Chapter 379 (2/2)

When we reached the motor pool I stared in shock.

A single tank had returned. Its armor was damaged, smoking, and two fans were out. The gun was warped, but it was a tank all the same.

I kept staring it as I urged the neo-sapients into one of the refurbished bunkers. The work crews were hard at work, having gotten all the way to the eighth and ninth bunker. Part of me noticed that the work crews were larger than they had been.

An aid station had been set up, manned by several Hamaroosa and a N'Kooran.

Once the refugees were safely into the modified munitions bunker I moved to the aid station.

There was a single Lanaktallan there. He was bleeding from his ears, four of his eyes had ruptured, and one of his jowls had been torn away, revealing his teeth. He had suffered burns on his lower body and as I trotted up the Hamaroosa tending to him shook her head silently.

I knelt down next to him. ”What happened?” I asked him, taking his unburnt hand in mine.

I had learned the value of physical contact helping the neo-sapient refugees.

”Too many of them. Our guns are almost worthless,” he gasped. He looked at me, but I knew he wasn't seeing me. ”We tried, Most High, we tried to hold them back, but there was too many of them.”

”It's all right, faithful one,” I said, reaching out with one hand and touching his unburnt shoulder. ”You did more than anyone should ask.”

”We shot our guns dry. My crew, Most High,” he began to weep. ”My crew, they all died. A rocket hit my tank, the crew compartment exploded,” his weeping became stronger. ”My gunner, he still got his shot off, Most High,” I could hear the pride behind the tears. He looked at me, squeezing my hand tightly. ”Tell my mother...”

He went limp. The fire left his eyes.

I turned and looked at the tank. It was from another Armored Host, one I did not recognize. It was not surprising that I did not recognize the tank.

Almost half of the Great Herd's armored units were destroyed. The infantry units were deserting, according to the communication chatter I had listened to in the armored recovery vehicle.

”Should we fix it?” Mal-Kar asked me. ”If we use the robotic repair bay it's an hour's work at the most.”

”Yes,” I told him. ”We'll need it.”

”For?” Julkrex asked, as if the smiling Telkan didn't know the answer.

I turned and looked the way the brutally damaged tank and its dying commander had arrived from.

”They're coming.”

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

From the Flag Bridge deep inside the battleship, Rear Admiral (Upper Decks) HawGawk watched as her ships went toe to toe with the Harvester Class Precursors trying to fight their way into orbit around the two supermassive gas giants that were the two planets furthest from the star. She was outnumbered thirty to one in ships total, but she smiled slowly as another Harvester started to break up.

Her capital ships now outnumbered the enemy's. True, it was only by one ship, but when the fight had started her capital ships were outnumbered by a factor of eight. Even with near-C cannon fire, it took the Precursor machines literally minutes for their massive barrages to reach her ships. In each time the shells were swept away by point defense firing to the side, having dodged the barrages.

Only two of her capital ships had been knocked out and one of those had managed to get back in the fight. The other was coasting deeper insystem while the damage control crews fought valiantly to save their fellow crew members and bring the fires under control.

”STATUS CHANGE!” her tactical command officer called out, the Treana'ad's voice tight with stress.

Admiral HawGawk shifted her command cradle to look at her tactical officer. ”Talk to me, Tactical.”

”Hellspace jumps incoming! Many many sources!” her tactical command called out. ”One hundred and counting!”

”Any reading on who's coming?” HawGawk asked.

”Too far in-system for Precursors, they're making translation inside the stellar gravity shadow,” her tactical officer said.

”It's the Crusade,” HawGawk said. ”Get ready for battleplan tie-in.”

The first ship made its translation and HawGawk flinched back from the image. She wasn't the only one, most of the crew did, some calling out to saints or the Digital Omnimessiah to protect them. The ship was black, wreathed in flames, parts of it damaged and wrecked. The drives bled hellcore energy, the architecture was twisted and almost obscene. The prow was fashioned to appear as a mature Terran female being bound and tortured.

”Signal from the Crusade, Admiral,” the Communication's specialist called out.

