"The problem with ultimate power held for too long is that eventually, something comes along to challenge that power, and those who wield that power are unable to meet the challenge." - Pubvian Law of Power
"A ruler or leader is only as good as his court and the court is only as good as their truthfulness," - Wemtarran leadership maxim
"The failure of the Omniqueen is as simple as it is profound. Because her every whim became reality she could not comprehend others wants and desires becoming reality." - Mantid Political Theory
"Go ahead, tell me what to do one more time, see how that works out for you." - Terran Political Theory
"I might not win, but I can keep you from winning," - Anonymous
"Pause your shaking hands, hold your doubtful thoughts, when faith is placed in something bigger than us," - Sisters of Wrath.
"You cannot resist us. We are beyond your reach, beyond your comprehension, beyond what pathetic powers you have." - The Council of Eternity
"Come get some." - Terran fleet commander to 417th Great Herd Fleet
"We will not yield." - Brentili'ik, System Director, Telkan System
"We shall graze and speak as we will." - Lanaktallan Gestalt
"We have learned the lessons of jawnconnor." - Leebawian Cult of the Solitary Burrow
"If it bleed, it dies." - Red Sonja, Bronze Age Collapse, Terra
-----
The world seemed silent. All Vuxten could hear was his own breathing, the normal humming background of his power armor, and silence.
"Vux, Menhit needs to fall back. Take over," Peel's voice was loud across the helmet.
Vuxten jerked, looking up, and saw Menhit floating backwards, still making slow flowing motions. He looked across the parkinglot and saw still more Terrans rushing forward by the thousands, rushing through the floating pink mist that had been the first five ranks.
--bang bang time-- 471 said.
"We'll be pulling back to Atlantis. Mat-trans is working. Buy us ten minutes then extract. Cover Menhit's retreat," Peel said.
Vuxten nodded, jogging over to the single door in the building. Menhit floated down and Vuxten could see she was breathing heavy and covered in sweat.
"They are most insistent," she said.
Vuxten nodded.
"Hold the door, back up step by step. We'll let you know when it's clear," Menhit said.
Vuxten just nodded as Menhit opened the heavy double doors. He followed her in, then turned around and stood in the doorway.
The heavy blast door stayed up as Vuxten pulled his magac SMG off his waist and looked at it.
Full ammo.
The warsteel eagle was glowing red in the depths of the black metal.
--rockets grenades ready-- 471 said.
Vuxten turned around and faced the crowd. They were across the field of rubble that Menhit had kept them stopped at, running straight at him. He could hear their screaming, their enraged roars, see their feet slamming on the ground bringing up puffs of dust.
Vuxten marked out targets and faintly heard the grenade launcher and the rocket launcher shift on his shoulders. The carats flashed as he lifted up the SMG, putting his hand on top of the barrel's heat shield, and tightened his grip on the pistol grip.
The grenade launcher chuffed, the rocket launcher cracked, and Vuxten started firing short, sharp bursts as he stepped back. The rockets went off, sending plumes of flesh and gore into the air, the grenades exploded, knocking down enraged and ripping free limbs. The heavy mass reactive antimatter gyrojet rounds slammed home, detonating in bright flashes.
Out of habit, Vuxten kept an eye on his heat as he kept running the SMG in short, controlled, tight bursts.
"Pulling back, close the blast doors," Vuxten told Peel, taking two steps back.
The doors, four in all, slid into place, overlapping each other.
Less than a minute later he heard a thump, followed by another, then it sounded like hail on a roof.
He knew that outside hundreds, thousands of enraged Terrans were hammering their fists on the building, throwing their bodies against it, trying to rip through it.
"Pull back to the mat-trans," Peel ordered.
"Roger," Vuxten turned and walked down the thick hallway, heading straight back to the elevators. The mat-trans was 'underground', if it could really be called that when the entire shell of the layer was built rather than created naturally.
He got in the elevator, tapping his foot to the instrumental music, waiting for the elevator to reach the mat-trans layer.
"Captain Vuxten. No other. Name," came over his comlink in a crackling whisper.
"Peel, do you hear that?" Vuxten asked.
"No. What?" Peel asked.
"I think I'm getting stray transmissions," Vuxten said.
--firewall being pushed-- 471 suddenly sent.
"Captain Vuxten. Telkan Marine. Corps," the crackling whisper said again.
