Chapter 363: (Memoirs) (1/2)

A Great Herd Main Battle Tank Type XIX. IXTB-38A8r4. One hundred fifty tons of armor, molecular circuitry, guns, and hoverfans. Designed 638 thousand years ago and never having needed a single upgrade. A 180mm main gun that fires an eight pound plasma shell. Two rows of 80mm vertical launch systems capable of delivering a variety of variable fuzed munitions. A driver's, tank commander's, communication's officer's, and an electronic warfare officer's external 18mm quad barreled plasma machinegun that could be controlled inside or manually by partially exiting the appropriate hatch. Capable of reaching a top speed of nearly forty miles an hour. The crew can survive inside the compartment for up to 11 hours without discomfort. Single layer medium grade battlescreens often used on light frigate naval vessels. Waterproof, soundproof, able to be piloted and operated even in vacuum thanks to sixteen antigravity pods, although at a much slower speed and slower response.

The mighty armored fist of the Unified Military Council, in support of the Unified Civilized Council.

According to my trainers, the last time a single tank had been damaged to the point that it could not fight, excluding operator error or sabotage, was nearly 23 thousand years prior to my introduction to my first tank.

I was excited as I inprocessed. I was to be assigned to one of the most modern tank designs around, military war machine made manifest. Perfection achieved and domination assured. I was almost eager the day I was allowed to enter the motorpool and taken to where the tank I would be a crew member of was parked.

It was love at first sight.

My fellow crewbeings thought I was a bit insane, to be honest. I worked on my tank, learning everything about it that I could from the neo-sapient mechanics. The driver was happy I could start it up for maintenance, meaning he could continue on with his long running alcohol related binge.

Within a month I could tear apart my gunner's sight, even the firing mechanism, and rebuild it from spare parts found in the motor pool supply shed. I even knew workarounds and field repairs that existed only in esoteric manuals and passed down in whispers between mechanics.

I earned my ”gunner's bite” at my first live-fire range, where I learned that it was best if I let my helmet push back a little instead of pushing it against the padded sight. Pushing my face against the padding, using only my forward eyes, concentrating on putting each shot right where I wanted it.

Everyone took notice when I scored a perfect 1,200 points.

Some were happy for me, considered what I'd done proof of the Great Herd's might.

Others were jealous, starting whisper campaigns that I had somehow rigged my software to give me an illegal edge during live fire gunnery practice.

My fellow gunners led the campaign to have my accomplishment gone over with a fine toothed comb, many of them accusing me, to my face, of cheating.

My gunner's station was pulled apart, each block of circuitry examined, each byte of firmware and software gone over, even the gearing examined closely to see if I had somehow pulled off the shroud at the base of the barrel and adjusted the microgears that did the minute changes to barrel angle and elevation.

In the end, my score would have been stricken from the record, since my gunner's sight had gotten early maintenance, the neo-sapient maintenance crew replacing it twenty years before necessary. I would have been sent to do manual labor as punishment, or perhaps worse.

There was even talk of a court martial to put me in my place.

Mil-Sec officers had arrived in our motor pool to place me under arrest when the sirens began to wail. Everyone looked around confused, even the Mil-Sec officers, at the tone of the siren.

It came over my implant at the same time as everyone's else, my lockout being lifted.

ATTACK IMMINENT -- PRECURSOR VESSELS IN SYSTEM IN FORCE

My platoon Most High began rearing up and down, screaming at all of us to get into ranks for inspection. The platoon Second Most High began galloping in circles, shrieking that we were all going to die.

He was wrong.

Only most of us were going to die.

--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.

”I hate landing into an ongoing fight,” General No'Drak said, staring at the various holotanks. He had been in the same place for six hours, watching everything take place. The counter-attack, the first in the five days since Confederate forces had arrived, was moving in fits and jerks.

”It's a mess out there,” General Moffeta said, watching a map of the megacontinent where her air support assets were spread around widely.

”Are you concerned, Most High?” Grand Most High Ge'ermo'o asked.

