A twin-engine jet shot over Fort Grozny, emitting a high-pitched whine, and then a terrible buzz as it sprayed a stream of red tracers into an unseen target and flew away. Svetlana inserted a magazine into her pistol and pulled back its slide with a click-snap. With her thumb, she flipped the safety switch, and readied herself mentally to fire it.
Hopefully, what had been done to her on Novoarkhangelsk had been temporary in nature. Hopefully, a subroutine had not been implanted in her very consciousness, designed to turn her into a regular Manchurian candidate and have her attack her own comrades upon sight of the creatures who inflicted it upon her. Still, if she was some sort of sleeper agent, there wasn't anything she could do about it, so she quieted her thoughts and focused on the pistol in her hand, its sleek black finish, the satisfying noise it made when it chambered a round, the radiant silver of its cartridges. She found herself muttering a prayer to the Father, the Son, and John Moses Browning.
"HERE THEY COME!" someone screamed. The bolts of automatic rifles were racked. Missiles were rammed into their tubes. An armored car's mounted autocannon clicked rapidly as its internal magazine was filled. Svetlana jumped as the cannons of the Fort Grozny defense grid found another target, and a shell burst harmlessly over their heads.
The road to the encampment was empty, deceptively so. The front facades of the buildings lining it had long since been blown away, so there was no danger of anyone hiding inside of them, but that didn't make her feel any better.
Click-thump.
Click-thump.
The noise the Poslushi walker made was oddly mechanical, as though Svetlana had put her ear against her aunt's century-old grandfather clock. Then, it emerged from behind a building, almost comical in appearance. Its rhomboidal chassis was simply too large for its four gaunt metal legs. The only visible features on the hull were two portholes of unknown purpose, a long vision slit, and hastily-scrawled glyphs scattered over its surface, probably obscenities in the Poslushi language. The machine lingered for only a moment, and then it blared a near-deafening war horn and lumbered forth at frightening speed.
Then, the IFV's launcher let loose its payload in a puff of smoke. The walker lurched out of the way of the missile, only for it to change course in midair and slam into it anyway, its tandem-charge warhead blasting a hole straight through its armor. Svetlana's skin went pale as the machine didn't even flinch at this hit, pouring black smoke from the wound but otherwise unaffected. Then, another rocket hit it, and then another. Finally, the thing's charge was stopped as it lost its balance and toppled to the ground, carving a small trench in the road as it slid to a stop. No pilot emerged, so there either was none or they were doing the smart thing and not disembarking. Either way, if the best they could muster was a single armored vehicle, they had no business invading a world.
Then, Svetlana was flying.
It was like the walker had just fallen out of the sky, and it had; the damned thing had jumped. As Svetlana tumbled through the air, she came to realize that the initial assault had been nothing more than a diversion, and then she hit the ground, hard.
A few moments later, she returned to the land of the living to find herself facedown on the concrete, her nose bleeding like there was no tomorrow. Her ears stopped ringing and she slowly extracted herself from the ground, looking back at her assailant. The walker was much smaller than the assault model, with six twitchy legs and a clear cockpit, inside of which sat a Poslushi in some sort of armor suit. Then, she became aware of the other soldiers convulsing on the ground, and of the noise. It was like radio static, except somehow orchestrated in such a way that it seemed to disrupt her very thoughts, putting a widening rift into her mind.
She saw one of the ATGM platforms resting nearby, its gunner twitching but just barely remaining in his seat. Moving like an old woman, she hobbled over to the missile launcher. Miraculously, the Poslushi seemed too busy with securing the others to see her. But as she shoved the crewman out of the seat and tried to take aim, the sound took up more of her thoughts. Uncontrollably, her lips pulled back in an animal grimace, her hands shaking too heavily to actually aim the launcher. She knew that she needed a noise to disrupt the sound, and a loud one at that, and then the last of her rational thought gave her a solution. It was a miracle that she didn't accidentally shoot herself as she raised her pistol to her left ear. She sighed, braced herself, and discharged a single round into the sky.
She never heard from that ear again.
The walker spun on a swivel, a small rotary-barrel cannon spinning up. Its barrels illuminated with radiant purple energy, but Svetlana was faster, and the missile punched straight through the vehicle's cockpit, leaving the pilot as a white smear on what remained of its canopy. The noise cut off abruptly and the walker collapsed. Slowly, the soldiers began to rise, the source of their paralysis destroyed.
