First Contact

Chapter 214: (Ralvex)

He'd been forced to fall back to his primary point. BOLO Cutter could only spare so much artillery support and the Precursors had begun devoting air mobile units to the attack, putting further stress on the few air defense systems he had left. His mortars were exhausted, the nano-forge supplied ammo-hoppers glowing a faint red as the entire system overheated. The two 155mm snub nosed artillery pieces were down, one from overheating the other from a lucky hit by a Precursor penetrating HEX round. The integrity field holding the cliff together was starting to overheat and the northbound battle-screen had completely failed.

Which meant that Ralvex was up to his metaphorical ass in metaphorical alligators.

"Prep the charges, 525," Ralvex ordered, kicking away a snake he had decapitated with a single shot from his overheating and beeping autocannon. "Timmy, Stampy, fall back to point Charlie."

--fall back time?--

"No choice," Ralvex said, squeezing the grip-trigger again. The autocannon chugged, the timing taken all the way down to 120 rounds a minute. The weapon roared, hammering at the approaching Precursor machines.

On the little window in the upper right of his vision the Hesstlin reporter was sobbing in relief. The Precursor forces that had been invading her building and killing everyone inside, floor by floor, had left a little over an hour ago and she was now reporting that they were streaming out of the city by the thousands.

All heading south.

Ralvex began backing up, Stampy scuttling over next to him and then hurrying up the sloped highway. Stampy's 80mm hellbore was beeping loudly, smoke wafting up from the half-shot out barrel. Tiny Tim rolled up, beeping a happy little tune, his guns overheated and quiet.

Ravlex began stepping backwards, watching as the Precursor machines threw themselves against the battle-screens, being thrown back shattered and ruined, only for more to climb over the corpses to attack the battle-screen again.

It's like they've never seen one before, Ralvex thought to himself, keeping his fire on the collapsed northbound battlescreen.

At the right point he flexed his knees and jumped, throwing himself up into the air and backwards. He bobbled in mid-air then landed on top of the trailer. The side was blown open by Precursor high-velocity rounds, several appliances were nothing more than twisted metal and pipes.

The Precursors rushed through the gap.

--FIRE IN THE HOLE--

The entire inside of the position exploded, the creation engines, already red hot, exploding as the slush splashed out and caught fire. Pieces of armor and robotics sailed skyward as Ralvex jumped backwards again, landing where several cars were parked across the two highway lanes. The highway tightened there, the median vanishing and going from three lanes to two.

As soon as he hit the ground, 525 activated the battle-screens, opened the protective cover, and jumped off, using the jump assist thrusters in his armor to sail over to Stampy.

--swapping barrel--

"I gotcha," Ralvex said.

**TIMMY HELP** the little wheeled robot said.

Ralvex checked the telltales. The little wheeled gunnery assist's weapons were cooled off.

More Precursors were rushing up the highway.

"I have the high ground, Anakin," Ralvex whispered to himself an ancient morale boosting meme he didn't really understand the context of but had heard the Terran Marines said.

It made him feel better as he tabbed up another piece of gum.

The spider mines hiding on the sheer walls of the draw jumped off the stone, their adaptive camouflage coverings blurring as they flew off the rock and onto the armor of the lead Precursors.

They detonated with an eye watering bluish-white flash, their whole bodies inverted into a shape charge forged penatrator that blew clear through whichever Precursor they attached to.

The Big Momma's were exhausted, dug in deep and cooling off while they deslushed and built more thermal cores.

A hovercraft came in low and fast, gun firing, tearing into the cliff face to the right of Ralvex even as Ralvex raised the aiming point of his autocannon and squeezed the grip.

His first two rounds hit the front of the hovercraft and it exploded, the third round detonating on a chunk of armor that had already been blown out the back of the vehicle.

"Cutter to Ralvex, do you read?" came the terse signal.

"Ralvex here," he replied, chewing the gum and raking the Precursors below him. The steep grade gave him a high enough elevation that he was able to hammer the 20mm APHEX shells into the top of the rear deck of the Precursors.

--almost done-- 525 signalled.

Stampy beeped with concern.

"Can provide limited artillery and rocket support. File VSR (Verbal Situation Report) or TSR (Text Situation Report) or VRGSR (Virtual Reality/Graphical Situation Report) for fire plan. Over," the big BOLO said.

