Jaskel just stared. In horror, in shock, in fear, he didn't know.
The Terran was completely engaged, in the middle of all of the creatures. Their tentacles whipped at him, curved exoskeletal hooks slapping at him, blades emerging to stab at him, mechanical three prong grippers opening up to grab at the Terran and try to fire lasers directly into the Terran's skin. One moved forward, cavernous mouth wide open, a hot red glow in the back of the conical mouth, the teeth wiggling.
The Terran just shoved his fist through the creature's maw and caused it to explode into rags of flesh and chunks of armor, the tentacles falling to whip around on the floor as the punch continued to hit a rippling field in front of one of the crystalline creatures. The field collapsed in a shower of sparks.
"OH YEEAAAAAAAH!" the Terran gave a bass roar, stepping forward again.
"No shot, no clear shot," Jaskel said, moving his light machinegun around, trying to figure out what to shoot, hell, where to shoot that wouldn't hit the Terran.
"SHOOT, PUSSY!" the Terran roared out, grabbing one of the crystalline articulated 'tentacles' and ripping it free to jam the crystalline blade through the side of one of the green eyed creatures, continuing the blow until the blade shattered on the wall and the creature was pulped between his fist and the bulkhead.
Jaskel fired his weapon, seeing the liquid filled cartridges shattering on the Terran's skin, just coating his skin. The rounds that hit the crystalline creature that was backing up made the crystalline structure start to smoke and sizzle.
"YOU GOT NUTHIN!" the Terran roared out, knocking the last crystalline creature out of the way and rushing forward.
The one in the back screeched, trying to back up, flailing tentacles at the Terran. The blades chipped at the spikes, but did little else.
Besides get the tentacles in reach of the Terran.
One of the green eyed ones lunged at Jaskel and he hosed it with the LMG. The steel tip shattered armor, the lye splattered. The thing screeched, spinning in place, trying to interpose the tentacles between the full auto 150 rounds a minute and itself.
Jaskel just kept shooting, the tentacles shattering, the creature shrieking again, making his phasic shielding jump to 85%.
More creatures were flooding into the hallway, but Jaskel didn't have time to think about them, just shifting targets and firing as first one, then another collapsed.
The Terran was covered, but it kept grabbing with its hands, ripping the creatures off. The Terran would twist the tentacles, or squeeze the bulbous body, or smash it against the wall.
Still advancing on the larger one, which was flailing its seven remaining tentacles.
The Terran grabbed one of the black armored ones, ripped its tentacles off, slapped it twice, and tossed it as Jaskel.
"Catch!" it roared. "Live one!"
Jaskel let the LMG drop onto the sling, clumsily catching the one that was tossed. Black goo had covered the amputated tentacle stumps and then hardened. It screeched, trying to wriggle and bite.
Jaskel slapped it again.
"Jaskel, get that lunatic to pull back. The dropship is under heavy assault. NavInt wants us to pull back," the Gunny said.
"TERRAN! WE'RE LEAVING!" Jaskel shouted.
The Terran stopped, facing the bigger one with the red and green eyes.
The Terran held out its first two fingers in a 'V', touched just under his own eyes, then thrust them at the creature, which was still backing up.
"I'll be back for you, smartass," the Terran growled, starting to back up.
Creatures kept lunging out of doorways, dropping from hidden vents, lunging out of ventwork in the walls.
Jaskel barely got turned when one lunged out of a vent, the cover slapping him in the fact, the tentacles wrapping around him. The mouth glommed onto his chest and the body started pulsating.
The armor's defense went live, electricity arcing.
The creature dropped, smoking.
The Terran stomped on it.
Jaskel swallowed, still moving back. He kept shooting with one hand, the power armor's strength allowing him to keep the barrel steady. He just hosed the hallway, no longer concerned about hitting the Terran, who didn't seem to care about the highly caustic lye, the steel penetrator tips, or the kinetic energy.
An obvious robot lunged out and the Terran grabbed it, ripped off its arms, ripped off part of its hull, and then snatched out something that registered as a power-source on Jaskel's armor.
"Got a robot, bringing it back," the Terran rumbled.
Jaskel could see his words on his HUD right afterwards.
"Naw, it'll be fine," the Terran said. It kept reaching in and pulling stuff out. Jaskel saw what looked like bullets, maybe tiny missiles, a six-sided pinkish crystal he knew was one of the best types of crystal to use for blue-shift laser beams.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
When Jaskel got to the huge crater, he could see the problem.
Robots and what looked like spiders with cannons on their backs were on the edge of the crater, firing down on the dropship and the troops moving into the dropship.
The Terran paused, lifting up one fist, arm bent and the elbow. He made a cocking motion, his biceps suddenly bulging and lumpy, leveled his fist, and started firing. Jaskel's armor ID'd it as 20mm magac shells.
"Get in the dropship, kid," the Terran said, turning and backing up, sweeping robots off of the lip.
Jaskel hustled to the dropship, noting that the Terran had handed off the gutted robot to another Telkan.
Jaskel ran up the boarding ramp, Captain Nakwel slapped the top of his helmet.
"Nineteen! All accounted for!" the Captain called out.
"Hammer Two Six, fall back, board the dropship," came a perfectly calm voice over Jaskel's radio. "Go garrison form on entry."
The medic onboard the dropship moved up to Jaskel, holding a stasis lock usually used for severed limbs. "In here."
Jaskel frowned, then remembered the creature he was holding. He nodded, shoving it into the opening. The medic closed it and it hissed, frost covering it.
The Terrans started boarding the dropship right as Jaskel heard the ship's point defense cut loose. Jaskel saw them go from huge monstrous looking forms to shrinking down, steaming, into the large Terrans.
