First Contact

Chapter 736: The Inheritor's War

Night had fallen, the hours that had passed had been full of explosions and gunfire.

In the valley, that was brightly lit by white flares that held back the darkness, slavespawn gave shrieks, whistles, and bellows of pain. Any slavespawn that moved too much attracted a burst of heavy machinegun fire.

Twice more combat groups of Atrekna had joined the Conclave sheltering behind the hill, bringing in more troops that had all been wounded and harried by the lemur ambush teams.

Twice an Atrekna had risen to the top of the hill to gaze upon the battlefield.

Twice he had tried to warn them but had been rebuffed from the communal consensus.

Twice a high caliber high velocity projectile weapon had killed the Ancient One who had levitated up to observe the battlefield.

One of them had taken a shot to the lower torso that had dumped its digestive organs out of the hole, long greasy loops of intestine hanging down nearly five feet below its limp feet. It was still drifting in the air, held aloft by phasic powers imbued in the jewelry.

The Old One noted that one of its slippers had fallen off.

The lemurs kept dropping volleys of rockets and barrages on artillery on the Atrekna side of the hill, forcing the Atrekna to expend energy keeping the slavespawn from being torn apart by the heavy shells and cluster rockets. Drones kept buzzing over the hill, or worse, flying on whispering fans, descending to explode, fire microrockets, or shoot projectiles at everything they saw.

There were forty Young One Atrekna using their powers to fuel a phasic construct sheltered the slavespawn and the Atrekna both from the lemur artillery.

I hate fighting lemurs, the Old One thought to himself as he watched a large group of Atrekna, accompanied by small groups of fast, nimble, tough, and fierce slavespawn, approach.

He drifted over and listened in on the communal consensus.

**why are you late** an Ancient One interrogated.

**we pursued the lemur ambush teams** one stated. **we linked up once we were sure the lemurs were gone**

There was silence.

**how many lemurs did you eliminate** another Ancient One asked.

**we saw fourteen dead and one destroyed hover-trundle** an Ancient One from the pursuit teams said.

**the lemurs drag away their dead** another Ancient One stated.

**we estimate we eliminated two hundred and nineteen lemurs and destroyed at least fifty of their vehicles** an Ancient Once proclaimed.

The Young Ones all concurred.

The Old One felt dark amusement bubble up as he watched them and listened to them.

**deploy your slavespawn with the appropriate groups as we determine our next course of action** one of the Ancient Ones of the Conclave ordered.

**why have you not proceeded past this valley** one of the new Ancient Ones demanded. **our target zone is on the other side we must take that zone in order to temporally replicate forces**

**the lemurs defend it most ferociously** a Young One said. **they have stopped our advance**

**fool** the Ancient One swore. **just push past them** it began drifting upward. **I will take measure of this force of lemurs and determine a way

It crested the top of the hill as it spoke, rose another two meters.

Its phasic shields exploded at the same time as the upper peak of its head liquified and sprayed the inside of its own phasic shields.

The body just hung in midair.

**STOP DOING THAT LEMURS** one of the Ancient Ones shrieked.

The Old One just moved away slightly.

They never learn.

-----

Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd sipped the wine in her wine flute as she smiled at the hologram in front of her. It was shot through with static, Atrekna jamming playing havoc with anything that was not laser communications, along a certain radio-frequency, or along superconductor or fiber optic cable. In it were the icons and pictures of nearly a dozen matrons.

"You each tossed one of the spheres near something important?" she asked, leaning back slightly in the comfortable sling.

They all nodded or made motions of assent. The ones that were icons only flashed icons of assent.

"Excellent, ladies, excellent," Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd stated. She waved her hand. "As my clever and innovative servant, who, I might add, served honorably in the Confederate Armed Services to protect Lanaktallan from Atrekna predation, has observed, the Atrekna appear to be put off balance by the female lemur warriors."

"Your most clever servant was correct in that they only speak Treana'ad Battle Click and an unknown lemur language," one of the Matrons stated. She turned to someone off camera and accepted a sandwich. "Why, thank you, dear one," the Matron said.

"Each of you are ensconced in one of the major shelter groupings?" Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd asked. She held out her wine glass to be refilled.

