First Contact

Chapter 972: The Shadows of Twilight

The last thing I wanted was glory. I don't care about ribbons, medals, recognition, any of that. I didn't want envy, accolades, or even people to look up to me. I didn't care about rank, other people's feelings, or even my own comfort.

While I wanted my comrades to survive, there was one thing under everything I was feeling, even under the emptiness I felt at times, even underneath the rage.

No, not to survive. I didn't care about that. It's a terrible thing, not to care if you lived or died, but Daddy didn't care about himself. I would fight and scream against the darkness, but if it took my life to achieve what I wanted in the secret parts of my heart, then that price was one I was willing to pay.

What I wanted, my brave and beautiful children, was to make it safe for little ones like you. I didn't want what happened to Daddy to happen to you, no matter who was your mommy and daddy.

Like the Warfather said: No more podling blood.

No matter what it took. - Mornings of Despair, Days of Fury, Evenings of Warmth, Bit.nek, Telkan Marines (ret), 13 PTXE, New Telkan Press

--look look what is it-- 299's text carried the slight taste of fear.

Bit.nek turned and looked.

Burning lines were coming down out of the clouds. In a few places there was rings puffing out around the leading burning orb, pushing back the clouds.

--what is it orbital strikes enemy orbital strikes oh no its enemy orbital strikes--

"No," Bit.nek said.

--what--

"Ships burning up on reentry. Debris from the battle," Bit.nek said. He turned and walked around the hologram of the city, watching the icons move. The closest had been a half mile away and they had to skirt several buildings that had suffered major structural damage, doubling their trip distance.

--what do-- 299 asked.

"Nothing we can do. Keep an eye, make sure none of it is going to hit us in the face," Bit.nek said. He looked up and squinted. "Looks like it's moving away from us. Keep an antenna up for any blastwaves heading our way.

--ok-- there was a pause. --scary--

299 was out of the housing, his protective armor bright red in the noonday sun, over by the uplink tower. The little green mantid had welded shut the doors and access points to the roof and was now cutting the links from the building to the uplink tower as well as wiping all the software that would allow the uplink tower to do any transmissions except what Bit.nek wanted it to.

--quantum should not fail-- 299 said.

"It will. If you listen close on the standard commo channels you can already hear them. It's quiet, but it's there and getting stronger," Bit.nek said.

--oh creepy creepy-- 299 said after a moment. --can hear brr creepy how--

"Nobody knows. You know the Terrans, they're a big bag of organs that all hate each other, just controlled by something that hates you more. I heard an egghead said it had to do with how Terrans actually have quantum entanglement going on in their bodies and minds," Bit.nek said. "There's theories that Terrans have quantum entanglement happening in their brains between emotionally close pair bonds. That quantum entanglement might be how they get into the paired particle commo system."

--weird never met human hatched after xenocide event-- 299 said. He cut a good foot section out of the cable and let it drop, capping off the two ends to prevent EM leakage. --heard spooky spooky scary red eyes at night greenie take flight--

"Yeah," Bit.nek said. He moved around the hologram then into it, up to where he was. He looked at where there was a drop-pod, uploaded it into his internal mapping system, then walked to the edge of the roof.

There were buildings in between, including two that were burning.

"Launching drone, a fan hover system, no graviton. I'll control it," Bit.nek said.

--sure--

"Yeah, I'm sure."

--ok can do it if need--

"I know you can, buddy. You're doing something more important. I just need a looksee at something."

The grenade launched made the thwomp sound. The drone's casing fell into the street as the centrifugal force spun the canister apart. The same force helped the drone unfold its wings as well as fire up the hoverfans.

Bit.nek used a hologram control to drop it down until it was only twenty feet off the deck, swooping it through the streets. He could see the drone's commo started to get twitchy over a big mob and shook his head.

Even dead you're the premiere predator, he thought to himself. What were the Overseers and the Mantid thinking?

He got to the drop pod and circled it.

The sides were open. Three troops were down, ripped apart, but he could see the heads moving around. There were two abandoned Madame Three-Eighteens and an abandoned Ma Deuce. He moved around the drop pod, scanning it.

Twice he had to back off and wait for the shambler to get bored when it noticed the flickering laser of the scanner and come over to see if there was anything good to eat.

The cargo doors were closed and locked. The armory case was locked.

The heavy creation engine looked intact.

Nodding to himself, Bit.nek programmed in a route, told the drone to ping him when it got there, and wiped away the 30% opacity overlay to turn around and look at the city.

The CO's icon flashed and Bit.nek opened the channel.

The CO was sitting upright, the belts of the harness hanging around him.

"Sit-rep," the CO stated.

"Kilo's enroute, following the waypoints. I'm slowly getting a plan," Bit.nek said.

