General Twargark had been in the Confederate Army for nearly eighty years, having started in artillery and worked her way through armor and logistics until she had reached her current rank of four star general with the Iron tag of a combat leadership position. She was in charge of XXXIV Corps, known affectionately as Rule-34 or Dirty Thirty Four.
She'd been present for a lot of nasty fights, against some very bad people, and had seen some of the nastiest shit the universe could throw at people.
But she'd never seen anything like what she was watching on the holotank.
Forty-two light years away, the Blue Crystal System (TL-9282 on Confederate astromaps) was under assault by Confederate military forces as part of Operation Iron Piglet. Initial landings had been within projection, with lower than estimated casualties. The Atrekna reinforcements had hit the planet but the might of XL Corps AKA Extra-Large, had been able to handle it.
In one city, the civilian population came under threat from a 'battalion' of Ohm Class Dwellerspawn, sixty in all, that crashed through the suburbs and slammed against skyraker, bringing them down on themselves in a suicidal frenzy.
A drone had picked up the scene that General Twargark was watching. It was being relayed via laser from the ground in the Blue Crystal System, to the Space Force vessel, that was transmitting it to an ansible, which was transmitting it to the ansible in the system General Twargark was in, then to a Space Force vessel, then via laser and FM radio wave to the holotank she was staring at.
Civilians were screaming and running in a crowd, with Dwellerspawn infantry units chasing them, tearing them apart and throwing the pieces around willy-nilly. There was no tactical or any other reason to rip apart the civilians while they were alive and screaming.
Except the Dwellerspawn liked it.
The civilians streamed toward an ad-hoc line of beings in mis-matched LawSec and CorpSec armor, carrying light plasma and ion weapons, standing in front of riot control vehicles.
The drone caught the face of a small saurian Pukan in armor too big for her. Her eyes were wide with fear but she held tight to her rifle. She licked her lips and mouthed something.
"Right there," Captain V'Dross
"What?" General Twargark asked.
"Lip reading software can give us what she said," the Military Intelligence Analyst standing nearby said. There was the clicking of holokeys and the image rewound slightly.
oh saint vuxten be with us now as we give our lives to buy them a few more moments the Pukan mouthed.
"Now, watch," the Captain said as the drone feed pulled back to show the onrushing horde of Dwellerspawn. The line of defenders began firing but the weapons they were fielding did little more than blow pockmarks in chitin armor.
Lightning suddenly struck the ground, a bright whitish blue bolt that slammed into the middle of the street.
"THERE!" the Captain said, unneccessarily loud as far as the General was concerned. The Captain froze the video. "See him?"
The General leaned forward slightly.
A figure could be seen standing inside the lightning bolt for a second before static filled the video. It cleared up as lighting continued to hit. The figure could still be seen inside as a half dozen lightning bolts hit and continued to flickeringly strike as they bluish-white talons raked the ground around the figure.
The video moved forward slowly as the lightning suddenly stopped.
The video zoomed in on the figure.
"That's him, all right," Colonel Dartrum, commander of 2nd Regiment said.
It was a set of Imperium Scout Armor refurbished for a Telkan, enameled in white with gold edging and accents. The figure had a Mark-2 Cutting Bar on one hip, a heavy magac SMG on the other, and was wearing a smartgun harness with an ornately enameled and inlaid M318 20mm autocannon.
"NO MORE PODLING BLOOD!" the figure roared out over the suit's external speakers.
"REJOICE FOR INERTIA IS WITH YOU!" came an atonal screech from the speakers right afterwards.
The figure started firing the M318 directly into the face of the Dwellerspawn, smashing at them, forcing them back.
The video cut off.
"How many?" the General asked.
"Up until about twenty minutes ago, he was all over the place. He appeared on two hundred sixteen different worlds, three hundred and nineteen total manifestations. Once the defenders rally or the enemy is eliminated he vanishes in an another lightning strike," the Captain said. "At one point there was forty-two of him at one time, all fighting."
