General No'Drak stared at the holotank that showed the disposition of all of his forces on planet. Precursors were recalling their machines, performing a fighting retreat, trying to get off planet with as many resources as they could while exposing themselves to as little fire as possible. In three places as soon as Third Armor started moving in on them the Precursors abandoned their resources and ancillary machines and just lifted off, running hard for orbit.

General No'Drak changed the orders to let Space Force handle any vessel that lifted off, sparing the planet from debris falls that were registering in the megatons in some places.

A meme popped up on the holotank window showing Third Armor morale and he shook his head. It was an old one, but put together by one of the logistics personnel that were finally coming off shift after refitting and reloading Great Herd armored units.

It showed a burning Balor with another Precursor staring at it thinking "On one hand, it represented fifteen years of resource gathering, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure there was a human dancing on the hull."

A spin on the spider in the cockpit or house meme, the big Treana'ad thought to himself.

His conscious gaze went to the icon for the burrowing mining machine, now four miles down and making a beeline for the junction of the mountain ranges in the middle of the supercontinent.

If, somehow, you blow that mountain up, my determined little Telkan officer, you'll start a chain reaction that eventually separate the continental plates into different continents rather than the super continent that has been there for billions of years, he thought to himself. However, having witnessed what your people are capable of, how determined your people can be, I'm sure the planet will break before First Telkan.

He lit a cigarette, watching the busy command center, only Ge'ermo'o keeping him company as the Terran Confederate military fought through the night.

To what are you heading toward with my men, you metal monster? No'Drak wondered silently. What horrors are they being subjected to?

The icon didn't answer, just kept moving at a steady 100 miles per hour on its five thousand mile journey.

"...so the kid, right, he gets top grades all the way through 3rd grade. We're talking top marks across the board, blows away testing scores, everything," Casey said, sitting on the edge of a scaffolding and chewing a piece of stimgum. "The end of the school year comes and the Dad says: 'son of mine, first of my line, what shall I bequeath upon thee for such outstanding marks in regards to your schooling?'" Casey idly pulled a small device out of the creation engine attached to his heavy gun and attached it to his frame as he kept talking.

Sergeant Addox looked up and shook his head, then went back to watching the device Casey had pulled off his loading frame. Vuxten made sure his Marines were comfortable, making sure that the platoon was relaxing, not letting the stress of their trip dull their edge. Half of them were sleeping, some were playing cards, and about a dozen of the greenies were playing a complex turn based multiplayer 4X game that looked like it had been going on for at least years.

"The kid looks at his dad and says: 'I wish for thee to gift unto me a pink golfball, patron of my familial line. One, not more, not less, of the shade of pink. I wish for this simple thing, mine pater, for I do not desire to view the House Mouse Planet, nor do I wish to gaze upon vast worlds you offer me through virtual reality. Nay, father mine, gift unto me just a simple pink golfball," Casey said, waving his hands around, the loading frame whining as he did so. "The father, knowing his son has indomitable will, concedes to his beloved offspring's demands and gifts the lad with a single pink golfball."

"Did the kid's language change?" Second Lieutenant Plunex asked, frowning. "My Confederate Standard is not the best, but I feel his language changed."

"Shh, you'll mess up the joke," Casey said, grinning.

"Your communication thingy is blinking, Casey," Addox said.

"Boojums never fail ya," Casey said. He moved up and knelt down next to it. "It's slow, but reliable."

"Why don't we use it for our standard communication?" Plenux asked. "I've heard there's problems with some of the quantum devices out in the Hesstla Theater."

"Because it's spooky particles," Casey said. "Boojums can suddenly decide they don't want to work, or might decide they're going to pretend to be a different particle, or ignore the flux of the other boojums they're mated to. They're the strange matter of normal particles and like a purrboi or a Treana'ad clan matron do what they want."

"How do you know this, Sergeant?" Plunex asked. "I thought you were Ordnance."

Casey looked up, grinning behind his clear face mask. The eye patch made it look decidedly villainous, Vuxten thought. "Wasn't born old, kid."

"Seriously?" Addox said. "Tell the kid."

Casey laughed. "All right. Boojums are the only thing that can reliably send communications out of a Nivenring or Doom Tube," he said. "Damn, long message. Not a template, though. Looks like text."

