The Atrekna prepared to attempt harvesting the population of a city a million years in the past, at the very edge of their ability to pull an area that large and that populated. The last times it had been summoned, it was destroyed in a flare of explosives and the searing of chemical weapons.
Two of a Quorum had gotten too close to the city the last time.
The chemical weapons had seared the life from them, scorching nerve bundles, seeming to burn out phasic nerve endings first. They had taken nearly three minutes to die and had screamed the entire time. As it took less than sixty seconds from exposure at one part per eleven million for the cattle to die, the Atrekna suspected that the ferals had used that particular chemical weapon purposefully.
They knew when they began the shift to jungle they would be forced to defend themselves again.
Somehow the ferals were able to discover where they were, and seemed to know that when they shifted the terrain they could no longer stay a half second out of phase with reality.
They had lost nearly twenty Atrekna, each tens of thousands of years old, to those damnable low-tech spears. Normally, the Atrekna didn't care what happened to a dead body, it would be reclaimed and turned into nutrient slurry eventually.
But the last four phases had seen nearly twenty killed, and each time the ferals ran out to grab the fallen body and spirit it away.
Worse, the primitive feral that had landed first was requiring more and more attention. Rather than exhausting itself fighting the slavespawn it seemed to only become more and more active, more and more enraged. Several times it had abandoned high tech weapons to attack with a sword or a spear or a club, roaring out its rage.
So far the Atrekna had found not a single ringslave that could stand face to face with the enraged primate for longer than it took to gain the primate's attention.
Which meant there were even more working to hold the primate in place now, rewinding it through the last hour or so, with it becoming increasingly difficult to do so.
For some reason, the primate's strength was not lessening. It seemed to have a bottomless pit of resources to draw upon and no care about diminishing returns.
There had to be a way to shift the outcomes, shift the variables, so that the ferals and primitives would no longer be able to mount an effective defense, much less prosecute their offense in the way they were.
They gathered their power to let the forest incubation area fade away into nothingness as temporal mechanics autocorrected the out of synch chronotrons and space/time area.
This time they would keep the primitive ferals from destroying the city.
"T-Shift coming up," Vuxten said, not looking away from the holotank. He could feel the anger building.
Tech Third Class Berklit repeated it to the commanders.
Everything wavered and blurred and the forest vanished, the city returned.
Vuxten didn't bother giving orders. The orders that mattered had already been given and he knew that the Telkan Marines would carry them out.
Vuxten kept one eye on the countdown timer. Last time it had been three point five minutes till the first mechanical harvester had shown up. He kept a close look on where they had showed up last time, ordering the drones to get in closer.
His units in the city were buttoned up to ride out the chemical and nuclear attacks that he knew would go off as soon as the guns were loaded.
Vuxten leaned forward slightly as the drone zoomed in on a large drainage pipe that was open to air at one end, leading into a dry culvert.
The grate over it exploded out and the little six legged dome harvesters swarmed out, followed by long snakes. On another monitor dust and debris had plumed out of an underground parking garage. Stilters and the flyers came out by the score.
"17th Field Artillery is firing nuclear rounds," one of the techs said.
Vuxten just nodded.
Every time the mechanical ones came out from underground at the same spot or rushed in from the sides, rapidly moving through the houses in the suburbs to harvest the beings inside, and rushing into the city.
As soon as they gained a biological component they began deploying psychic abilities.
"OP Charlie-Eight-Three-Two broke seal," Berklit said.
Vuxten frowned, switching to the nearest drone.
The drone feed showed a street, where everyone was screaming and running, some staring up at the contrails moving across the sky as the rocket assisted artillery rounds headed for where they would detonate.
Six Marines had grabbed broodcarriers and podlings and were running back for their Observation Point. The male and female mates of the broodcarriers, parents of the podlings, were trying to chase the Marines, holding their hands out and pleading as they ran.
Vuxten bit back a snarl. His men had seen that family die four times already.
A quick check of their biometrics showed their stress levels were through the roof, in the danger zone. As they whisked the broodcarriers and podlings into their heavily armored observation point and the access ports slammed shut, the stress levels for the entire platoon dropped. He could see they were borderline euphoric at saving them.
The broodcarriers were growling and snapping at the Telkan Marines, the podlings growling with squeaky little growls as they stared out from underneath the fluffy tail of the broodcarriers they were holding onto.
