Chapter 410 (2/2)
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I awoke to the rumbling of atomic weapons shaking the ground. My biological eyes were thick and gummy but my cybernetic eyes were instantly clear and crisp.
A Welkret in a nurse's uniform sat near me, looking at a dataslate. She looked up and smiled. ”Welcome back, Most High.”
”How...” I swallowed around the thick paste in my mouth. ”How long?”
”Nineteen hours,” she told me. ”You were suffering extreme exhaustion, shrapnel injuries, and second degree burns under your armor.”
”My crew,” I managed to get out.
She moved over to me, holding a pitcher with straw. I drank deeply, the biting citrus washing away the taste. ”Your crew all survived. They will recover.”
I hung limp in the sling and breathed a sigh of relief. After a moment I stirred, trying to get my arms and legs to work, but found the anesthetic beam was still in effect.
”Help me out of the sling,” I said. ”Turn off the beam.”
The Welkret shook her head. ”The Matron Nurse has stated you are to remain in the sling for the next twenty hours to give your body a chance to heal.”
There was the rumble of another atomic detonation that I could feel through the sling.
”There are still people who need me,” I told her. I stared at her, blinking with my cybereyes so they made clicking noises. ”As you needed me.”
The tips of her ears flushed slightly and she looked at me closely. She checked her dataslate, then gave me a once over with a scanner, checking her dataslate again.
”Your hearts look good. Your muscles are responding well to quikheal,” she said softly. She looked around, then backed out. After a moment she came back. ”We must hurry.”
I nodded as she released the anesthetic beam. I clumsily helped her get the sling off me, then had her help me get my Terran armor back on. It was damaged and discolored, but it still fit well.
The Welkret nurse checked for me then motioned. ”Go right and out the back of the tent. They're bringing in Terran wounded out front.”
”I thank you,” I told her.
”Go with grace, Most High,” she said softly.
I trotted out, grabbing up a Terran rifle as I did so.
Outside was a whirling chaotic blur of motion, with beings running every which way. I saw two strikers land, one of them smoking, and techs run over to them, one hosing down the smoking one with a fire prevention foam ejector. I realized I had to urinate and followed the sign to where the 'urination station' was located.
I stared in surprise. It was merely pipes sunk into the ground at a high angle, set waist high for the various races. It startled me to see Terrans and other expose their genitals to urinate in the pipes. Still, my body wasn't going to wait much longer as it woke up from the anesthetic, so I trotted over to the line and waited.
It startled me that the Terrans talked to one another in the line. Joking, or asking how one another was holding up, what they were doing. Small talk, as if they were sitting down for a polite lunch, not waiting to urinate in a pipe for everyone to see.
When I got up there I felt somewhat foolish straddling the trough. I looked at the human across from me, a male with dark brown skin, who gave me a Terran smile.
”Straddling the gash slash is the big reason I always reskin as a male for deployments,” he told me. ”Being able to piss standing up. That's the shit, right there.”
I just nodded, unsure of what to say as I let my bladder go.
”Good luck out there, Lanky,” he said, buttoning up his fabric pants and moving away. Another took his place, but mercifully didn't say anything.
I finished up and trotted away, feeling somewhat embarrassed by the whole thing.
It only took me a moment to see a tank. It sat off by itself, the armor scarred and pitted. It wasn't my old tank, but it had ”GREAT HERD EMERGENCY SERVICES” painted on it with blue paintstick. I trotted over to it, seeing that the loading ramp was down and open.
”Hello?” I asked, moving around to look inside.
A human was kneeling down, looking at the cannon's breach mechanism. He looked up and grinned at me. His face was sweaty and red, his face shield retracted, and his armor had the slight blurring effect of their 'active camouflage' system.
”Specialist Grade Six Lumundaroo,” he said, nodding.
”Ha'amo'or,” I told him, moving inside. I looked at the interior and noticed it looked a lot different. The breach was heavier, wider, and it looked nothing like any of the main weapons I had trained on. ”What kind of gun is that?”
”One-hundred-fifty-five millimeter smoothbore main battle tank gun, right there,” he said, patting the breach. ”Maximum effective range of seven miles, mission variable munition capability.”
”No plasma?” I asked.
He shook his head. ”I couldn't fab up plasma gun parts,” he admitted. ”Your people are running through entire barrels every ten to twelve hours,” he shook his head. ”No offense, but your wargear is pretty crap.”
