Chapter 362: (Memoirs) (2/2)

Then two Precursor space vessels, a Djinn and a Jotun, both pumping out combatants. The Jotun was pushing combat robots hard and fast, the Djinn was fielding mining robots.

Which were actually doing better than the combat vehicles.

Dremsal glanced at what one of his recon drones had shown.

Both Precursor machines had cleared avenues between each other as well as behind them. The Djinn was shipping resources to the Jotun, and the Jotun and the Djinn were both shipping resources to something else.

The fast recon drone had spotted what it was, nearly fifteen miles away, well enough to get a silhouette of it, see the fires on the hull, see the smoke pouring off of it.

A Juggernaut. The size of a metropolis, lightly armed compared to a Devestator or Dreadnought, it had obviously taken a pounding coming in.

Dremsal checked his datalink. The Juggernaut was listed as destroyed in action, sat-recon showed fires burning on the hull and massive cracks and craters. It was bent in the middle, a huge fissure nearly a half mile wide across the middle.

The fast recon drone had shown that nearly a dozen of the Precursor machines were feeding it resources, combat robots, ore haulers, and other gear.

Trying to bring your big brother back to life, huh? Dremsal thought.

He checked his route.

12th Regiment was fighting hard to get at the Jotun. The Telkan Marines had wanted to go scout it, but Dremsal had cancelled the scouting mission that Trucker had ordered and told them to stay tight to the tanks. He had two thirds of the Great Herd harrying the flanks and rear of Gobbler, the rest mixed in with his tanks.

Sixteenth Infantry Brigade (warborg) was closing in on the Jotun fast, but it was throwing out a wall of mechs to stop them, had actually bogged them down to the point that the warborgs had called in their big brothers, the warmechs, who would take nearly an hour to reach the warborgs. The warborgs were moving, but slowly, the Jotun not doing anything fancy, just using mass drivers to fling debris at the warborgs, but forcing them to slow down.

Dremsal nodded to himself as he caught a flier with his quad-barrel.

He knew what to do.

”Are we going inside?” Plunex asked.

Addox shook his head. ”No, last thing we want is to be inside and some C-DAT manages to get a golden BB on this thing.”

”Then why?” Plunex asked, watching Casey finish the cut and start a new one.

”I wanna looksee,” Casey said. He pointed to the side. ”Under those armor bubbles right there are battlescreen projectors, nearly a dozen in that cluster,” he continued, still paying attention to the work he was doing. ”I wanna see if I'm right and there's a power cluster here.”

Vuxten nodded as 471 tossed up a potential schematic. A main power lead that branched off to the different battlescreen protectors.

”Blasted integrity screens,” Casey mutterd when sparks shot out from where the fusion torch was ripping into the armor. ”Oughta be a law.”

Vuxten's armor tossed up a meme of the giant Precursor vehicle being handed a ticket by a massive warmech. ”Precursor Mining Vehicle, you are fined two days pay for using integrity screens while we try to kill you.”

Vuxten groaned. That bad of a meme showed he was on local network only.

”How bad's the jamming?” he asked.

--bad bad-- 471 answered. --putting out enough EM to fry yummy yummy turkey--

Plunex turned and looked at the platoon, which was starting to gather up. ”Spread out. Look for hatches, gaps in the plates, exposed wiring, exposed battlescreen projectors. Stop bunching up.”

The Telkan Marines started moving around.

”How the hell do you kill something this damn big with the weapons we've got?” someone asked, omitting their broadcast ID.

”How thick is the armor?” Vuxten asked, looking at the cut.

”Right here? Only a meter,” Casey said. ”At least, the outer layer. It's not layered armor, just solid battlesteel since this isn't a combat vehicle. Armor's hot right here too, meaning there's something underneath it generating a lot of heat.”

”I don't see any thermal sinks or thermal systems,” Addox said.

”This thing is a deep level mining rig, not really built for surface thermal exchange since half the heat generated would be external. Not too deep, not using that weird stuff,” Casey said. His face was shielded by an opaque faceplate that Vuxten wasn't sure where the Terran had gotten it from.

There was silence for a couple of minutes as Casey kept working.

”Kinda boring up here,” Addox said, looking around. ”The battlescreens are thick enough not even sound is really getting through, just this thing's noise.”

”Boring is good,” Casey said, starting the last cut.

