Vuxten considered himself experienced, as did most of the Telkan of the Telkan Marine Corps. He had fought against the Precursors, against the Dwellerspawn, had stood next to the Imperium of Rage and fought to the death beneath a mountain.
Standing in the blasted plain, nothing higher than knee height still standing, his boots surrounded by grey ash, his mouth tasting of bile and scorched metal, his mind still shuddered back from what he had seen.
What he had experienced.
What he had taken part in.
He knew he'd never be clean again.
NINE HOURS EARLIER
"WE'RE DROPPING IN FOR THE FIRST WAVE!" Casey's amplified voice roared through the troop bay as the Telkan soldiers of the First Telkan Marine Division ran for their dropships. The big human was still entirely encased in his brutalism-esque armor, pointing at the drop pods. The razor sharp tips of the fingers of the armor gleamed a warm neon pink as he pointed.
He was the only human present.
"LET'S GO, MEN!" Vuxten yelled, climbing onto the dropship. He moved to the front, grabbing the stabilization rails with both hands. He was wearing his old suit, the heavy, ornate, and fearsome armor from the Second Telkan War, on orders from the General. The General wanted a visible morale boost for First Telkan Marine Division and believed that Vuxten's Imperium modified suit would do just that.
Laglun-3 was below them, the home planet of peaceful furry mammalian people known as the Welkret. It had a single protocontinent on one side of the planet and several subcontinents and multiple island chains on the other, capped by poles of frozen water and warm seas.
The Terran Confederate Military Forces on the planet were being overwhelmed.
Vuxten had been briefed on the fact that the commander on the ground, one Lieutenant Colonel Smrivit, a female Rigellian, had ordered her troops into a holding action, a last stand, while the logistics units fabricated self-drilling deep shelters for the population.
A population that Confederate Intelligence estimated had already taken 43% casualties.
Vuxten watched as the troops of his battle section climbed into the dropship, the dropmaster, a reptillian Rigellian Saurian Compact troop, made sure everyone was secure and ready.
"Vux, you read me?" Casey's voice came across the command channel.
"Roger," Vuxten said. His visor couldn't decide if Casey was a Warrant Officer Grade Six (A gold bar with two stars in the middle) or a Sergeant First Class.
"I'll be launching first. You'll be in the first wave, landing around my beacon. The Sisters of Wrath will be landing at the other drop points, to provide backup," Casey said.
"First Armored Recon will be third wave, correct?" Vuxten asked.
"Yes. Followed by the Martial Order of Hateful Mars for the fourth wave," Casey said. "Blinking yellow light, see you groundside."
Vuxten nodded, looking up. His own dropship was still showing solid yellow light even as the doors closed and locked.
"Vuxten," Colonel Brathmurt, an uplifted chimpanzee from the Biological Artificial Sentience Systems broke in.
"Here, sir," Vuxten said.
"I'm tying you into the sats. Casey's launched first, you'll be launching in one hundred twenty seconds after he lands," Brathmurt said.
Vuxten frowned. "He'll be on the ground for nearly eighteen minutes unsupported even with a powered reentry," he said. "The Sisters won't arrive till nearly thirty minutes after that."
"His drop-pod uses a Thrint Stasis Field generator, he'll be fine," the Colonel said. "There's only one type of drop-pod for his armor, but Casey assured command that he's done this before."
"Roger, sir," Vuxten said. He still felt doubtful as the Colonel left the channel and his visor cleared to show him a view of the planet. A small square with a dot inside was labeled as "RIDIRE ÆSIR CATHASAIGH - SANCTI ORDO SPIRITUS TYR - MJÖLNIR DROP" for a split second before it was replaced by "SFC/CWO6 CASEY - 1ST TELKAN - ORBITAL INSERTION" and Vuxten blinked at the sudden text translation.
"471, did you see that?" he asked.
--yes yes-- 471 answered. --no database entry weird weird weird--
Vuxten blinked again as more data came up while the dropship's engines began to hum as power was applied to bring them to standby.
Casey's drop-pod should have only been moving at roughly 220 mph, but instead it was moving over double that and accelerating.
"471, how fast will he be going when he hits the surface if he keeps on accelerating?" Vuxten asked.
--3.8 km/s-- 471 said. --mach 9.2538 local casey dead--
Vuxten frowned, wondering why he would be going that fast. He wasn't sure even Casey's armor could survive that kind of impact.
Vuxten realized that it wasn't going to take ten or fifteen minutes for Casey to hit the ground.
He was hitting now.
