First Contact

Chapter 407

The sound of the cutting bars was loud, the city hushed even as it wailed in pain. Each time the powered cutting bars (Mark II) ripped through the tree rapidly, felling it. Mal-Kar and Karelesh used cutting bars given to them by a Terran to cut the trees into smaller lengths. Lu'ucilu'u and I used stick-on graviton lifters and a tractor-pressor beam to move the logs to the sides of my tank, the sides of the two buses, the sides of the combat grav-lifters. There other members of my work crew tied them to the sides with heavy cargo straps.

Several of the civilians manning "Refit Point Delta" were filling sandbags, working tirelessly to shovel dirt into sacks that they tied off and stacked. The sandbags were passed from person to person in a living chain, to be put upon the vehicles as one more layer of armor. They were stacked on the sides of grav-lifters, my tank, and secured with endosteel cargo netting. They were layered two layers thick inside the hoverbuses, with panels of endosteel plating in between the two layers.

Which was why both buses had Terran grav-lifters welded to the side to help lift the massive public transports.

A white flash made everything go flat seeming as the shadows vanished. The rumble came next, the shockwave moving the trees back and forth.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMICflashed in my vision right before another white flash lit the sky.

The civilians and what few military I had with me ignored it, continuing their work.

A N'Kar who had been a servant for a Most High was half out from under hover-fan three's skirt. Cables went from the power plugin on a nearby grav-lifter and vanished under my tank, allowing the N'Kar to weld a patch to the hoverfan skirt to fix a hole blown in it by Precursor fire.

I leaned forward and rested my head against the battlesteel of my tank, closing my eyes and feeling exhaustion fill me.

I had been awake for twenty hours since I had left the medical clinic and led my men into the burning city again.

Twenty more hours in the burning hellscape that had been a living city.

Five thousand people sealed into the bunkers even as they cried out to me to not entomb them below the earth.

But so many dead were sprawled in the streets, half-visible from collapsed buildings, or reduced to a smear on the wall.

You cannot save them all, Ha'almo'or, the matron's voice came back to me.

No, but I can try, I told her in my mind.

"Most High, eat," Feelmeenta urged me, tugging on my lower right arm.

"I am not hungry," I told her.

It was true. I was too exhausted to feel hunger any more.

"Eat," my electronic warfare specialist ordered. She held up a ration bar. "Eat, or I'll tell the Terrans you have been awake for twice as long as you should have been as well as the fact you escaped from the hospital."

I sighed, taking the ration bar and peeling the plas off of it. It wasn't Great Herd standard. The wrapper was brown, with a picture of a smiling Lanaktallan matron on the wrapper and the words "Goody Yum Yum Bar" on the side.

The Matron was in charge of making sure that the colts, fillies, calves, and wounded were all seen to. A Terran had asked her to smile real quick and then her image had appeared on the package the next time I had been handed a ration bar.

I'd seen the Terrans of the Sustainment Battalion pull them out of their fabulous nanoforges by the box, each box containing thousands of bars.

The bar was good. Rough coarse grain seed and dough, some kind of sweet and chewy center. It filled my first stomach, easing the dull pain, and I felt energy return to my body.

"Do we have any targets or is it another sweep?" I asked, taking another bar and opening it.

This one tasted of berries, was white with a center of sweet and thick crumbly dough.

It was the best thing I had ever tasted.

"Another sweep," Feelmeenta told me. She held up a canteen and I gratefully took it, drinking deep, enjoying the slight tart citrus flavor.

It was such little things, that the Terrans did and we were emulating, that made life bearable.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

I hardly noticed the flash, the rumble, of the gentle push of the shockwave that made the treetop sway.

Two civilians I did not know exited the interior of my tank. The waste reclaimation system had failed, leaving the crew compartment thick with dung on the floor. I had helped scoop it out with sheets of plas during the day.

When we had arrived the two civilians, both Telkan, had gone in with pressure washers.

The N'Kar slid out from under the hoverfan, nervously rubbing his skin. "It should hold, Most High," he said. His voice was soft and submissive, like all of his people, but I could see the determination to do a job well done in his eyes.