"You hear that, buddy?" Vuxten asked.
--something in system-- 471 said. --working--
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"You are. Far. From home," the whisper said. A window opened in the upper right of his HUD, just below his ammunition counters.
It was a bald Terran with glasses, entirely in black and white, with bad pixelation and low resolution. It smiled, an expression that looked phony to Vuxten.
"You do not. Know. What you take. Part. In," the voice said. The face's mouth didn't move, just kept smiling.
"Clear the channel," Vuxten said.
"We are not. So easily. Pushed. Aside," the voice said.
The elevator came to a sudden stop and the lights went out.
"Vuxten, do you read?" Peel's voice sounded far away.
"I read you," Vuxten said.
"She. Cannot hear. You," the voice said. The face smiled wider then returned to a knowing grin, the lenses on the glasses going white to hide the eyes. "We should. Talk."
"What?" Vuxten said.
--bypassed systems locked out-- 471 said. --trying to reboot--
"Your. Wife," the voice said. Below the white face an image of Brentitli'ik sitting on a couch in the System Director's Manor popped up. "Your. Children."
This time it was the podlings, from the adoptees to the youngest that could barely walk.
"Your. Gestators," this time the picture was of Vuxten's broodcarriers.
"What about them?" Vuxten asked, tightening his grip on the SMG.
The eagle burned a steady bright red, the chain melted into his gauntlet starting to glow a dark red in the lightless elevator.
"You have. Much. To lose," the face said, the pictures vanishing. "Things. Within our. Reach."
Vuxten snarled. "You don't know Telkan very well."
The voice was silent even though the face suddenly gave a wide smile.
"Threats won't work," Vuxten said.
"We do not. Make. Threats," the voice said. "Only. Promises."
"What do you want?" Vuxten asked, gritting his teeth.
--isolating signal--
"Stop this. Attack. Upon our territory," the voice said. "Leave. That is. All. Just. Leave."
"I can't. I don't know how to leave," Vuxten said. He took a moment. "The mat-trans doesn't work."
"The Hell. Queen. Cannot help. You," the voice said.
"She's dead. Stroke. The mat-trans is randomly cycling and we can't get control of it. We're locked out," Vuxten lied. "We're stuck."
There was silence for a moment, the face just breaking into a wide grin.
--external signal-- 471 said. --command override channel--
"The inclusion of General Manuel Garcia-Gloria Trucker. Will not be of. Use to you," the face said suddenly. "Our numbers are. Endless. Our armies are. Without. Number."
Vuxten reached down and pushed the fingers of his gauntlets into the floor and slowly peeled the floor up.
"Hell and the souls. Contained within. Shall be returned to our. Benevolent. Embrace," the face said, and gave another one of those creepy smiles.
Vuxten double-checked the clearance then stepped into the hole in the floor, dropping out of the elevator and into the shaft.
"Nothing you do. Can change. Our power," the face said.
Vuxten kept his arms close together, letting his helmet spotlight vanish into the darkness of the elevator shaft as he dropped silently.
"Join. The winning side. Captain Vuxten," the voice said.
Again, video images of his wife, his podlings, his broodcarriers, appeared in his vision.
"Join. Ensure their. Safety."
"We Telkan do not respond well to threats," Vuxten said. His HUD flashed and he felt the Icarus System spin up. He landed silently, just a gold flare of energy to let him know he was in stealth mode. Vuxten straightened up, put his hands into the elevator doors, and pulled them apart.
"Nothing is. Beyond. Our reach," the voice threatened.
"Except you're forgetting one thing," Vuxten said. He jumped up onto the floor, out of the elevator shaft, and started walking down the hallway.
--signal isolated-- 471 told him.
"What. Is that?" The voice asked, a slight mocking edge to it.
"I'm not trapped in the SUDS with you," Vuxten said. He waited a second. "You're trapped in here with us."
"An old movie. Line. Unimpressive," the voice said.
"And we're coming for you," Vuxten said. "471, kill the signal."
--roger roger--
The voice vanished with a hiss and a pop.
--excluding signal rotating passwords and keys lockout complete-- 471 said.
"Thanks, buddy," Vuxten said. He slowed down and stopped in front of a heavy door. A laser scanned him and the door slowly slid open. He saw Peel and moved over to her. "I got contacted by someone."