They all nodded.

"The people will need our calm reassurances and example during these stressful times," Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd stated. "Remember to appoint beings to shelter leadership positions based on skill, not on family connections and wealth, and remember to only advise them when they are about to make a critical mistake or seek your guidance."

Again, the Matrons nodded.

"And remember, always counsel the shelter leadership away from the view of others. You should never reprimand them or questions them publicly unless their decisions are obviously disastrous," Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd said.

Again, they all nodded.

"As my experienced and educated servant Shakras learned in Confederate leadership school, a clear cut chain of command, supported publicly, is vital to surviving emergencies," Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd stated. "He recommended I forward the Terran Armed Services Field Manual 22-345 to each of you. Read it, understand it, utilize the tools it will give you. That manual was written by the Confederacy to instruct you on leadership in even the darkest times."

The Matrons nodded. Several had read more than a few chapters, finding the book fascinating and much more than its martial nature suggested it would be. A few had followed the instructions they had gleaned already, applying the lessons to their servants, and found their servants were much more efficient, happy, motivated, and acted with more initiative.

"We will reconvene in fifteen hours. Remember to pass on any shelter priority needs to your nearest Farm Yard Guard representative," Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd stated.

The others signaled assent and one by one logged off.

Lady Fa'ahmYa'ahd shut off the holo and turned away from it, the relaxation sling smoothly rotating.

She activated her orb of contemplation and stared into its depths as her two faithful servants stood next to her.

Outside, the war raged.

-----

Commander Jane shifted her battlescreens slightly, rotating them forty-five degrees to the edge of her shield was a wedge in front of her, dropped her shoulder, and charged the charging Ohm Class Dwellerspawn that had blown through the lines of vehicles, others of its size and type fanning out behind it in a wedge that was obviously designed to push deep into her lines.

She hit hard, the battlescreen tearing away its facial armor, destroying the multiple eyes, and breaking its forward jaw in the middle. She swung a fist, slamming her hand in between two layers of armor, grabbed the thick fibrous tissue, and yanked outward.

The Ohm Class bellowed its distress.

Around her the Jager-Mechs fought toe to toe with the massive Dwellerspawn. The night was lit up by the explosions and flashes, the light reflecting off of the intact macroplas windows of the skyrakers of the city behind her.

The shelter deployments had been delayed there and six point seven three million citizens were still hunkered down in parking garages, basements, subway stations, and under overpasses while the shelters finished deploying.

Each minute was the swing of a fist, the parrying of a rocket, the stomp of a foot.

She was in the middle of the Dwellerspawn now. The smaller ones were crawling over the larger ones like ants on a dead frog, screeching as they leaped at her, spit at her, sprayed spines at her.

She was all by herself but she wasn't alone.

Her panel was lit up and beeping, her nanoforges running hot as she swept her hands back to her sides, extending her fingers. She brought her hands forward, clapping in front of her, and paused as Dwellerspawn threw themselves against her failing battlescreen.

The force blade extended from between her palms, flashing upwards. When it formed fully she grasped the hilt, twisting the blade, then set her feet, bringing the force blade into guard position even as her smaller infinite repeaters raked the Dwellerspawn around her.

One of the big Ohm Class saw her shields failing and stood up. It was a twisted creature, a mixture of insect, crustacean, and mammal. Fur and shell and spikes and rows of eyes with whipping antenna and clacking claws.

Four others stood up as Commander Jane set herself.

Between her actions and the support of the Jagers behind her, she'd shattered their wedge, stopped their advance, and her clone troopers and supporting combat vehicles were keeping the Dwellerspawn in the suburbs.

As all five of them raised their heads to the clouds and shrieked Jane took two steps forward, swinging her sword, the graviton generators howling, the turbines shrieking, and the gyroscope screaming.

The blade hit the first one on the shoulder, ripping through its body with a spray of reddish ichor. She kicked the body off the blade and turned in place, parrying a set of wickedly curved bladearms with the blade, striking out with one hand to smash another Dweller to the side.

Commander Jane laughed with glee as her blade clashed with bladearm.

"Kalki's giant flesh hog and clanging warsteel balls, I love my job!" she crowed.