"Doom tube?" Vuxten asked, sitting down on a blank console. He'd queried his datalink, but all he had gotten back was an human in gray metal armor with a green cape standing next to water park slide staring at a small child saying "You find yourself in the Doom Tube, child."

It didn't make sense to him.

Addox looked up. "Imagine a tube, walls a hundred miles thick, five thousand miles wide, two hundred thousand miles long. Imagine it's full of mountains, lakes, rivers, the like. The atmosphere is prevented from spilling out by walls a thousand miles high. A fusion reactor travels down the length over a period of twelve hours before it exits the tube, moves to the outside, and travels the length back charging the solar panels."

Plunex gave a slow whistle. "What's the point of it?"

"Well, it's a non-planetary habitat. Usually they move at about point two C between stars on a careful path to avoid being captured by stellar systems," he said.

"Humans make them?" Plunex asked. "Why, aren't there enough planets."

Addox shrugged. "Nobody knows who makes them, kid."

The lights stopped blinking, only three green ones burning.

"Welp, better check my text messages," Casey said, squatting down. The frame hissed and thumped and Addox had to turn his head when a piston released steam.

"Really, dude, you're gonna do me in the face?" Addox said, mock coughing.

"I'm demanding on a first date," Casey said, touching the box with a finger. Vuxten saw the lights come on on Casey's datalink. Casey stood there for a moment, closed his one eye for a moment, then opened it.

"All right, my buddy in 108th MI let me know that this thing is heading for the junction of the mountain ranges," Casey said. He turned his palm over, projecting a map up with the holo-emitter in his palm that was Confederate Military standard. "We've got another fifty hours at current speeds to reach the junction range. Precursors are withdrawing, looks like we broke their morale."

"They're machines," Private First Class Shutruk said. "How can you break a machine's will?"

Casey gave a snort. "Pretty easy, actually. Their coding is obvious once you think about it."

"Bullshit," Shutruk said. Casey looked at him and he flushed. "Bullshit, Sergeant," he said in a much more even tone.

Casey chuckled. "OK, the Precursors are all: there's only enough ice cream for one, right?" He asked. Shutruk nodded. "So, it's all about resources, all about resource consumption and resource allocation. They view the universe as a zero sum game, like most races who never get too deep into spooky particles. So, if Trucker's out there gutting Precursors like Christmas turkeys

--turkey is delicious-- 471i said.

"then the Precursors have to decide if the amount of resources it takes to take a planet away from us is more or less than what they will reap once they own the planet," Casey said. "Since we're shredding the Precursors out there, ripping them apart probably faster than they can produce them, it mechanically and logically breaks their will."

Shutruk nodded and stayed silent except for a small embarrassed sounding 'oh'.

"Never be afraid to ask me a question, kid. All privates are stupid, a private is made up of being young, dumb, and full of cum, it's up to men like me and Addox to educate you, train you up right, so you don't fuck up and blow the Lieutenant here's leg off," Casey said, grinning. "He might find that a bit disconcerting."

Shutruk nodded.

"Oh, and you're more than five steps from your weapon. You're dead," Casey said, and closed his eye again. "You were my troop, you'd be beating your face."

Vuxten checked Shutruk's anxiety metrics, noticing that he'd relaxed despite the Terran NCO pointing out he'd walked too far away from his weapon.

After a few more minutes Casey straightened up, picking up the device and slapping it into an empty spot on the loading frame.

Vuxten had noted that the closer he looked at that loading frame, the further out of spec it seemed to be. He'd compared it to the other loading frames he'd seen around and noted it was a different model and its serial number indicated it had been run off by one of the big creation engines. Created piece by piece and assembled by hand. He had watched Casey attach over a dozen pieces of equipment he'd fabbed up from the nanoforge attached to the gun, never mentioning what the pieces did or what they were for.

"What's the plan?" Addox asked Vuxten.

Vuxten had known that question was going to get asked so he was ready.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"It's confirmed at least fifty hours till we get there. There will probably be maneuvering and wait list checking, then it'll dock with a facility," Vuxten said. "We use the nanoforge to keep our atmosphere tanks topped off, run up something besides Space Force standard nutripaste, let everyone get some sleep. Weapons check, ordnance check, officers and NCO's do WAG planning."

