Date Point: 15y6m1d AV
The Ring, Hell System, Hunter Space
Brother Daar (“Tigger”) of Stoneback, Great Father of the Gao
“Huh. Guess some things’re the same everywhere.”
They were gettin’ back into important territory: Daar could tell from the emergency forcefields that snapped up when they breached through from the structural void and kept the air in. The Hunters hadn’t seemed to give a stinky fur-mattin’ shit ‘fer damage control near the slave shanty, but now that they were comin’ out to somewhere with actual strategic value again…
They’d entered a rail yard. No mistakin’ it, rail trains were the same all over the galaxy. Sure, folks sometimes got fancy with air-cushion, maglev or forcefield crap but when it came ‘ta movin’ lotsa heavy shit a long way overland, nobody’d ever come up with nothin’ that beat parallel metal rails.
Sure, the gauge changed, an’ from the looks of things the Hunters used a dual-gauge system that could handle two different sizes of locomotive an’ car, but switches, sidings an’ junctions worked the same everywhere.
This one was full of freight cars and a couple of the bigger-gauge locomotives, most parked under a drone gantries ready to take loads of the scrap metal coming from the ship-breaking station in the next section. That was their objective: The Ring’s hull was thick, they didn’t have anything like enough charges or firepower to blast a hole in it, so they needed to get out through an existing hole. The nearest one to their ingress was a scrapper array, apparently an automated station that tore captured ships apart for recycling into Hunter swarm craft.
As they emerged into the rail yard, however, Daar found his hackles wanting to rise. It was dense, crowded territory. Lots of cover, lots of choke points. If he were to lay an ambush, he’d do it here.
The Hunters didn’t disappoint.
This brood had cloaking devices, and were lurking atop the rail cars, between them, maybe even hanging invisibly from the ceiling… waiting. If their ambush had unfolded as intended it might even have been bad for Clan SOR.
Instead, Regaari literally bumped into one.
He’d taken the ceiling route himself, trusting his armor’s adaptive camouflage to keep him hidden in the shadows. Daar flinched as there was an alarmed yip and then two flickering, barely-visible shadows dropped from the ceiling to crash onto the rails in a flailing, tumbling, snarling ball.
There was a hum, a flash of orange-yellow light, and the Hunter’s cloak failed as Regaari dragged his fusion claws right up its spine. He was framed in the light atop its corpse for a second before dissolving back into the shadows.
“They’re cloaked!”
“Smoke out!”
With their ambush spotted, the Hunters opened fire. Their fusion weapons would have been deadly in a melee, but at range their weapons weren’t equal to the EV-MASS or First Fang’s hardsuits.
The Brothers got into cover anyway: Armor was the last line of defence, not something to rely on. Their return fire rippled and cracked in the smoke, aimed at wherever they thought a Hunter might be.
Confusion descended. The smoke concealed them and their movements, but the cloaked Hunters were just as veiled. It was difficult to tell how much of the fight involved shooting at ghosts, but Daar could tell the Hunters were firing blind too. Firepower cracked and whined as it spat off the trains and rails around him.
Too late, he realized it was all a distraction.
Faarek spotted it first. “Hostile Jump Array, under construction! Far end!”
Fiin was on it in an instant, and barked an order for First Fang’s benefit. “Round and pounce, badpaw.”
“Cubs distract Mother,” Regaari added. The Whitecrests shifted their pattern of hit-and-fade ambushes and “exposed” themselves, inviting the Hunters to focus their way. Torn between their misdirection and the relentless knot of Humans in the middle of the formation, the Hunters completely lost track of the Stonebacks, who charged off around on the left flank hoping to outflank them and strike at the array in the back of the rail yard before anything could come through.
They weren’t quick enough. There was the characteristic thump of the Array firing, followed instantly by a hail of withering firepower that the Brothers aborted their charge rather than be cut down by. Something up there had an absolute hellstormer of a gun.
“They jumped something in!”
Daar finished tearing a Hunter’s throat out and turned just in time to see the new arrival make its big entrance.
It was as huge as one’a the Hierarchy’s Abrogators, a Hunter the size of a tank or a house, and the fucker smashed right through a train with a backhand swat that crushed a freight car, broke the linkages and toppled it to the deck. Men hurled themselves to safety as a spread of nervejam grenades clattered around them, and Daar ducked his head down as a blizzard of huge, heavy bullets made a fuckin’ mess of one of the locomotives.
And behind this new foe, the Hunter jump array thumped again.
Time to really go to work.
“HEAT! Get the Big’n! Brothers! The small ones!”
