Existential Threat: Chapter 19 Part 2 of 3 (Patreon)

Ken shifted in his ‘armor’ the weight of plates and layered fibers comforting, he breathed in deep, the air mixed to increase performance and alertness.

He glanced at Per, chatting with other Lur, most of them much older, none of them pointed out their varying ages. They held their weapons like a miner would hold a drill, watching the forest, a hardness and edge to their eyes that wasn’t there before.

Those that had been fighting alongside him checked the new reinforcements armor, passed out hints.

Some checked their weapons, others had them secured to their chests and abdomens as the humans did, loaded and on safe.

Weapons that might have scared them hours or days ago, that they’d never show out in the open, now a normality, reassuring.

“Do not advance ahead of the tanks, speak up if you see anything odd. Listen to the orders given to you. We do not want any of you to die,” The one called Moose said, briefing them all, marking one of the vehicle made up of deflecting angles, outfitted with one of two massive cannon’s, a heavy machine gun and interceptor missile blocks.

Ken knew he would have grated under such orders before. These were not Aer, they’d given them food, water, looked after their wounded, armed and armored them.

The new Lur looked at him and he nodded to them. “Listen to the humans as you would me.”

“Advance!” Luke yelled.

Bots rose, moving in a group eating lope, like they were bouncing off of their feet.

“And we’re moving,” Moose said.

Delta squad moved with the Orkaran, out of the city and into the hellscape beyond left by the hellcat’s missile. Trees had been smashed down, their leaves torn from their limbs.

Some smouldered, others smoked under the rain.

Explosions of light ignited in the distance. Bots stayed roughly in-line as they advanced over hills, around trees and through valleys.

Weapons fire cut out ahead. “Enemy infantry Foxtrot marker.”

The force was spread through the forest, the marker appearing on his compass and in his vision. ‘Tracers’ the thing that made the human’s weapon fire glow struck a hill ahead.

One of the heavy bots fired, rounds detonating across the marker.

“Clear,” Foxtrot’s leader said, the marker disappearing, they hadn’t even slowed their jog. The formation that had spread out, moving close together again.

Weapons fire went off sporadically, humans engaging, destroying and advancing.

Ken drank from the straw in his helmet, coughing. He’d never ran this far or fast. He thought the pace between the settlements had been tough.

The armor was outfitted with boots that made running easier, ‘bouncing’ them forward.

“Alright we’re going to hold here a bit,” Moose, the bastard, didn’t even sound tired.

“But, everyone’s, moving, forward,” Ken huffed.

“That’s fine, we can catch up to them. They’ll clear the way.

“Tank, blast this fool for me will you?” Quebec’s marker illuminated as fired crossed back and forth heavily from an entrenched Adraxi position.

“Incoming,” A tank turned its turret and fired.

The ridge disappeared in a flash of light.

“Thank you.”

Moose let out a low whistle. “Fucking hellbores.”

“We need your help in recovering the city, doesn’t make sense to have you all in the bag before we get there. We’re about a fifth of the way there. We can load up into the movers mounted with the machine guns,” Moose said.

“You’re all running.”

“Yeah but this is what we do, what we trained our bodies for. Jump in the movers, then when we get to the city you dismount, ready to fight and help the residents in the city.”

Ken gritted his teeth.

“Or we keep running, your people start dropping from exhaustion and we have to load them up into movers and send them back to the mining facility.”

Ken’s ears flicked in his helmet.

“Great,” Moose surveyed the sky, Ken joining him. Just what would they find in the cities. He cringed, holding his weapon tighter.

The humans kept advancing, hammering anything Adraxi into the dirt with overwhelming firepower.

Something exploded above.

Ken flinched and looked around, puffs of shiny clouds exploding in the sky.

“Here comes the rain-doo dah doo dah,” Shiro said, his joyful tone confusing with everything. “Don’t worry, that’s the iodide. It’ll bring the rain, try and curb a nuclear winter from happening.”

Rain started to fall, slow at first and then picking up.

“Hope you like fighting in the mud,” Moose chuckled.

Shiro made a grumbling noise as dirty rain went the ground, turning craters into pools, and valleys into rivers, washing the ash away.

“Everyone mount up in the movers, we’ll dismount when we’re outside the city,” The growl in his voice didn’t raise any comment, they quickly loaded up into the vehicles, light coming through where the added armor didn’t quite meet, their visors compensating as they rolled and swayed through the craters and rough terrain.

Bots calling out to one another, firing and moving, the tanks rarely had to fire a few rounds, barely pausing as they rolled onward.

