First Contact

Chapter 830: Book of the Dead

Cold iron is a curious metal to the Terran psyche. For ten thousand years of history it was the strongest material they could make war with. From the start, they believed it was strong enough to kill spirits and magical creatures from their myths; in ancient Shammallama they made bowls of iron to talk to the dead.

'It is... telling... that what it takes to stop a deceased incorporeal Terran is an element forged in the heart of a dying star. An element that is rich in their blood, the element that gives their blood the striking deep crimson color. The color of danger in nature.

'Why do you think that every Terran graveyard is surrounded by a spiked iron fence? It isnt to keep beings out. Its to keep the dead where they belong.

'For our safety. - Dr. VnkMin, Treanad parapsychonaut at SUDS directorate, circa 50 pre-glassing.

The shades were coming, N'Thrap could see them. He'd already lost four men to their touch, but he'd still managed to lead the majority of his unit to safety.

N'Thrap glanced over at the small being next to him, staring, like everyone else, out into No Man's Land. N'Thrap reached down to his weapon harness and drew his combat knife.

"Here, you can use my knife," N'Thrap said, without looking at the being.

The being took the knife even as N'Thrap slowly drew his Mark-2 Cutting Bar, Large, and triggered the power cell.

N'Thrap could see the red glow of the eyes of the oncoming shades.

FAB IRON ROUNDS - PERCUSSION CHEMICAL PROJECTION ONLY - NO MAGNETIC OR GRAVITON appeared in N'Thrap's vision with a emergency push icon on it.

N'Thrap pushed it on, reaching over and slapping his hand on the shoulder guard of the being next to him to pass the order and the template on.

"You, who stood with me, shall always be my brother," N'Thrap said to the men on his right and left.

N'Thrap revved his cutting bar. M'Krek a few beings down to the left lifted his dual barrel nifty-fifty and let the bolts slam shut. K'Lek, a few beings over on the right, lifted his rifle, popping the cutting bar bayonet into deployment position and revving the engine.

A dogboi howled. Another joined it, then a third.

The Terran shades screamed in rage and hatred.

For a long second everyone on the line stood silent as the shades rushed the line, screaming in rage and hatred. Wherever they caught some poor bastard they swarmed them under, ripping and tearing something out of the unfortunate bastard's body and fighting over it even as the victim went limp.

Creation engines and nanoforges hissed and hummed as the sun began to dip beyond the horizon.

The pressure valve on N'Thrap's cybernetic leg released a sharp hiss of steam. His onboard wargear updated for the new rounds. Sharp dropoff after two hundred meters, excellent impact profile. Cold iron rounds, chemical propellant.

Proof the rifled barrel still had its place on the battlefield.

N'Thrap's rifle almost felt smug in his hands.

The Terran shades were within a thousand meters of the wall.

"OPEN FIRE!" N'Thrap called out, pointing with his chainsword at the onrushing horde.

"GET SOME, GET SOME!" K'Lek yelled out.

"FOR MOO-MOO'S!" M'Krek bellowed.

Another dogboi howled.

The sun slipped a little further.

The heavy guns of the Treana'ad Infantry hammered out, the gunners expertly walking their fire into the oncoming shades. The shades screamed, puffed into nothingness, and were gone.

But more took their place.

Two of the dogbois howled and N'Thrap saw the onrushing horde flinch slightly. Not long, only a split second, but the entire front rank for two hundred meters flinched slightly before the next ranks swept through them.

N'Thrap didn't know what it meant, but he still kicked it back to command as part of a data package.

Seven hundred fifty meters.

Dead and they're still coming right at us, N'Thrap thought. P'Thok, Great One, how did you stand against such savage wrath with nothing but a plasma rifle, plasteel armor, and your wits?

N'Thrap opened up with his miniguns, raking the front lines, which puffed away, the ones behind sweeping into the gaps.

A squint brought his telescopic vision into play and he watched the bullets rake out from his guns, hit the front lines, and explode into a shower of white hot sparks.

The iron was hitting nothing but some kind of phasic energy and exploding like it was hitting armor.

N'Thrap tossed it back to MI.

He just hoped that it would do some good.

Five hundred meters.

A flight of eight graviton strikers came in on a close pass, their guns hammering, tracers lashing the ground as they poured 30mm cannon fire into the oncoming swarm.

N'Thrap saw it wasn't doing anything.

No rage? No personal willpower directing it? No desire for survival? N'Thrap wondered.

He kicked the data to MI.

Three hundred meters.

Everyone was firing now, with the exception of the little guy next to N'Thrap, who was holding N'Thrap's knife and trying to look brave as he stood there in his warmek pilot suit and a grin.

N'Thrap looked down at him.

"We shall kick in the door to Hell and dance with the Detainee in the pale moonlight together, brother," N'Thrap said even as his guns kept raking the oncoming horde.

The being in the pilot's suit just nodded, still giving a sickly smile.

Two hundred meters.

The dogbois howled all up and down the line.

N'Thrap was startled when a green mantid jumped from where it was on the back of the being next to N'Thrap to N'Thrap's back. Before N'Thrap could even say anything, the Mantid plugged a cyberarm into his data access port, used his engineering override, and grabbed a whole handful of bandwidth.

