Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers) (2/2)
”You are ordered to drop to two hundred meters and file a battle plan. Any deviation from these orders can result in friendly fire or unsupported enemy contact,” Oracle's voice was stuffy. ”Get those SAR suits out of there, you can't do anything but get in the way.”
”I will do no such thing,” Na'atrek answered.
”Then file a battle plan,” Oracle answered. ”You have about fifteen seconds before you get in range of the Djinn's guns.”
”I will not. This is a Precursor trick. Disengage from my network,” Na'atrek ordered.
”Your funeral,” Oracle answered. ”I loaded an evasion plan. Use it. Oracle, out.”
Na'atrek ignored it, ordering his men to hold formation.
Who did the Terrans think they were? His battle plan had been formulated by the best predictive analysis VI that money could...
The world shattered. The Dinochrome Brigade held their fire, tried to provide point defense for the 12th Air Mobile Wing, held off their fire as long as they could.
Na'atrek's men lasted just over 11 seconds, mainly because constant training saved their life the first five seconds, Na'atrek forwarded Oracle's evasion plan, and some of them got to at least load the EMCOM and EW profiles.
The Djinn raked them out of the sky like a flock of birds.
Decades of experience allowed Na'atrek to land, his upper intakes blown away, missing a stabilizer wing, his point defense ripped away, and missing his right hand micromissile launcher. He got to his feet, took two steps forward, unlimbering his magnetic accelerator cannon, and brought up his sensors.
Everything was hash. The only thing that worked was optical and the smoke and haze cut that down to only a mile even with his armor's enhancement package.
A round bounced off the arm of an armored warborg that Na'atrek could barely see with a flash of sparks and an thunderous impact.
And blew open Na'atrek's armor, rupturing his abdominal wall, sending shrapnel from his armor into his torso, and throwing him nearly fifty meters.
He landed in a crater.
He laid there for a long moment, staring up at the sky. It looked like dueling beams of light. Air mobile suits, like his only chunkier and heavier feeling, roared by overhead, less than ten meters off the ground.
”Hey, you alive?” Oracle's voice sounded.
Na'atrek opened his com-link but could only groan. His diaphragm was ruptured and one of his lungs collapsed, not to mention ass his hollow bones in his chest were broken.
”OK, hang tite, I'm sending you and the twenty-three men that survived medical care. Your suits don't have the onboard systems to handle the kind of damage all of you took,” Oracle said. ”You know that your med-kit's drugs are more or less water, right? Your supplier ripped you off.”
Na'atrek just groaned.
One of the massive combat robots stepped over him.
”OK, help's on the way, I had him drop some. Just stay put. Stay with me, champ. I'm putting Med-Com on the line. It's a VI, but he's good, all right?” Oracle said.
A new voice broke in. ”Hello, Commander. I'm Nightengale-6021, a medical VI. Let me just access your armor's systems... and... there we go,” The voice said.
Na'atrek watched as his face-shield, cracked and depowered, suddenly came back on. It displayed his armor's status, his vitals, and a scan of his body and his body suit.
”OK, you're going to need outside help,” The voice said. ”I've got someone coming to help you right now. You may start to feel dizzy, that's not from bloodloss, that's a bioweapon, two chemical weapons, and shock. Don't worry, your new friend has the counteragents to all that. I'm going to shift your armor into trauma position for your species.”
Na'atrek just groaned as the armor suddenly stretched his arms out, put his legs in the optimal position, and locked the joints.
”There you go, stay with me, champ. OK, here comes your new friend. I'm going to stay on the line, but you'll be OK. I've got a medical retrieval unit heading your way,” Nightengale said. It paused for a moment. ”Man, going out there in SAR gear, that's fucking brave.”
Na'atrek wanted to protest, but he was getting dizzy and feeling like he was burning up. His mouth felt dry and he kept seeing streaks of color.
When the little robot slipped over the lip of the crater, Na'atrek giggled even though he wanted to scream. It moved down the crater wall like it liquid, staying low, emitting no signals. He watched it move up and a face appear. It was feline, with long whiskers that were glowing faintly. As he watched it ejected a half-dozen tubes.
The air filled with chaff, micro-prism cloud, and EM pass-through nanites.
The small robot, four legged with a tail it stuck up into the air, moved up. He felt it brush his guts with its whiskers, then lick something inside him.
The pain went away.
It began kneading his intestines, pushing them back into the rupture, hacking up some kind of blue foam into the wound.
Na'atrek didn't feel like panicking. He liked the little robot. He'd always liked little robots, but this one he liked especially. He knew it wasn't hurting him as his intestines pushed back into the muscle. The blue foam soaked into his guts and he could suddenly breathe easier. It horked up more stuff, this stuff mottled brown and black, like the dirt of the crater he was in, and he felt it harden over his wound.
He trusted the little robot, liked it a lot. They were friends, after all, and friends took care of each other.
The little robot sprouted fur, short hairs, and moved under his unresponsive hand. He discovered that his hand was moving, petting the warm soft fur, and it began to make a subsonic rumble that made him feel better.
Every few minutes it would deploy more chaff and cloaking.
A large armored vehicle pulled up and two warborgs, with a red crescent on one side of the chest and a red cross on the other, jumped out. They grabbed him as the robot moved to his chest, and carried him into the vehicle, which was firing weapons through gunports.
They got him in and he could see some of his men, in cradles, in there, each with a furry little robot on their chest.
”We're over-full. This is the last of them, get us out here,” One of the borgs yelled in the audible range.
Another one leaned over Na'atrek, hooking wires and tubes to his exposed flesh, using laser cutters to slice away his beautiful armor.
”Taking SAR gear out there, that took balls, buddy,” The medborg said. ”We'll get you back to MedCom, get you fixed up. You'll be back pulling SAR and saving lives by tomorrow.”
Na'atrek fell asleep before he could answer.
When he woke up, less than eight hours later, his body fixed as if he'd never been injured, he found out that the Corporate Military Council had attempted to flee the system and the entire system was under the authority of the General of V Corps (Old Metal). The Unified Military Services were either dead or had attempted to flee and were under arrest.
Na'atrek didn't know whether to be ashamed or not.
Not for his men. Not for himself.
But for the actions of the Unified Military Services. Who had thrown men like the 12th Air Mobile Wing away as they'd tried to flee for their own lives.
He sat, with his men, in a dining facility, and listened as his men wondered.
Did it have to happen the way it did?
He knew the answer.
No.
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The Unified Military Council determined that the failure of the Unified Military Armed Forces at the battle of Ludmira'ak-624 was the fault of the Terran Military Forces, who had only presented unreasonable system defense plans and refused to follow the orders of the System High Most.
Unified Military Council has determined that the Terran Military Forces Command is, at best, incompetent and have put forth the demand that all Terran Military Forces be put under local command rather than Joint or Autonomous Commands.
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V CORPS (OLD METAL) REPORT
System under heavy attack. Over fifty (50) Goliaths and supporting ships attacking all planets and facilities. Local forces outmatched, outgunned. Will rearm, retrain, and return to combat what local forces we can. More integration with local forces is recommended to all (Old Metal) units. Civilian casualties are expected to be moderate to high despite best efforts. Suggest deployment of Nagasaki Class Drill Shelters for civilians in all sectors as Corporate shelters exist only on paper and tax forms.
We will hold the line.
-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------