First Contact

Chapter 829: Book of the Dead

Unlike the rest of the species across the universe, humanity, in all its forms, does actually have life after death. And, in the typical human fashion, they made that everybody else's problem. This phasic shade is severe enough to cause even Earthlings to abandon any sector in which they are spotted, and never return.

And that gentlebeings is why, when you see a naked lemur with its hand in a jar of jam, you are to smile, wave, and leave it the fuck alone. - Historian uspadenarias/ speaking of the "Final Days of the Second Precursor War"

Early records state that phasic shades as we know them started happening after The Glassing. Records are spotty, of course, we can't be sure how long after The Glassing, but, not that long afterwords I expect. Though really you start seeing the phasic shades after some really really nasty fights where Terrans are killed in highly emotionally charged environments. Worse, if there is a lot of phasic energy being tossed around in the fight due to weapons or natural abilities, that means there is going to be more phasic shades formed that are stronger and form faster. I expect its less that they are ghosts, but rather, the impression of a mind at the moment of death burned into the phasic energy around the area, strong enough to become a thing all its own. I expect given enough time the shades would and do fade if they do not get to feed.

But the Atrekna just had to go and give them lots of food. - u/Alyeska_bird/ Technical Sergeant Grade 5, Second Precursor War, Atrekna Conflict, Operation Iron Piglet

"Terran murder ghosts are the worst thing I've seen this entire fucked up war." - Corporal Hegstawk, 2nd Telkan Marine Division

"The worst thing so far..." SSG Ralvex, 2nd Telkan Marine Division

>RECORDED OVER SECOND BRIGADE'S COMMO CHANNEL

Terran/Human/Earthling projects from ages past.

Rebirthed in fire and soot and ash.

Judgement calling for what has been done.

The Bell, The Bell, The Bell's been rung.

Talking has stopped, Fists have been raised.

The Universe has turned it's Malevolent gaze.

It's eye's now rest upon your Throne.

Your time has come, your Sins, you now must Own. - Lament of Souls, u/Killer_Icecream/ Second Precusor War

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"We're pushing back the Atrekna across the front," the CO, Captain Stomps Your Guts Out said, tapping the flat LED plas map with one bladearm. "They were ready for just about anything but a bunch of angry stompy mechs."

The XO nodded, a smoke stick in his mouth.

"We'll reload and reslush and head toward the two crystal palaces here," the Captain tapped a sigil with his bladearm. "And here," he tapped another spot. "One of these two places is putting up the heavy spooky and strange particle jamming that's preventing us from using all our cool toys."

"Once we get the toys back, we can send the purple bastards packing," Top grunted, running his hand down the spines that started just behind his eyes, swept over his head, then down his neck. The spines rattled slightly, but Ret.lek couldn't hear it when several greenies started using graviton assist hammers to try to force open a maintenance panel.

Ret.lek was sitting nearby on the coolant hose they were using to replace the crystallized coolant that normally kept his missile bay nanoforges from running overhot. He was eating the first meal in three days that wasn't inside his mek and was glad for it.

He glanced over at where the 'new meat' were.

The five 'dogbois' were all watching as their meks were unloaded. Ret.lek had met all five of them and found it hard to believe that they were all around ten thousand years old, from before the Glassing of Terra. They had gotten sick or something, Ret.lek wasn't sure, but apparently Vat Grown Luke had managed to personally heal them all.

Ret.lek would have scoffed at the idea of the Immortals before he'd joined the war effort.

"Hey!" Ret.lek yelled.

None of the five paid attention.

"HEY!" Ret.lek hucked his crackers at the five. They frisbeed across the distance, bobbing up and down, and hit one of the dogbois on the ass.

When the dogboi yelped and jumped, making all five of them turn and look, Ret.lek pointed at the middle mek, an 80 Chaos Hound. Reddish coolant was leaking out of one of the chest joints.

"COOLANT LEAK!" he shouted. "YOU TRYING TO DROWN THE FUCKING GREENIES, NEW MEAT?"

The dogbois looked up, then nodded, flattening their ears and ducking their heads in a motion that Ret.lek had learned was slight submissive body language.

Ret.lek had heard the dogbois had been around humans for tens of thousands of years so the submissive display didn't startle him.

Hell, sometimes Ret.lek he had a submissive display besides covering his head with his arms and yelling "NOT THE FACE!" when the XO, the only human in the warmek division, was pissed off.

Chuckling, Ret.lek went back to shoveling food in his mouth, looking around at everyone else's mek. He knew his own just needed a coolant flush and a template defrag. He'd taken very little damage against the squids and their little friends. He couldn't wait to assault one of the crystal palaces.

He loved the sounds they made as they collapsed.

The Atrekna were putting up some pretty serious resistance in the stellar system and on planetside, Ret.lek had to admit that. There was about ten times the number of crystal palaces that Ret.lek had seen on any of his previous drops.

I mean, sure, it was only four drops, but he felt like a solid warsteel vet compared to some of the newbies they...

"HEY!" Ret.lek grabbed a rock up and hucked it at the dogbois.

They all turned and looked.

"CHECK THAT GROUNDING LINE! IT'S SPARKING! YOU WANNA FRY THE GREENIES, YOU IDIOTS?" Ret.lek yelled, pointing as he yelled. "AND USE GODDAMN GLOVES, I DON'T WANT YOU TO BLOW YOUR BALLS OFF!"

The dogbois ducked their heads in a nod.

Ret.lek went back to eating and watching the CO, XO, and Top make plans.

When it came to do the thing, Ret.lek knew he'd be ready.

The dogbois stopped working and looked around.

Ret.lek looked around, frowning, wondering what was going on.

"HEY!" Ret.lek yelled.

