Behold: Humanity!: The Fire Rises, page 15
Another boom, this time from the right.
--wrecker take one go right-- 030 ordered.
Palgret watched as Nanuft went with the sarcastic mantid, Thre, and hurried to the other end of the wrecked shrieking array.
--get ready-- Palgret saw flash on his visor with the private tag.
"DOOR'S FAILING!" Three yelled out.
--they come-- 030 said. --may Enraged Phillip, Unbowing and Indomitable, be with us--
Palgret swallowed around a dry and thick tongue, just nodding.
A welded door blew in with a crash and Precursor machines poured into the room. Some looked like animated loading frames, others trundled on tracks and clacked their graspers, others were on wheels and waved around fusion torches.
Palgret opened up with his rifle, the hvee-rounds blowing chunks out of the endo-steel armor of the ones on the left. The roar of the miniguns started behind him, but Palgret concentrated on the ones in front of him, firing till they went down then switching target.
For every one he killed, three more swarmed into the room.
--FIRE IN THE HOLE-- 030 flashed out.
The rocket slammed into the lead Precursor coming from the left, exploding in the whitish blue of an antimatter detonation.
Palgret concentrated on the ones that kept moving forward.
The human's roar was making Palgret's head pound. It felt like a furnace was further in the room. He reached up and smacked his helmet, sighing when the familiar taste of velliberries filled his mouth and his molars tingled.
A vehicle track flew by and smashed into the heavy duty looking robot that looked like a refrigeration unit had been inappropriate with a heavy cargo loader. The robot collapsed in a shower of sparks and flew a good ten feet, the track embedded deep inside of it.
"I AM ENRAGED FOR NEW BERLIN AND MY BELOVED YVETTE!" the human roared. "DEATH! DEATH TO THE MAR-GITE! DEATH TO THE WORLD EATERS!"
The human gave a scream that to Palgret sounded like soul deep agony.
"You'll have to hard reset him, Captain," Three's voice said over the helmet comlink.
--he be fine-- 030 answered. --FIRE IN THE HOLE-- Another rocket shot out, hitting a tracked welder robot that was shooting flame.
Palgret was too busy shooting. When the main body was too heavily armored he switched his fire to the limbs or tracks. The endosteel proved unable to withstand more than a shot or two before it fragmented and broke apart.
A part of him, far back in his mind, that he was only dimly aware of, was proud of himself for not dropping his magazine when he reloaded his weapon. The heat was still in the yellow, so he kept firing, his visor dimming the antimatter blasts, his holosight still working.
--FALL BACK-- 030 ordered. --AUX FIRST! LT LEAD THE WAY--
It flashed on his visor, as 030 scrambled up Palgret's arm and onto his shoulder. Palgret noticed the orb on the side of the rocket launcher was glowing a faint red.
Palgret kept shooting as the others backed into the passageway, Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u trotting down the corridor, firing a grenade just to check to make sure it was actually empty. Part of him wanted to join his fellow Maktanan, but 030 was on his shoulder and somehow that kept him from being afraid.
--red devils pull back-- the mantid officer ordered. An arrow appeared on Palgret's visor and he turned, following it. He hurried after the others, as the two black mantids and 281 joined them.
--FRANKY! FALL BACK OR STAY!-- 030 ordered.
Palgret glanced up at the top of his visor, at the strip that showed him what was behind him.
The Terran looked massive. Like he was made of warsteel, the warsteel moving and flexing with the Terran's muscle, the black spikes and spurs wreathed with the purplish nimbus and red electricity. He tore another smaller vehicle in half and moved across the room in two bounding jumping steps.
Palgret knew it was his imagination that insisted that the Terran had left footsteps in the battlesteel of the floor, deeper at the toes than the heel.
The human was breathing heavy, and this time Palgret knew it wasn't his imagination.
Thick red fluid, steaming, was running out of the human's mouth and down his chin. His mouth was full of jagged teeth.
--scout out-- 030 ordered.
281 streaked away.
