Chương 219: [Nova Wars] - Chapter 174

It has been nearly fifty years since Terrans vanished. There are one or two here and there. Like my old friends Casey and Peel. But, by and large, Terrans are extinct. In a vast universe there are less than a hundred of them. It has been fifty years since a fateful day. Those of you who read this in the future have never seen a human. Even sitting relaxed and drinking narcobrew they seemed as if they were in motion. I doubt you have seen one simply walking somewhere.

If you have, know that at this time people would envy you. Humans are myth and legends that saved us somehow. The chances you saw them fight are negligable. I did. On that fateful day when the sun went out and the world shook with a roar. It was a turning time for our people, although we did not know it at that time. If you have never seen a human fight, you have not seen the embodiment of carnage. They may call our people the armored first of the Confederacy now. Terra is not gone, it is merely hidden.

The best scientists Telkan produced have stated with evidence and science behind their words, that The Bag is degrading and every decade or so we get a fragment of a signal that shows they still live. I do not know what they will call you when the Terrans return. If, for some reason, you are still the apex warrior of the Confederacy I have one simple thing to beg of you. On my hands and knees, with tears in my eyes, I beg of you. Do not make the Prime Miscalculation.

- Excerpt from: A Life of Service and Slavery, Brentali'ik, First Telkan System Director, 65 PA His motherbox chirped and Field Sergeant (P) Pan'nikk ducked under the firing angle of the brace of small caliber railgun rounds. It chirped again and he slid to a stop, leaning back the way he had came. Ferrocrete asphalt shredded off the road, bunching up at the sole of his extended foot. The 15mm railgun rounds missed him by less than a meter over his head. The heavy machinegun rounds, 12.

7mm, missed him by less than a yard as he pushed off and went back the way he came. The motherbox chirped and he slid again, one foot extended, one hand down to grab the asphalt with armored fingers as he held his rifle up. Two 150mm rounds went by. Heavy anti-armor rounds.

"Dammit dammit dammit," he scrambled back the other way. The entire intersection he was running for erupted in almost invisible bluish flame. He skidded to a stop and looked around. He dropped an AM4 grenade in front of him and backpedaled. He bent down and grabbed the front of a ground car. It went off, blowing a hole in the road, and Pan'nikk jumped in. He pulled the ground car over his head to act as overhead cover.

Tracers lit up the air above the ground car as two tanks rattled into the left intersection and the gunners decided to see if they could get a piece of Pan'nikk.

"Scout One to Platoon," he said, ducking deeper in his hole as a high wattage GRASER raked the street looking for him in case he was in stealth.

"Go ahead, Scout One," The LT said. Pan'nikk could tell it was a live picture and he was suddenly pissed off that the LT wasn't even sweaty.

"Pinned down. Multiple directions. Multiple threats!" Pan'nikk reported.

"Maintain protective posture. No ascent past two hundred meters."

"I'm dug in."

"Roger." Pan'nikk cursed as the channel closed.

"Sergeant!" Lieutenant Singer barked out even as his rocket launcher fired at a wing of Noocracy strikers. The missiles went hypersonic and just sheer kinetic energy would have blown the strikers apart, much less the AM4 warheads.

"Sir?" Staff Sergeant Grayeyes responded. He was laying down heavy suppressive fire on the Noocracy power armor troops three miles away with his 105mm autocannon, the variable ammunition ammo forge alternating spooky white phosphorus mixed with blue napalm and tasty-freeze missiles for any smartass that popped up.

He was using his forearm mounted light 30mm chainguns to shred the light armored infantry desperately trying to dismount the vehicles that were exploding as the APDSFSWSAM-T rounds raking the mechanized infantry convoy. His grenade launcher was putting heat on a group of missile troops trying to hide on a bridge, dropping steadily rippling and overlapping 40mm HEDPAMWSFJ (High Explosive Dual Purpose AntiMatter Warsteel Fragmenting Jacket) grenades.

