"The War always ends with single act of violence before the treaties and rebuilding begins." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
P'Kank came into the Command Center feeling refreshed. He had actually slept instead of just napping and getting up to check on the status of the battles. It was Hour 76, and things were still progressing well.
The Atrekna forces were on the ropes across the theater. More and more units were engaged in just mopup, in many places the Active Reserve or the Inactive Reserve, backed by Active units, were the ones doing the cleanup.
He checked the maps. Nearly twelve-hundred Black Eye camps across the globe, including sixty-two on islands, were under assault or had been negated. Most of them fought to the death, the brain damage from the Precursor Scream having robbed them of their ability for much more than primal instincts.
One was flashing as he rotated the globe again. He checked the data as he opened up the communications link.
It was a big camp. Nearly two thousand Black Eyes, nearly ten thousand slaves. The brain damage had not been as extensive apparently. When the MP's had landed, backed by 13th Air Cavalry Regiment, the Black Eyes had surrendered enmasse.
What struck him as odd is that they didn't kill the slaves, unlike the other two hundred and some odd other slaver camps. The second thing was that they were using their slaves to grow crops.
The third thing was in a still image transmitted by the Colonel in charge of 13th.
It was a statue, created by welding Precursor armor and pieces of Confederacy armor.
A massive Hessltan, huge and bulky, with some kind of featureless mask, and flames that burned in the eyes. The Hesstlan carried a heavy blade in one hand and was smeared with blood and red paint.
The commo request was from both the Colonel and a Major in charge of a 75th Ranger Regiment, 42nd Special Troops detachment Alpha Team.
P'Kank frowned. That team had been assigned to track the traces that the sats had picked up. Chronotron and phasic energy trails that had been moving rapidly toward the forest. The sats had lost them due to the heavy EM twisting caused by natural metal deposits and P'Kank had tasked the team with the pursuit.
He opened the commo channel, looping both in.
The 75th Major was a Rigellian female. Her hair was sweaty across her forehead and she blinked as P'Kank popped up on her HUD.
The Colonel in charge of the Air Cav Regiment was a Kobold, who blinked once and nodded slightly inside his helmet.
"General," the Colonel said.
"General," the Major added in her two cents.
"Gentlemen," P'Kank said. "What's the issue?"
"We've got something weird, and where the slorpies are concerned, weird is bad," the Colonel said.
"Tell me," P'Kank said.
"The Colonel can go first. You need his background before I talk," the Major said.
"We landed with the MP's, hard insertion, show them the Confederacy's fist," the Colonel said.
Another window opened up and P'Kank watched as the Colonel narrated.
Black Eye camps had to be hit hard and fast. You can in fast, land hard, deploy men, get the strikers back in the air, let them know you had overwhelming firepower. 72.943% of the time the Black Ears would attempt to fight, but a hard hit would convince them to throw down their arms 62.84% of the time.
P'Kank nodded, watching the grav strikers come in hard, blowing away craters of fields and tarmac when the slammed to a stop. Troops dismounted, all of them in powered armor. Even the MP's wore combat frames.
"Here's where it usually comes apart," the Colonel said.
The troops moved forward, announcing they were Confederate Military Police who would respond with lethal force.
The slaves ran for it. The Black Eyes had red dye on the tips of their ears, the slaves had white. The Black Eyes threw their weapons down and fled. It was night, and the images had the slick glossiness of computer enhancement and night vision color replacement.
P'Kank watched.
"Here's where it gets weird," the Colonel said.
The slaves and the Black Eyes got to a freeway. Across the freeway was heavily overgrown forest, roughly ten miles to a lake, then roughly two hundred miles to the mountains.
"They probably figured that if they got into the woods, we'd lose them, so the plan was to push them into the woods to the lake," the Colonel said.
P'Kank noticed a wobbly thick red line was painted on the forest side of the road. In many places there were red Hesstlan skulls painted on the ground.
