Chapter 190: (The War) (2/2)
The barrage moved on, swept across the defenses, hammered at the lithium salt extractors, the raw material storage area, the mag-lev train system, the buildings, the fuel dump, the vehicle storage. Mo'orbys reached out and yanked a lever that the Twentieth Most High was sitting underneath, rocking back and forth, hugging himself with his armored arms.
The fighting position lowered itself into the ground and closed the armored lid above it.
Mo'orbys looked out through the periscope in time to see the mag-lev train explode.
Then it started again at the line Mo'orbys was on. Hitting out in front of him at a range of only ten meters and sweeping inward. The missiles went by overhead, continuing on, flying insanely close to the ground as they vanished into the night. The artillery, fired on parabolic arcs and no longer having to worry about point defense, slammed down on the dug in lines of the Lanaktallan.
The pattern repeated, hitting things that were already burning, shattering bunkers and positions already gouting fire, slamming into collapsed buildings. The salt flats themselves started taking hits, blowing bluish-purple sand high into the air.
Mo'orbys tapped his forearm, triggering a stim, feeling the chemicals race through his bloodstream. The panic that had been surging up dissolved and he ground his teeth on the cud in his jaws.
The artillery stopped, even though missiles kept screaming by overhead, following the terrain, close enough that Mo'orbys saw, through the periscope, a Lanaktallan trooper panic and leap from his burning fighting position only to have his upper torso ripped off by the sonic slipstream of a missile going by so fast it just appeared as a flash of light.
”HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!” Mo'orbys yelled out, triggering his loudspeaker. His implant was full of warbling screeching, clicks, antonal sound patterns, and digital noise.
He grabbed the heavy plasma rotary autocannon and yanked on it until the damaged gears snapped and the weapon moved freely. It wouldn't be as accurate, but it was usable.
Silence descended as the artillery carried on and the hypersonic missiles found other paths. The system clicked in and the fighting position rose back up, the shutters opening.
The only sound was the crackling of flames and the screaming of the wounded and dying.
Long minutes passed, smoked covering what had been a carefully created fire base that was now nothing more than burning or smouldering wreckage.
”Where are they?” Klo'oky asked, lifting up his head to look out over the edge of the damaged fighting position.
There was a loud KA-RAK! and Klo'oky's armored head liquified and sprayed behind him. His corpse fell to the ground, his neck, head, and a divot where his shoulders connected missing.
”Out there,” Mo'orbys said, triggering another stim. ”Stay down.”
There was a buzzing sound and the five surviving Lanaktallan looked around, wanting to look up and see what was going on outside but the steady KA-RAK! sounding out warned them exactly what was happening to anyone looking out of their fighting position.
Feeling anxiety and a sudden gut feeling, Mo'orbys reached out and yanked the lever, lowering the firing position down again. He looked out through the periscope and felt his tendrils coil in horror.
Thousands of little drones, little more than a frame around a fan, were sweeping over the battle lines. Any Lanaktallan they spotted three or four immediately oriented on, suddenly pulling upright, and fired a shaped charge that blew through armor. Most Lanaktallan started to sag after two hits, one if the drone had targeted the head.
The drones swarmed the fighting positions for long moments then rose up as one and streamed away, heading past the salt mine.
Without power to run the atmospheric system the little computer the size of a grain of rice detected dangerous levels of atmosphere, pulled back the shielding, and lifted the fighting position back up.
It was silent except for the crackling of flames.
”We haven't even seen them yet,” Yumo'op said softly.
”Tab a stim,” Mo'orbys ordered.
There was a weird sound, like large winged creatures fluttering above them.
Instincts from months of combat kicked in and Mo'orbys slapped the lever again.
The 20th Most High giggled and stared at his fingers.
The fighting position lowered as there was a rippling cracking sound in the sky. It barely got below the surface when there was a clicking noise on the armored roof. The armored panels snapped shut.
The entire ground heaved as the carefully dispersed microcharges went off and used the oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere as fuel.
The roof of the shelter bulged inward and all four of the Lanaktallan still in shape to fight looked up at it nervously.
”I CAN'T TAKE IT!” the 20th Most High suddenly screamed, jumping up and hitting the lever. He pulled his pistol and started shooting.
