This has been the worst day of my life. - Every enlisted ever
Worst day of your life so far! - Nearest NCO ever
The doors ripped open as the two members of the Martial Orders shoved the blast doors aside with their power armor clad hands, stepping into the gap as they did so. They shouldered their way through the gap, forcing it larger. White mist poured out of the room on the other side and into the hallway.
The only thing that worked on Gunny Zolpad's visor was the visible light spectrum, everything else was blocked by internal chaff and whatever it was that made the BATTACNET turn into howling garbage.
Phasic energy bolts screamed through the air, hitting the Terrans and exploding on their power armor. A ripple in mid-air, causing the mist to swirl, came from further inside the room, slamming into the Terrans without effect. When it hit Gunny Zolpad and the other two Telkan, it knocked them down and set their psychic suppression system alarms howling.
The Terrans were shooting as Gunny Zolpad shook his head, rolled in place, and did the standard recovery of push himself on his hands, bring his knees up to his chest, and stand up in one smooth motion. His vision was blurred, black at the edges, static shooting through his actual vision and not the visor. He shook his head again, trying to clear it, as he stepped forward, trying to follow the Terrans into the room. They were inside firing, short, controlled bursts.
"FOR THE DIGITAL OMNIMESSIAH!" one of the Terrans roared out.
Gunny Zolpad could see the ripples washing over the Terrans, as if the air was some kind of clear gelatin. He could see how it hit the Terrans and moved around them, over them, rather than through them. It created an effect like a rock in a river, with a gap right behind the Terrans.
He grabbed the two privates, slinging one, the other, into the gap behind first the left hand Terran, then the right hand Terran.
The whole time the gelatin ripples washed out of the room, into the corridor, and over him.
He could hear whispers, taste blood, berries, old blood like from an extracted tooth site, rancid rations, and bad water. His skin prickled and ached, feeling like the ripples were making his very skeleton thrum inside his body.
He shook his head again and stumbled forward, trying to get his numbed fingers to do what he commanded.
The visor of his armor was reporting massive failures. His rocket and grenade launchers, his onboard point defense cluster, all three down. BATTACNET had completely failed. Commo was out. His suit was running in barebones safe mode, with massive idiot lights down both sides of his vision.
He was basically in a powered exoskeleton that happened to have atmosphere and some armor welded to it.
His smartlink was down as he stumbled behind the left hand Terran, his rifle's advanced features offline.
He could see into the room now.
And wished he couldn't.
There was a creature at each corner of the hexagonal room. Twice his height, the lower body terminating in a bowl-like structure that had man-o-war tentacles hanging down from the bottom of the bowl. The flesh swept up out of the bowl in thick cables that were pressed together into a thick red body with black streaks. The mid-section was three powerful arms, made of thick red cables fused together. It had bumps and dermal exoskeletal bulges as black bone forced its way out of the cables of exposed muscle-like tissue. The hands had eight fingers with black claws on the end. The neck was missing, the top of the head only slightly protruding from the muscular shoulders but sticking out from the body. It had four eyes, ovals with the side ends pinched into almost-points. The eyes were two above two below, glowing red with a blue sparkle in the middle. From the mouth fell writhing segmented tentacles.
The one in the middle of the room was larger, and from his angle, Gunny Zolpad could see that there was a thick fringe of writhing tentacles below the head, around it.
The creatures screeched and the ripples increased.
In the middle of the room, stuck in the gelatin and waves, were the standard .90 caliber gyrojet rounds, the rocket booster burning brightly, caught before the rounds could hit the target.
As Gunny Zolpad stumbled, moving to the right, he saw the rounds suddenly disassemble into the parts, as if they were being taken apart by an ordnance specialist for inspection.
The parts fell to the ground as Gunny Zolpad tripped, falling to his hands and knees. He looked up to see that the creature he was facing was paying attention to the duo of Terrans that were roaring and pushing their way into the room, still pulling the triggers.
Someone got off a rocket, after-action telemetry said it was Private Nelmaken, and it streaked nearly fifteen paces into the room before it suddenly came apart into its components, the solid rocket fuel crumbling into powder that burned harmlessly away.
Another wave passed over them, making the Terrans roar in rage.
It hit Gunny Zolpad as he tried to get up, driving him back to his knees.
His battlescreen icon was beeping, his rifle was inop and the icon blinking, and he was breathing heavy in an armor that couldn't seem to cool off or give him enough air. He threw himself through the wall, charging the machinegun emplacement from an angle. The whole company was pinned down by the line of machineguns almost hidden by battlescreens, ferrocrete bunker walls, and good old fashioned sandbags and barbed wire.
