Existential Threat: Chapter 1 Part 1 of 2 (Patreon)

Chapter:1

07/07/2242

“Come on you bastard!” Luke’s bot strained against the manual release on the automated turret. An Adraxi round had fused it with the rest of the structure.

Explosions rumbled forth over the mountaineous battlefield, atomics laying bare their wrath upon the land.

Trenches had been carved out of the dirt and stone, bots ran from the factories and landing areas dropping off supplies and rushing back, engineers worked with their repair tools and spra-crete, shoring up defenses and getting weapons back online, blue tubes where they’d finished their work.

“Atomic artillery in thirty!” General Foster yelled over the command chat. Luke keyed his squad.

“Arty nukes in thirty,” Luke grabbed onto the turret, levering himself up.

“One Echo, heavy armor ready for you in ten!” An engineer yelled on a personal chat.

“Fuck yeah.” Luke switched back to squad. “Our heavy is inbound in ten, Moose keep an eye out, as soon as its in, Fin fire your V-twos and everyone else jump to the heavies, leave the bots for the engi’s”

Luke peeked over the pocked and broken walls of the defense, his external audio dampening the auto-turret pasting the hillsides. There were hundreds of thousands, the planet’s natural eco-system rotten fuel for their spores.

Fin’s V-2 (Close Area-Denial) Rounds detonated with the force of two hundred and eighty-nine tones of TNT.

Fifty meter wide fireballs burned into Luke’s eyes, he could see the blast wave hurling the bipedal Adraxi off their feet for three hundred meters, the heat melting those close enough. Others exploded out of their exoskeletons and where their ‘spitter’s umbilical attached to their abdomens.

A round hit a crab tank between its lower body shell attached to its legs that could move forwards and backwards, not just sideways, and the upper shell that held its cannon and spitter.

The tank’s silhouette burned into Luke’s vision.

There wasn’t even a shadow left behind, consumed within the round’s fireball.

“Finger sized nukes.”

Larger King Crabs, twice the size with dual spitters on either side of its turret shell barely had time to reorientate as Fin’s rifle barked again.

Other snipers and heavy machine guns added their own V-2 rounds to the fray, actually stalling the Adraxi advance.

There were so many of them pushing up the valley that they were actually pushing back the Command Post’s ability to kill the spores.

Adraxi grunts and crabs fired up at the defensive position. Rounds cleared openings in their formation. At least it’s taking them time to fill the gaps.

He applied his foot to the manual release bracing against the structure of the turret. He needed to get it loaded else it run dry. With a hiss of force the lever groaned, creaked and then released violently. Luke caught himself before jumping down, kicking the ejected ammunition crates into the pile behind the trench, he grabbed a fresh one out of his ammo cart, slamming them home and pushing the handle back up. The angry orange indicator snapped to green, the turret’s rate of fire mounting.

“Suits are here!” Moose’s excitement bleeding over.

“Jump!”

Jynx let out a whoop, Luke couldn’t hide his smile as it stretched, wide, excited and hungry.

Moose pinged the spawn point for them all.

“Cheers,” Shiro said. Luke ran through the menus.

“I fucking love the Vee-twos,” Fin laughed.

“Kind of overkill though,” Luke said.

“No such thing. But I see why they’re rated for CIWS and aircraft. Nuke spitter that thing,” Moose said.

Fin snorted. “I heard someone saying, AP are fuck you, vee-ones are fuck you and whatever’s behind you, twos are fuck that general area, three is a fuck that entire area.” He chortled. “Then the arty-shells are fuck that and everything in that zone, missiles go from, where did I put that map square to we need to replace the map squares.”

Moose outright laughed, bringing the others in. Luke shook his head even silently going ‘fuck that general area’ as he fired single shots, tearing up the enemy positions.

Luke’s vision cleared, a full meter taller than the bots he shifted his bulk around, feeling the resistance, a new reading ran down the side of his vision.

>Powerplant: 100%

>Armor: 100%

>Structural integrity: 100%

>Thrusters: 100%

>Nanites: 100%

Primary: Heavy Machine gun

Secondary: Interceptors

Melee: Auto-sword

>Ammunition

>>Heavy Ammo (AP): 1500

>>V1(APFE): 350

>>V2(CAD): 100

>>V3 (AD): 50

>>Missiles (Mini)

>>>12

He checked his pre-sets, tapping the sword at his hip, its four collapsed tungsten alloy saw blades, a terrible tool against the Adraxi, he pulled his main weapon free from its mag-locked position on his back. “Auto’s to defense, intercepts to request and squad level.”

The rifle was bigger than Fin’s favorite sniper rifle and fired the same sized round, fed by belt into the beefed up machine gun.

He pulled on the cocking handle, loading the immense weapon. “Ten seconds till impact, hundred and fifty meter spacing, remember we’re here to support.”

“Just like when we were riding tanks,” Jynx said, stepping up next to him.

Her heavy armor identical to his, three meters tall, two wide, pitch black except for the stark white emblem of the Legion, OBE stenciled in block letters followed by 1-E and a single chevron, two blood red lines running down. A missile block in standby on her right shoulder, autocannon questing the sky for targets.

