Chapter 152: (Telkan) (2/2)

For a moment she was trapped in the dark.

Then the interior of the command cradle came alive, showing her the diagnostics. She'd only practiced using the system at Colonel Harvey's insistence, confident she'd never need to use the system.

Now she was glad she had.

She closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the implant. There was a moment of disorientation and she was back to standing in the middle of the Operations Center, only dressed in her jumpsuit. Around her the rest of the personnel were standing with their arms straight out, staring straight ahead, legs together, or just dropping their arms down or starting to move slowly.

Brentili'ik dropped her arms to her side and moved over to the holotank that displayed Telkan-1 and Telkan-2.

One by one the personnel dropped their arms and blinked before moving around.

”Telkan-2 command reporting in,” one of the techs called out.

”Telkan-1 stations reporting in,” another tech called out.

Brentili'ik's eyes went automatically to not only First Telkan, but her husband's icon, where it was surrounded by icons that kept flashing and error coding.

Above the shelter where her broodcarriers and podlings were.

Please save them, Vuxten.

Vuxten kicked the insect back, firing point blank into it, blowing it apart in a shower of gore. Artillery was hammering all around them, the ground was heaving, the air was full of fire, acid, pollen, mold spores, more fire, ash, blood red rain, and death. The comlink channels were full of chatter he could barely make sense of. Instead he paid attention to the external microphones.

They were full of roars of wrath and hatred, roars that Vuxten knew he was answering with the same bellows of fury.

You shall not be victorious! he screamed in his mind and out loud, hammering with the autocannon on another insect. 471 was on his shoulder, one hand attached to the jammed grenade launcher the other one holding onto his micro-rifle and firing quick bursts at the bees that kept trying to make attack runs. Twice he'd stabbed moths out of the air with his bladearms.

The only air support they had was 11th ACR's War Horse battalion, which were still making sweeps with their full auto-fire railguns. The artillery had suddenly gone offline.

--drone drone drone-- 471 flashed as he yanked the 40mm straight up, no longer bothering trying to get it to move according to the mechanical systems. The launcher made a ”thoomp” noise and 471 yanked it back down, firing off the wet-printed HEDP rounds straight into the face of a large creature that was pulling itself out of a crack in the ground. Only three of the five rounds went off, the others slamming into the creature's head.

The body slid back into the crack which slammed shut on the next upheaval, showering the area in greenish blood.

Vuxten had already turned his attention to the next creature, firing the autocannon as best he could. He could barely see out of one eye, sweat running down his body, creating a thin layer of liquid between his skin and fur and then his fur and the armor sleeve.

--shit shit shit-- 471 pinged at the same time as he threw an alert up on Vuxten's visor. Vuxten managed to lift his shoulders and relax his knees.

A bladearm hit his helmet hard enough to almost drive him to his knees. He felt the scar around and below his ear rip open again, his meat eye went unfocused, and he staggered back.

The creature was the size of a large vehicle, reaching down to try to stab Vuxten with one bladearm even as it lunged the other one toward the back of an armored Imperium.

The bladearm came down and Vuxten parried with the barrel of the heavy autocannon even as he fired it. The rounds hit where he was aiming, shattering the bladearm aimed at the Imperium Marine, but cut off when the bladearm sliced through the barrel.

He felt it again when the bladearm hit. The screech that the creatures, the dwellerspawn, always let loose when they attacked. There were purple sparks from where the bladearm hit, the edges of the sliced barrel glowing red for a moment, as half the barrel went one way and the gun jammed from the barrel being yanked sideways against the chamber.

Only this time he knew it wasn't through the speakers or through the comlink.

He'd experienced it before. Only at the cold steel claws of machines.

Vuxten screamed back as he dropped the disabled autocannon, yanking free his cutting bar. In his mind he could see podlings dead at the cold battle-steel claws of the Precursors, dead from the atomic blasts, dead from collapsed buildings. Always near a dead broodcarrier.

His mind's eye was full of images from the Precursor War and the Dwellerspawn Invasion.

It didn't fill him with despair. It didn't fill him with horror or fear.

It filled him with burning white hot rage instead.

”THIS IS OUR WORLD!” Vuxten roared out, parrying the bladearm with the roaring cutting bar. Clattering warsteel teeth met protein folded bladearm edge in a shower of purplish sparks.

The creature screamed at Vuxten, both out loud and in the Telkan's mind.

Vuxten screamed back as his knees started to buckle.

The warsteel teeth of the cutting bar, still clattering against the bladearm, started to glow a deep red.

The creature shrieked and brought down the shattered bladearm, trying to force the cutting bar down even as 471 kept firing his micro-rifle at the creature's eyes, the tiny rounds blowing apart facets of the compound eyes. The little mantid fired a micro-missile that hit it on the side of the head, blowing a crater from the chitin surrounding its jaws.

