First Contact

Chapter 225: (Hesstla)

Atruka leaned back in his chair and stared at the illumination strip of the ceiling. He was supposed to go off shift in little more than an hour and this part of his shift always seemed to last the longest. The space station, in a geosynchronous orbit around Hesstla, was responsible for all of the space traffic within the system. Before the Terrans had arrived a little over a year ago, chasing a Unified Corporate Military Fleet, the most he had been required to handle were transports and the odd Corporate Executive runner.

Then the Terrans had crushed the Corporate Military Fleet, the Executor Fleet, the Military Fleet, and had landed on the planet to take the fight to the Overseers.

Atruka had learned that the Lanaktallan had picked a fight with the big primates and the big primates had basically caved their skulls in.

Personally, Atruka appreciated the Terrans. He had been born in debt and had only accrued more debt as life went on. At first he, like many others, tried to live frugally. Then he had learned, like so many others, that the closer you got to zeroing out your balance the more fees seemed to rack up.

So he had given up and bought himself training and gotten himself assigned to System Traffic Station Prime, where at least he could relax.

When the Terrans had shown up, they'd dumped the debt files straight into the shredder.

That alone made Atruka willing to support the Terrans.

Then came the massive Terran fleets that brought supplies, fabrication units, and the job of being a fifth assistant system traffic controller had suddenly become a pretty busy job. Things had slowed down in the past few months, however, and boring spots had begun to creep into his shift.

His supervisor, a female Hesstlin named Prektanna, moved over next to him. "Start running scans. They should be cleared but doublecheck and then clear the orbitals around the planet."

Atruka frowned. "There's nothing scheduled and the outer arrays haven't picked up anything coming in on the resonance zone. I don't have any scheduled arrivals."

She shook her head. "Not my idea, came from higher up. They want you to do inner system scans, see if there's any unregistered ships out there."

Atruka sighed. Another pirate sweep. He sat up straight and began querying his boards. Nothing. Nothing. More nothing. Oh, look, nothing. What's that over there? Why, it's nothing. How about over...

His boards suddenly lit up as first a handful then dozens of signatures lit off. Anomalous energy readings, energy flares, the bright lights of heavy power systems. More and more kept coming in.

Atruka leaned over and hit the emergency button. It beeped three times but the sirens didn't sound. He looked up at Prektanna, who was touching her implant and nodding. When she saw him staring at her she shook her head.

"Military drill. It's the Terran Space Force, they're integrating a major military unit with a new power armor regiment," she said. She breathed a sigh of relief. "Supposedly it's Task Force Tiamat, commanded by Admiral Karen Grwarga Thennis of the Terran Space Force."

"Are you sure?" Atruka asked, looking at his monitors. Even more pinpoints were showing up and most of the newly arrived craft were moving toward Hesstla at a high rate of speed and in formations that made his fur stand on end.

"Let me see. Throw it up on the big screen," Prektanna said. When he did so she stared at it. "Get me a scan of those ships. This doesn't look like."

Istalup made a motion of assent and hit his scanners.

The return signal was immediate and terrifying.

YOU BELONG TO US! bellowed out, making that space station ring. Several beings collapsed, two had seizures, and Atruka hit the medical alert.

"That's not the Terrans!" Atruka said, blood running from his nose and his vision blurry.

Prektanna looked up from the floor and coughed blood that had run into her mouth from her sinuses.

Atruka knew he shouldn't do it, that all of his training told him to keep his hands off that button.

Instead, he pulled out his physical key, unlocked the clear armaplas case, flipped it up, and slapped the big red button.

Sirens began to howl and the lights went to a dull red. The empty station that nobody ever sat at since the Terrans installed it suddenly had all the monitors go live. Atruka saw that battlescreens were spinning up, point defense was going live, and psychic shielding was being engaged.

"Signal the Terrans! Tell them we're under attack!" Prektanna yelled, pulling herself up. She looked at the communications station and saw the being that normally manned it was unconscious, bleeding from the ears and nose and mouth, foam drooling out of the slack mouth. She staggered over and started trying to contact the Terrans.

This time the roar of "You Belong to Us" was quieter and didn't claw at the mind.

Atruka saw that the Terran military bases just demanded all the airspace above them and around them for twenty miles be cleared in a cone that reached up to orbit.

