Chapter 477: Dismay and Despair (2/2)

Miho targets those specifically. They are more tactically and strategically aware, so I do not fault her.

I understand her horror and anger.

The Enemy in the sky is rapidly dropping to the ground, almost as fast as my Brigade mates and I can kill them, quickly getting out of line of sight. Miho notes that some vanish without the corresponding spray of liquefied tissue, supporting the thesis that the Enemy can more through space and time with ease.

The city is within range of my guns and I send drones in. I cannot move through the city streets with ease, as I am too large. However, the 7219th Combat Horde is moving toward me as fast as some vehicles, all ten thousand Treana'ad Warrior Caste soldiers putting on a burst of speed to reach the city. The massive PacificRim Class Jaeger Mechs with them are devestating and effective combat machines. Ten can seriously challenge a Mark XXIX Bolo.

They are excellent allies and effective combatants, the Treana'ad, and Miho and I both feel pleasure at the sheer amount of transponders heading for us.

The Enemy in the sky either retreats or is turned into slurry by my infinite repeaters, all the while my guns rake the Enemy biological and mechanical weapons, destroying them before they can do much more than waste resources against my thick and heavy battlescreens.

Miho and I are both on the lookout for an enemy trick.

It is the only card they have left they can possibly play in the face of the might of the Terran Confederacy.

The Atrekna were forced to retreat from the cities as the massive mobile fortresses steadily moved forward. Logic stated that the machines should have been slowed to a mere walk but instead they roared forward on tracks up to eighty kilometers an hour, sometimes rushing to as fast as 150 kph. They moved as a single interlocked whole, as did the entire military of the damnable primitive ferals.

The Atrekna had seen hive minds move with less organization.

The orders came. Shift to the Primary Arrival Zone and help defend the Grand Conclave. Leave the harvesters and the war machines to face the primitives. As soon as the shockwaves ebbed, the planet would be abandoned until plans could be made for a second invasion. Already too much of the Atrekna themselves had been killed fighting the insane primitives, the Law of Diminishing Returns had reared its ugly head.

The mass retreat is obvious with the sparkling of chronotron charge balancing.

According to sensors, the Enemy has all moved to one location. A quick examination of the battlefield shows that they have moved to the Eastern Plains of the protocontinent.

Into Trucker's assault.

Miho and I consult with our Brigade mates and the other Kentai Commanders.

Orders are to avoid contact with Trucker's Area of Operations.

Strangely enough, the disturbance and distaste the Kentai Commanders feel is echoed within the circuitry of our Personality Centers.

Unclean.

That is the only way to put it. Trucker's thoughts are somehow unclean and his area of operations feels contaminated.

We confer, and agree with our Kentai Commanders, to continue on with the primary mission, to succor and rescue the citizens of the planet.

We are moving 145.827 kilometers per hour as we hit the bridge that covers the wide flowing river now full of debris and corpses. The bridge is missing the middle section and I could easily go around. Logical movements would be to ford the river, as I am waterproof.

Instead the laughing giggling shrieking spark of female Terran adolescence urges me forward. I can hear her whisper from between parted lips 'go go go go' as the bridge cries out in agony as my kiloton bulk rushes up it. The graviton generators howl as we leave the remainder of the bridge.

For a long moment we are completely airborne, the graviton generators howling. The sun gleams off of our warsteel hull, our battlescreens flickers with rainbow hues, and our massive tracks clatter in mid-air.

Below me a skimmer of the Atomic Hooves are chasing a waterborne Dwellerspawn. I can see one of the crew members of the skimmer looking up, shading his six eyes with two hands, and within our shared minds I see Miho wave even as she sends a ChibiCon avatar to his datalink to repeat her action.

Then we slam down on the bridge, the pavement whiplashing, the Atomic Hooves skimmer flashing away. We race down the bridge even as it collapses.

The Enemy is in force, but has no chance against my tracks and sheer mass, much less my infinite repeaters. My hellbores have been silent, although they all have rounds loaded in the chamber.

