Chương 183: Chapter 15x10

You just had to be there. - Anonymous They took my son and gave me back someone, some thing that I don't even recognize. - Anonymous female Lanaktallan, post Mar-gite Resurgence Best day, Sergeant Major! - Anonymous The show bridge was not silent, was the first thing that High Admiral Enem'edwnmo'o realized. He had always liked the show bridge over the command deck or the admiralty bridge. Now he was face down on the decking.

A Commander, a Kra'at Descent Human, was barking out orders as if everything was perfectly normal.

"Roll ship fifty degrees, come about to two two niner!" the KDH was barking out.

"Mechanically operated reaction thrusters answering to helm! Rolling fifty degrees, sir!" the second assistant to the assistant navigational officer, a Pukan, sang out back from his workstation. That workstation was all wires and pulleys. The backup in case everything stopped working, or the ship had to eject all power sources. Commo worked by electrical impulse through copper wire. Down in the engineering engineers sweated and swore, turning valves with wrenches and muscle and sweat.

A greenie stood on the back of one of the Assisstant Chief Engineers, who had blood running from two milky white eyes but was still on his feet. All over the ships of the Kra'at and Imperium nations the crews were working to get the ships under control and under power as the Mar-gite constructs moved in for the kill. Some were launching spikes, others were unrolling for engulf attacks, and still others were shedding millions of Mar-gite.

"Give me options for acceleration, Mister Va'azcod'gama!" the KDH Commander snapped.

"Aye aye, sir! Engines three, nine, fifteen, twenty seven, thirty one are responding! Engineering and DCC are reporting more are coming online in 'stupid mode'," the DCC officer called out.

"I can give you five G's. Artificial gravity is uncertain, sir!" the assistant helmsman Commander Va'azcod'gama replied.

"Five G's ahead. Get us moving out of the way of those spears," the human said. The human's boots appeared in front of High Admiral Enem'edwnmo'o, who managed to look up. Taking the human's outstretched hand High Admiral Enem'edwnmo'o managed to struggle to his feet.

"The fleet is still operational, but only on dumbwire systems, Admiral," Commander Joseph MacNakamoto said.

"Dumbwire?" the Admiral asked, blinking. The human pointed at the only working holotank. EYELI'IKMO'NY INDUSTRIAL CONCERN DUMBWIRES SYSTEM FOR WHEN STUPIDITY MIGHT CARRY THE DAY DUMBWIRE SYSTEM LINKAGE IN PROGRESS! HURDY-HUDRY-HUR AT 52% IDIOT BOX RESTART AT 12%! HURDY HURDY HURR! DURRRRR!

"What... what does any of that mean?" the Admiral asked as the percentages went for 52 to 53 and 12 to 14%.

"Some kind of weird backup system. We had to disable the ad-block and every now and then it shows and ad for Charlie Moo-Moo & Friends show or the Sheriff P'Kank & Friends Power Hour," the Commander said, shrugging. There was a weird twisting thrumming in the Admirals' bones.

"Sir, Neko Marine ships are still firing," a Lieutenant JG bleeding from both ears called out. The Admiral nodded and looked at the crew.

"Get us back in the fight, do we have shipwide communication?" he asked. A Kra'at Descent Feline pointed at the wooden box on the bulkhead that the Admiral had always thought was ceremonial.

"Status of Captain Norgachez?" the Admiral asked. Medical looked up.

"Fatality," she looked around.

"Show bridge took less casualties somehow." The Admiral nodded as he moved up, undid the latch, and opened it, revealing a hand-held headset. He lifted it up, put it to his ear and mouth. There was a whistle through speakers.

"All hands. All hands," he said solemenly.

"This is the Admiral, assuming ship command." He paused.

"FIGHT THE SHIP!" 0-0-0-0-0 He was Az'zkykrmo'o, a Lanaktallan, a third son, and part of the Citizens Volunteer Defense Force. He had been sent out after helmet and reticle wasn't working. All of the fancy doodads and geegaws on the weapon weren't working. The weapon was running off of sheer chemical reaction, pressure, and ballistic mechanics. It was basic physics, basic chemistry, that worked because the local laws of physics and chemistry still allowed biological life.

