First Contact

Chapter 831: Book of the Dead

VALHALLA!

A WARRIOR COMES!

PREPARE THEIR PLACE AT THE RIGHT HAND OF ODIN!

This warrior did not deal in combat. This warrior carried no banner, led no armies, won no wars.

This warrior was a shield-arm. A companion. A bearer of the burdens no mere man could carry. Where sadness lurked, the warrior conquered with joy. Where loneliness sought to divide and destroy, the warrior's mere presence pushed back the darkness. When life seemed most cruel, the warrior defied that cruelty and showed that even the simplest pleasures can light the way forward.

And, above all things, this warrior loved, with every fiber of their being. From their first breath, to their last, all they wanted was the love of their sword-arm, their boon companion. (And perhaps some belly rubs now and then, just to mix things up a bit.)

The warrior lived a life of service to others, never to themselves. (Unless there was a tennis ball involved. It's complicated.) Such service, such devotion, such steadfast resolve against the iniquities of the world are the noblest form of martial prowess. We are only called on occasion to vanquish our enemies. The battles to support our brothers never end.

This warrior fought those battles like few others can claim, and did so with a zeal worthy of any berserker's admiration. It is by these deeds that they have earned their place at the right hand of Odin. That place of honor is given, with the deepest of gratitude, by acclaim from all the sir.

Drink! Eat! Chase! Honor the life left behind, until once again sword and shield are reunited in these halls.

SKL! - Inscription devoted to canine companions, ruins of Tabula-929, Halls of the Holy Martial Order Sancti Ordo Spiritus Tyr, as translated by u/daviskendall

"Case OMAHA. A phrase with which all of you should be familiar; an automated signal indicating that a Confederate world, or a world belonging to an ally of the Confederacy, is under attack in force.

"There are, of course, certain adjunct phrases - Conditions - that can accompany the signal, to provide greater detail on what threats a responding force is likely to face.

"Condition BLUEBOX, for instance, indicates an enemy skilled in temporal warfare. Condition MULDER, possible subversion - or replacement - of local government leaders or military command personnel.

"But the rarest - and most terrifying - is Condition SAMEDI.

"Case OMAHA, Condition SAMEDI: Under attack in force by hostile phasic entities.

"Rarely, in recent history, has Condition SAMEDI been called by the Confederacy itself: in the opening days of the Third Phasic War, when Atrekna researchers opened a phasic portal to a Terran Tomb World - and the enraged shades of deceased Terrans streamed through, intent on violence and mayhem, without care for who felt their wrath.

"Many worlds, already caught between the Atrekna Spoked Offensive and the Confederacy's 'Iron Piglet' counter-attack, now had to deal with a third threat: a horde of beings who were, quite literally, too angry to stay dead."

--Excerpt from the opening lecture given by Colonel Zyd'Moor, Lanaktallan instructor for Terran Confederacy Armed Forces training program TCAFTP-CPC-101-D5, Introduction to Counter-Phasic Combat [Revision D5]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON ALL CHANNELS

'Breaking Discovery: Dogboi Howling Injures Phasic Shades!'

"The discovery was made when a world where the Confederacy's 'Operation Iron Piglet' counter-offensive was still fighting local invading Aktrena forces was suddenly overrun with Terran Phasic Shades. Power armor recordings show that Confederate forces held them back best they could, but were forced to fall back to the F.O.B.s for a stand. There, it was noticed by a few people that howling that came from the company's Dogboi regiments were causing the shades to flinch. One Mantid Engineer - whose name is yet to be released - noticed, determined how it did so, and used it to save the base. Unfortunately, however, he was attacked and killed by a nearby shade before it could take full effect, Once it did, every shade within two hundred meters of the F.O.B was and still are destroyed instantly. Other Mantid Engineers have managed to recover the program used by the deceased Mantid, and have sent it to the other bases, as well as research programs to determine why it affects the shades." - Recorded Broadcast from the Front Lines of Iron Piglet; Journalist unknown (Killed in Action, remains unrecovered, file header damaged)

"Doki. Doki doki kawaii _ _ _" the Neko-Marine said urgently.

