First Contact

Chapter 755: The Inheritor's War

"Just because the weapon appears obsolete doesn't mean it won't kill you."

"Ask anyone who's ever taken a bayonet to the guts." - Unknown

"The rifle has made the blade obsolete."

"The machinegun has made the rifle obsolete."

"The tank has made infantry obsolete."

"The anti-tank rocket has made the tank obsolete."

"Aircraft has made infantry obsolete."

"MANPADS have made aircraft obsolete."

"Laser point defense has made rockets and missile obsolete."

"So, what, we just throw rocks at each other? What is and isn't obsolete?"

"Give us more money for R&D and we'll tell you."

"Oh, get fucked."

--Conversation that happens every war.

They were labeled "Biomechanical Semi-Autonomous Self-Guided Multiple Seeker System Anti-Aircraft Air Mobile Multi-Role Organisms" by the dwonks in charge of naming stuff, usually with so many words that by the time you finished shouting the official nomenclature you and your squad was dead and Graves Registration had already recovered the bodies.

Ground pounders called the "Shrieks".

Pilots like Yrler called them "Smilers."

Structurally, they were simple. A hard chitin tube of biologically extruded carbon fibers and hard resin chitin with a series of nostrils around the front for air intake. Multiple sensing organs including the old Mark-One Eyeball in the front. Adjustable fins usually seen on fish to control flight. Internal organs to produce certain substances from the 'milk' it took in from the host creature.

It was a symbiotic relationship with the big floaters. It had a dual lipped toothless orifice that it would use to engulf the tubular waste ejector on the floater, drinking its fill on the 'waste' that the floater produced.

Which. remarkably enough, happened to chemically resemble aircraft fuel.

The toothy mouth was used to swallow whole any smaller airborne creature as it cruised along at a comfortable speed of four hundred kilometers an hour, which it could sustain for hours. If needed it could use several organs to push additional waste products into the 'fuel', which enabled to to go supersonic, using biological radar to see its way.

It was fast.

It could manuever.

All of its seeker systems were in its primitive 'brain' and were sensitive enough to pick up an airborne biological creature the size of a baseball.

But most of all, it liked to ram things.

Which is where the design of the cone-shaped head came in.

When the Smiler hit, it converted into a shape charge with a phasic kicker strong enough to stun all but the largest and most heavily protected Dwellerspawn.

Which meant the Smiler could blow a fist sized hole in warsteel.

And turn to scrap about two feet behind the warsteel.

The bigger ones were less shape charges and explosively forged penetrators and more phasic enhanced fuel-air bombs. Biological thermobaric supersonic missiles.

Who also had a symbiotic relationship with the massive floating gas-bag creatures that had mistaken for actual land due to the dirt and other symbiotic organisms on their back.

Yrler, of course, had problems before anyone even got around to name the creatures anything more than "HOLY SHIT!" and "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"

The Smiler whipped by, looked around, and saw two more tasty looking things coming at it fast. Its nostrils flared as it used the rigid folding wings to alter course, its tiny brain seeing the reactor and the heat and thinking 'food!' just like it had been designed to.

Blue-Eight hit it at Mach-Five.

A normal bird at that speed would have been shrugged by the battlescreen.

The smiler hit the battlescreen as it was still spinning up and exploded.

The liquid jet of metal hit the front window and blew a two inch crater in it.

Blue-Eight cursed and went to full sensors, the window having taken a hard enough hit that the smartglass failed and went milky white.

Yrler saw another flight of those things rising up from the massive creature and triggered flares, chaff, and just for good measure, a 'lookatme' drone. His computers were still trying to make sense of everything, but he'd been trained for Mark One Eyeball and instinct.

The ranging computer was telling him the ground was both 54,000 meters away and 8,000 meters away.

Eight thousand meters was way outside of normal range for the main gun.

But Yrler figured two things: Number one, it was literally too big to miss. Number Two: he was firing downward, if anything, gravity would help.

Sure, atmospheric drag might slow it down.

But he was betting that a 30mm round about as long as his arm would hurt anyway.

"Blue-One, GOOSE GOOSE GOOSE!" Yrler called out.

At the same time he pushed the rocker switch forward on the control yoke.

The heavy 30mm eight barrel gatling gun roared to life, one out of every twenty rounds a blue tracer.

It looked like a solid beam of blue light that reached out at the creature.

Mushrooms the size of city transit buses exploded, dirt fountained up, and strange looking bushes and trees were chopped apart. A bunch of insects feeding on a leaking carbunkle on the carapace of the massive creature were blown into chunks.

To Yrler there wasn't even any apparent damage. The blue light touched it and nothing happened.

Yrler blinked at how little damage a full two seconds on the trigger had done.