One hundred meters.

The sole Terran on the line raised his pistol in the air.

"GENTLEMEN!" the Terran called out. Not shouting, but making his voice audible over the din of the battlefield regardless.

N'Thrap held his swords out to either side. Beside him, the Lanaktallan cyborg did the same.

"I hope you know what you do," N'Thrap said to the mantid.

Fifty meters.

"PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELVES!" the Terran's voice wasn't a yell, wasn't a bellow, just somehow able to be heard over the onrushing horde.

He fired a single shot into the air.

Ten meters.

The Mantid on N'Thrap's back was pulling most of N'Thrap's thin bandwidth pipeline, but there was suddenly no time to think as the shades swept through the phasic shielding that had been put up. If anything, the shades got more detailed, more intense.

They screamed as they swarmed the wall.

The dogbois howled.

Then there was no time for thinking at all.

592 was only a couple of years old. A graduate of the Smokey Cone Warmek Engineering School, he had joined up as soon as he was able to, joining the war against the Lanaktallan. He had been in school with Private Ret.lek and had been happy to be assigned to Ret.lek and the big 90 ton warmek.

He watched the Terran shades swarming toward the lines and felt his ichor grow cold.

How? How did my ancestors see this and not run screaming? he asked himself, blinking.

The dogbois howled and the phasic meter on his hip clicked as the needle peaked.

592 saw something for a split second. He wasn't sure what, but then the dogbois howled and he saw it again even as the needle on the meter on his hip clicked.

He looked down and saw that, for a second, the needle had peaked on one specific wavelength.

At the same time as the leading rank of shades had flinched.

592 felt the equivalent of shock run through him. He looked at the dogbois, who howled again, then at Ret.lek, then at the fucking huge Treana'ad warrior next to him with a commander's pack on his back between the two miniguns, then at the shades.

Then at the Treana'ad.

The shades.

Treana'ad.

Shades.

T-bug.

Angry dead Terrans.

592 made the decision.

--be right back try not die-- 592 said, and jumped onto the Treana'ad's back. He jammed his cybernetic bladearm, a legacy of when a kaiju had almost knocked Ret.lek's mech over, into the dataport. A quick slicer, a couple of engineer override codes that nobody admitted to but every greenie had, and he was into the datastream.

He replayed the dogbois howl, looking at the meters.

He cursed when he saw that he was the only one carrying a phasic calibration meter.

--howl i need you to howl-- 592 told the nearest dogbois.

They were engaged with the shades, firing point blank as the shades rushed the wall.

"GENTLEMEN!" the XO called out. 592 drew his magac rifle off his back and loaded it with a magazine pulled from his onboard nanoforge.

shit shit shit 592 thought. He reached out to one of the dogbois.

--howl Daxin stab your eyes-- he said.

The dogboi kept firing.

He reached out to another.

"PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELVES!" the XO called out.

The dogboi actually answered.

"What?" it asked over the crackling comlink.

"HOWL, DAMN YOU!" 592 screamed in Confederate Standard as best as he could.

The dogboi howled and several others picked it up.

592 saw the first rank flinch back.

The needle clicked.

THERE! He had it! the phasic frequency the howl went out on.

There was screaming, the howling of chainswords, the stutter of small arms. A spectral arm reached toward him and the cybernetic Lanaktallan next to the big Treana'ad chopped its arm off with a single swipe of the clattering chainsword.

592 overrode the Treana'ad's nanoforge, putting a 'sorry' emoji up even as he worked feverishly.

The shades were pushing through the ranks. Confederate troops were dropping, holes were appearing in the lines that the shades pushed through.

592 could see the shades flood into the camp and felt urgency like he had never felt before as he worked fast.

The Treana'ad he was riding gave a grunt and tilted as one leg buckled.

592 overrode the suit and straightened the leg.

"STAND UP AND FIGHT!" someone bellowed.

592 fired his microrifle with one hand even as he worked.

Cross patch there. Override the external speaker systems. Ping and search. Network override.

A shade reached for him, personally, and 592 was aware of Ret.lek hacking at the shade with a clattering chainsword, some kind of protomatter spewing from the blade where it hit the shade.

592 ignored it.

Phasic coprocessor. No time, use the old mantid battlefield array chipset. Crosswire. Jump the voltage between the two posts. Drop the amperage on jumper 2 for AY-3-8910.

"Whatever you do, I hope you do soon," the Treana'ad said.

592 sent back a feverishly working emoji even as he kicked the program into work.

There was a howl over the speakers of every Treana'ad and Lanaktallan infantry across the FOB.

The shades screamed and kept coming.

"FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!" the XO yelled.

--no no no should work-- 592 broadcast. He kicked the speaker even as he reached out to the dogbois --need another howl--

They ignored him, fighting close and in the faces of the shades.

"Problem?" the big Lanaktallan cyborg asked, even as he blocked two shades with one chainsword, allowing the Treana'ad 592 was on to saw through them with a cybernetic bladearm.