His missile launcher was helping with hitting the strikers and his two semi-autonomous 12. 7mm rapid fire high-vee machineguns were contributing to the platoons point defense. His battlescreen was at 98. 9% and holding, his heat was only at 11%, and his slush was sitting comfortably at 12. 5%.

"Scout One is pinned down. Send relief," the LT ordered.

"Affirmative, sir," Grayeyes said. He glanced at the HUD icons for his section and made his selection.

"Private Pinion," he said, opening the channel.

"Roger, Sergeant," Pinion said. He fired another burst of 155mm cannon shells at the tanks and watched them explode as the heavy density collapsed osmium spears punched straight through them when the 'flechette' round separated. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Scout One is in trouble. Extricate mission," the Staff Sergeant said.

"Roger, Sergeant. Disengaging from enemy," Pinion said. His motherbox made the handoff to the Sergeant's motherbox which assigned PFC McClintok, then pushed the update to the LT's motherbox.

"You ready, buddy?" he asked 7741. --scout = 0 buddy-- 7741 said.

"What? Check manufacturing. Tell them to get a volunteer and a harness ready," he said. He opened the channel to the SSG.

"Sergeant Grayeyes, my buddy just let me know Scout-One is running without a buddy, just bare motherbox." Grayeyes swore.

"Get manufacturing to make him a temp harness. We've lost three men, have one of the orphans jump."

"Roger, Sergeant. Out."

"Get our boy. Out." Pinion slowed down to a walk next to the reconfigured drop pod that was operating in manufacturing mode. He saw 7741's icon blink to signify the green mantid was transmitting data. After a minute or two, that Pinion used to look at the maps and fire two recon drones to get a better aerial look, a hatch slid open and a weird bulged harness was held out by a mechanical claw. A green mantid ran across when Pinion grabbed it.

He saw the icon for the armored greenie housing flash that it was open for a second or two. The icon for 2209 appeared. --fat ass-- --plump thorax-- --big head-- --wide foot--"Calm down. Get on the stick," Pinion snapped. He was already moving. Best bet was to go straight up, slam into the infantry fighting vehicles cutting off Scout-One's retreat.

Then through the tanks on the left, past them, hang a right, go through the up armored infantry dug into the rapid deployment bunker system, then around to destroy the power armor troops. He tagged it, annotated it, then uploaded it to SSG Grayeyes before starting to move. --lets get it on-- The ground was shaking and Pan'nikk ducked down further. The car over him was full of holes and was complete wreckage. Twice gravel and slurried ferrocrete asphalt had poured into his makeshift fighting position.

He'd released some 'caterpillars' to sneak out, trailing superconductor fiber optic behind them, getting a look around him. They had him pinned hard. They weren't advancing, although he was flanked on both sides and cut off to the rear. Heavy stuff. Tanks on his left, the big ones with two turrets and six cannon barrels, his motherbox had no data on them but had put them in the 120 metric short tons.

They had stopped to pound on his position with their main guns, but so far were only using war shot, nothing that would make the entire block vanish. He was looking at the rear, where infantry fighting vehicles had disgorged their heavy infantry, which had run through the buildings and dug in, while the IFV's were raking his position with their autocannon. One of the building walls burst, battlesteel struts and ferrocrete exploding across the street.

The cloud hadn't even settled when one of the IFV's suddenly bisected, the two halves cartwheeling away from each other. One was kicked by a massive figure and hit the other IFV, causing both to explode. The armor wasn't moving the way Pan'nikk expected. The big 5. 5 meter power armor moved fast, dodging, spinning, shifting angles. It looked like it was almost skating as it nimbly moved out of the way of cannon fire. Pan'nikk saw the operator didn't bother to avoid the Nookie infantry, just ran through them.

What the battlescreen didn't cause to explode still flew away shedding pieces or somehow hacked into pieces. His motherbox ID'd the armor through the distortion of the battlescreen. General Atomic Systems Hobgoblin IV Medium Assault Armor. The armor moved out of his caterpillar's view. Ten seconds later a tank flew into view, at least ten meters up, shedding tracks and parts. It bounced off the top of the other tanks, causing parts to explode from both.