Addox nodded, his face shield transparent. "Sounds good, sir. I'll draw up a guard shift, assign quick reaction force, make sure that it's all smooth till we get there in two and a half days."

Vuxten pinged Plunex, telling him to pay attention as he spoke. "Make it happen, Sergeant."

"Hooah," Addox said, then moved away.

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

Vuxten watched as Casey came in through the airlock, followed by three Telkan Marines. He was off shift finally, having eaten nutripaste, taken a drink, and sat down. Plunex was taking over on shift and Vuxten felt tired even though he hadn't done anything for almost twelve hours but sit in the command center for the vehicle.

The three Telkan Marines moved over and sat down, keeping close together, as Casey moved up and sat down next to Vuxten. The Terran troop looked as fresh as ever in his loading frame. The black armor plates he'd put on over his adaptive camouflage were unmarred, his armored boots were shined, and he took off his face mask, exposing that he wasn't even sweaty.

"How is she?" Vuxten asked.

"Ready to come to our rescue if things go south of a hooker's backside," Casey said.

"You know, you don't talk like a religious person," Vuxten said. He held up his hand, even though Casey just snorted in amusement. "I've met a few of the guys from the Crusade, seen the Sisters in action, they talk a lot different than you."

"Fifth Reformation," Casey shrugged. He grinned. "I've been in the military for over nine hundred years, sir, joined the Planetary Guard at sixteen as a big dumb farm boy from the Black Range Plains. Transferred to Space Force and saw combat by the time I was seventeen," his grin got wider, and again Vuxten found himself wondering just how many teeth a Terran had in their mouth. "The war didn't end until I was almost forty," the grin somehow got wider. "The Elders, they had... well... they had changed my life path for me, in accordance to what they saw my destiny to be. Informed me that I was to stay in Space Force."

Vuxten frowned. "Why?"

Casey closed his eye and was silent for a moment. He opened it, sat down slowly, and waved his hand to encompass the sleeping Telkan Marines.

"They decided that this was where I belonged. Right here. Leading others," he said.

"I don't know much about Terrans, much less your people," Vuxten said. He reached out and laid his hand on the heavy gun he'd set down beside him. "The first time I saw your people, I was woken up after a shift of hosing out the interrogation cells. I'd been informed I was now Corporate Security and was going to have to fight the Precursors."

"Yeah, I get that, sir," Casey said. "Kind of how I ended up in Space Force," he made a buzzing sound. "Citizen Casey, you are now Space Force and fined fifteen credits for unauthorized wear of Planetary Guard uniform."

There was silence for a long moment.

--be careful-- 471 transmitted, taking a quick break from arranging his manufacturing queue in one of his city states. --touchy touchy--

"I once got fined a half day's pay because an Overseer got blood on his uniform leaving a cell that he had shot a Telkan female in the head only moments before," Vuxten said quietly. "I hadn't cleaned the cell yet, I was waiting outside. He fined me as he walked out."

"Oof, that's rough," Casey said. "Now the Marine Corps gave you a gun and told you not to let that happen to any other being."

Vuxten nodded.

"Why do you stay in?" Vuxten asked. "Nine hundred years? Aren't you tired?"

"You feel tired sometimes, sir?" Casey asked. He was running one finger up and down one of the barrels of his rotary minigun.

"Sometimes. Like now. I feel tired and wonder if I've gotten in over my head," Vuxten admitted. "Can't let any doubt show," he gave a wry chuckle and nodded at where Shutruk was sprawled out, his foot twitching as he dreamed. "Could you imagine how Privates like him would react if I showed doubt in the middle of everything?"

Casey gave another chuckle, this one with an ugly edge. "Nothing lets you know everything's gone sideways when the Lieutenant starts screaming about how we're all going to die."

"That happen?" Vuxten asked.

Casey nodded. "Sixth drop. My seventeenth birthday. Left the cake in the mess hall. Dropship took heavy bioplasma hits, one of the engines exploded and we starting spinning in. The Looey blew chunks into his helmet and started screaming we were all going to die."

"At least he was wrong," Vuxten said.

"He was SUDS'd, like everyone but me," Casey said. His voice got hard. "I was fighting from the wreckage of the dropship, using it as a fighting position, while him and everyone else were gettting SUDS'd out and decanted."