The satellite zoomed in, showing the ground.
A blurry heaving mass appeared, armored vehicles and what looked to Vuxten like something familiar he couldn't put his finger on.
The dropship clamps disengaged right as Casey's pod made impact.
--digital omnimessiah-- 471 swore.
There was a white flash followed by an expanding shockwave. Vuxten could see it even as his own dropship entered under power.
"Well, that's one way to get to the ground, I guess," someone said over the channel. They weren't identified.
The dropship nosed down and powered toward the surface, a twenty-minute ride.
Less than three minutes later a voice broke in.
"Lieutenant Vuxten," the voice was a Kobold, ID'd as Captain Vantree, 108th Military Intelligence.
"Here, sir," Vuxten said.
"There was heavy enemy presence on the ground. We're trying to get a clear view through the airborne debris right now," he said. "Sergeant Casey is reporting heavy enemy remaining and is engaged in combat."
"What?" Vuxten asked. "Isn't he dead?"
"Apparently not," the Kobold sounded slightly amused. "I won five hundred credits. He's on the ground and, and I quote, 'engaging enemy forces in overwhelming strength, reinforcements landing area is hot, end status report'."
Vuxten shook his head.
"You'll be landing next to him. I'll warn you, the area is highly radioactive right now," Captain Vantree said. "Right now, your mission profile is exactly as it was at the briefing."
Engage the enemy and force him to commit forces away from the four nearby cities, Vuxten heard the voice of the Treana'ad in his mind.
"Apparently every enemy we can still see has turned around from the city and is heading toward your drop zone, so expect heavy enemy contact upon landing," Captain Vantree said.
"Roger that, sir," Vuxten said.
"You'll need to do an air assault drop, the dropships will pull back and provide close air support after that," the Captain's voice got serious. "You have no medical evac, no logistical support. You'll be on nanoforge operations only, so watch your heat and slush."
"Roger, sir,' Vuxten said.
"All right, I have other lieutenants to remind and calm down," the Captain said.
"Roger, sir," Vuxten repeated as the line went dead.
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The dropship shuddered twice and tilted even steeper. Vuxten could hear the graviton engines working overtime and was startled when the afterburners kicked on and the whole thing started vibrating.
The time to landing blinked and updated from twenty minutes to two-hundred-sixty-eight seconds. As he watched it kept counting down.
Twice Vuxten heard the rattle of flares going off as the dropship tilted and slid to the side.
"THIRTY SECONDS! GET READY!" the Saurian Compact troop yelled.
"ON YOUR FEET!" Vuxten yelled, moving forward to the door.
You will be first out the door, last to leave, he heard in his mind, a memory of Marine Officer Training.
"FIFTEEN SECONDS!"
Vuxten grabbed the overhead handle as the door retracted.
His radiation alarms immediately started howling, telling him he was taking near lethal amounts. His visor started flashing ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC in rapid succession, the warnings stacking up across his vision until the VI shrunk them down and moved them to a small box on the left hand side of his visor.
There were a half dozen rapid flashes, white light cutting through the debris. The dropship shook, despite the graviton engines, bobbling like a toy boat in a storm.
"GO GO GO!"
Vuxten jumped out, hitting the ground. One foot back, sliding, down on one knee, one fist pressed against the ground, the other holding his weapon up. The spikes on the knees dug in, his knuckle spikes tore the ground.
He noted, out of the corner of his eye, that the warsteel bird of prey on his stubber was glowing a dull red already.
The dirt was thick in the air, like he was in the middle of a duststorm, as his platoon thudded to the ground around him. The ground rumbled as the shockwaves from the atomic weaponry pushed at him. 471 cranked up the graviton anchor to keep him in place as shocks from multiple detonations in the 450-600 kiloton range went off.
ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed on his visor again, shrinking down and moving to the box as they scrolled up.
A dozen flashes ripped through the dust.
"Sound off!" Vuxten called out, his radio full of static.
The ground shook and the shockwaves threatened to tear him from the ground and send him tumbling. His platoon reported in, only a strained knee. He couldn't get anything from orbit or from any other unit, but that had been taken into account during the briefing.
His armor reported rapid impacts moving from east to west, as if a PacificRim Class Jaegermech was bunnyhopping across the ground.
"471, did the Hammerhead Jaegers make planetfall before us?" Vuxten asked.
--negative--
"What's out there?" he asked.
ATOMIC streamed up his visor again, followed by rapid flashes and detonations in the 50 to 150 kiloton range, as if a 90mm hellbore had gone to rapid fire and strafed an enemy advance.