"All Blue Flight, go to Fox," Blue Leader said. "No atomics."

"Blue-Three, going to fox," came over the headset.

"Blue-One, going to Fox," Yrler said, triggering another burst. "Fiver, kick up some nasty rounds, that things big enough it probably isn't even feeling the goose bumps."

--on it-- 515 sent back. --flushing the Goose--

Yrler saw his missile pods were loaded and ready but didn't deploy them, instead rotating in the 'letter box' launcher to keep his sensor cross section down and keep his speed high and drag low. He double-punched the warboi creche, knowing it would make them crazier, and started loading them through I/O port and into the missiles.

"FOX THREE!" Yrler called out.

The missiles streaked out, spiraling around each other then spreading out.

The explosions looked like pinpricks on the mass of the creature he was still getting close to.

Then it was Yrler's turn. He rolled hard, pulling to the left, at the same time as he adjusted his angle to present the minimum profile to the incoming missiles.

His countermeasures fired off and the steady tone of radar lock vanished into a warbling sound warning him that someone was trying to lock him up.

The battlescreen flared as multiple impacts hit it.

None got a solid enough hit for the phasic penetrator to do any good.

The warboi in his targeting system got a good image of the things whipping at him and Yrler blinked in shock when it was tossed up.

It looked like a crude warped missile made out of resin with a big shark mouth and a ring of eyes.

The warboi also tossed back the dimensions of the massive creature below him.

It was somewhat lighter than air, but it was still tens of miles across, nearly a hundred miles long, and two miles thick.

"Unless we go atomic, that thing isn't even going to notice us," Blue Leader said. "Break right, kick in the afterburners, lets put some distance between that thing and us so the Navy can get a clear shot."

Yrler nodded, following the instructions.

The clouds of 'missiles' chased them even as the flight put the guns and missiles back into storage position and kicked in the afterburners.

Yrler noted that the missiles lost interest once the flight group hit Mach-Four.

"NavInt said those were mesas," Blue-Seven griped.

"Six combat drops and you still trust NavInt, Slider?" Blue-Leader asked.

"I never fucking learn," Blue-Seven said.

That got chuckles over the command channel.

Yrler kept looking through the belly cameras as the landscape below, knowing that ArmInt and NavInt and MarInt would be doing the same thing.

"Looks like they're firing drop pods at the surface," Blue-Leader said.

"The surface or the 'surface'?" Blue-Six asked.

"With how this might be shaping up, probably the surface of those 'mesas' we were supposed to take so that the Log Bases could be put on high ground," Blue-Leader said. "It was supposed to give the defenders a good advantage."

"Yeah. Well, that happened," Blue-Seven said.

"Close your vents, people," Blue-Leader said. "Keep an eye out, we're coming up on Rally Point Theta," Blue-Leader said. "Drop to six key meters, drop speed to just below Mark but keep your burners hot."

Yrler just nodded slightly to himself, taking a good 270 degree look around him.

Clouds at the 8,000 meter mark, climbing up into the 15,000 meter mark. No bogeys so far.

"Drop to two thousand meters," Blue-Leader ordered.

Yrler shifted the nose up slightly and dropped the counter-grav slightly, starting his descent, keeping an eye on his nose/gun cameras.

It looked like a forest, but Yrler was willing to bet anything on that. Tall looking trees, still with green on them despite the fact that the hemisphere was tilted away from the stellar mass, making it winter. Multiple rivers, spread out with five to ten kay between them. The trees were moving softly back and forth in whatever breeze was down on the ground.

His passive sensors weren't picking anything up.

One thing he didn't see was any sign of any civvy populace.

Which bothered him. The planet had possessed a population of fifty-three billion various sentients before it was 'sank' and it was sank less than two months ago.

Yrler checked again. The bands were already going to hash, the Atrekna responding to the other attacks, the other landings, with their jamming system that seemed to knock out anything but a narrow band of FM radio and a handful of spooky particles.

Nothing outside of standard Atrekna hash.

Even his psychic shielding was sitting at 2% load.

I don't like this...

He was down to 3,500 meters when he saw a glitter in the trees as they visibly shifted and swayed back and forth.

The warboi loaded into his headware didn't think anything of it.

But there was something about it as the trees glimmered again.

"Drop to one thousand meters, get ready for a close pass recon camera run," Blue-Leader ordered.

Yrler fluttered the port graviton engine, scooting starboard slightly.

"Blue-One, are you all right?" Blue-Leader asked.

"Recon," Yrler said, knowing his voice was tight with anxiety but unable to do anything about it.

"Blue Flight, give Yrler a little room," Blue-Leader ordered.

There it was again.

