Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers) (1/2)

Na'atrek was born on one of the Inner Systems. From a factory world that produced everything from TriVid systems to tank parts to diapers to pesticide, Na'atrek had known that he had two choices in life. Either start working at the factory floor after six years of school, get good grades and get high enough in education to qualify as a manager, or become a citizen.

His father had died on the factory line. A high pressure chamber had thrown a bolt, it had shot through eight Ulvinstren on the line and almost turned them inside out. His mother had been informed that she had priority if she wanted her husband job and the rest of the living block had been informed that eight new positions had opened up.

His mother had died on the way to work. Struck by an executive's limo and killed instantly.

Na'atrek and his siblings were billed for the damage to the limo. They were already in debt and Na'atrek and his three siblings still had two years of schooling to do before they were adults. That meant time in the Corporate Creche, which they would be billed for once they began working. By the time school ended, they already each owed six year's pay to the Corporate Financial Agency. That meant no further schooling and they were expected to go to work in the factories.

Na'atrek was sent to an orbital refinery where he learned new meanings of Hell. His little sister was put in the pleasure dome and took her own life a year later. His brother, hatched at the same time, was killed when he fell from a catwalk (there were no railings) and into the metal grinder. Ha'atrek and his brother were billed for the idle time and the cleaning expense. His brother died a year later when the hab he was staying in suffered a spontaneous rupture, killing 243 of the 600 workers, the entire amount who were not on shift.

Na'atrek decided the only way he would get old enough to see his own eggs hatch was to try to become a citizen. During a recreation time he went into the offices and took the tests. It took three months, using up his entire recreation period each day, and his supervisors mocked him and wrote him up for poor Company Esprit, docking his pay.

At the end of it, the Citizen Office gave him two choices: Corporate Security or the Unified Military Forces.

He choice the military.

The choice between being dumped on a random planet and passing the military testing drove him. He knew he wouldn't be automatically selected as an officer like those from the Unified Civilized Species, he was classified as a neo-sapient species.

But he studied. And he studied hard. He took the tests, exercised in his free time to score higher, and did everything asked of him without a single complaint. Where the beings of the Unified Civilized Species would complain and refuse to do work or training, Na'atrek did everything asked of him without a complaint.

He watched his ”civilized” classmates get testing scores that allowed them to be whatever they wanted, even officers. The rest of the neo-sapients were offered such things as the military equivalent of a janitor, a secretary, or a boot-licker.

The instructor checked his scores twice. He had something different.

Power Armor Pilot (Airmobile).

He took it.

His first day the shower stripped off his feathers. His beak was removed, an extremely short prosthetic grafted to allow him to breath correctly and keep his mouth and sinuses from being a mucus covered hole and he received a feeding port. His claws were removed. A dataport was sunk into the base of his skull.

Just like everyone else.

What followed was a year of what everyone else considered grueling training.

But Na'atrek had worked at the orbital yards for four years, in a vac-suit made up of more patches than original material, eating thin gruel, and living in habs without gravity. His species were flightless bird/lizard hybrids but the small part of his brain that remembered flying came alive during training.

The trainers watched him excel where most of the others failed out.

In the end, out of 1,400 beings, he was one of 120 who finished.

He found it ironic that his 'contract' was purchased, at great expense, by the same corporation who had charged him since robots turned his egg to make sure he was smoothly warmed. Even more amusing to Na'atrek, the company could not garnish his wages and the Unified Military Forces would pay the entire debt after two years of service, which had been swollen by the deaths of his siblings and the fact the company charged his the cost of training his replacement and the replacements first year wages.

Even more amusing was when the Executives rioted and the System Most High had sent in the Unified Military Forces he had purchased contracts for.

Na'atrek's squad mates cheered him on as he executed the Executive who had ran down his mother as she walked down the sidewalk, crossing three lanes of oncoming traffic to kill her as she walked with her arms full of groceries.

Na'atrek had spent nearly fifty years in the Unified Military Forces, his debt long paid, earning officer rank, being sent to schools, getting longevity therapy, and his contract price increasing. At twenty-years he was entitled to 10% of his contract fee, with his share rising by 0.5% every year, with bonuses for schools and rank. He knew beings who had come from places just like he did that earned 120% of their contract fee in bonuses.

He always turned down selecting his own duty station and took the 0.05% contract rate increase every five years. He piloted a single-man recon and air cavalry suit capable of MACH 3 in standard atmosphere at standard gravity and armed well enough he could destroy a building with ease. His enhanced strength meant he could tear open vehicles with his bare hands and a stomp from his armored foot could crush the engine of a limo.

Na'atrek thought himself and his men as hardened combat troops.

When the word went out that the Precursor Machines were advancing steadily toward the world he was stationed on to enforce the security of the factories, he was not worried. He and his men were the best Air Mobile unit in the entire Unified Military Fleet.

Then the Terrans arrived.

Na'atrek didn't think anything of them at first. They called themselves ”V Corps (Old Metal)” and wore the markings of a blue pentagon cut into five separate triangles with a border. Their fleet carrier was 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) and their air units were 18th Air Wing (Atomic).

None of that impressed Na'atrek. He was 12th Air Mobile, a new corporate military force. Outfitted with the best armor, weapons, and ammunition the Unified Military Fleet could provide. His men were the toughest, with the most experience, and he drilled them ruthlessly, known as ”Old Iron Feathers.”