Combat was Chaos, in its rawest and most bloodiest form. Victory didn’t automatically go to the bigger side, the stronger side or the sharpest-clawed side. It went to the side that could out-think, out-maneuver, and out-pace its foe.
In this regard, Humans and Gaoians were alike in being far superior to the Hunters. Daar had only to broadcast the plan and the teams reacted accordingly. There was no need for orders, discussion, deliberation or anything, they just knew. The HEAT redeployed, flowed smoothly from one footing to another and brought their unique brand of violence to bear, spurring the monster into focusing on them.
The Gaoians knew each other’s strengths intimately from over a year of intense inter-Clan training, and brought them together like jaws. First, the Brothers of First Fang would present an obvious danger that the Hunters kept at a sensible distance. In so doing, they would blunder into the Whitecrests and their endlessly useful gizmos, which slowed them down, brought them to a stop and blinded them.
Then together, the two would slaughter their foes.
Daar left Fiin and Regaari to handle that side of the fight. His own talents were better used on the big one.
It was fast, agile and layered in all sortsa weapons. A tank, yeah. A tank that had the speed and wits to keep its ass covered and didn’t expose itself stupidly. This one was fuckin’ smart.
MOHO had one’a them latest-gen Javelin anti-tank rounds folded up nice and small on his back. Perfect for takin’ it down, if it weren’t shielded an’ if he could get a clean shot on it. Alternatively, they had shaped explosive charges which Titan an’ Snapfire were doin’ their best to deploy. The big fucker weren’t gonna be so easy to lure over those traps, but at least they were a way to limit its movement, guard their flanks.
Daar, however, had one trick up his sleeve that the Humans didn’t. A little gift from Genshi, the prototype blueprints of which had been rescued from a bank vault right in the opening days of the War. One of Whitecrest’s finest and newest toys.
He picked his moment carefully, waited until the giant Hunter couldn’t see him, then led STARFALL and KIWI up one side in the cover of a so-far undamaged train. His suit was tryin’ to tell him where the monster was via sensor contact, but he didn’t need that—It was makin’ a fuck of a lotta noise as it crashed around and laid down a withering rain o’ bullets. So far, things were lookin’ like a stalemate: It didn’t dare engage the HEAT, an’ they couldn’t catch it.
Pounce was Daar’s very most favoritest game.
His moment came when the big’n jinked toward him. He went one way, gestured for the two Humans to go another. They got its attention with a burst of accurate fire that rippled and flashed harmlessly off its shield while Daar sprinted four-pawed across the open ground behind it and left his toy on the deck behind him, armed and waiting.
Shit that gun was nasty. KIWI staggered back into cover as a round crunched into his midsuit armor, and fell heavily on his ass. Sensing an opening the monster advanced, thirsty for blood.
It was thwarted by the Beef Trio. ‘Horse and ‘Base both used the heavy version of the GR-1d, with the amped-up heavy coils and the dense penetrator rounds, while Righteous preferred the agile short-barreled configuration with the rapid-charge coils that could spit bullets like a firehose.
In the face of an onslaught like that, the Hunter-tank sensibly fell back and Daar grinned inside his helmet as its retreat carried it right over the Shield Disruptor he’d just dropped.
There was a blue-bright flash, a crackle, and every shield emitter on the tank’s body was instantly fried. It turned, sprayed more bullets in search of whichever target had done that to it, and as it did Blaczynski took his shot.
His preferred GR-1d was a marksman variant. Long-barrelled, powerful, and lethally precise. There was a bursting, smashing sound and the nervejam grenade launcher on the enemy’s right arm fuckin’ exploded.
Thwarted and wounded, it sprayed them with a parting burst of firepower to force their heads down, and vanished among the trains.
‘Base and ‘Horse immediately piled onto KIWI, checking he was alright, but he waved them off as he tried to stand up.
“‘M’alright… Jus’ winded…”
‘Base didn’t bother arguing with him, wrapped an arm around KIWI’s gut and stood up with several hundred pounds of Operator plus his gear flung effortlessly over his shoulder. “Nuh-uh. Quick check and some Crude. Just take a minute.” He jogged off toward relative safety; two men out of the fight for the moment.
There was another thump. That Array was still up, an’ it needed to come down yesterday before another one’a those tanks came through.
Daar turned in that direction and shouldered his gun. “Push!”
There was still a lot of work to do.
Date Point: 15y6m1d AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Air Engineering Technician Jack “TWO-SEVENTY” Tisdale
“Y’know, I’m actually kinda impressed. You took that hit like a champ.”
