Chapter 549: 4th & 10 (2/2)

Her armor beeped at her that she was over her limit and she sighed and slumped slightly.

Another grav-striker was coming in, the armor pocked and slagged, but the doors were open and Melinvae could see wounded in it.

She sighed, trying to get up, but her legs wouldn't let her. She sat back down heavily and hung her head.

She knew she could go find an empty cot and lay down but she was just too damn tired. She knew she should be hungry, but her appetite was gone.

Melinvae pulled her weapon into her lap and looked at it.

The little submachine gun didn't look half as deadly as it was. It was a nasty little magac weapon that fired slivers of density collapsed steel shaved off of a solid block by the warsteel bolt.

The heat shroud at the front was discolored and there were pockmarks on the upper receiver. She could see the shiny dent in the heat shroud where a precursor round that had gotten through her battlescreen had almost taken her finger off. It was smeared with mud and worse.

Melinvae pulled out her canteen, dug a cravat out of her aid bag, wetted the cravat, put the canteen away, and started wiping down her weapon.

She shuddered at the memory of firing it one handed as she lurched across the battlefield dragging a Welkret infantryman who had nearly been disemboweled. Another memory surged up, of her on her back, her body covering her patient, firing the SMG point black into the head of a Dwellerspawn.

A shadow fell across her vision and she looked up.

Sergeant Eltprix stood there, staring down at her.

”Your commo is off,” he said.

”Told my medboi to get some rest,” Melinvae said. ”Kind of turned it off.”

”You eaten, soldier?” Sergeant Eltprix asked.

Melinvae shook her head.

”Lets get some food into you,” the Telkan said. He held out his hand. ”Come on, up you go.”

Melinvae accepted the heave up and followed her squad leader toward the tent. At the tent they cleared their weapons, ejecting the ambloks and locking the bolts back.

”You're not hungry because you're exhausted and too full of stim,” the sergeant said. He chuckled. ”I got that way during First Telkan. They didn't really have our stim settings right and I spent three days so stimmed up I was seeing sound and hearing colors.”

”Oh,” Melinvae said. She ducked in and followed her squad leader. She picked up a tray and put it on the bars in front of the plastic. She stared at the food for a long while, not really understanding why she was standing here looking at something that was making her stomach twist.

”Give her an omelette,” her squad leader said.

Melinvae just stood there as her squad leader had her plate loaded up. At her squad leader's direction Melinvae went and sat down, staring at her food.

”Eat, Specialist,” the Telkan NCO said. ”Lift fork,” the last was said with a slight snap.

Melinvae ate mechanically, staring at the plate, at the food, without really seeing it. She drank the juice he gave her, took the vitamins, then robotically followed him to put the tray away.

”Let's get you a cot. We've got about six or seven hours before we've gotta load up again,” her squad leader said.

Melinvae just nodded dumbly. Her NCO took her arm and steered her to one of the sleeping tents, the heavy antispalling and anti-rad plates on the outside of the positive pressure tent. Inside the tent she could see what was left of Treatment Platoon, laying down on the cots. SFC Trenak, another Telkan, looked up, saw who it was, and went back to reading his datapad.

”Not tired,” Melinvae mumbled as her NCO sat her down on an empty cot.

”Come on, off with the boots, trooper,” Sergeant Eltprix said.

Melinvae fumbled at her boots and finally got them off. She realized that one of her toeclaws had sliced a hole in her sock as her squad leader lifted her legs and swung them around so she was laying on the cot.

”Nighty-night, trooper,” Eltprix said, picking up the blanket and covering her. He didn't bother trying to get her out of her body armor and gear.

He remembered those days.

Melinvae mumbled as the NCO walked off. She was mostly asleep before her squad leader sat down next to the platoon sergeant.

”That's all of them,” Sergeant Eltprix said.

”Where did you find her?” Trenak asked without looking up from his book, a fascinating tell-all book involving a scandalous Rigellian rock band from three centuries ago.

”Down by the helipad,” Eltprix said. He looked around. ”They're beat.”

”Ol' Plottin' P'Kank's keeping up the pressure,” Trenak said. ”Can't you taste it?”

Eltprix nodded. ”Yeah. Like that last month of the First Telkan War.”

Trenak nodded. ”Yup.”

”We gotta get these kids back in the shit. Get them back on the horse,” Eltprix said softly, reaching up and tapping the horse's head on the patch on his shoulder. ”Can't give them time to stew over it, let it sink in. We need to... shit, I don't know. Throw them back in like they did to us. That was a rough fight.”

”But we held,” Trenak said.

”Digital Omnimessiah forgive us,” Eltprix replied. ”We lost over half of them.”

”But over a third of them survived,” Trenak said. He tapped the cybernetic hand he was holding the datapad with. ”We've both been there.”

”Yeah,” Eltprix, one of two remaining NCO's in Treatment Platoon said. ”We have.”

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

The holotank had changed radically in the six hours that P'Kank had managed to nap. It was the first time the General noticed when he came back into the command center, lighting a cigarette. He listened to his XO telling him that everything was still going according to plan, not that P'Kank had thought anything else would happen without being woken up.

P'Kank stared at the holotank. It was like the fight against 15th had broken the enemy's back.

Or maybe he had been so focused on that fight and the worry that had made him go through an entire pack of cigarettes that everything seemed easy peasy matron squeezie.

With the High Queen and her court joining the fight, the Time After Time and the satellite network providing orbital fire, the Atrekna were being eliminated across the planet.

Icon after icon was winking out for the enemy forces.

Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk entered the command center, limping with his right leg in a regen cast. He moved up to P'Kank and shook his head.

”Someone defaced your mural again, sir,” the Leebaw officer said.

”Oh. Again?” P'Kank asked.

”Again. Don't worry, sir, I'm sure we'll discover who is defacing it,” the commando said.

”I'm sure you will,” P'Kank said, watching as the holotank flashed that it was searching for any chronotron bursts.

It had been fifty-three minutes since the last group of Atrekna were eliminated, but P'Kank wasn't taking any chances.

”Should I post a guard on it?” Captain Ulk-Kulk-Lulk asked.

”No. We'll worry about it after Operation Billy Mays is complete,” P'Kank said.

”As you say, sir,” the Leebaw said, then moved away to check on the status of the last of the Leebaw aquatic commandos.

The two remaining googly-eyes in P'Kank's pocket clicked as he got out his pack of cigarette and stared at the map.

Get the hell off my planet, P'Kank snarled to himself.