The slaves and the Black Eyes both stopped in the road. They milled around as ground troops approached on all sides.
None of them ran into the woods.
They sank to their knees and put their hands behind their neck.
The MP's began arresting them.
"Then we saw the big statue," the Colonel said. "We inquired about it and got the same answer every time," he said.
"What is that?" P'Kank said, going over the image again of the massive statue.
"That's the Masked Killer of Sparkling Lake. They claim the world is theirs, but the lake and the forest are his," the Colonel said. "They told us, we go in those woods, we're dead. Any who enter the lake that do not give proper obeisance are killed."
P'Kank wished he could narrow his eyes but instead tapped his antenna against his brow. "Really?"
"They believe it enough not to go into the woods to try to escape," the Colonel said. "According to the Black Eyes, who call themselves 'Red Tips', the woods, the lake, the campground, are all 'his.'"
"Anything else?" P'Kank asked, reaching out and running a search for the Sparkling Lake area.
"Black Eyes don't know fear, sir," the Colonel said. "Their brains are usually too burned out. Whoever it is, whatever it is, in the lake area, they were able to overcome the brain damage from the Precursor Scream and teach these guys fear."
P'Kank nodded. The data was popping up. Old growth forest, former resort for the Lanaktallan and high level subordinates and flunkies. The resort/campground had twenty-two cabins, one fishing dock, a general store. It was eleven miles from the road to the dock.
There was a report from a Ranger Team during the first war. He tapped it and ordered it unsealed.
"So, do you think it's a Dwellerspawn?" P'Kank asked.
The Colonel shook his head. "I don't think so. I think it might be a really really crazy Black Eye," the Colonel said.
The record opened. A First Cav scout team ran into a group of survivors hiding in a cabin that opened fire without casualties. The survivors refused to return to a refugee camp. The commander on the ground had left behind supplies. Six months after the battle was over the survivors radioed for pickup.
Three immature females, including a toddler. One immature male. One purrboi damaged by a phasic attack.
P'Kank shook his head. They had to have it rough.
He tapped the closed report, holding up his bladearm to let the other two he was looking at the data.
Forensics, based on the survivor's testimony, found traces of blood and ichor and tissue from an Atrekna leadership caste that the survivors had killed during an accidental weapon discharge.
Three years ago a scout patrol had seen thermal from the little cabin near the lake, that was tucked back into a little divot in the cliff. They'd landed, offered to take the survivors to a shelter, and were refused. The refugees consisted of a pair of adults, five adolescents, a child, and six infants. One damaged and decommisioned purrboi. The recon team dropped supplies, a radio, and templates for the two BobCo nutriforges the family was using and left them there.
P'Kank looked up. "There's survivors in the woods."
The Colonel shook his head. "Not according to the Black Eyes. There's never been. Just the Masked Killer and his victims."
P'Kank sighed. "They might be prisoners."
"That's my part of this," the Colonel said. He waved at the Major. "Your turn, Major."
The Rigellian nodded. "Thank you, sir," she focused her eyes back on P'Kank. "We've been tracking those Atrekna leadership caste trails, sir. They've been keep low, shielding their emissions, forcing us to move on foot."
P'Kank nodded. "It looks like three leadership caste."
The Major shook her head. "No. They're clever. They're keeping tight together. Looks like six to nine of them."
P'Kank, made a whistling noise, something he'd practiced as a junior officer in the artillery. "That's enough to phase in another wave of attackers."
The Major nodded. "Yes, sir. They went to ground at a small town, we almost missed them but we did a second sweep. It looks like what we thought were three different individuals were small groupings that regrouped at the town. We were sweeping it, they spotted us before we spotted them. They shielded up, went full stealth, then they made a run for the forest about an hour ago."
"Same forest with the 'Masked Killer of Sparkling Lake' in it?" P'Kank asked.
