Chapter 152: (Telkan) (1/2)
The ground quakes were getting stronger under Vuxten's feet as he kept moving forward, firing the autocannon, the heavy barrel recoiling back with every shot, thudding out the heavy 20mm rounds approximately one every second, the heavy belt of rounds, connected magnetically to one other, feeding into the chamber to be fired at approximately MACH 5 at the creatures.
Around him the Imperium Marines were laying down heavy fire, directing it quickly, effectively, focusing on the bigger ones without letting up the pressure on the smaller ones. Fire was used to burn away plants that grew feet in seconds from seeds left behind in the ash.
Vuxten felt he was being battered back and forth between the rage pouring off of the Imperium Marines and the jungle itself.
The jungle itself hated all Telkans, hated all life that sprung up on the surfaces of Telkan-1 and Telkan-2, hated every broodcarrier, male, female, and podling.
Hated Vuxten himself.
”FOR TELKAN!” he roared out, pouring heavy shells into a massive armored flatworm. He not longer winced when one of the massive insects was killed and the snap of static hit him like he had at the beginning. He was beyond that, caring only about killing every. last. one of them.
The ground beneath him heaved and rocked, splitting open around him. 471 pinged he had a landing spot picked out and Vuxten just jumped, trusting in his mantid partner's judgement as he launched himself into the air. The ground beneath him parted to reveal a massive beetle, striated armor on it, mandibles clacking as it breached the surface.
Vuxten rolled in the air, switching his landing zone to right below him.
Right on the back of the massive beetle.
471 dialed up the grav-spike as Vuxten hit, anchoring the Telkan to the insect and driving the focused gravity deep into the insect. The beetle's armor resisted for a second then the gravity spike twisted and collapsed the internals tissues of the beetle, warping the armor beneath Vuxten's feet. Vuxten flexed his knees and got his balance.
”Keep us on it!” Vuxten called out 471 as he started running forward. 471 kept the graviton generators in Vuxten's boots engaged, switching them off and on in sequence as the Telkan ran up the massive body of the beetle.
The beetle lunged forward, grabbing one of the massive Imperium war machines and lifting it off the ground with its massive mandibles. The war machine roared in rage, aiming its cannon against the mandible and firing, cracking and shattering the armor's integrity.
Vuxten stopped at the slightly upraised armor crest at the top of the creature's thorax, 471 driving the gravity spike into it again.
The autocannon roared as Vuxten fired it into the base of the insects massive skull, where the neck would be on a mammal. The mass reactive anti-matter shells exploded, ripping through armor, into tissue, destroying the integrity of the armor and thus the structure of the insect.
The head fell from the body, the Imperium war machine managing to keep to its feet, staggering slightly but still firing its weapons, getting its feet under it as it moved to the side.
Vuxten jumped clear as the insect staggered and collapsed, somersaulting and twisting in mid-air so he landed facing the insect.
In death the carapace cracked open and dozens, hundreds of smaller versions poured out of the creature's body.
A sextant of the Sisters of Wrath poured fire over them, the smaller insects exploding as their armor held up but their innards converted to steam, expanding until the armor exploded outward from the pressure. A quartet of areospace fighters came in low, hammering with their guns, peeling off in a carefully coordinated and practiced maneuver as they fired their payloads, the jets kicking in the afterburners to gain altitude.
The hit the cloud cover only to find that the ash and particulate laden clouds were full of attackers. One of the aerospace fighters broke formation as 'bees' fired off the charges in their abdomens, converting a thin layered osmium dish into a liquid jet, the bees collapsing the aerospace fighter's battle-screens and pockmarking its armor.
The clouds sparked and glowed with discharges of electricity and power as the aerospace fighters dueled with massive insects that had finally made it into the fight. At first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of insects swarmed into the fight above each of the Imperium Marine's lines. Scraps of armor, both insect and aerospace fighter, ash, debris, cannon shells, and liquid began to rain from the skies.
Two of the aerospace wings, heading toward an active combat area to support the ground forces, spotted a massive shadow in the clouds. A close flyby revealed nothing more than clouds and particulates.
Just rain. Rain that began to fall all over Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 almost at the same time. Thick, sticky rain that steamed when it hit and left behind red streaks.
Vuxten paid no attention to the fact that the rain was leaving dark red streaks on everything as he ejected the thermal core from the massive autocannon, grabbed it in a motion that had become too easy for his reflexes, and threw it at the jungle line. The thermal core detonated, washing the entire area for a hundred meters around it with superheated matter. He followed it up with three grenades and a quad-shot of rockets as the blast revealed multiple massive insects that had been moving forward through the vegetation.
The Imperium troops were still spreading out as the earthquakes got more and more intense.
Trucker could feel the earthquakes even through his tanks suspension. The zero-point reactors were running hard, at 115% of maximum recommended output on all eight of them even as the mantid engineers tried to get the main reactor fired up. The main gun was still a problem even though two of the mantid engineers had managed to finish the work on the aiming gears so the barrel could move beyond which way the turret was pointed. There was a hitch in it when it tried to traverse up and right and a slight 'drop' of almost 2mm moving down and left, but the engineers were working on it.
The auto-loader was still down. The two mantids working on the wiring harness were replacing it wire by wire, fuse by fuse, circuit by circuit. The four nano-forges were offline, three of them were completely dead, a power surge having wiped out the template memory and one of the mantids was trying to cross-load the templates to the other three from the one that was intact.
The tank's deep-storage memory was completely fried out.
