First Contact

Chapter 978: The Shadows of Twilight

"I have seen many different motivations driving different soldiers. A desire to protect - their families, their country, their values. Some enlist out of a vague, abstract sense of duty. Some, to give meaning to their lives. Some, even though we try to filter them out, hope to slake their bloodlust. It usually works, much like a podling losing its taste for sweets for a while after overindulging.

But only once have I seen a soldier fight, and win, simply because - and pardon the language - he could not be arsed to lose." - General Tut'el Telkan Marine Corps (ret) , Too Soon: Memoirs of an Atrekna War Veteran, first published in The Jawnconnor Chronicles, Issue CXXIV, Leebaw Press Conglomerate

Some nights I wake up and stare at the ceiling in the darkness. A simple truth keeps me awake, one that I do not understand. A truth that, to me, proves that the universe is malevolent.

I survived.

When I did not care if I survived. When I had nothing more to live for than lashing out at the universe to make it hurt as bad as I hurt, I survived. No matter what I threw myself into, I survived.

When so many others didn't.

I can hear the malevolent universe laughing at me in the darkness. - SP4 Grefta'rk, Leebaw Commandos, first published in The Jawnconnor Chronicles, Issue CLVI, Leebaw Press Conglomerate

I did what I did. - PFC Bit.nek

As soon as the launcher kicked against his armored shoulder, a plume of fire and smoke trailing the rocket, Bit.nek went down on one knee, putting his fist against the rooftop. He ramped up his forward battlescreen, ignoring the fact it tore apart the ledge at the edge of the roof. He sunk his grav-anchor into the massive main support beam his armor could detect only two feet below him, 'twisting' the grav-spike to lock himself in better. He dropped the launcher next to him and used his left arm to shield his face.

The rocket suddenly streaked off as the solid fuel engine ignited and the missile went supersonic. The timer on the front winding down.

At just over two miles the winding timer clicked and the warhead's fairing popped free, allowing the submunitions to deploy. Three small munitions kicked in sprint drives, racing ahead of the other three. The largest of the slower three kicked in a faster drive. All of them altered course.

Two seconds.

The rounds all reached the end of their attack runs when the mechanical timers ran down.

Two point five seconds.

The outer ones, in a rough pentagon around the field, went off first.

10kt atomic warheads with a salted jacket. The explosions threw out white light first, the explosion from only five hundred meters up slamming a wave of superheated air compressed into a solid mass into the dishes. The dishes flattened, chunks exploding outward. The air collapsed back into where the detonation had occurred, pulling up radioactive debris.

Three seconds.

The middle one detonated just as the firestorm from the first five had begun to wane, in between all of them. The outside explosions were magnified in fury even as the center munition exploded at fifteen thousands tonnes of TNT.

The white flash seemed to stutter slightly.

Radiation lashed out, first from the ignition rings, secondly from the primary bursting charge.

The thermal spike hit on the heels of the radiation. Trees and bushes burst into flame in the suburbs, the buildings catching on fire. Cars exploded as the batteries superheated and detonated. The flash hit the skyrakers, hot enough that the tar on the rooftop around Bit.nek steamed and bubbled. He could see the suburbs explode as the blast wave hit and the massive overpressure wave ripped apart the houses and small business buildings.

--oh god oh god oh god--

The blast wave hit the skyrakers.

The windows on the skyrakers facing the blast exploded inward, the safety macroplas destroyed by first radiation, then the thermal pulse, then the shockwave. Faux-granite facing exploded off the building from the energy transfer and the shockwave.

The entire three hundred story skyraker that Bit.nek was on top of groaned as it leaned away from the blast.

--inertia and gravity preserve us--

But skyrakers were designed to flex and move, and while it was outside of normal tolerance the building was also designed to handle storm.

It held, even as internal components snapped and warped and the internal objects where whipped through the building, ripping through walls, bouncing off of beams hidden inside the walls, to slam against the macroplas on the other side and shatter it.

Bit.nek's battlescreen crackled and snarled as it shunted the blast wave to either side via magnetics, grav focusing, and energy shields.

Every window facing the blast for nearly a mile exploded inward. Facing was shredded from buildings. Any building that wasn't hardened leaned too far away from the blast and collapsed as the internal load bearing members sheered.

The skyraker that Bit.nek was on leaned back toward the blast.

--eeeeeeeee--

The debris and dust cloud rolled over him.

Bit.nek waited till the count of twenty and disengaged the grav-spike.

The support beam groaned underneath him.

--how we alive-- 299 asked.

"Not my first rodeo," Bit.nek said softly. He looked around him. The debris cloud was thick with heavy metal and he tried a microwave ping.

Complete hash.

"No way any surviving uplinks are going to work, and the local planetary defense projectors are more than likely offline. Anything we didn't take out, Fleet should be able to hammer from orbit," he said. He turned and looked back toward where Kilo Company was at. "We need to get back."

--ok-- 299 said. --you do this lots-- he asked.

"Used to pack at least one red-pill in my shoulder launcher," Bit.nek said. "Shit got nasty out in the bush."

--uh yeah--

Bit.nek moved to the far edge, the dust keeping him from seeing too far.