The wall shattered around him. He thrust forward with the bayonet, hitting the other Telkan in the gut-plates, the monomolecular cutting field around the blade penetrating the armor and digging deep into the Telkan beneath. Zolpad could see, through the other Telkan's clear visor, that he was screaming.
Zolpad pulled the bayonet out and slammed it in again and again. When the Telkan went down on his knees, Zolpad put one foot against his shoulder and shoved him off so he landed on his back.
Gunny Zolpad shook his head again, pulling one leg forward, leaning down, slamming his empty fist against the floor as he got his foot into position.
The Terrans were still advancing, still firing, but the gyrojet rounds were still being disassembled in midair.
Another ripple and Zolpad was almost overcome with the feeling of wrath and rage, it pounded at him like an invisible wave of heat from an open kiln. His vision tunneled down further, tentacles starting to squirm at the black edges of his vision. He could only see in black and white and it was shot through with bright sparkles and lines of gray and black static.
He could taste old blood, like from a three day old tooth socket after the tooth had been pulled from an infected jaw.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
"I AM HUMANITY'S WRATH MADE MANIFEST!" one of the Terrans roared out, both of them taking two steps closer to the creature in the middle of the room.
Zolpad could see all six of the ones at the points were 'facing' the two Terrans, who let their rifles go at the exact same moment, the rifles pulling back and around into storage mode. One drew a pistol and a knife, the other drew his cutting bar, revving the engine.
Another ripple.
Zolpad kicked out the wall and exposed the hallway beyond, skirting around the heavy blast door. He could hear the company over the comlink, hear them yelling and dying as the multiple emplaced weapons hammered at them.
The new plasma packet rounds penetrated almost anything, even the new Warsteel Mark IX. Zolpad's armor was the latest in protection, with the thick and heavy Vodamn Armor on top of the Neolinnium plating, but the plasma packet rounds could damage the armor even if it stopped the round from fully penetrating.
A Telkan in hardplate stumbled back, holding out his hands, but it was too late, Zolpad slammed the bayonet home, kicking the other Telkan off the monomolecular blade. He finished the movement with another step forward and a stomp to the skull.
The blade was sparking, missing over half, the field gone. It was nothing more than a blunt flattened bar now.
The enemy had a close range shard gun and Zolpad grabbed it up. His armor whined, but managed to synch up to it.
Telkan Military Arms Shard Gun Model 77A46, manufacturing on Telkan-1.
He hefted it up and
He was down on his knees again. He pulled one leg up, getting the foot on the ground, even and he planted the opposite fist against the ground, his head down, breathing deeply.
His armor was wailing, the outer layers of the Helreginn Mark VI's armor cracked and pockmarked. His visor crashed and came back completely clear, no icons, no warning labels, nothing, just clear macroplas that was cracked at the corners.
He got to his feet, realizing his hands were empty. He reached down, drawing the heavy magac pistol, and took two steps forward.
Another thick ripple.
"WE ARE THE UNGIVING BULWARK!" one of the Terrans bellowed out as they both took another step forward.
cinderblocks and mortar dust exploded away from where First Sergeant Zolpad had driven his boot into the wall, the ferrocrete turning into deadly shrapnel that shredded the three closest Telkan, none of which were in hard armor.
It was obvious that the assault had caught the rebels by surprise. Cots inside the machinegun bunker were unmade, there was food containers on the ground, half of the machinegun crews were only partially dressed and only two were in hardshell armor. He could see holocubes laying on the ground where they had fallen, still showing their contents to the floor.
The machineguns were giving out the high pitched whine of a plasma machinegun at work, the belts rattling as the rounds passed through them. Unlike normal linked round belts, the heavy belts of most miniguns operated as a flexible metal trackway inside the casing, allowing rounds to be fed from the big heavy drums at the sides of the guns without linkages, increasing the firing rate since there was no need for a delinker.
Two Telkan were turning to face Zolpad as he leveled the shard gun and held back the trigger, his power armor allowing him to easily control the graviton created recoil as the system barked out thousands of density collapsed depleted uranium razors.
The first two turned into mist. The crew of the first machinegun turned into meat confetti as the razors spread out.
Zolpad held down the trigger even as he advanced with the slow appearing, steady walk inherent to power armor.
The Telkan gun crews didn't even have a chance. Three grabbed small arms but their weapons were worthless against the Vodamn Armor. He knew he was gritting his teeth in a rictus of a smile, but kept advancing into them anyway.
He felt nothing but singing emptiness as he shot two trying to flee in the back.