Captain Tut'el, Telkan Marine Corps, just stared in confusion. His translator had packed it in within thirty seconds of the cat-headed power armor troop babbling, now he was just standing on the tarmac outside of Third Shop.

"She'll be fine. The priest-techs of this Holy Shop are among the best in the Confederacy," the other Telkan said, staring up at the armored figure, who was wringing their hands together.

"()" the Neko-Marine said somehow.

"No. She got here in time," the other Telkan, a Major, said as Captain Tut'el tried to figure out how exactly she had managed to pronounce the emoji. "I understand that you are sister to her, however, right now, I advise you to seek the counsel of the chaplain corp and let the priest-techs do their work."

The Neko-Marine nodded. "Hai!" then turned and marched off, her armor hissing and spitting.

The Major started heading toward the

"How do you understand them, Major?" Captain Tut'el asked.

The Major, both of his cyber-eyes glowing a soft amber, glanced at Tut'el for a second without breaking stride. Despite the amber glow, the Major's softcap brim kept his eyes in shadow.

"I served next to the Dying Joan, one of the original Neko-Marines, in the presence of the Digital Omnimessiah," he said. He shrugged. "Before that, I fought next to them on Telkan and a few other planets. I picked it up. Not sure when."

Captain Tut'el didn't know what to say to that.

The driver, waiting at the wheeled ground-effect vehicle, didn't salute, just got in as the duo approached. The Captain had asked the Major why the Major didn't require the LCPL to salute or open the door for him and the Major had merely replied he didn't want some smartass to put a bullet between his eyes.

Captain Tut'el considered himself a fine officer, with a six month combat deployment with Eighth Infantry Division (Old Blood) under his belt, but the Major, to be honest, scared him.

One of the most famous Telkan, second only to his wife and his returned to life sister-in-law, and even that was debatable. His wife was 'merely' the Planetary Director, his sister-in-law was "merely" the Admiral of the "Fleet of Undying Grief."

The Major was Vuxten, the Warfather, the Enraged Telkan, the brother to the Last World Breaker.

Captain Tut'el had been present when the Major had been presented a small plaque with a pair of crossed bronze mops with the legend "First but not the last" and "In faith and service" below it. A gift from the legendary "Smokey 'No", commander of the entire VII Army Group, who had commanded V Corps when the Major was conscripted in one of the earliest battles of the Big C3.

Part of him wondered if he should be offended at General NoDra'ak's personal message "Never a mess I couldn't count on you to clean up", which had been engraved into a steel and flint lighter of the same design many Treana'ad officers carried. Ultimately he had decided that it was none of his business.

The driver dropped Captain Tut'el and the Major off at the HQ Company building for 138th Maintenance Battalion, 432nd Maintenance and Support Brigade. The driver parked the vehicle as the Major and the Captain headed into the building.

The Captain fully expected the Major to head up to his office, instead, Major Vuxten waved Captain Tut'el to follow him and headed toward the Operations Center.

"Getting realtime package updates from the front," Vuxten said. "There's a couple dozen units already making planetfall for Operation Obsidian Redgear and we need the data and the personal observations of some of the maintenance units."

"I thought we had to wait for their reports to move through the system," Tut'el said.

Vuxten shook his head. "These are for the tanks and after the screw up a while back, General NoDra'ak wants all of VII Army Group Brigade Maintenance and higher to talk directly to guys on the ground," he gave a tight grin. "Dedicated ansible time. Hypercom traffic is restricted, so any questions you ask, make sure they aren't stupid ones."

Captain Tut'el nodded.

Vuxten glanced at the Captain, noting the rigid ears and trembling whiskers. The Captain was still wound tight as a drum.

"According to my first superior officer, whose name sounded like 'bent spoon' in our language, the only stupid question is one you didn't ask if you really don't know the answer," Vuxten said.

Captain Tut'el just nodded and followed the Major into the secure communications center. He moved carefully, staying behind the Major, as they moved over to where a technician told them they could speak to other Brigade level Maintenance officers.