"I thank you," I told him. "Once we leave will you be going to the shelters?"

He shook his head. "No. We will stay. We have guns now, given to us by the Terrans, as well as battlescreen projectors to protect this place. We will stay here, in case you need us."

The makeshift ambulance nosed its way into the clearing, settling down with the snarl of badly tuned graviton lifters. The back lowered and the filly from the first day clopped down. Gone was the uncertainty of youth, she moved with her head high, one hand on her medical bag, and she surveyed the area like a lord of old.

Two Goodbois and a Simba moved with her, the Goodbois on either side and the Simba behind her. All of them had the holographic light to make them look furry and somewhat harmless.

I had seen the twin linked rapid fire autocannons on the back of a Simba rip apart a Precursor war machine ten times the Simba's side with less than three seconds of fire. I had seen a Goodboi fire missiles at a Precursor air striker, knocking it out of the sky in a greasy explosion and rain of burnt and blackened metal, seen them fire the heavy tribarrel that had risen out of their back to destroy Precursor machines.

I had also seen them search out survivors in a collapsed building.

Like all things Terran, looks were deceiving.

When she saw me she trotted up to me even as I unwrapped another Goody Yum Yum bar.

"You will hold still, Most High," she said. Her voice was raspy, the voice of an older Matron, and her old eyes were red from exhaustion, but still her eyes and voice were steady.

"As you wish," I told her.

She ran the scanner over my lower abdomen and where my upper torso joined my lower body.

"Your heart is in good condition. The cyberware reports no cardiac events," she said, drawing up. "Your bloodwork looks good and your vitals are excellent once exhaustion and combat has been accounted for. How are the eyes?"

"Good. I am used to them now," I told her.

"And your foot?" she asked, pointing at the cybernetic replacement for my hoof.

"Still slightly heavy to my senses," I said.

She nodded slowly. "That it to be expected. You are cleared for duty, Most High Ha'almo'or."

"I thank you," I told her.

"Ambulance One is ready to deploy with you," she said. She trotted around to face the makeshift ambulance with "GREAT HERD EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES" painted on the side with blue paint stick. She turned at the waist to look at me. "Do not attempt to argue with me, Most High."

"I welcome your efforts," I told her.

She could feel my sincerity and nodded. A nod of a Matron far older then the teenager I had seen on the first day crying over the dead.

She trotted back to the makeshift ambulance, the Goodbois and the Simba following her.

Again, the warning, followed by a rapid fire series of detonations.

The Terrans were, to use their own words, 'giving the clankers Hell' out there, pushing them back step by bloody step from the cities even as they sent into the cities their power armor infantry and tanks in with Most High A'armo'o's tanks in order to clear out the Precursor Autonomous War Machines.

"Your tank's ready," the two Telkan said. They were wearing plastic coveralls over heavy laborer coveralls to keep from getting wet.

"Thank you, both," I told them.

The two Telkan made motions of embarrassment before they shuffled off, carrying their power washer and the water tanks with them.

I clopped up the ramp, settling into the combat couch. I leaned forward and pushed my face against the gunner's sight. I activated the tank's systems and felt it come to life around me as my faithful crew climbed in, the power ramp whining as it raised, the load of sandbags attached to the outside face providing more weight than the motors were used to.

I ignored the smell of burning metal.

Mal-Kar drove the tank out of the spot in the woods, weaving between the camo nets hanging between the trees. According to the Terrans they would scatter LIDAR and RADAR and prevent Precursor scanners from spotting anyone in the woods.

We passed holes dug in the ground by determined civilians armed only with shovels. Inside each hole were three or four civilians behind a heavy gun.

There had been plenty that had never been fired and only dropped once for me to arm them with.

As we got further out of the forest/park we saw how the holes had cover. Plas covered with dirt, with firing slits. I could see what I had learned were 'ranging stakes' further out, to let the gunners know the range of any targets.

More than a few of the civilians raised a clench fist to my tank as I drove by, some even calling out my name or the name of one of my crew.

I knew I would be punished for what I had done the night before.

