First Contact

Chapter 469: Dead Blood

Chapter 469: Dead Blood

"Terrans, nay, humans are defined by the phrase 'how far will you go to attain victory? What will you suffer and do to yourselves to achieve victory when all is lost?" - Terran Diplomat Dreams of Something More speaking to the Lanaktallan Unified Council.

The flag bridge was a study in quiet chaotic order. It was not dealing with orbital mechanics, a fight for a stellar system, but rather was being repurposed to oversee the entire theater of ground combat. In the middle of the flag bridge were multiple holotanks, all of them displaying data. High ranking flag officers from multiple races studied the data and examined the maps.

There was not a single human present.

The commander of the fleet, Admiral Shtuklar, stared at the holotank that showed the entire protocontinent on the surface of the planet. The map was marked with not only geographical features, industrial locations, population centers, but also by who had control of what and where combat was taken place.

Things were looking bad to Admiral Shtuklar, who had never commanded ground side troops before.

Nine hours had gone by. In that time he'd seen the terrain around First Telkan Marine Division change multiple times, repeating itself three times so far. Casey's dust cloud and munitions detonations had begun moving toward the northwest, toward the mountains, but the Terran was still out of contact. The Atomic Hooves, First Lanaktallan Tank Division, was engaged in combat and being slowly forced to steadily retreat in the face over overwhelming enemy forces. First Armored Recon Division was finding it harder and harder to move through the spaces between enemy forces the enemy spreading out further and further, rapidly taking territory with what appeared to be an unending supply of reinforcements. The Treana'ad War Hordes were the only thing keeping it from being a disaster, the massive insectiod warriors advancing into the enemy in huge numbers. Eight Hordes had made planetfall, three more were in process of transit, and the last twelve were preparing to deploy.

But the enemy was endless.

For seven hours orbital bombardment had been useless. The hits would register but the interference would clear to show that the bombardment had apparently never occurred.

Admiral Shtuklar wasn't sure what to do as he turned to General NoDra'ak, who was staring at a monitor, the life support equipment attached to his robotic therapy frame beeping quietly.

"We could lose this," Admiral Shtuklar said softly.

"No," Smokey No said, lighting a cigarette. "It's going to be a tough fight, we'll win, but it's going to take much longer."

"I wish we had not lost V Corps," Admiral Shtuklar said. "The sheer firepower would come in handy."

NoDra'ak nodded slowly, staring at the holotank. "We don't have the troops to drop into this section," he said, highlighting the eastern fifth of the protocontinent. "The enemy is more or less unopposed here, and I believe that is what is allowing them to gain more and more troops somehow."

"Admiral, General, I've got something weird here," one of the techs called out.

The two officers turned to look and the Rigellian female tossed it up on the holotank.

All of the vehicles in V Corps were undergoing self-tests. The armories were being emptied out.

General Trucker's authorization code burned dully.

Ge'ermo'o, still acting as General A'armo'o's attache to the Terrans, stared that words. For some reason they made his flanks prickle up.

Major General of the Iron Manuel G. Trucker, 3rd Armor - Commanding, 8th Infantry - Pro Tem Commander

Ge'ermo'o thought to himself that those simple words should not seem so coldly malevolent.

"How long ago was he released from the medical bay?" Admiral Shtuklar asked.

The analyst consulted her war station. "Just under nine hours, Admiral," she said. She looked up. "He's opened up the morgue, it was assumed that he was just going to witness his dead troops."

General NoDra'ak suddenly felt fear prickle up and down his damaged left side.

"Inform the General I would like to speak with him," Admiral Shtuklar said. He turned and looked back at the holotank holding the planet in it. "We need to figure out a way to stop the invaders from operating with impunity in this area," he said, tapping the large section that was marked as under enemy control.

Ge'ermo'o nodded. "I wish we had the military forces, but alas, we do not," he said softly.