Vuxten listened in on the channel.
They were all celebrating, exuberant.
Vuxtex couldn't blame them. He knew that each time the city appeared his men ran a greater and greater chance of someone cracking.
The countdown timer reached zero and Vuxten switched to the drones outside the city and the feeds from heavily armored emplacements in the suburbs.
Nothing happened.
"No detonation. Repeat, no detonation," Technician Grade Two Prentuk said.
"Give me a scan. I want to know why. Have 11th fire HIT," Vuxten snapped.
Vuxten switched back and looked at the OP where they'd rescued the broodcarriers and podlings. The Marines were holding out soft blankets and rations, trying to soothe the frightened and aggressive broodcarriers, who kept displaying mouths full of omnivore dentation.
Biometrics showed their stress levels were massive decreasing.
"Sir, it looks like, somehow, a fission dampener is in effect," Prentuk said. "That the estimation of 2nd Military Intelligence Battalion."
"Give me options," Vuxten said.
"Fusion? You can't have a dampener for both fusion and fission reactions, they can react badly," Prentuk said. "That's why the Confederacy rarely uses them."
Vuxten stared at the screen. "How bad?"
"Uh, megatons bad?" Prentuk said.
"Tell 17th to fab up a missile with a fusion dampener on it. Fire it two thousand feet ceiling, activate the fusion dampener here," he tapped the main plaza of the urban environment. "Strap the dampener on it if they have to."
"Why doesn't that effect reactors?" Tunkart asked.
"Ask the techs. Something about different energy release and recombination," Vuxten said, without looking away.
"17th is ready. It's wet-print," Prentuk said.
The HIT wasn't having as good as an effect as before. Purple bubbles kept appearing around the weapons right before they went off, squashing the blast or the missile warhead itself, Vuxten couldn't tell.
"That dampener isn't technological," Vuxten said. He tapped an icon for 471 and the greenie TOC tech team. "Figure out how they're running a fission dampener."
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Vuxten watched as the rocket assist artillery round flew through the air, bracketed by HIT rounds.
When it reached the city center, the fusion dampener kicked on.
Vuxten had expected a megaton level explosion at the missile.
Not a roaring hellscape to suddenly fill the air for nearly two miles around where the warhead had activated it.
Nearly a dozen phasic detonations rippled on his holotank.
The entire world shook and a roar seemed to fill the air.
It took nearly thirty seconds for everything to clear up.
The city, what was left of it, was nothing more than hand sized rubble all the way to the cracked and pitted ground.
Vuxten put one hand on his helmet, where it was sitting on the edge of the holotank. "Order 17th to fab up three more fusion dampeners and three more fission dampeners. The Atrekna want to play games, lets play," he said.
He could feel the hatred filling the air, taste the sour tang of rage. Again, it brought back a memory of the fight beneath the mountain.
"T-shift," he said calmly.
The other Telkan stared at each other. The Old Man hadn't even flinched, just watched the tank as the fusion dampener had interacted with the fission dampener in such a way that the very air exploded. As they watched he just drummed his fingers on his helmet, the birds of prey on his shoulders and on the greenie protective housing were all glowing a dim red.
Vuxten watched as the new drones got up. The landscape was nothing but broken rubble.
The broodcarriers had fled into the arms and around the feet of the platoon of Marines that had snatched them off the street, their fear of the shaking and rumbling overriding their fear of the Marines.
The urban landscape ruins wavered, went transparent, and jungle suddenly replaced it.
Alarms beeped and he looked up.
The biometrics for that platoon had just gone off the chart.
Vuxten cursed, wondering if they forgot to seal up their observation post, and switched back to the internal feed of the observation point.
The entire platoon were on their knees. Some were staring at their gloved hands. Others were pounding on the floor. A few were slapping their own heads or beating on their helmets with their fists.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CASUALTIES appeared.
Vuxten could hear their CO yelling at them to report, to tell him what happened.
Vuxten rewound the video feed ninety seconds prior, bringing up the view of the city on the other half of the holotank.
The city wavered just as one of the broodcarriers held a podling out to one of the Marines. The Marine let the broodcarrier put the podling in his gauntlet clad hands.
The city vanished.
The podling suddenly dissolved into sparkling dust that twinkled and vanished only inches below the hands. The broodcarriers dissolved, falling into themselves, a puff of sparkling dust billowing up around their feet.