I had armed the neo-sapients. Given them the guns that my own people, my fellow members of the Great Herd, had dropped in panicked flight. Ordered them to 'dig in', showed them how to fight, given them Terran technical documents for digging combat positions by hand, Terran documents on how to use the radio net.

They had put the time to good use and had been very persistent in learning what I was trying to teach them.

'Jawnconnor Time' the Terrans called it.

Mal-Kar had written the name "Timekeeper" on the barrel of our tank. A joke that made sense to us, but probably to none other.

We exited the trees, the hovertank hitting the thickly polluted river, sending up a spray of water to either side of us. The lifters, hoverbuses, and ambulance all followed, the water brown with a thick layer of rainbow oily effluvia on the top. Charred bodies and debris slowly floated in the current.

I put them out of my mind, despite the way it made my chest hurt.

We headed into a gap in the river retaining wall, moving into a massive culvert, the thin layer of water spraying up around us.

A dozen Precursor strikers roared by overhead, chased by Terran strikers and air mobile hovercraft, the shell casings from the Terran vehicles raining down around us, making chiming noises as they bounced off exposed armor or the ferrocrete of the culvert.

"Eyes wide, fingers on the trigger," I said over the tiny battle tactical net I'd managed to get cobbled together. It wasn't much, had the wrong headers to be tied into the planetary network, but it worked for our small force.

A building groaned to the side and began to collapse in on itself, the floors inside falling first, pulling the outside frame and facing in after it. It gave a steady roar as it fell in a strange candle-like plume of ferrocrete dust and twisted endosteel. The fires inside colored the dust and smoke red as the building finally finished collapsing and sent up a massive cloud of debris.

The dust washed over us, making the battlescreens crackle and snap at the attempted intrusion.

One of the crew served kinetic weapons on top of Bus Two opened up with a quick burst. I tensed, waiting, but no "Contact" came over the radio and I knew that the gunner had seen something suspicious and reconned it by shooting it a few times.

If Mal-Kar's Digital Omnimessiah didn't want us to recon by fire he wouldn't have invented triggers.

"Got a public communicator message coming in," Feelmeenta said, sitting up in her chair and putting one hand to the side of her helmet. "Immature Lanaktallan female, a bunch of others, they've got children and wounded. I'm patching in Ambo-One."

"Do you have a fix on their position?" I asked.

"Storm drain, one of the Tukna'rn ripped the grate off and got them inside. They've been there since the first day," Feelmeenta said.

"All units, eyes out, we've got survivors," I said over the comlink. I got back "yeah", "yes, boss", "OK", "affirmative", and "Sure."

My men weren't much on radio discipline and proper radio procedure, but they were the finest men the universe had ever known as they followed me through the smoke and fire of the murdered city.

Mal-Kar's gentle touch on the tank's controls wove a smooth pattern to the storm drain. There were kinetic and plasma and laser impact scars around the drain and someone had pushed dumpsters in front of it. The dumpster had all been shattered by combat.

The ambulance moved in front of the tunnel and lowered the back deck. I saw the filly exit with her Simba and Goodboi escorts.

I grabbed my weapon and hit the stud on my couch, the hatch opening and the couch raising as I cocked the rifle. It wasn't the plasma rifle I had previously held, I had no idea what had happened to it. Instead it was a brutal and ugly Terran weapon that shaved slivers of metal off of a block to create some weird variable munition.

The Terran who had gave it to me had set it to APDSDE (armor piercing discarding sabot density enhanced) and I had seen no reason to change it back.

"Most High," Feelmeenta started to protest.

"I will not allow her to go somewhere I am loathe to step myself," I snapped. "Eyes out, scanners up. Get a recon drone, two weapon drones, and a commo drone up, try to establish communication with Refugee Point Lima."

By the time I had finished my orders I had reached the tunnel entrance and managed to catch up to the filly, who barely acknowledged my presence as I passed her.

The ferrocrete of the tunnel was pitted and scarred, cratered and scorched, by combat. We passed several PAWM carcasses, their bodies damaged by close quarters fighting.

Some of them looked like they had been attacked with a standard vibro-axe carried by emergency services to get through modern hyper-alloys for rescue missions.