"Sir, V Corps force's vehicles are being loaded into drop pods and drop cradles," an analyst said. He made an odd sound that Ge'ermo'o couldn't identify. "Mantid engineers have reported that they've done extensive modifications to the retrothrusters."

"What kind of modifications?" Admiral Shtuklar asked.

"The engines are normally calibrated and shielded to minimize radiation output at max thrust, but the Mantids were ordered to remove the interlocks and safeties and ramp up the radiation output beyond safe levels," the analyst said.

"Why would someone order that?" another analyst asked.

Ge'ermo'o knew why. To turn the retrorockets into a weapon. Fry the landing area and anything near it.

NoDra'ak's implant pinged. A high security authorization request.

He knew what it would be before he even opened it.

The flag bridge seemed to fade away around him as he stared at the request on his optic nerve interface.

It had last been used during the Orion's Belt Conflict, nearly two thousand years ago.

But this was the first time the prerequisites for it had been met since then.

It was monstrous. It was unthinkable.

It was wholly human.

Without any outward sign of his trepidation and nervousness, no, let's be honest with ourselves, shall we? His fear, he authorized it but attached a requirement that General Trucker authorize it officially, from the flag bridge.

He relaxed in the therapy harness and closed his eyes. Ten hours of anti-coagulants and medical nanite treatment and he was finally able to breathe down his left side. It felt thick and sticky, but he wasn't feeling like he was on the edge of suffocation.

It felt like his left legs were sprawled out but he ignored the sensation.

His left legs had been shattered and crushed when he had flown across the bridge to impact the wall when the crash translation had occurred.

Ge'ermo'o watched as the terrain around First Telkan changed from forest to urban again. He sighed, blinking all six eyes and holding them closed for a moment. He knew what was happening down there.

The Telkan Marine Division would use atomic weaponry to shatter windows and destroy buildings as well as knock out the power before deploying chemical weapons in order to maximize the casualties.

But if they did not, the enemy would 'harvest' the long dead natives, increasing the effectiveness of their autonomous war machines.

General Ge'ermo'o was secretly relieved, deep inside, that he had not been the one to make that decision. The Telkan Officer, one First Lieutenant Vuxten, had come up with the battleplan and transmitted it to the Fleet.

Ge'ermo'o knew that the Telkans could not hear them.

The message came in again, repeating itself for the fourth time.

The thudding of heavy footsteps followed the swoosh of the elevator grav-lift door opening. Ge'ermo'o opened his eyes and felt them widen in shock.

General Trucker was moving forward. His uniform was, as usual before the battle, spotless and presentable, with starched creases.

Only instead of adaptive camouflage he was wearing OD green cloth.

The human's eyes were bloodshot, blood glimmered at the bottom of his eyes, and there was smeared blood on his cheeks.

"You've looked better," General NoDra'ak said.

"Felt better," Trucker answered. To Ge'ermo'o it was obvious that the human's tracheal voicebox implant was malfunctioning. The speech was buzzing, atonal, and rough, as if the speaker was blown out.

"What do the doctor's say?" NoDra'ak asked.

Trucker shrugged. "They've got me on immunosuppressants right now," he said. "They estimate that I may or may not survive after ninety-six hours. It's a twenty percent chance I'll survive."

"You've faced worse odds," NoDra'ak waved at the holotank. "Have you seen the circumstances?"

Trucker nodded slowly. He pointed at Casey's blot. "He's about to move southwest."

A single tiny droplet of blood oozed out his left eye, only moving halfway down his cheek before it was gone, having left behind all its volume on the flesh between. Ge'eremo'o watched it, fascinated.

Trucker moved up to an unmanned console and punched in some commands.

Ge'ermo'o watched half the analysts suddenly grow still. A Telkan midshipman's eyes opened wide and he kept looking for his board to the burly human and back.

"V Corps combat elements will be moving to engage the enemy here," Trucker said, highlighting the patch where no forces were able to engage the enemy. "Hard drop, dead center. Heavy infantry to support the tanks, light and medium infantry will dig in to protect the artillery and rocket systems."

