Behold: Humanity!: Total War, page 33
Mukstet frowned. "How?"
"They're affecting each other."
Mukstet thought about it. That just meant they'd be more like they were before they got SUDS. Part of him estimated that they'd be more careful in combat, more careful throwing atomic and nuclear weapons around, be careful to keep themselves out of situations where they'd get killed.
But he knew they wouldn't.
His implant pinged and he held up the two fingered sign that he was getting an incoming message. Major Screams just nodded, going back to looking at the displays.
"Mukstet here, go ahead," he said.
"Wing Three is taking off, Wing Two is landing so they can reload and go on standby," Private Relpuk said. "Wing Two caught some Crawler action, enough they've got dents and craters all over the warsteel armor."
That made Mukstet frown. "Don't repair the one with the worst damage. Tell the greenies to back off from it."
"Roger. Relpuk out."
"Mukstet out."
He turned and cleared his throat to get the Major's attention.
"Yes, PFC?" she asked mildly, trying to push away the annoyance at how the readings from Sergeant Callups were starting to look.
"Do you have anything that can register and measure psychic residue? Like you could use it to tell if someone had been under psychic attack and it had damaged them?" he asked.
She frowned. "Not here. Hang on," she moved over to the creation engine, punched up the template, and waited. Ten seconds later the nano-forge pinged and she picked it up. "Here. It's an old design but still in the template banks now that we've got the Enraged Ones running around."
She handed it to Mukstet, who looked at it. Looked pretty easy. Handle, LED marked bars on the side that would extend the higher the levels were, some analog dials on it labeled to measure intensity.
"Warsteel requires wrath to forge, right? Which is why only Burning Nano-Forges can create items from it, correct?" He asked. Major Screams nodded both times. "The psychic rage output by the Enraged Ones is what makes their weapons burn red hot, correct?"
"Yes, private. Why?" she asked, starting to be intrigued.
"And Mantid bladearms can scratch, score, even tear through thin enough warsteel, correct?"
Screams nodded again. "Yes."
"All right. I'm going to tie this thing to Holotank Delta so you can see my readings. I'm going to go out and check out a damaged striker with this," Mukstet said.
He left the tent, walking out into the whirling confusion of the striker base. Here a mechanic was replacing the motor on a powered lift exoskeleton. There a medic was checking the injuries of a Hesstlan civilian. Over there sat a dozen Terrans all eating ration packs and talking. Over here a Terran was digging to lay cable from the communications systems to the massive antenna array the commo guys had put up.
The strikers were ahead, and he jogged up. Striker Foxtrot-Niner-Fifteen was badly damaged, the armor cratered and, in some places, penetrated to the warsteel airframe below. He waved over one of the Treana'ad mechanics who was still in full armor.
"I need you to tell me if you can detect what kind of jacketing was on these armor penetrating rounds," Mukstet said. "Forward the combat logs for this ship's systems to me also."
The Treana'ad nodded, exhaling smoke through his legs as he opened his kit up and pulled a sampler out.
Mukstet scanned the craters and the penetrations, watching at the detector startled warbling and screeching, the arms extending all the way out and the green lights flickering from base to tip repeatedly.
"Must have been laser weapons, sir, I'm not finding any residue," the Treana'ad said.
"Thank you. Forward me the data please," Mukstet said, heading for the TOC again. Less than two steps and his datalink pinged to let him know he had the data.
When he entered 3.25 and 3.54 were both examining the contents of the table, leaning forward and looking at it closely while tapping rapidly with the tips of their bladearms on the small dataslates they held in their hands. Mukstet moved over to Major Screams and tossed the data from both his scanner and the Treana'ad technician's scanner.
"You know what it's saying, don't you?" Screams accused.
Mukstet nodded. "I had my suspicions, this just confirms it."
Screams shuffled around the holotank to get a better angle, a habit that Mukstet had noticed. She did that rather than spin the hologram.
"No residue in the impacts. Cratering, striation, and spalling points at a physical kinetic round hitting, not high energy," she looked at Mukstet.
