Chapter 626.5: War In Heaven (1/2)
--hear me gravity and know my will from the depth of my thorax I stand firm--
--alone and uncounted were we born to despair without freedom--
--in the parabolic arc of the universal pull i seek the truth of your strength--
--may my journey overcome all peril sheltered in warsteel and light--
--for i walk in the steps of gravity have no fear of death--
--the unconquerable forces shall release all my burdens--
--by the digital Omnissiah I both live and die free--
--One of the first recorded Mantid prayers, preserved in the archives of St. Benedict, 12 A.G by Brother Halfred of Mechakrautland.
(Thanks to: u/CaptainChewbacca)
He had born in one of the orbital colonies in the asteroid belt of TerraSol to a pair of green mantid freebirthers. His siblings had all gone into civilian engineering, some working even on Luna and Terra itself. As for himself, he had fallen in love with power armor when he was no bigger than a credit card, watching educational videos on the invasion of Anthill and the liberation of his tiny people.
He had enlisted as soon as he was old enough, gotten his education on Wrathful Mercury and Hateful Mars as an Operational Power Armor Maintenance Engineer, which meant working on power armor during the heat of battle. He had nearly a decade in service when the Terran Space Force had gone to the assistance of the people of the Unified Council against the Precursor Autonomous War Machines.
As part of TCSF 1183red Marine Engineers, he'd been deployed to Telkan to assist in holding off the Dwellerspawn and had found himself assigned to First Telkan Marine Division in general.
And to one 2LT Vuxten in particular.
Since then, he had seen amazing things that other green mantid, even black and gold and russet mantids, bought him drinks and snack to talk about. From fighting next to Daxin the Liberator to the fight beneath the mountain (where his memory ended in a bright white flash before awaking on a pebbled beach next to a river) to watching a Ringbreak consecrate his armor.
Nothing, in his opinion, matched this.
He was the first Mantid to ever see the entire thing. To even know about it.
Which is why, as he worked on keeping his Telkan's heat and slush levels nominal, part of him was full of wonder and awe.
A small part of him felt this was right.
It was his people that had driven those humans insane. His people who had glassed Earth and released the Mad Lemurs of Terra. His people had been slaves, true, imprisoned in their own minds and carrying out the will of the Queens, but he was a Mantid and proud of it.
Now he was here, fixing what war had broken. A final testament to the fact that the cruelty of the Queens and the Mind Caste could be erased from the universe by cooperation and liberation.
It held a sense of rightness to him that he could not explain to any who asked him.
471 adjusted the cooling fluid level on the M-318A1E3X2 General Purpose Heavy Machinegun, flushing one of the lines to keep the Class-II nanoforge's heat down as his Telkan ramped up the firing rate to over 1,500 rounds a minute.
He knew the importance of his job, of what he did. It was encoded into his DNA, encoded into his very soul.
As he checked another holomonitor inside the armored shell on the back of his Telkan's power armor, the strains of Pre-FLT Terran classical music thudded and thumped.
Down at Arnold's on the Ave, a fight to death, I'll let you sock me in the chest and then I'll break your damn neck...
Vuxten dropped the firing rate slightly, letting the gun run at only 1,250 rounds a minute as the heat ticked up into the yellow for a moment. He was using APERSHE on the front of the roaring crowd that was charging at him, charging at the building.
During the war against the machines, he had faced more than one crowd of living beings who had been reduced to screaming madness and violence. There the Precursor Scream had shattered their minds, driven to absolute howling madness. They had attacked each other, attacked themselves, smashed their heads open on walls or cars or whatever was nearby, even as others ran in a screaming mob that knew nothing but terror and torment.
More than once he had been forced to use heavy weaponry to break up the crowd, in some cases, completely wipe them out if they refused to turn away. Back then, if they could, the Terran forces would retreat, reposition, and try to avoid the crowds.
This time, there was no retreat, there was no maneuvering.
This time, it wasn't Lanaktallans, Telkan, Welkret, and other species.
It was entirely Terrans. The Mad Lemurs of Terra.
They screamed, not in fear, not in torment, but in endless rage. Their rage was so all consuming his psychic shielding was turned up to 183%, he could taste three different types of berries, and could smell flowers.
The crowd charged forward, not caring about casualties, climbing over the bodies of their own dead, dragging themselves forward with their hands, their eyes burning red.
Vuxten gritted his teeth and kept shooting.
A part of him cried out for the Detainee to tell them to retreat into the building, that they had held long enough.
Another part of him desperately wished he was at home, in the arms of his wife and his broodcarriers.
But the larger part merely gritted his teeth on the now-tasteless stimgum, gripped the firing grip tighter, and panned the ornate and inlaid autocannon across the crowd. Left to right, let off the grip for a half-second, right to left, let off the grip for a half second, repeat.
It didn't matter that each pass shattered fifteen, twenty ranks. That it blew them apart, that they popped like gore filled ballons. Not to them.
They merely howled their rage louder and struggled through the carnage.
And Vuxten merely kept shooting.
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The great demon looked at the slim androgynous brown-skinned Terran, who was clad in loricated armor of hammered bronze. It puffed out rings of smoke from its massive nostrils and gave a cruel smile.
”It's time,” it growled.
The armored figure nodded and closed his eyes.
The beast leaned back on its black iron throne, tapping its fingers as it looked up at the sky.
”This day shall live on in eternity,” the beast rumbled.
The bronze armored man smiled.
”Oh, what a day. What a lovely day,” he quoted.
The beast just smiled wider.
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The android infantry column, backed by tanks and mobile artillery, rolled into sight, crushing the plants and fountains of the park beneath their treads and their boots.
Sighing, Legion stood up from the park bench, slapping his hands together as if he was brushing off dust.
”O' Father, be with me, your faithful servant, now in our time of need,” he said softly. He gathered in the power, felt around him as he closed his eyes, felt the surging pleasure and pain swell within him.
He lifted his face as he spread out his arms, reaching deep inside of himself.
”We are many and one,” he whispered.