First Contact

Chapter 417

Palgret knelt down, trying to control his breathing, as 281 hung upside down on the ceiling working with a fusion torch. The big human stood next to the wall, facing back the way they had came, slamming his fist into the wall over and over into the same spot.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The Maktanan infantryman huddled in his armor. It was warm inside his armor, but the armor was reporting only 3 degrees Kelvin and felt chilly somehow, like frost just kissing the ends of the hair of his fur. Like an insistent lover tickling the fur on the side of his neck with their tongue. He knew it was impossible, that cold didn't act in such a way.

But it was.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

--cut halfway done men-- Captain 030 said. He was worried about what he'd find on the hull of the ship, but right now the interior was infested with Mar-gite, real or not, that had already killed one of his men.

He'd worry about what was on the surface when he got his men out there.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u was grateful that the universe had bestowed upon him six eyes that allowed him to see in all directions around him at once. His armor had been designed to take advantage of that, so he had a clear view around the entire squad. He held 'his' rifle, which had gone from a sensible plasma rifle to a Terran designed magak with spikes on the buttplate, an underslung 40mm grenade launcher, and lines that promised death and destruction.

It had grown on him. A sensible weapon made to do nothing more than kill the enemy and break their shit, so to speak. It didn't pretend to be anything else, didn't bother to try to conceal its purpose with fancy flancy flowing lines or form.

Mu'ucru'u felt that was a good thing now.

After all, the rifle had ripped apart those terrible five limbed things that had attacked the squad.

His flank still ached and burned, itched now, but was starting to feel better. His armor was reporting that his wound was starting to respond to the quikheal compounds now that the infection in his blood had been handled by his bolstered immune system.

He concentrated on the big Terran.

At first, the Terran had seemed horrifying, then it had changed into a nightmare of spikes and rage, now it was nothing more than fury made flesh and armor. At first Mu'ucru'u had been frightened of the Terran.

Now he appreciated the other being.

Those who are allied with the Mad Lemurs of Terra are indeed blessed by the Digital Omnimessiah, he thought to himself.

The words did not cause him shock.

True, others of his people would think him foolish for his new fervent belief in the Digital Omnimessiah of Terra, would tell him he was foolish, or chide him for giving into superstition.

Those people had not traversed a murdered reality with only a portable shield generator between their souls and Hellspace.

Before this, Mu'ucru'u would have scoffed at the idea of the soul, but after having felt those foul energies touch him Mu'ucru'u no longer had any doubt.

He glanced at the Terran, looking at the lines of the armor, the burning warsteel decorations, and the way he kept slamming one huge armored fist against the wall.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

281 could feel the atmosphere in the ship slipping through the cut he was making with a whistle. He was glad he was using a fusion torch rather than the old heat based ones otherwise the rapid flow of air through the gap would have cooled the metal before he could have easily cut through it.

Battlesteel parted like lace before a hacksaw as he moved the torch slowly across the plating. Most of his fellows would have been surprised that Two, AKA Sergeant Kalkik, had led them to a section that, in eons past, a weapon had blown a crater into the hull of the PAWM deep enough that it would let them get out easily.

281 had worked with Sergeant Kalkik since he'd been assigned to the unit and had learned that the opalescent stripes on the black mantid were for more than looks.

--almost done-- 281 transmitted. Well, that's what everyone else got. The lexicon firmwared into his datalink translated the complex mathematical formula sets involving using atomic/molecular fusion to create a gap in battlesteel in order to cut through something into something everyone else could understand.

As soon as they got onto the hull 281 would use the three devices he had carefully constructed. A subspace beacon with the team's IFFs loaded into it. A realspace flare that could be seen easily for several light seconds. Finally a superluminal flare that would throw out a signal into jumpspace, hyperspace, and stringspace.

With any luck, someone would see it.

Without, well, he'd have the human flatten him before he let himself suffocate inside his suit.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Palgret watched as the cut out was lowered down. The air was no longer whistling through the gap in a shriek but instead seemed to form a weird bubble slightly extending out.

You know what, I don't even care any more, Palgret thought to himself.

030 waved him over and Palgret stepped forward. 030 and 281 got up on his shoulders and held tight as the human lifted Palgret up and out of the 'bubble.' Palgret managed to scramble over to the bottom of the crater, which was at least two hundred meters in diameter.

He looked up and just stared. There was a dark spot in the sky that hurt his eyes, hurt his brain. Beyond it, completely surrounding, was what looked like twisted veins and corruption that pulsed even as he looked at it. It made him nauseous, filled his mouth full of the taste of rotting meat. In the distance he could see tiny pinpricks tumbling through the dark.

The dark was full of screaming.

Palgret fell to all fours, 030 and 281 holding on tight, and he crawled on his knees and elbows away from the hole, staring at the rippled battlesteel and retching.