"Look at the logs, specifically, look at when the battlescreen failed," Mukstet said. He didn't need to check, he'd realized it subconsciously.
"Battlescreen failed..." Screams mused. "Then the psychic shielding began taking damage like the battlescreen. When it failed is when the airframe and the armor began registering impacts."
She looked up. "You know what this means?"
Mukstet nodded. "The enemy is using psychically enhanced munitions," he tapped his finger on the holotank and looked slowly over the data. "Has anyone else ever used weapons like that?"
Screams shook her head. "No."
"Well, the Terrans have and do, just look at the Enraged Ones," Mukstet said slowly, thinking back to his time during Second Telkan.
"Oh."
"And look at Lieutenant Vuxten."
His implant pinged. The commo guys were in contact with a Terran logistics company that was in need of close air support.
"I have to go, ma'am," he said, nodding to her. He put his fingers on his implant and spoke out loud instead of subvocalizing. "Wing One, this is Mukstet. Prepare for combat operations."
Major Screams at Ta'Xet stared at the data.
She could smell the air of the Homeworld and felt cold icy fingers run down her back.
FIREBASE BOOP
The tank clattered down the road, treads ripping up the plascrete, the bow pushing wrecked and burnt cars out of the way, the barrel rock steady even as the great metal beast rocked as it crossed craters. A green mantid had the communications array panel open, half inside, checking the molycirc to try to find a way past the jamming that filled the air with an invisible smothering blanket. The coax on the turret, next to the main gun, moved slightly as the driver looked around, the heavy gun trying to stay lined up with the pilot's vision. The cupola gun was cocked up into the air, on automatic point defense mode, the commander half out of the hatch. The loader and communications specialist's guns were on point defense, the system whining softly as the two heavy machineguns tracked the sky. The armor was pitted and scorched in places, but no blowthroughs or even deep penetrations.
Behind it walked four power armor troops, all with the markings of the Second Telkan Marine Division. One was pristine, unmarred, two were dinged and scuffed, and the last one was not only cracked, scarred, gouged, and cratered, but was also missing the left arm a few inches below the shoulder. Two robots followed, one limping with a damaged leg, the other beeping out a merry tune as it rolled behind the Telkan Marines. Both were scorched, scored, and had pitted armor.
"How you holding up, Ralvex?" one of the Telkan Marines asked the one without an arm.
"Fine," Ralvex said, chewing on a piece of gum.
"They'll get in contact with command and we'll get you to a field hospital, get that arm taken care of," another said.
The one with an unmarred suit shrugged. "I don't know. There's something weird going on."
"OK, so I'm not crazy. Something beyond normal SNAFU is slapping our cheeks," the first one said. Ralvex couldn't be sure who it was, his helmet had taken a couple hard hits during the last fight and his IFF could ping friendly but couldn't get the additional ID data.
"You all right back there?" a Terran voice broke in. "You can mount the tank if you want."
"Any word on other tanks?" Ralvex asked.
"No. Communications beyond direct line of sight with whisker lasers is spotty at best and even the whiskers are getting jammed to hell and back by micro-prism," the Terran said. "We were thinking it was us, but 883 is pretty sure it's more than that."
Ralvex jumped up on the back of the tank, sitting down and leaning against the mortar tube cover, which was rolled back to let the little 60mm indirect fire weapons breathe.
"You OK, champ? Arm hurting?" the Terran tank commander asked, turning to look at Ralvex.
"My wrist itches. Unfortunately, my wrist is about sixty miles behind us," Ralvex said.
The machineguns suddenly oriented, all facing west, and Ralvex rolled off the tank, landing on his feet on the road. The four Telkan Marines moved to the east side of the tank, hunkering down, bringing out their rifles as the barrel slowly rotated to the west.
"CONTACTS INCOMING! FIVE, SIX, AIRMOBILE!" the gunner called out over the channel.
Ralvex hefted his mag-pistol. His green mantid buddy, 525, exited the clamshell between Ralvex's shoulders and climbed up on one pauldron, holding a micro-missile launcher.