Yrler shifted starboard slightly again.

Nothing on the bands. Even radar was starting to fuzz up with the Atrekna jamming coming in hard.

It wasn't showing up on thermals, it wasn't showing up on radar. What would make the glimmer in the...

Yrler suddenly popped chaff and flares, rolling, pulling into a tight curve with an upward arc.

"SPIKE SPIKE SPIKE!" Yrler snapped out, taking a quick look behind him.

The "trees" were already surrounded by a purple phasic glow at the base.

Great beasts were heaving up out of the ground, revealing lakes not rivers. The 'trees' were already lifting from the carapace, already firing.

A quick check showed that some orbital fleet elements had just gotten within seven hundred kilometers of the ground.

Smaller purple trails could be seen, thick bunches of them, while the large 'trees' were already flattening the 'branches' and moving faster. According to Yrler's instruments, some of the initially launched 'trees' were already cracking Mach-One.

A glance showed him that quite a few of the smaller ones were heading straight for his trail.

The massive creatures, having heaved themselves up, were already deploying massive fan-like fins as well as what looked like huge pimples beginning to glow bluish-white and purplish-white.

"Tell fleet it's an ambush!" Yrler snapped. "Two, three, four hundred on my tail, unknown targeting system."

"Easy, Blue-One," Blue-Leader's voice was calm. "Check your phasic shielding."

"Six percent, four percent rise," Yrler said.

"Rear point defense?"

"Ready."

"Chaff, flares, and prism-cloud ejector?"

"Standby."

"Screen projectors?"

"One hundred percent," Yrler said. He checked his instruments.

The missiles weren't there. He glanced behind and could see them still coming at him.

"Gain altitude, go high, go for the clouds," Blue-Leader said. "Pop phasic smoke counter-measure when you get in there."

Yrler nodded. He knew that Blue-Leader was checking to see if they could breathe at high altitudes.k

Yrler wondered what kind of sensor system it was running as he took slow, steady, deep breaths and cruised toward the clouds.

"Blue-Seven, ping the clouds, make sure One isn't running into anything's jaws," Blue-Leader ordered.

"Roger," Seven said.

A few seconds passed as the clouds got closer.

"Clouds clear, some distortion, should be good to go," Seven said.

"Once you hit the clouds, go to supercruise, pull around, meet us back here," Blue-Leader said.

The waypoint appeared.

--slow-- 515 said over the link. --biological different than first ones but still biomechanical--

"I'll take slow," Yrler said.

--big ones heading for fleet-- 515 said.

"Guess it wasn't safe after all," Yrler said.

--never is-- 515 said. He flashed a meme of a Naval officer standing on the bridge yelling "I KEEP TELLING YOU IDIOTS WE'RE PERFECTLY SAFE" at the crew while a large Terran with some kind of white mask and work clothing was right behind the officer with an upraised bladed weapon.

Yrler snorted.

"Fleet's warning us there may be bioweapon systems we haven't seen before," Blue-Leader said, his voice perfectly neutral.

"I'll be sure to keep an eye out for them," Yrler answered.

His striker was just starting to edge into the clouds. The battlescreen crackled and then the steri-field began to hiss.

No droplets settled on the macroplas window.

"Pop and run," Blue-Leader ordered.

Yrler cooked off his prism smokes, 515 threw in a couple of phasic strobes, and Yrler hit the afterburner. The accel slammed him into the seat and he felt his suit tighten.

--looks like lost lock-- 515 said.

"Heading for the way-point," Yrler said.

"We hear you, Blue-One," Blue-Leader said. "We're just doing spinnies and waiting."

Yrler checked again. Blue-Leader had chosen a point fifteen kay up, in the clouds, and everyone was doing tight circles with only a ten kay radii.

"Should be there in six," Yrler said.

--feel that-- 515 suddenly asked.

"Feel what?" Yrler pulled his attention from the instruments that he was using to navigate since he was flying blind.

--feel something-- the mantid said.

Yrler knew his hand was partially numb from gripping the control yoke so tightly. He let it go and looked at the control yoke.

It was vibrating. Not the normal vibration.

"Got vibes in the stick," Yrler said.

--things coming back good-- 515 said.

"Might be just..." Yrler started.

There was a loud WHANG! followed by the dreaded POP-SProiNG-GinG!

Shrapnel hit the battlescreen.

From the inside.

The vibration suddenly ceased.

The battlescreen winked out.

The stick went dead.

--no no no I replaced that turbine-- 515 said.

"DEAD STICK DEAD STICK!" Yrler called out.

The ship dropped through the clouds silently.

"515, now might be a good time to pull the SERE manuals out of the database and put them in our implants," Yrler said.