Pound for pound, Terran Descent Humanity is one of the most effective combatants in the known universe. With that in mind, imagine what humanity was forced to develop in order to kill one another.

Whatever you imagined, it is undoubtedly a pale shadow of reality. It would need to have greater endurance, greater strength, be more resistant to damage, able to repair as easily as a human heals, be able to work cohesively, be capable of critical thinking, non-linear thought, and predictive analysis. On top of that, it would have to be able to utilize advanced technology in order to combat the premier tool using omnivorous persistence hunter in the galaxy.

With that in mind, let us study the "First Artificial War" which is also known by the name "The Android Wars." - Introduction to Intermediate Human Warfare Studies 340.

Speaks looked up and scrambled into the armored sedan, ignoring that high-vee rounds hit the door with loud thunk thunk thunk sounds, that the window suddenly gained four palm-sized spiderwebs, and collapsed on the seat.

Ru'udamo'o threw the vehicle in reverse, slamming the accelerator and whipping the wheel.

"Are you hurt? Are you injured?" Ru'udamo'o asked as Speaks shifted and reloaded his rifle.

"Gonna need a hospital," Speaks said. "Took three to the armor, one penetration, got my foot blown off and one of my antenna is ripped in half," he said. He checked the side of the rifle to make sure all the telltales were green, saw the amber one, slapped the bottom of the magazine, then grunted when the telltale went green.

"What is occurring?" Ru'udamo'o asked, veering around a slow moving truck and speeding up as the sedan climbed the on-ramp onto the upper level access.

"Not sure," Speaks said, lifting up his head and looking behind the sedan. "I was checking something in GalNet, the next thing I knew, someone was sending hit teams after me."

"They do not seem concerned about exposure or collateral damage," Ru'udamo'o swerved around a slow moving sedan and merged with highway traffic. "They're assaulting the starport and planetary weather control."

Speaks nodded. "That fits. Whoever did this, they screwed up big time," he said.

"How so?" Ru'udamo'o asked. "Aside from the exposure and collateral damage, that is."

Speaks turned and looked back through the windshield, slumping down slightly. "They sent androids," he paused for a second. "Digital Omnimessian and Bellona's cut throat, I hate those assholes."

"An artificial life form? Why is that a problem?" Ru'udamo'o asked, not giving any hint that nobody in Unified Space had managed to create a fully synthetic creature that survived longer than a few minutes.

"Because androids are omnicidal assholes," Speaks said. "They're all networked together, kind of like the BOLO tactical battlenet, and it takes about thirty seconds for them to decide that everyone else in the universe gets to die so that they get everything."

"There is only enough for one," Ru'udamo'o quoted.

Speaks nodded. "Exactly."

It was silent for a moment until Ru'udamo'o frowned, leaning forward. "The nav-comp is warning of a traffic delay caused by an incident up ahead," he said.

Speaks looked over the dash, shifting his grip on his rifle. "How close to us is a major nanoforge?"

Ru'udamo'o checked his implant. "There's a car dealership two thousand meters ahead, right off the freeway. They sell custom ground cars."

"Get off the highway," Speaks snapped. "They're ahead of us now."

Ru'udamo'o looked to either side, he only had a few seconds. On the left was a massive four hundred meter drop to the level below. On the right was ferrocrete barriers thick enough to stop an out of control cargo hauler.

"You got a PPD?" Speaks asked

Ru'udamo'o shook his head and Speaks handed him a small device. "It's not a great one, but it'll keep any stray rounds from taking your head off."

Ru'udamo'o nodded, clipping it to his belt. Ru'udamo'o looked forward just in time to see a car only two hundred meters and ten car lengths ahead suddenly fly up into the air in a ball of flames, cartwheeling and landing in the oncoming traffic.

"Yeah, they're up ahead," Speaks drawled.

Ru'udamo'o was too busy weaving the sedan between cars that suddenly had their autodrive hit the brakes. The entire offramp lane was suddenly packed three wide and nose to nose in a river of polyceramic and plassteel.

"Pull over," Speaks snapped as another car exploded, smashing into the ones behind it.

Ru'udamo'o nodded, one hand reaching down to pat the Confederate magac pistol. He swerved, hit the brakes, and the sedan slid to a stop.

Behind them a car exploded.

"We're boxed in, we're going to have to move on foot," Speaks said. He popped the door and looked at the cars lining the far wall, all in the offramp lane nose to nose. He looked right and left, glanced at Ru'udamo'o, then yelled "GO!" and scuttled out of the car.

Ru'udamo'o could see figures climbing up on the cars, looking around, as he bolted after Speaks, quickly catching up to the small mantid. He tapped the button on the PPD (Personal Protective Device) and the battlescreen spun up. It was light enough not to damage anything that brushed it but would deflect small arms.