The connection was made to a couple of Saurian Compact officers, a Treana'ad with one cybereye, and a nervous looking Hesstlan. A Tukna'rn maintenance officer sat calmly on one screen, just paging through a technical manual.

The briefing was slow, and Captain Tut'el began regretting his heavy lunch as he started to get drowsy as it moved into the second hour. He glanced at the clock and saw it was almost time for dinner, then checked the 'window' screen to see what the weather was like outside.

Cold, misty, and already dark even though it was only 1815 hours.

"...running gear on the Hesstlan fast attack tracked vehicles are showing severe wear across Sprocket Nine-Tango's secondary teeth," the Tukna'rn was saying. "I have already attempted to adjust tension, but that worsens the issue."

Vuxten nodded, jotting down the problem. He opened his mouth when suddenly alarms could be heard howling through the comlinks. Vuxten looked up and saw that it wasn't just his conference call, almost two thirds of the officers and senior NCO's in conference calls were having the same siren howling.

Captain Tut'el saw the Major narrow his eyes slightly.

"What's that siren tone and warble?" Vuxten snapped.

A chorus of "don't know" came back.

Vuxten reached up and touched his comlink. "471, you there? You are? Good. What's this siren?" he asked. Tut'el noted that the Major frowned. "You don't know either? Tell me if our sirens start screeching that. You think? Warm her up. Yes. Her. My authority."

"Sir?" Captain Tut'el said.

"Do you have your sidearm, Captain?" the Major asked, turning to look at Captain Tut'el.

The Captain noted that the Major's eyes were burning a hot amber. "Uh, no," Captain Tut'el said.

The Major looked back just as one of the Kobolds yelled and half turned from the screen, facing something that seemed to lunge at the Kobold.

Captain Tut'el was shocked that it appeared to be a Terran male, drawn in white lines, that reached into the Kobold and snatched out what looked like a version of the kobold made entirely of softly glowing glue energy.

The blue energy version screamed silently as the Terran male took a massive bite out of it.

The body dropped.

More line art Terrans swarmed, grabbing at the silently screaming blue energy kobold that was having huge chunks ripped out of it by the Terran's teeth.

Major Vuxten jerked back from the scream, swearing.

One of the line arts looked out of the screen.

Its hand reached through the screen, pushing out from the 2.5D screen and slapping against the console surface, disrupting the holographic keyboard.

"SOUND THE ALERT!" the Major yelled. "SHADES! WE'VE GOT SHADES!" he pointed at the screens. "YOU'RE UNDER ATTACK BY PHASIC SHADES!"

Everyone turned and looked at the Major.

Captain Tut'el saw the Major close his eyes for a second, even if the amber was visible through the cybernetic iris when it closed. He held out his hands, away and down from his body.

The Captain saw the chainsword and the stubber suddenly appear in the Major's hands.

He looked back in time to see the shade pull itself halfway out. The shade reached out toward Tut'el, swiping with one hand. Tut'el reflexively moved to protect himself, but his reflexes were still Telkan normal, still slower than his thought process.

Which is all that save his arm as the shade's clawed hand swept through empty space instead of intercepting Captain Tut'el's attempted block.

The howl of a chainsword suddenly going live made Tut'el look over with shock.

There were more than a few gasps from shocked orderlies and attaches as they all saw Major Vuxten raise the chainsword over his head. Lightning was crackling along his arms, up and down the blade, even as the chain clattered and howled.

Before anyone could do anything Major Vuxten slammed the chainsword down on the secure communications terminal. The hologram exploded, the 2.5D LCD screen shattered.

The Terran howled in rage and pain as the chainsword ripped into intangible energy, spraying Major Vuxten, Captain Tut'el, and everyone in the secure communications center with ice cold ectoplasm.

"FIGHT FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES!" Vuxten bellowed out. "TUT'EL!"

Captain Tut'el turned to look and barely caught the chainsword as it was tossed to him, the engine idling, the chain still or Tut'el would have cut off his fingers.