”Got a hatch right here,” PFC Melkrit called out.

”Got a buckled armor plate here,” PV2 Sagroot said.

Vuxten jogged over to the buckled plate, looking at it. Some time in the past the excavator had hit something too tough for the battlesteel to ignore and the plate had bent. There was a patch over it, a light brown rather than the rust color of old battlesteel.

Vuxten put his hand on it and felt an oscillating vibration from the other side.

”Might have found something good,” Vuxten told the Private. ”Good catch.”

Sagroot flushed inside his armor and nodded.

Vuxten hopped back to where Casey was pulling up the thick slab of armor.

”Yup, cable junction,” the Terran said.

--lean forward want look-- 471 said.

”My greenie wants a better look,” Vuxten said, moving up. The cables were thick and heavy, flexible black armor wrapped around the cables that were as thick as Vuxten's legs. There were six cables coming in from the edge, two running parallel to the edge, and a heavy braided cable running toward the center of the vehicle.

--battlescreen cabling-- 471 said. --backup systems not there must be deeper in or different spot--

”471 says that the backups aren't there, either down deeper or in a different location,” Vuxten said.

”So no use in blowing this junction,” Addox said, shaking his head. ”Dammit.”

--no maintenance crawly crawly space-- 471 said. --there right there datalink cables and a datalink junction--

The part was highlighted in Vuxten's vision.

”471 says that's a datalink junction,” Vuxten said, pointing it out, marking it so the others could see it plainly.

--power flow analysis and datalink intercept might get system algorithm-- 471 said.

”471 says he might be able to get the battlescreen frequency shift algorithm,” Vuxten said.

--close enough-- 471 said, tabbing in two laughing mantid emojis. He cracked the case and climbed out, slapping his rifle on his abdomen and checking his toolkit.

The bigger beings watched as 471 moved up and attached detectors to the cables.

--superconductor cable not superluminal optics cable-- 471 tsked.

”What about encryption?” Plunex asked.

”Who's it going to encrypt it from, itself?” Addox asked. ”This is a mining rig, it's not supposed to be anywhere near the enemy. Add in that unless you're using electron wiring or self-healing molycircs, encrypting signals inside your own system introduces heavy lag.”

”Oh,” Plunex asked.

”But it's not beyond the realm of possibility,” Casey mused. ”Felgreth ships had internal encryption, even signal encryption within their own equipment.”

”Aren't those the guys who fielded magnesium/titanium armor?” Addox asked, chuckling.

”What's so funny?” Plunex asked when Casey nodded, giving a quiet laugh.

”Magnesium is flammable, titanium bursts into flame at about the temp magnesium burns at. The alloy litterally burst into flame when hit with a laser pointer,” Addox chuckled. ”They fielded a massive military force. Attacked some of the rimward colonies about six hundred years ago.”

”Which promptly burst into flame the minute the paint was scratched,” Casey said. ”Standard operation was a burst from a mag-ac then use your laser designator. A tank would just burst into flame. Funnier than Hell.”

”Never did find out where those guys came from,” Addox said.

Casey shrugged. ”They're probably designing a thermite/petroleum based armor.”

471 climbed back up Vuxten, moving around to sit back in the clamshell. He closed it and plugged in.

--got it-- 471 said. --short formula algorithm repeating--

”He says he has the algorithm,” Vuxten said.

”Well, now what, sir?” Addox asked, looking around.

Vuxten noticed Plunex was looking at him too and resisted a sigh.

471 flashed an amused icon.

stall, Vuxten, stall

”Well, after careful consideration, I'm beginning to lean toward the idea of performing,” Vuxten started, thinking rapidly.

”Hey, I got a big skull over here. Looks like its jammed in the forward grinders!” Corporal Lantix called out.

Vuxten breathed out a sigh of relief as 471 popped an icon of an umpire yelling ”SAFE!”

”Skull?” Addox said. ”Think Glory survived?”

”Link me your feed,” Vuxten ordered.

His visor showed what the other Telkan Marine was seeing.

There were massive grinders halfway down, the buckets for the port side wheel would dump their load into that set of grinders, but they were jammed up. A massive black skull, part of an arm, and a hand were visible in the grinders, which kept bucking, reversing and engaging.

The hand waved as Vuxten looked through his troop's cameras.

”Help a girl out?” Glory asked, staring up at the tiny specks with the header of Telkan Marines.