”Always when even a single one of my men are engaged in combat,” No'Drak admitted, tapping a cigarette against the railing he was leaning against. ”There are a million ways this can all go sideways on us.”

”Sir, signal from Space Force!” came the cry from below.

”Throw it up here,” General No'Drak snapped, bringing up a secure holo-port.

The twinkling cone resolved into a tired looking Rigellian female with admiral's pips on the brow of her armored vac-suit. She had bags under her eyes from stress and her eyes were bloodshot. Static kept rippling across the hologram and General No'Drak knew it was from phased wave plasma motion guns and C+ cannons firing.

”General No'Drak here, can you hear me, Admiral?” the Treana'ad said, slowly and distinctly.

She spoke for a second, obviously to someone outside of view, then looked forward. ”Admiral HawGawk here, General,” the rippling went over the hologram and she waited a second. ”We've got a status change out here.”

”Go for sitrep,” No'Drak said.

Ge'ermo'o watched interestedly. He had seen how his fellow Lanaktallan reacted to a changing situation obviously getting worse and was curious as to how the lemurs would react.

”Eighty plus point sources just came in at the Hellspace limit. The stellar stabilizers and the Hellspace interdiction craft from the Crusade of Wrath helped. We have eighty plus Harvester Class, including what look like mostly new classes, out near the far gas giant,” the Admiral said.

”I repeat back, Eighty plus Harvesters at the far gas giant, primarily Type-III,” No'Drak said.

The Admiral nodded. ”At least three hundred are coming straight at you. I've detached two Battlecruiser Groups to defend the planet, but the heavy hitters have to stop those Harvesters from spamming ancillary vehicles and swarming you under,” she said. The lights around her flashed and she rocked slightly to the side. ”We were right not to break up into hunter killer groups to go after the last of them, looks like the initial wave was simply to pull us out of position.”

No'Drak nodded. ”So, whatever gets through, we're on our own,” he said gravely.

Ge'ermo'o felt a little bit of fear at that.

”Sorry, General. Space Force has its hands full up here,” she said. ”We've already sent out a distress beacon. The Crusade ships have sent out a call for reinforcements, but with the Case Omaha on TerraSol, options are limited for them.”

”Understood. Have you tactical forward what they can. Good luck, Admiral, and Fight the Ship,” No'Drak said.

”Pound the Ground, General,” the Admiral said, and then she was gone.

No'Drak tapped the cigarette a few times against his bladearms and Ge'ermo'o could smell the scent of freshly cut grain. The Treana'ad stared at the holotanks down below as he slowly put the cigarette into his mouth and brought out the lighter.

Ge'ermo'o was slowly learning Confederate map symbols, he could see how the soldiers of V Corps were spread all over the planet, fighting the landing Precursors and their forces.

General No'Drak unfolded his lighter with a snap of his fingers, spinning the striker in the same motion and bringing up a yellow flame. He slowly lit the cigarette, staring down. He puffed on it for a moment and exhaled the smoke around his footpads as he put the lighter away.

”The Precursors have adjusted their tactics,” he said softly. ”Never count on the enemy staying stupid.”

”How many of the next wave do you think will reach the planet?” Ge'ermo'o asked. In his opinion, the planet was lost and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But if the lemurs were willing to fight, he would stand right here next to them.

He'd come to like them.

”Just a little over a third. Sixty or so units,” No'Drak said. He brought up the map. ”We got lucky they didn't catch us out of position. We knew there were still Googly-Eyes in the Oort Cloud, which meant either they were going to come back in again or we'd missed something.”

”Harvester-Twenty-Nine is breaking up,” Someone called out from the floor below. ”Harvester Thirty-Eight has dropped out of formation, looks like someone got a piece of his engines.”

No'Drak nodded.

The icons for the lighter units, the Dreadnoughts and below, were burning brightly. Space Force was concentrating most of their firepower on the massive Harvester Class units that had been forced to drop out further from the gravity well of the stellar mass burning brightly at the center of the system.