“Mm.” Jack massaged his jaw again and refrained from commenting on the lingering taste of blood or his worry that one of his molars might be kinda loose now. He’d come to see Cook as a skinny, malnourished, weakened ghost of a man, but manic energy had lent his fist some serious force.
The fact that he’d just borne the blow with a grunt and wrestled the flailing explorer back down onto his bed until somebody sedated him had definitely won him some more points in Miller’s book, he could tell.
Mears had told them to go get some rest of their own when Spears and Choi had both gone to sleep. Chase was still awake and almost bouncing thanks to a shot of Crude, but she’d come down off that high pretty bloody hard in an hour or two. In the interim…
They’d wandered back through into the suit workshop. It was deserted now: the other techs had all sorted out their charges’ gear, straightened out their stations, stowed their tools and replenished their material supplies, cleaned up, and gone to wait on standby mode for their Operators to return.
MOHO’s station was a little island of disarray in the middle of all that orderliness. Probably only suit techs would have spotted the difference, but to their practiced eye it stood out like Firth wearing one of his eye-gouging aloha shirts to a funeral.
They set to work on cleaning it up.
“…You’re not actually hurt, right?” Miller checked. “‘Cuz if your jaw’s broke or whatever…”
“No, it’s fine,” Jack promised. “Come on, I take heavier hits than that every time Adam hugs me.”
“Heh…” she chuckled and set about sorting their assorted midsuit probes back into their holding rack. “…You’ve been quiet though. More than usual, I mean. Anything you wanna talk about?”
Jack shrugged, and grabbed the cleaning cloths so he could buff some spilled lubricant off the bench. “Not sure where I’d start. I’m okay, I just… Never mind. I’m okay though, I promise.”
“Good.” She gave him a smile. It looked a little strained.
“…Are you okay?” Jack asked.
“I just…” she paused, then put the last probe away and turned around. “They ate people, Jack. Threw them under the bus to get outta there. That’s…”
“…Yeah.”
“…That’s all you have to say? ‘Yeah’?” Miller grabbed the hand sanitizer and thoroughly rubbed it into her palms and fingers. “Jesus, I was brushing that chick’s hair…”
Jack finished cleaning up the solvent and dropped the used cloth into the bin on the station’s side, before ducking into the cabinet to fetch some new ones. “I know.”
“Jack, sweetie, stop being cagey and…” she paused and gave him a slow look. “…It doesn’t bother you so much, does it?”
Jack sighed and stopped working. “All living things have to eat,” he pointed out. “That’s, er… it’s not negotiable. And it’s not like it’s unaddressed. Have you ever heard of the ‘Custom of the Sea?’”
“That some Navy thing?”
“I don’t know of it ever happening in the Royal Navy, but there was an American whaling ship back in the nineteenth century called the Essex. A whale sank it, and the crew, er… drew lots to see who had to take one for the team. That’s the custom: a few die so the rest can live.”
“…That doesn’t change the fact that it’s murder.”
“No, it doesn’t.” After a moment he added, “What we do doesn’t change that we’re accessory to murder, either. You and me.”
“We’re… what, now?”
“Have you seen what Firth does? Or Murray? Tell me that isn’t murder.”
“That’s war.” She looked away and found something small to tinker with. ”It’s not the same thing.”
“True, it’s not. It’s legal murder, that’s the difference. But it’s murder nonetheless. I mean, bloody hell! It meets all the definitions! It’s premeditated… there’s malice aforethought, even!”
“…And then there’s that bomb they took with them,” she said quietly after a few seconds.
“…Yeah.”
“A lotta people on that Ring.”
“Yeah.”
Miller’s thumb nervously smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her pants. She wasn’t looking at him. “…That’s a lotta people they’re gonna kill,” she pointed out. “A lotta murder we’re accessory to.”
“That’s the thing. Sometimes, murder is necessary.”
Her head finally snapped up and she looked at him again. “…How can you say that of all people?!” She asked. “I mean… your sister…”
“I’m aware,” Jack sighed. “And you know what? She’d just have been the first if we hadn’t murdered those bastards right back. And here we are again, doing what we do because if we don’t then those soulless fucks will keep on murdering and murdering and murdering until the end of fucking time. We just call it killing instead of murder because we want to draw a distinction, but I don’t think that’s honest. Call a spade a spade, you know?”
“And then what? They murder us back to defend their lives? Is that all this is, an endless cycle of folks murdering folks?” She sighed and stopped “…You’re right. I know you’re right. I fucking signed up for this. I just… it slapped me in the face today.”
“…Tea?”
She stared at him stupidly for a second and then a snort-laugh exploded out of her. “…Shit, you’re British sometimes.”