Azzy didn't care about any of that, he just kept running the belt. The ammoforge was out, Clicker having only managed to get the cracked one working through fast work. He felt the belt run over his left hoof and knew he was running low. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"RELOAD!" Azzy yelled. Volunteer Yethy ran up, one hand holding her too big helmet in place, the other holding a stick that had a can of ammo on each side of her fist. She set it down, her nose bright pink from exertion, her blue fur sweat coated, panting hard from the effort. She cracked a can, grabbed one of the 100 round belts and put the end of the belt Azzy was running through on the can. She slapped the two belts together.

"BELT UP!" she yelled, then turned and ran back to the forge. Staff Sergeant Breaker was standing on top of the hood of Count Trucula, firing his rifle rapidly. The sandbags were up, filled some kind of hardened foam that was resistant with ballistic, radiation, thermal pulse, shrapnel, energy, and what the fuck ever else wandered around the battlefield to kill an unlucky motherfucker. Anything electronic was down, anything put out by the cracked nanoforge was down.

The battery in Count Trucula was fully charged but the computer was shot. Clicker, real name 7782 which was a solid number for graviton particle movement through high pressure plasma fields, was trying to get the vehicle started again. They were out of radio contact. There was no commo. No way to know what was going on. So the whole squad was just following their last orders. Defend the skyraker entrance. Build a temp firebase. Kill the Mar-gite.

A burst from Uncle M240b by Azzy shredded a cluster of Mar-gite charging through the rubble strewn street. The tracers whipped through and something further down the street exploded. That looked like a 'them' problem to Azzy. The belt was 3 osmium jacketed warsteel core spooky particle thermite thread rounds to one tracer round, which was the same but had a tip that burned at 3, 000C for an additional "eat all the dicks" for the target. He wasn't worried that tracers worked both ways.

The Mar-gite's new trick wouldn't help either. One dropped down off the top of the building across the parking lot and 'leaned' back on the two legs.

"DARTER!" Yee yelled, flickering a laser pointer at it. Before it could spit the keratin and warsteel darts both Sergeant Breaker and Sergeant Grak'el both hit it, Breaker with his 10mm magac rifle, Grak'el with the M318, which was back to running the 20mm systems, forcing Sergeant Grak'el back to using a mechanical gunnery harness. Azzy turned and racked a half dozen that had suddenly burst out of an already opened doorway, shrieking as they tried to rush across the tarmac.

These ones had a new trick, flickering and leaving behind images of themselves. Azzy adjusted how far he led them and they suddenly all collapsed as their 'flickered' into rounds that Azzy had aimed where they would be rather than where they were when he hit the trigger. A glance at the barrel of the weapon and he looked up.

"COVER! COVER!" he yelled. Volunteer Cascin recognized the call from his 5 hours of basic training. The Pukan ran over, carrying the blaze rifle that Azzy had discarded but Cascin has replaced his low wattage laser pistol with. While he only came up to mid-chest on Azzy, Cascin knew that Azzy needed covering fire not someone to engage in CQC on his behalf. Azzy checked his hands, realized he'd lost his armor gauntlet on his left lower hand.

He unzipped his gunner back, grabbed out the mittens and the barrel and the tools. He grabbed out the can and sprayed the barrel. Vee Cascin kept firing the blaze rifle as Azzy swapped out the barrel on Uncle-240. The barrel was slightly warped and Azzy went to toss it away. Cascin grabbed it, tossing it to Yee, who threw it in the grinder. Azzy put the weapon together, aimed it downrange, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Not even a click. Uh-oh, Azzy thought. This wasn't covered by his 5 hours of basic training.

It wasn't even covered as a weapon. He pulled up the feeding tray and looked at the inside. He looked it over. The components were covered with grit from the atomic blasts, black carbon, and some kind of grainy. He fumbled in the bag and pulled out a squirt bottle. It was solid, the nanoforge having malfunctioned. Thinking fast, Azzy undid the top of the plastic bottle, spit inside, put the cap back on, dropped the bottle, and started stomping on it.