"VSR: Give me another round of FASCAM and submunitions between me and the city, drop air defense autonomous systems to my east and west, drop autonomous indirect fire support devices to my south. I need a resupply pack for a Mark II Roboboi and a Mark III Direct Fire Gunnery Assistant, both Telkan Marine versions," Ralvex said. He was panting with the heat buildup. "Pack of Heavy Scout Armor thermal cores if you can shake and bake a pack. Over."

"That is within my capabilities," the BOLO said. "Be advised, drone reconnaissance shows you are about to come under heavy enemy attack. I will provide assistance. Over."

"Are there any Telkan or Terran units close to me?" Ralvex asked. He let go of the firing handle and slapped the core eject on the side of his autocannon. The glowing and flashing thermal core popped free, bounced off the cliff wall, and rolled down the pavement. "Over."

"Negative. Not with enough of a presence to cut through the interference, over."

"All right. I'm still alive. I'm going to keep fighting. Can't let them get to the town. Over."

"I have broken the enemy communication algorythm, Private. The enemy is convinced that you are a reinforced infantry division and seek to destroy your unit to prevent you from launching a counter-attack to liberate the city of 12.25 million remaining citizens," Cutter said.

Ralvex waved the barrel back and forth for a second to cool it and resumed firing. His smartgun harness was showing wear on the right upper arm strut, but that was to be expected now that he was over 30K rounds through the gun and on his last virgin barrel. He'd have to switch to the first one soon and hope the cooling hadn't warped it.

"High praise, I guess?" Ralvex laughed.

"Have you been trained in Terran Autonomous Field Warfare Systems?" Cutter asked.

"No. What's that?" Ralvex asked. "Shit shit shit."

Three hovercraft came in fast. He traversed the weapon, hitting one and blowing it out of the sky over his old position. The second one came apart in mid-air and spun down to hit the side of the man-made canyon, and the other heeled over to the side, crashing on the mesa's flat top to his east.

"A method of seizing control of the battlefield with only a single Terran operator. There is one near you, but it has suffered damage. I can deploy a recovery vehicle to bring it to you," Cutter said.

"If it'll help me out, I'll take it. I need more barrels for a standard Telkan 20mm Carmex XM-4811e1 autocannon and another Telkan Heavy Scout Armor XM-393e2 smart harness," Ralvex said.

"Manufacturing now. Hold the line, Marine," Cutter said.

"No choice. Can't let them past me," Ralvex said, panting inside his armor. He raked the autocannon across the top of the back decks of more Precursor machines, blowing them apart. They were having to climb over the wreckage of their own dead now to get line of sight on him.

"Understood. Cutter, out," the big heavy metal answered.

"Ralvex, out," the Telkan replied, panting.

**STAMPY HELP!** the little warboi beeped.

"Give 'em a shot in the wreckage berm, Stampy!" Ralvex yelled. "525, I'm overheating. Timmy, go to point defense!"

**TIMMY HELP** the little warboi beeped, separating its tandem guns and deploying two laser wands.

--gotta blow dust off heatsinks-- 525 said. --thirty seconds--

"Do what you gotta do," Ralvex said. "Give it to 'em, Stampy!"

Stampy fired his 80mm hellbore, lighting up the night as the compressed and directed nuclear explosion hit the middle of the piled up scrap metal. The round's backwash rolled over Ralvex, who set his feet and leaned into it, trusting the graviton generators in his boots to hold him in position as the 25kt blast hit the pile of scrap metal and blew a fan-shaped chunk out of the wreckage.

And the Precursors beyond.

And the six lane freeway.

And five hundred meters of desert, that was instantly turned to glass superheated bubbling liquid glass.

Ralvex used the few seconds of reprieve to move to Stampy, grab a spare barrel, and swap the barrels out on his autocannon. He grabbed a strip of thermal cores and slapped them into the weapon, then ran the weapon through the self-test as he turned back.

More of the Precursors were charging.

Bright streaks dropped out of the sky on a high arc, slamming into the ground. His armor labeled them as air defense and point defense autonomous systems and started synching them into his armor's battle tactical net.

--two cracked heat sinks-- 525 said. --replacing. gonna get hot--

"Give us some music while we work," Ralvex said. He felt the heat suddenly increase and took a long drink off of his water-tube. The water was flat, tepid, recycled from his sweat and urine as well as what moisture it could pull out of the air. Since it was the desert, that wasn't much.

The music was hard, pounding, and the Precursors that could hear it kept trying to analyze it, trying to figure out what the unit they were facing was trying to communicate. There was a 15% chance it was tactical battlecode and nearly 40% chance it was a form of sonic warfare that the Precursor machines were immune to as the heavy bass vibrated the metal of the units that got close before they were cut down by autocannon fire.