Vuxten shifted slightly, not sure if he preferred that long ass pink golf ball joke to what they were talking about now. "How long were you there?"

"Two months," Casey said. "Stripping rations from dead men till I got the dropship's nanoforge working," Casey gave a chuckle, reached up and touched his datalink.

Vuxten saw the incoming data request from Casey and allowed it. It was creation engine templates, all cracked and jailborked.

"What's this?" Vuxten asked.

"Telkan and battle buddy rations. Loaded it while we were on top of Gobbler here," he said. "Main nutripaste, standard Space Force troop transport flavor array, basic medicine kits including multivitamin, water additives. Basically everything you need to keep your men in fighting condition if you're sitting in the wreckage of a dropship with only a Class I Nanoforge you hotwired," he patted the nanoforge mounted on his gun's smartframe. "Have your greenie doublecheck it."

471 sighed and passed on his turn, eyeing 442's icon and wishing he'd been able to launch the amphibious attack to take 442's turkey farms away from him. He ran a quick check on the templates and saw that they were standard space force, just the serial numbers filed off and able to be run off of any creation engine. 471's antenna twitched when he saw that there were jailbork codes to break open any nanoforge and print out whatever was needed rather than what the nanoforge was designated as.

471 checked the nanoforge attached to his Telkan Marine's armor and saw that they'd load in just fine.

--checks out-- he said, then went back to nervously nibbling on the tip of his bladearm as one of 442's ocean units passed close to his hidden fleet during the other's turn.

"Think we'll need it?" Vuxten asked. He watched as Casey checked the status of some complex device the nanoforge on his weapon was slow-printing.

"I did," Casey shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully you'll never need it and it'll just sit there in your implant's long term archive storage, compressed and cold, for your whole career."

"Proper preperation prevents piss poor performance," Vuxten quoted.

"Exactly, sir," Casey said. "If you don't need it, you're that paranoid officer who stresses over everything and tries to micromanage everything. If you do need it, you're lucky and probably stole the idea from a superior officer."

Vuxten smiled at that.

"Get some rest, sir," Casey said. He tapped one armored fingertip against the barrel of his minigun. "It's another forty hours till we get there."

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

"...so then the kid, the kid, right, the kid gets like mondo great grades and junk, and like totally rocks all of like fourth grade, becoming, like, the top grade person and junk," Casey said, his voice slightly high pitched and he waved his hands around. "So, like, his like dad says: 'male child, you are allocated one desire unit' and junk. The kid, he goes like totally: 'I respond with gratitude of your acknowledgement, parental unit. I would like to requisition one pink golf ball for my desire unit.' and the dad like totally gets it for him and junk, totally like wondering what his kid could want a pink golf ball for because it's like totally weird and junk that his kid like totally wants like a pink golf ball and..."

One of the attachments on Casey's loading frame started beeping and he cut off, touching his datalink. Vuxten noticed, again, that it looked like Casey had added more armor to the loading frame. Now a lot of the pistons, gears, and chains were covered by armor.

"We changed direction," the Terran said.

Addox nodded.

"Are you sure, Sergeant?" Plunex asked.

Casey shrugged. "Unless the magnetic field of the planet decided to shift by thirty degrees over a five minute period, then we changed direction, sir. Who knows, sir, might have happened."

"At ease that shit, Casey," Addox said.

The same device beeped again and Casey tapped his datalink. "Huh, we're shifting back onto course. Wonder what we moved around?"

"Something stupid, I'm sure," Addox said, then leaned back and closed his eyes. "And shut up about that damn pink golf ball. I'm pretty sure the kid's just shoving them up his ass."

Vuxten barked out a laugh.

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

"Sergeant Addox?" Vuxten asked over the private command channel, making sure that Plunex wasn't paying attention and was asleep.

"Go ahead, sir," Addox said, not bothering to make his face shield transparent.

"I think I figured out why Casey keeps going back to check on Glory," Vuxten said.

"Let's hear it, sir," Addox said.

"He got left behind a lot during his career. Kept getting dropped and left behind," Vuxten said. "He doesn't want Glory to be left behind."

"Notice what else he's doing, sir?" Addox asked.