"Switch to ultrasonics and infrasonics for mapping. We need to jump back," he said. "Fionna will be stunned, hours or days, but Mister Hungry will have been snapped out of his torpid state. It'll be a few hours before any exposed to the radiation burst have their skin and organs turn to liquid shit."

--uh huh--

After a moment the mapping system showed him what buildings were still intact and how well.

Bit.nek plotted a fast route back, turning the route into an arc that would take him within a quarter mile of the courthouse building the TOC pod was buried in.

He moved back, got a running start, and hurtled himself into the void, trusting his armor's brain box and his green mantid battle buddy.

Fifteen minutes later he was crouched down on the broken off stub of a skyraker, staring at the dusty air.

"Download working?" he asked.

--slow slow analogue UHF digital faster-- 299 said. --two seconds instead of five minutes--

"Two seconds is long enough for at least four shades to hide in between the 1's and 0's and climb into our armor with us," Bit.nek said.

--yes-- 299 said. --just bitching--

"Hey, it's your Digital Omnimessiah and Saint Trucker right to bitch," Bit.nek chuckled.

--done-- 299 said. --will start decompressing will take time--

"I trust you," Bit.nek said.

--you do but scared and screamed when atomic badda boom went off-- 299 said.

"It's OK to be afraid, just do your job," Bit.nek said. He moved to the edge of the skeletal structure of the ruined skyraker.

--you not get scared-- 299 asked.

"No," Bit.nek said. He launched off, flying through the air, passing between two structural beams, and landing on a section of intact flooring just long enough to launch himself off again.

--why not-- 299 asked.

"I've seen some shit, buddy," Bit.nek said. "I was a kid when the Precursor Autonomous War Machines came to Telkan."

--oh not have to talk about it-- 299 said.

Bit.nek shrugged as he held onto the intact facade on the 85th floor of a skyraker. "It happened. I can't change it."

--was it bad-- 299 asked.

Bit.nek climbed up the side of the building with long vertical leaps that carried him up five stories per leap. He paused on the roof.

"Yeah. Before Rosey Palm and her sisters showed up, I had a big family. Brothers, sisters, broodmommies, aunts, uncles, cousins, mom, dad," he said. He sprinted across the roof and flung himself across the gap, landing on the opposite roof.

"At the end of it, I was unharmed. Not so much as a scratch," he said after he landed. He took a second to stretch in the power armor. "But it was just me. Nobody else," he paused. "I saw them all die."

He moved over to the edge and ran the infrasonic chirps to map the next set of jumps.

"They all died badly."

He moved back and threw himself back into the gap. When he landed, he moved across the roof slowly, taking the time to map it.

"The Warfather, he put me on a transport himself. Handed me a purrboi, got me moved to a civilian refugee base," Bit.nek said. "For about a month, all I did was stare at everything. My brain was shut down. I just sat there, petting the purrboi and staring off into space."

--reliving--

"Yeah," Bit.nek said.

He took two more jumps before he paused.

"Since I snapped out of it," he said. "I've never been scared again," he paused for a moment. "I don't feel much of anything, to be honest. I mean, when I'm fighting, it's like I'm alive. When I'm causing shit, I can kind of feel stuff," he just shrugged again. "When I'm visiting the Conex Brothel, I can almost feel it again, what it was like to have someone love me. When I'm drunk, I can feel those feelings inside of me, kind of touch them, but that's it. Other than that, I'm not really happy or sad, not really scared or worried. Either I'll die or I won't. No reason to worry or be afraid."

He took off on a run and jumped, hitting the side of the skyraker and slowing himself with armored hands and a twist of the grav-anchor. He hung there for a minute.

"So, no. I'm not scared," he said. "Not anymore."

--oh-- 299 said. --sorry--

"Not your fault, buddy. Nothing you can do. It is what is," Bit.nek said. He climbed over the ledge and onto the roof.

The four guys standing by the ledge cursed, moving back.

"Miss me?" Bit.nek asked the shocked members of Kilo Company.

-----

Lieutenant Colonel Ssalressk listened to the kobold mortar platoon OIC, Lieutenant Fraktexin, as the 1LT shook his head.

"I mean, he talks to the ammo, sir. Like it's alive and can hear him. Told me to assign some Privates to talk to the ammo, soothe it, tell it that its time is coming and it'll be able to kill the enemy soon," the LT said. "Talking to the ammo, sir, that's a bit further than drawing a dick on the back of your helmet and naming your weapon with the name of an old girlfriend."

The LTC nodded slowly. "Indeed it is, Lieutenant," the Colonel said solemnly. "Was he standing between the 4.2 and 4.7 inch mortar rounds and the sixty and eighty millimeter mortar rounds?"

"Yes. That and the fuze types," the LT said.

The LTC nodded again. "A thing I have learned, Lieutenant, and that was probably taught to you in school and you have forgotten it, thinking that it was just an amusing anecdote told to gullible green lieutenants, is that Imperial and Metric armaments do not like each other because each one believes they are the real measuring system and the other is just a faker."

The LT frowned for a moment, then nodded. "I heard that. We all thought it was a funny joke."