“And cute!” He joked. “That wasn’t a no, though.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll drink your limey harbor-juice.”
He chuckled as he headed for the vending machines in the corner. Somehow, the one they had for hot drinks consistently produced something that was actually worth drinking, not that the Americans ever touched it. “Pfeh, you colonials are always so low-brow…”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right about the cute, though…”
She finished tidying the station as he extracted two plastic cups of hot brown stuff from the machine, and accepted it with a quiet ‘thanks.’
“…I guess it’s valid, though.” Jack said after they’d hung out in silence for a couple of sips.
“…What is?”
“Your question. Are we just stuck in a cycle?”
She shrugged and blew across the drink’s surface to chill it. “…I guess. But there’s no way outta the cycle, is there? If we give up on it we all die.”
“And if they’d given up—” Jack gestured back toward the infirmary “—they’d have starved to death. And… I mean, Ree, if I had to choose between murder some poor ET or watch you starve to death…”
She stared into her tea for a second then shut her eyes, set it down sharply and nodded.
Jack pulled her into a hug, not that she needed any convincing. His shoulder made her voice muffled when she spoke after a few seconds.
“…Dammit, you made me cry. I hate crying.”
“Sorry.”
“For what?” She let go and straightened up, wiping her eyes. “For saying you care? Jack, that’s about the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”
Not knowing how to reply to that, Jack just picked up his tea again and drank about half of it in one go. She watched him for a second with a slowly spreading smile, then picked up hers as well.
“And for the record?” She added. “…Yeah. If I had to make that choice… I guess I shouldn’t blame them so much.”
“I bet they blame themselves.”
“…Yeah.”
They finished both their drinks and cleaning up the station in comfortable silence, and by mutual agreement headed back to the rec room to rest and wait for their Operators to come back. There was plenty of discarded food around the place in there, which they grazed on while Miller picked out a movie—Kung-Fu Hustle—and they settled on the Couch to watch.
Well… Jack watched it. Miller on the other hand fell asleep on his shoulder with her hand in a bag of popcorn, and when he tried to get her to pay attention she just mumbled, withdrew her hand from the bag and cuddled his arm before falling asleep again.
He didn’t try to wake her a second time. After a while, he fell asleep too.
Date Point 15y6m1d AV
Whitecrest Clan enclave, Alien Quarter, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Champion Genshi of Whitecrest
Reunions were exhausting. Especially reunions with a Brother—a true brother—that Genshi had mourned and mentally buried years ago. Having him back was in its strange way almost as traumatic as losing him had been.
Garaaf wasn’t the same as he’d been before. He’d always been the more straight-laced and serious of them, a little less of a conduit for the spirit of constructive mischief that was part of Whitecrest’s character…
But now he was… terse. Quiet. Intense. His personality was just as scarred and mutilated as his face, to those who knew him well… and nobody had known him better than Genshi.
They’d cuddled up in private and spent some time bonding. Neither of them wanted to pull apart, leave the enclave, or do much anything besides rest and bask in each other’s company.
And talk. Not about anything consequential or dark. Instead, they were chatting about hopeful, light subjects. Scrubbing some of the darkness away, as it were.
“…You know what I’m looking forward to most? Depth perception.”
Genshi duck-nodded lazily. They’d raided (and exhausted) the enclave’s supply of traditional Gaoian foods in one giant personal feast. While Genshi had been nursing an unaccountable craving for a “Murray Salad,” he knew Garaaf well, and if he’d been through what his Brother had then he’d have wanted a taste of home. Familiar comforts like Naxas jerky and Talamay.
And peshorkies, of course. Far too many of them. Now they were relaxing after gorging themselves, both feeling fat and sleepy.
“…Cybernetic, or cloned transplant?” he asked.
Garaaf shivered. “Transplant, I think,” he declared. “Cybernetics are too… Hunter.”
Genshi personally would have preferred an implant in his younger days to take advantage of the enhanced capabilities they could offer, but the Hierarchy had effectively soured him on that idea permanently.
“Father Regaari feels a little differently,” he commented. “I don’t think he’d trade that paw of his for a line of eager Females.”
“He made Father? Good for him.” Garaaf stretched and yawned. “…I still can barely believe he survived Capitol Station.”
“It’s a Keeda tale, it really is,” Genshi agreed. “Though he tells it best himself.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll have time to hear it,” Garaaf complained. “I tried to stay up-to-date as well as I could, but… there’s a lot to take in, I’m sure.”
“Yes. More than you know.” Genshi sat up and sobered. “…Are you strong enough to start hearing it now? There is… much.”
