Chapter 355 (2/2)
”Dremsal here, sir,” Trucker heard.
”Move your unit to the attached location, ping me when you get there,” Trucker snapped, adding his gun's fire to another two quad-barrels that were ripping apart the armor on the side of a medium Precursor vehicle.
”Roger that, sir,” Demsal answered.
”What do you think he sees? There's nothing there?” Ge'ermo'o asked, watching the holotank.
”Not sure. Check with Planetary Defense and Civil Defense,” No'Drak said.
Dremsal checked the orders again. He'd served in Third Armor for over a hundred and fifty years and was well used to strange orders coming in that made sense after the fact.
”Get the tanks in closer! Shut down your screens except your starboard, overhead, and undercarriage!” he shouted over the comlink. ”Nose to tail! Nose to tail and main guns to starboard, Thunderpunch!”
His tank moved forward slightly, bumping into the one ahead with a barely felt thump. His XO flashed him an angry icon as the paint cracked and chipped. The CO for 2nd Battalion bumped his tank up and the starboard battlescreens clashed for a moment before they got on the same harmonic.
Dremsal looked to port where there was nothing but the rubble of a parking garage that had collapsed sometime earlier, then back to starboard, where there was nothing but wreckage from multiple skyrakers that had collapsed and destroyed Precursor heavy vehicles.
”Get ready, Thunderpunch!” Trucker yelled over the comlink to Dremsal. Colonel Dremsal could hear that HHC 3rd Armor's main guns were firing.
To be honest, Dremsal didn't like making his tanks a fixed fighting position. It gave away speed and battlefield manueverability, but he trusted his CO. He checked his quad-barrel and swung it around, lining it up on the top of the rubble of a collapsed skyraker.
Any minute now, he thought.
Old Iron Feathers led his men on a close in pass, checking the battlefield again. Great Herd Armor and First Telkan had gotten involved in heavy fighting, and while there were no MIA from the battle it never hurt to do one more sweep just in case.
”Iron, you read me?” Trucker's voice popped up in his suit.
”Iron Feathers here, Trucker,” the neo-sapient replied.
”Got three heavy dropships coming down from The Blessing, but I'm not sure if they're going to get there in time. I need your men at these coordinates as fast as possible,” Trucker said. Old Iron Feathers could hear the sounds of combat and knew that the big tanker was engaged. The coordinates pinged in, only four miles off, but the arc that Trucker wanted him to take increased it to six.
”Enroute. 13th Evac, out,” Iron Feathers said. He opened a channel to his men at the same time as he crossloaded the flight plan. ”Drop Nap of Earth and go full afterburners. Trucker's got something.”
All nine of his men flashed green icons as he led them on a spiral down to just above the ground, lower than twenty meters, and leveled out. Once his men were in a wedge he kicked off the afterburners and the SAR armor boosted to over two hundred miles an hour.
”Look at that. He's calling in medevac and medical dropships now,” BuChampe mused. ”What is going on?”
”I'm not sure,” No'Drak said. He frowned.
”Sir, Diasy Sue is confirming an orbital strike request!” one of the techs said, her head and shoulders suddenly appearing from a holoprojector.
”Who's request?” No'Drak asked.
Ge'ermo'o knew.
”General Trucker. He wants a four-fifty kinetic shot from near orbit less than a mile from 14th Armor Regiment,” the female Terran said. Ge'ermo'o could see that her heavy duty datalink implant had all nine LED's red.
His had three LED's.
”Authorize it,” No”drak said. ”Get me a satellite overview of what's going on with 14th Regiment.”
”Yes, sir,” the Terran said and vanished.
Dremsal saw the nine members of 13th Evac touch down right before the countdown to the orbital strike reached zero. He had his hands wrapped around the handles of the quad-barrel so tight his knuckles and fingers were starting to hurt.
The lance came down and struck ground with a blinding white light. The ground heaved and surged, the tanks clanking and rubbing against one another, the battlescreens losing attunement for a moment and snarling where they joined. The blast wave carried dust, dirt, and debris in a solid wave out to smash against the battlescreens, to flow over the tanks, and barely miss the SAR armor crouched down in the rubble, before hitting the ground and rushing out nearly two miles more.
”OPEN FIRE!” Dremsal yelled, even though he could barely hear and couldn't see.
Right before the first tank fired there was another roaring as a dozen Precursor machines, massing several thousand tons each, breached the surface, the laser drills on the front still flashing and burning with red light. Underground several exploded, damaged too much to continue by the orbital shot.
The heavy tank rounds started slamming into the heavy duty Precursor vehicles, blowing huge craters in the armor that normally served to protect the robotic harvester deep in the crust. Smaller machines started deploying from the massive drill and extraction robots, jumping to the ground and charging toward 14th Armor.
Behind the tanks the ground shuddered as heavy hydraulics began lifting massive slabs of endosteel up in the air.