"Yes, sir. At the time we were unaware of the regions reputation and we followed them in," the Major shook her head. "That town, sir. It's entirely stripped, down to the house frames. Not a single thing of use any where in it."
P'Kank nodded. "We've seen that a lot the past four years."
The Major shook her head. "Not like this, sir. That's aside from the point. The point is, we went in after them. We were using chronotron and phasic trail tracking, high sensitive gear. The trail was thick, not dispersed, so we knew we were moving in on them."
The Major flicked an image. P'Kank stared at the energy residue left behind. It looked like two to three moving unshielded.
"We had drones up, ahead, when we spotted this," she said. She flicked another file. A video.
P'Kank opened it.
The drone was moving forward, moving silently on countergrav and a microfan thruster. The woods were heavy, moss hanging from branches, vines on trunks and hanging down from the trees.
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"It's a temperate rain forest now. The Elven Queens have been repairing it," the Major said.
"I see that," P'Kank said.
The drone ran its sensors over a patch of shadow then stopped and backed up as the shadow didn't shift according to lowlight.
P'Kank stared.
There was an Atrekna leadership caste crushed against a tree trunk by a large log. It was facing the tree it was crushed against, which had the bark blown off of it in rings.
"If you look, sir, the Atrekna turned to face the tree and let loose with their psychic blast," the Major said. She highlighted part. "See that?" It was a green lump and it took P'Kank a second to realize it was a moss overgrown engine block. "It fell, as a counter-weight. The Atrekna turned toward it, fired off their psychic attack, and that log swung in from behind and crushed them."
She was silent a moment. "That's straight out of the handbook for booby troops."
"It gets better," the Major said. She flicked another file.
P'Kank watched as another Atrekna leadership caste came into view. It was impaled on a dozen spears that were covered in vines and moss and leaves. The next file showed a third with a spear through its head, hanging in midair.
Its robe had slid off and it was naked except for its jewelry.
"Control ordered us out, but by that time I'd already ordered a withdraw from the forest," the Major said.
"I can see why," P'Kank said.
"No, sir, you can't," the Major said. She flicked another file. "This is the next to last."
The video showed the helmet cams from the Major, with a tiny picture in picture in the upper right of her face.
She suddenly stopped. "FREEZE!" she barked.
The entire Ranger team of seven froze in place, some in mid-step.
"Back up. In your own footsteps," the Major said.
P'Kank squinted, trying to see what the Major was seeing.
"What's wrong, Major," one of the Rangers, a Telkan, asked.
"We're in the Valley of Death," the Major said, keep moving back.
"What is it?" P'Kank asked.
"Wait a moment," the Major said. On screen she was urging everyone to slowly move back.
The screen divided in half.
"I run dual system. One is normal enhanced vision, the other is raw feed," the Major said. "Look at the left."
P'Kank leaned forward, looking at the dark one, lit only by the moons and the stars. There was a shape there. He reached forward.
"If you use light enhancement, it vanishes," the Major warned.
"Everyone go to unfiltered, real vision mode," the Major in the recording warned. "Back in your own footsteps."
P'Kank suddenly saw it.
It was like one of those trick pictures, which looked like nothing but overlapping shadows and odd pale blobs where you suddenly see something at the last second.
It was a stack of Hesstlan skulls. Only four rows, but still a stack. They were covered in moss and stained from bodily fluids.
The jaws all held a pair of dried, decaying, Hesstlan ears.
The view tilted down as the Major's breathing changed.
She was slowly stepping over a trip-wire. Monofilament fishing line, nearly invisible, except this one had pollen and debris on it, making it even harder to see.
The Major looked to the left and right in the video.
"There!" the Major said. "See."
P'Kank squinted. "No."
The video paused and several sections lit up.
"It's a standard tripwire to trigger to pulley to spears," the Major said. She highlighted it. "Look at the spearhead."
P'Kank frowned. "What is it?"
The Major flicked up an image.