With a scream of rage Vuxten pushed himself up, thumbing the cutting bar to maximum, the warsteel teeth against the chitin bladearms howling.

The bladearms snapped and Vuxten twisted the cutting bar so it went into the massive skull from the bottom, spewing out ichor and tissue. Vuxten ripped the chainsword free and spun out of the way as the giant creature collapsed, trying to crush its killer beneath its bulk.

Vuxten didn't retreat, instead waded into the insects that were crawling from cracks in the ground, using his suit's hardware to jump from stable area to stable area, sweeping the cutting bar back and forth as he bellowed in rage.

All the times a Lanaktallan Overseer had walked by the floor he had just polished, only to drop feces on it or spit out a wad of half-chewed cud. All the times his wife had come home weeping over her sore and reddened hands. All of the times he'd seen an Overseer tease a podling. Berate a broodcarrier. Sneer at some Telkan working hard on a menial task.

The time when he and his podsiblings had been playing in the high grass, giggling to each other, and a Lanaktallan Overseer had ran into the middle of them, roaring and rearing, then laughing as Vuxten and his fellow podlings had all screamed in terror, his mother and father and broodcarriers paralyzed with fear.

Rage filled him, every slight, every injury, every hurt rushing back as he bellowed in rage, the teeth of his cutting bar red hot and smoking.

He ripped through the thorax/abdomen joint of a massive beetle, sawing his cutting bar back and forth, roaring at it, his vocal cords aching and burning and still he roared out his rage at a lifetime of a boot on his face.

An Imperium Marine fell crashing to the ground, two massive bladearms in the Terran's chest as he coughed and fired his weapon into the creature's chest even as a swarm of crabs covered him, ripping and tearing and slicing. Vuxten jumped into the air, focusing the spike, and slammed down on the creature's back, the gravity spike twisting and crushing the organs as the creature collapsed. Vuxten jumped off, using one hand, his armor's strength assist screaming as he lifted the creature partially off of the Marine, ripping the bladearms apart with his burning cutting bar.

”To your feet, brother! For Scarred Telkan!” Vuxten roared out, holding one small hand out to the wounded Imperium Marine, focusing his gravity system to let him have leverage as the massive Terran grabbed Vuxten's one hand with both of his, letting the Telkan heave him to his feet. The Terran held out his hand and his weapon flew into it. Ignoring the bladearms piercing his chest the massive Terran waded back into the fight.

Vuxten turned, his magack pistol in one hand, plinking shots off the armor of a beetle rushing Sister of Wrath, turning its attention to him. It charged him and he set himself, slamming his burning, smoking, howling cutting bar deep into the beetle's mouth. He yanked it free of the skull, kicking out with a boot.

It seemed like forever, it seemed like no time at all, as Vuxten jumped from spot to spot, his pistol in one hand and his smoking roaring clattering cutting bar in the other, using the gravity-spike anchor and the graviton generators in his boots in ways far outside of what he had learned in training.

When his cutting bar shattered he slammed the remainder against his waist, letting the magnetic adhesion system hold the wreckage in place. He grabbed the chain off the ground and wrapped it around his fist and forearm.

When his pistol jammed he used it as a hammer to break open the brain case of a massive flatworm and smashed it with his chain wrapped fist.

One of the Marines had been dismembered, his massive hand still holding onto his Magack submachinegun. Vuxten reached down and grabbed up the hand, pulling the fingers open even as he kicked a beetle a quarter of his size back into the crack in the ground that had just opened up.

The weapon went live in his hands as he aimed it at an onrushing fireback. He clamped down on the trigger, emptying out the rest of the magazine, feeling the fizz of the mat-trans autoloader going to work. He had to use both hands with the weapon but it didn't matter. The massive shells exploded whatever they hit, and that was good enough for Vuxten.

All there was left was rage and hatred as the shelter suddenly erupted from the ground less than a mile from where the Imperium Marines and Vuxten were fighting wildly.

INCOMING MAT-TRANS! flashed on Vuxten's visor.

”FOR LOVE AND GLORY!” shouted one of the Sisters of Wrath, clearing the jungle with her flamers as she walked into her own flame, paying it no mind, blazing a trail toward where the top hundred meters of the massive shelter extended from the ground. The huge drillbits on the top smoked and dripped ichor from where they had torn through insects as it surfaced.

”GLORY TO THE FIRST MAN TO DIE!” rang out as hundreds, thousands of green armored troops rushed out of the mat-trans gate, firing laser rifles as they came, scouring the insects and creatures off of the warsteel surface of the shelter.

Vuxten blinked blood out of his eye as he ran through the steaming burning jungle, chasing after everyone else, knowing that he had to get to the shelter before the insects swarmed it and pried open the doors.

”YOUR FAITH IS YOUR SHIELD!” was roared out.

”FOR SCARRED TELKAN!” Vuxten answered.