The city was gone.
The Telkan Marines stood there for a second.
One by one they fell to their knees, staring at their hands.
Vuxten tagged through the channels, bringing up 3rd Evac Hospital.
"Major Finds and Soothes the Pain," the russet colored Mantid said.
"This is First Lieutenant Vuxten," he said. The Major nodded. "I've got multiple severe psych-trauma injuries with possible suicide indexes," he flicked the video and the location. "Get people there as soon as possible, from whatever unit you can."
The Major watched the ninety seconds. "Oh, my Digital Omnimessiah. I'll get right on it."
The window went black then winked out.
Vuxten opened a channel to all commanders and snapped the video into it. He thought for a second then snapped the video into the General Push channel and opened it.
"All units, all units. This is First Lieutenant Vuxten," he put the video in the corner. "I get it. I understand. You want to save those people in the city. You want to rescue them and not consign them to death," he played the video and stared out of the screen.
The broodcarriers and the podlings dissolved. He stopped the video.
"You can't save them. You can't. The best thing we can do is kill them so they don't end up inside an Atrekna dwellerspawn or combat machine, screaming, watching everything happening, helpless. That's the only thing we can do," Vuxten said. He smoothed the hair on the top of his head. "I wish, by the Digital Omnimessiah and Enraged Phillip, I wish we could save them."
He leaned forward.
"We can't. We can't save them. We can only stop them from being tormented. I know I'm asking a lot, I know this hurts to do, I know it goes against everything we Telkan, and the Confederacy, stand for, but it must be done. It's mercy to these people," Vuxten said.
He took a deep breath.
"The engineers and your commanders are working on a way to break this loop. We'll get out of it. We'll figure out a way to take the war to the Atrekna," Vuxten said. "Don't give in to despair. Take your pain, your despair, and squeeze it tight, let it turn to anger, and once we figure out how, you can share that anger with the Atrekna as we see how many of them we can make die."
Vuxten stepped back. "I'll figure it out, the engineers will figure it out, someone will figure it out. We can save these people if we can break this loop so they are no longer brought forward. That is how we're going to save them."
"Commanders, do head count and psych checks. HHC, out," Vuxten cut the link.
He stood there for a moment, staring at the holotank.
The video played on repeat in the corner.
His fists clenched.
The cutting bar chain wrapped around his right fist, half melted into the heavy plate armor, began to glow a soft red. A spark popped out from his clenched fist, bouncing across the floor for a second.
884 and 740 saw it. They nudged 471, nodding at the Telkan as he opened his hands and squeezed them tight again.
Sparks popped from inside his fists.
**watch your telkan, brother** 884 said, leaning close, putting up psychological formula and stress management formula.
**he stood with enraged phillip the redeemer the liberator** 740 said. **don't let him do anything stupid**
**i will not** 471 said. He looked at the group gathered together and sighed. **he needs me. holy mathematics bless you**
**and you** 884 answered.
**and your telkan** 740 said.
471 made a running jump off the holotank, fluttering his vestigial wings, landing next to Vuxten's boot. He grabbed on and quickly climbed up, opening the clamshell of the protective housing and climbing in.
--you all right big guy-- 471 asked, the words appearing on Vuxten's retinal link.
Vuxten jerked like he'd been shocked. He shook his head, combing his whiskers and ears. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, buddy."
--metrics look bad-- 471 said. --yummy yummy stim gum--
Vuxten put on his helmet, waiting for it to synch up. Once it did he tabbed up a piece of stimgum and started chewing it.
--can't help them-- 471 said. --first casualty of war: innocence--
"I know," Vuxten said. He turned from the holotank, which was showing the jungle burning. He stared at the wall of the fabricated TOC for a long moment. He could feel the cold rage building.
"T-shift incoming," he said, still staring at the wall.
In his mind's eye he could still see the big round eyes of the podling as, for a split second, it believed it was safe.
--------------
The dropship came in screaming, the armor smoking and the battlescreens snarling. The door rolled open and out jumped heavily armored troops. The first five ranks were all dressed in heavy plated armor, carrying heavy magac weapons. The next rank was helmetless, torches of Lossflame burning on their shoulders and flamethrowers in their hands.