"Mapping and reconing the machine," Vuxten said. "That way he's covered and everyone doesn't notice him checking on Glory because he's reconing around us."

"Know why he's checking on Glory?" Addox asked. Vuxten noted the intensity of the human's voice.

"Because Glory isn't a machine, she's a person. A digital sentience, not a machine without feelings."

"Exactly, sir," Addox said.

"That's why I keep giving him permission," Vuxten said. "I don't want her left alone in the dark in that ore gathering bay."

"Good man, sir," Addox said.

Vuxten sat quietly in the darkness of the Precursor machine's automated command center.

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

"The last of the Precursor machines are down, General," the voice said from the operations bay below. "Space Force is reporting all enemy destroyed. Ground side is just mopup of machines that didn't get away."

"Thank you, Major," General No'Drak said. He shifted his attention. "Status of the Great Gobbler?"

"It's moved under the edge of the junction of the mountain ranges, sir," the Major said. He tossed it up on the holotank. "The fighting has eased up enough we can get seismic on it now. It's slowed down as it's come closer to the surface and no longer moving in a straight line."

"Does 108th MI still have a line to Sergeant Casey?" General No'Drak asked.

"Specialist Grade Five Peak has reported for duty. Her commander said she's examining the messages right now. Apparently it's some kind of back channel system Casey keeps in operation," the Major said.

"Why?" Ge'ermo'o interrupted.

"Do you want the real reason or the excuse she gave to her commander?" the Major said.

"Both?" Ge'ermo'o suggested, wondering why she would lie.

"Officially, it's because Casey works Ordnance and needs to feed 108th MI ammunition consumption levels in his sector," the Major said. "That's the official reason."

Ge'ermo'o shook his jowls in slight confusion. "That sounds like a likely reason. Althought I do not understand why he would need a discrete channel and hardware devoted solely between the two of them. What is the real reason?"

"Tit pics," No'Drak guessed.

Ge'ermo'o queried his implant on the nature of a 'tit' and was flooded with lewd pictures of Terran female mammary glands as well as a bunch of pictures of small birds as well as a handful of explicitly drawn Rigellian females sporting impossible bare mammalian mammary glands.

"Well, I wasn't going to put it so crudely. I was going to call it 'inter-personal video, text, and image correspondence'," the Major said. "She's known Casey about sixty years, they've got some history."

"Why send pictures of mammary glands?" Ge'ermo'o asked, frowning. "That seems like a lot of effort, to create and conceal a private message device in order to just send images of mammary glands."

"It's a Terran thing," No'Drak said.

Ge'emo'o suddenly put it together as all the pieces suddenly matched together. "Oh! I suddenly understand!"

No'Drak raised an antenna, his specie's version of cocking an eyebrow. "Go on, Most High."

"They are involved in a sexual relationship and they send pictures of body parts to one another as a method of sexual enticement and amusement!" Ge'ermo'o felt proud of himself for putting it together."They cobbled together their communications device in secret so their commanders did not know they intended to carry out a long distance quasi-sexual relationship based on text, pictures, and videos in order to ensure sexual delight despite distance."

The Major, to his credit, didn't snicker.

No'Drak carefully took out a cigarette to avoid busting up with laughter.

"Right you are, Most High," No'Drak said.

"I am a most observant commander. It is why my men trust me so highly," Ge'ermo'o stated, folding all four arms. "If I were their commander, I would look the other way, as improved morale results in improved performance."

It took everything General No'Drak had not to spit out his cigarette in surprise.

"It's slowed to the point we can't detect it," someone called out.

"They've arrived," No'Drak mused.

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

"Ready?" Vuxten asked.

Everyone signalled with their icons they were ready, standing at the single double door that was an approximation of an air lock that would lead out of the vehicle.

Casey triggered the door and it slid open, the tracks already lubricated.

Beyond was an endosteel hallway, big enough for a suited warrior caste Mantid to move around comfortably in, with runners up by the ceiling for green mantids to move down the hallway without getting underfoot.

The passageway ran for about a hundred meters and ended in another door.

"If anyone sees a hobbit with a ring in here, don't steal the ring," Casey said.

"At ease that shit, Casey," Addox said almost absently.

"Platoon, move out," Vuxten ordered.