Chapter 231: (Hesstla) (1/2)
The striker thumped as it set down, Mukstet sighing as he disconnected from the fly-by-wire systems of the graviton hover-striker. The rear port armor was still smoking from a Crawler hit that had blown through his battlescreen and ripped most of the armor off of that section.
--gonna get crew-- 973 told him. --she's in rough shape--
”Good plan,” Mukstet said. He tabbed up a piece of stimgum as he got out of the co-pilot's chair. He knew he could take the pilot's chair, he'd been running the craft for two straight days, but he also knew that his perceptions would subtly shift from the different perspective angle and that could spell disaster at this time.
Plus, even though the blood had been largely wiped away, there was still streaks of rusted red where the Terran had died.
Not died and will come back, not from what he had been told.
But dead dead.
Just like everyone else.
He went back through the crew access hallway, noting that his crew had already gotten out. Four greenies of the 'base maintenance team' (made up of greenies who's craft were deadlined) had the panel of the commo station open, pulling parts and replacing them.
That hit to the armor had blown out the commo station hard enough that Kanput had been knocked out by a combination electric shock and some kind of psychic hit.
Foxtrot Niner-Two had been pounded during the day. First rescuing the half-mad Space Force Army Ordnance unit that had been throwing atomic weapons like confetti, then doing close air support for scattered units before picking them up and ferrying them back to the Striker Base.
Two greenies were pulling off the maintenance panel, a remote control wagon full of battlescreen projector cores on the ground, and Mukstet nodded to them as he went by. One waved a wrench then went back to work.
”Mukstet, this is Major Screams, I need you in the TOC,” he heard on his radio. He turned, switching from heading to the makeshift mess hall to the jury-rigged Tactical Operations Command, which was just a bunch of computers wired together inside a Terran Heavy Tank drop-cradle that had been recovered.
”On my way, ma'am,” Mukstet said. He stopped for a second to bang on the hip of his armor when it sparked and started grinding. Something clicked and he was able to walk normally again.
I wonder what she wants me for? he wondered. He pushed through the EM-strips, then opened the heavy battle-steel door.
Chaos greeted him.
”...a shit, my men are here to fight!” a Terran was yelling at a Rigellian. The Rigellian had a regrowth cast on her arm, attached to the point where her arm had been severed, the exoskeleton part roughly the size of what her arm would eventually be. The empty part was full of nutrigel, quickheal compounds, nanites, and the hair thin fibrous matrix for her body to regenerate the missing arm.
”You are all red-dotted, Sergeant! If you're killed, you don't come back!” the Rigellian yelled back, stressed enough that she instinctively flexed her arm.
”So?” the Terran asked. ”Terran Descent Humans make up 80% of Space Force combat personnel. There are still 3.2 billion people on this planet. The Type-IV's have a third wave coming in. We can't retreat, we can't fall back, we can't evacuate,” the Terran yelled.
”All the more reason to keep you out of the fight till the SUDS gets fixed,” a Treana'ad missing a back leg, an antenna, and a blade-arm said, his regrowth casts clicking. The Treana'ad lit a cigarette. ”We're going to need you for the long haul.”
”You want to pull 80% of your combat, 60% of your support out of action just because 'oh no, we might get boo-boos' in the hopes that you can restore the SUDS?” another Terran, this one a tank maintenance officer, yelled, his brown face darkening in anger.
The sheer rage in the room made Mukstet's head ache and he clamped his teeth on the stimgum.
”What if it never comes back?” Major Screams asked, trying to keep her voice calm, but Mukstet could see her antenna were curled in response. ”What if you get killed and they can't bring you back? What then, Sergeant?”
The Terran Sergeant turned around and Mukstet took a step back.
The humans eyes glowed a bright red.
His biological eyes.
”What if Chrome Saint Peter comes back and parts the Precursor forces with a wave of his cybernetic hand?” the Terran snarled. ”If if if! You're in here telling us we can't fight, telling us to hide in hole, and people are dying out there!”
”I know that, Sergeant,” Screams said, trying to modulate her tone.
”You have no choice, Major,” the Captain in charge only two score Multichannel Transmission Systems Operator/Maintainers snarled, his eyes a dark red as he slammed his hands on the table.
Mukstet saw dark purple arcs of electricity move from his knuckles and up his finger before disappearing halfway up.
Screams looked around her, backing up slightly.
”You can't medically relieve all the Terran Descent Humans from this battle. Most units are engaged out there, there are critical jobs that so far are only being manned by humans,” Another officer said.
Mukstet's helmet kept glitching out. The names and ranks of the Terrans fuzzing away. He could feel his back teeth tingle as his helmet cranked up the psychic shielding.
”Excuse me, sirs,” Mukstet said, stepping forward.