He saw a battlescreen shielded suit of armor grab a tank and use it to smash another, still moving. It moved out of his view. GRASERS howled as they sundered the air over his hair. They hit the battlescreen and made it flare up again. The power armor looked like it was made of clear glass squares with blurred contents. The power armor threw a tank back. Pan'nikk saw it bounce into the Nookie power armor troops, which were being suppressed by third squad of the platoon.

The amount of firepower being put out by the Terran suits made his eyes water. The big suit fired a handfull of 2. 75" rockets and followed it up with a set of rocket boosted 40mm anti-armor shells. Then it was out of Pan'nikk's view. Pan'nikk checked the view from his forward caterpillars. The dug in infantry was covered by a dust cloud. One of the armored infantry flew out of the dust cloud, shedding limbs, the screaming torso bouncing off the ground just in front of the caterpillar camera.

Pan'nikk knew his eyes were wide open. The power armors on his right started exploding. There was a THRRUUUUM as a set of grav impactors went off in a chain, shredding free the fronts of the buildings and pounding it into a foot tall compressed pile. The power armors flattened and fluids spurted from them when the grav impactor's energy was spent.

Out of the dust cloud the Hobgoblin suit, marked with PV2 Pinion and the platoon's unit nomenclature, slowly moved forward in the exaggerated method of moving the heavier suits used. I complained that my heavy assault armor was reclassified as scout armor, Pan'nikk thought to himself. Then I find out that the primary weapon for these suits is a 105mm or 155mm cannon. The oncoming suit's 155mm's barrel was retracted and pointed up. As Pan'nikk watched it launched a drone canister straight up.

It burst open at 1000m up, deploying thousands of insect sized drones. The armor grabbed the car and slung it out of the way.

"Hey, Scout," the armor said, using external speakers.

"Looks a might tight in there."

"Got pinned," Pan'nikk said, climbing out.

"Happens to the best of us from what I hear," the armor said. It held out an odd piece of machinery.

"Turn around." Pan'nikk turned around. He felt something rock him in place. EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE DETECTED ENGINEER CODES VALID SYNCHING DRIVES DONE OPENING PROTECTIVE HOUSING"Hold still," Pinion said. The other green mantid came into view, climbing up over his shoulder. The ID 2209 appeared as the greenie, in full armor, ran down his arm and into the strapon component. The clamshell closed. >LOGGING ON ENGINEER >2209, TECHNICAL SPECIALIST GRADE SIX, COMBAT ENGINEER (POWER ARMOR) LOGGED IN --you there-- appeared.

"Uh, yeah." --armor in shit shape cooling out of balance got thermal shock on your right aft nanoforge got bad layer of slush in ammo forge--"Oh." Pan'nikk really didn't want the greenie to try to second guess him. --dogbrain vi inop looks like never used out of box--"No, I don't like someone second guessing me," Pan'nikk said. The big Terran turned and looked around slowly.

"Huh." --didnt teach you in training to use vi--"Uh... is that a question? No. They didn't," Pan'nikk said.

"Uh, what are you looking at, Private?" --so your stupid--"Hey!" The big Terran slowly lifted one arm.

"We have tanks and mech support coming in fast. Either we get a move on and fall back or we relocate soonest," he said.

"Hand me off the imagery," Pan'nikk said. The images opened up in a window, feed from dozens, hundreds of microdrones that had a life expectancy measured in minutes.

"Scout-One requesting fire for effect. Enemy tanks and mechs in the open," he said over the dedicated channel.

"Fire mission incoming. Call out corrections as needed," the heavily synthesized voice.

"Let's get back to the platoon," Pinion said. --need coolant slush and nanite recycle need armor repair-- Pan'nikk just nodded, knowing nobody could actually see him. He followed the big Terran armor. Must be nice to have all the weaponry in the universe and battlescreens thick enough to fry an egg on, he thought. Pinion looked up at the rearview bar on his HUD. The Scout was moving behind him, his battlescreen at low power. The scout's armor was pretty beat up.

Lotta balls to go in wearing tinfoil and grease and hoping you move too fast to catch.