"Is it a good one?" the CO asked with a grin.

"Probably not. It won't get anyone killed if it goes off right, but you'll get to watch them court martial me," Bit.nek said. He tossed a few images up.

"The municipal satellite uplink field is still intact. Looks like the Navy boys or Space Farce gave it a shot but they missed by around three miles and just blew a new harbor into the river," Bit.nek said. "That thing is probably full of shades, so it's a priority target."

"What are you thinking?" the CO asked slowly.

"If this was the Atrekna Zone, I'd just Bowie-Spike it and call it good. Probably in the 30 to 50 kiloton range, ground burst or even ground penetrating," Bit.nek said.

"And now?" the CO asked carefully.

"I'll let you know when I do it," Bit.nek said.

Two icons were climbing the skyraker hab complex.

"Got two coming in," Bit.nek said. "I'll leave you tied in but they won't be able to hear you."

"How are you able to talk to me when none of us can reach anyone else?" the CO asked.

"Ancient Hamaroosan secret," Bit.nek said.

Two troops popped over the edge. One with a perfect arc that left him three feet onto the roof. The other dropped back down and had to grab at the retaining wall and pull himself over.

Staff Sergeant J'Wremt was the scrambler. Specialist Grade Five Mumfretter was the hopper.

"Where's the CO?" J'Wremt asked, looking around.

"Sitting in an upside down TOC pod," Bit.nek said. He moved over to the map and pointed it out. "He's four miles away with what was once Municipal Courthouse Five on top of him."

"Who gave the orders to rally point here?" the SSG asked.

"Me," Bit.nek said.

The SSG made a scoffing sound. "You? What makes you think you have that authority?"

Bit.nek held up one hand while he scanned the commo before he shut everyone down.

"This you?" he asked and played the recording.

"FUCK! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! OH FUCK OH FUCK!" the voice was full of panic.

SSG J'Wremt went still even in armor.

"I'd say he put you in charge, Private," the CO said over the link, smiling.

The SSG didn't say anything, just turned around.

"Any bites get through your armor?" Bit.nek asked.

"Negative," the SP5 said.

"No," the SSG huffed.

"No beacons, no transponder, no talking over coms. You wanna talk, whisper laser or induction link only," Bit.nek said, turning back and looking at the hologram of the city, which was still steadily filling out as the fourth and fifth circle of drones got in position. "Staff Sergeant, north side of the roof. Specialist, south side," Bit.nek said.

He looked up.

"And put your Bellona cursed armor on crimson, you idiots," he snapped.

Both moved away, the SSG moving jerkily with his anger.

"You're not making any friends, Private," the CO said.

"I didn't join to make fucking friends. I joined the help win the Daxin cursed war," Bit.nek snapped. "I should throw his punk ass off the roof. See how he likes that shit."

Bit.nek paused to take a few deep breaths.

"You all right, Private?" the CO asked.

"Yes, sir," Bit.nek answered.

Six more mounted the roof.

"I have to go. Feel free to listen in, sir," Bit.nek said. He cut the audio link between them and moved over, issuing instructions, telling everyone to turn their armor to crimson if they hadn't, and putting them on watch posts on the roof.

Two hours later had had seventy troops on the roof, a almost a third of Kilo company.

Four times he had gotten into arguments with officers and senior NCOs about what he was doing. Twice he just stepped back, waved at the map, and told the officers that he'd love to hear their plan. The SNCOs were a little tougher.

SFC LokNartwa had started running interference, telling everyone to shut up and do what Bit.nek was saying.

Bit.nek checked the drone again at one point and had it stop and start a slow circle search pattern around the area it was hovering around.

Finally, he made his decisions.

"Greenies, move over by the central air system," he said.

Protective housings opened up and the green mantids all jumped, fluttered, used jet engines to swoop, or scurried over.

Bit.nek moved over.

"Who's highest ranking?" he asked.

One Mantid, the ID on the transponder read SPC4 932, raised a bladearm.

"You're in charge of problem section," Bit.nek said. "I want four sections. Problem spotting and identification. Problem prediction. Problem solving. Problem solution application."

--roger roger-- the Technical Specialist Grade Four said.

"Best people for the job. Not rank. Not accolades. Best people," Bit.nek said. "Our lives depend on you."

--understand-- 932 said.

"I'll ping the numbers, but some of you are going to be riding with the excursion teams. We need supplies, heavy weapons, and other stuff if we're going to anything but sit on the roof till a dropship shows up," Bit.nek said.

--roger--

"If you need them for a problem team, you don't hesitate to tell me," Bit.nek said.

--affirmative--

"First thing I need done, is I'll hand you the bandwidth and the template and the soft/firmware data to switch everyone's commo to the Magic Band," Bit.nek said.

