Chapter 114: (Telkan) (1/2)
The day was hazy, visibility lowered to less than a quarter mile due to the thick spores and pollen in the air. Some of the spores were the size of a baseball, lazily floating along in the humid air currents. The sound of the waves against the cliff was far and remote, as if the pollen in the air was somehow muffling the noise of the tide.
The tank was large by most standards, two hundred tons of moving metal, three engines, eight forced air pressure hover nacelles. A 155mm main gun, a set of tri-barrel co-axial mag-acc guns, a pair of 4-pack mortal tubes, point defense weapons, and APERS strips.
Ekret knew it was a light scout tank by the standards of the military he was currently serving with.
Ekret, like his entire crew, had started out as debt forced wage-slave military forces, using equipment who's designs were over ten million years old without a single update or improvement. His tanks, back then, had been between fifty and a hundred tons and mounted less than half the weaponry, were slower, with less shielding.
The battle-screen that would normally be glimmering was turned off, although there were sterilization fields, normally used in surgery, glimmering over the head sinks and fins off the back of the tank.
The Terran military had purchased his contract, and the contracts of his entire division, from the bankrupt corporation, trained him, armed him, and integrated him into one of the most lethal militaries Ekret had ever seen.
The patch on his shoulder, a pair of lighting bolts on either side of the Terran number ”1”, was the patch of his division, First Recon Division (New Metal).
Which is how he had ended up on a planet that was currently being overgrown by hostile plants.
And how a Terran Descent Human, who had been raised by insectoid Treana'ad after a natural disaster had left him an orphan, had sent him, and his crew, out to check on the coast. Satellite recon was almost completely useless, the plant's spores making visibility by almost any wavelength next to useless.
But the General, known to many as 'Tik-Tac', had been staring at maps for over a day, tapping his fingers and rubbing his hand together.
Standing in the cupola hatch, the commander's hatch, Ekret was chewing on the end of an empty plastic ration tube, staring at what he'd found.
”Any ideas?” one of the human commanders, a big burly human who was more cybernetics than man, asked.
”No clue,” Ekret admitted, staring at what he'd found.
It was massive. He could see it, dimly through the spores, extending off past the visibility line.
A massive vegetative tube, exiting the jungle and down the cliff, into the sea. It was pulsing in a rhythm that suggested to Ekret that it was pulling the water up. The seawater was covered with a thick layer of algae and seaweed. There were smaller veins around it, all obviously feeding the tube, which moved with a life all its own.
On Ekret's left was the jungle. The leaves were brown and yellow, limp, almost wilted, coated with a thin film of what looked like wax.
”Pan the jungle again,” came an order over his headset.
The hovertank slowly rotated, bringing the massive scanners on the front glacis into play.
”Air's full of crap,” Heslettek, the EW and scanner officer complained.
--attempting to compensate-- 749, a small green mantis engineer flashed through the icon and emoji language he used.
”That jungle doesn't look like its benefiting from millions of gallons of seawater being pumped into it,” said the voice that had ordered the jungle to be panned again.
”No, sir,” The human commander, one General Trucker - 3rd Armor Division (Old Metal), said, his voice slow and quiet. ”Anyone have any idea what it's doing?”
”Pumping water up from the ocean and taking it further into the jungle is my guess,” Ekret said.
”We need an expert on this,” Trucker said. Ekret heard the big human spit. ”Where's that Vuxten kid?”
There was silence a moment, broken only by stray chatter that was bounced around by the vegetative chaff. Ekret nodded to himself. Vuxten had fought in the Precursor War as an Army conscript, pulling SAR and recon, then had gone through training as a Terran Marine.
”Vuxten here, sir,” came the voice of one of the natives of the planet, a Telkan.
”Any ideas what this might relate to?” The original voice asked. General Tik-Tac of 19th Logistics and Sustainment.
”It has to be a vein. One of the big ones,” Vuxten answered. ”It's pumping nutrients, probably filtered out of the ocean, to the plants deeper in. Watch out for veins, sir.”
”The plants at the edge are dead,” Ekret said.
”No, sir. They just look like it. The whole jungle, all of it, is one interconnected system. Believe me, that big vein could pump enough nutrients into that patch of jungle that you're tank would have vines trying to crawl into within a minute or two. We call 'vein bolt' and 'power bloom' when it does that,” Vuxten said.