A half-dozen sets of red eyes turned to stare at him, both Rigellians turned to look, and the two high ranking Mantids shuffled around, nervously moving so their backs weren't to the Terrans.
”Yes?” one, a Terran Staff Sergeant, growled.
”I realize I'm only a PFC with less than two years in Space Force,” Mukstet said, moving forward. ”But I'm also the ranking striker pilot as well as combat arms.”
There were nods. Two of the Terrans were somehow mollified enough that their eyes cooled to amber.
”My people are new to the Confederacy,” Mukstet continued. He picked up a stimcone off the table from the box marked ”Emergency Only” and bounced it in his armored hand. ”Which means that we, like every other species but the Terrans, are not connected to the SUDS array.”
That got more nods.
Mukstet turned to Major Screams. ”Do you intend, ma'am, on pulling back every soldier and Marine who is not connected to the SUDS network and having them shelter in place till the SUDS network is reconnected?”
Major Screams opened her mouth to answer then closed it, shaking her head.
”So you are telling the Terrans that they are too fragile to enter combat without their SUDS, and asking them to hide behind all of the other species that do not have SUDS because they might get killed?” Mukstet asked, tugging off his gauntlet.
There were growls of agreement from some of the gathered Terrans.
”I know you have undoubtedly known Terrans far longer than I've been alive, Major,” Mukstet said, taking the stimcone and pressing the tip of the vein in the back of his hand. A puff of air dilated a pore and let the injector shoot the chemicals directly into his bloodstream.
”I'm sure that they'd be perfectly happy standing around doing nothing but trembling in fear that they may be killed in battle during a war to protect billions of people who do not have the advantage of SUDS,” Mukstet said, setting the empty cone down and tugging on his gauntlet.
Major Screams shook her head.
”Just as I'm absolutely sure that Terrans did not engage in warfare before the invention of SUDS. I'm sure they never risked their lives or their body in any risky endeavor until they were able to rely on SUDS to keep them from dying,” Mukstet said. He shrugged as he activated the mag-seal on his wrist and flexed his fingers.
The Terran's eyes had all cooled to amber.
”Would you order my men and I, the striker pilots of Second Telkan Marines, to stand down because we might be permanently killed?” Mukstet asked, querying his implant quickly for a term search. It pinged almost immediately, meaning the information had been examined enough times and recently enough it was in Fast-RAM.
”No, private, I wouldn't,” Major Screams said. She could think more clearly, the sheer rage filling the TOC having cooled to a light simmering static.
”I realize you're following doctrine,” Mukstet said. ”The Confederate Code of Military Justice states that red-dotted troops may not be forced into action.”
”That's right, private,” Screams said softly.
”I realize it says damage or enemy action, and the latter is what we are seeing,” Mukstet said. Screams and the Terrans and even the Treana'ad all nodded. The Rigellians were looking thoughtful. ”However, while this may cover 'mass troop failures', it does not appear to cover an entire theater of operations.”
”No, it doesn't,” Screams said. ”However, it does set precedence.”
Mukstet shook his head, moving over and sitting down on a crate that had previously held a quantum communications cryptographic array. ”Is there any precedent for an entire theater of operation where victory or defeat means life or death for several billion people?”
”No,” a Terran said. ”Which is why we have to take the fight to the Crawlers.”
Mukstet nodded. ”And if you are deadlined or medically relieved of duty, what will that tell every non-SUDS'd trooper? That they aren't worth a Terran's life?”
Several of the Terran's eyes began to heat up from cool amber to dark red.
”Are you going to tell the Terrans that their lives are worth more than my life or the lives of my men, Major?” Mukstet asked mildly.
”No,” Major Screams relented. She heaved a sigh. ”Get back to work. All of you.”
The Terrans all nodded, leaving the tent, their eyes cooling back to amber. The Rigellians and the Treana'ad followed, leaving Mukstet alone with Major Screams. It was silent for a moment and the heaviness slowly dissipated like a smoke round exposed to a cool breeze. Mukstet felt his psychic shielding large release, the tingling and ache from his back teeth easing away. He reached up to his neck and released the neck catches before taking off his helmet.
Major Screams let out a long breath. ”Is your race psychically sensitive?”
Mukstet nodded, wiping his brow and flicking his ears to help dry them. ”Low level, but we are.”
”Could you feel that?” She asked, slowly cleaning her antenna with the specially grown hairs of her elbow.
”Feel it? I could see it. Their eyes were all glowing red or amber like they were warborgs,” Mukstet said, giving a rough chuckle.
”I've never seen that before. Everyone all assumes the documentation from the Mantid-Terran Holocaust was warborg eyes, or cybernetics designed to show those colors,” the Major said. She delicately moved over to a makeshift stool and sat down, sighing as the stool took her abdomen's weight. ”Now I know different.”