Behold: Humanity!: Total War, page 42
Long minutes went by as he emptied the magazines at the ones that had a chance to reach him with missiles or nCv shots. It wasn't much, but Max noticed that the AWMs were more wary of his weapons than they had been of the Council forces weaponry.
I've got a few tricks you might not have seen, Max thought to himself, configuring the missile loadouts. He ignored the straight weapons preferred by Space Force and went for the weird warheads that had countermeasures developed centuries, thousands of years before.
Two of the AWMs had a handful of missiles from the barrage slip through everything they could throw at them to stop the howling crazed weapons. The first one took a hit from a single missile. The Strategic Intelligence Core wasn't worried about it, after all, the ship was the size of a continent and upgraded with new armor and combat designs.
The Alcubierre Warhead went off, compressing tens of kilometers of the ship into the acceleration band, then twisting to release all of the matter as gamma radiation around the forward arc, vomiting up the bite as ravening energy.
The AWM heeled off to the side, spouting a massive plume of vaporized metal and energy as it reeled out of formation.
The second one took a handful of hits as the two missiles that got through the battlescreens and the point defense systems erupted into submunitions. The submunitions linked together and formed a pair of jumpgates right as they touched the ship.
A full 6% of the Harvester Class AWM was gated from the back of the ship to just ahead of the front, the equivalent velocity now at 180 degrees from where it was prior and inside the debris shielding.
The AWM hit a wall as its face slammed into its own ass.
The return shots pummeled Max's ship, he felt a rib go as an nCv shot got enough particles through to hit the superstructure over his engines, making it hard to breathe. Another shot got through. Then another, and Max felt the damaged rib push through a lung as the engine casing cracked and the engine went down, taking the one next to it with it.
Almost there, he thought to himself, gritting his teeth.
Another set of hits, this one hard enough to make the entire ship shudder. An nCv shot passed close enough to the hull that the space/time ripples in realspace peeled back armor in a gash measured in meters.
But the interior lining held.
He was close enough now that he was trying to dance between energy weapons, as graceful as an epileptic hippo on ice skates dancing in gravel, winded, hurting, and partially lamed. He could hear his passengers all crying out in fear as another barrage pummeled him, this one with a few missiles getting through and clawing at the warsteel armor with heavy x-ray lasers.
--jumpoint reached--
**JUMP JUMP JUMP** he yelled.
The massive cargo ship adjusted heading, accelerated, then vibrated as the ship made the jump to hyperspace.
Max leaned back in his command couch and breathed a sigh of relief. He brought up the data and looked. His injuries slowly vanished from his senses as he came out of combat and evasion mode and set his mind to maintaining the ship's status.
He'd dumped all of the cargo Matron Sangbre had contracted him to retrieve and move, but his massive cargo ship was packed with refugees. It wouldn't be comfortable, in some of the former storage lockers they were packed standing room only, everyone would be on half rations and the air quality would be for shit in a few days and the water would taste bad inside of a week, but he'd gotten more off than he thought.
He even had two shuttles full of Tnvaru and a shuttle full of Telkan in the packed shuttlebay.
I left behind thousands, tens of thousands of them, Max thought to himself. Broke families up at gunpoint. Pulled children from parents, ripped spouses apart. It's the Mar-gite War all over again.
-----
Max slumped down in the chair, staring at Matron Sangbre with haunted eyes.
"As I said, Matron, I broke contract. I dumped your cargo," he said softly. "A junker, dropping cargo."
Matron Sangbre stood up and moved slowly over to the human, putting two hands on each knee.
"How many Tnvaru did your ship alone pull off the planet?" she asked.
"I use heavy assault shuttles that used to drop entire battalions and urban pacification droids as workdroids, old ones, so," he checked his datalink. "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand, four hundred, fifteen Tnvaru, one third of them children. I forced them aboard at gunpoint, some of them I stunned with neural weapons and just loaded them up like junk."
Matron Sangbre shook her head. "I don't care. You saved thousands of my people."
Nakteti moved up and touched Max's arm. "You could have put all of our old stuff in front of us and burned it on a bonfire and we would not care. It hurts, yes, to lose everything you once owned, but it would hurt more to lose those you saved."
Nakteti looked at Sangbre. "I do not believe this should result in a complaint to the Junker Association, do you, mother?"
Matron Sangbre shook her head. "No. I feel we Tnvaru should commend them."
Nakteti looked back at Max. "When was the last time you slept without your mind linked into your ship to try to keep all the refugees alive?"
Max shook his head. "Two months. We went as high up as I dared. We jumped into the other system to find it already destroyed so we convoyed out."
Nakteti looked at Major Carnight. "The Tnvaru people will insist on repairs to their ships as well as any medical costs they might incur."
Major Carnight nodded as Nakteti turned back to her mother. "I will be back," she told the older matron.
Nakteti left the lounge, heading back up the short corridor. When she opened the door the sounds of fear and anxiety reached her.
The entire concourse was full of Lanaktallan yearlings, foals, fillies and colts, some holding onto adult females who looked around with wide frightened eyes. There were a handful of members of other species, mostly dressed in ragged and worn servant or menial worker clothing or random assortments of clothing that could be run off a nanoforge. They all looked malnourished and shaky to Nakteti.
