Chapter 257: (Hesstla) (2/2)
”Go to small arms only,” Ralvex ordered as he knelt in the mud, his gun cooling. A Treana'ad was pulling off his overheated and depleted ammo-pack off his back, a half dozen of them on the Treana'ad's combat power frame.
The Treana'ad slapped Ralvex on the top of the head. ”CLEAR!”
Ralvex stood up, squeezing the grip and starting the barrels of his gun to spin. He'd had to replace his autocannon when a round had hit the base of the reciever, shattering the buffer tube and the drive spring rod. Luckily the troops of 15th Sustainment Battalion were striding through the battlefield in their power assist harnesses like there wasn't a war going on and he'd been handed a new weapon as soon as he'd dropped his damaged one and gone to his magac battle rifle.
Looking over the scene in front of him he chinned up a piece of stimgum and locked himself back into the Battlefield Tactical Network. It was moving with cold precision, although Ralvex had noticed there were differences from when he had been trained. It was little stuff, he couldn't explain it, but it was little things like the fact that instead of detailing in minute detail what each unit would do, almost to the ammunition expenditure, the orders consisted of such vague concepts as ”Hold that position” and ”Advance into the enemy and attack left flank.” No precise orders with details, just an expectation that it would be done without concern of how it was done.
At the beginning his orders read ”Engage armored units of 150 tons or less with primary weapon unless breaking charge, Support Unit Alpha fire as capable, Support Unit Bravo engage sub-infantry bio-drones” and that was it.
Now it was: ”Engage the Enemy at Will. Purple targets are priority.”
That was it.
Ralvex just started chewing the gum as he brought up the Hymns of Blessed Podlings, the pure clear voices of the Telkan choir singers filling his ears as he leveled the dual barrel rotary autocannon and thumbed the rocker switch.
Armor Piercing High Explosive Mass Reactive Anti-Matter Incendiary Rounds lashed out as he raked the front of a tank and tore huge chunks of its forward armor off as the entire front of it dissolved into fire and fury as he hosed 250 rounds a minute into the tank. In less than three seconds his rounds got to the internal spaces and the cupola blew off with a purple flash.
Ralvex switched his aim to a larger tank, lashing the crysteel domes, imploding them and extinguishing the blue light.
I consign thy souls to the arms of the Digital Omnimessiah, who's mercy I bring to you in this terrible fashion, Ralvex thought as the hymns soared in his ears. Dwell within light and warmth and love for I free you of this horrible torture with paradoxical wrath that I wield to bring about mercy.
He hammered through the flank armor of the massive tank, the 25mm shells blowing away chunks of armor, ablating away more and more of the battlesteel until it hit the warsteel liner in the organics compartment.
Something died with a purple flare and Ralvex switched targets even as he had Tiny Tim deploy prism and ferro-masking smoke, his own suit allowing him to see through it.
The Telkan children of the choir, old enough to be named but still immature, sang glory and sweetness in his ears as he fought.
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Admiral Thennis wiped the cold sweat from her brow as she watched as the enemy shifted formation, trying to get out from under the guns of the terrible black ships even as Admiral Thennis's crews worked to bring the ships back into fighting condition, decades of practice smoothing and speeding the effort.
It was nothing that some of them had not been born into.
One of the bigger ones, that had taken repeated hits until the black material had begun to break away to reveal battle-steel inside, surged ahead, driving forward, its guns thundering and warping space, interposing itself between the enemy and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the former heavy frigate slash troopship now the size of a battleship after decades of upgrades, additions, and refit. The Oswald had taken a brace of nCv shells amidship and was struggling to stay in formation.
”You shall not fall, little sister!” the massive ship roared out, audible as if vacuum could carry sound.
BISMARCK> MY HULL IS A BULWARK AGAINST THE ENEMY'S GUNS, SISTER! scrolled across the text repeater.
The enemy had managed to open up two more wormholes, ships streaming into the fight through the wormhole. Each wave successively larger. The third wave was leaving the wormholes, nine ships in this wave.
The timer hit zero.
”STATUS CHANGE!” Commodore NGwark called out.
Admiral Thennis turned her attention to the display screen, swallowing down the acid reflux, gripping the arm rests of her crash couch tightly with aching hands, the memory-foam long ago pressed into shape.
WARNING! HELLSPACE BREACH DETECTED! WARNING!
”Many, many point sources,” Commodore NGwark sang out. ”Drive emissions consistent with the Dark Crusade! It's reinforcements, ma'am.”
”Signal coming in from new contact's flagship,” Commander Sventana...
...no, Commander Svetana's daughter, who was almost thirty, called out.
”Onscreen,” Admiral Thennis snapped.
The woman, who had been trained since a young age to take her mother's place, nodded and tossed it to the Admiral's main display.
Thennis jerked back, her acid reflux surging as a horror-show appeared on her screen. Jet black warsteel festooned with barbed chains, the helmet open to reveal a heavy featured severe face attached to a warsteel skull, fed by wormlike tubes that infused the skull with a dark life.
”I am Osiris, commander of the Abithica, Lord of the Dark Crusade of Light,” the figure said, the face twisting as the skull spoke. ”You are Admiral Thennis, Task Force Tiamat, Commanding.”
Thennis nodded, swallowing down stomach acid. ”I am.”
”Are you in need of assistance?” the flesh adorned black warsteel skull added.
”We are,” Thennis said, her mind boggling at the fact the being on her display would be going through formality like that at a time like this.
”Then the Dark Crusade of Light shall assist. We shall interlock with your warplans. Osiris, out,” the skull said, then vanished.
