System of the Damned

  Chapter 12 - Xavier

  Aliens, men, and monsters.

  Mimics rested around the dead alien crabs, tendrils reaching out and ripping great hunks of the thick shells free to consume them. Thunder’s lithe form moved around them with a trio of her father’s people helping her carve the meat from the other aliens. Apparently anything that lived on this world long enough would be able to eat other things here easily, Albert would love to know that. I sat in the harness of my suit, long fuzzy ears twitching as I walked it along to where Captain Rowland sat beside his shuttle. His raven’s eyes flicked between the many techs checking his craft for damage...and the panting form of my person.

  My person, when using this form, had the same trouble as a Ca’zeze when trying to speak human words. But a name that rumbled out in his panting caused Captain Rowland to sit up straight. That caused me to stop as the name was rumbled out again, like a pained whine, then two more and the Captain shot to his feet and cursed. “What is wrong...who are Tina, Cassandra, and Thomas? He’s never mentioned them.” I chittered curiously, the synthesizer in my suit translating much more quickly.

  He simply stared at my person for a long moment, so long that I reached out an alloy finger and poked him. “His dead ex wife, and his two youngest...both died with their mother in the bombing of Washington. Bloody twat went AWOL, went and dug their bones from the rubble and broke.” He shook his head. “So many of us lost so much in the early part of the war, they used things to block the memories in some. Some men and women alike turned into hollow shells, only good for the most brutal of murdering. Some of em got used like that, some they forced to forget and not think about it.”

  I turned my suit and looked at the screens, watching the panting twitching form of my person under the care of two Lo’Kar females. It took me a long moment to find words. “I know one is alive...Angela, a Captain. Will he wake broken again? His body is burning out the venom. If he will be dangerous...best to take the others and leave me with him Captain.”

  I got a sharp look and then a soft shake of the head, then a sigh. “The blocks never last forever, not even the ones we do to ourselves. When he wakes up, best we can hope is that he doesn’t go bloody feral on us. They had to chain him to a bloody table when he was still just a man. What now, he’d break the chains or breathe fire...bloody fire breathing werewolf.” He huffed and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “I’m less worried about him being feral, than if he runs. His shield blocked those spines, but the ones that got to him have venom. Thunder’s armor protected her when she brought up the staff to use, but him.” I trailed off and squeaked, because he’d rushed in with just a blade, shield, and teeth. “If my person runs for it, he will run for the ones we fought. He’ll charge for the hunt and…” A trilling sound cut me off that flowed from one of the Lo’Kar tending my person, and just as suddenly the Ca’Zeze were ushering the Captain away as Thunder stepped up. A hammer hanging from either of her hands, and without thinking I was out of my suit and on her shoulder.

  My person had gone rather quiet, but little motions of toes and fingers as legs and arms shifted to bring him up to his feet...rapidly. Then dead eyes settled on us...through us, and he charged with all the strength and speed his altered form held. THUD. I had to fight not to squeal like a baby as Thunder danced INTO my person’s charging form! Grunts sounded from him as she spun, ducked, leaped, flipped, but a hit never landed on her. Hits landed against hammerheads or thin air, yet every strike that she made against my person...landed. The hits were never as hard as they could’ve been, hard yes, but more like smacks than true hammer blows.

  Before I could think about it, she lunged into him and I had to hop from her shoulder, landing atop his snarling head as she...hugged him. Though the hug only lasted a split second and my person didn’t seem to notice my tiny weight between his flattened ears, not even when I had to grip his short fur to hold on as the two of them went on fighting. I had one hell of a view as every dozen or so strikes of hammers ended with her giving him a hug, a scritch to the chin, gentle pets of his arms, even a damned little boop of his nose!

  I held on for dear life, not even sure my speed would let me get away from the two of them as they attacked. Only after a minute, maybe two of my person attacking and Thunder smacking and being gentle with him…he dropped to his knees, body shaking so violently that I fell off of his head and tumbled down, thankfully caught by Thunder. Then I was set down with her hammers and left to just stare as not just Thunder, but four other Lo’Kar females moved to hug and pet my person. Aaand then I fell back and rolled a few times as he let out a mourning crying howl, which was answered by the Lo’Kar around him in a sad...song?

  And then I nearly dropped pellets as a claw tipped hand scooped me up in grey furred fingers, then I was casually held in one hand as the other shifted to give me scritches. I chittered in almost a purr before batting away fingers and pointing to my armor. And then I finally looked up at the scarred face of Chunhua Li, who’s ears wiggled and twisted listening to everything around her. Thankfully she’d not grown nearly as much as my person had, and was wearing some modified coveralls...and a collar. Apparently my sweet, loving, doting, terrifying mate had collared this berserker herself.