--not know-- 471 said. --must be casey--
Up in orbit Captain Vantree stared at his displays. He couldn't see into the debris cloud from where SFC Casey and HHC Platoon HHC First Telkan had landed, but the bright actinic flashes and radiation spikes pointed at someone using atomic weapons inside the landing zone.
"Who's doing that?" Colonel Brathmurt asked, his eyes wide.
"It must be Casey somehow," Vantree said, staring at his monitor. Another series of flashes, nearly twenty, in a tight grouping.
"Get that psychopath on the line, I want to know who authorized him to go atomic," Brathmurt snarled.
Vantree checked his commo. He had one line to Casey, the icon blinking, but it was to the suit's VI. He triggered an ordnance report.
Brathmurt had just turned back to the holotank when he saw it.
The holotank fuzzed, flickered, and a woman seemed to rise up out of it. Brathmurt knew enough about humans to know the woman's features, while lovely, were contorted with fury. She was clad all in armor, with a wreath of flowers and leaves around her brow. She held a burning sword in one hand, her other hand held what looked like a long canister. Brathmurt noticed, insanely, that her pointed fingernails were painted neon pink. She snarled, revealing sharp serrated teeth, and dissolved into pixels, leaving behind the canister.
The canister suddenly went to wire-frame, then came apart in an exploded view, showing the parts and statistics.
No nomenclature, no designation number, just labeled "SUTR" with the components. Brathmurt frowned as he looked at it. Warsteel casing, 'inverted' strange matter tritium, phasic charged strange matter conversion U238, and 'deadened' antimatter-2. The round was 66mm wide, 205mm long, had folded 'wings' that deployed when fired, and two strips of 'spooky particle' iron on the sides for magnetic acceleration.
Brathmurt turned and looked at his intelligence section. "What the hell does this thing do?"
Two green mantids started flashing icons at each other, their computer displays streaming code and equations. Before Brathmurt could say anything it suddenly stopped.
The holotank blinked and a window opened up.
ESTIMATED EFFECT appeared above the window.
An atomic detonation went off in the window, with a weird purple pulse in a thin band that outraced the white light spectrum blastwave.
0.5kt -14.5Mt Range appeared at the bottom.
It rotated and showed the round going off, directing a phasic pulse in an inverted cone that had actual kinetic shock value, followed by a directed atomic detonation pulse.
BANNED - FIFTH ORION COMPACT 7925 PG
That made Brathmurt blink. He turned back to Vantree. "Tell him to stop using that ammunition!" he called out.
I am not getting convicted of war crimes just because of some psycho... he started thinking.
He remembered the meeting with Admiral Shtuklar where Casey had been brought up.
The man's a psycho, he remembered.
He just stared at the holotank, watching the cloud of debris spread out as each atomic detonation pushed outward.
"INCOMING IFF FROM CASEY!" someone called out.
On the surface Vuxten struggled to his feet, his graviton boots howling, his battlescreen sparking and crackling, visible to the naked eye.
In the upper right of his vision Casey's icon blinked. Vuxten was surprised to even see that he could talk to the Senior NCO of First Telkan. He blinked twice at the icon even as he leaned into another set of hammerblow.
Casey appeared in the small box, his face covered in sweat, his expression serious.
A warsteel jacketed datacable plugged into his empty eye socket.
"Sir, am engaging the enemy who are in overwhelming strength," Casey snapped. "IFF file ready for dissemination."
'You're hammering us to pieces, Sergeant," Vuxten said, putting a forearm up as another stream of ATOMIC went by.
"Switching to non-atomic munitions, sir," Casey replied.
"I do not recommend that at this time, Casey," a woman's voice said. A Terran female appeared in another little window. She had wings of burning warsteel, was in warsteel armor, and wore a garland of leaves and flowers on her brow. Her skin was the color of hammered copper, her eyes were burning chrome and her hair flowing oynx. Beneath the box it said "LOZEN"
"You heard the orders," Casey said. "Fab and load Gridharvolur rounds," he seemed to look at Vuxten. "Going to 30mm. Antimatter warning," he said. The fierce looking woman vanished.
IFF LOADED Vuxten saw on his visor as the two small windows vanished.
"What is a Gridharvolur round, 471?" Vuxten asked, opening the IFF file.
--no clue-- 471 answered. --think maybe something terrible--
Vuxten stared as the enemy profiles streamed by. Multiple angles, anatomy popouts, wireframe, multi-color. They were all Dwellerspawn, but weird ones. Vuxten knew Dwellerspawn when he saw them, the rough unfinished, wrong look to them.
