Chapter 138 (2/2)
The bigger craft, the round orbs, detached and dropped into atmosphere. Smaller ones, previously hidden, dropped from the big spindly jumpships, coming in fast and hard to slam down near military bases and encampments.
What came out of the pods and smaller craft made the Lanaktallan defenders stare in shock.
Mechs.
Some of the Lanaktallan commanders scoffed. They were half the weight of a heavy tank at most, some of them were lighter than the hovertanks in use by the scout corps. They ranged from 25 tons, a two legged spindly looking thing that bobbed as it walked, to the massive stomping bipedal 100 ton war machines.
Several of the commanders, most of them younger, were suspicious.
Within the first few skirmishes it was obvious that the Terran mechs weren't going to follow normal procedure. They didn't march up and stop to give themselves the best shots, they kept marching forward, sometimes even breaking into a run. Some jumped up high in the air on jump-jets to come crashing down on the tanks. They stomped on infantry or coated them with napalm rockets, shredded tanks with autocannon or PPC fire, and knocked down planes with missiles.
The aerospace fighters provided close air support. Infantry found themselves baked alive under napalm or shattered by cluster bombs. Tanks found themselves taking HEAP rounds to the back decks. Command centers were strafed and often blown up.
Teams of five soldiers in identical power armor attacked tanks and ripped them apart, invaded command centers to kill everyone inside.
It wasn't all one sided. Here and there a mech would get blown up.
But it was always surrounded by hundreds, thousands of dead Lanaktallan military forces.
For almost ninety days the mechs marched across the planet. Returning to the big round ships now and then for repair, refit, and ammunition reload and then marching back out to continue the combat.
The Lanaktallans were suffering combat fatigue by a week. By a month most of the Lanaktallan officers were on the edge of galloping around in circles and bleeting in terror. By sixty days they began begging to surrender.
The giant mechs ignored them and continued stomping forward, killing any who raised a weapon, who mounted a vehicle, who tried to resist in any way shape or form. In orbit the jumpships dropped shoals of satellites, armed satellites, in orbit.
Buildings were destroyed, any military structure was leveled. Dams, power plants, massive agri-domes, were all destroyed, left behind smoking wreckage by the giant mechs.
At seventy days no Lanaktallan tried to resist the massive mechs or their smaller power armor brethren. The mechs kept moving across the landscape, destroying buildings, roads, mag-lev trains, manufacturing plants, spaceports, airports, harbors. The satellites were long gone, as were the weather control stations.
By ninety days the planet was shrouded in thick ash and smoke.
The mechs marched back onto the dropships. The dropships lit their engines and lifted off, joining back up with the jumpships. The jumpships all moved in formation, angling away from the planets until they reached that small twisted area of space only a few hundred miles across.
They stretched into infinity and vanished.
On the surface the survivors breathed a sigh of relief.
Until they got hungry and the ruins no longer provided any food. Until it was pointed out that the massive farms were scorched ruins. That the food stocks and stores had been blown up. That there were no robots or slaves or servants to do any work.
Some Lanaktallan dared to go to the bases that had sprung up around the dropships. There they found things they weren't sure how to use. There was crude drawings in books how to they could be used to till the ground, cut lumber, quarry stone.
There were bags of seeds.
And a message:
”FIRST AND LAST WARNING - MECHWORLDS OF TERRA”
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Oof, some of what I'm seeing is ugly.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
On which side? Because these Lanaktallans are capable of some ugly stuff. Hell, they've DONE some ugly stuff.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Some of the LARPers and Wargamers have started attacking systems.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
Tough shit.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
This should be a strictly official military venture. Call back the non-military forces. Please, don't do this, call back everyone but the professional military.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
Make me.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
Um... I'd rather not. I learned my lesson, thank you.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN GESTALT
THIS IS OUR WORLD! WE WILL NOT YIELD!
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
See. Our youngest brethren agrees with me.
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TREAENA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Hey, man, I'm down with this. These cow guys are some serious bad news. They're the type to surrender and then release bioweapons on all your worlds and act all blameless.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
That's exactly what they do. It's one of their most common tactics.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
We're with you. We just...
...we just worry about your soul.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---