”None taken,” I said. I sat down on the gunner's couch. ”How different will this be for me? I am a gunner.”
”Superficially, well, you don't have to worry about standoff distance, minimum safe distances, atmospheric attenuation, microprism cloud dispersion, or any of that,” he told me. He shifted how he was sitting.
”What about ammunition, I was able to carry seventy-five rounds prior,” I said. I flipped the switches so the gunner's sight went live.
He gave a slightly sheepish look. ”Well, that's complicated,” he said.
I pressed the self-test tab and watched it go through the startup checks. ”Explain.”
”In the ammunition bay, and now you have two of them, you have a grand total of one hundred rounds. Twenty-five in rapid storage. Seventy-five in the lower storage, which is heavily armored,” he said. He shifted again. ”I might, and I stress might have gotten authorization to strap a Class-IV nanoforge to this beast, along with a heavy enough mass tank that it can dry-print one round every fifteen seconds or wet-print one every three seconds.”
I turned and looked at him. ”I welcome such alterations. Anything that will enable me to protect the people of this city.”
”This thing has heavier shields, new laminate armor, dual hover-system, replaced reactors. The only thing that's basically the same is the software, and even that's been heavily rebuilt over the last day or so,” he told me. ”I'm just trying to figure out a problem.”
”What problem?” I asked.
He looked at me. ”The autoloader isn't working. It doesn't want to work, and I'm not sure why.”
”Is the mechanism jammed?” I asked. ”Sometimes the rotation cradle's axle can get jammed.”
”No,” he said. He pulled open the floor plate, exposing the rotation cradle. It acted like the cylinder of a revolver, bringing up ammunition from the ammo hopper. The cradle would extend up as the gun recoiled, loading a round into the chamber as the breach went forward. The cradle would drop back down and rotate, loading a new round into an empty cradle.
He used both hands to shift it back and forth. ”It moves, but,” he started.
”Most High Ha'almo'or,” a young voice said, panting. I turned and looked and saw a young Hikken standing on the loading ramp. He had on a headset and a radio on his hip.
”Yes?” I asked.
”There's a group of survivors in the city. They're pinned down and the Precursors have reentered the city,” he told me.
”Do you know how to operate a communications board?” I asked, pointing at the commo station of the tank.
”Yes, Most High, I was a maintenance technician,” he said.
”Do you know of any others?” I asked.
He nodded.
”Get them. The tank needs a crew,” I said. I turned to the Terran. ”If it cannot be repaired, I must go into battle without it. Do the secondary guns still work?”
He nodded slowly. He reached behind him and got a heavy looking tool that I recognized. It was used to manually rotate the cradle. ”Secondary guns check out fine,” he said slowly. ”You know, there's a way to do this.”
”How?” I asked. I watched as he moved the metal tool into place, wiggling it to set it.
He slapped the lever for the gun with one hand, the breach rolling back, exposing the empty chamber. The other hand he pushed on the bar, rotating the cylinder. He grabbed the exposed round, slammed it into place, shut the chamber, and then pushed the breach shut.
In less than five seconds total.
”How... how long can you do that?” I asked him.
”Probably longer than this tank will survive,” he told me. He gave me a sudden grin. ”I've spent all day putting this thing together, I might as well go with you.”
”If you wish,” I told him. ”I would require you to follow my orders.”
”I can do that,” he said. He chewed his lower lip for a second. ”We should probably take two Mantid combat vehicle engineers if that's all right. Maybe even a medic.”
I looked around the crew compartment. ”Will they all fit?”
He nodded.
”Then I welcome them,” I told him. I pulled my helmet off and pressed my face against the gunner's sight. ”Hurry. We have little time and the civilians depend on us.”
Through the sight I could see the city.
It was still burning.
I touched my implant and heard the filly-Matron answer.
”Gather your ambulance crew, we are needed once again,” I told her.
”As you command, Most High,” she answered.
I commed the bus crews next, even as my new crew boarded the tank.
The ramp whined as it closed.
--we ride this tank to glory-- one of the Mantids chirped over my implant.
”Victory or death,” I said as my new driver rotated the tank, following the instructions of my new navigator.
I pushed my face against the gunner's sight.
”Either is fine.”
--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.