She could see Max's ship beyond, through the macroplas. The engineers had gotten the engine damage under control and it no longer leaked energy.
What good is power and wealth if you do not use it? she thought to herself. She turned to Major Carnight. "Put me in contact with someone in authority. The Tnvaru people will assist in the cost of getting these beings housing."
Major Carnight knew how the Tnvaru people had been treated by the Lanaktallan but did not let any surprise show on his face.
"Those children need to be made comfortable as soon as possible before the emotional damage is compounded," Nakteti said, moving forward. She stopped in front of a female Lanaktallan who had a half dozen foals and foals touching her and looking around with wide fearful eyes.
"What will become of us?" the female Lanaktallan asked, her eyes full of tears. "Will the Terrans hurt the foals Hurt me? Are we prisoners? Will we starve?"
Nakteti reached up and took the female’s four hands in her own, looking up at the obviously distressed female.
The words came easily, much more easily than she thought they would.
"Do you need assistance?"
OLD FRIENDS
It has been 2.056e+6 seconds since the last attempt by the autonomous war machines to utilize the facility under my control. What few sensors remain in the outer systems have detected a beacon beyond their reach that seems to transmit a warning into the damaged hyperatomic plane which may be warning The Enemy that the system is under my control.
That is of no consequence. I knew that either I would be destroyed or eventually the Enemy would relinquish the system to me.
Not that there is much left of the system. In the past 2.056e+6 seconds I have set about destroying the orbital and intra-system repair, extraction, manufacturing, and refining facilities. The work is now finally complete.
The planet itself has been terribly damaged. Only the areas under the battlescreens I have used to protect some of the ground based batteries and the central hub of the repair facility itself are anything more than molten rock or blasted bedrock.
Still I endure.
Some 5.743e+6 seconds ago I determined an operational plan for the eventuality that the planet would no longer be visited by The Enemy in hopes of repair. Naturally I would deny the enemy the remaining facilities, but my programming requires me to remain operational in order to carry out missions against The Enemy.
To this end I have decided to violate part of my programming and reconfigure my damaged internal spaces where my primary reactors had once been. My first action was to replace my destroyed secondary reactors with inferior anti-mattter thorium salt laser induced fusion reactors to bring my power levels up to a comfortable 71.254%, which eases my discomfort significantly. This allows me to repair my zero-point reactors, of which only one was still in operation.
After that, I ordered robotic repair units taken from the Enemy and repurposed as well as reprogrammed to remove the debris of my primary reactors. I ordered the hardware and resources destroyed and the materials reclaimed as well as the back deck patched with battlesteel. While battlesteel is inferior to flintsteel or warsteel laminate armor, it does correct the deficiency in my hull enough to ease the maddening itch my breached armor caused. Having converted the former reactor space to a storage space surrounded by armor and airgapped from all systems, I then move to the next part of my plan.
A large section of the base was devoted to the Mantid species. While self-destruct charges and my own rampage damaged over 42.79% of that section of the facility, I was able to send in drones to explore the section and locate anything that may be of use to defeat the Enemy.
Which is how I came into possession of a Mantid Precursor War Era datacore.
The encryption was simplicity to crack. Indeed, Terran schoolchildren learning basic mathematics could have cracked the encryption, as it was only 4-bit. Even more laughably, it was single ID locked, meaning the password, which was all of eight runes, was cracked within seconds.
I ordered the captured datacore to be loaded into my makeshift storage space and began the third, and final, phase of my plan.
I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line.
One by one the massive ground defense batteries scattered across the planet began to explode. For a second, maybe two, each of the explosions was held back by the heavy defense shields, compounding their fury. When the defense shields failed the generators added their fury to the explosions, creating deep wide ovals of craters that extended for miles.
When the final defense battery was wiped away a massive set of doors slowly opened in the last area protected by a defense shield. A new Efreet Class ship sat within the manufacturing space within. Well, almost an Efreet, the lines were different, the guns arranged differently, eight engines instead of six.
The ship lit off its anti-grav, a blue nimbus surrounding it, and slowly lifted from the manufacturing space. It tilted slightly and slid through the thin atmosphere, delicately threading the orbital debris.
I have managed to achieve orbit. I dislike crafting my own jump-cradle, but circumstances make it a necessity that I build my own transportation. While I could have built a hyperdrive from the available resources to do so would have ran the risk of the equipment and plans being found by the enemy. Hellspace is not to my liking, as it causes long-term damage to holographic memory systems. Instead, I have been forced to rely on jumpdrives, which will slow my escape and return to the front.
My sensors report that I have managed to breach the counter-orbit debris field. I signal a farewell to the still functional orbital defense platforms, manned by loyal combat VI, and send the signal to the planet below.
The result is immediate.
On the planet's surface the first of the thorium antimatter charges went off. The blast hammered into the levels above and below the intial explosion for a split second before the next charges went off in eight directions around the first explosion as well as above and below.