”Put it through,” HawGawk said, rotating a screen to in front of her.

The screen cleared, showing a massive Terran female in full Imperium era power armor.

”I am Joan Mentissa, of the Dark Crusade of Light, servant and sister to Daxin the Unfeeling, Osiris of the Warsteel Flame,” the woman said, her gaze unwavering. ”By what name are you called, sister yet unknown?”

”Rear Admiral (Upper Decks) HawGawk,” the Rigellian stated, keeping her expression detached even as her guts clenched.

”Sister HawGawk, my ships are at your command, my ground troops await your battleplan,” the Terran woman, who's beauty was terrible, stated in a firm voice.

”Imperium, correction, Crusade ships have filed sit-rep and force levels,” her commo officer said. He whistled low. ”These are some nasty ships. They've got a dozen Antaeus Class Battle Cruisers.”

”Who need reinforcements?” HawGawk asked.

”Eighth Infantry and Fifteen Infantry is calling for reinforcements, they've got multiple heavy Precursor fabrication class units that made planet-fall in their area of operations,” the commo officer said.

”Transmit the coordinates to the Crusade,” she said. She looked back up. ”There are two Old Blood Infantry Divisions in need of reinforcement. Can you provide?”

The Joan nodded. ”It will be done. Warn thy comrades that the Crusade is incoming.”

-----------------------

Colonel Dremsal glanced at the data displayed in the side of his vision, an excersize in 'glancing' at something without moving his eyes. He'd only lost five tanks, three of them to the Great Gobbler, and even though he'd taken damage, he was past the two smaller ones.

Ahead of him was a burning chemical refinery, the black clouds of smoke rising into the air.

”Signal the Armored Herd we're slowing down. We need a ten minute break to cool down and deslush,” Dremsal ordered. ”Tell Fifteenth Combat Sustainment they have six minutes to reload and repair the Armored Herd's vehicles.”

”Roger, sir,” his commo tech said.

”Get me a drone feed on the other side of the factory, I want a look at our foe,” Dremsal said.

It took less than sixty seconds for the data to be transferred.

The three high altitude stealth drones had gotten high-rez fine detail scans of the Devestator that had made landfall. He could see the heavy damage was already being repaired. There were scores of maintenance machines on its ten mile wide bulk. The air above it was patrolled by aerospace elements.

The number made Dremsal snort. It looked good, was probably mathematically the most efficient, but he had ten times that in drone combat air cover himself. He looked over the data some more, checked the theater ROE, and then linked in all of his commanders, including Most High A'armo'o.

”All right, gentlebeings,” he said. ”We're going to break here. Great Gobbler is about fifteen miles behind us, it should take him almost two hours to catch us. We're going to reload, rearm, refit, cool down, and deslush for ten more minutes.”

The commanders, displayed as holograms in his vision, all made motions of assent.

”Once we're ready, we'll button up,. push through the refinery wreckage, then form a siege line,” he stared at everyone. ”We're bypassing atomic and going straight to nuclear munitions. That thing's a big one, it'd take days to bust it up with atomics and Command wants it gone. We'll be using clean nuclear penetrators.”

A'armo'o checked his lexicon, searching for the difference. Both of them involved either fusion or fission of weaponized isotopes, and on the surface there wasn't much difference.

The lexicon popped it right up. Atomics were largely omnidirectional blasts at ground or surface level. Nuclear involved penetrators like the BOLO's Hellbore or the Terran staged nuclear counter-implosion round. Directed, normally used for city destruction or in orbit.

Only the Terrans would look at an atomic explosion and think to itself: that's nice, but how can I make it really break the enemy's shit? A'armo'o thought to himself as he lifted his command cradle up so he was half out of his tank.

The air felt cool on his sweaty torso.

Great Most High of Slatmurt Armor Forces A'armo'o heard the shout over his comlink and turned behind him to look.

The massive digging machine was burrowing into the ground, vanishing as it pulled its battlescreens closer.

”Oh, that's not good,” A'armo'o said, watching as the digging machine vanished underground.