First Contact

Chapter 979: The Shadows of Twilight

Bit.nek looked down at the wreckage in front of him, from his perch on a stable section of the only semi-intact skyraker.

It looked to Bit.nek like the pod's braking system hadn't fully engaged. The courthouse had collapsed around the pod, the buildings facing the courthouse were damaged, windows blown out and marble facing blown off the external walls. The parking lot was full of damaged vehicles and debris.

There weren't many deaders lurching around the area, which was one good point.

Bit.nek moved back over to where the squad was standing by the elevator shaft.

"Strongest point of a building is the elevator shaft," Bit.nek said. "Has to do with structural design," he knelt down, setting down a small marble that clicked and projected a 3D holographic map.

"We'll drop down the shaft, go through the basement parking area to the maintenance tunnels. Tunnels to parking garage, garage to basement," he said. "We should be able to clear the rubble in an hour or so by hand."

He looked up. "Doublecheck your weapons. Make sure you have the right barrel locked in, right ammo locked in, and are set for subsonic velocity," he said.

"Why new barrels?" PFC Zwerktik asked.

"Bullets are rectangles. Square to carry the most caloric kinetic energy," Bit.nek said. He checked his own ammo. "Raw iron square slugs, 1:7 barrel twist, 325 m/s velocity since speed of sound in this planet's atmosphere is 375 m/s."

"How do you know all this?" LT Ilvarwazz asked.

Bit.nek just shrugged. "Picked it up, I guess," he answered. He lifted up the SMG and double-checked the battered weapon.

"You just printed that weapon out, why does it look to be in such poor condition?" the LT asked.

"I scanned my old one and loaded the template into my personal data storage to bring with me," Bit.nek said. "Even has the scuffs on it," he tapped the side. "Probably should clean it again after this."

"Why not a new one?" the LT asked.

"Carried this one for over thirty years. Yanked it out of a deader's hands back when I was fighting next to the Warfather to shut down the hypercom," Bit.nek said. He gave a sudden grin, knowing the fact his faceplate was transparent would let everyone see his expression. "Good weapon, right here. I know I can depend on it."

"Can't you depend on a new one instead of using a creation engine to build an exact replica of a weapon in poor condition?" the LT asked.

Bit.nek shrugged. "New one doesn't feel right," he said. He let go of the SMG and let the magtap system yank it back against his hip, then checked his cutting bar.

"Steel chains, iron teeth, make sure the sharpening block in the engine housing has been replaced by the salt lick like I showed you," he said.

Everyone nodded.

"Make sure you backup chain is the same way," he said.

More nods.

He put it back on his hip, moving over to the M318 gunner. "Remember, you have to cut loose, you shoot waist high, we'll worry about cleaning up any survivors. Right to left, left to right."

The M318 gunner just nodded, swallowing. He moved back over to the 3D map.

"We go in with clear face shields, so we can see each other," Bit.nek said. "Remember, these things can bite through the warsteel laminate, all the way to the kinetic shock sleeve, and their grip is strong enough to deform your armor," he motioned at nothing. "It's a combination of the phasic energy and the fact their Terrans," he tapped the hologram. "If you remember nothing else, remember that we're about to go into tunnels and underground areas that have a high chance of the universe's premiere pack predator lurking around. We'll be fighting Terrans, and nothing you have ever experienced can prepare you for it."

He cocked his wrist, bringing up the image of a deader done in red line-art. "Alive, Terrans are extremely bad news. Dead, they're only slightly less terrible. Dead, they ignore casualties, the only mortal injury is a direct brain shot, they don't feel pain, exhaustion, or any type of fear and anxiety. Their phasic levels are lower, but entirely concentrated on finding and killing their prey."

He wiped away the image and looked up at the squad.

"That would be us," he said. He looked back down and started highlighting sections. "We drop down, we head through the underground parking garage to this section," he highlighted the wall. "We'll blow the wall, shaped inversion charge will suck the ferrocrete right out into the parking garage. It's only a meter thick wall, so we should be able to do it with one set of charges," he tapped the corridor. "We move through these maintenance tunnels."

"Why not a straight shot?" the LT asked.

"Straight shot goes through several rooms, goes by several open areas. I don't want to step out of a doorway and into a mob," Bit.nek said. "Our route keeps us away from rooms and large open areas," he tapped the wall that met up to the underground parking garage. "We blow the wall here. We'll use a standard shape charge, that way the shrapnel will clear a path if the garage is mobbed up. Through the garage, into the basement section. We'll have to take this route to get close, but right here is where the TOC pod only has about four meters of rubble between the basement and the pod. Every other area is collapsed rooms and at least fifteen meters."