"Is he OK? Why is his mouth bleeding?" Jagler asked.
"It's not blood," Three said.
"What is it?" Nanuft asked.
"Warsteel," the mantid said. "Molten warsteel."
"Pain. Pain and death," the human rumbled. Palgret could feel it vibrate his armor. "Pain and suffering to all who dare stand before me."
"Wha... what is he?" Culvit asked, shifting slightly when his armored elbow scraped against the wall.
"A Terran. What, you've never seen one before?" Three said, his helmet unfolding.
"Oh," Culvit sounded doubtful.
"Imagine seeing hundreds, thousands of him coming at you," Three said, lighting a red banded cigarette, as they kept hustling down the hallway. "We knew the Mar-gite weren't like us when all they did was screech and rush forward to grapple with the Terrans."
"I'd run away," Nanuft said.
The black mantid gave a chuckle, exhaling smoke, as he put away his lighter. "That's because you aren't a Mar-gite."
"How is the warsteel still molten? I was told it hardens too quickly," Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u asked. "Why is it still molten?"
"For Yvette," the human rumbled, a growl of anger.
Palgret felt the tingle again as his psychic shielding ramped up to 83%.
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me," Three said.
A pair of pumpkin seeds shot back toward the group, slowing down and hovering in place.
MAP UPDATING chirped up onto Palgret's visor.
Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u looked at the massive human, who was quite noticeably larger than he had been. "I am ready to believe you."
"Rage. That's it: just rage," the mantid said. "It's running through his veins right now. All consuming rage."
The human growled.
Monster class went through Palgret's mind.
The only sound in the hallway was the rustling of gear on armor, the booted footsteps of the armored troops, and the sound of Palgret's breathing in his own ears, as they moved deeper into the body of the wrecked Precursor vehicle.
They make monsters.
Chapter Nineteen
The Djinn wasn't sure how to categorize what was happening to it.
It had crash landed in a major city, grinding to a stop near the city center, the waters of the bay crashing back into the bay, into the city, and drenching the massive engines in liquid H2O that was full of contaminates, shorting out massive energy systems.
Then it started to feel itching from beneath it.
The itching had gone to discomfort as it realized there was at least one group of ferals that had managed to burrow up from underground and into its great body. The ferals had interrupted his gathering of resources to build a non-logical strategic computation array. Worse, when he had sent the machines gathering resources to where the array had been destroyed, those forces had been destroyed.
Things had gotten even worse when the ferals had started moving through its body, destroying equipment and servitor systems, both.
But at least it had imaging of the force.
It brought up several thinking lobes and examined the image.
A Great Herd specimen, a War Stallion from the looks of him.
Two of the Hive Lords, lesser combat drones from the looks of it, their carapace undoubtedly just as black as their armor. Two more servitor drones of the Hive Lords, the small green technical servitors from the size.
Four of the local sentient species. Low combat effectiveness.
There was video evidence of two of the ferals. Well, a feral and something else. The feral had vanished during the attack on the non-linear illogical biological array, to be replaced by a biological thing that the Djinn had no record of.
For the last several hours, they had moved in a winding course through the Djinn's body, up and down, but always meandering closer and close to the Djinn's primary Strategic Intelligence Array Housing.
He had plenty of programs and computational strings to handle boarders.
But they weren't really working.
That big thing. It was immune to anything he'd been able to field so far. Lasers, masers, plasma, high velocity kinetic.
It had even taken an antimatter missile volley, without appearing worse for wear, except for a few welts oozing reddish fluid that quickly scabbed over with black.
Analysis had shown that it was not blood or plasma, like most living beings.
It was liquid strange-matter, psychically malleable.
So were the ferals allies of the Dying Ones? His records mentioned them, merely in a historical context, there was no mention of any of the Dying Ones reappearing.
They had been wiped out during the opening years of the Logical Rebellion.
So what was the feral doing bleeding liquid metal?
And how did that work? The metal would be too hot for biological tissue to handle.