"COVER! COVER!" he found himself yelling.

"BUDDY COVERING!" Cascin kept up the fire, saying the words that had seemed stupid during the 5 hours but right now meant everything to him and he knew that it meant everything to the formerly stuffy Azzy. Azzy snatched up the bottle and upended it over the mechanisms inside the feed tray and receiver assembly. He slapped it closed and tried to fire. Click. He racked two rounds out. Click.

"COVER!" he yelled, pulling it open. He spit it in several times, realized he had dry mouth and grabbed his canteen. He took two drinks off of it and then swished his mouth before swallowing. His entire world had funneled down to him and the receiver assembly. He spit in it, slapped it shut, pulled the trigger. Click.

"DAMMIT!" Warsteel darts thumped into the tarmac around him, barely missing him. He shuddered and pulled open the tray. Completely at a loss for what to do he just started licking the interior mechanism. Trying to lick off the built up stuff and lubricate the rest. He felt foolish as hell flopping his tongue around in the feeding mechanism and receiver mechanism, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? He slapped it all together, yanked the charging handle, leveled it, and pulled the trigger. RA-RA-RASPUTIN!

It cut loose, tearing apart several Mar-gite and he breathed a sigh of relief. He swept away the Mar-gite that had pushed closer, hammering them.

"RELOADED!" Vee Cascin yelled, slapping the top of his lower flanks. Azzy just nodded, firing the light machinegun. Someone cracked off a flare and Azzy realized it had been getting darker. The flare lit up the whole parking lot in flickering, strobing red and white light. He blinked several times. The Mar-gite had pulled back or had run out of Mar-gite.

"Vee Yethy, take everyone some chow and some water," Breaker called out. Azzy just nodded, feeling exhausted. He didn't feel like eating, but one thing his 5 hours of Basic Training had stressed over and over was to follow the orders of his squad leader no matter how impossible or strange or counter-intuitive they seemed. Still, he bent down and opened up two ammo boxes. He pulled out the linked belts and then hung them from his shoulders.

He adjusted his helmet, breaking off the milky white macroplas visor that had stopped working during the bright flash. He straightened up, holding the Uncle-240 in his hands, his lower hands handling the belt that snaked its way to the open box. Vee Yee came up, holding up an MRE and two bottles of water. Azzy nodded, sitting down on his ass, tearing open the MRE, which was labeled Chicken & Rice (Lanaktallan Rated C) and ripped into the main meal. He was surprised how good it tasted. Just the smell made him drool.

He wolfed it down, surprised at how hungry he suddenly was. He swigged down some water, tore into the dehydrated peaches (Lanaktallan Rated A) and realized he liked eating them why they were still dehydrated more than when they were rehydrated. He imitated Sergeant Grak'el and smeared the peanut butter - thickness B Oil B (Lanaktallan Rated C) on the chocolate covered cookie (Lanaktallan Rated A). It was delicious. Over by the still disabled door, an armored vehicle had parked.

Three beings got out with PRESS on the back of their jackets. Azzy snorted. That wouldn't stop the Mar-gite from eating them. Shrugging, he finished it up by chewing the gum, grimacing at first at how it seemed to grab a hold of every little particle of food in his mouth. He followed the instructions and when it ran out of flavor he just swallowed it. The lime BOBCO XTREME WATER flavor packet made the two bottles of water much more palpable. He handed it all off to Yee who jammed it in the grinder.

He stood up and stared at the parking lot, the belts slung over his shoulders swinging slightly as he held onto his M240. He was lit by the flares, by the burning buildings and wreckage. Made larger than life by the smoke and dust. These are the best days of my life, he thought. My life will never be better than this. 0-0-0-0-0 All over the planet the Mar-gite were making landing. All over the planet the inhabitants fought back. The Mar-gite had numbers unending. It was the inhabitants home.

It was still too close to call. But that didn't matter to the inhabitants. 0-0-0-0-0 The Mar-gite screamed.

"HERE THEY COME!" Breaker yelled.

"GUNS ONLINE!" High Admiral Enem'edwnmo'o heard. Victory or death. Either is fine.