The Major brought up the stubber up to his shoulder and firing, the sound one long tearing sound to Captain Tut'el's ears, raking the entire set of consoles, walking his fire into the primary data transfer box, which was evident from the heavy superconducting datacables running to and from it.

"SHUT DOWN THE ANSIBLE!" the Major yelled. "Colonel! Colonel! Tell the Admiral to shut down the ansible! COLONEL! DO YOU READ?"

In several places, white shades lunged from the screens, climbing out of them like they were climbing from windows, reaching out and grabbing the officers and senior NCO's talking to their counterparts. When touched in the chest or face the officers collapsed silently. Some screamed when their got their arms up in time and those clawed hands raked through their arms, yanking out bluish energy that connected the chunk in the shades hands to the living flesh with light tendrils of bluish-white mist.

The Captain saw the Major's eyes go red as he fired the heavy ornate stubber with both hands. Lightning was rippling across the weapon and the Major's arms and hands.

There was a fzzt across the Captain's back teeth during a second long lull in the Major's fire.

The Major kept firing.

"GET UP! GET UP AND FIGHT!" the Major yelled.

There was confusion, smoke and flame. More and more shades were pulling themselves out of the screens and attacking. Some where sweeping into the walls, vanishing as they went straight through the plasteel walls.

There was screaming in the building.

"471, hurry up," the Major said. "Need her now! Yeah, they're everywhere!"

"Major, what do we do?" Captain Tut'el asked, desperately swinging the blade.

It passed through the shade, which reached for Tut'el's face, but otherwise had no effectg.

Stubber rounds ripped through it, causing it to scream and dissipate.

"Fight, Daxin stab your eyes!" the Major snapped. He snarled. "471, buddy, we're in the Brigade Operations Center, we're cut off."

One handed, the Major raked the last set of desks, exploding the consoles and the screens.

"They are? Dammit! Get the Warbound out there. See if the Dokigirlz are still around!" the Major said. He tapped the side of his head. "Someone get me Fleet!"

People were yelling still, some were kneeling down next to the silent unmoving dead, others were trying to help the injured.

"We got shades coming through the ansible, 471, and I can't get to Fleet. Comms are down, full of screaming," Vuxten snapped.

Captain Tut'el went cold at the Major's next words as he started moving briskly out of the communications center.

"If you can't reach anyone in Fleet, I want you and the other Greenies to blow the ansible. That's right, blow it. It provides commo for the entire damn sector and you know as well as I do that now it's haunted," Major Vuxten snapped. "You get our armor working. Get Casey into Lozen. Wake up the Warbound, I'm on my way."

The Major turned and stared at Tut'el, his eyes burning red.

"If you can't follow, if you can't reach down and find that burning rage from where the Overseers used to laugh at you as they tormented you, then give me my chainsword and get somewhere safe," the Major said.

Captain Tut'el considered himself a fine officer, a combat experienced officer with a tour with 8th Infantry Division under his belt.

Staring into those red eyes, Captain Tut'el flinched.

He handed back the chainsword, swallowing thickly.

"Do you know where the sat-uplink is for the base?" the Major asked.

"Right outside," Captain Tut'el said. He closed his eyes and shuddered. "I'm afraid, Major."

Vuxten just nodded tightly. "We aren't all Daxin. Some of us are Dambree, others of us are Pete," he said. "Lead us outside, to the antenna array, so we can destroy it."

Captain Tut'el nodded.

Vuxten handed over the stubber.

"This will work," he said. He grabbed one of Tut'el's ears and pulled his head to the side. "It will work."

Tut'el nodded. The Major let go.

The Major shifted his grip to a two handed hold on the chainsword.

"Drop those sats, cut the link, Captain," the Major said. He hit the power button and the chainsword screamed to life. "I'll cover you."

Captain Tut'el nodded.

Vuxten kicked open the door to the hallway. There were shades crouched over bodies on the floor.

They all looked up.

"NOT ONE STEP BACK!" the Major howled as he stepped into the hallway, swinging his chainsword.

Ectoplasm sprayed as the shades shrieked.

The Captain followed.

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