There were bodies of Tukna'rn too. Only three, but each one was a dagger in my chest.

"DON'T COME CLOSER I'LL SHOOT!" was suddenly yelled, the words coming so fast that they nearly blended together. Lights came on, illuminating me and my visor kicked in to compensate for the sudden flood of light.

"Gunner Ha'almo'or, Great Herd Emergency Services, we heard your call," I yelled back.

"Please, our friends need a doctor. They're hurt bad," a filly called out.

"Come up here so I can make sure you aren't a clanker in someone's skin," the voice said. They coughed, a wet sound. "Not falling for that again."

The medic touched my arm and I saw displayed on my visor 'collapsed/punctured lung' as she told me her rough diagnosis.

I turned my visor transparent, moving forward. The Tukna'rn was young, barely adolescent, but he had a discarded plasma tri-barrel in his arms, holding like a weaker species would hold a rifle.

"You're a Lanky," he said, using the slang that had seemed to crop up everywhere.

"I am," I said. "Great Herd Emergency Services. We're here to evac you out."

The Tukna'rn nodded, coughing again.

"You first, it's clear," the filly, no, she was no longer a filly. Fire and blood had washed away her youth. The Matron said.

"If Li'itlewu'un says so," the Tukna'rn protested stubbornly.

I nodded and gestured at the Matron Medic. "Let us go in further."

"They're around the corner," the Tukna'rn said, coughing again.

He moved down the passage, normally used for power, sewer, and water maintenance, around the corner, and stopped.

It was one of the bigger rooms. Maybe used for the depression that would normally be a pool of water, maybe just for maintenance crews to gather. Bedding of wadded cloth were around the wall, ammo boxes obviously picked up from abandoned positions scattered around, and boxes of canned food and liquid nutripaste tanks here and there.

A Lanaktallan filly, not much older than the medic, moved up. She clasped her hands, greeting me.

"I am Li'itlewu'un," she said. "Thanks be that you are here."

I looked around slowly. There a Hamaroosan female sat with a vibro-axe that the handle had been cut in half in her lap. There a Telkan female was drinking nutripaste slurry as she let a N'Kar female tie a bandage on her leg.

All around me was suffering, of civilians who had needed my protection and found me wanting.

The Matron Medic touched her helmet and I heard her give orders for others to come in, to carry litters, to clear one of the buses. I repeated her orders, adding my authority to hers.

"We have a refugee point with shelters," I told the filly. "You cannot stay here. The battle has moved to atomic weapons."

"Will we be safe there?" she asked doubtfully.

"The Terrans have arrived and are pushing the Precursors back, although it is still very fluid right now," I told her. Beyond her the Goodbois and the Simbas deployed purrbois even as the Matron Medic moved through the wounded, putting holotags on them that her assistants could read with their visors.

All too many of them were red for urgent care required.

I watched as the wounded were helped out, heading for the bus. The Matron Medic's assistants were on the bus, letting the two of us know that they were treating as fast as possible.

I put a call across the net for Terran medical assistance. Their medics, their SAR, wore armor that the Great Herd would consider heavy combat armor and carried guns that could shatter a Precursor machine with ease.

Less than a third were remaining when I heard a shout from one of the rear tunnels. Gunfire sounded out, echoing strangely in the tunnels.

"They're coming!" someone, it sounded like an immature Akltak, yelled out.

"GET THEM OUT!" I bellowed, charging down the tunnel, my warsteel hoof shedding sparks as I ran.

The two Akltak females were ducked down behind a barrier as I turned a corner. Beyond them I could see Precursor machines rushing down the tunnel toward us.

The two teenagers were only armed with axes.

"Fall back, retreat to the main chamber and follow your leader out," I ordered, lifting up the rifle.

"But what of you?" one asked.

"I will be fine," I told her.

Either they would kill me, or not. Either way, I could buy precious seconds to get the wounded out.

I hit the firing stud and the magnetic accelerator rifle opened up with a roar. Despite the fact it used magnetic force and not chemical propellant, the weapon still flashed at the barrel, a tongue of flame lighting everything up as if it was using propellant.

