Chapter 522: Resurgence (1/2)

Major General (Formerly Third Great Grand Most High) Ge'ermo'o stood by the holotank, which was displaying the thirty-eight tanks that had been found destroyed with the tag ”IT WAS LIKE THAT WHEN WE GOT HERE” on the ground or on the side of the tank. All of them had caught on fire, had thrown tracks, and were showing massive damage.

The turbo-lift doors opened and General Trucker came in, the hiss and wheeze of his cybernetics loud in the silence of the conference room. With him was General Warkrawk, the Commander of the Corps Maintenance. Following quietly was Gunner Second Class Ha'almo'or, who looked nervous to Ge'ermo'o. General NoDra'ak exited the elevator, the robotic legs of his therapy frame clicking on the deck plating.

They silently gathered around, staring at the holotank.

”That's a lot of Confed tax payer money,” NoDra'ak chuckled, lighting his cigarette.

”Indeed,” General A'armo'o said.

”So who's idea was this? Speak freely,” General NoDra'ak said.

There was silence a moment.

NoDra'ak sighed, puffing smoke out around his two remaining footpads. ”I'm not interested in laying blame. As a matter of fact, the undeniable evidence there is something seriously wrong with our new 'supertanks' makes me more concerned about the reality that we may be fielding our troops with faulty equipment. That, gentlemen, is how you lose a war.”

There was nods.

Ge'ermo'o held up one hand. ”It was my idea, General.”

NoDra'ak nodded. ”Why?”

Ge'ermo'o pointed at the tanks in the holotank. One was showering trails of sparks like an expensive firework display. ”I did not trust the tanks.”

”That's it?” General Warkrawk asked, reaching up and smoothing her hair. She had a short cowlick at the front that she patted nervously. ”You destroyed almost forty tanks because you 'didn't trust them'?”

Ge'ermo'o nodded. ”Observational data caused an instinctive dislike to the new machines. Just the simple act of standing in front of one and staring at it during a scheduled precipitation period, to observe how it appears in the rain, made me instinctively distrust it. There was something in my observations that I was not consciously recognizing that made me distrust the machine in the same way as I would distrust sour cud.”

Warkrawk nodded, putting her hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on her feet. Ge'ermo'o noticed that it made her shoulders and chest expand impressively as her muscles flexed. She reached out and touched the holotank, working for a moment.

”No footage. Damn,” she said.

”A moment,” NoDra'ak said. He touched the commo headset he was wearing, his implant not yet replaced. ”Get me Planetary Weather Control,” he looked at A'armo'o. ”Send three of your men to the motorpool, have them stand in front of the tanks and use their retinal links to transmit what they see.”

Trucker tapped one of the windows in the holtank, expanding the view. It was currently showing a tank racing down a highway, firing at different angles. It passed under the bridge, paused for a minute or two, then roared out, making a weaving pattern.

”Why does that look familiar?” Trucker mused, staring at it. ”I've seen that before.”

Ha'almo'or cleared his throat and Trucker looked at him. ”Yes?” the burly human asked.

Ha'almo'or stepped forward, touching the holokeys, and brought up the reconstruction view of a tank. It was moving down the same highway, firing its secondary weapons at light Atrekna biological units. It paused under the bridge right before napalm coated the entire freeway. Before the flames completely died away it lunged out from under the bridge, engaging the bigger Atrekna war machines that were still active.

”You're kidding,” Trucker said. He overlapped the two images and rewound them.

For the most part, they matched.

Except the new tank was disabled less then three miles from the overpass, fire exploding out of the back deck. The tank that had been engaged in combat raced forward, slamming its forward battlescreen against the side of a large Dwellerspawn. The Dwellerspawn exploded into a shower of thick viscous goo.

”You were reenacting previous engagements?” A'armo'o asked.

”Yes, Most Hi... General,” Ha'almo'or said. His cybereyes clicked when he blinked. ”In each incident, the tank survived to continue fighting. In our reenactments, the new tanks failed every time just engaging in the maneuvers and weapon firing, without even simulating enemy damage.”

NoDra'ak gave a low whistle through the spiracles on his two legs. ”That's some damning evidence right there.” The big Treana'ad held up his hand. ”This is General NoDra'ak. I need precipitation at the following grid coordinate. Heavy rain, heavy overcast, lightning in the clouds,” he rattled off the coordinates for the motorpool that the holotank was showing Ge'ermo'o standing in. He carefully read off the date. ”I need you to emulate that weather as best as possible.”

He listened for a moment. ”It'll be twenty to forty minutes,” he looked at Ge'ermo'o. ”I want to see what you saw through Lanaktallan eyes.”

Ge'ermo'o nodded.

NoDra'ak turned to the maintenance commander. ”Have the tanks been released for training or testing?”