He could hear the company commander rallying the men, ordering them to the right and left of the bunker.
His head was ringing from the graze that had blown half of the exterior of his helmet away as he clomped forward, grabbing the nearest machinegun and yanking it back off of the frame.
The CO was on the horn, asking
He was on his hands and knees again. Wrath and rage pounded at him but that core of singing emptiness, that less than feeling absorbed it and it vanished. The wrath and rage met the anger, then the self-loathing, then tipped over into the emptiness that nothing had been able to fill.
He pulled his right foot forward, planted his left fist, until he was down on one knee, helmet bowed, in the recovery position.
The magac was still in his fist.
There was a scream in his head and agony washed over him.
Zolpad turned and looked in time to see the two Terrans throw parts of the middle creature to either side of them. His two privates were right behind them, still using the two Terrans for cover, even as they both reloaded.
Zolpad blinked, lifting his fist and firing at the closest one, the heavy rounds stopping in midair.
There was nothing to take apart. The pistol was set to highvee ball rounds. Just chunks of endosteel.
Another ripple
crashed as it hit the floor, raising up concrete dust. Zolpad moved away, starting at the far bunks, and moved down, looking for any intel or anything else.
The CO was having Golf Company clear the trenches between the bunker that Zolpad stood in and the ones on the right and left, ordering men with flamers up to clear the inside and anti-power armor teams to follow.
One of the holocubes flickered as he picked it up.
The broodcarrier pictures smiled. "Come home, Padzol. Come home to broodmommy. War is over. Take amnesty and come home to Larista'ali," the broodcarrier said.
Zolpad went numb, his hands tingling as nerveless fingers dropped the cube. He turned and looked at the bodies.
It only took four checks before he found the owner of the cube. The blood, the frozen expression of fear, the glazed eyes, the chunks of another Telkan on his face, still didn't conceal the body's identity from Zolpad.
His litter brother.
Emptiness filled him.
He was on his knees again.
Left fist into the floor. Right knee pulled up until his foot was on the ground. Stare down. Three breaths.
"PURGE THE UNCLEAN!" one of the Terrans yelled.
ON YOUR FEET! Zolpad ordered himself, the thought ringing through the emptiness. He got to his feet.
He was empty again. All the therapy, all the medication, all the hard work, all the time, wiped away by the creature made up of thick glistening muscle fibers in front of him. It was staring at the two Terrans and the two Telkans, holding its hands out even as another ripple emanated from it.
come home
The ripple passed over him even as he leveled the pistol and walked forward.
come home to broodmommy
The ripple felt like a soap bubble popping on his skin as he walked through it.
His suit was nothing more than a powered exoskeleton wrapped in armor with its own power pack. The electronics beyond the emergency safe mode systems were dead, fried out, he could smell them mingled with the smell of burnt fur and burnt flesh.
His mouth tasted like drinking a flat old fizzypop to wash down rancid fried chicken and clotted old blood.
The tentacles on the edge of his vision were further in, writing and twisting. His vision tunneled down to almost nothing.
come home
He was right next to it when he extended out his arm, pushing the pistol against the thing's eye. It started to jerk back.
He yanked on the trigger.
Pop pop pop
Three small holes appeared in the creature's eye.
The blue sparkling patch in the middle went out. Blood and tissue gouted from the other side of the creature's head? Torso? Whatever. The head was at the top of the torso, the horns lifted above the shoulders, but the rest of the head against the torso.
The Terrans were on the other five before they could do much more than scream.
He and the two privates went down into the recovery position.
Zolpad could hear his own breathing, knew his mouth was open and he was drooling into the collection cup at the front of the muzzle of his helmet. He could feel his nose was bleeding.
There was an odd sound and Zolpad looked up.
A Terran in base hard plate was down next to one of the bodies. Another one appeared, looking just like the first. Then two more appeared. One pointed at a console.
"Yank the crystal out and give it to me," the Terran ordered.
"By your command," one of the martial order trooper said, moving to the console.
Two of the newcomers put their hands on the bodies of the creatures. One in the middle, one on the one that Zolpad had killed.
There was a puff of purple smoke that twisted and sucked back into a point in the middle as if it had never existed.
Zolpad let his head drop, still panting.
come home
He clenched his eyes, resisting the urge to punch himself in the side of the head, concentrating on recovery mantras and just breathing.
"Got it," the Terran in hardplate said. "We have psychic casualties. I'll take them. We have everything we need. Fall back to the dropship."
"By your command," both Terrans said.
Zolpad knew he shouldn't be able to feel the hand that touched his shoulder.
"Six to beam up," he heard.
Everything went dark.