Two of the larger machines, which had stayed back and surrounded themselves with smaller machines, noticed that there had been a brief lull in the firing, then the enemy had started firing from a second position. Additionally, firepower dedicated to anti-artillery and counterbattery as well as air defense had started firing from previously unknown positions.

Is this an ambush? one asked the other.

No matter. The enemy is in strength and must be eliminated before it can arrange a counter-attack. The enemy is tenacious and difficult to fight. The population center must be secured so that the biological can be harvested.

Both gave the orders to press the attack.

Ralvex was having to compensate for barrel wear, the rounds no longer pinpoint accurate, but it was either that or not being able to use his heavy weapon.

He wasn't quite ready to fall back on his battle rifle.

--sink 1 replaced-- 525's words appeared on the inside of Ralvex's faceplate.

"Just keep me in the fight," Ralvex said between clenched teeth, cranking the cyclic rate back up to 500 rounds a minute and clamping down on the trigger.

If you are in a target rich environment that is the only time you should bring your cyclic rate above three hundred fifty rounds a minute. And before you ask, you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt when that time comes, the words of his Terran instructor came back to him as he raked the autocannon fire back and forth across the swarming oncoming Precursor machines.

**STAMPY HELP** came the warning.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed on his visor.

This time an angry fist of boiling fire rose up a mile from the old fortifications as Stampy ramped his fire output to 2.5 kt. Before the fire could even fade Stampy fired again and another first rose into the sky, pushing back the dark heavy clouds.

**STAMPY HELP!** the bot squealed and fired again.

The ground trembled under Ralvex's feet as he pulled the gun up, firing at a large hovercraft that looked like it was heavy with munitions. The shells raked down the wing which suddenly came apart.

"OH SHIT, CLAMSHELL!" Ralvex yelled.

Stampy and Timmy hunkered down an a hexagonal pattern made of light covered them in a half-orb.

The craft nosed down just as the air defense stations opened up on it, raking down the fuselage and hammering at the other wing. The entire thing broke up, raining chunks of battle-steel armor, internal structures, and payload down onto the ground around Ralvex.

Payload that included high explosives.

Ralvex turned and jumped, hitting the wall and bouncing off, jumping again, flipping and twisting in mid-air, and landing in the standard pose, bringing his autocannon close to shield it. 525 barely got inside the protective housing before the jump and was locked in when first one went off. He locked his joints and inflated the pressure sleeve to max pressure, pumping it full with most of his remaining kinetic gel.

The world tore apart in rolling explosions that hurtled chunks of Precursor vehicle everywhere, the concussive wave slammed into Ralvex, who kept his neck straight, trusting his helmet to protect his head. The grav-spike howled as the blast waves pummeled him. His armor heated up and something slammed into him hard enough to take his breath away. A car slammed into him, flipped over his head, and vanished behind him.

The blast wave passed and he looked back down the highway. The mesa was 1,200 feet high, he was at the 800 foot mark, almost 500 meters of road down in front of him.

At the 400 foot mark the integrity fields had failed, the blasts scooping free large chunks of stone and throwing them into the sky. The blast had been channeled behind him and ahead of him, destroying more Precursor vehicles.

He checked his monitors and cursed.

His autocannon was reading failure. He stood up and checked it over. The housing was cracked and electronics could be seen inside. As he stood up he saw steaming kinetic gel leaking out of his joints. He'd taken a lot of hits. His right shoulder was yellow, his left leg amber on his HUD.

"Sound off."

**STAMPY ALIVE**

**TIMMY ALIVE**

"Regroup," he ordered. "525, you OK?"

--almost bent antenna-- 525 sent back with a smiley face that rolled its eyes like it was crazy.

Ralvex lowered the cannon and triggered a burst. Nothing. The firing grip just clicked.

"Autocannon's busted. See what you can do," Ralvex said, letting the harness pull it up into the rest position. He pulled around his rifle, loaded it, and checked the settings. At a full charge at the rate of fire he was using, he'd damage the barrel by morning.

But it was that or nothing.

His map updated. At the top of the ridge was his resupply and reload, delivered by Cutter.

It was just 600 meters behind him.

The only problem was the Precursor vehicles were already advancing up the bombed out highway. He knelt down, aimed, and fired. The mag-ac battle rifles sparked as they slammed into the battlesteel armor of the advancing vehicles. One shot hit one of the centipede legs at the front of the vehicle, snapping it free, and the rest shifted position to cover the jaws.