"General, uh, you do realize that all of the humans in V Corps are dead, right?" Admiral Shtuklar said gently.

"Yes," Trucker said, the one word buzzing but still sharp and intent. The burly human looked at the Admiral as he raised a plas bottle and spit into it.

Ge'ermo'o noticed thick strands and thin layers of blood mixed in with the saliva and cud-juice.

"Who will pilot the vehicles? What infantry?" Admiral Shtuklar asked.

"The Vnaras," Trucker said.

Ge'ermo'o turned slightly to look when one of the lights at the edge of the flag bridge flickered.

"What you're talking about..." Smokey 'No let his words trail off.

"Is covered in doctrine," Trucker said, his voice modulator still roug sounding. "We're Third Armor and Eighth Infantry. We're V Corps. We are the world enders, the world burners. We are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and none may survive our wrath."

Several beings inhaled sharply and Ge'ermo'o wondered if the sudden smell of freshly spilled blood he could faintly smell had anything to do with it.

General NoDra'ak nodded slowly. "We have MAD doctrine and always have," the large insect said slowly, lighting a cigarette.

To Ge'ermo'o the lights seemed to flicker and dim in the flag bridge. The Lanaktallan officer saw the uncomfortableness, the fear, the revulsion on many Space Force officer's faces. He looked up the simple word and found himself almost overwhelmed by mythological and religious concepts.

The Admiral speaking pulled his attention away, although Ge'ermo'o did bookmark the data. He was an attentive and studious officer, which is why his men loved him, and the data might prove to be important later.

"General, do you really..." the Admiral started to say. Trucker, his eyes bleeding, blood oozing from his mouth, made a chopping motion with one hand, cutting the Admiral off.

"V Corps does not give up. We are the dead men walking," Trucker snarled. He looked down at the flashing hand print outline on the command console. "We all know this. It's who we are. You know it when you join Victory Corps."

"Victory or death," Admiral Shtuklar said, his voice slightly disbelieving.

"Either is fine," NoDra'ak said.

Ge'ermo'o softly said the words with the Treana'ad warrior, almost as if he knew what the big insect was going to say.

Trucker reached up and tapped the 3rd Armor Division on his right shoulder.

"We are the Third Herd, and It Will Be Done," he snarled.

General NoDra'ak nodded slowly, then looked down at the panel in front of him. He reached out with his right hand, his left hand in a medical container somewhere, and placed his hand on the flashing outline of a hand on the console in from of him.

"Engage the enemy, save the civilians," General NoDra'ak, V Corps, Commanding, ordered, staring at General Trucker.

To Ge'ermo'o there was a low moaning noise, like a Terran female lemur in pain far away.

Trucker nodded. He put his hand on the console. "Orders received, General."

Ge'ermo'o felt as if a cold wind had blown through his soul.

On the TO&E (Table of Organization & Equipment) that was listed on a nearby "UPDATING STATUS" flashed three times.

V CORPS (OLD BLOOD) appeared.

The letters flickered.

V CORPS (DEAD BLOOD)

BLACK CAULDRON NANITE INFUSION UNDERWAY

Ge'ermo'o watched Trucker stiffly walk from the flag bridge.

When he turned back he saw General NoDra'ak looking at him.

"If you had one shot or one opportunity to seize control of the battle or the war in one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip through your fingers?" NoDra'ak asked.

"Victory," Ge'ermo'o said.

NoDra'ak nodded in the subdued atmosphere of the flag bridge. "You are about to see that while Terrans may be defeated, they are never beaten," the Treana'ad said.

Ge'ermo'o moved over next to him, looking at the holotank.

"Not even in death does duty end," Smokey 'No said softly, exhaling smoke from his right feet and the spiracles on the left side of his abdomen.