--need dogbois howl-- 592 said, desperation filling him.

"HOWL, DAMN YOU!" someone sent through the speakers.

The dogbois howled. Not as many as their had been, but 592 counted three.

The shades all flinched back. Some dissolved. A few in the middle of reforming puffed into dust.

THERE! RIGHT THERE!

592 isolated the wavelength, slapped it into the system.

A shade reached through the Treana'ad's guard, its fingertips grazing both of 592's left legs even as Ret.lek half turned and chopped at it, holding the cutting bar in his one good hand.

592 felt his legs go dead.

modify the carrier wave. adjust the lower register. loop across.

592 activated the program.

The fingertips touched his thorax and abdomen.

Ret.lek hacked at the shade as furiously as he could without endangering the Treana'ad his buddy was riding on.

The shade yanked its hand back, holding a tiny green mantid in its hand made of glittering blue energy. It stuffed the mantid in its mouth, chewing, as it turned to face Ret.lek.

Ret.lek felt his eyes burn even as he thrust the chainsword through the shade, which screamed as ectoplasm showered Ret.lek.

Dogboi howls erupted from every speaker in the FOB.

This time it caused every shade inside the FOB and two hundred meters beyond the wall to puff into non-existence.

The Lanaktallan reached out and caught 592 as the little green body fell from the back of the Treana'ad.

Dogboi howls kept sounding from speakers.

Ret.lek went down on one knee, grounding the tip of the chainsword, one arm hanging dead and useless.

The Lanaktallan passed the tiny body to the Treana'ad.

Ret.lek looked up as the Treana'ad tapped him with the tip of his bladearm.

The Treana'ad held out 592's body.

Ret.lek reached out and took it.

"He dances with the Detainee in the pale moonlight," the big Treana'ad said.

Ret.lek just nodded.

"Up, brother," the Treana'ad said. It held out a hand. "The war awaits."

Ret.lek accepted the hand, letting the immense power of the Treana'ad pull him to his feet. When he held out the chainsword, the Treana'ad waved one hand and shook his head.

"Let my knife serve you as well as it did this day," the massive Treana'ad said.

Ret.lek just nodded. He jumped down off the wall and moved toward where the warmeks were parked.

The XO appeared out of nowhere, walking next to Ret.lek. The XO looked up at the stars, which shone down uncaring.

"You all right, kid?" the XO asked.

Ret.lek swallowed and shook his head. "My arm. One got me."

"Let's get you to the medics, get that arm looked at," the XO said.

Ret.lek held out 592's little body. "One got him."

The XO nodded. "We'll take him to the medics too."

Ret.lek didn't say anything, just followed the XO.

The dogboi howl sounded from every speaker.

The shades snarled, but swept around the FOB, as they screamed and poured across the battlefield in the darkness of the night.

Ret.lek didn't know that, just following along behind the XO as he wove between the tents and the containers.

The XO held up his hand and Ret.lek stopped. He could hear a breathless whining sound. The XO looked around. He took a few steps, stopped, listened again.

"Wha..." Ret.lek started to ask.

The XO made a chopping motion.

It took a minute, but Ret.lek spotted the shape. It was laying against one of the containers.

A dogboi from second platoon. She was laying on her back, helmet open, panting fast and making a slight whining sound as she breathed.

Ret.lek could see the grey of the warsteel where one of the shades had torn into her guts and chest. Her muzzle still had a coating of that thick clear goo that the shades bled. She had a pistol on one hand.

The XO knelt down next to her, holding out one hand and laying it against the dogboi's cheek.

"I'll get a medic," Ret.lek said.

The XO just nodded.

Ret.lek saw the dogboi was still whining, but licking the XO's arm with a long red tongue even as she panted and whined from the pain.

Ret.lek hurried, finding a medic that was rushing toward the wall. The male Hesstlan glanced at 592 and shook his head.

"Sorry, he's gone," the medic said.

"I know. It's not him. Come quick," Ret.lek said.

The medic followed as Ret.lek led him back to the XO.

The XO was kneeling down, his gloves off. One hand was petting the dogboi's head even as the dogboi was pressing the side of her muzzle against the XO's other hand.

The medic ran up, did a single pass with the scanner, looked at the XO, and gave a tight shake of his head.

"We know," the XO said. He looked at Ret.lek. "It's time, Wrecker."

The dogboi was panting quickly, eyes glassy.

Ret.lek knelt down. He set 592 down gently, then reached out and took the dogboi's hand.

It was cold and the fur crinkled as it fell free.

The dogboi looked at the XO.

"but who will love you when I'm gone?" she asked, her voice small.

"You," the XO said softly, even as the dogboi's breathing stopped. Her eyes went blank and she sagged in her armor, her head falling to the side.

"She's gone, sir," the medic said. He looked at 592. "He is too. I'm sorry," the medic stood up. "I've got wounded on the line."

"Go," the XO said.

Ret.lek picked up 592 then stared as the XO bent down and lifted up the dogboi, armor and all.

They were silent as they walked to the medic tent, laying the two corpses down.

They were silent as they walked away.

The stars looked down silently.

The war went on.