One of the figures on the cars spotted them and pointed, screeching loudly.

The others began shooting, the rounds bouncing off of Speaks PPD screen. Two rounds bounced off of Ru'udamo'o's screen, one of them sailing into the air, the other blowing a chunk out of the ferrocrete.

"Dammit," Speaks snarled. "Can't be helped," he said, jumping up on the hood of one of the cars.

Before Ru'udamo'o could ask what was wrong rounds started smashing into the vehicles. Hv-rounds slammed through civvy macroplas, instantly splattering the insides with red chunks. The rounds smashed through plassteel and polyceramic, ripping clear through two or three cars to blow a hole in the ferrocrete barrier.

Ru'udamo'o followed Speaks as the mantid ran for the car lot again.

"I thought they were coming out of the nanoforge that would be here," Ru'udamo'o panted. The mantid was fast and could run for a long distance.

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"They are. We've gotta shut down their spawn point or they'll just keep pumping out androids every few seconds," Speaks said, hurrying as fast as he could despite his missing foot and the slight vertigo from his missing antenna end.

Ru'udamo'o looked through his rear eyes and saw that the figures on the freeway had paused to rake the lines of vehicles with their weapons, pausing their pursuit to engage in wholesale slaughter.

The duo wove through the vehicles, running for the large showroom and mechanics building. Once a single android loomed out, swiping at Ru'udamo'o with a clawed hand.

Ru'udamo'o shot it in the face and it went down, already steaming and bubbling.

The second time the pair came around a corner and four of the androids paused for a second, their positronic brains updating with the new information. They had only started to react when Speaks hosed the entire group with two tight figure-eight shot patterns.

"Thank the Digital Omnimessiah and Enraged Phillip that these ones still have the slight reaction lag," Speaks panted as they ran toward the showroom. "It's only a half second or so, but it matters."

Ru'udamo'o nodded, saving his breath.

Speaks didn't slow down, just put a couple of rounds through the macroplas windows and throwing himself against the compromised polymer, crashing into the showroom in a shower of glittering macroplas squares.

Ru'udamo'o followed as Speaks headed through the showroom, sliding under the drawbridge counter and coming up to sprint for the back room. He shot out of the lock on the move, throwing himself against the door. The door crashed open and Speaks could see the massive nanoforge, a Class-IX, against the far wall.

There were a half dozen androids around it.

Speaks reacted like he had already decided he would, even as his brain processed the fact there was a half dozen androids all facing the nanoforge. He pulled the trigger on the underslung 20mm variable munition.

The 20mm rocket streaked out, in through the open iris, and vanished into the glowing red mist. There was a flash and the red light went out. The mist turned black and collapsed.

Speaks was already skidding to a stop, moving his feet to run backwards.

Ru'udamo'o barged in, saw the androids, and lifted the pistol, holding it with two hands, and started firing as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Speaks stopped trying to run backwards and just leveled the rifle, snapping off quick bursts even as the androids scattered for cover. Speaks took cover behind a heavy high-torque electric engine even as return shots flashed around him.

Ru'udamo'o ducked down behind a heavy piece of lifting equipment.

"Now what?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

"GET THE HUMANOID!" one of the androids yelled.

"Survive!" Speaks yelled back.

"GET THE INTRUDER!" another android yelled.

"OH, SHUT UP!" Speaks yelled, popping up from behind his cover and hosing a half-mag around where the three surviving androids were crouched down. He ducked back down right before the return fire would have taken off his head.

"CHICKEN! FIGHT LIKE A ROBOT!" another yelled.

Speaks gritted his mandibles.

"Assuming local control," all three said at once.

Aw, Kalki's Goats, there's a thinker nearby, Speaks thought. He looked at Ru'udamo'o and made a few motions.

Ru'udamo'o gave him a look like he'd gone crazy.

Speaks sighed and looked around as more rounds clanked off the heavy chromed up engine he was hiding behind. He checked his ammo and rapidly selected a different round. When the firing stopped he leaned around the side of the engine instead of popping up above it.

Tensed fingers fired shots over the top of the engine when Speaks leaned out, aimed, heard the weapon beep, and fired the 20mm.

The round flew out, the androids had already ducked, believing they were now under cover. The round went over their heads.

And exploded with white phosphorous fury.

Speaks knew androids didn't feel pain, but he also knew that they couldn't just stay there and let the WP eat through their entire bodies.

One ran for the shelf of lubricants, obviously intending on putting the fire out with synthetic lubricant. One stood up and started firing wildly. The last jumped over the counter they were hiding behind, charging Speaks and firing wildly. All three had holes in their coveralls that were pouring clouds of white smoke out from the WP burning into their synthetic bodies.