---------

System Power 9.62%

I wake up. I hurt. Bad. My mouth tastes like cherry nipple gloss from the joygirl on Nexite-7 but I hardly notice through the pain. It's a full body pain, like the time my liquid atmosphere had been past use date. My blood hurts, my bone marrow aches, my joints burn, my nerve endings shiver as they're stretched out.

I've hurt worse. A Mar-gite ripped off one of my arms.

Warning, severe neural damage.

Shutting down

VNARAS OVERRIDE

I could see the words, floating in the darkness.

I could remember. I'd been having beers with the boys. I was going to be rotated out of the Old Blood unit, after all, I'd died on Telkan, but we hadn't gotten a replacement for me yet. I'd just lifted the bottle of narcobrew when everything had suddenly gone black.

Self Test

Did the ship blow up?

Bootstrap 3.14 (c) Syntex Cybernetics Division

Warning, severe chassis damage

Warning, severe implant connection errors

Warning, severe neural damage

Shutting down

VNARAS OVERRIDE

continuing bootstrap

I'd suffered massive damage. Cybernetic linkage damage, long term memory damage. Short term memory damage. Wetware damage. Bioware damage.

The system kept trying to lock out my combat enhancements, but VNARAS OVERRIDE kept flashing and my implants were unlocked.

Finally I could feel my whole body, feel the pain.

My heart wasn't beating.

VNARAS PROTOCOL appeared in my vision.

I suddenly remembered what it was.

A hard kick to my chest and my heart started beating. Sluggish, difficult, but still squishing along.

What is dead cannot ever die but arises again stronger.

----------------

A'armo'o heard the command channel trill and he let go of the TC's gun, kicking the elevator lever and lowering himself into the main battle tank the Terran engineers had designed for the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves.

"General A'armo'o here," the Lanaktallan said.

"Third Armor and Eighth Infantry as well as the majority of V Corps will be landing. Attempt no communication. They will be outside the commo net," A voice said. Lt Commander Haisley-Cotton appeared in his vision, letting him know who the speaker is.

"Then how can I interlock with them if I cannot communicate with them?" A'armo'o asked.

"There will be no interlock with V Corps forces. Avoid contact. Fleet Command, out," the voice said and cut the link.

A'armo'o frowned but kicked the lever to lift himself up again.

His forces had rallied, the heat and slush had dropped.

He was done retreating.

It was time to take the fight to the enemy.

"All Atomic Hooves elements, prepare to advance!" he roared out over his comlink even as he wrapped all four hands around the handles to the 20mm rotary autocannon.

-----------------

"Why the hell not?" Ekret asked.

"Don't know, boss," Bouncy said. "Commo is weird. The message repeated like a dozen times."

"Temporal interference," Ekret snarled. He shook his head. "Whatever's going on, it's eighteen thousand miles away."

---------------

V Corps deployed in one massive drop. No layered drop, no strikes at the defense batteries. Just a screaming fast drop through the atmosphere, each drop pod or cradle leaving behind a black smokey trail as they roared through the atmosphere. They left behind fiery white rings as they broke the sound barrier.

Right before they slammed into the ground the retrorockets fired. Massive ion thrusters ejecting screaming bluish white flame as the antimatter fuel was nearly all consumed. Graviton and inertial compensators howled, taking the load, dropping the impact to a 'mere' 5G.

The sides slammed down.

For long moments nothing happened.

The full High Conclave turned their attention. The howling radiation and the kinetic impact had destroyed servant spawn for miles around the landing points. The enemy had landed in the middle of the Atrekna held areas, disrupting a major reinforcement operation.

Several smaller Quorums reached out, confident that there would be nothing to fear. They could not detect any psychic inhibitors, although the temporal stabilizers, deployed by every one of the enemy units, were already spun up and at full power.

It was simple, they would seize control of the minds of the newest ones and perhaps even set them against their fellows. At the very least, the would be able to shut down the massive temporal stabilizers.