The Terrans had offered to conduct joint training operations. Na'atrek's supervisor turned them down. He could see no reason to expend military/corporate resources for practice. The Precursors had been stopped in many systems, they would be stopped here.

The Terrans dug in, creating interlocking fire bases, forward operating bases, logistics bases. The interlocked and trained with the various parts of V Corps (Old Metal), undergoing training constantly.

Na'atrek wasn't impressed by Terran tech. It seemed slow, clunky, and only seemed to fire lasers.

He wasn't impressed by the 'vaunted' Terran Confederate Armed Services.

In briefings he was told that the Precursors would follow standard, most logical attack patterns. Arrive at the jump boundary, sweep inward, forcing 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) to engage them at range in the outer system. Reports of the Precursor machines being able to jump inside the boundary were anti-Unified Civilized Council propaganda and was ignored as such. The Unified Naval Fleet (Corporate) would support 5th Fleet, stopping any ”breakouts” toward the inner system. His troops, non-space capable, would be on the primary manufacturing world and support combat operations to protect corporate assets, of which the population was not part of.

The battle plan was transmitted to the TCAS.

The TCAS AI's rejected it.

Na'atrek had been in the offices of System Command, had watched the System High Most's face when the TCAS AI had put a laughing face emoji over the entire dataplan and kicked it back.

Na'atrek felt personally insulted that even when he put in his own battleplan for Air Mobile, it was rejected. No emoji, but still rejected. The AI refused to answer questions, just stated that the plan was incomplete and inadequate and the AI would not forward it to his biological superiors in Fleet Command. The System High Most had reminded the Terran Fleet Command that he was in charge, to which the AI simply put up its wallpaper.

The System High Most was still holding a focus group meeting when the alarms went off. Na'atrek was a professional, he excused himself, taking only an hour which was borderline rude, and headed for his command post. He donned his armor and rushed into the situation room to find red lights flashing and his men staring at the carefully crafted Corporate approved plan that had gone so wrong.

The Precursors had arrived.

The rumors has turned out to be fact.

A massive weight of metal slammed into the system. Twelve Goliaths at the outer planets, twenty at the mid-point of the system, fifteen in the Green Zone, and ten between the first planet and the star. As Na'atrek watched the system scanners reported that five Goliaths were heading for each world, with the moons each having one approach. The Goliaths were all shedding Jotuns, Devastators, Demolishers, Juggernauts, and other craft even as they approached.

Na'atrek ordered the Air Mobile base VI, the best Corporate money could buy, to run a predictive combat analysis. Hours passed and 12th Air Mobile waited patiently for the war-codes for their armor to be transmitted. As he watched, his men waiting, a Devastator landed only fifty miles away, crushing a city of 2.2 million under its bulk. The predictive combat analysis array double-checked with the overloaded System Defense VI, waited nearly 12 minutes, and finally had its plans approved. It loaded their attack profiles into the power armor of the Air Mobile unit and gave them the war-codes for the armor.

Na'atrek and his men launched only three minutes before an orbital missile strike managed to penetrate the ground defenses and destroy his base, his logistics, and his supporting units.

12th Air Mobile was on its own.

Their orders, from a System Defense VI that was processing data up to a two hours old, had them going against a Devastator that the predictive VI assured them did not have its anti-air (ground to air or air to air) or point defense systems running or interlocked yet.

They flew to 34,000 feet, their max ceiling, and Na'atrek looked down at the chaos below.

Massive Terran combat robots vomited nuclear fire from their jaws, fired particle beams from shoulder mounted cannons, and scores of heavy missiles from their chests, filling the air with high-tech death. Super-stadium sized tanks rushed toward the Devastator, and as Na'atrek watched nearly a half dozen exited the sea and began pouring fire into the the Devastator. Huge combat robots engaged Precursor machines and the hundreds of missiles the Precursor was firing at the Terrans and the city Na'atrek was supposed to protect was being cut down by a mathematically precise air defense system.

”What are you doing?” A sudden voice asked. ”You are not interlocked.”

”Who is this? This is the Most High of the 12th Air Mobile Combat Team. I demand you identify yourself,” Na'atrek answered.

”You can call me Oracle-872, I was assigned to you to try to interlock you into the BatTacNet,” The voice answered. ”You're in the meat-grinder zone.”

”Our battle computers have predicted this is the way to get closest to the machine. We shall strike at it and disable its guns,” Na'atrek said, unable to keep the sneer from his voice.

”Yeah, you do that? You're gonna die. You're about to pass under a Djinn Class Precursor. That's an air superiority unit and you're blocking the shots from the Dinochrome Brigade. File a combat plan, please,” The voice said.

”Under which authority?” Na'atrek snapped.

”Terran Confederate Armed Forces. We're responsible for the defense of this system and the planets,” The voice, Oracle, said.

”WE are responsible for the defense,” Na'atrek started.

”Look, buddy, no offense, but you're wearing search and rescue gear, not combat gear. If the thermal bloom from the Dinochrome Brigade's shots doesn't knock you out of the air, that Djinn will,” Oracle snapped. ”Drop to two hundred meters, get under their point defense scanners. I'll try to hook you into the BatTacNet,” Oracle said.

Na'atrek almost choked on his outrage. His men had the best equipment money could buy and the Unified Military Forces could provide. ”I will do no such thing.”