The others stepped up, Luke felt their steps through the ground, even over the rumbles of defensive turrets.

“Good hunting,” Luke tapped arms with them, the high-grav forged metals sucking up the noise and vibration. “Fin, Shiro, myself, Jynx and Moose, extended line.”

“Five seconds till impact, brace, brace brace!” General Foster called over the main chat.

They spread out, loping steps taking them out of the armories and towards the squads of troopers waiting to move forward.

Luke’s oversized feet spread out his impact as the first of the artillery barrage landed.

Suns erupted into life and released their rumbling fury of being awoke up the mountain range’s paths.

“Sally, view of the impacts.”

A screen appeared over his status readouts. Mushroom clouds, their centers filled with fire and lightning rose from the mountainside, several of them eating and crashing into one another. Pillars of fire and flame rose into the sky to mushroom out.

He let out a shuddering breath at the destruction, trees had simply disappeared, the dirt scoured to bedrock. Black marks outlined the impact of the rounds, the sun’s power brought low.

The guns of the defensive compound went silent, the sound dampeners cutting out as Luke reached his position, clamping his rifle to his back as he crouched down on the ground behind his fellow troopers doing the same.

“Blast wave!” Someone called over the compound chat.

The Force’s directed upwards by the mountain side smacked against the defensive walls of the compound, one after another, turrets were thrown to the side, sections of the wall cracked and broke. An Empty ammunition box hit another bot, bowling them over, his buddies holding him down as it smacked Luke. Gear not secured behind the trench were blown free. Striking the structures above-ground.

Ships stayed grounded as the forces they’d unleashed battered the camp.

Clouds spread and covered the valley and beyond.

“Artillery barrage complete,” General Foster said. “Time we hit the bastards back, advance!”

Luke shook off the dirt and debris with the other bots and cleared the video feed from the valley unclamping his rifle.

“Make sure you’re blinking and drinking,” Luke rolled his shoulders, drinking from his tube.

The compound was quiet, a few turrets firing, engineers reloading, repairing and reinforcing the base.

“Only got water, need to add some scotch to the mix,” Moose muttered.

Gates were opened and the holes in the defenses used as bots and heavies stepped forward. Luke grimaced, cracking spray-crete as he stepped on it.

He felt like he left his gut behind him, forcing himself not to slow, fires spread through the forest, the ocean of Adraxi had disappeared, unrecognizable from before. His map updating in real time to the new terrain ahead, and the thirty craters that littered the valley.

“Love what they’ve done with the place,” Fin said.

“Very wrath of god,” Luke added.

“Forty kiloton artillery shells will do that,” Shiro said.

“Fat-boy was only twenty and there’s what thirty shells? So that’s worth twelve hundred kilotons?” Jynx said.

“Yeah, though they layered them over one another. They’re looking at the effects of having a bunch of them hit and different splash patterns on different environments,” Fin said.

“I can’t believe that they thought about arming the tanks with those,” Luke muttered.

“Wheeee I’m a flying tank,” Jynx blew a raspberry.

Luke snorted in his suit.

“Flying tank ain’t your friend no more?” Moose deadpanned.

Chuckles filled the channel as they moved down the mountain paths towards the smoke, debris from the blast’s still landing.

Nothing remained in the valley, squads moved in concert, jogging in several interconnected arrowheads turned rough by the terrain. Slowing only as they entered the foggy-epicenters of the valley.

The months of training did us well.

“How things looking over there?” Luke asked.

“Grey, and more grey, a few trees on fire, nothing on the sensors,” Fin said.

“Same here,” Moose said.

“The noise of the micro-debris hitting my armor is weird, like gritty rain,” Jynx said.

“They’re really going all out on the sims,” Luke agreed.

“The more we sweat the less we bleed,” Shiro said.

“Who said that?” Jynx asked.

“Not sure, ancient military motto, think it was attributed to the romans. Though I think it is something that’s probably been around since people began training to fight.”

“Valley is opening up ahead, end of the clouds too,” Luke checked his map, zooming in and panning around. “Got reports of movement, Adraxi highly possible. Get ready to rock and roll.”

The lines tightened up, rippled over the uneven terrain.

Tracers cut through the grey.

“Contact,” the voice immediate but without the panic of the first battles on Ogus.

Luke zeroed in on the enemy weapons fire, aiming.

Adraxi grunts and their commanders were filtering through the remains of the burning forest, the small initial movement growing as Luke relaxed his vision, relying on his ancient instincts to pick up on movement. He lased the distance, zeroing his rifle in, his stance compensating, he didn’t have to do stupid shit like breathe in a bot.

Reactions turned instincts carried out in a breath, fingers pressing the required balls.

“Engaging,” Luke’s voice was caught up with the others, firing a burst of AP rounds.

Several units had fired at once, plastering the area. Trees were washed away, boulders cracked, dirt was thrown into disarray, remains of the Adraxi floated back to the ground.

“Watch your sectors,” Luke called out, tamping down on his fear, his excitement and the feeling of unstoppable firepower. His aim drifting back to the arcs projected out from his bot in gold, grey lines breaking down the other arcs people covered.

Adraxi markers started to pop up across their front.

The bots ran forward, squad covering squad.