"BOBCO COSMIC KNIFE!" was on the image. "Made with Saturnite™!"
"Straight out of the handbook," the Major said. She highlighted another part. "See, that's a heating element wrapped around the base of the blade, attached to a microbattery that's been cracked. If the trap is set off, those knives will reach about two thousand C in less than a second, and that will actually rip through anything less than 3 cm of warsteel. There's a dozen of them, three from each compass direction," the Major said. "Whoever made this trap wasn't messing around. That'll rip through any civvie body armor, even light Confed military armor."
"Whoever this is doesn't want visitors," P'Kank said.
"You haven't seen the best video," the Major said. "I showed the Colonel this, right now we've just got drones up watching the lake."
She flicked up another video.
"This is one of our high end stealth drones, we've got it following the phasic and chronotron trails. This is three hours after they entered the woods, one hour after we backed out," the Major said.
P'Kank hit play.
The drone passed over the blasted body of a Atrekna leadership caste.
"That one hit a mine. Well, four of them, directional mines from trees. Grenades against a heavy metal plate, with a thick curved plastic matrix loaded with heavy pellets and rocks. It's an older method, but still used," the Major said. "As a matter of fact, it's in the Confederate military Field Manual of booby traps."
The trails darted away. Three of them. One thinner than the others.
"Two groups of two, one of one," the Major said.
The drone followed the thinner one, picking up speed. It exited the thick temperate rain forest into a small clearing maybe a dozen paces wide.
An Atrekna was in the middle, looking around wildly. It was only a foot above the ground, using a plate of phasic energy six inches off the ground to exert force against rather than the ground itself.
The drone picked up the sound of FWOOP!
"What's it shooting at?" P'Kank asked as the rippling cone of psychic energy lashed out, just making vines and moss tremble.
FWOOP!
This time branches broke away from the tree trunk as bark showered away.
General P'Kank leaned forward as the Atrekna twisted to the left and right, then looked right at the drone.
Its eyes were wide, P'Kank could see a tiny pinprick of a pupil in the middle of the white eyes. The feeding tendrils around the mouth were curled up protectively.
"Is it... afraid?" P'Kank asked as there was a FWOOP! and the camera suddenly rolled and fell to the ground.
"Watch," the Colonel said.
It turned around again. FWOOP! Again, nothing but moss and branches. The drone deployed legs and managed to get upright, no bigger than a hockey puck with six legs.
The camera focused on the Atrekna as it suddenly made a loud keening noise, almost a screech.
"What the fuck?" P'Kank heard his Saurian aide swear.
P'Kank himself paused the video and tapped some keys.
The top of the figure's head was two point one meters high and almost a meter wide. The program estimated them at around a hundred kilos. It was wearing a civilian grade grav-skiing mask that was chipped and gouged, heavy forestry worker coveralls, gloves, and boots. Its ears were bare of fur, covered in patches of scar tissue that P'Kank immediately identified as radiation burn scarring.
It was also holding a brush clearing blade in one hand.
"That's... a big bunny," P'Kank said. He hit play on the video then hit pause again. "What?" he asked, rewinding it and playing it in slow motion.
The eyes of the grav-ski mask lit up with dull red light.
"You see it too!" the Major said. "See, that is why I called it in."
P'Kank set it to normal speed.
The eyes were dull crimson as the figure just stood at the edge of the clearing.
FWOOP! that horrible psychic attack lashed out, blowing leaves across the ground, shattering bark from the trees, shredding vines and moss.
The figure just stood there, the eyes burning red.
"Digital Omnimessiah preserve us," Captain Ulk said softly.
The Atrekna screeched again as the figure took a single step forward.
FWOOP!
Another step.
P'Kank didn't think the Atrekna were capable of panic, but as the figure began to slowly walk forward, there was no other description of the way the Atrekna screeched and lashed out.
FWOOP FWOOP FWOOP FWOO...