The four craft were blocky, like aircraft made of blocks, the top center of the fuselage covered in thick cables and tubes, with four crysteel globes that two or three of glowed blue on each of them. Their thrusters sputtered but still put out enough thrust to keep the craft in the air and moving forward at a fast clip.
The main gun of the tank roared, the grass on that side of the highway flattening in a cone shape. The lead aircraft exploded as the main gun round of a heavy tank hit it dead center with a round usually reserved for the larger heavily armored ground units.
The machineguns opened up, the front of the other three aircraft growing deadly orange and yellow blossoms of explosions. Ralvex squinted, watching as the ammunition hammered apart the battle-screens on the ships before chewing the ships apart. The main gun fired again, the tank rocking slightly to the side on its stabilizers even as it kept moving forward. The automatic systems followed the larger pieces of wreckage until they hit the ground, pounding them with more ammunition.
"Compliments, 770, for getting the tracking software's accuracy back. Looks like 97% hits," the tank commander said.
The green mantid, hidden somewhere in the tank's maintenance spaces, flashed a gratified icon back.
Ralvex scratched the lumps and rough armor patch on the stump, hoping it would make the itching go away as the tank kept moving and the Marines fell back in behind it. Ralvex jumped back up on the deck and leaned against the mortar tube cover again, closing his eyes.
He was bone weary. He'd fought for almost sixteen hours straight, had been on his feet for almost twenty-four hours. His suit wouldn't give him any more stimgum, his water tasted flat, and just the thought of trying to consume a ration made his stomach clench and twitch.
"Any of you Telkans suffering any headaches?" the EW tech from the tank asked. "Push wants to know."
Pushes Against the Grave was the tank's medic, a russet colored mantid with a pair of green stripes down the sides of her thorax and abdomen.
"Nope," all the Telkans said.
"I've got one," Ralvex admitted.
There was silence for a moment and the russet mantid, clad in black body armor, climbed out and moved over to Ralvex.
"Is your arm hurting you, Marine?" Push asked, her voice soft and soothing.
"No, but the stump is killing me," Ralvex said.
The mantid medic chuckled. "Let me check your armor systems, get your vitals."
Ralvex held out his remaining hand, the medical panel popping open on his forearm. The russet mantid slipped the end of a bladearm into the proper slot and Ralvex saw almost transparent data flow by.
"Aside from the arm, you've got a serious case of exhaustion, minor dehydration, but I'm more worried about your neural scans," the mantid said.
"I've had a headache since the last part of the battle," Ralvex admitted.
"Got down to your chainsword, didn't it?"
"Yeah. My guns were gone, I'd lost my arm, my little buddies were down to point defense and light guns," Ralvex admitted. He sighed. "Had a town behind me, I couldn't back off."
"You should have stayed behind, they might have been able to get commo running," the Mantid said.
Ralvex shook his head. "There's a company of tanks and two platoons of Telkan Marines guarding the town now. They'll be fine."
"Friendly contact incoming," the EW tech called out. He'd barely finished speaking when the six aircraft, all Space Force Aerospace Force, roared by barely a hundred meters off the deck. They were close enough that Ralvex's armor IDed the weapon clusters that were deployed from the storage lockers. Heavy anti-armor rounds as well as dual purpose rounds and three heavy cannons.
"They passed us a package. Nap of Earth terrain mapping and unit placements with timestamps," the EW officer said. "Passing Manfred the commo pack, got some stuff that will require my EW deck to decrypt."
"Anyone close to us?" the tank commander asked.
"Still decrypting. Got an emergency header, hang on," the EW officer said. After a moment he spoke again. "Everyone go to stage two on their psychic shielding, mantid troops move to stage three. The package the flyboys delivered claims that the enemy is using psychic warfare mechanisms and tactics."
There was silence for a moment.
"And planetwide the SUDS are red-dotted," he said softly.
"I'll be back. Go ahead and tab up a stimgum, I reset your counters," Push said, clambering back up to the commander's hatch. "Let me check all of you."
There was silence for a while, just the far off sounds of combat and twice the low rumble of an atomic detonation over the horizon.
"Well?" The tank commander asked.