One of the dogbois, Cobra, cocked their head, lifting their head even as they retracted their face shield. One of the other dogbois looked at Ret.lek and shrugged.

Cobra started growling, loud enough that Ret.lek could hear it. Frowning, he pinged Top, knowing that the First Sergeant couldn't hear him over the hammering.

Top looked over just as the hammering of the jackhammers, the chattering of the impact wrenches, and the hiss of the torches suddenly began to lower in volume.

More and more green mantids were lifting their tools, looking around.

Top frowned and Ret.lek jerked a thumb at the dogbois, all of whom had their faceshields retracted and were sniffing the air.

Cobra and Pancake were both growling.

Top opened his mouth when suddenly sirens began howling, a strange atonal undulation that made Ret.lek's fur stand up. Ret.lek looked around as he heard the sirens go off. He heard his datalink clink then hiss before SYSTEM LOCKOUT appeared in his vision. The siren pattern wasn't anything he had heard before, not even in eVR training.

He looked over at the Lance Commander, who was sitting on one of the coolant hoses, drinking a narcobrew, who looked up with a confused look on his face.

"What is that?" Ret.lek asked.

"I... I'm not sure," the LC said.

The XO came running up, hand on his pistol.

"Sir, what's the siren?" Ret.lek asked.

"Dunno," the XO growled.

That simple statement terrified Ret.lek more than when a kaiju had come hurtling through a skyraker and had almost stepped on him.

All five of the dogbois suddenly howled. Several of the greenies lifted flare guns and fired microflares into the air. The greenies were jumping, using their vestigial wings to flutter down. Ret.lek caught 592 in one hand.

"What?" Ret.lek asked.

--bad bad bad feeling-- 592 said. --brr brr boots on grave-- the greenie popped up an emoji of a little mantid shivering while covered in snow with ice hanging off its antenna.

Ret.lek heard gunfire start on the FOB walls and turned to look.

There were Treana'ad warrior caste climbing up on the wall, some of them with armor that was still smoking.

"How's my mek?" Ret.lek asked.

--no coolant-- 592 said. --all meks flushed no reload twenty minutes--

"What the hell is going on?" Top yelled out.

"Wrecker, get to the wall, tell me what you see!" the CO yelled.

"I'll go with him," the XO said. He looked up. "292, toss me my rifle."

A green mantid shook his fist but still used the tractor-pressor rig it was wearing to toss a battered magac rifle down.

The XO caught it with one hand and Ret.lek felt a little jealous.

"You five, come with us," the XO said, waving at the dogbois.

Ret.lek followed as they jogged to the wall. More sirens were kicking in and more Treana'ad warriors were climbing on the wall. Some were firing their heavy fifty caliber rifles, some were firing missiles, and others were pointing, waving flags, or blowing what sounded like train whistles to Ret.lek.

"What in the name of the Detainee's tight little fanged butthole is going on?" the XO swore, picking up speed, forcing Ret.lek to sprint to keep up.

Where the XO just jumped up, grabbed the bottom of the catwalk, and pulled himself up like he was climbing the obstacle course, Ret.lek had to climb the ladder. The dogbois copied the XO, making Ret.lek the last to climb up.

He could hear all five of the dogbois growling.

"By Daxin's warsteel balls," one of the Treana'ad said softly as Ret.lek pushed forward.

The Treana'ad infantry hordes were retreating enmasse, mixed in with vehicles, Atrekna servitors, even a few civilians, all running toward the FOB's walls.

Ret.lek noted that the gate guards were even letting in the servitors.

Everyone was in full retreat.

"What? What is happening?" Ret.lek asked.

"I don't know," the XO said. He lifted up a pair of macrobinoculars and looked through them.

Ret.lek saw what looked like a white edge to the farthest edge of the No Man's Land between the servitor/Atrekna lines and the Confederate lines.

Cobra opened his faceplate and sniffed.

"Menhit sing us home," the XO whispered. The XO dropped the smokestick and jerked, one hand going to his waist, drawing his pilot's knife, not his pistol.

"Lieutenant, what is it?" the CO asked from the ground.

Ret.lek noted that about half of the battalion had followed the CO.

The XO turned and looked down. "GET THE MEN OUT!" he shouted.

It looked like dozens, scores, hundreds of humans, made entirely of white line art, sweeping across the battlefield toward the FOB.

Where they touched the servitors, a few badly injured Treana'ad, or anyone else, the Terran yanked something free, the servitor or Treana'ad dropped, and the Terran began chewing on it while other Terrans started fighting for it.

"SHADES! TERRAN SHADES!" someone yelled.

Cobra howled.

A Treana'ad officer slapped Ret.lek's back and FAB IRON PROJECTILES ONLY appear in Ret.lek's vision.

"GET ON 'EM, GET ON 'EM!" a Treana'ad yelled, lifting up his heavy M2 'rifle' and running a burst across the oncoming shades.

The Terrans 'hit' by the round puffed into smoke then reformed a few seconds later, looking around.

The flood was still heading for the FOB.

Ret.lek saw two vehicles get swarmed under. Both started swerving and crashed.

Shades came out the other side of the vehicles.

"GET TO THE MEKS!" some helpful dipshit yelled.

The men on the ground ran back toward the meks.

"Hold your ground!" a Treana'ad roared out over squealing speakers.

"Here," a Treana'ad warrior said, handing Ret.lek something. "You can use my knife."

It was a standard Mark-2 Cutting Bar, not the huge Treana'ad warrior ones bigger than Ret.lek.

The shades were only a hundred meters from the wall of the FOB.

Ret.lek could see the twisted rage on their faces, see the red of their eyes.

Even through his armor he felt a cold wind.

"Gentlemen," the XO said, raising his pistol with one hand.

For a split second there was total silence.

"Prepare to defend yourselves."