Lasers began snapping around him.

Tiny Tim rolled up out of the crater it was in, orienting the tandem 20mm rapid fire autocannons and opening fire. Its barrels were almost shot out so the thick lines of 4-1 APHEX to tracer wobbled slightly as the little force multiplier raked the oncoming Precursors.

Stampy jumped up out of the crater and ran for Ralvex.

**STAMPY HURT** the little drone squealed as it ran for Ralvex. Ralvex could see that the barrel of the hellbore was bent.

"Well, shit," Ralvex said. He reached down, grabbing grenades off his belt and throwing them out. Microprism, thermal masking smoke, chaff, ferrous-smoke. The two warbois rolled through it, stopping next to Ralvex, who hosed a long burst through the clouds of concealment. Ralvex grabbed battle-screen projectors and threw them on the ground, linking them together as fast as possible.

The battle-screen came up as hv-rounds started bouncing off the rocks around Ralvex. The screen started sparking and flaring as rounds hit it even as the lasers and particle beams were shattered by the microprism mist.

--autocannon dead-- 525 said. --fix stampy--

He jumped from Ralvex's shoulder and glided to Stampy, looking the barrel over.

His radio clicked a few times.

"You still alive, Marine?" a voice asked. His armor ID'd it as HTR-3 from earlier.

"Still alive," Ralvex said, gritting his teeth.

"You've got a payload here. Bunch of crates. Looks like a couple spare autocannons like the one you were packing. What do we do with them?" the Law Enforcement Officer asked.

"Just leave it," Ralvex said. "It's getting hot down here and I"m down to my battle rifle."

"What happened to your cannon?" he asked.

"It's gone. Get into the shelters," Ralvex snapped. "You can't help me."

The commo clicked and the Hasstlin was gone.

Tiny Tim was laying down the firepower, firing rockets as fast as it could. Ralvex undid the lockouts so that Tiny Tim could wet-print and kept watch. Any small drones in range of the rifle he snapped shot at, knocking them out of the sky.

His armor pinged and he looked back. The vehicle from earlier was hurtling toward him, none of the lights on. He could see there were two HTR in the front seats. He turned back to firing.

--gonna saw the barrel-- 525 said.

"We're not supposed to do that," Ralvex said.

--that or nothing-- 525 said, popping the torch and starting to cut.

Stampy and Tiny Tim fired their mortars dry in a rippling burst.

The LawSec car screeched to a stop and one door opened, the HRT officer crouched down behind the door, waving his arm.

"We brought one of the guns!" he yelled.

Ralvex wanted to yell at the civilian to clear the area, to get out of there before the Precursors started homing in on the EM emissions of the car or the heat signature of the ceramic engine.

The HTR crab walked back, opening the back door, and pulled the heavy autocannon out, grunting.

Ralvex kept shooting at the drones, snapping them out of the air. One of the point defense guns had gone silent.

Ralvex turned and ran over to the HTR, lifting the heavy autocannon out of the LawSec officer's hands. His armor immediately began to synch up with the weapon. It was a BOLO rapid-print nano-forge weapon but it was within specs.

"You guys need to get to the shelters. I don't know how much longer I can hold them off," Ralvex said. He took a long drink of water and tabbed up some gum.

Behind him Tiny Tim beeped and went to alternate firing, outrunning his nano-forge's ability to keep up with ammo consumption.

--done-- 525 said.

**STAMPY HELP**

"NO! Hold fire, Stampy!" Ralvex said. He turned back to the LawSec. I'm about to go atomic again. Get to the shelters," he snapped.

The officer nodded, his eyes wide as the firepower from below picked up intensity and the battlescreen started snarling and crackling. He rushed back to his car as Ralvex connected his ammo pack to the autocannon and let it synch up.

"Officer," Ralvex yelled.

The officer paused.

"Thanks," Ralvex said. "Now get to shelter."

The unarmored car sped off as Ralvex cocked the autocannon and turned back to the man-made draw.

"Fire at will, Stampy," he ordered, squeezing the firing handle.

And the battle raged on.

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

III CORPS

Units still widely scattered. Still rallying. 22% MIA but considered still in action.

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2 TELKAN SCOUT MARINES

Regroup when possible.

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

TF TIAMAT

Task Force is currently forcing Precursor ships back from the planet.

Second force, designated Tango Two, have arrived at the Resonance Zone via jumpspace.

Current opponents do not match weapons, tactics, or ship types of previously encountered Percursor.

Designated Type-4.