Yumo'op took a plasma packet to the face and went down.
Lo'otbul leapt forward, grabbing the Most High's wrist and pointing the pistol upwards as the fighting position popped back up. The shields pulled back and the Most High gave a convulsive yank, turned, and leaped out of the shelter, scrabbling to get out of the fighting position and into the smoke that was seeping into the position.
A half dozen rounds hit him, punching through his armor, tearing him into chunks of hamburger.
”HERE THEY COME!” Mo'orbys yelled, grabbing the handles of the rotary autocannon. He couldn't see anything but smoke, his armor reporting that it was full of laser refracting microprisms, multi-wavelength chaff, and hot enough to render thermal and UV useless.
He didn't care. He just pulled the trigger and began traversing the gun from left to right, firing at Lanaktallan knee height.
Flashes erupted in the smoke and Mo'orbys knew his plasma packets were hitting something. The remaining two Lanaktallan joined him, firing their rifles into the smoke filled darkness.
Mo'orbys tried launching a drone but it was whacked out of the air before it got out of the smoke.
Then he heard them.
Bestial, brutish roars of sheer raw aggression. Howls of victory and triumph. Raw pure aggression vocalized by a pack hunting adrenaline fueled primate on the hunt.
The he felt them.
A raw, snarling, biting and scratching feeling, starting a slight pressure that felt like a faintly itchy blanket touching him, then slowly enveloping him.
He got his hand up and slapped the psychic shielding active, then tabbed three stims in row.
The other two Lanaktallan in the fighting position with him collapsed as the tsunami of rage rolled over him. He could almost hear words, laughter, screams of delight, inside of the psychic assault that hit him.
He grabbed the handles of the rotary autocannon and started firing, using all four hands to hold it steady.
One of the primates threw a grenade that arced up, through the smoke, and landed in the fighting position.
It went off, slamming Mo'orbys face first into the cannon, lifting up his hindquarters and almost breaking his spinal torso joint.
He fell unconscious to the bottom of the pit as the first of the Terrans jumped over the pit. One paused to hose a burst into the pit, then moved on. Another tossed a grenade as they walked by.
Mo'orbys didn't know any of it, half buried under his dead fire fireteam, the autocannon pulled down on top of him.
He didn't even hear one of the Terrans yell out ”I think we've got a live cowtaur here!”
---------------
When he woke up all he knew was pain. His lower torso and his upper flanks hurt. His legs hurt and his head was pounding. It took him a second to realize he was restrained and he struggled for a moment before he heard a voice.
”Easy now, trooper,” the voice was Terran, using a translator. ”The war's over for you.”
He managed to get one eye open. A male Terran in some kind of blue coverall uniform with a blue cloth cap on its head was looking at him.
”If you can understand me, blink,” the Terran said. Mo'orbys blinked. ”All right. Your neck is braced, same with your upper spine. You were late in getting treatment, but we saved all your limbs.”
Mo'orbys tried to speak and only gagged, something up his nose, in his mouth, both tubes down his throat.
”We've got you on support systems right now,” the Terran said. He shook his head. ”Don't worry, you won't be harmed.”
The anesthetic rose up and Mo'orbys slipped back into slumber.
--------------
Moorbys was in a healing ward with almost a hundred other Lanaktallan, all of them in carefully designed slings. He had learned he was on a space ship entirely dedicated to medical treatment that had been repurposed for the Lanaktallan.
His legs had broken when one of the Terrans had thrown a grenade into the damaged fighting position, two of his arms had broken when the gun had fallen on him, one had been mangled by shrapnel.
But he had one functioning and was using it to slowly eat the food in front of him.
I barely even saw them. I wasn't even a speed bump, he thought to himself. The entire division and less than thirty of us survived. We never even got close.
He stared at the stuff called 'tapioca pudding' and slowly ate, refusing to look up at his fellow division mates.
---------------
15th ARMY -SPACE FORCE- MEMO
System pacified. Resistance was light. Resource extraction and processing units to be replaced.
Forward logistics and supply base to be manufactured within 14 standard days. Space asset manufacturing and repair systems are 58% complete.
--LEADING THE WAY
------------