Miho's fierce joy fills us both as the Enemy is torn into gobbets of flesh and ground into paste beneath our tracks. As our infinite repeaters sweep airborne enemies from the sky and shatter ground troops alike.

We cannot enter the city, but we can shoot down the large wide avenues and boulevards.

We round a large warehouse where we can detect massed lifesigns of the local species and Miho and I see the mass group of Dwellerspawn and AWM machines approaching. Behind them are buildings where the local species is sheltering in place

Miho gives the orders and despite the illogical nature of them I comply, feeling her humanity reach out around me, feeling able to do more than logic and science insist we could do.

I swerve in place, the ground nothing but churning mud beneath my tracks, a combination of destroyed vehicles, Dwellerspawn, dirt, and mechanical fluids.

Skidding, I reorient, facing an open avenue to race through. Dust billows up in front of my skidding port tracks, sparks and fluids and worse spray from under my starboard tracks as my action rips up pavement and sends it flying through the air.

Miho's maneuver took advantage of the loss of traction to enable us to turn, reorient, and redirect our momentum. We gain traction as my forward tracks grab ceramacrete and ferrocrete and we lunge forward.

Miho gives a yell of excitement that I feel deep in my personality core.

We shoot out from between the massive warehouses, schools, and housing blocs, crashing into Dwellerspawn, most of them exploding into superheated steam on our battlescreens.

Miho screeches in joy at the sight of one of the massive pillbug creatures I fought on Telkan.

The creature screams at the sight of me and lunges forward.

Hellbore Five roars and the armor piercing shot drives deep into the insect, exploding nearly ten meters back, causing chitin plates ten meters thick to rise into the air on a cloud of boiling tissue and blood.

Combat is fully engaged, the Treana'ad Warrior Hordes are sweeping into the city, parting gracefully around me, my guns raking the Enemy from the sky.

Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of Dwellerspawn had been chasing the Treana'ad Horde, waiting for them to flag.

But Confederate Treana'ad Horde Training forced them to build endurance until they could run almost as fast as my flank speed for hours at a time.

”GUNS FREE!” Miho yells even as I sweep for any Enemy leadership units.

I find none.

But that is fine.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF Unit-9823JWS AKA Jaws.

She is Miho, my Kentai Commander.

We were Born Whole.

Together we are much more.

We are Death to the Enemy.

The Atrekna felt something new as they vanished from the howling battlefield where those massive mobile fortresses were destroying anything that even attempted to put up a fight. They had figured out a way to target the Atrekna themselves, despite all previously successful tactics.

As one the remaining Atrekna agreed to depart the planet. True, the space combat assets were engaged in combat, but planetside was lost.

The newcomers recoiled slightly from the almost miasma feeling in the air, like curdled swamp water mixed with the cloying stench of decaying flesh. It was more than in the air, it permeated the phasic spaces.

And it was getting closer.

The Grand Conclave gave the orders.

They attempted to shift out.

The cold feeling had spread. There was nothing to reach for.

For a moment, it reminded the Atrekna of trying to reach past the entropic barrier that had protected their home systems.

Death covered everything.

The remaining Dwellerspawn shifted nervously as the Atrekna tried again.

And failed.

With shock, they realized what was keeping them from moving through space or time, what had them anchored in place.

The massive, although much much smaller than the mobile fortresses, tanks approaching, as well as each individual staggering forward toward the Atrekna, fighting their way through the Dwellerspawn.

Behind the death, behind the decay, was something else, growing as the primitives got closer and closer.

Hunger.

One Atrekna looked through the eyes of one of the slavespawn and immediately disconnected, falling back.

The primitive was a primate, bipedal, armed with a hypervelocity kinetic weapon.

But that wasn't what made the Atrekna withdraw.

It was doing something. Not alone, but all of them were doing something. Something that touched something primitive and primal even with the Atrekna. Touched the most basic survival instinct of 'eat' that existed in all living things.

They were gnashing their teeth.

The Atrekna discovered they were able to feel emotions and one swept through them.

It was one they didn't like.

Not one bit.

Fear.