”It's pulling millions of gallons an hour. Any idea why?” Ekret asked.
”No, sir. Honestly, with what we've learned over the last week? It's probably something bad. Let me check,” Vuxten said.
There was silence for a moment.
”There's three big lakes, according to the old maps. It's pulling in the water to feed something in those lakes. Every time we've seen lakes, they've been coated in algae and have something big and mean growing in them,” Vuxten said.
”All right, kid. Thanks. Get some rest,” Trucker said.
”Yes, sir,” Vuxten said.
Ektret leaned against the edge of the hatch, staring at the jungle.
”Well, gentlemen, what do you think?” Tic-Tak asked.
”I think the kid's right. It's pumping nutrients to something nasty,” Trucker said, then spit again. ”After what happened during the landing, I'm willing to bet it's growing something that it hopes can stand up to modern metal.”
”I concur, sir,” Ekret said, lifting up a pair of lens only binoculars and looking through them.
”All right, come back. I don't like having you out that far on your own,” Tic-Tak said. ”Unless either of you have an objection.”
”We could always have Ekret put a couple rounds in that artery, see what shakes loose,” Trucker suggested.
”I'm in a hover tank,” Ekret said. ”I should be able to outrun anything the jungle tosses out.”
”No, I think I should consult with all commanders and come up with a workable plan to force the jungle to show a few cards,” Tic-Tak said. ”Together we are much more than the sum of our parts.”
Trucker and Ekret acknowledged and then signed off.
The big 'scout' hovertank lifted up in a shower of pureed vegetation and dirt, rotated in place, and smoothly headed back to the massive logistics base.
Behind it, the thick tube kept its secrets.
-------------------
Six hours later Ekret stared at the same scene he had watched from his tank. Well, close. The image was split into quarters, one with visible light, one a composite, one cleaned up, and one the last aerial view that had been recorded.
”First of all, I'd like to welcome our two reinforcement division heads. General Araktun of the 219th Cybernetic Infantry Division and General Vost of the 712th Genetic Warfare Division,” Tic-Tak said, rubbing his hands slowly back and forth. Ekret had noticed that in a way it mimicked Treana'ad body language.
General Araktun looked like a warborg except in chrome, with a single line of red that had a moving red dot going back and forth, instead of the normal warborg eyes. He nodded to everyone at the introduction then looked at General Trucker, who was spitting juice into a small plastic bottle.
”You still hanging around with these meatbags pretending you shouldn't be working with me, Trucker?” Araktun asked.
”Still 42% meat, ya walking hubcap,” Trucker grinned.
The cyborg made a grinding sound of amusement.
General Vost was a lean looking Pure Strain Human with a face like a shovel and cold hard eyes. He just nodded when he was introduced.
”Do have any ideas what might be going on deeper in the jungle?” Tic-Tak asked, brushing his fingers together back and forth.
Everyone shook their heads.
”Send for that Vuxten kid, let's get his input,” Trucker said, waving at it. ”I've looked over the after action precis for what went down on the landing, those Telkans had their shit together.”
Everyone nodded and Tic-Tak gave orders to an aide to have Vuxten report in to the command center.
”Would those big ones prove difficult for your tanks, General Trucker?” Tic-Tak asked.
Trucker shrugged. ”That's hard to say without actually engaging them, sir. From what I've seen, using straight lasers or plasma just seem to energize them in the same way that my battle-screens pull any energy they can into my reserves.”
Araktun just nodded, staring at the screen. He pointed at an unused holotank. ”May I?”
”Of course, General,” Tic-Tak answered.
”I haven't been on planet long enough to do a complete genetic analysis of the foe, but what I'm seeing just in these images is concerning,” Vost said, leaning forward. ”I would suggest from here on out we make our plans as if we're dealing with a rogue Elven Queen.”
”Oh my,” Tic-Tak said, rubbing his forearms. ”That is... concerning.”
”Amplify?” Trucker said, staring at the holotank.