Iron Feathers looked into the gap and saw hundreds of civilians, their faces gray with dust, looking up. He looked up with them, pinging his datalink.
ETA: 215 seconds
Crap, Iron Feathers thought.
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Vuxten jumped off the back of the Lanaktallan hovertank, trying not to think of how not too long ago beings just like the crew had mocked and belittled him as he worked menial labor. The tank commander waved to him and he waved back as he hustled over to where his datalink told him that Sergeant Casey was waiting.
The one eyed human was standing in his loading frame, looking at where two sets of 40mm grenades were coming out of two different nano-forges.
”There you are, Lieutenant,” Casey said.
”You said you wanted to see me when we got here?” Vuxten said, moving up. He looked at the grenades on the conveyor belt and frowned. They were standard 40mm high explosive dual purpose armor defeating.
”Yup. Solved your problem,” the human said.
”Which problem?” Vuxten asked.
The human pointed at Vuxten's left shoulder. ”Your grenade launcher.”
Vuxten turned and looked at him. ”Space Force and Armor Engineering say the launcher's fine even though it keeps jamming up.”
”It is fine. Your problem isn't the launcher,” the big human said. He pointed at the grenades. ”These are,” he pointed at the second one, which Vuxten could tell by the slight glossy sheen to the casing had been wet-printed by a hot nano-forge. ”Well, those are to be exact.”
”How?” Vuxten asked. He couldn't see any difference.
The big human picked up one from each conveyor. ”Superficially, they look the same. Unfortunately, they aren't. I checked the armor logs, you guys wet-print once you get into combat. By the fifth or sixth wet-printed shell you get jammed up.”
Vuxten nodded.
”It's because when wet-printed the booster charge that launches it from the launcher is more granular, sticky so to speak. You end up with what looks like carbon, but is carbon and unexploded Composition Delta-Seven, a low explosive,” the human said. ”It's not much, but enough to jam the weapon as it loads. When you get it clear, it's good for five or six launches then it jams again.”
Vuxten nodded slowly. ”All right. What do I do about it?”
”I talked to Ordnance Command in the fleet, they gave me permission to run a reorder on your ammo. Instead of caseless using Comp Dee-Seven, we'll use Comp Bee-Ex-Four. That burns cleaner even when wet-printed. That should solve your jamming pro...” Casey's eyes opened wide and he grabbed Vuxten yanking him down onto the ground as the big human went one knee down, fist into the ground, covering his face with the other arm.
The dust blew by, the wind knocking the grenades off the conveyors. The shockwave shook the ground and the rumble went on for a long second.
”You OK, Lieutenant?” Case asked, looking at Vuxten.
”Yeah. What was that?” Vuxten asked, getting up.
”Orbital strike. Someone just got pancaked,” the human said.
Vuxten turned and stared. The mushroom cloud, and any sufficently powerful explosion creates a mushroom cloud, was reaching up for the sky.
Casey stood up slowly, straightening up. ”You better have your men load those templates, sir,” he said.
He pointed at the cloud. ”Got a feeling you're gonna be back in it real soon.”
Vuxten nodded.
”Status report!” A'armo'o snapped, standing up in the tank, his upper body outside the cupola. He could see the Telkan officer, Vuxten, running back over to the tanks, waving his arm to encourage his men to follow.
”Orbital strike from the Daisy Sue, sir,” his commo tech yelled. ”We've got multiple heavy Precursors coming straight at 14th Armor Regiment. Looks like subterrainian extraction and refinery systems that got forced to the surface by the orbital strike!”
”Who's close enough to provide support?” A'armo'o asked, staring in awe at the mushroom cloud taht was still red and orange.
There was silence for a moment. ”Nobody, Most High.”
A'armo'o looked around. His tanks were being reloaded, some of them were damaged badly enough that they were smoking.
Rolling coal, went through his mind.
He tapped his datalink, bringing up a map. He was six miles away, a river in between. The Terran tanks were all tracked vehicles, they couldn't cross the quarter mile river.
But his hover-tanks could.
He opened the channel. ”All units, all units. Two minutes then we roll out! We lock and load, rack and stack on the way!”
”Most High, my main gun's out!” one of his subordinates protested.
”THEN RUN THEM OVER!” A'armo'o yelled. ”This is not optional. I will shoot anyone who disobeys.”
”Fifteenth, grab the forges, mount the tanks. We'll dismount at the river!” Captain Starpunt yelled out.
”First Telkan, mount your tanks!” the human commander of the Telkan Marines yelled.
”Plot us a course,” A'armo'o ordered.
”But, sir, the Terrans should be able to handle it,” His Third Most High protested.
”Not by the time we get there,” A'armo'o said.
He didn't know how he knew.
But he knew.
No'Drak watched the screen update and turned to look at BuChampe. He reached out and poked at General Trucker's image with one bladearm even as he exhaled smoke from his legs.
”Not a psyker, my great big bug ass,” No'Drak said.