The figure walked straight through an attack that could crack warsteel, as if it was nothing more than a breeze.
The attack cut off suddenly as the figure thrust the blade into the body of the Atrekna. A third of the blade burst from its back, dark purple blood dripping from it.
The Atrekna began to weakly beat on the figure's chest. It reached up one shaking hand and clawed at the mask, the head tilted down to stare at the dying Atrekna with red eyes.
"Terran eyes at night, prudent take flight," Shermtrek, one of General P'Kank's aides, said softly.
The figure yanked the blade out of the Atrekna and it collapsed to the forest floor. It reached up one shaking hand as the figure bent down and began hacking at the Atrekna with the brush cutting blade. Heavy, methodical, impersonal strikes as if they were just cutting away brush.
The figure straightened up, turned away, and walked quickly into the woods, vanishing.
"So, the monster's real," P'Kank said slowly.
"About the only thing I've seen that can take an Atrekna psychic attack straight to the face without a helmet and not die is a Terran," the Major said.
"According to the Red Tips, they've shot him, stabbed him, blew him up with a mine and a grenade, but he doesn't die," the Colonel said. "According to the Red Tips, they're seen severed Dwellerspawn heads on the road into the camp ground."
"His lake," P'Kank mused. "The red eyes are interesting. Terran eyes."
"Enraged eyes," the Major said.
P'Kank walked back the video, pausing it on the thrust. He zoomed in closely and ran a quick filter.
The blade burned brightly.
"Whoever it is, that blade was loaded with phasic energy, the same type a Terran has running through their body. It tore straight through the Atrekna's psychic armor," P'Kank said, shaking their head. "That blade thrust would have punched through five centimeters of warsteel laminate alloy."
"Yeah," the Major said. She popped a piece of stimgum, an action that P'Kank knew was a nervous habit. "You want us to go in? Make sure the slorpie leaders are gone?"
P'Kank shook his head. "We'll keep drone overflight in case any make a run for it across the lake. Send microdrones on full stealth into the woods, keep your men out," he said softly. "Now I know how the people who survived at that lake survived not only the last four years, but the first war too."
"How?" the Colonel asked.
P'Kank reached out and touched the hologram of the massive Hesstlan. "They had a protector."
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The Atrekna squealed as its companion fell out of the air and landed on their knees, vainly trying to hold in their guts from where the slash had ripped through psychic shielding, the armored robe, and purple flesh as if it was all tissue. Their knees sunk into the soft sand at the edge of the lake, which had moonlight glimmering on the gentle waves.
The massive figure took a step forward and gave a swipe of the heavy base steel blade.
The wounded Atrekna's head made a crunching noise when the blade impacted the back of it.
The Atrekna fired off a psychic attack that would drive a slavespawn to their knees.
FWOOP!
The figure just yanked the blade from the dead Atrekna's head, blood spraying from the blade. It didn't react, just the heavy clothing pressed against it. The red eyes of the white armored facial covering burned silently as it stared at the Atrekna who had attacked.
The Atrekna screeched and tried to float backwards. Not that the woods at its back were safe, but just to move away from the figure in front of it.
The figure with the burning dark red eyes.
The figure took three purposeful steps, three steps that looked slow but covered the entire ten feet of distance.
The Atrekna held out its hands, focusing psychic energy in a shield in front of it as it screamed.
The blade crashed through the psychic shield, shattering it.
And cut the Atrekna's arm off halfway up the forearm.
Before the Atrekna could do much more than inhale to scream the heavy blade punched through its chest, just to the right of the middle of the chest, bisecting the two chamber heart.
The Atrekna slumped and fell to the ground as the blade was whipped back out of the chest.
The figure bent forward and chopped at the Atrekna. Five heavy chops.
It straightened up and looked around.
The insects were beginning to sing again in the night. An animal rustled the leaves.
The big figure turned and, with long purposeful strides, vanished into the woods.