The first one found a mind. Dully glimmering to the Atrekna's senses. Like a damp piece of clay. It reached out, its intellect honed razor sharp, able to slice through mental defenses with ease and allow the tentacles of thought to overwhelm the other creature's mind.

It paused for a moment when it touched the other mind. It felt... off. It left the taste of old, rotted meat in the Atrekna's mouth. The thoughts were slow, sluggish, largely unformed. Instinct was behind it, mostly primal instincts, but some instincts were hammered into the mind from outside sources.

It pushed past the dull, slimy, almost greasy surface thoughts of one of the enemy.

It was like the Atrekna had plunged its feeding tentacles that concealed its mouth into swamp water full of rotted meat, rancid grease, and spoiled vegetables. The thoughts were slow, disconnected, sludge-like.

kill kill kill kill kill kill kill

Just a single urge repeated over and over. A dull whisper, backed by an intense hunger, an unending, never satiated appetite for something.

don't touch me the other mind whispered.

The Atrekna felt cold hands reach for it.

i'm so hungry

The hands tried to grasp the Atrekna's thoughts, tried to pull the Atrekna deeper into the mind it had touched with the intent to overwhelm it.

come and see

The Atrekna's razor sharp intellect and psychic skills worked against it. Before it could disengage that sheer razor sharp and needle point of its psychic abilities penetrated deep into the thing that had grabbed it.

The Atrekna had mastered, confined, or eliminated their primal urges billions of years prior, when their universe had been full of shining galaxies and burning stars. The urge to eat was still present, one of the few primal desires they had been able to overcome.

What the Atrekna grasped by those cold clumsy hands was plunged into was a thick cold morass of primal urges. Not the burning hot urges they had encountered before, something completely alien even to the Atrekna.

A cold, gnawing, consuming desire to kill and eat. No real thought behind it, not even the warmth of primal instinct from a lower life form.

A cold cloying greasy need to devour. Not for sustenance, not to fulfill a biological need.

Just a need to eat. To chew. To devour.

Disconnected images flooded the Atrekna's mind. A hairless primate looking at other hairless primates over some kind of baked good, thick paste-like covering on the baked good, burning candles on top.

Happy birthday whispered in the Atrekna's mind.

Cold emotionless empty sights of cities burning, the white fire of anti-matter bombardment.

The sight of a five limbed creature pulling off the Atrekna's host's arm.

i've been hurt worse drifted into the Atrekna's mind as it struggled to free itself from the cold morass of alien thoughts, empty of desire, no emotion.

The Atrekna screamed, loud, gathering the attention of several other members of the Quorum. Two turned to look as the Atrekna's feeding tentacles squirmed up its own face and plunged into its eyes. As they watched the tentacles pulsated as the Atrekna began injecting digestive enzymes into its own brain.

but i can't remember when was the last coherent thought the Atrekna head before two of its fellows snuffed its brain functions.

To their horror, it stopped feeding on itself, turning to stare at the others. Before they could ask it anything it suddenly screeched and jumped forward, the ends of its fingers wrapped in phasic energy. It grabbed a fellow Atrekna and pulled it close, burrowing its feeding tentacles into its fellow's face, injecting digestive enzymes, slurping up the slurry with other tentacles.

One stepped forward with a blade of psychic energy and cut the one that had suddenly gone feral into to pieces.

The one that had been attacked staggered back, going down on its knees, the psychic energy around it blinking then going out in a puff.

The others stared at it.

For a long moment it was unmoving.

The Quorum began to turn its attention back to the recently landed forces, that had still yet to emerge from the drop vehicles.

The one on its knees suddenly shrieked, looking up. It lunged up, hands reaching for another member, its tentacles around its mouth flailing widely, its mouth open to reveal the circular dentition.

The same one cut it down.

The Quorum looked at one another, then at the two dead, then each other.

Another one reached out, taking control of the mind of one of the servitor species. It send the heavily armored creature, which looked like a large spider with a bloated and hairy body at the front, forward. The radiation was fading, the engines silent on the drop pods.