Ru'udamo'o tagged the one firing with a single shot from the pistol. Speaks hit the one running at him with a burst.

The third grabbed a can of oil and poured it over the wounds.

The oil instantly burst into flame.

Damn, they are such idiots at first, Speaks thought to himself, shooting the other one at the same time as Ru'udamo'o. It went down, wreathed in flame, and Speaks slowly walked out into the middle of the mechanic's area. Ru'udamo'o joined him, looking around, then pointing at the nanoforge.

"They can be delivered from any of those?" he asked.

Speaks nodded. "Class III and above."

"Who would use such a thing?" Ru'udamo'o asked. "They do not seem as if they would make good covert action units or effective combat troops."

"They don't," Speaks said. "That's just it. There's a hundred better options than an obsolete option like androids."

Ru'udamo'o pointed at the device on Speaks belt. "Your external communicator is blinking."

Speaks looked down, unclipped it, and thumbed it. The LED screen on the side lit up.

"COMING" was all it read.

Speaks frowned.

"What?" Ru'udamo'o asked, looking at the LED screen. "Who's coming?"

Speaks shook his head. "I don't know. If the androids are pushing at the starport to gain control of it as well as the weather control, any Confed military forces have their hands full. I have no idea who could come to us."

Ru'udamo'o shrugged. "Perhaps 117?"

Speaks shook his head again. "No, but..." he quickly shot off a message to the greenie to shut down all the nanoforges on the planet and look for power draws or massive power sources to show any illegal ones.

The only reply was a set of emojis showing a green mantid racing back and forth between two computers with dust clouds around his feet.

"Well, at least right now we're safe," Ru'udamo'o said, checking the ammo counter on the side of his pistol. "I have alerted my support units, they will be here before the androids should be."

"You just had to say it," Speaks said.

Ru'udamo'o asked what the mantid meant when the six roll-down doors suddenly beeped and raised.

Without saying a word both Speaks and Ru'udamo'o scrambled behind the endosteel desk.

"Nicely done, jackass," Speaks said.

"Assuming local control!" all of the androids outside chanted at once.

"And now there's a thinker somewhere," Speaks grumbled. He looked at Ru'udamo'o. "I blame you."

Ru'udamo'o opened his mouth to ask why when there was a sudden flash outside and a rumble that could be felt through the ferrocrete.

"What?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

Speaks peeked over the top. "Oh. Oh shit."

To Ru'udamo'o it sounded like whatever happened was worse than a whole lot of androids just outside. He looked over and frowned.

Kneeling down in front of the android force was a single Terran. He was in adaptive camouflage, he was on one knee, his opposite fist pressed against the bottom of the shallow crater he was in. His head was bowed and his backside rested on his heel.

The androids were all standing in place.

Speaks scrambled up to Ru'udamo'o and before the Lanaktallan could say anything, slapped a circlet on Ru'udamo'o's head. He heard the whine of capicators whining and tasted unfamiliar berries on the back of his teeth.

The Terran's eyes opened, glowing bright red, and it stood up, sliding its feet shoulder width apart, winding one arm in a circle for a moment before bringing it to waist level, the other hand going out, palm out toward the androids.

"We gotta move! We gotta run!" Speaks said, scuttling for the showroom.

"Why? What is it?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

The Terran's brown skin gleamed like weathered battlesteel in the lights. Its curly black hair was cut so short as to just be a suggestion of a shadow on top of the lemur's head. The lemur's muscles stood out.

Ru'udamo'o was watching from his rear eyes as the lemur suddenly moved, the band around his head seemingly tightening in response. A blurred streak straight into the middle of the androids. Androids flew away from the streak, limbs coming off, heads crushed, chests caved in. The Terran stopped in the middle of the crowd, visible through the gap made by its path.

Lightning moved up and down its legs, circles of electricity moved up and down its arms. Its teeth flashed purple sparks and its eyes glowed bright red.

The lemur struck out with a straightened bare hand, slamming the edge ridge into the android's body. Ru'udamo'o knew it was a synthetic creature, with endosteel bones, artificial skin, and myomer muscle. Ru'udamo'o had known there was no way something biological could effect such a thing.

Had.

He'd seen the tests upon immature lemurs, on tortured and stressed lemurs.

Ru'udamo'o wasn't surprised to see the android fly back, tumbling into the androids behind it, its chest caved in and its head hanging limply.

He followed Speaks through the door and slid to a stop, ducking behind the counter with Speaks. Outside dozens, scores of androids were running around the building, heading for where the lemur was fighting.

"Who, or what, was that?" Ru'udamo'o asked. "Warborg?"

Speaks shook his head. "No. Worse. I can't believe Dreams sent him to help us."

"Who is it?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

Speaks looked up. "A mosizlak."