“…Yes.” Garaaf turned over and sat up as well. “Let’s start with why the Gao have a Great Father again…”
Date Point: 15y6m1d AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Lt. Col. Owen “Stainless” Powell
Powell had been expecting the knock on the door for a while. It was kind of a relief when it came.
“Come in.”
An MP pushed the door ajar and stood aside. “Miss Chang for you, sir.”
“Aye, cheers.”
Powell stood up as Chang was ushered into his office. She gave the MP a thank-you smile, gave Powell a different kind of thank-you smile as they shook hands, and sat when he gestured to the chair opposite him. She looked strained.
“Cuppa?” Powell offered, on the grounds that tea fixed everything.
“Um… thank you. I’d really appreciate a coffee, actually,” she agreed, and seemed to relax a little.
Brewing up two hot drinks was easy enough, and Powell indulged in the usual small-talk as he made them. Weather, how she and hers were doing, and so on. He returned to businesslike talk upon setting the drinks down on his desk and taking his seat.
“…Messy business, this,” he commented.
She nodded and took hold of the mug with both hands. Maybe her hands were cold. “Very,” she agreed. “I… um, that is we… We have questions.”
Powell nodded. “Thought you might. I hope you understand, I might not be able to answer ‘em, but ask away.”
She scented her coffee for a moment. “…Mister Byron, um… he’s aware that we depend on AEC’s good graces. Obviously I need to go talk to the press soon. I need to know what I can and can’t say.”
“…They told you about the Ring and all that?” Powell asked. She nodded. “We’d prefer to keep that thing’s existence to ourselves for now. In fact, the details of their escape should probably be kept close to your chest in general. Especially, er… the details of how they fed themselves that whole time. Aye?”
She nodded fervently. “I wasn’t planning to mention that,” she agreed. She had a distinctly green, queasy look about her, so Powell pushed forward so as not to make her dwell on it.
“Short version? I’m requesting that you refrain from commenting on what the Allied military’s response to this event may or may not be,” he said. “We refuse to comment on active operations, not even to confirm or deny whether such an operation is in progress.”
“Which it is.”
“No comment.”
“…Right. Um, yes…” She paused then nodded. “Okay, that’s simple enough. Um… obviously, MBG are going to want to know, well, everything…”
“Aye, and we can’t rightly stop you from telling your boss what you just heard today. I suspect it’ll all come out in due course anyway. All we’re asking for is time.”
She nodded understanding. “Enough time for whatever operation may or may not be in progress to play out.”
“Just time, please. Let’s leave it at that.”
She nodded, but it looked like something was deeply troubling her. “…Colonel… there are probably billions of people on that Ring…” she said, after a few seconds.
Powell locked his face down. “Aye?” he said, slowly. “What of it?”
“That would… I mean, presumably that would mean at least some of them are Gaoians.”
“Miss Chang, I mean no disrespect, but I’d appreciate it if you could cut to the chase.”
She nodded. “…I’m a Sister of the Clan of Females and a confidant of the Mother-Supreme,” she reminded him. “We know that the Hunters prefer to abduct Gaoian females and cubs. Thousands have been taken over the years, and Yulna will want to know if you have any plans to rescue them.”
“I can’t answer that. I’m sorry.”
“Right.” She drained a surprisingly large gulp of her coffee in one go and sniffed. “I have to tell her something though, Colonel. I mean, I presume your request for time applies to the Clan of Females as well, but…”
Powell raised his hand. “Obviously I don’t expect you to stonewall Yulna, but there are… er…” he paused, calculating the right words. “…I think it will soon become clear to the Mother-Supreme which channels are more appropriate for voicing those kinds of questions.”
“I see.” She finished her coffee and set it down with a grimace. That drink had to be painfully hot, but Powell didn’t comment. “Thank you, Colonel.”
Powell stood to shake her hand. “I promise, we’ll work out a more constructive conversation as soon as possible,” he said. “And please, you let Moses Byron and the Mother-Supreme know they’re both welcome to contact me. If I can’t answer their questions, I can at least direct them to somebody who can.”
“And the Dauntless crew?”
“I understand Doctor Wheeler is on life support in our infirmary. The other four will need debriefing and, frankly, they’re all badly malnourished and traumatized. They’ll get the best possible care on all counts right here. If MBG want to remove them…?”
“I think I’ll leave that one to Mister Byron,” Chang said.
“That’s probably wise.” Powell gave her a small, encouraging smile. “Good luck with the press, aye?”
“Thanks. I think I might need it.”
“You’ll be fine,” he promised.
The assurance seemed to help her. She produced a genuine smile for the first time since entering his office, shook his hand, and was gone in the MP’s company as briskly as she’d arrived.