--why--

"Listen real close to the standard commo," Bit.nek said. He paused. "You hear that? That sound? That's the shamblers moaning. They'll get louder and louder till we're shouting over it, then we'll be able to hear words. We have to cut that out or it will drive people crazy."

--creepy understood--

"We had good luck with narrow frequency agile with compression. Because there's shades, we can't use digital signals, they hide in between the bits. Analog wave," Bit.nek said.

--illogical--

"Yeah, well, Terrans," Bit.nek shrugged.

--okily dokily--

"That's priority."

--understood--

"Get it done," Bit.nek turned and walked back.

The two platoons worth the troops were sitting around. Some of the SNCOs and the NCOs were walking in circles around the hologram, staring at it, and both LT's were sitting by the uplink tower with a faint aura of sulking.

He spotted two more jumping up and onto the roof.

Both were heavy weapons.

Neither had even their rifles.

He stalked over, grinding his teeth.

"Where's your Madame Three-Eighteen, Corporal?" he asked the first one.

"Dropped it. Was weighing me down," he said.

Bit.nek slapped him across the side of the helmet. "You dropped your Menhit blessed weapon?"

"Hey!" someone said.

"You. Never. Drop. Your. Weapon!" Bit.nek punctuated the words with slaps across the helmet. He turned and pointed. "Go sit over there with the rest of the idiots who dropped their weapons."

He turned to the other one. "Where's your weapons?"

"Pod went in sideways. Lost them," the Corporal said.

Bit.nek smacked the side of his helmet. "Go sit with the other idiots."

He stopped and took a moment to take long deep breaths.

Half of them had dropped their weaponry. All he had was troops with rifles. One of the LT's had even dropped his pistol.

"It weighed me down" was the biggest excuse.

For a split second Bit.nek remembered trying to outrun a charging immature Ohm class Dwellerspawn while carrying a Madame Three-Eighteen as it followed him in circles.

Once he felt calmer he moved back over the map, loading up the movement plan he'd built.

"I need four volunteers. Only ones comfortable with Peter's Park movement," he said.

Hands slowly raised.

"I need a volunteer who can drive a grav-lifter outside of normal parameters. Outside of street laws," Bit.nek said.

Nobody raised a hand.

"Nobody's done street racing in a grav-lifter? None of you?" Bit.nek asked.

One hand went up. A Rigellian female PV2.

"You're volunteered," Bit.nek said. He made a motion. "Over here, form up," he said. He looked over to the officers and the SNCO's. "If you'd join us, I want you to have operation knowledge of what's about to happen."

In the upper left of his vision the CO leaned forward slightly. He could see the 1SG and the XO slightly leaning into the frame.

Once everyone was around him he motioned at the map.

"We need a nanoforge and an engine," he said. "Normally, we'd have the drop pods, since the Army version of the Mark Nine is tailored to build a firebase on. Only everyone punched out, ran off, or otherwise abandoned the pods they're supposed to defend," he held up his hand. "I get it, I get it, most of you were being swarmed by shamblers in minutes and I gave the order to abandon your positions and get up high."

He tapped on icon only two miles away. "That doesn't change the fact we need one, all of them are at street level, and we're two hundred sixty two stories up."

Everyone nodded.

"Well, we're going to steal one," Bit.nek said. He paused and the moaning on the commo channel got slightly louder.

He went over the plan quickly.

"That seems... risky," the 2LT said.

"Sir, it's the Army, risky is kind of what we're supposed to do," Bit.nek said, trying to keep his voice gentle. He went back to the map. "I want officers and SNCO's here to take charge of the rest of Kilo that's coming in."

"Where's the CO?" was asked again.

"Still under the court house in the TOC pod," Bit.nek said. "That's why it's supposed to be a heavy weapons squad inside the TOC pod and senior leadership is supposed to be in separate pods."

"I'm not sure of this plan, Private," the other 2LT said.

"Got a better one, sir?" Bit.nek asked.

He nodded. "Wait for extract."

There was a slight pause then a whisper.

so hungry

"That's not a plan, that's sitting on our asses," Bit.nek said. He pointed out where streaks were still marring the sky. "That's all starship debris making atmospheric entry. Space Force is fighting for its life, our taxi service doesn't have the time to worry about us."

The LT grimaced.

--radio update stand by-- 932 broke in.

so cold

Bit.nek held still while the radio reset, updated, reset again, then came online.

He could hear the slight warble.

--commo updated-- 932 said.

Bit.nek listened closely. No moaning.

Best of all, no whispers.

"All right," he said. "Gather up weapons. If you dropped yours, grab one from the stack and synch up. Pick up your greenies," he looked out over the city.

The sun was starting to set.

"We move out in 10."

Behind him the drop pod icon blinked. Beyond that an icon for a vehicle blinked slowly.