"They've surely sent a slaver crew our way. Everybody, prepare an ambush!" she spoke up. Quickly, a plan was devised. A group of soldiers would lay in the entrance to the camp, apparently disabled, while the rest hid in the Victoriaville town hall. The crew would see the bait and take it, moving straight into the rest of the force's line of fire before they could intermingle with and endanger the bait. Everyone got into position, waiting for an hour, and then two.
But nobody came.
---
"Contact, mixed forces, two hundred meters, straight ahead!" Johann yelled into his radio as the tank's camera sighted a column of more Poslushi exosuits. They were being escorted by three smaller walkers, along with a fifteen-meter, faintly equine one, with a cavernous hold dangling beneath it. Johann had a worrying feeling that it was some sort of prisoner transport.
"All forces, load HE and prepare auxiliary guns, with the exception of Leopards Eight, Nine, and Ten. You, load HEAT; all our more powerful anti-tank shells do nothing but overpenetrate. You all know the combat plan, so move." the commander of the 467th Panzer Company ordered.
Johann looked down at Hersch with a wicked smile on his face. "Gun it, full speed forwards. Hiedrich, aim for the front of the column; I'll rake the back." then, Johann was pressed back into his seat as the Leopard's engine gave a soft electric purr and the vehicle shot forth at well over a hundred kilometers an hour. Johann took control of the tank's autocannon once more, training it on the back of their formation. If they pulled this off right, the combination of fire on two sides would leave their force in chaos, unable to figure out where to go, making them easy pickings.
The timers on the crew's watches beeped simultaneously, and all at once, all the tanks fired their munitions. The combined salvo of HE shells caused the front ranks of the infantry to disappear in a cloud of smoke, shrapnel, and flesh chunks, while a swarm of heavy slugs cut the rear guard apart. The simultaneous impacts of three HEAT rounds all but shredded the larger mech, and it collapsed into the infantry, crushing a smaller walker and adding to the disorder. As the Poslushi saw their enemy for the first time, the light gray camouflage becoming useless as they moved, the occasional purple beam left parts of the Leopard's frontal armor smoking and even melted a little bit of it, but it simply wasn't enough, and the Leopard plowed into their ranks before they could react.
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A Poslushi male, in full infantry gear and exosuit, weighed a little over two hundred kilograms and could keep up a running pace of ten kilometers an hour rather easily. A Leopard 6, however, moved ten times as quickly and carried with it a mass of approximately sixty metric tons. In short, there was a reason tankmen often referred to infantry as "crunchies."
The Leopard wasn't even slowed down noticeably as it ran through their force. The lucky ones found themselves under its treads and were smashed into a thin paste, their armor crushed into itself like tin cans. The unlucky ones were struck by its bumper and lay wailing in pain on the ground, their exoskeletons shattered, their sensitive antennae bent into horrible angles. Johann watched as a neighboring Leopard lurched upwards, running over a light walker like a monster truck at a show. Just like that, the column was all but annihilated, any survivors cut down by machine-gun fire as they ran for cover.
"Their wounded are the Canadians' problem now. Let's move, Fort Grozny needs the reinforcements." Johann said into the radio. The rest of the company voiced their assent and they peeled away from their target and headed for the encampment, the only one for miles. The destruction on this planet was almost complete, but even then, there should've been somebody, anybody alive in the suburban stretches between Boloton and Victoriaville. Instead, all he saw was the increasingly-frantic searching of rescue crews brought in from offworld. The only survivors they ever found were trapped under the wreckage of buildings, unable to leave and, Johann realized, unseen to the Poslushi.
If the Poslush Combine conducted mere slaver raids and airstrikes with such thorough handiwork, then CAST and China were both in for a very long war. He still believed that they would win, or at least fight to a stalemate; China had the manpower and logistical capabilities to swamp the Poslushi in soldiers, and CAST had the industrial giants of America, Germany, and Japan, making questions of cost a non-issue. However, if China and CAST turned on one another, or the Poslushi inflicted too many casualties before the peace, the political situation at home could become too volatile, and the Poslushi could easily rebuild their forces and take another shot, giving themselves a powerful advantage.
That's why, Johann said to himself, we have to make sure they can never fight us again.
The tanks eased through the destroyed checkpoint into Fort Grozny. For the foremost refugee center in the province, it sure wasn't very big; Johann almost wanted to congratulate the Poslushi for their brutal efficiency against unarmed civilians. Then, he chuckled to himself as he realized how incredibly sarcastic that sounded.
A lady in camo held out her hand, commanding the convoy to halt. Johann recognized her quickly as Lieutenant-Colonel Kuznetsova. His Leopard positioned itself in the parking lot and Johann hopped out, jogging over to Svetlana.