”Corporal Vuxten as well as several other members of First Telkan have annotated that the 'jungle itself' adapts to them. They treat the 'jungle' as a complete organism, and so far their instincts have been on the nose,” Vost stated. ”How many of you have seen an Elven Queen in action with your own eyes?”
General Tic-Tak was the only one who raised their hand.
”If we approach this as if we are taking on a maddened or rogue Elven Queen, we'll be able to adapt our strategies must quicker as well as possibly predict the actions of the enemy,” Vost said. ”I would suggest considering it a maddened queen, as we've seen them 'print out', so to speak, unfinished versions of attack and defense systems where a rogue queen would take the time to finalize the design.”
Tic-Tak nodded and exhaled. ”That makes logistics handling much more difficult. I'll need to put a priority on medical checks and medical care as well as ensure everyone's blood cleanser implants get constant updates.”
Araktun was replaying several of the First Telkan's combat operations, pausing and zooming in on the plants involved.
”Right now it looks like, for the most part, the controlling organism, if there is one, thinks on the macro not the micro, which is lucky for us,” Vost said, staring at the screen. ”It hasn't resulted to viral warfare as far as we know, specifically they haven't engaged in viral warfare against the human element, which leads me to believe that they don't have enough of our genetic code to begin attacking us.”
”A maddened queen wouldn't rectify that, a rogue one would,” Tic-Tak mused. ”A rogue queen would be sending in small blood sucking creatures to get a sample of us.”
”Pre-programmed,” Trucker said, staring at the map. Ekret noticed both the big human's cybernetic eyes were slightly unfocused. ”Our proteins and yadda yadda are different enough from the Telkans to throw an error code but close enough we can breathe the same atmosphere and eat roughly the same things. At first glance we'd look like a mutation, but on a deeper level our cellular structure and makeup are too different to be easily effected. It's either ignoring us or devoting a lot of effort to figure out how to go at us beyond stabbing or crushing us.”
General Vost raised his eyebrows slightly and Ekret kept from laughing. It was obvious Vost had taken one look at the big General and dropped his estimates of Trucker's intellect by a factor of five.
”With Big Slobbery Mo out of the picture, it might have to dedicate resources to regrowing intelligence arrays,” Trucker said, suddenly looking up. ”We should consider this thing akin to the Precursor machines for how they work together and add in the Lanaktallan 'slow and steady wins the race' philosophy.”
Everyone nodded except Araktun, who was engrossed in watching the sped-up replays of First Telkan.
Ekret slid an empty ration tube out of his pocket and put the end in his mouth, chewing on it, and staring at the holotank. It had been only a little more than a week and already the majority of the planet was covered by vegetation. There wasn't that much more than rolling plains, a few mountain ranges, and complex interconnect rivers to make up the geography.
That made Ekret blink. He reached out and brought up a few planetary scans of planets in the Dead Zone where all this had started as well as planets from the Terran side, looking over the geographical outlay of the planet.
The majority of planets in the neo-sapient zone were uniform in their layout. Protocontinent or a few continents, mountain ranges in the center, rivers flowing through rolling plains. He ran a similarity check between neo-sapient zone planets with the main computer system and waited the few minutes for it to check.
80% match.
Ekret looked up.
”They've been here before,” he said.
Everyone turned and looked at him. ”Not just here, but all over this zone. Look,” he motioned at the planetary comparison. ”Think about it. These planets are just farms, resource farms for the creatures and Lanaktallans.”
Tic-Tak was slowly rubbing his hands together, staring at the screen. ”The Lanaktallans want physical resources, found in a planetary crust, and use the local sapients as a slave force to maximize the resource extraction. The creatures want... biomass? Calories? Fuel for themselves?”
”The question is,” Trucker said slowly, staring at the holotank as he spit into the bottle. ”Which one is obeying who?”
Ekret shrugged. ”Say ten million years between each, well, rotation so to speak, does it matter in the meantime?”
Tic-Tak moved to the holotank, bringing up an interface and twiddling at it rapidly. After he was done he stepped back and waited.
Vuxten came in and stood against the wall silently, seeing all the high ranking officers staring at the holotank. Vuxten could see it was flashing planets up rapidly.
”Let me adjust the algorythm a bit,” Tic-Tak said. He twiddled for a moment on the interface. ”That's the best my limited skill can do. After we're done here I'll send it for analysis.”