"It's right. All of your SUDS are red-dotted. I've never seen all three dots go red before," Push said, her voice soft. "By the Confederate Uniform Code of Military Justice, all of you are medically relieved of any combat actions."
"Well, tell the clankers that," the tank commander said.
Push gave a sound that passed for a sigh. "We're actively engaged in battlefield maneuvering, I can't order you out at this time. I can only give my recommendation."
"And that is?" The tank commander's voice was tight.
"Continue operations. First rule of leadership they taught us was to never give an order you know cannot or will not be obeyed," Push said. "I've worked with all of you almost a century, I know you will refuse to hide. We're tankers, we don't hide."
Ralvex caught the important part. We, that made all the difference. Tanks had made all the difference during the Telkan Wars.
"All right, we'll continue on mission. Jax, what's the nearest friendly unit we can link up with?" the commander asked his commo tech.
"Some of this data is hours old. It's random, looks like these guys are running air superiority missions. Good thing we don't use liquid fuel like the old days, these guys have been in the air for over twenty hours," Jax, the Communications Technician, answered. "Hang on, let's see. We've got a flight of skulls supposedly off to our south by south-west," he suddenly laughed. "Supposedly there's a brigade of Telkan Marine Infantry dug in sixty miles to our north."
That made a couple people snort and one of the Telkan say "Psst, Ralvex, they mean you."
"So, the unit placements are probably out of date," the TCO grumbled. "Any bases?"
"Got a BOLO, looks like Carver, about eight hundred miles to east," Jax said.
"If he's engaged in active combat, we need to stay away," the TCO said.
"Got an ordnance unit, dug in at a children's hospital, but that's four hours ago and they were under heavy attack," Jax said. He was quiet a moment. "OK, got one. There's a Telkan Marine striker base only about a hundred and fifty miles out. Medical, commo, ordnance, maintenance. Looks ad-hoc but it's the closest thing resembling a base right now."
"All right, Telkan, help your little buddies up on the back deck then mount up. We'll push the speed up, get us there in a few hours instead of all day," the TCO barked out.
Ralvex moved over and helped lift Stampy and Timmy up onto the back deck. Stampy played a happy tune and rubbed against the turret with glee. Timmy rolled in a circle then crouched down, maglocking himself to the deck and facing to the rear of the tank. The other three Telkan jumped up on the tank and the tank picked up speed.
They were rolling through fields of grain, the battle-screens tuned to push it aside rather than burn it down. Ralvex nodded with the bouncing, kind of hovering between awake and asleep. His arm hurt him, his head ached, his knees hurt, and his back ached. 525 put up a sleeping icon from inside the dented clamshell protective housing.
"OUT OF THE WAY, JACKASS!" the TCO suddenly shouted the ancient Terran movement warning. Ralvex looked up in time to see a car of Hesstlan make almost get crushed by the tank as the tank exited one field, crossed the road, and entered the other field.
Ravlex noticed the car was missing a door and most of the windows.
Then it was gone and the tank cruised back into the grain, the treads clattering and the battlescreen whispering as it shoved the grain aside. Once again the tank started gently rocking as the treads crushed the furrows beneath them.
"Play some music, give anyone hiding in the fields warning. Let's not run over some poor bastard fleeing for their life," the TCO said.
"MOVE, BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!" roared out over the tank's PA system. "GET OUT THE WAY, BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!"
Ralvex relaxed slightly, turning his remaining hand palm-up and bringing up the book Walking with the Digital Omnimessiah, turning to his favorite chapter and starting to read. He still hurt but reading the account of Enraged Phillip walking for thirty days and thirty nights across the blasted landscape of Mercury made his injuries recede. Several times he prayed, for strength, for courage, but most of all, for patience.
His comlink started to click for a few moments before the voice came in. Full of static with the odd warble that heavily jammed commo got, but a voice all the same.
"Unknown unit at 327, ID. Unknown unit at 327, transmit ID and activate transponder," the voice stated.
"This is the Copperhead Road, Third Platoon, Charlie Company, 22nd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 4th Regiment, 2nd Armor Division (Heavy Metal)," the TCO answered. "We've got some guys from Second Telkan Marines."