"Why did it stop?" the General asked.
"Video cut out, so we don't have anything but witness statements and a single omnidirectional broadcast that pretty much everyone in the Grephelt System heard," the Captain said. He gave a slight wince. "It was pretty loud."
"What was the broadcast?" the General asked.
"It's inadvisable to replay it but the words were fairly simple: Let this world shake in the rage of lost TerraSol," the Captain said.
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The General frowned. "That's Enraged Phillip's warcry, is it not?"
The Captain shrugged. "Up until recently I wasn't really a believer, but Chaplain Corps verified it as authentic, not a fabrication of some sort."
"So Enraged Phillip shows up and Major Vuxten stops jumping all over the place? Is he still in the Grephelt System?" the General asked.
The Captain shook his head. "No, sir. As soon as the defenders rallied Enraged Phillip put his hand on Major Vuxten and they both vanished. That was twenty minutes ago."
"Do we know where they are?" the General asked.
The Captain shook his head.
"Find them," the General ordered. "Not only is that the most famous Telkan currently alive, his wife is the Telkan System Director. Find out what happened."
"Yes, sir," The Captain said.
"What happened to just shooting the enemy in the face and moving on with the battle," the General mused, cracking her knuckles nervously. "Why do we have to get saints and apostles and living legends all mixed in?"
-----
471 sipped at the droplets of beer on the leaf and watched his Telkan bow his head to the Digital Omnimessiah's touch. 471 could see the hints and peeks of the base code of the universe in the swirling runes of the code made flesh and looked away, unwilling to look too long into the runes and glyphs of eternity.
"You OK, little guy?" the massive Terran known as Kalki asked, sitting down carefully next to 471.
"Oh-Kay," 471 managed to grate out. Speaking out loud was difficult for most greenies and 471 was no exception.
"Your buddy will be all right," Kalki said. He lowered his beer bottle and tipped it slightly, dribbling beer onto the leaf. "I am concerned with your well being also."
"Tha-nk you," 471 said. He sipped at the beer droplets, relishing the fizzy feeling.
"Are you all right with your brother laying aside the mantle," Kalki asked.
471 flashed a few icons and an emoji of approval between his antenna.
The green mantid engineer knew how important Brentili'ik, the broodcarriers Synthal'la and Ilmata'at, and all of the little podlings were to Vuxten.
They were the reason he fought so hard. Fought so fiercely and never backed down.
To be honest with himself, 471 found that reasoning to be so clear, so full of purity and care and love, that he didn't mind wading into battle after battle riding on the back of the armor.
"You are a true friend," Kalki said.
471 just flashed an icon of agreement and watched.
He admitted to himself that it was heady, exciting, to be called 'Inertia' and called to the service of the Digital Omnimessiah himself, but 471 had to be honest.
He wasn't going to leave Vuxten behind.
He lifted up one bladearm, using the tip of the other to flip open the top of the communicator. He rapidly typed one single message and tossed it to Vuxten.
Then he sat back, sipping at the droplets of beer and nibbling at the edge of the leaf, watching the living legends surrounding him.
The message had been simple and 471 could tell by Vuxten's grateful expression and the relief in his eyes when the Telkan had read the message.
**Ride or Die no matter what I am with you brother**
-----
"So what do you want to do now, kid?" Daxin rumbled, sitting down next to Vuxten.
The Digital Omnimessiah had left with Menhit and Kalki only a few minutes prior.
Kalki had handed Vuxten a sweet tangy fruit with a firm rind and crisp pulp along with a beer that had jalapeno pepper in it.
"I don't know," Vuxten said, looking away from the fire and at Daxin.
He had never noticed how tired the Terran looked behind the rough implacable features.
"Bellona, Legion, and me will make sure you get where you're going," Daxin said. He took a swig off the whiskey bottle. Vuxten noticed that while the big Terran wiped off his mouth with his sleeve the level of alcohol in the bottle raised slightly. Daxin looked Vuxten in the eyes. "Wanna go home?"