The Treana'ad officer knew that every kill counted with the big Harvesters. They'd sit out there and keep producing lesser units until the sun burned out if given the chance.

He had ordered the BOLO units to switched targets, ordering them to engage the incoming planetary assault units, leaving the already planet-side units to the ground forces.

It was a calculated risk, and General No'Drak was an excellent mathematician.

General Moffeta's units were hitting the Precursors as soon as they made atmosphere, pushing through the leading wave of fire to attack the Precursors during the short time their battlescreens were down. The interference from entering the atmosphere was scrambling the Precursor's sensors, putting their point defense offline. That let General Moffeta's units take long strafing runs at the massive machines.

No'Drak winced when one of the incoming Jotuns broke up at 15,000 meters up, the huge chunks tumbling to the ground.

The planet was taking a pounding.

General No'Drak made a motion, bringing up the communications section. The PFC who answered was a Terran had oversized eyes and whiskers.

”Is the hypercom still functional?” he asked before she could speak.

”Yes, sir,” she said.

”Contact the Telkan system. Tell them we're going to need a full elven court here,” No'Drak said. He sighed. ”Tell them we're going to have massive Precursor wreckage as well as...” he paused, took a deep drag and exhaled it.

Ge'ermo'o noticed that it was pushing back the smell of freshly cut grain.

”We're going atom smasher. We've got over two billion civilians in shelters. Put out a request for evac ships, even on the junker channels,” he said.

”Yes, sir,” the female Terran said. Ge'ermo'o wondered why her eyes were so big. If they helped with her job, if her parents had possessed big eyes in their DNA, or if she just had liked them.

No'Drak cut the link and looked at the surrounding officers. ”I'd give my mandibles to have Tik-Tak here.”

That got chuckles.

No'Drak knew that the elven queens could repair the damage he was about to order his troops to commit to.

But if his men couldn't get it under control, couldn't smash the Precursor threat, there wouldn't be a planet to fix. He could see that the Precursors had arrived to strip mine the planet, probably down to gravel.

Part of him wondered why they wanted the planet so bad. The asteroid belts had been mined to nothing over the last twenty thousand years. Most of the easily accessible minerals were gone.

Then he remembered that elements of Third Armor were engaged with mining machines.

He looked at the icons for the Treana'ad Infantry Hordes and Air Mobile Clouds and a small part of him wished he was a Lieutenant again, charging across the ground in armor with his heavy weapons on the top of his abdomen.

After a moment he made a decision.

”Order all personnel on planet into armor and to draw weapons from the armory,” he said. He turned to the two Lanaktallan. ”Gentlebeings, I'd advise you to prepare yourselves.”

”You think we will be attacked here?” Ge'ermo'o asked.

”Can't discount it at this time,” No'Drak said. ”The reinforcements were a high probability and it looks like our cards weren't as good as we hoped.”

”Surely you won't be defeated,” Ge'ermo'o said. ”You won't withdraw!”

No'Drak shook his head. ”No. There's too many people in shelters, too many people in hiding. We'll fight to the last.”

”The Confederacy doesn't leave civilians behind to die,” General Pulgrak said. He stretched, his shoulders popping. ”Glad I qualified on my armor and weapons two months ago.”

General Vandu licked her lips, looking around, her eyes moving back and forth. ”Are we staying here?”

General No'Drak put away his cigarette. ”Yes. We will still coordinate the battle, but we must be ready to join the ever put upon lower enlisted and junior officers should the Precursors assault our command and control area.”

General Vandu nodded, her lips twitching in a smile. ”Just standard body armor, or can we...” she started to ask.

”Put on power armor?” No'Drak asked. He gave the equivalent of a shrug. ”There are several companies of power armor troops here to defend this base, you know that. If you wish to lead them from the front, you have my blessing.”

General Vandu hurried off.

”She will see if the taste of combat is as sweet as the fantasy of combat awards,” No'Drak said softly. He turned to his aide. ”Let's suit up.”