As soon as the door shut behind her, he turned to the latest from Intel.
Still no signal. Still no word. Scouts were still hours away from the Hell system, and still detecting a gravity spike of immense scope and power on long-range scanners.
He pulled a face, muttered “hmm” to himself, and drank his tea.
It didn’t help.
Date Point: 15y6m1d AV
The Ring, Hell system, Hunter space
WARHORSE
Big bastard. Not slow, fast. Dangerous.
Light it up. Gun kicking in hands, a firehose of shieldbreaker rounds.
Enemy’s aim spoiled as its shields collapse. STARFALL wrecks the grenade launcher on its hand with a precision shot, it spins into cover.
Brother hurtin’. Check him. Talking, moving, good signs. ‘Base picks him up, gets him safe.
Push.
Hunter array goes thump again. Four heavy Hunters, big but not like the monster. Light them up too. Spread out, make room. Nervejam can’t get them all. No flashes yet. No pain. Shieldbreaker up close, charge. Take more work to break but ‘Horse got it done. Jump and pin. Crack, fucker breaks like stick. Grab head, pull off armor along neck. Punch through throat. Smash skull, no time for fun. Bounce, fall back to cover before others react. Assess.
Not as puny as other Hunters. Gonna take a while to kill them all. Too long.
But ground gained. Array in sight.
“Horse!” Tigger giving orders. Points at Array. “Wreck that!”
Hell yeah.
Reload: ferrous penetrator rounds, dial up power. Open fire, sparks fly, Array wrecked. Hunters shoot back, but there’s cover. Switch to shieldbreakers, First Fang flanking through concealment on the left.
Up. Shoot.
Enemy shields down. They retreat toward cover, right into Fiin. Gore everywhere.
Grin.
Tearing metal, right side. Gunfire and shouts. Big Bastard’s still fightin’, Brothers fightin’ harder. Move up, look for an angle.
Explosion back there somewhere. Can’t see shit. Another explosion, crates burst as Big Bastard claws them aside. Get a clean shot.
Fire.
Its shields are already down. Shieldbreakers don’t do shit to armor, just make sparks. Switch mags, dial up power again. Big Bastard vanishes behind a locomotive.
SLAM!
Fuckin’ freight car gets knocked off rails and sent crashing across the deck. Jump, dodge. Regroup.
Monkey-thought flickers through brain: Two can play at that game.
“‘Base!”
Captain Anthony “Abbott” Costello
Usually the HEAT could rip anything apart. Usually, the HEAT was bigger, meaner and tougher than anything.
This thing, whatever it was, was giving them a hell of a run for their money. Thank fuck for seasoned master sergeants: Costello could rely on Firth, and that made all the difference. And after whatever is was that Daar had done, the big Hunter was definitely feeling the pressure.
Keeping the pressure on wasn’t going to be enough, though. They’d picked a fight with a fucking tank. Worse, they’d picked a fight with a tank that could move like an agile infantryman and was strong enough to derail freight cars. And it was fucking smart, too. They were having a hard time pinning it down.
It knew the terrain, it could shape the goddamn terrain when it needed to, and it managed to be both cagey and bold at exactly the right moments. Each time Costello thought it had overextended itself, it would fade back into the trainyard and they’d be back to playing catchup, or recoiling from its counterattack.
He threw himself across an open space, chasing it, looking for a shot. Blaczynski had winged the fucker and taken out one of its weapons, but other than that it looked to be unscathed. ‘Horse had scratched its paint, and it had blundered through one of Titan’s claymores without apparently suffering for it.
They needed options. And they needed them before somebody got killed.
Fortunately, the Protectors provided.
Brother Daar of Stoneback, Great Father of the Gao
A Hotball woulda been awesome just then. The very idea he had somethin’ like that nominally at his clawtips was deeply boner-inducing, but. Damn monsters had a wormhole doohicky up though, so they had to use the next best thing.
Daar pulled his head back in as a mess of bullets tore up the deck. He weren’t dead, no big deal.
“Need’ta pin this fucker!” he barked.
“Or corral it!”
“Way ahead’a you, Tigger!”
Daar pulled a face inside his mask as a shrill metallic scream ravaged his ears, and looked over just in time to see ‘Base and ‘Horse fucking tipping a freight car, right off the rails. It was a fuckin’ effort even for them, but by Keeda they actually managed it. Then they dashed over and tipped another, and then another…
Each one crashed to the deck with a sound like… well, like a real heavy steel railroad car bein’ tipped over.
Fuckin’ A.
“Fiin! Righteous!”
