guard. She thumbed the stud and holographic icons popped up. She closed her eyes and hit a stim.

Her armor beeped at her that she was over her limit and she sighed and slumped slightly.

Another grav-striker was coming in, the armor pocked and slagged, but the doors were open and Melinvae could see wounded in it.

She sighed, trying to get up, but her legs wouldn't let her. She sat back down heavily and hung her head.

She knew she could go find an empty cot and lay down but she was just too damn tired. She knew she should be hungry, but her appetite was gone.

Melinvae pulled her weapon into her lap and looked at it.

The little submachine gun didn't look half as deadly as it was. It was a nasty little magac weapon that fired slivers of density collapsed steel shaved off of a solid block by the warsteel bolt.

The heat shroud at the front was discolored and there were pockmarks on the upper receiver. She could see the shiny dent in the heat shroud where a precursor round that had gotten through her battlescreen had almost taken her finger off. It was smeared with mud and worse.

Melinvae pulled out her canteen, dug a cravat out of her aid bag, wetted the cravat, put the canteen away, and started wiping down her weapon.

She shuddered at the memory of firing it one handed as she lurched across the battlefield dragging a Welkret infantryman who had nearly been disemboweled. Another memory surged up, of her on her back, her body covering her patient, firing the SMG point black into the head of a Dwellerspawn.

A shadow fell across her vision and she looked up.

Sergeant Eltprix stood there, staring down at her.

"Your commo is off," he said.

"Told my medboi to get some rest," Melinvae said. "Kind of turned it off."

"You eaten, soldier?" Sergeant Eltprix asked.

Melinvae shook her head.

"Lets get some food into you," the Telkan said. He held out his hand. "Come on, up you go."

Melinvae accepted the heave up and followed her squad leader toward the tent. At the tent they cleared their weapons, ejecting the ambloks and locking the bolts back.

"You're not hungry because you're exhausted and too full of stim," the sergeant said. He chuckled. "I got that way during First Telkan. They didn't really have our stim settings right and I spent three days so stimmed up I was seeing sound and hearing colors."

"Oh," Melinvae said. She ducked in and followed her squad leader. She picked up a tray and put it on the bars in front of the plastic. She stared at the food for a long while, not really understanding why she was standing here looking at something that was making her stomach twist.

"Give her an omelette," her squad leader said.

Melinvae just stood there as her squad leader had her plate loaded up. At her squad leader's direction Melinvae went and sat down, staring at her food.

"Eat, Specialist," the Telkan NCO said. "Lift fork," the last was said with a slight snap.

Melinvae ate mechanically, staring at the plate, at the food, without really seeing it. She drank the juice he gave her, took the vitamins, then robotically followed him to put the tray away.

"Let's get you a cot. We've got about six or seven hours before we've gotta load up again," her squad leader said.

Melinvae just nodded dumbly. Her NCO took her arm and steered her to one of the sleeping tents, the heavy antispalling and anti-rad plates on the outside of the positive pressure tent. Inside the tent she could see what was left of Treatment Platoon, laying down on the cots. SFC Trenak, another Telkan, looked up, saw who it was, and went back to reading his datapad.

"Not tired," Melinvae mumbled as her NCO sat her down on an empty cot.

"Come on, off with the boots, trooper," Sergeant Eltprix said.

Melinvae fumbled at her boots and finally got them off. She realized that one of her toeclaws had sliced a hole in her sock as her squad leader lifted her legs and swung them around so she was laying on the cot.

"Nighty-night, trooper," Eltprix said, picking up the blanket and covering her. He didn't bother trying to get her out of her body armor and gear.

He remembered those days.

Melinvae mumbled as the NCO walked off. She was mostly asleep before her squad leader sat down next to the platoon sergeant.

"That's all of them," Sergeant Eltprix said.

"Where did you find her?" Trenak asked without looking up from his book, a fascinating tell-all book involving a scandalous Rigellian rock band from three centuries ago.

"Down by the helipad," Eltprix said. He looked around. "They're beat."

"Ol' Plottin' P'Kank's keeping up the pressure," Trenak said. "Can't you taste it?"

Eltprix nodded. "Yeah. Like that last month of the First Telkan War."

Trenak nodded. "Yup."

"We gotta get these kids back in the shit. Get them back on the horse," Eltprix said softly, reaching up and tapping the horse's head on the patch on his shoulder. "Can't give them time to stew over it, let it sink in. We need to... shit, I don't know. Throw them back in like they did to us. That was a rough fight."

"But we held," Trenak said.

"Digital Omnimessiah forgive us," Eltprix replied. "We lost over half of them."

"But over a third of them survived," Trenak said. He tapped the cybernetic hand he was holding the datapad with. "We've both been there."

"Yeah," Eltprix, one of two remaining NCO's in Treatment Platoon said. "We have."

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

The holotank had changed radically in the six hours that P'Kank had managed to nap. It was the first time the General noticed when he came back into the command center, lighting a cigarette. He listened to his XO telling him that everything was still going according to plan, not that P'Kank had thought anything else would happen without being woken up.

P'Kank stared at the holotank. It was like the fight against 15th had broken the enemy's back.

Or maybe he had been so focused on that fight and the worry that had made him go through an entire pack of cigarettes that everything seemed easy peasy matron squeezie.

With the High Queen and her court joining the fight, the Time After Time and the satellite network providing orbital fire, the Atrekna were being eliminated across the planet.

Icon after icon was winking out for the enemy forces.

Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk entered the command center, limping with his right leg in a regen cast. He moved up to P'Kank and shook his head.

"Someone defaced your mural again, sir," the Leebaw officer said.

"Oh. Again?" P'Kank asked.

"Again. Don't worry, sir, I'm sure we'll discover who is defacing it," the commando said.

"I'm sure you will," P'Kank said, watching as the holotank flashed that it was searching for any chronotron bursts.

It had been fifty-three minutes since the last group of Atrekna were eliminated, but P'Kank wasn't taking any chances.

"Should I post a guard on it?" Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk asked.

"No. We'll worry about it after Operation Billy Mays is complete," P'Kank said.

"As you say, sir," the Leebaw said, then moved away to check on the status of the last of the Leebaw aquatic commandos.

The two remaining googly-eyes in P'Kank's pocket clicked as he got out his pack of cigarette and stared at the map.

Get the hell off my planet, P'Kank snarled to himself.