The heavy magac rounds ripped into Precursors armor, sending one, then another, then another, crashing to the floor of the tunnel in heap.

"We are hurrying, Most High," the Matron Medic told me. I could hear her breathing heavy. "We're loading onto Bus Two."

"I'm coming, Most High," Mal-Kar radioed.

"Negative, hold position. You have to escort the bus back," I snapped, adjusting my fire and raking another machine. "Get the refugees out, damn you!"

"As you command," Mal-Kar replied. I could tell he was unhappy, but I had no time to be concerned as more PAWM drones pushed forward. The rifle was roaring in my hands as I held the trigger down, bracing the butt against one shoulder and using three hands to stabilize it.

Return fire was lashing out at me. Hitting the barrier I was kneeling behind, bouncing off the tunnel walls, ricocheting off my Terran built armor. A hit between my eyes rang my bell but I kept firing, forcing them back with sustained autofire.

My own rifle would have overheated by now, but the Terran weapon's heat bar stayed stubbornly in the low yellow. I would have been out of ammo, but sixty seconds of sustained fire and I still had over 80% of the ammo block left and three more in pouches on my sash.

"THIS TUNNEL IS CLOSED!" I roared out, aiming low, at their treads, their claws, their feet, their legs. The weapon ripped apart battlesteel like tissue paper, the small machines too lightly armored to withstand the fury of the weapon. "THERE ARE LITTLES BEHIND ME AND YOU SHALL NOT PASS ME TO ATTACK THEM!"

A round hit my chest, making me groan, but I fired back, ripping the arms off of the machine. Their dead were piling up high enough now that they had cover as they advanced, some of them pushing their dead in front of them.

I grabbed a grenade off my sash with my lower right hand, pulled the pin with my lower left hand, and side-armed it down the passage even as I kept firing, the weapon less accurate now that I was only holding it with two hands.

The grenade went off with the bright bluish-white snap of antimatter, showering the tunnel with droplets of molten battlesteel and shrapnel. I felt pain in my right flank but didn't care.

"Almost out, two more loads," the filly, no, the Matron, told me.

"GET THEM OUT, DAMN YOUR EYES!" I shouted at her as I grabbed another grenade. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS BY ME!"

My mouth tasted of hot copper and bitterness as I kept shooting. A round glanced off my visor, cracking it, but I paid no heed as I threw the grenade into their midst. It went off with a sharp crack and a gout of liquefied battlesteel sprayed my foreleg.

I did not care.

In or out of a tank, I was the armored bulwark of the Great Herd. None may pass by me and live.

I was the people's will made manifest.

A sudden urge made me duck right before a hypersonic rocket was fired, streaked over my head, and blew a crater the size of my chest out of the wall behind me, showering me with ferrocrete.

I answered the rocketeer with another burst that found something good.

The robot exploded, the flame and wave of shrapnel washing over me.

"Last trip, Most High!" the Matron yelled. I could barely hear her. I was half deaf, but did not care.

I began backing up, throwing my next to last grenade as I did so. My rear eyes could see the passage was clear and I was easily able to navigate it.

But I had to do it step by step, keeping up the fire, the punishment, the denial on the Precursor machines.

They charged as they came around the tunnel and I answered with my last grenade and more fire from my rifle.

"YOU!" I roared out. I grabbed a vibroaxe that someone had left on a box and threw it overhand, knocking over a robot when the handle hit it. I kept backing up.

"SHALL!" I bellowed, spraying them with full auto fire as I entered the now empty room. I kicked over a box of plasma rounds, scattering them across the floor.

"NOT!" I slung a tank of nutripaste into the middle of the floor and put a burst into it, exploding the pressurized tank so that slurry sprayed out.

"PASS!" The machines rushed into the room as I backed into the tunnel that would lead outside.

"BY!" I backed halfway around the corner and changed my aim.

"ME!" The hypervelocity rounds hit the plasma rounds.

They exploded.

The fire shoved me, the blast wave pushing me down the hallway even though I braced my hooves, sparks showering from my hoofshoes as I leaned forward into the blast. Alarms started wailing and the front of my armor flashed yellow on my HUD, but I did not care.