"We've really got to stop meeting like this, Lieutenant-Colonel." Johann said, saluting. Svetlana laughed, and Johann could swear that he saw her go a little red for a moment.
"What news do you bring?"
"We've intercepted and destroyed a Poslushi unit headed your way. We don't know how many they've sent, however, so I'm prepared to have my tank reinforce your defenses. Just say the word, ma'am."
"You can move your vehicle into position, but have your men get some rest."
"Yes, ma'am." Johann said, then relayed the words through his radio. Soon, Hiedrich had skidded to a stop beside him.
"Is this your new friend, Captain?" he asked.
"Indeed, Corporal."
"Just your friend?"
"Yes, Corporal."
"I mean, you technically follow separate chains of command, so if you want to..." he said, jostling Johann's shoulder. He was only half-joking.
"Just because she's a lady doesn't mean I have to look at her that way. Besides, that's no way to talk about the second-in-command of this base." Johann said, mildly annoyed. The only reason Hiedrich even tried this in front of the woman in question was because his ability to read people was impeccable, and he had quickly assessed Svetlana as someone who could take a joke.
"Thank you, Corporal. Now, if you would please..." Svetlana said, trying to remain serious. Hiedrich nodded, then returned to his tank. Then, a calm descended over her. Now really wasn't the time for jokes, after all.
"So, what should we do?" Johann asked.
"Do whatever you can. Try to tend to the refugees; God knows they need a little company right now. Maybe tell them about how you beat the Poslushi on Kormoran? People need hope right now. We've been telling ourselves how far ahead of us any aliens would be for so long that it's becoming detrimental now that we actually have to fight them."
"I get that. Maybe not Kormoran, though; that one was by accident. I think I'll tell them how I commanded the daring raid on the Poslushi labor ship." Johann said, smiling grimly. He would have to embellish that one a bit, since he was commanding from the safety of the USS Bunker Hill.
"Whatever floats your boat, Captain."
---
Rapier sipped at the jar of warm Sele tea as he oversaw the combat planetside. Ulo, the Aralu commander of slaving operations on the planet, was given control over the ground forces, but Rapier retained control of the fleet. Judging by how Ulo was handling it, maybe he should've taken control of the armies as well.
The door to the bridge hissed open and, like he had been summoned, Ulo entered, stooping down to avoid scraping his vibrant blue plumage on the doorframe.
"Reyena Ulo, what brings you here today?" Rapier asked, using an honorific for his old friend. Technically, their use was restricted to Poslushi, but nobody really enforced that rule.
"Captain-General, the first batch of human captives has broken, and the second is coming along nicely. I've selected the best of the batch for you to inspect." Ulo said, gesturing to somebody outside the bridge. A single-file line of humans entered the bridge. They were still wearing their clothing from when they were captured, but judging by how they looked, they would soon be dressed in the regal purple of the Poslushi military.
The line stopped, executed a perfect left-face, and stood at attention. Rapier approached the first one in the line, a dark-haired, brown-skinned female.
"What is your name and caste?"
"I am Laila Hutchins of the Soldier Caste, Captain-General!" the female said forcefully. She was speaking Low Ovinisian, one of the only languages human vocalizations could approximate.
"What is your purpose?"
"To serve and die in the name of the Combine, Captain-General!"
"Who is your leader?"
"You, Captain-General, who I will follow to the ends of the universe!"
"And what is our motto?"
"Long live the Poslushi!" all answered in unison, saluting. Rapier's antennae perked up with pleasure.
"These are the best of the batch, yes?" Rapier asked Ulo.
"Yes, Captain-General, but the others aren't far behind. We think this group may be veterans of prior human conflicts."
Rapier thought about this for a second. If they had fought in internecine wars before, then they would know how humans fought, and how to destroy them.
"Ulo, I would like for you to select all the best of each batch from here on out, and I want you to group them with these. We'll use them as the core personnel in an all-human strike force."
"Excellent idea, Captain-General. What should we call this group?"
"Hmm."
Rapier had heard something about how, in a centuries-old human conflict, the second one of global scale in their history, when the forces of one side overtook an enemy nation, people from that nation would oftentimes defect to them. It was a good thing; it showed that humans did have some sort of submissive instinct. The name of the military group they commonly joined was the Waffen-something. He was pretty sure that what came after was ideological in nature, however, so he could just cut that out.
"We'll call it Waffen. An old human word. Now, find somebody willing to help us, preferably without neuroforming. They'll be the administrators and handlers of Waffen. Then, you can use the rest of the batches for whatever you please, Ulo."
Ulo's mouth hung slightly open in excitement. "Captain-General, I believe you've just laid the foundations for our collaborators."