”Ma'am, warplan transmission from the new forces,” Ensign Talimava called out. She gulped audibly. ”They have ground troops and want coordination for ground troop landing, as well as dozens of ships.”
”Well, there's hundreds of targets out here and on the planet,” Thennis said, swallowing. She rubbed her forearms and shivered. ”Get those men on the ground some backup and lets finish the fight up here,” she turned to LT JG Greely. ”Status on Sucker Punch Two and Three?”
”Half hour to fab up, two hours to deploy,” he called back.
That gave the enemy one hundred fifty minutes to keep sending through ships. At the current rate of another wave every minute that would give them one hundred and fifty waves until Sucker Punch could collapse the wormholes.
”Stay on it,” she ordered. She looked at the screen and watched as the newcomer's ships took up positions, locking into the formations, and went to work. Some stayed off, firing heavy guns, but a handful swept directly toward the largest of the enemy ships, C+ cannons thundering out as they closed in order to board the enemy ships.
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Mukstet cursed and swept around the side, skating the striker at a sharp angle even as it moved at a ninety-degree angle to its facing. He triggered the guns, feeling the airframe shudder. In the few minutes since he had made for the makeshift rearming base a Precursor vessel the size of stadium had managed to land nearby and vomited up attackers.
His guns shredded apart Precursor machines into scrap metal. A small part of him noted that all of the crysteel globes were dark on the newcomers and he suddenly understood why they were fighting so hard to get into the makeshift airbase.
The tanks of 3/67 used the lull that Mukstet bought them to get into position, opening up with their guns as Mukstet goosed the striker and sent it shooting across the ground, firing at the targets less than a hundred feet below him. Missiles sent fountains of mud and grass into the air, blew apart burnt wreckage from the initial attack, and tore apart Precursor vehicles.
Despite the massed firepower of a score of tanks and Mukstet's strikers a dozen rushed forward for every one killed, even more enemies streaming out of the bulk of the Precursor landing craft.
All of his telltales were red. He couldn't fab up any more missiles, no more cannon rounds, and even the door gunner's weapons were red-lined. He'd taken a bad hit to the aft section and lost his mainline graviton engine, only the howling starboard and port engines keeping him in the air.
”Mukstet to 3/67, we've got to land. We're spilling slush and burning hot, over,” Mukstet transmitted.
”This is Utini, get in there, we'll hold them off. We'll be going atomic,” one of the tank commanders answered.
”Roger that. Out,” Mukstet said, banking hard. The airframe shuddered as the graviton engines vibrated. He leveled out, came in low at the makeshift walls around the former luxury airstrip. He could see how the concourse had been pulled apart to make the walls, see where the air traffic control tower had been blown up and was still burning, but on the ground he could see heavy tanker trucks, on the walls he could see small furry people firing heavy guns. Two tanks had their back decks opened up and he could see the strange reddish fury of their heavy creation engines working.
There was a Hesstlan down there waving brightly colored flags to guide him down.
The striker set down with a bump, the forward landing gear creaking. A Hesstlan tapped on his window and he looked at the male Hesstlan through the cracked and pitted armaglass, shaking his head.
”They're saying you can keep it running, they'll resupply us,” one of the Terrans said.
Mukstet jerked slightly. He'd almost forgotten he'd been running with open troopbay doors and door gunners.
”They can't hold,” Mukstet said, watching as a pair of small female Hesstlan carried boxes of ammunition to the wall, running from the back of the tank where a group of other Hesstlan were passing down boxes to the waiting Hesstlan. He considered for a second and made a decision.
Striker Foxtrot-Niner-Two was out of the fight.
”Dismount the guns, get on the wall, men,” he ordered, slapping the harness buckle. He opened the channel. ”I'm out of the fight. Foxtrot-Niner-Sixteen, take over Wing Alpha.”
”Roger that,” Private Mulpret answered.
”I'm coming with you, men,” Mukstet said.
”Roger, sir,” both Terrans replied at once.
Mukstet grabbed his pilot's SMG and headed out the back. Both of the infantryman had pulled the Pontiac Vindicators from the mounts, both throwing the ammo belts over the shoulders to keep the line clear to the ammo packs they'd shrugged into.
”Let's go, men,” he said, jumping down. It was obvious where the enemy was, it was the wall all the firing was happening on. He ran for the wall, climbing the ladder where the Terrans just jumped to the top of the wall.
The tanks had gone to rapid fire on their guns, pouring shots into the landing craft's battlescreens even as their auxilary guns hammered the Precursor infantry that swarmed forward, slowly gaining ground over the corpses of their brothers.
Mukstet knew, even as both of his Terran doorgunners cut loose with the miniguns, that all too soon they'd be in the range of his own SMG.
٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ SENSO WA TANOSHI KAWIAA DESU NE ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ ?!?! rang over the battlefield. Many Hesstla winced, some cried out, but all of them kept firing.
There was a burning tingle across the top of his ears, down his spine, and under his toenails. He heard a strange sound behind him, almost like bubbles in a soft-drink fizzing, only louder, sharper, more metallic.
He turned and looked as the words rang out again, not making sense.
٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ TEKI NO CHI O KOBOSHITE INOCHI O UBAU NO WA TANOSHĪ KAWIAA DESU NE ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ ?!?! roared out, somehow the emoji's understandable through the high pitched roar.
Mukstet stared at what he saw appear in the middle of the tarmac.
Row upon row of upraised pink and white chainswords held by heavily armored figures with banners held aloft from their backs and burning torches on their shoulders.
”WAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH!” erupted from a hundred cat-girl throats in a lust filled screech.