General Warkrawk shook her head. ”No, sir. Just Level One PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks & Services) by authorized Green Mantid Technical Specialists who have completed the course. Right now we only have about thirty of them,” she turned and looked at Ha'almo'or. ”How many of your... well... team... have had that class?”

”All of them, General. We were given access to the eVR course,” Ha'almo'or said softly. Ge'ermo'o noted that the other Lanaktallan's voice was hoarse and gravelly. He moved over and got a carafe of dremtilberry juice and brought it to Ha'almo'or, who nodded his head. ”Thank you, General.”

”Of course,” Ge'ermo'o said, nodding.

”Why the flag?” NoDra'ak asked.

”It's the standard of the Fifth Maintenance Brigade,” General Warkrawk said. ”Pretty famous in our circles. They held an entire planet for two years during the Varakson-Terran Union War. It made me think that it was greenies from Fifth Brigade at first,” she glared at Ge'ermo'o. ”You stole their guidon.”

”I did, General,” Ha'almo'or said. ”The Mantid Technical Specialists I work with said it might encourage the tank to fight harder and last longer.”

Warkrawk sighed, going back to rocking back and forth on her heels.

”So the tanks haven't been ripped apart or put back together. Just Mantid Technical Specialists doing bare bones PMCS?” NoDra'ak asked.

Warkrawk nodded. ”Yes, sir. Even then, the amount of faults and gigs were racking up by the dozens on each tank.”

”All right, let's take a look at the template,” NoDra'ak said. He tapped the keys on the holotank and the creation engine template appeared. He tapped on it and frowned. ”That's odd.”

”What is, sir?” Warkrawk asked.

”It won't move to exploded view,” NoDra'ak said. He carefully typed in his access codes, then tried to take apart the template. The holotank just beeped. ”OK. That's weird.”

”Let me try, sir,” General Warkrawk said. She tapped in her own code and the system beeped. ”What? Access denied?” she typed it in again, nice and slow, and tried again.

Same results.

They waited while a security officer came up. The Kobold examined the file and shook his head. ”Sorry. It needs Space Force or Army Procurement Command authorization to unlock. The template's new and has a lot of classified weapon and defensive systems as well as the method for fabbing up warsteel mark five.”

”So, can it be unlocked?” NoDra'ak asked.

The security officer shook his head. ”I'll have to use the needlecast and get authorization.”

”Do so,” NoDra'ak ordered.

”It's raining, sir,” Ha'almo'or said, his hoarse voice soft.

The officers turned to the holotank. Four Lanaktallan tankers were feeding their visual data via their retinal link. Two had cybereyes, the other two did not.

It was silent for a long moment. Lightning flashed, a long series of cascading arcs dancing through the clouds but lighting up the motorpool.

”There,” Ge'ermo'o said. ”I don't trust them.”

Trucker chuckled as one of the Lanaktallan went ”Yeah... this is important. Think the General has figured it's fucking raining yet or do we need to get an officer or Most High of Rain and Shitty Weather out in this bullshit rain?” and the other ”Psst, your audio is on” followed by ”Oh shi... ”

”Enlisted. Enlisted never changes,” he said, shaking his head. He took out his can of chew and started packing it.

Warkrawk cupped her hand and scooped the video out of the tank, tossing it to another tank. She moved over and rewinding, narrowing her eyes as she leaned forward. ”What are you seeing that I don't?” she said softly.

Ha'almo'or trotted up next to her, his hands clasped behind his torso.

The lightning flashed again on the main tank and Trucker suddenly straightened up, wiping his mouth. ”Right there!”

”What?” NoDra'ak asked, frowning. ”I didn't see anything.”

”Rewind it. The lightning,” Trucker said.

NoDra'ak rewound it slightly. ”What?”

The lightning flashed again and Ge'ermo'o felt the anxious feeling of mistrust and dislike surge.

”There!” Trucker paused it and rewound a hundred frames, the slowly moved it back at 1/1000th speed. ”THERE!” Trucker paused it.

Smokey No tapped his fingers on the recovery frame. ”What?”

”The lightning.”

Warkrawk came over and peered at it. ”What?”

”Where? Here?” NoDra'ak touched the lightning bolts flickering off a few miles away, lighting up the clouds.

”And here,” Trucker said. He touched the front of the tank. ”See, you can see the reflection of the lightning on the hull. It looks like it's off the water, but it's not. It's off the Double-Ewe-Emm-Five.”

”OK. So it's reflecting the light from the lightning bolts. So?” NoDra'ak asked.

”WM5 has a slight gloss to it,” Warkrawk said, shaking her head. ”It's going to reflect.”

Trucker gave a frustrated sound. ”Look at the lightning,” he said, touching the clouds in the distance.

”OK,” Warkrawk said.