--psychic attack recovery positions-- 030 ordred.

Palgret put his rifle between his knees, wrapped his arms around his knees, and put the top of her helmet against the barrel of his rifle, making sure that the weapon's muzzle was pointing up and away from him. He held tight, shaking, trying to block out the screams of agony coming from so many places.

--281 fire off munitions-- 030 ordered, doing his best to ignore the sounds of the screams that echoed around him.

--roger roger-- 281 answered, climbing down off the Maktanan, who was shivering hard enough that 281 had to be careful where he stepped. They were out in vacuum now, so his ramjet wouldn't work.

He scampered across the battlesteel, getting away from everyone as they climbed out of the hole he'd cut in the hull.

The Terran came out last and was almost out when the edges of the hole suddenly warped, twisted, turned into thick gums with jagged teeth that were drooling clear slime. The teeth slammed together and 030 half expected to see the Terran's leg get severed at the mid-calf.

Instead teeth shattered and the Terran looked down, clenching his fist, and smashed the teeth out till his ankle was freed and pulled his leg out.

The hole seemed to scab over.

--promising-- 030 said, adding sarcasm emojis.

"Tried to bite off more than it could chew," Two said. He looked up, shuddered, and looked back down. "This just keeps getting better."

281 set up the three devices. They were designed to all work at the same time to boost one another and enable one another to function. The superluminal flare and the realspace flare were first, which would power the rescue beacon. He knew he had to hurry, the screaming from space around him was beating against his mental fortress, slamming against the barriers and fortifications he had erected all of his life.

Finally he scurried over next to the others and crouched down, assuming the psychic recovery position.

030 watched as the Terran moved over and knelt down in the middle of everyone, leaning against his upraised knee and looking up at the sky.

The flares went off, bathing the human's face in light.

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

Marduk was moving toward the massive Precursor when the realspace flare and the superluminal rescue flare went off. After a long 1.312 seconds a beacon fired up. Feeling cold satisfaction, or as close as he was able to come to that emotion, he altered course, slowing down and checking his internal systems.

The troops he had built were ready and he had the gantries and systems move them from the growth pods to the arming station to the vehicle, which was a vacuum capable combat vehicle designed and theorized when he was being programmed, fielded, tested, and perfected by his own logical systems.

He loaded the combat vehicle into the powered zero-G landing frame and sent the signals to wake the pilots and the ground troops after ensuring that his instructions were completely loaded in and would be obeyed without question or modification.

It was only a scant few minutes before the position was correct. He came to zero relative velocity and movement in relation to that section of the hull, opened the bay door, and released the clamps. He monitored the telemetry on the vehicle dropping down, making sure it was a safe distance to prevent the people he was trying to save from being baked by the fusion engines.

He was Marduk, while he did not have to worry about such things, those he sought to aid did and he was not going to make a basic mistake of such type.

The frame landed, the cramps released, and the combat crawler headed toward the beacon. His sensors could pick up the small team.

They would soon be rescued.

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

Palgret looked up at the vibration and the lights, seeing a tracked vehicle extend out past the edge of the crater then drop down to grind down the side of the crater. It hit the bottom and leveled out, coming forward.

--ON FEET-- 030 commanded.

Everyone struggled to their feet, staring at the vehicle as it got close. It had a strange emblem on it but to Palgret it was obvious it was a Terran craft. It turned sharply so that the side was facing Palgret and the others and came to a stop.

The side lowered into a ramp and two armored soldiers waved them in.

--lets go-- 030 ordered.

Something made him nervous, but he pushed it aside. The transponder for the vehicle was Terran Combine, which to 030 meant Idiots or the Martial Orders.

One by one the troops, Palgret included, got inside. There was a few moments they had to wait while the crash seats adjusted for the Maktanan, Lanaktallan, and Mantid troops.

Palgret noticed that the Terran, in his heavy armor, outmassed the ones in the sleek looking armor and refused to sit down. One of the armored troops that had been aboard the craft fixed Palgret's straps.

For a second a trick of the light made the visor clear and Palgret frowned inside his own helmet.

The face looked almost Terran. Sunken cheeks, square blade of a nose, thick forehead almost like a square, pale skin and odd appearing eyes.

Almost Terran.

"System," Palgret said.

"Waiting," his onboard systems said.

"Rewind," he said. When he saw the flash he stopped it, overshot, played it, overshot, then rewound at 1/10th speed until he got the image just perfect.

"Snapshot. Send to Captain 030," he said. "Message as: I don't think this is a Terran. Is it a robot?"

Palgret waited, tabbing up a piece of gum and chewing it.

After a minute he got a reply. It was chilling, made him feel as if a cold breeze had run up his spine even though he didn't understand why.

--no android-- 030 said.