Ones with eight or six legs, a multiple segmented bulbous body, with an upper thorax like a mantid or Lanaktallan, with two or four arms, a head that looked like a cross between a catfish and spider or a canine and a serrated scaled lizard. They were all in purplish black armor, which was listed as "TYPE-TWO WARSTEEL".
But it was the header on each of them that caught his attention.
They were all named. From the "Spidercow" to "Dappnu", they each had names.
It was more than that. It was what was next to the names.
NIVEN RING 18F or O'NEILL TUBE 04D or NIVEN RING 09R on them.
--doubleplus ungood-- 471 said. --ring locusts--
Vuxten felt his mouth go dry.
"CONTACT! ENEMY CONTACT!" sounded out from Corporal Jirvet, 2nd squad.
Before Vuxten could shout out an order he saw it coming out of the dust. It was at least nine feet high, its head looking like someone shoved three lizard heads together, tentacles coming out of its mouth. It had eight spider legs, thick and multi-jointed, coming from an abdomen that was the size of a small car. The chain guns on either side roared for a second then jammed up as Vuxten saw the iron particles in the debris sudden adhere to the magnetic acceleration system on the chainguns. The creature roared, rushing Vuxten.
Vuxten leveled the stubber and pulled the trigger. The heavy rounds exploded across the creature, collapsing the biologically produced battlescreen, shattering the warsteel plating it was clad in, and blowing apart the upper torso in white flashes that sprayed greenish yellow ichor through the dust.
Four more rushed, and Vuxten ripple fired his rocket pack, the missiles detonating on the battlescreens but the EFP pounding through the screen to hit the creature's armor plating, blowing holes clear through their bodies as big as a dinner plate.
GRAV SHOCK GRAV SHOCK GRAV SHOCK appeared on his visor.
--shit shit shit-- 471 sent. He shot the warning to all the others and took manual control of the graviton systems in the armor at the same time as the cosine and sine-wave profiles. He slammed it into the graviton, checking the rest of the platoon.
Lance Corporal Nestup got it loaded a bare .1 second before it happened.
To Vuxten it felt like the outside world not only turned upside down, but like everything was falling, raising, falling to the side, while everything tilted in every direction at once as reality turned upside down. For a second it felt like he had fluttering butterflies in his guts.
He almost puked.
--now know what gridharvolur is-- 471 sent. --graviton shockwave weapon--
"A grav shockwave weapon?" Admiral Shtuklar said, staring at the screen. He'd been pulled away from watching the entire deployment to watching what looked like a big dirt cloud that the north side kept flashing. "What kind of psycho uses a fucking graviton shockwave weapon planetside?"
Commodore Sinclair, a Saurian Compact Kobold looked up. "Oh, it's better."
Admiral Shtuklar felt sick as he asked the obvious question. "Define 'better', Guns."
"It's got a phasic and temporal shake and bake shockwave," the Kobold said.
"Who authorized First Telkan to use shit like that?" The Admiral yelled.
A Saurian Compact Centemarian turned and stared at the Admiral almost insolently. "You did, sir."
Shtuklar frowned. "When?"
"Sir, I warned you that Casey was a goddamn psycho and you not only deployed him to the surface with an RoE that reads not 'save the civilians', not 'do as little damage to infrastructre as possible' but rather 'kill the enemy with extreme prejudice'. As if that wasn't bad enough, you put him in Novastar VII armor!" The Commodore snapped.
"I beg your pardon?" the Admiral blinked.
"You sent them with a too broad RoE, your briefing went as far as casualties, locations, and an order to kill the enemy, and then you put a man I, personally, warned you was a psychopath, in armor that's almost considered a war crime to even manufacture," the Commodore said. He stared. "I had my doubts, but I kept them to myself, thinking you'd overseen enough planetary assaults and worked with the Army and Marine groundside forces to realize you have to have a detailed objective list, assault plan, warplan, and rules of engagement."
He shook his head. "I was wrong."
The Admiral turned back to look at the screen. Graviton warnings kept popping up, expanding rings of red that grew into existence and faded.
"How was I supposed to know he'd do this?" the Admiral asked.
-------------
On the ground, for one person, everything was clear, crisp, clean.
Things made sense again.
There was no worries about training up lower ranking troops. No briefings. No detailed plans.
Just kill the enemy with extreme prejudice.
As it should be.
"Do you love me?" Casey asked.
"Forever and ever," Lozen answered.