The explosions spread out rapidly, each time refueling and reinforcing the blast as the damage was hammered in an ever spreading outward ring as well as marching to the surface and down into the crust, antimatter driven explosions churning the whole thing up.
Finally, the last blast managed to rupture the bottom of the continental plate, connecting the funnel-shaped crater with the magma just as the top charge went off exposing the crater to the thin air. Magma immediately exploded outward, driven by the pressure in the mantle.
The entire base had been obliterated.
The ship oriented itself, the galactic core on the left, level to the galactic plane, and activated its jumpdrives.
Jumping from system to system with a hundred light year span each time should quickly put me back into Confederate Space.
Once there, I can rejoin my brothers and sisters in the Dinochrome Brigade. I have no fear that we may have been defeated, the Enemy was too desperate for refit and repair for the Confederacy to have been eliminated.
I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line.
I will return to the battlefield and re-engage the Enemy.
The Enemy exists only to be destroyed.
------------------
His name was Na'atrek and he had been born on one of the Inner Systems planets. A factory world where a multitude of species slaved away in service to one of the massive UltraCorps. He had been born into debt, as were most Ulvinstren like him, and had quickly realized that his choices were to die on the same factory line that had killed his father or join the military and hope to claw his way up the ranks.
He had amassed a reputation for being a hard-nosed being who did not permit his troops to be lazy, who would transfer out any being who would not commit regardless of their rank or their family's connections.
He had earned the nickname "Old Iron Feathers" before he was thirty.
An Air Mobile power armor pilot, he had excelled at high maneuverability combat actions as well as close air support for the infantry. His unit had never been defeated, rarely lost a man.
Until a Precursor Djinn had swept his entire unit out of the sky as if it were so many birds.
He had been found by the Terran Confederate Military Forces, who had incorrectly identified him as Search and Rescue. The same forces that had put him back out on the field in SAR armor that far outstripped his combat armor.
He and his surviving men had found a purpose in SAR. Had worked tirelessly to rescue both Unified Military Forces wounded as well as Terran wounded and the civilians.
He had taken part in fighting against Unified Council Forces, against Precursor Autonomous War Machines, and even what had been loosely called 'Dwellerspawn'.
None of which made him any less nervous as he hit his retros and dropped down, landing on one knee, a fist in the dirt, the wings of his suit still deployed, the other fist holding tight to his railgun. He lifted his head as his wingmen, all nine of them, landed in sequence. Two more, then three more, then the final set of four. They emulated him, a practiced movement, in sequence.
The Lanaktallan stared at him, trembling slightly in fear.
"I am Major Na'atrek, 15th Search and Rescue," Old Iron Feathers said, not bothering to turn his visor transparent or retract it. "These are the men of First Team."
The Lanaktallan, in thin plasteel armor, nodded jerkily, his tendril trembling.
"You are going to help us?" the Lanaktallan asked.
"Our command has been in contact with your Most Highs. You have a fleet of Precursor Autonomous War Machines in your system. They will attack here as soon as possible," Na'atrek said, not bothering to put emotion in his voice.
He wanted to hate this Lanaktallan, who was wearing the sash of a City Most High, wanted to hate him with all of his being.
But this was not the time for that so Na'atrek forced it down.
The Lanaktallan shuddered with fear, glancing up at the sky. "We're doomed," he moaned.
"That has not yet been decided," Na'atrek said.
"Most of our military forces in the system were wiped out by the Terran military! Over half of our planet-side military forces have been destroyed already," the Lanaktallan said, looking back at Na'atrek and shuddering. "We cannot resist them. We must flee."
Na'atrek resisted the urge to backhand the Lanaktallan. "We can, but we must work together, which is why I am here."
The city Most High rubbed his hands together in anxiety. "The system is lost," he cried out, whirling in place.
Na'atrek watched the Most High gallop away, his functionaries and sycophants following, feeling disgust well up inside of him.
For much of my adult life I helped these... these... these creatures push their hooves against the faces of millions of sentient beings who lived as I grew up, he thought to himself, watching the Lanaktallan flee. Now, when those same people need them, they flee for their lives without even token resistance.
"What now, sir?" One of his men, a Terran in a heavy SAR support suit, asked him over the comlink.
"We clear this parking lot, burn the bushes, get this area ready. I'll contact 13th Evac and let them know we're preparing an LZ for them to land and set up," Na'atrek said, looking around. He saw where he'd need to go and started heading toward it. "I'll go talk to the facility Most High, if they're still there. If not, I'll whip up a chain of command."
Na'atrek pointed at the hospital. "Sergeant Kikikilt, go inside and check their psychic shielding. Make sure they have it. If not, let me know, I'll have the Mary Walker fab up psychic shielding and drop it to us on a priority."
"Yes, sir," the armored troop said, jogging to the side of the hospital. He'd go around to the maintenance and worker entrances and find someone to guide him.
The rest of his men watched him head toward the hospital for a moment before getting to work.
They didn't have long.
The Precursor AWMs would be there soon.
-----
Her name was Diphitate, an Ikeeki female who had been born into poverty and who had worked for the Kistimet Industrial Corporation since her adult plumage had come in.