The last to drop from the dropship was Joan Anath, Joan of the Sisters of Mercury's Blessing. She was helmetless, her brown skin flawed only by a small scar running from the left corner of her mouth to where her left earlobe was missing. Her hair clicked as the plaits, woven with microbeads, moved as she looked around.
The torches on her shoulders erupted in burning green and white flame.
"Be on guard, sisters!" she bellowed out. "The defiling ones are here!"
She sniffed the air.
"I can taste their foul intentions," she said. "Get the drones up, I want to know what we are facing," she turned and looked up. "I have no intention of being shamed before the gaze of General NoDra'ak the Annihilator."
Her sisters nodded, fanning out. Three of them launched drones in the air.
Those with flamethrowers began burning away the greasy and venomous looking foliage.
The Sisters of Mercury's Blessing had arrived.
----------------
Bioplasma thudded against the battlescreens as the graviton and jet thrusters howled. The doors were open on the dropship, the door gunners laying down suppression fire on the creatures swooping through the air.
"REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING!" Lord Preceptor Adalrich roared out, despite the fact that he knew that everyone one of his men could hear him even if he whispered.
Bioplasma erupted on the battlescreen as the dropship suddenly tilted nose up, the thrusters and the graviton engines howling.
"LET'S GO, MEN! FOR HATEFUL MARS!" he yelled. The two door gunners popped the release on their guns and jumped out. Adalrich followed, his legs barely flexing as he absorbed the shock of the twenty meter drop. He took one look around and started moving forward, his heavy rifle in his hands. The Imperial eagle burned brightly on the side, burning red, the rage infused rounds leaving red streaks as he moved forward.
His men of Alpha Company jumped from the dropship behind him, legs flexing as they took the shock. They quickly maneuvered, forming a skirmish line in a circle that began to spread out.
The Sons of Hateful Mars had made planetfall.
-----------------
Admiral Shtuklar glanced over at General NoDra'ak. The Treana'ad officer was hanging in his robotic frame, head tilted forward, eyes closed, breathing slowly and laborously. Medical technicians were attaching medical support equipment to the robotic harness.
Swallowing, Shtuklar turned back to the holotank.
The BOLO were making atmospheric entry, spreading out so they could interlock their firepower. Two thirds of the BOLO were remaining in orbit, prepared to take over for any BOLO that ended up temporal phase shifted out.
3rd and 4th Armor, mostly non-Terrans, were making landfall. There were six Treana'ad Mobile Infantry Hordes landing.
His practiced eye noted how they were all carefully shifting and nodded.
This he understood.
There had been four shifts of terrain around First Telkan.
That he didn't understand.
He stood there, staring at the holotank right as the terrain shifted from urban to jungle.
That shimmer. It reminded him of something.
Something from the Mithril Nebula Conflict.
Frowning, he moved to another tank. He brought up an old record, looking at the unit he served with as a midshipman. Specifically, a fire control officer.
He went through the ships, glancing at the specks.
There.
When he saw it, he almost groaned out loud.
The Suckerpunch Yet Thrown was a super-heavy battleship class, since decommissioned, but the Admiral remembered what its main guns were.
He checked the fleet. He had brought along all the ships, even if they weren't manned, rather than scuttle them. They were on robotic and eVI control, just staying back from the fight.
He had several.
He messaged the commander of the remaining Marines.
"Suh?" the Rigellian female asked, answering the call.
"How many Marines do you have?" the Admiral asked.
"Two hundred eleven," the Sergeant Major said.
"Gather them. Go to Berth Nine. I'll have a pilot and crewmembers meet you," Shtuklar said.
There were eight sailors who had the correct experience and knowledge still alive. He pinged them, ordering them to the dropship berth. He contacted their CO's, all of whom were busy with other duties.
"May I ask why, Admiral?" the Sergeant Major asked.
Admiral Shtuklar explained quickly.
The Sergeant Major's face looked exactly like Shtuklar believed his had when he had made the realization.
"Get the ship's reactors up and running, you might only have to make one shot, you might have to make a dozen," the Admiral said.
"We'll get it done, suh," she said. She shut off the communications link.
Admiral Shtuklar turned back to the holotank. There the DCC wireframe of the frigate Stop Hitting Yourself was suspended in all its glory.
Highlighted, in yellow, was it's main gun.
A temporal resonance cannon.