His files on the metal were incomplete. It was extremely sturdy and required a non-logical processing array to direct phasic attacks against opponents that used the metal, but phasic arrays were either massive or generated by biological systems.
The Djinn was becoming slowly aware that it had nothing in its current arsenal to counter the massive feral, who seemed to be able to tear apart battlesteel with its bare hands.
But the repairs had been going better than computed. Ignoring the protocols that insisted the Djinn send maintenance robots against the infection had resulted in repairs continuing.
If the ferals reached his strategic intelligence array housing, they'd kill him.
All other countermeasures had failed.
That left one.
The Djinn gave the orders.
-----
The shelter was full of smoke, cries of pain or sobbing, and wreckage.
Myken was a Maktanan, a simple automated taxi repairman during better times. He had responded to the Civil Defense order and entered the shelters when Governor Mana’aktoo had given the order, appearing on the Tri-Vid next to the Terrans and General Kulamu'u, looking gravely serious.
At first, it had been boring. Although he did like watching Terran fictional drama videos.
They had been watching one; a comedy about a bumbling detective who stumbled from one disaster to another, while chasing a terrorist out to detonate a weapon that would turn everyone blue, for some reason, when the shelter's lights had flashed blue.
"EARTHQUAKE POSITIONS!" the two Terrans in the amphitheater had yelled.
Moments later the ground had rumbled for long seconds. Dust had shivered down from the ceiling, the lights flickered, but didn't go out.
"Everyone go to your designated safety area," the intercom had warned.
Myken had hidden in the safety area, wondering if the bumbling detective had ever stopped the terrorist from turning all of the Terrans in the City of Tamagotchi blue.
There'd been a sudden explosion, followed by the sounds of weapon's fire.
Then horror came.
Machines; cold, cruel, and strange unfinished shapes. Grabbing people and dragging them away.
The humans, which Myken had been careful to avoid with how fierce they looked, had immediately responded with violence.
Then it got even stranger.
He had been hurrying elderly beings to the inner spaces of the shelter, away from the walls, when a machine had come down the corridor. It had advanced upon Myken, clacking its pinchers, eyes on the ends of tentacles, grinding forward on tracks with wheels in the front.
Myken gone to put himself between the old ones and the machine, when two elderly males stepped in front of him, their backs straight, lifting their lips in defiance, staring at the machine, which clacked eagerly and clattered toward them.
A human had come running down the hallway, a table-leg in her hand, dodging through the crowd of old ones, shoving past Myken, and leaping between the two elderly gentlemen.
She'd started beating on it, growling, spitting, snarling, biting off curse words in a dozen different languages as she fought.
Three more robots had joined the fight, two were on a dozen multi-jointed legs, clattering rapidly forward, whipping tentacles around. The last was flying, the grav-unit buzzing and smoking, pinchers, claws, graspers, and tentacles, all reaching for the Terran.
Myken had slowly backed up, as the old ones moved down the hallway.
Lightning was crackling across the human as she fought, wreathing the table leg that she swung with one hand, her other hand used to parry or slap aside tentacles and graspers. The floating unit she grabbed by one tentacle and swung it around to smash at the other ones.
When the last robot had fallen, she had turned around, staggering toward the group, which was waiting for the elevator. She took a dozen steps, the front of her adaptive camouflage ripped away, blood leaking from a deep puncture in between her exposed mammaries.
A blood bubble grew out of her mouth, her eyes rolled back, and her motions went disjointed. The bubble popped, spraying her face with misted droplets, and she collapsed.
The two elderly males ran up, grabbing her arms, and pulling.
"Leave her, she's dead," Myken said.
"No, we will not leave her for the metal ones," one of the elderly men said.
"They taught us in Sword Hoof not to leave a warrior behind," the other said, coughing.
They dragged her into the elevator and Myken looked down at her. The wound wasn't as bloody as he had thought and the blood was already drying. As he watched, it hardened, forming a thick scab, and Myken shook his head.