Anything the Beef Bros could do, the Champions of Stoneback could do too. Hell, Daar had taught those two how to flip cars. As Costello stepped in to ward the tank-thing away and give ‘em the room they needed to work, he slammed into the side of a car, got his claws under it and heaved.
Firth was a second behind him, then Fiin. For a heartbeat, Daar had a flash of doubt about maybe he weren’t quite strong enough…
But he pushed through it. It made his whole body groan, but the fuckin’ thing finally moved, shifted, rose. The far wheels finally slipped off the rail and…
Fyu’s furry ass the crash of it finally goin’ over was the most fuckin’ sweetest sound.
Onto the next one. Maybe they could catch up to the Bros! Gaps were closing, or at least the monster was gonna hafta go over ‘em or move ‘em. That’d slow it, expose it.
They could catch it. They could kill it.
They could win.
The Alpha-of-Alphas
Clever Foes. Too clever.
Barely five or six were strong enough to derail the freight system, but that was enough. Interesting how the sixth wasn’t joining in. It was…
Lay down fire, dart between cars, scuttle over a stack of scrap bins. It needed a closer look.
One of the smaller ones was stealthy, quick. It took a shot, and the Alpha-of-Alphas reared up to aim a burst of micro-missiles. The assailant was already gone.
Move. Sideways, around a crane, circle the knot of foes.
< Glee >
What a hunt! The Alpha-of-Alphas hadn’t felt so alive since the day it hunted a Vulza for its throne, and this was far more intense.
Its prey was in sight. Carrying something large. Something…
Black. Only one thing was that black. It was looking at a stasis field, and suddenly—
There was a burst of firepower. These ones hit, caused actual damage, tore off a micromissile launcher. It reeled out of sight and found itself with diminished options. The rail cars were strewn all over the yard now, each one an obstacle that would need moving or vaulting. Slowing it, exposing it.
But the galling thing was that the Alpha-of-Alphas knew perfectly well that the Prey had already won.
It broadcast across the entire Hunter network. +< Command; Urgent; Immediate > Recall all broods. Launch the Swarm-of-Swarms.+
Puzzled queries and demands for confirmation came back immediately. It overruled them all, locked down the channels, asserted every iota of its authority. Juggling attention like that was hazardous. But the enemy had brought a bomb, and there was now nothing the Alpha-of-Alphas could do to stop them from destroying the Hive.
< Satisfaction >
Its Hunt had been a success: It knew what the Enemy were up to now.
But the distraction proved fatal.
Captain Anthony “Abbott” Costello
Trust the Protectors to come up with a solution. Even by their standards that was a hell of a feat of strength, but goddamn if it didn’t work. The big spider-tank seemed to actually be stymied by the new obstacles. Not stopped, but definitely slowed and deflected.
“DEXTER! Right! TITAN! Up the middle!”
They had it, they had it! He could feel it in his gritted teeth. As the Whitecrests redeployed up the right flank they had their tricky little gizmos ready for if it went that way. If it tried to go down the middle it’d run right into the HEAT and Costello was pretty sure it wouldn’t stand up to a serious volley of penetrator rounds.
And if it went left, there was MOHO waiting for it with his Javelin.
It went left.
Daar
Big bastard didn’t go without a fight, that’s ‘fer sure. Its weapons tore up the deck, carved holes in the trains. Daar watched his Brothers throw themselves to safety. Nobody hurt thank fuck. Couple’a near hits though, and Daar found himself praying to the old gods that everyone’s suits would hold up.
MOHO had balls though. He popped outta cover the first opening he got and rammed a Javelin right down the fucker’s throat while Sikes laid down covering fire. High-explosive warheads and superplastic metal were some o’ the most bestest things ever, as far as Daar was concerned—ain’t hardly any armor plate ever made could handle that shit.
It was a close-range shot, dangerously so even for troops like them. But…somethin’ sounded odd about the explosion, a weirdly familiar thump that preceded the detonation by a whisker.
Then there was just the blast. Daar felt it thump through his body, rattle his bones and guts, and was pretty sure it knocked his brains about some too. Not that he needed any more o’ that in his life, but whatever.
MOHO seemed unfazed. He was doin’ good as shit ‘fer his green HEAT deployment, but Humans seemed born to this kinda thing so Daar weren’t too surprised. He ignored the piece of hot shrapnel smoking on his arm, dropped his Javelin launcher, snapped his GR-1D back up and advanced to check his kill. Good instincts, good game. Fuck yeah.
“…It’s down.”
Debris was everywhere, it crunched underfoot, it could still be heard rattling and bouncing at the far end of the rail yard… but silence had fallen.