The sides dropped down and the creature stopped in reflex to the tension that filled the Atrekna controlling it.

Nothing emerged.

After a long moment the Atrekna sent its mindslave forward.

Movement could be seen inside the pod.

The creature stopped again.

What emerged moved jerkily, uncoordinated, as if it had suffered an impairment of some type. It was all in shadow, but the two burning red eyes could be seen.

Another Atrekna checked.

There was no sign of life or intelligence.

The creature moved into the light.

It was one of the feral hairless primates, wearing cloth, carrying weapons.

Its eyes were glazed over, a white film covering the ocular orbs. Blackish blood drooled from its mouth and the Atrekna noticed that it was constantly opening and closing its mouth, gnashing its teeth, as it stumbled forward.

It raised the rifle it was carrying, tucking the butt of the weapon into the shoulder, and fired.

No thought. No intellect. Instinct.

The high-vee armor piercing rounds hit the mindslave, ripping through its armor, sending ichor and vital fluids spewing from the torso as the primate hosed a long burst into it.

The mindslave collapsed.

Another Atrekna felt annoyance as one of the larger drop vehicles finally showed movement.

One of the great tracked armored vehicles rolled out and into the light. A primate was half out of the top hatch, foregoing the armored protection of the massive vehicle.

It brought the sight to the attention of the other members of the Quorum.

It did not match the memories of those who had encountered the primate armored vehicles.

The warsteel was blotchy, almost diseased looking, with long tendrils of what looked like rust or slowly pulsating purplish-black veins. The tracks seemed worn and battered as they clattered with the vehicle's movement. The markings on the side were faded, many obscured. There was no bright sparkling of psychic shielding, just 'heavy' objects holding the temporal stream in place to flow naturally and not at the command of the Atrekna.

The primate half out looked wrong too. The skin was bluish-white. The eyes white. Blood ran from its mouth and it seemed to be gnashing its teeth as it looked around slowly, jerkily.

One of the Quorum reached out to snuff the unprotected mind.

It went still, then began to shiver, then it jerked to its full height, started to collapse, then jerked upright again.

With a screech it turned and lunged at the nearest member of the Quorum. It grabbed its fellow Atrekna and took a huge bite out of its arm, nearly severing.

It took two others to stop it.

The Atrekna watched their fellows closely.

All four Atrekna of the Quorum who had been injured by the crazed one suddenly screeched and looked up from where they had been sitting, nursing the first physical wounds they had ever suffered.

The remainder of the Quorum were ready. They killed the four quickly, cleanly.

One was bitten.

They killed that one too.

More and more armored vehicles had left the pods, moving as a coherent whole.

One of the members of a Conclave felt it. A bright, burning, raving spark. It looked at it, from a 'distance', just observing it.

It gathered the actions of the rest of the primates around it, then reached out further. It began to examine, not the Atrekna themselves, not their minds, but their actions, and not only the actions they were currently taking, but the ones they had taken, and the ones not yet taken.

The entire Conclave gathered their strength.

This, this was the hive leader. Shielded by several layers of psychic protection.

They struck out at the feral primate's primitive mind.

And missed. Instead they plunged into the mind of one near it, thrusting deeply into the greasy cloying clammy feel of rotted meat in cold porridge. Cold hands tried to grab their minds, pull them deeper, tear them apart.

The Conclave separated the connection and tried again.

And missed again. As is the primate had somehow shifted out of the way, presenting some kind of trap for their attack.

They agreed to try once more.

They had to stop whatever was coordinating the attack. The massive vehicles were slamming straight into the Atrekna mindslaves, into the Devourers, into the slave spawn, using their bulk and mass as well as their weapons to crush the spawn that had been pulled from one of the great rings.

The ones walking, or in smaller vehicles, were on the attack too.