Flashes bloomed in the distance in unnatural thunder.

***

Ichika snapped her Hell-Cat out of her sharp bank, grinning as she dumped flares and shot straight up, into the light of the primary shining through Orkana’s atmosphere, she came back in a lazy loop, aiming at the clouds she’d laid down, ‘Divers’ came through the cloud. Ugly creatures, twin bug-like eyes on their heads, leather wings, spitters on their chests and stomach, and they crapped explosives and belched out rounds similar to crab tanks.

Ichika zeroed her guns and fired, tracers bloomed around the creatures in fury. Their remains dropped to the ground below as she pulled out from her dive, flicking through her maps.

“Alright guys, gals and others, we’re heading over to give taskforce thirty-four a helping hand.” She accepted a mission from the board, checking her ammunition and that of her wing.

Three other hellcats moved to join her.

“These Diver shoals are a pain in the ass, stupid as hell though they move like birds which makes them a mother to shoot down,” Carver complained.

“Keeps you on your toes,” Ichika said, dropping altitude, weaving between mountains. Too high and the Adraxi ships might get a bead on them.

A fire mission scrawled across her vision.

“We got a call in for a gun run, can’t use missiles, potential civilians close-by.” Ichika checked the line against the real-time imagery.

“Oh joy.”

“Gloria, Keno, remain in holding pattern over the force, Carver, you’ll be my second.”

“Hell yeah,” Carver’s whining tone replaced with hunger. Terrible in the locker room, great when you’re in the shit.

“Permission to punch it?”

Ichika’s grin revealed her teeth.

“Well they didn’t call us the howlers for nothing,”

She rolled out of formation, Carver laughed.

“Happy hunting,” Keno muttered, maybe a little jealous, maybe a little hungry for combat.

Ichika laughed, snapping on a direct line for her target. In her vision she could ‘see’ through her fighter, the small city made of compresed stone stacked no more than three floors tall, roads of mud and dirt. The buildings were skeletons, some burned, others spilled into the street or collapsed into themselves. Adraxi tracers cut out from the edge of the city, Legion ground forces used smoke, covering their advance, watching their weapon discipline.

Ichika locked in her angle, her round type and distance, pushing the throttle up as the ground disappeared underneath her. The air cracked and gave way under her passage, loud as being inside lightning.

She pulled the trigger, gritting her teeth, the whole craft rattling so hard it wanted to come apart as her ammunition counter spilled down.

Up! She released the trigger, pulling up from the dive, shooting away, dropping speed as she banked to come around again.

Carver followed after her, the dust only clearing as his rounds tore up the ground, detonating along her passage. He pulled off and away.

“Thanks for the support,” One of the alphabet leaders said.

The bots charged forward, killing the remaining Adraxi, pushing into the city.

“Not a problem,” Ichika checked her ammunition counters.

“We’re going to need to re-arm, that burned through most of our Vee-two.”

“Okay, we’re moving to surround the city and clear it, thanks for the assist. Could you do a scan of the area?”

“Can do.”

‘Thanks, ground out.”

Ichika keyed her wing. “Okay circle around the town, check what’s down there, and we’re RTB.” She punched in the re-arm request, getting a ping back for landing area and resupply.

“Copy, figure eight?” Keno asked.

“Yup.”

Ichika slowed, picking up Carver again as they kept banking, weaving over the town, banking again to creating another circle , overlapping with Keno and Gloria before sweeping bac to finish their figure eight.

“Contacts!” Keno yelled, missiles shot free from his craft as he dumped chaff and flares, punching his speed.

Adraxi rounds filled the sky.

“Ah shit,” He said in a resigned tone, his craft wobbled, something wrong with his wing, the craft coming apart.

Gloria dumped missiles and chaff as Keno’s missiles removed part of the forest, causing her to fly through the mushroom plume.

Ichika grabbed the scans and shunted to the forces on the ground.

Thousands of Adraxi moving through a valley that weaved up to the Mining town.

“I need artillery on these markers, be warned danger close to civilian target, moderate rounds as required,” Ichika said.

“Mission filed,” Sally said, routing it to the Artillery turrets.

She keyed the wing chat. “How you doing Gloria?’

“Beat up, might need to send this one into the factories.”

“That was a rush for a solid second,” Keno said.

Ichika scanned, two more wings heading in her direction.

“Sally, can you get a request to the fleet, drop us some sensor rods.”

“Forwarding request.” Her fire AI control split sounding tinny with all the missions that she had to be running in the area.

“Cheers,” She flicked to wing again. “Okay, lets re-arm and get back out here.”

***