Vuxten thought for a moment then sighed and shook his head. "More than anything," he said. When Daxin opened his mouth Vuxten held up one hand. "But," he paused a second. "But, I'm the Battalion Operations Officer and the battalion is engaged in combat with the Atrekna."
"Yeah, that's kind of an important position during combat operations," Daxin said. He chuckled slightly. "My first tour as an Operations Officer I was fresh out of Major's Command and General Staff School and my unit deployed to the GeneJack Rebellion. I was out of my depth, coming from Special Operations. The Combined Military Authority was only a few years old, replacing the old United Systems Third Republic Military."
Daxin sighed and looked up. "What a cluster fuck that was. Three years later and the Mantid glassed Terra and a dozen colonies and everything changed."
Vuxten nodded. "Yeah, I'll just bet."
It was silent for a long moment, just the crackling of the fire.
"If you want, we can take you back. Pete has your original jump point and it's down to twelve digit grid coordinate. He's got real time feed from the area so you won't reappear in the middle of a truck or something," Daxin said. He took another long drink off the bottle.
"That would be less than optimal," Vuxten observed wryly.
Daxin chuckled. "Yeah. Happened to me once. The blast threw me about two hundred meters."
Vuxten just nodded.
"You'll want to be in your armor," Daxin paused a second. "Unless you think you want to leave it behind?"
Vuxten shook his head. "No. That armor's been with me since before you landed on Telkan."
Daxin nodded and stood up. "Welp, kid, we should probably get moving. Times wasting and the Arch-Demon Murphy waits for no man."
FIDO trotted up next to Daxin as Vuxten went over and stood in front of his armor.
The white enamel was spotless, the gold filigree and inlay shining in the firelight.
He stared at it for a long moment then sighed and walked around the back side of the armor. He stepped into the foot pedals, put his nose against the inside of the helmet, and nudged the switch.
The armor folded closed around him. The pressure sleeve hissed and inflated with kinetic shock gel. The neural linkage slid into the port at the base of Vuxten's skull and the port locked the linkage in snugly with a purr.
The armor went live around him and he closed his eyes for a second. He heard the beep letting him know that the engineer protective housing was closed and pressurized.
"Ready?" Vuxten asked.
**ready** 471 answered.
"Ready, kid?" Daxin asked.
"We're ready," Vuxten said.
"Grab your three-eighteen," Daxin said, moving up next to Vuxten.
Bellona stood up and swayed over as Vuxten picked up the M318 and locked it into the smartgunner harness.
"Be well, little brother," Bellona said softly.
She touched the end of his helmet's nose.
Everything turned purple.
------
"Sir, we've got a lock!" one of the techs yelled.
General Twargark turned in time to see the camera zoom in. It was shot through with static, the Dwellerspawn and Atrekna jamming picking up in the last half hour, but she recognized it as the HHC Company TOC.
A circle of whitish-gold fire suddenly erupted from the ground. Troops scrambled away from it in some cases, moved closer to look on with curiosity in other cases.
In the middle of the circle lines of streaming code began going by, entirely in gold and silver runes.
"BEHOLD! THE BELOVED SON RETURNS!" a woman's voice sounded out.
Gold and white fire burst up from the middle of the circle with a roar. Troops drew back, a few exclaiming with shock.
The fire, the runes, and the circle suddenly vanished, just leaving a twisted runic pattern burnt into the dirt.
The unmistakable sight of a set of Imperium Heavy Scout Infantry Armor stood where the fire and runes once were.
There was silence for a minute as all the troops present just stared.
"What? You've never seen an officer take a taxi home? GET BACK TO WORK!" Vuxten's voice sounded out.
The troops scattered.
"Get him to a holotank, I want to know what happened," General Twargark snapped. "He better have a good reason for going AWOL."