Trucker closed his eyes for a moment as Cry Little Sister dropped back into the center of the formation so The Bell moved into the point position. The point defense system of the entire battalion was already engaged, sweeping insects from the sky as the tanks of Headquarters Battalion charged toward where the forces of the Imperium Marines were under heavy attack. He had left Second Brigade at Log Base Echo based on a hunch that whatever was controlling it all was going to hit the logistics bases once the forces of V Corps were fully engaged.
Since 1st Armored Recon had wiped out the sub-oceanic brains the creatures had largely been uncoordinated, mostly defending territory, even attacking one another. No feed pipes had been discovered, the water bodies had been constantly scoured for any trace of another brain grouping, and no nerve cording had been discovered.
Nothing is ever that easy, Trucker thought to himself, bringing up the map of Telkan in his mind through the datalink. It was a pangea continent with several smaller subcontinents on the other side of the planet. The main continent was broken up by two mountain ranges that snaked across the main protocontinent, meeting in a tangle in the middle. In the southeast corner was a mass of mountains, covered by thick glaciation that covered six different peaks with one big glacier.
There. It's there, Trucker thought to himself. He checked his datalink. There wasn't any units near enough to support the Imperium's Iron Guard where a shelter was already starting to move. It would be nearly twenty-six minutes until he'd be able to arrive in support. His BOLOs were off covering other shelters.
He knew what they were going to do. The enemy was going to force the shelters to raise up by increasing vibration around them until it was mistaken for earthquakes too severe for the shelter's shock absorbers to handle.
But it the mountain took a few atomic rounds all it would do is bury the intelligence inside. It undoubtedly would have lakes of coolant, nerve fiber bundles, relay organisms, guardian creatures, and everything else it would need.
For a moment he had an impression of something large, something massive almost beyond comprehension, a great rude beast with a massive head and long tentacles trying to scoot away from him before he could see it.
Trucker spit over the side, his eyes still closed, listening to the crackle of vegetation and smaller creatures incinerating on the Cry Little Sister's battle-screens and he pushed that spot in his brain a little further, feeling sweat bead up on the back of his neck and almost like he was straining a muscle he didn't actually have.
Tentacles.
Trucker suddenly knew what it was doing. Knew why the jungle hadn't seemed to be regrowing as fast as it did prior.
He opened his eyes, everything gelling together. He knew how things had to go to carry victory.
They were on the edge of defeat and didn't even know it.
”Flank speed, Piledrivers! Serrated firing line! Pour it on! We'll sweep in on the southeast flank of the Imperium Marines,” Trucker switched channels. ”Little brothers, get that damn reactor working, I don't care if the back deck ends up hot enough to fry eggs on! Recycle and kick the mag bottle if you have to!” Trucker barked. He opened up to the Division Tactical Net. ”Fifth Brigade, load white phosphorous FOOF warsteel penetrators. Fourth Brigade, load for air defense with only Charlie Company 5th Battalion loaded for anti-armor and Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot Company loaded for APERS.”
Trucker turned his attention to the rest of his units even as Cry Little Sister roared and bucked as it pushed its speed almost to a hundred and fifty miles an hour and slammed through the jungle.
General Takilikakik heard Trucker giving orders, changing the line of battle, even tossing orders at 8th Infantry, 5th Armor, and 31st Infantry, their Generals just shifting their battle plans to accommodate Trucker's newest orders.
He frowned, staring at the tactical displays.
Then he saw it.
Afterwards, he could never explain what it was he saw, how he had seen it, or even what exactly he was looking at.
But he saw it through all the data.
He touched his implant out of habit, opening a command channel to all Base Commanders, even the Operations, Combat, and Logistics Bases.
”ALL COMMANDERS! BUTTON UP! GO TO FULL ENVIRONMENTAL! FULL ENVIRONMENTAL ONLY ON THE WALLS! PULL ATMOSPHERE! EVERYONE ON INTERNAL!” he yelled.
Everyone turned to look at him as he kept shouting.
”All environmental officers, pump all atmosphere and purge, replace all filter systems via wet-print and hand replacement only! Canned air for all personnel! All VI's and DS, run full diagnostics on all atmosphere and environmental systems! Purge all water and waste tanks. Get someone into each tank for a visual inspection as well as flamer teams into water and waste tanks! All dropships and aircraft, get into the air! Abort all landings! Launch refueling drones! Get everyone on the walls and at mission locations! All mobile maintenance teams gear up and report to your dropships!” General Takilikakik ordered. ”Button up and get ready! All units! All units! Prepare for imminent combat!”
Tik-tak did something he never thought he would ever have to do.
He activated the entire network.
”All personnel, all personnel,” he said, his voice somehow calm and relaxed. ”Prepare to defend yourselves.”
Colonel Harvey turned to Brentili'ik. ”Madame Director,” was all he said before she was in motion, running for where the emergency suits were stored. The last of his words floated behind her as she ran, stripping off her jumpsuit. She slapped her hand against the panel on the wall as he finished speaking. ”It's time.”
The panel slid open and she did the quick visual check of her suit, looking for something, anything. When she didn't see anything she climbed in, sealing the suit up. As soon as it was on she signalled she was clear.
Most of the other officers and enlisted and non-commissioned officers were still moving to the suit storage as Brentili'ik moved over to her assigned station. A shock cradle. She buckled the five point restraint harness, her own breathing loud in her ears. She could hear people talking over the comlink but ignored them, focusing entirely on her own situation. She would normally grab the umbilical to attach the base life support to her system but her visor was flashing ”ENVIRONMENTAL LOCKOUT” in bright red letters and the umbilical was still pulled tight against the side of the cradle.
Colonel Harvey came up and checked her, pulling on her restraints, already dressed in armor. When he was satisfied he slapped her thigh, reached up, and shut the clamshell.