Chapter 397 (1/2)

We drove back into the city, myself and my companions in a tank loaded with new Terran munitions, my faithful crew in the recovery vehicle, others who had chosen, for some maddened reason, to follow me into the city driving two of the mass transit vehicles and a score of grav-lifters. The grav-lifters were sporting new weapons, the pintle mounted plasma machineguns previously arming those craft having been dumped into ”grinders” and replaced with Terran kinetic weaponry. The grav-lifters sparkled with battlescreens, powered by a reactor sitting in the back, just as my tank wavered behind Terran light tank battlescreens.

The wailing of the damned could be heard even through the hull as we drove into the smokey ruins of the city. The entire planet was burning, the Precursor machines having forced the Great Herd back until their backs were pressed against the ferrocrete walls of the buildings. The communications net was full of Most Highs panicking as Terrans made landfall, sometimes into Great Herd fire, their soldiers and combat machines attacking the Precursors without mercy or hesitation.

A platoon of light powered infantry was with me to protect those I rescued.

To my surprise there were several flight capable power armors, all in flat gray, with a red crescent on one side of their chest and a red cross on the other, moving with the makeshift ambulance that now glimmered with battlescreens and sterifields. To either side of us bounded huge cybernetic creations. Goodboi's and Simbas, they were called. Canine and feline brains, respectively, in heavy combat chassis capable of fighting the Precursors as well as sniffing out survivors buried under rubble.

And there was so much rubble.

The recovery vehicle used its equipment to pull aside rubble and chunks of buildings. I saw Terrans in armor wade into the rubble, using the strength provided by their power armor to throw aside the rubble. I saw Goodbois stand on top of rubble and bark, calling out that they had found survivors.

Each Simba and each Goodboi carried packs of Purrbois, another cyborg, these polymorphic alloy chassis wrapped around a feline brain. The purrbois descended into the rubble, oozing through the slightest cracks. They provided medical care when necessary and alerted us to the living and dying.

Several times I got out of my tank to help pull people from wreckage, helping move rubble, helping hold back debris. I watched the Terrans wiggle into holes barely large enough to fit them in order to talk to the person we were rescuing. Purrbois were curled up on the chests of those trapped when we managed to reveal them, subsonic rumbling calming them and their injuries treated as best the tiny cyborg could manage.

Late in the afternoon, as the sun was lowering, I stumbled climbing down from the rubble. My cast caught wrong and I almost tumbled, caught and steadied by one of the power armor clad Terrans. I managed to limp back to my tank, my leg aching. I broke into the medical kit and got out a painkiller, dry swallowing them, and looked over my scanners.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!echoed out.

The Terrans raised their voices in defiance:THEN DIE ALONE!

But still we worked.

There were still more emergency calls, emergency signals, all over the city. I could hear their wailing, crying out for help, even through the tank's armor.

The Terran concept of ”Hell on Earth” had come to us.

I was sweating, the hatch open and half out of it, as we moved deeper into the city. Flames whipped up around us as we passed streets that had been torn open. A skyraker gave a loud groan, like a dying animal, and collapsed to the street.

The life signs calling for aid there suddenly winked out and I wanted to weep.

Still, we headed into the destroyed streets, my tank pushing rubble out of the way, the tracked recovery vehicle and I forging a path for the rest to follow.

The smoke was so thick that it was like night, thick enough to make the battlescreens snarl. Even with the filters in my suit my mouth and nostrils felt thick and greasy, I could taste the tang of burning metal and scorched meat.

We pushed on regardless, the Terrans assisting in finding just one more group of survivors.

Just one more.

That's all I wanted, just one more, as we drove through the streets of a murdered city.

Just before the dim red orb of the sun slipped below the skyline of the city I was helping carry surviving children, hidden in shipping containers by a Lanaktallan warehouse manager, to the flitters, when the snarl and crack of Precursor lasers sounded out.

I took a hit on the flank, stumbling, as the armor shed the sudden energy transfer with a flare of light. A kinetic round hit the side of my helmet and I almost went down, hugging the box of Hashenesh squirmlings tight to my armored chest. The light and sound made them start slapping their tails against the bottom of the box and make little barking squeaks even as they huddled together.

I was staring at their wide eyes as I stumbled down the wreckage, heading for my tank, my head swimming, my thoughts incoherent and disconnected.

A Terran in a suit of light powered armor interposed his body between the three Precursor machiens targeting me and the squirmlings in my arms.

I felt a weird sensation, like tape being pulled from my skin, around my ankle, where the cast was, but kept moving. I stumbled to the flitter and held up the box. The Kivyan inside was trilling in fear, her feathers ruffled, even as she took the box from me.

Two kinetic rounds hit my back, bouncing off my armor.

When I turned and looked, I could see the Precursor machines were approaching us from under a bridge overpass, advancing on us rapidly. The Terrans were putting up a fierce defense, but they were out of position, all to many of them holding children and infants.

I galloped for my tank, scrambling inside.

”FIRE IN THE HOLE!” I yelled out over the tank's loudspeakers even as I turned the turret, trying to get into position even as I scrambled over the gunner's couch.

The shot lined up.

”SHOT OUT!” I warned.

And stomped the fire bar.

The shot hit the bottom of the bridge/overpass and it collapsed with a roar, thousands of tons of ferrocrete thundering down on the Precursors.

I knew it wouldn't kill them, but it would delay them, give the Terrans time to regroup, time to get the survivors into the flitters and the buses.

”SHOT OUT!” I fired again, just for good measure.

There was silence, just the background wailing, the cracking of burning synthetics, and the groaning of stressed ferrocrete and alloy structural beams.

I rested against my sight, closed my eyes, and sighed.

There were so many left.

I wanted to go back out, help more, but when I stood up pain washed up my leg. I looked down and saw that my cast was missing, pulled free from my ankle and leg. My soft inner foot was resting against the armored floor of the tank, a pool of blood slowly seeping out.

I felt ashamed that I was unable to stand up, the pain too much for me.

As night fell we had emptied the last of the large buildings that were still intact, taking the survivors back to the refugee point. Repeatedly, off in the distance, there was the flash of atomic weaponry as the military clashed with the Precursors. Craft roared overhead, sometimes Precursors pursued by Terran craft, other times low flying Terran craft, sometimes Terran air mobile power armor.

When I parked, I managed to stumble out, limping, and help guide the refugees to the medical station or the bunkers.

People were afraid. Afraid of me, afraid of my people, afraid of the tank, afraid of the Terrans. Afraid of the lights and sounds of distant combat. Afraid for themselves, for their families, for their neighbors.