"The Major obviously believes differently," the LTC said carefully. "I will speak to him as well as keep an eye on him to make sure that it is just an idiosyncrasy."

"And the Privates?" The LT asked.

LTC Ssalressk thought for a moment. "It won't hurt anything to have one or two privates on profile walk through and soothe the ammo, just in case the Major is right."

LT Fraktexin nodded, privately wondering if the Colonel had taken a head wound.

"Carry on, Lieutenant," the Colonel said.

The LT ducked his head and moved out of the TOC.

LTC Ssalressk turned and moved back through the mylar strips and into the main Tactical Operations and Analysis section of the TOC.

The holotanks were online and drone feed was coming from the high speed drones that he had ordered out to get a look at the satellite field, the analog signal routed through repeater drones that were hovering on station.

"Dust and debris is keeping us from getting too fine of detail on the area," a Technical Specialist said. "Between that and low DPI optics, the image is grainy at best."

"Put it up," the Colonel said.

The middle of the field was a crater, with overlapping craters touching the middle crater.

"I'd say the target was eliminated," the Colonel said. He turned to Major Tut'el. "Your boy is effective if nothing else."

Major Tut'el nodded stiffly. "Standard star cluster configuration. The weapon was in the 65kt range, but the way it was fired off pushed it up to 126kt according to seismic analysis."

Colonel Ssalressk flicked his ears. "Your boy knows how to get it done."

Major Tut'el nodded. "Identify the largest threat to ongoing operations and eliminate it with the least effort," he turned and looked at the Colonel. "With the fact this is a TXE world, he's not worried about civilian casualties."

"Enemy presence?" the Colonel asked, turning to one of the analysts.

"Light, sir. Mostly armored units, but they aren't engaging most of the time," the tech said. "They're patrolling a certain route, we're not sure why."

Major Tut'el moved up and looked at the route.

"They're on automatic. Computer control," he said. He shook his head. "If they were crewed, Fionna killed them."

The Colonel nodded. "That tracks."

He turned back to the holotank.

"Time until the fast attack grav-skimmers reach the last Echo Company elements?" he asked.

"Nine minutes. Once they're picked up, they'll be back in just over an hour," someone said.

"Very good," he looked at Tut'el. "We're getting this under control, Major."

"Yes, sir," Tut'el said.

-----

"...because placing him under arrest was the dumbest shit I've seen a butterbar try to do, and I've seen a lot of stupid shit in eighty years in the Confederate Army," SFC Lok was saying, his voice cold.

"He used an atomic," LT Ilvarwazz tried to protest.

"To wipe out an enemy spawn point that was miles in size," LT Nrawk answered.

Bit.nek ignored it, kneeling down in front of the hologram emitter.

--how you know-- 299 asked.

"Seismic mapping charges would have worked, but since we were popping off a star cluster atomic, there would be multiple shockwaves moving through the ground, allowing the ground mappers to figure out what was underground. The shockwaves would shift the rubble, making it compact down as the movement allowed rubble to fill air spaces," Bit.nek said.

He traced a line.

"OK, we go in through this parking garage. Take this tunnel for a half mile, then into the hardened basement in the bottom of the building," he said. He highlighted the route. "Looks like the TOC is in the middle of the bottom of the underground parking garage. Probably surrounded by debris from the floors it blew through."

--long way map fuzzy through there-- 299 warned.

"We'll need to take a squad," Bit.nek said. "We've gotta get Top, the XO, and the CO out of there."

He looked around at the members of Kilo Company that had survived and linked back up.

Two hundred and eleven. Meaning that fifty were KIA or MIA.

Bit.nek could appreciate the irony that his squad leader was among the number.

If he hadn't ejected us from the drop pod, we'd all be fine, he thought.

He looked back at the map. "All right, 299, load up the five routes."

LT Nrawk stopped next to Bit.nek as the Telkan Marine got to his feet, brushing off his gauntlets.

"What's the plan?" the LT asked.

"Take a squad, rescue Top, the CO, and the XO," he said.

The LT nodded. "Read me in."

Bit.nek went over the plan.

Move by rooftop to the parking garage. Down through the parking garage, into the maintenance tunnel, to the underground parking garage of the courthouse, maneuver to rendezvous with the TOC pod. Clear the debris and pop the pod, freeing Kilo Company's command.

The LT looked it over and nodded.

"I'm going," LT Ilvarwazz said.

Bit.nek just shrugged.

"Someone is going to have to ensure the private doesn't decide to dig them out with an atomic bursting charge," LT Ilvarwazz said.

"Fine with me," Bit.nek said. "We'll be going light. Eight men, one M318 gunner, everyone else with rifles. Double ammunition. Close quarters loadout."

LT Ilvarwazz just nodded. "Fine."

Bit.nek looked back down at the hologram as the LT moved off to select the troops of Kilo Company that would be going with.

"Want me to go too, offset Ilvarwazz?" LT Nrawk asked.

"No. It looks like Battalion and Brigade are moving fast drones through the city. They should make contact soon," Bit.nek said.

"You think you'll pull it off?" LT Nrawk asked.

Bit.nek nodded.

"Tell them to bring their cutting bars."