They checked the Enemy. It looked smashed pretty good and hard, but there was something… off about the wreckage. A suspicion that Regaari and Titan confirmed when they both knelt down and checked on it.
Regaari ran a scanner over the twisted metal. “…There’s a void here. Looks like…”
“Like somethin’ was in there that ain’t there now,” Titan finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“Coulda sworn I heard a jump-thump just before I shot it,” MOHO volunteered.
“So did I.” Regaari swept his sensor over the rest of the wreckage then duck-nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say the pilot ejected.”
“The threat’s neutralized either way,” Costello decided. “We have a bomb to deploy.”
“Right. Next compartment should be that ship-wreckin’ yard,” Daar said. “That’s our bomb site and egress. Check your suit seals, I don’t wanna find out somebody’s got a breach halfway through the HELLNO.”
“That means you, MOHO,” TITAN said. He checked the spot on the big Defender’s arm where the shrapnel had burned through the outersuit, and dug a pair of needle-nose pliers in, emerging after a few seconds and a tearing noise with a chunk of jagged metal as big as one of Daar’s ears.
“…Superficial damage. Suit integrity’s fine.”
“Think I’ll keep that,” MOHO said, pocketing the fragment.
Costello nodded satisfaction then turned around. “Irish? How’s the payload?”
“Just grand, sir. Slowin’ me down a bit is all.”
“Let’s unburden you.”
Daar chittered, and checked his own suit, only to find it had stopped a hit without him even noticing. Fuckdammit, he let himself get lost in the bloodlust. Rookie mistake, but…
Whatever. They weren’t dead, and the end was close now. It wasn’t the victory he’d wanted, but it was a victory.
He’d take it.
Date Point: 15y6m1d AV
The Alpha-of-Alphas’ sanctum, Hunter Space
The Alpha-of-Alphas
< Anguish >
The emergency recall had been involuntary, automatic. Both a reflex and a pre-programmed contingency, such that the Alpha-of-Alphas couldn’t truly say for sure whether it had meant to run away, or whether it had been snatched away by a failsafe.
It wasn’t the defeat that stung, it was the fact that the Hunt was over. It had been joyous, transcendent, euphoric. Finally, finally a worthy foe! It had ended all too soon.
It would tangle with those raiders again. It would adapt, it would improvise. And the meat in the maw would be all the sweeter for the effort.
For now, though… it needed a new body.
There was very little of it left. Its brain, its maw, its gut. The rest of its “body,” for the moment, was an egg-shaped life support module that kept those most essential components of a Hunter’s life alive.
No matter. It had been jumped back to the command cradle in its sanctum. From here, it could command…
…It could… command…
There was nothing. The links were utterly silent. When the Alpha-of-Alphas reached out to connect with the Hunter network, all it felt was a peculiar resistance as though its long-discarded fingertips were brushing against solidified air.
It reached out for a replacement body, at least some arms and legs to carry it around so that it could demand an explanation. There should have been limbs and a replacement war-form already loaded into the sanctum’s cradle.
The arms and waldos that should have constructed a new body around it were empty and numb.
< Confusion; Mounting fury >
It couldn’t even struggle. It had no limbs with which to struggle! Nothing it tried to access was responding, nothing it tried to summon would listen. It was worse than paralyzed, it was inert, sat uselessly in a cradle with nothing but the limited sensors mounted on this, it’s least body, to sweep the sanctum.
The door opened, and its own body thundered through, shaking the deck with every step. Riding in its center was not another egg-shaped core, but something more Hunter-like and organic. Something scarred, ruined and twisted. Something that was familiar because the Alpha-of-Alphas had personally defaced it to the point of anonymity.
+< Shock > You.+
The former Alpha Builder didn’t reply, it only radiated a surprisingly gentle emote. < Satisfaction; Anticipation >
So. This was what real defeat tasted like. Everything up until now had just been a setback.
The Builder stopped in front of it. +< Regret > You brought us to this. I was content to follow, until you showed how wasteful you are.+
+< Interrogation > You will replace me?+
+< Calm certainty > I will be better than you.+
The former Builder circled out of the Alpha-of-Alphas’ sight. There was a whining sound, and what little of the defeated Alpha’s body was left felt vibrations through its shell as it was cut into, carved apart. The Builder was exposing its brain.
It would have sagged, if it could. Instead, it listened until it heard the metal that had once protected its vulnerable grey matter clattered on the echoing floor.
+< Resignation > Well hunted.+
+< Serene > Meat to the maw.+
Reverently, perhaps even tenderly, the Builder began to feed.