I kept backing up after the blastwave passed me.

"All loaded, get out of there, Most High," Lu'ucilu'u said.

"Leave the back ramp open!" I yelled, managing to whirl around. I turned backwards at the mid-waist, watching in 'front' of me with my rear eyes, firing the rifle as I galloped wildly down the tunnel. My fire wasn't accurate, but they couldn't dodge and I couldn't miss as I fired 'behind' me.

My tank wobbled into sight, barrel facing backwards, the loading ramp down, the rear battlescreen off. Rounds that got by me sparked off the armor of the tank.

I could see the interior of my faithful tank, Timekeeper*, and galloped up the ramp. I let go of the rifle, letting the autosling pull it tight against my right forward flank as I threw myself against the gunner's sight, lifting my cybernetic hoof.*

The shot lined up, aimed at the scarred and battered chassis of the lead robot.

"YOU!" I stomped the firing bar.

The Terran "Enhanced Lanaktallan Plasma Munition Mark IV" detonated.

The loader whined as I lifted my hoof. The back deck loading ramp was whining as it closed.

"SHALL!" I stomped the bar again. The loading ramp was almost halfway up.

"NOT!" again.

The loading ramp thumped into place.

"PASS!" I fired the final shot as Mal-Kar goosed the fans.

We sped after the convoy as I used my gunner's sight to scan the skies.

"We've got them all, Most High Ha'almo'or," the Matron Medic's rough voice told me. "Nineteenth Evac is landing a dropship medivac at the Refit Point Delta. They're bringing in something called man pads"

"We will go there," I said. I was trembling with exhaustion as I waited for the gunner's couch to move into position. When it did, I collapsed into it, breathing heavy.

I rested my head against the gunner's sight, even as I kept my eyes open and watched. My still biological eyes felt grainy, thick, like slightly abrasive gum was filling them every time I blinked.

Within a half hour we reached the Refit Point and Mal-Kar set the tank down. I kicked the button and the loading ramp whined down as I got up from the gunner's couch. I staggered out, looking at the bus that Terrans were running onto.

I watched as wounded were taken from the bus onto the heavy, brutal looking dropship. It was all black and looked almost unfinished, as if the designers had stopped before doing any cosmetic work and said "Meh, good enough."

Perhaps, to the Terrans, it was aesthetically pleasing.

A Hamaroosan female, barely a teenager, marched up to me, her hands clenched.

"I bet you think you're some big damn hero," she snarled.

I shook my head. "You needed me days ago and I was not there."

She seemed taken aback for a second, but she clenched her jaw.

"Riding around in your tank like some kind of lord on high while we were fighting and dying in the tunnels," she snarled.

Mal-Kar started to step up, a Hamaroosan female of older years next to him.

"You don't know what you're..." the Hamaroosan woman said.

I held up my hand. "Let her speak."

"Where were you when we needed you?" the teenager yelled. "Where were you when the clankers came?"

I stayed silent. She did not want to hear my words. She needed me, needed the world, to hear her.

To hear her pain.

"Where were you? Where was the vaunted Great Herd?" she screamed at me, rushing forward. Her little fists hit my armored chest as she pounded on me, tears running from her eyes. "Where were you when they killed my sisters and mother and father and little brothers?"

Her knees buckled and she wilted, crumbling to the ground. I knelt down, putting my arms around her. She tried to push me away, crying, weeping, but I held her tight, rocking her side to side.

"I am here now, little one," I told her as I stood up, lifting her. I carried her toward the medical tent. "I am here now and I will not let them harm you as long as I live."

It started raining. Thick, gummy, black rain.

There was a faint flash, a rumble, and the treetops swayed as I pushed into the tent and handed off the girl, who was holding onto me so tight the Matron and the doctor had to pry her arms off of me.

I headed back to my tank, stopping to grab an ammo block to replace my half used one and eight grenades instead of four.

The tank trembled beneath my hooves as I mounted the loading ramp and clattered to my gunner's couch.

The tank rumbled as we led the way back into the city, the rest of the convoy following me.

There were more who needed me as she had needed me.

--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.