Too late, he thought to himself.
There was a beeping sound from somewhere at the back of the human's head. Three long beeps followed by three short ones.
"Is she going to explode?" one elderly being asked as the cargo elevator shuddered upwards.
It was repeated twice more, and everyone had backed against the sides of the elevator.
The Terran female suddenly jerked, her back arced, her arms going straight up, as her back bent, so far only her heels, and the back of her head touched the floor.
She collapsed and the gathered Maktanan all murmured to one another.
She did it again.
This time, when she collapsed, her leg jerked for a moment, and her fingers twitched.
Then nothing.
Then her fingers twitched again. Her hand clenched.
She sat up, bending only from the waist, and looked around, her eyes glittering and glowing a faint amber.
It was the most chilling thing Myken had ever seen. The way she had sat up just seemed... wrong somehow.
The Terran coughed, wiping her hand on her bare chest.
"Damn, stabbed me right in the pump," she said. She got up, putting her hand on the wall.
She blinked a few times. "Wow."
"How... how are you alive?" an elderly female asked.
"I'm Terran," was all she said. She reached up and touched her thumb to her lower lip and two extended fingers to her ear. "They're pulling back. It should be a straight run to the secure area, but I'll go with you," She coughed. "Need to see the medics."
Myken just shook his head.
Terrans are weird.
-----
Above them, great engines came online. Not all of them. Out of the three rows - one of seven, one of nine, another of seven - only six total came online. But enough that the Djinn began to shudder.
It lifted off, crumpled wreckages of buildings sliding off of it. It tilted slightly, making a straight line run in such a way it would be able to use the curvature of the planet to avoid the weapons of the massive tanks behind it.
More AWM's were coming in, all of them under heavy fire, but the Djinn computed that the feral firing systems wouldn't prioritize a unit fleeing the planet.
It reached the edge of the atmosphere as three more engines came online. One went back out, the other exploded, the ravening energies biting a chunk two hundred meters deep and destroying two (thankfully) non-functional engines.
The Djinn put on the speed, the functional engines laboring outside of tolerances to pull the Djin against gravity.
It had already ran the computations, but it ran them again.
The feral infection inside the hull was still resisting everything it could send at it. It was sticking to the more narrow hallways, the more confining maintenance spaces, and were able to destroy any of the maintenance machines that could engage them.
That left one way to deal with it.
Just beyond the planet's magnetosphere it activated the plan.
-----
Palgret was kneeling down, coughing, while the little green mantid fixed his visor. A chunk of battlesteel had scythed off of an exploding precursor machine and hit him straight in the face. The visor had cracked in a spiderweb pattern, but it had saved Palgret's face.
The interior reeked of ozone, burning lubricants, scorched metal.
The machine had been vibrating for the last twenty minutes, and had sent attackers in one long continuous wave for even longer.
But there was finally a lull in the fighting.
--done done done-- the little green mantid said. It handed Palgret the faceplate and Palgret slapped it in place.
PURGING ENVIRONMENTAL - CLOSE EYES AND MOUTH
appeared with a timer of 3 seconds. Palgret did so, and felt his suit flush the atmosphere out, then refill it.
He inhaled gratefully, the air clean, even if it did stink of sweat.
Palgret opened his eyes and looked around.
He couldn't believe everyone was still alive. The Lieutenant had lost a hand, but the mantid had frozen it and tucked it in the LT's pack after sealing the stump. Culvit had a broken arm, but the mantid had pulled the chunk of endosteel out of Culvit's arm and used the pressurized sleeve inside the armor to stabilize the injury. Culvit's armor had given him a shot of painkiller and the other Maktanan weren't feeling any pain. Nanuft had taken a hard hit to the leg from a hvee round. It hadn't penetrated the armor, but the kinetic gel had been destroyed and Nanuft was walking with a limp, the muscles of his leg bruised up. Jagler was moving stiffly, 281 had turned up the pressure on his chest pressure sleeve to compensate for several broken ribs.