-----

The Old One had drifted to the side, carefully constructing a phasic construct designed to not only conceal him, but give him images from phasic constructs he'd carefully inserted into the battlefield. In the two victories he'd been present for, tactical and strategic data, quickly disseminated, had been crucial to the victory.

He had infiltrated nearly fifty phasic lenses so he could see the battlefield. They had to be wide, unfocused, very diffuse, or a lemur sniper would put a phasic cracker through it, which meant the image was slightly blurry and the sound slightly tinny.

But it was data.

He had watched as the battle raged on. The Atrekna were pouring more and more slavespawn into the one hundred five mile long valley, trying to push the slavespawn across the five miles of distance between the two hills.

The middle and lemur side of the valley was nothing but gobbets of flesh, pools of ichor, and thick sticky mud.

The Atrekna side was nothing more than slavespawn corpses that were still being hit by mortar and artillery rounds, rockets, and anti-matter rounds from rapidfire weapons.

The Old One left his carefully built construct and moved over to where the Conclave was huddled together, surrounded by slavespawn that reared up and pawed at one another with tentacles and bladearms.

**you should not gather up** the Old One stated. **it makes it so that all of you are simply one target instead of spread out so that it takes much more effort and split fire to engage each of you**

The Ancient Ones and the Young Ones sneered, the Old Ones rebuffed his statement silently.

**our strength together is too much for the lemurs to overcome** one of the Old Ones stated. **they cannot overcome our combined power**

**we cannot be positive that you did not allow lemurs to escape** the Old One stated. **the lemurs who performed the ambush could very well be approaching as we speak**

**we killed all of the ambushing lemurs and inflicted nearly a thousand casualties on their forces** an Ancient One sneered.

**the lemurs have not stopped running away from our martial might** a Young One scoffed.

**do not say I did not warn you** the Old One said, drifting away. It wrapped shadows around itself, bending and twisting the shadows until, despite science saying darkness was just the absence of light, it was surrounded by crystalline and alloys of shadow and darkness.

The Conclave sent another wave of slavespawn over the hill and the Old One watched as most were killed on the opposite slope, raked by automatic fire, rockets, and missiles. The lemurs heavily leaned on antimatter rounds and the Old One computed it wasn't much antimatter at all. It took a bit for him to figure out the atomic structure of the antimatter, as standard antimatter did not have the strange bluish snap in it that the lemur rounds did.

It was not the first time in the Old One's experience that the lemurs used something new and different to the Atrekna, while having it completely embedded in their doctrine and equipment.

The Old One felt a summons as the night drew on. It left its data gathering construct and drifted slowly, in an erratic pattern, over to toward the Conclave.

**hurry up** an Ancient One snapped. **we wish to know how our forces obtained victory in System Sigma-Fourteen-Nine during the third expansion of the Spoked Offensive**

The Old One did not respond, just kept moving forward.

It had almost reached the Conclave when everything came apart.

Heavy machineguns opened up, rockets and missiles shrieked out of the forest, and light rifle fire raked the slavespawn and the Conclave's construct.

The lemurs were attacking from the rear!

The Old One reacted almost instantly as tracer rounds whipped by around it. It hardened the shadows, wrapped itself in them. With a flex of his powers he ripped bedrock from the ground to form a barrier a split second before lemur fire began slamming against the twelve foot thickness of rock.

A missile hit the Conclave's construct and Atrekna scattered from it, leaving behind dead and dying Atrekna.

The communal mind was full of panic and confusion as a dozen flares arced up out of the forest, the white actinic glare wiping away the darkness and shadow to expose the battlefield.

They're pinning us between their fire and the hill! the Old One realized. If we retreat over the hill the lemurs on the opposite hill will wipe us out! If we stay, their fire will destroy us.

The Old One acted.

He gathered his power, increased his shielding until the back of his neck burned with pain, tore bedrock from the ground to form a whirling shield of debris in front of him.

The other Atrekna were trying to seek cover, seek safety, to hide behind the slavespawn, most of which had just been rudely awaken by gunfire and missiles.

The Old One did the only thing he could think of as the heavy machineguns in the forest raked fire on the Atrekna lines, tree trunks exploding from the heavy rounds.

He charged.

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