  Bad enough that I’d found out the kids had distracted this female after she’d turned, but then I’d found out that my mate had charged in to fight her. My loving mate, who loves snuggling...used a suit to fight this female and then choke her unconscious. My loving, caring, terrifying mate...choked this woman unconscious three times before she’d shown sanity. Then the multi-tailed fox woman had caused horrid chaos, by sniffing out and electrocuting certain people. Honey had been first, the man being the calmest berserker of any of them, but who ever heard of a honey badger giving a pellet. The man just went back to his work of making the new armors and quite literally punted a few people from his shop. She’d found three other chinese with the right mix of gene mods and fried them, with her hands, her damned clawed hands, which I was currently in.

  Miss Li had been a high ranking member of the Tong, though Albert had figured that out at about the same time Isaac was using a laser to lead a humanoid spotted leopard away from engineering. Dorothy still had a massive humanoid komodo tied up with cables, and according to my mate...she’d named her Gojira, or Miss Jira. That one was going to be as large as my person or larger, I think my youngest was claiming her. So this woman had sniffed out Honey, and then turned three others, the last being a cranky panda man that was working in the farming aspects of the colony. This happened in the span of an afternoon and before my mate caught back up with her.

  My scritches and thoughts were interrupted when I felt the warm breeze blow through a gateway that had formed...and saw the laser dot appear on Miss Li’s shoulder. I barely had time to leap from her hands before “EEEEEEEEE” sounded and my son Isaac rode his spotted mount, while it pounced the multi tailed woman. This led to a little growling and snarling, and mimic’s bouncing over to cocoon the duo up to their necks. I let them be as Isaac went to bring the Captain a data strip, moving to follow the man as my son went back to tending the fuzzy feline head with scritches. My kids were hopefully making good choices in their human pets, Isaac did seem to have a fondness for cats.

  I followed the Captain as he moved into his shuttle, stopping long enough to get into my suit, because having little legs sucks. I mean, being tiny has some advantages, but keeping up with big people just...sucks. A few switches flicked and I slipped myself into the controls, the suit striding casually after Captain Rowland and into the shuttle. He’d moved into the cockpit and sat in the pilot’s chair, tapping in codes. “Ok, so the squeakers are taking care of my...why are you laughing?”

  Captain Rowland was seeming to have a fit of laughter as he sat in his chair, and took a moment before he answered me. “Squeakers...why in the world are you calling them squeakers? You mean the Lo’Kar I’m guessing…”

  I blinked and then squeaked in giggles. “Tickle one...they squeak as bad as me or my kids.” I shook my head softly and worked the controls to lean the suit on the hatch frame. “He’s going to need time, but now we have one that can actually smell the ability to be a berserker in others...and she thinks it’s cute to simply walk up and turn them. My children also seem to think that they can adopt these enraged and turned humans...why do you keep laugh…” I trailed off as I noticed a video playing, showing my daughter tossing meat hunks into the maw of the komodo...who was still tied up.

  He wiped a tear from his eye and paused the video, looking back at me. “Don’t you dare tell any of the others that I’m watching things like this, I have to have my humor in this madness.” He sighed and shook his head softly. “Bloody hell, if I don’t find things to laugh about, I’ll go bleedin mad.” He waved his hand toward the outside of the shuttle and I nodded, my suit nodding as I did. “First the head of my security detachment starts getting twisted, and you too, then that damned storm and boom...I got a bloody werewolf running about whining over a bunny.” He gave me a little side eye, and I was smart enough to keep quiet.

  “You have no idea how freaked out we were about those damned explosions. I mean we’re all panicking and battening down, then the ship shakes a little and nothing else.” He turned to look at me and tapped the chest of my suit, which made me trigger it open, he was one that preferred to talk face to face. “So we go looking over recordings and there was this damned blur for only a couple seconds, and we also have this giant panicking monster with a sword...holding a bunny. A bunny that we realized had become the most dangerous being in the colony, and then you go and be a fluffy diplomat...whacking an alien on the nose with a cane.” He gave me a look, just a hint of old annoyance in it.

  I cocked my head to the side and then reached to pop my cane free of its spot, wiggling it so he could see it. He sighed and rolled his eyes, then went to rolling a smoke with one hand, which made my ears snap up. He had good stuff, but he went back to talking as he worked. “Granted you did rather well and so did Roderick, I hear your little lady has taken to the Lo’Kar language rather well?” He watched me nod as I was in the middle of working myself out of my controls. “Good, cause humans can’t produce those sounds naturally, let alone the bloody Ca’zeze language.” He gave the paper a light lick and finished the rolling, a lighter spinning between his fingers as he moved to light the cigarette. “Shit sounds like you have Scooby Doo angry and speaking Russian…or German, either one has that scary tone set.” He shrugged.