"Task Force Tiamat, this is Belvak-8, we're under attack by Precursor forces in strength!" Prektanna said, wiping the blood from her face. "I say again, we are under attack by Precursor forces in strength!"

Atruka was busy ordering every ship in the system to flee immediately.

The station shuddered as something slammed into the battlescreens.

"Task Force Tiamat, this is Orbital Control, Belvak-8, we are under attack by Precursor forces in strength!" Prektanna said. "Please respond!"

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! roared out from the speakers.

Atruka's display flashed that he had an incoming transmission. He brought it up and froze.

It was less than a minute before the Terrans would arrive. They would break off if he gave the signal, but the cleared areas he'd been tasked with clearing out in the beginning of his shift were about to get a lot of really big ships arriving.

"They're coming in inside the Resonance Zone," Atruka said softly, his fur between his ears, down the back of his head, and along his spine raising up in shock.

"Task Force Tiamat, please respond! There are Precursor vessels in orbit! Break off! Break off!" Prektanna shouted. "Task Force Tiamat, please respond!"

HEAVY METAL INCOMING!

Atruka was frozen. He had less than thirty seconds to do something before the Terrans hit the point of no return. The were going to come in right on top the Precursors that were flooding the orbitals according to the coordinates, coming in on a tight vector that would end with a complete stop.

"Task Force Tiamat, please... I'm on the wrong channel! Oh, Oh, what channel?" Prektanna said. She reached down and grabbed the unconscious technician. "What's the frequency, Ken'nth?"

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

Atruka stared at his screen in horror as the first units of the Terran Task Force Tiamat streaked into existence, their ships sliding between the Precursor vessels that were already shedding landing units onto the planet's surface.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! sounded again and Atruka looked at his monitor.

More ships were incoming.

Working frantically he sent instructions to deploy further away, away from the Precursor machines. Each time the call of HEAVY METAL INCOMING! came he returned emergency redirect coordinates. He tried to keep them near the planet, away from the Precursors.

The main display stopped showing the orbitals and a Terran female in an armored vacuum suit appeared, laying back in a reclining shock cradle.

"What in the name of the Digital Omnimessiah's glittering ballsack is going on, Hesstlin-Orbital?" she asked.

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" Prektanna screamed as the station shuddered again. Somewhere far away a klaxon began to wail.

"Coms! All ships!" the Terran female snapped. She looked right back at the camera as a long stream of suddenly connected ships scrolled down the side of the image. "HOT ZONE HOT ZONE HOT ZONE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! GUNS CLEAR!"

She looked at the three still moving beings in the control room. "Well, now we know that your hyperpulse generator didn't get the right codes loaded. We're coming in, give us a pair of two light second diameter bubble two light minutes from the planet on either side, we'll come in there."

Atruka frantically did as she asked, putting it on the other side of the larger moon and then on the opposite side of the planet. His computer crunched the numbers and as soon as his panel beeped, much much much faster than his old panel could have, he slapped the button and send the coordinates.

The Terran female looked at them through the screen. "Hold the Line, Brothers, the Hamburger Kingdom's Hammer is coming."

The screen blanked.

Prektanna hung her head and started weeping as the station shuddered again. "It was supposed to just be training. Just training."

Atruka didn't answer.

He was too busy putting small bubbles around his home planet for ships to exit hyperspace into.

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TASK FORCE TIAMAT

HOT ZONE HOT ZONE HOT ZONE!

BELVAK-8 UNDER PRECURSOR ATTACK!

GO TO LOCAL COMMAND!

GUNS FREE!

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!

-Admiral Thennis, Commanding

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SECOND TELKAN MARINE DIVISION

ALL UNIT GO TO LOCAL COMMAND!

HOLD WHAT YOU GOT!

WE BRING THE FUN!

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III CORPS

Hit the planet. Rapid reload on the Clone Banks. Precursor's are on the ground, people.

Bring down the Hamburger Kingdom's Hammer on those metal bastards!

Protect civilians.

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FIRST CAVALRY DIVISION

You know what to do, men.

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SECOND ARMOR DIVISION

Enemy has landed in force.

Regroup when possible.

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FIRST INFANTRY DIVISION

LETTUM HAVVIT BOYS!

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FIFTH MECH DIVISION

Precursor forces in strength. Orbital drops.

Engage and destroy.

WE ARE THE METAL!

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...Billy Carriage, do you read? We have you on visual. Do you read? Billy Carriage, do you read?...