They even had their shirts back.
"All loaded!" Captain Nakwel called out.
One by one they got in their seats as the ramp whined up and the side doors slammed shut.
It lifted off and Jaskel leaned back slightly, relaxing in his armor.
--that was fun-- 8814 said.
"Felt like a waste of time," Jaskel said. He closed his eyes. "Wake me if something stupid happens."
Captain N'Skrek moved into the ready room, going over to his chair and sitting down.
His Command Staff as well as the Terran officers acting as advisors were all sitting down already.
N'Skrek waited a moment, lit a cigarette, then tapped his lighter against the top of the table.
"The singularity ignited. It should be stable for roughly ten years. Our Nav-Int complement believes it should slow, maybe even devour any Mar-gite clusters too close," Commodore Brakte'ek said.
"Gravity focus lensing, while a good idea, would have kept us here for another four weeks to manufacture and deploy them," Commander KrekNak said. The Kobold tapped the table. "However, with Mar-gite clusters still warping in, the need to backtrack them is becoming more and more obvious."
N'Skrek puffed on the cigarette, then pointed at the hologram of the disabled enemy ship floating in the table's holo-emitter.
"We get anything good off of that hulk before we destroyed it?" he asked, looking at the Science Intelligence Section's Chief Warrant officer.
The Lanaktallan nodded. "Quite a bit of data," he pointed at the holoemitters that were cold and dark on the table. "May I?"
"Of course," N'Skrek said.
The Chief nodded and began typing on the holographic keyboard that sprang up under his lower hands.
The holograms came to life.
Molecular breakdown of the atmosphere on the ship. Molecular breakdown and scans of the interior structural elements. More breakdowns of the ship's armor, superconductor cabling. Finally, four holoemitters held images of the creatures that had defended it.
Only one didn't have a DNA/XNA breakdown underneath it.
"First item: They use steel in their interior construction," CW4 In'tel'lmo'o stated. "Nothing unusual, standard high grade steel. A little heavy on the chromium layer, but that's known to keep phasic energy from sinking into the metal too deeply," he tapped another key and the molecular breakdowns rotated. "Judging from the pieces brought back, the steel is gravity well manufactured, with the imperfections that point to a natural gravity well."
"So, they have planetary logistics and manufacturing centers?" one of the Terrans asked.
In'tel'lmo'o nodded. "Yes. Their manufacturing is not all that impressive in the materials department. The shimmering chrome liquid appearance is a function of their battlescreens, not any memetic polyalloy. That, and their armor is laminate with a chrome layer on the outside just over standard gold."
Everyone just made notes.
"Several of the Terran Monster Class found active data lines. Using induction pads built into their hands, they were able to intercept and observe data flows through superconductor as well as fiber optic," In'tel'lmo'o said. He nodded at Commander Hresket, Chief of the Intel Section. "Cryptography is working on the data."
"First of all, judging by pulsing, it looks like they use base-12 numbering. That gives us plenty of signal to look over," Hresket said.
N'Skrek annotated the information on his VR scratchpad.
The briefing moved into power generation and capability, battlescreen estimates (one of the Terrans had ripped a battlescreen projector free and then tore it apart while his scouter eyepiece had recorded it all), and other technological information.
"The object started bringing its engines online, that was when a recall was transmitted to the dismount team," CW4 In'tel'lmo'o said. "Which moves us to what we've all been waiting patiently through all of the briefing to get here. Everyone knows the prize is at the bottom of the cereal box."
That got light chuckles.
"Four life forms were encountered, as well as six different types of robots and what we believe are three autonomous or semi-autonomous drones," In'tel'lmo'o stated.
Images of the creatures popped up.
"They're XNA. Silicon was the predominate theory, based on the Mar-gite, which we have begun calling the Mar-gite Autonomous Bioweapon. However, data gathered by the Terran infantry showed that they are primarily boron based, with sulfuric running a close second. By what we have observed from life in the galaxy so far, that means that these creatures are native to a highly volcanic region with a high probability," In'tel'lmo'o stated.
He tabbed the big one, with the ten tentacles that ended in three manipulator claws. "This appears to the top of their system. The other four are all based on the same XNA template, just heavy modification. We believe they created, or evolution forced them into, several biological castes."
"Phasic energy is high in this one," the crystalline one shot through with red veins. "This one also has a higher sulfur and phosphorous dependency," he tapped the big one again. "This one also possesses phasic ability."
He tapped the other two. "These appear to be combat," the dark one with the gleaming spurs, then one that had a shiny, chrome-like surface. "This one appears to be primarily engineering and work, with built in manipulators and sensory systems."
There was brief video of the larger one firing off conical phasic bursts that made the misty atmosphere of the corridor ripple and twist.
"Standard waves of force, generated with phasic power," In'tel'lmo'o stated. He pointed one hand at the Terrans seated. "Consulting with those who fought against the Atrekna before the Terran Xenocide Event shows us that the upper life form's phasic abilities are not in the category of the Atrekna."
N'Skrek felt a bit of relief at that.
"Furthermore, consultation with Mantid phasic warfare specialists, we believe that the upper caste, as of what we know at this moment, has less phasic power than a Mantid Warrior or High Speaker," In'tel'lmo'o said.
He sat down, the holograms going dim as the contents were saved to the command staff's data stores.
"As of now, we know more than we did, but now we just know how much we don't know."
N'Skrek nodded. "All right. Excellent briefing," he said. He looked around. "Set our course along Nav-Int's estimate of where the next energizing construct will be."
He clacked his mandibles in amusement.
"Let's keep taking this war to them."