He scooped up the marble and made a tossing motion, watching everyone's icons to make sure their armor loaded the map.

"Red and silver HUD only. No quantum commo. Wired, whisker laser, or infrasonic only," Bit.nek said. He tightened his jaw. "For the love of Menhit, maintain noise discipline. Sometimes these things home in on you talking to yourself in your armor," he patted his cutting blade. "You will get in CQC range of these things. They will try to rip you out of your armor, rip you limb from limb. If you panic, then they will win."

"I'll take point. Remember, they can sense the living. It depends on how torpid they are or if they're somewhere or have something they wanted badly in life whether or not they'll come looking for you, but if one does, the others will follow, wondering what the other one wants," Bit.nek said. "We'll use IR lighting," he said. "Terrans can't see into the infrared spectrum."

That got nods.

"Run a check on your Icarus systems," Bit.nek said, moving over to the elevator doors.

One by one the icons flashed.

"LT, you're second," Bit.nek said. He pushed open the doors, leaned in, and slapped a laser repeater on the "I'll play jump master."

That got more icons flashing.

Bit.nek stepped in.

--wheeeee-- 299 sent as they plunged three hundred stories.

Right at the end, only five meters up, the Icarus system kicked in and he felt his velocity drop and he landed in the standard pose. Knee and fist down, head down, bring the head up and look around.

He wrenched open the doors and looked around.

Vehicles, but no apparent threats.

"Keep an eye out on our motion detectors," Bit.nek said.

--roger roger--

He aimed his whisker laser up and saw it lock onto the repeater.

"LT, jump," he said.

The LT dropped down, the gauzy wings flaring for a second.

"Move out of the shaft. No more than five meters. Finger on the trigger," Bit.nek said.

The LT nodded tightly, bringing his rifle around and moving it from safe to semi.

One by one the others jumped down, the heavy weapons element dropping fifth.

Bit.nek and the LT made ten.

"Leave the doors open. I don't want to come back running, open them up, and find a nasty surprise," Bit.nek said.

"That ever happen?" PV2 Jakartrik asked.

"Once was enough," Bit.nek said. "I'm on point. Martichak, you're next. Five meter intervals. Odd check right, even check left. Engage only in your target area, do not switch target areas if we are engaged. Maintain radio silence."

The icons blinked and Bit.nek looked around.

The parking garage was silent. The lights were dim and flickering, glow-strip backups for the nanite light generation, which was offline.

"What's this glitter on the vehicles?" SGT Llremtil asked, reaching toward a vehicle's hood. The black paint was glittering like fairy dust had been scattered on it.

"Don't touch!" Bit.nek snapped.

The SGT pulled back.

"It could be alarmed," Bit.nek said. "Last thing we need is a car alarm to go off and pull every deader for twelve blocks down on us."

The SGT nodded. The LT's icon turned into a frowny face and radiated little arcs of electricity icons at the SGT's icons.

"It's the soup. Nanites got taken out by the EMP, I racked it up to 900 watts. Enough to kill everything," Bit.nek said. "Move out."

There was silence as they jogged through the garage, the whining of servos and the thudding of the boots as well as the clinking of gear on gear or gear on armor sounding thunderous to Bit.nek.

"They sound like someone running change in a dryer," Bit.nek mumbled.

The squad reached the far end of the garage and Bit.nek moved up to the wall, using his indirect fire laser range finder to make sure he was in the right spot. He motioned PFC Krk.Mak up to him and dug the charges out of the other troop's pack, quickly putting them in place. One at each corner, two along each up and down line, one in the middle of the bottom - top line, then the inversion charge in the middle.

He stepped back, spooling out wire, motioning at everyone to stand behind pillars.

""Fire in the hole," he said, using external speakers.

He clacked the igniter in his hand three times rapidly.

The explosion had a strange sucking sound attached to it as the implosion charge of the inversion munition went off, pulling the explosion toward the charge rather than away. Gravel and chunks of ferrocrete showered into the parking garage and endosteel rebar tumbled across the garage, striking sparks.

For a long moment there was silence as the dust cleared from where the charges went off.

A shriek sounded in the distance, echoing.

Another shriek answered.

"We need to move fast, they know we're here now," Bit.nek said.