The devourers had problems locating the primates. They had no aura, no psychic spark, no sign of intellect. They were less than computers, less than thinking wires, less then virtual or artificial intelligences. There was nothing to see, nothing to grab onto.

They just moved forward.

And killed.

Not without coordination. Their weaponsfire was coordinated and accurate, they shambled and stumbled and staggered as a coordinated whole. Not as a horde, but in discrete units.

But there was no mind behind what they were doing.

The Atrekna tried again.

The mind they plunged into was dark, cold, the thoughts heavy and thick feeling. The hands were clumsy, strong, and powerful.

Three members of the Conclave were unable to pull away and began screaming.

The Conclave, warned by the experiences of several Quorums, killed those quickly, incinerating the bodies.

Enraged, the members of the Conclave ordered more spawn to be brought up.

Throw everything at the primates.

Whatever trick it was, it would not help.

The Atrekna would subdue them.

One of the Atrekna had faced the primates before, long ago, when trying to wrest a larder world away from them. It had seen the primates in person, had seen what they looked like, how they moved.

It was pulled from its task of holding down one of the primates, who was raving, slamming against its cage, ripping and tearing apart anything that came near it. It had required nearly a hundred Atrekna to keep it pinned.

And it was still a struggle.

The Atrekna handed off its task to another and turned its attention to what the others wanted it to see.

It stared through the eyes of a dwellerspawn.

The primate was staggering. It had taken wounds that had torn through its clothing, through its body armor. The flesh was bluish, with signs of corruption around the wounds. Cybernetic wiring could be seen in the flesh. Its eyes were white. It was chewing on nothing, blood oozing from its mouth.

Is this how they appeared? a Quorum asked.

The Atrekna sent back images from the attempt to take the larder world. No.

The primate fired its weapon, moving in a slow staggering walk, surrounded by others. A psychic lance hit it but flickered and went out, finding nothing to overload and scorch.

Is this how they acted?

No.

Their heat signatures were off. They were only as warm as their surroundings. Only as warm as the ambient temperature. They generated little to no heat with their movement.

As he watched two crouched down next to a dead dwellerspawn and began jamming pieces in their mouths. Another one roared at them, a wordless vocalization, and the two stood up, still chewing on the pieces in their mouth, and moved forward, returning to firing their weapons.

This is wrong. This is wrong. There's something happening here. It isn't quite clear, the Atrekna said.

One of the primate combat cyborgs, a big one, looking rusted and covered in pulsing purple veins, grabbed a dwellerspawn and ripped it apart bare handed. Two others grabbed a large spawn from different sides and began ripping huge chunks of flesh from it.

The cyborg's metal jaws were gnashing.

How do we stop them?

I... I do not know.

V Corps (Dead Blood) pressed the attack.

-------------

Trucker spit over the side, his eyes covered by a pair of mirrorshades. Cry Little Sister was in the lead as he drove a wedge of a hundred tanks into the enemy. The engines were roaring, the cannons firing, the heavy weapons shredding dwellerspawn.

He knew he only had less than a hundred hours to change the course. A hundred hours to destroy the enemy's ability to bring in reinforcements from wherever they were getting them.

Cry Little Sister heaved as it ran over the dead, dying, and those too slow to get out of the way.

Around him the tanks were crewed by dead men. Men he had known, had served with for decades, centuries.

Men who had died in their sleep, outside the armor, some without even their boots on.

He didn't bother telling them what to do out loud, they'd move too slow, they'd react to slow, to take advantage of it. They would follow the warplan and warplan updates as long as he gave them enough time to absorb it.

Only a hundred hours before the dead would die again.

But Trucker knew wars had been won, had been fought, in a hundred hours.

He waved his arm and the tanks of HHC Brigade turned slightly.

The goal was ahead of him. They were trying to move, but it wouldn't help.

He could feel them ahead of them. Feel their cold logic, their icy analogue to anger, at being denied.

He could feel their hunger.

all belong to us whispered around him, not touching his mind, not exactly heard, but he knew it was whispering around him like banshees tormenting a Lord's young bride.