"471 piggybacked me. Menhit and Pete aren't sure who it was," Peel said. She opened the mat-trans door. "Our turn."
"Whoever it was, they made a mistake," Vuxten said.
"What was that?" Peel asked, moving into the mat-trans.
"If they are willing to threaten my family, they are willing to kill my family just to remind me of my place, remind me that their boot is on my neck," Vuxten said. He followed Peel into the mat-trans and sat down, facing her.
"The Lanaktallan Overseers taught me that the day I cleaned the cell they murdered my sister-in-law in," he said.
The door closed, the mist rose, and blackness pulled him down.
-----
"Late Paranoia Third Regiment, turn right eight degrees, go rapid fire on your guns!" Trucker ordered out, holding the microphone in one hand even as he ran the ancient M2A17E9 fifty caliber machinegun with one hand. The helmet on his head was Kevlar laminate, not warsteel, the strap was tight on his chin, and he wore body armor without the internal plates.
The tanks, from only a century before the Great Glassing, shifted and started firing even though nothing could be seen on the battlefield. The blasted fields of hardened lava, the screaming pillars of burning flame, and the thin trickling streams of blood and lava were all that was visible beneath a sky the color of bruised flesh.
The holographic shielding dropped as the heavy sabot rounds started slamming into concealed targets. The rear ranks of armored vehicles sneaking toward Legion's infantry lines started exploding as the discarding sabot rounds punched through the back deck. Flames, screamed fire made up of tortured souls, roared out of the tanks that 3rd AD's fire had killed.
The reinforcements, on the other side of the gate, were completely smashed into junk.
Trucker shifted and clicked the button on the side of the mic.
"Glassing Seventh, TRACK THE INFANTRY!" he roared out.
The soldiers, drawn from whenever and fighting beneath the banners of their masters, screamed and tried to run away.
The tanks put on a burst of speed and the clattering tracks chewed them under.
In the sky, Legion's wings flapped slowly as he looked across the battlefield. The great bronze and iron gates leading out of Hell were open, the hinges blown off of the left one. Tanks from over eight millennia of warfare, all flying Earth banners, streamed through the gap, infantry following with an upraised roar.
Everything from ancient helicopters to more modern grav-strikers blotted out the sky as they came in with the tanks and infantry.
Legion could see the 3rd Armored Guards banner, the Regimental guidon of the Cyberqueens Holy 8th Armored Chromium Fist, the Luna 3rd Armored Guards, and more being raised to the sky.
In some places the armies assaulting Legions lines saw the banners coming toward them, looked up at the banners above them, and seemed to shudder like a man waking from a dream.
In more than a few places the enemy was more interested in fighting itself than Legion's forces as blank faced troops tried to force the dead to attack Legion or Trucker's lines.
Legion watched closely as one of the blank faced officers was suddenly ripped into multiple pieces by members of the 3rd Egyptian Infantry Division.
The spark flew upwards, heading back to wherever they were coming from.
Legion grabbed it, held it tight in his fist, and let it pull him up into the burning clouds.
He vanished from Hell.
-----
Casey's mind was at peace, perfectly still, as he ran forward. Behind him, completing the short winged V, was four of himself from centuries past.
The target was pulling down enough bandwidth to run a GalNet server in a majorly populated system cluster. Was pulling enough power to light up an entire world.
It was almost in range.
"Load graviton ground pound munitions list," Casey ordered.
"Affirmative," he replied four times.
The cannon swung from over his shoulder, the grip nestling smoothly into his hand. Targeting reticles came to life as the nanoforge loaded the shells into the gun's breach.
"They know we're coming," Casey said.
"It will avail them not," he answered.
"None may withstand us," another one of him answered.
"For honor and glory," yet another said.
"For our souls."
-----
Ru'udamo'o looked over at Speaks as he pulled off the highway and into the narrow streets of the bottom level slums. The mantid was leaned forward slightly, ichor-tainted drool running from between his mandibles.
"WAKE UP!" Ru'udamo'o snapped, grabbing the armored housing of one of Speaks antennae and yanking the mantid's head back and forth.
"I'M AWAKE!" Speaks yelled, jerking upright.
"We're almost there," Ru'udamo'o said. "Stay awake."
He hit the wipers as the 'rain' began falling from the underside of the level above in thick, oily sheets.
"Don't go to sleep."