  In the time it took him to take a drag and breathe it in, I’d moved myself out of my suit and onto his free hand. He’d gotten quite used to me doing things like this, after all, he’d been dealing with my children. When he brought the smoke down for me, I took my puff and held it, a little shiver running through me as I relaxed my ears. He chuckled and I looked up at him as he looked off. “Your eldest has asked if he can use the iron wombs to grow other bunnies and some other sorts. You and Lola were the only bunnies we had and apparently…”

  I chittered and my suit spoke for me. “He doesn’t want to get that close to his sisters.” I shrugged in a human fashion. “Well we’re not royalty or hillbunnies.” He choked on the smoke and coughed, giving me a chance to catch, and then steal his cigarette. When he caught his breath, I’d made it to the head of my suit, looking down at him as I puffed on the smoke, taking the effort to cross my eyes. “Hey boy, you got a pretty mouth.” I hadn’t come up with a chitter for purdy, but it had the effect I wanted. I’d been watching a good deal of movies lately with Lola, and my person had been trying to educate Thunder. I agreed with my person, the remake of Deliverance wasn’t as good as the original.

  Captain Rowland laughed and ended up choking a little and wheezing just a bit as I worked my way back down. He caught me as I hopped for him, handing him the cigarette and grinning as he puffed on it to keep it lit. “I’d love some grandkids, but I doubt you mentioned it because my son wants to make a cute bunny or ten.”

  The smoke shot from his nose and he shook his head. “No, your boy wants to use the gene stock from the other ones we have as well. We have quite a few bits of genetic stock for various animals, we were supposed to work at populating a planet after all.” He let me have a puff as he spoke and finished off the cigarette, dropping it into a smokeless ashtray. “As time goes on, less things are proving poisonous to us, and there is already life here, so no need to break out the whole bloody mess. Albert wants to use dwarf, normal size, and giants….”

  I squeaked and blinked up at him, rubbing my head and pulling down an ear to rub in thought. I could understand the dwarves, but normal size bunnies and giants. This atop having more berserkers awakened, and no telling if Miss Li would find more and turn them on the spot. I finally started to chitter in response. “If he keeps the risk of true speeders to just dwarves, then I can see it being useful, smaller scouts, possible fighters….” I trailed off as something came to mind, giants had been bred for meat, which meant they had large amounts of muscle. “If he makes the giants get the Tank gene set like my mate.” I looked at the Captain in a mix of glee, thinking of my own personal army of towering (to me) battle bunnies.

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  He got that odd stare, my human referred to it as a “thousand yard stare”, meaning he’d checked out mentally for a moment. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he was actually able to speak. “Lola is the size of a big coffee mug and can hurl a light vehicle at people…” His eyes focused on mine. “And you want me to let your son, more ask him to, make walking fluffy wrecking balls? Best guess is the strength to weight ratio of a rhino beetle for your mate..wife, she’s your bloody wife.” He threw up his hands. “I’m tired of this bloody mate shit, she’s your wife, you’ll be married officially when we get back...but you want something near that...only much bigger, and more of them” He quirked an eyebrow at me.

  He still also hadn’t broken eye contact either, so I twitched my ears to mess with him, wiggling them back and forth. “According to Adam, I’m head of a military order, and I’m loyal to you and my person.” My ears twisted so I could listen behind me, taking a couple seconds before righting them. “Who is still whimpering like a kicked puppy, but think about it. My children are highly intelligent, more than myself I think. Albert has done several months worth of work in a little over a week’s time, while no doubt working on this new idea of his. My daughters have been building an ai core for one, and the other has been designing and building a suit for her mother.”

  He finally looked away and this time used two hands to roll more cigarettes as he thought. “True, they’ve also vaporized keyboards, small tools, and I heard Isaac melted a section of cable while helping his sisters.” His eyes flicked to me. “Can he really produce current like Stanley and the fox?” When I nodded, he let out a sigh. “Alright, but with rules to keep things as sane as possible, I want your tiny eggheads working with humans and not just shoving them to the side. Deal?”

  I nodded and held out my hand paw, which he shook carefully, looking more like a pinky swear that humans did. “Deal, though I’d like for the more scientific of our allies to join them as well. I work with humans and the like all the time. The mice need to stop being afraid of my children and work with them. What are they going to do when an actual alien does something “odd” around them?” I asked curiously.

  “Stare in shock or scream as they flee…” Came out in a casual tone as he tucked the first cigarette he finished behind his ear. “I’ll have to have Igor have a talk with them, get them to see that we need every bit of help we can get.” He nodded toward the nose of the shuttle as he rolled thin cigarettes much more quickly and carefully. “We have to get to those ships, or even with your kid’s help, we’re going to run out of parts.”