He patted Cry Little Sister with one hand as he tucked his can of chew back into his pocket with the other.

The Third Herd, Spearhead, Third Armor, Pearhead, would crush them under the weight of metal and the pounding of their guns.

Trucker knew he might be defeated, might die before he could accomplish his mission.

But he knew that the forces protecting the planet would not be beaten.

He spit off the side as he grabbed the TC's gun and it racked a round into the chamber.

"Let's get to work, boys," he gurgled.

Gargled and bubbling groans, moans, and low cries answered him.

----------------------

One of the lowest ranking Atrekna drifted forward on a disk of phasic energy, putting the majority of its power into not being seen as it crossed the shattered and cratered battlefield.

The massive armored host had crossed this place only a few minutes before, but they were already out of sight.

The ground rippled and changed into a forest.

Explosions thudded out from the direction the primate's armored vehicles had gone.

The Atrekna approached what lay in a crater carefully. The primates were up to something, and he had been ordered to discover what it was.

Tank 3-68-C12 had taken a phasic enhanced barrel bull hit at point blank range. The crew cabin had been completely destroyed, the crew vaporized, and the tank had gone dead. It sat, at a slight angle, in the rain, the water hissing as it touched the hull.

Inside a soft green light began to glow.

Black mist filled the interior spaces of the tank. Purple flashes, like minature lightning, lit the depths of the inky black cloud.

The tank shuddered.

The Atrekna backed up slightly.

It gave a low grinding noise, as if it was trying to start.

The black mist poured out of the two massive holes, flowing like water onto the ground.

The tank moved forward an inch, then rolled back to its position.

The Atrekna could not detect any intelligence, any life force. No direction.

The mist suddenly dissolved, almost as if it was sucked back into the tank.

The tank gave a coughing wheeze, blowing smoke from the back deck. It kept vibrating, making a constant roaring noise.

The Atrekna watched as a primate rose up out of the tank.

It was largely fleshless. White bone, with burning red eyes. Blood ran out of the nostril cavity, from between its teeth. It had on a helmet, the tattered remains of a uniform, and it looked around.

Its burning red eyes settled on the Atrekna. A cold malevolence suddenly filled the what could only be a dead primate.

The Atrekna stared in horror, watching frozen as the dead primate slowly lifted up a pistol and aimed it. It leveled it slowly, as if the thick psychic shielding was of no use to conceal or protect the Atrekna.

The Quorum who was watching through the scout's eyes flinched back in horror at the raw cold malevolence that rivaled their own.

The skull faced primate fired the pistol as the tank lurched into motion.

The Quorum didn't see it.

The scout was already dead from a single bullet.

The riven and damaged tracks clattered as the tank followed its brethren.

---------------

Ge'ermo'o stared at the screen as he watched dead tanks suddenly come back to life.

He had seen the black mist and knew it was strange matter nanites.

He knew that the nanites had rebuilt the dead humans into... into...

... he had no words. No concepts in his language.

The dead were simply dead. That was all. They did not return, they did not keep fighting.

The lemurs might as well be doing magic compared to us he remembered General A'armo'o saying.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic Ge'ermo'o remembered another saying.

He watched a squad of infantry slowly rise up out of the mud from where they had been killed by a blob of acidic spittle. They were burnt, charred, their skin melted away in places. They moved as if they hadn't been reduced to biological slurry, their weapons battered looking but serviceable.

Their eyes burned red.

Ge'ermo'o shuddered and closed his eyes on that side as he turned his attention back to The Atomic Hooves.

Leave the humans to their necromancy, he thought to himself. Leave them to their ancient and forbidden arts, to dark science that should have been forgotten, he touched the icon for his old unit. We Lanaktallan will use clean metal and explosives, not dark science, not necromancy, not foul magics. We will not unlock ancient seals to reach for the forbidden.

He was completely unaware of the irony of his thoughts.