The insects, transplanted and modified Terran ants, found the bodies and began to lead long paths to them. By dawn, the bodies were covered in feasting ants.
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Elu watched as Aunt Fenn helped Dambree take off her coveralls, the heavy cloth stained from the black rain and the purple blood both. Her face was bruised and bloody, one eye bloodshot and red. Her nose had bled, caking her whiskers and upper lip with blood. Once the coveralls dropped, Aunt Fenn and Tru helped undo the catches on the Confed Army plating that normally went over their uniforms. The warsteel was dull and cracked, no longer glossy. It thudded to floor and Ellie moved over to pick it up and take it outside to put it in the shed. He came back in and gathered up each cracked and dull piece of armor.
Finally, Aunt Fenn stepped forward and wrapped a blanket around Dambree, hiding the bruises and cuts on her body. For a moment Dambree leaned against Aunt Fenn, slumping down, forcing Aunt Fenn to wrap her arms around Dambree's waist to hold her up. Dambree sighed, resting her head on her aunt's shoulder while Fenn hugged her gently. After a moment Dambree straightened up and Fenn gently moved Dambree toward the bedroom, where her other two cousins had filled up the metal bathtub with hot soapy water. Tru handed her sister a fizzybrew just before she went through the door and Elu heard Dambree open it before the door shut.
Meglee picked up the heavy brush blade, moving into the kitchen, and began to wipe it down in preperation for cleaning it and then sharpening it. A few times as she washed it sparks jumped off it, but Meglee had seen it before.
She used a Terran Army bayonet sharpener to hone the edge of the blade as others kept working.
Elu picked up the coveralls and other cloth, moving over to the wash tub, which Uncle Inkree had finished filling up with water. The water was soapy and had the rad-cleaning liquid in it to get rid of the radiation from the black rain. Without complaint, he started washing them. His cousins took them out to rinse them off then hang them on the clothesline behind the little cottage.
He had just finished when Aunt Fenn escorted a wet but clean Dambree, wrapped in a warm blanket, to the couch. When Dambree laid down, the youngest, a year old half-feral toddler, climbed on Dambree to lay on her chest. The toddler patted Dambree's chest and sighed, closing her eyes.
"How is she?" Elu asked after he had taken the wash tub out and dumped it.
"Tired," Fenn said.
"Did she say anything?" Elu asked. He had noticed his sister had taken to speaking less and less over time.
"Just thanked me," Fenn said, laying one hand on her swollen belly. "She says the woods are clear again. Said they were more slorpies."
"Did Mister Mewmew check her blood?" Elu asked.
Fenn nodded. "Greenish-Yellow trefoil," she said. She leaned down and put her hand on Dambree's sleeping brow. "I gave her the injection."
"Good," Elu nodded, moving over to the chair and sitting down. "When dawn comes, me and the boys will go check the traps. Reset them if we have to."
Fenn nodded.
"Wake me if you hear anything, Dambree needs to sleep," Elu said.
Again, Fenn just nodded.
Against the wall, next to the fireplace, Mister Mewmew watched silently.
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P'Kank watched as one by one, each unit signalled that their area was clear.
The big Treana'ad checked the clocks. Ground to orbit was 1:1. Orbit to system was 1:1. System to the greater galaxy was 1:1. The sun was a bright yellow again.
He looked at the clock that had been running since the operation started as he pressed the button to signal the mission was complete.
Operation Billy Mays had concluded at 91 hours, 12 minutes, 13 seconds.
He looked at his casualties.
9.68% KIA. 12.85% WIA.
He closed his eyes, letting the armored coverings slide over his compound eyes.
If your plan had been better, your men wouldn't have died, that little voice whispered.
He knew there was no way to silence it. He'd just have to live with it.
P'Kank opened his eyes and nodded to himself.
"Alert Civil Defense they can sound the all-clear," P'Kank ordered.
The war was over, but there was still work to be done.