Everyone just nodded, watching.
It took almost five minutes before the computer spit it back up.
Core Worlds and Inner Sphere worlds were heavy metal poor, almost to the point of having none outside the mantle. The mountains were low and rounded. Geological instability was largely relieved. Weather was controlled. The ecology was carefully balanced, with no high end predators.
”As I suspected,” Tic-Tak said, stepping back and shaking his head. ”General Ekret is correct, they've not only been here before, but I suspect they have been all through this section of the galactic stub.”
Everyone nodded as Tic-Tak turned around. ”So either there is an ecological battle group outside of every system in Lanaktallan control and sphere of influence, or the creatures have been slowly spreading out, abandoning the ”Core Worlds” and ”Inner Sphere” as depleted due to the eco-system being too, well, 'thin' as it were,” the portly General said. He spotted the Telkan against the wall. ”Ah, Corporal Vuxten. Good of you to join us.”
”Thank you, General,” Vuxten said. ”How can I help?”
”How long, would you estimate, it took the jungle to adapt to what your men were doing?” Trucker asked.
Vuxten thought for a moment. ”A day, maybe too, at the latest. Hours sometimes. It got easier in Grid Tango-Niner after we blew up a bunch of weird looking coral.”
”Which day and engagement?” Araktun asked. When Vuxten told him he shifted views in the holotank and brought up the section quickly.
He tossed it to the main holo-tank and everyone watched as First Telkan moved in on an overgrown spaceport, escorting flame vehicles.
Only a few days ago we had the ability to do overwatch with drones and satellite, now we're almost blind, Ekret thought to himself, watching the icons move across the screen.
”STATUS CHANGE!” the voice rang out over the holotank and the image changed from ships covered by a thin layer of moss to outgrowths of coral defended by plants that fired laser or vomited up plasma. The screen blinked twice to show it was updating.
The coral was closely grown, full of folds and bulges, and ringed by heavy armored plates. Ekret noted that the shell to completely encase it wasn't fully formed yet but still gleamed metallically. Plant extruded metals forged at the cellular level.
The flame vehicles washed the coral with fire and everything went berserk. Lightning-like patterns in the moss.
”That was the first time we ran into a vein bolt,” Vuxten said quietly.
Ekret just nodded, staring. It did look like a lightning bolt moving through the moss.
”Thousands of gallons of nutrient per vein, fifteen veins, this was of major importance,” Tic-Tak mused.
”The first power bloom we ever encountered is next,” Vuxten said. ”We lost a couple of people right here and a lot of the tanks. We got chewed up.”
The lumps in the moss, which had only showed up on the scans when First Telkan had arrived, suddenly erupted into plants that grew impossibly fast.
General Vost was working at his own holotank, watching what Vuxten was narrating as he worked, identifying plants, growth rate, nutrient uptake rate, where they were in regards to a major vein.
Tanks had plants shoot out from under them, vines grabbing and twisting. First Telkan scattered, going for flat spots of moss, throwing or firing out grenades or rockets to blow the moss off of the ferrocrete and jumping to the middle of the spot.
Four of First Telkan didn't make it. At every point where the Telkan Marines didn't make it out there was an explosion.
”What triggers that?” Vost asked.
”Termination of life signs,” Vuxten said. ”We encountered a few places where bodies are used pretty horrifically and all agreed we'd rather risk having our suits explode when we sneeze than be used like that.”
Vuxten made a motion, looking at the holodisplay coming from his palm, then flicked it General Vost. ”Take a look at that, sir. We encountered that on Day Two when we were evacing people.”
It looked like a Telkan with a bulging face, throat, and abdomen. It suddenly split open to reveal a swarm of wasps and dozens of little crabs which charged in.
”Luckily, the broodcarriers can smell them and sense them. None of them got in with any podling daycares,” Vuxten said, turning away. ”Their hearts still beat and they make moaning and gagging noises. We felt like they were still alive in there.”
General Vost nodded.
The vehicle drivers obviously panicked, to Ekret's eyes. Two slammed into each other. One bathed a squad of Telkan power armor troops with fire and one of the troops fired back with a rocket that blew up the flame tank.
Ekret couldn't blame them.