  I rolled my eyes, and my head, since humans hardly noticed my little eyes rolling. “Oh, just seal part of the cleared space inside the Yangtze and seal the room around a fabricator. Test fill it with some air, then if there isn’t a leak, fill it fully, you can do the test work with air tanks from a shuttle.”

  He grinned and held four cigarettes more befitting my tiny hand paws in thickness. “Isaac already gave that idea to Evans, and she’s working on it. They’ve got a section picked out and have to check the section in the Yangtze with a mimic to make sure it’s sealed, while getting one of the Eda ships to seal up. Probably take a bleeding month to get it all setup, and that’s planning for equipment issues. Then we have to try and power the fabricator and get it to work.”

  As he spoke, I’d been moving back and forth, putting the cigarettes into a spot in the chest of my suit that I could easily reach. “Once you get it sealed and safe, send Isaac and Marie in, maybe Dorothy as well. I just ask that you make sure it’s safe first. Not this military grade garbage, actually safe.”

  He had the audacity to laugh at me, and shook his head as he noticed I was glaring at him. “Oh calm your tits, you just had a dad moment. And no worries, it's the reason it’s going to take about a month to pull this off, we have to be careful and do it safely. I can’t risk losing anyone to this, let alone one of your kids, who…” He sighed. “Is friends with our AI, can do a day’s work in minutes…” His eyes flicked to mine as I looked to him. “Or kill us all accidently. You know that is a constant worry with you and your kids. As it is also a worry that the berserkers will kill people in rages or your wife will decide to beat someone to death...a mug sized bunny, I’ve actually had someone mention they’re worried she’d beat someone to death.” He sighed. “This is of course before she got the equivalent of a battle mech, which she used to choke out a berserker. Multiple times, beat er down and choked er out. In public, and I just finally had gotten people less terrified of you after you cratered that section of the valley.”

  “I made a lovely set of ponds though. “I chittered as he pulled out a packed pipe from his tobacco pouch.

  “Very true, and Albert turned a few of the lab tech’s hair pink, including body hair.” He grinned as he went to light the pipe. “Which is bloody hilarious.” He didn’t pay any attention as the shuttle started to shiver and shake around us, a rumbling sound passing through the hull. “I’ve ordered the track heads to cover this area while a forward operating base is built here.”

  I cocked my head to the side after taking a puff off the offered pipe stem. “I thought they were down for maintenance and refit?” I chittered as I thought.

  A near feral grin broke onto his face as he brought his pipe back to his lips and puffed softly on it. “They were, but we managed to salvage quite a bit from some of the ships, including a few interesting parts from weapons and turrets.” He slowly stood and set his pipe down on his console.

  I had to quickly climb into my controls and power them back online, stepping my suit back out of his way, only to follow him as he stepped clear of the shuttle. Thunder and her people had thankfully gotten my person back through one of their portals, so he was back in a safer area. I couldn’t help but worry about him, he was my person, I’d have to let him snuggle me later. He always seemed to cheer up when I gave him snuggles, humans were odd like that. It was about that thought where I noticed something rather large and fuzzy climbing over the top of the tank that the humans called Kermit.

  A mane of blonde fur was bared to the sun as thick black furred arms held an odd mount against the top of a turret. Honey looked like a much larger and calmer version of Stanley, who currently had a cable end in his maw as he claw welded the mount down. Stanley, after all, had been the first to show the ability to truly produce a current, instead of the odd energy transfer that most of us could do. They both looked terrifying with those weird welding goggles on, and thankfully Honey had on pants.

  The duo were letting out odd hisses and almost purring growls as they worked, the larger holding onto supports for the new mount, while the smaller welded. My screens dulled the glare produced by the welding, though the Captain had to use his hard to block the glare from his eyes. “How are you two faring with the work now? Happy as can be?” Captain Rowland tossed in a bit of plainly false cheer.

  Stanley stopped welding and looked over the Captain, curling his handpaw and flipping off the man, which caused Honey to let out chuffing and hissing laughter. After getting a thumbs up from Honey, Captain Rowland continued. “Glad to see you’re cheerful as ever, Stanley.” The lanky human said with a toothy grin as he went back to walking beside the monstrous tank. Most of the bolts on this thing were as thick as me. Humans always had to make things so horridly big, but I had my suit, so I didn’t care as much now.

  I stopped as we got to the front of the tank, the large barrel had been replaced by two odd barrels. One was definitely an alien design, the barrel had an odd texture to it, not to mention the alien text stamped into its length. The other barrel was almost an oval shape for the first half of its length, and a proper tube for the latter half. The second weapon was definitely human made, and apparently missing a cover that was meant to go over it, which made me walk forward and look at the front of the turret...and stare. The armor was gone, like the tank had been..brought here...during refit. I looked at the Captain.

  He simply nodded to me. “We have other weapons about, some of the refit trucks, a few redesigned morters, not to mention the bloody mimics. The other tank is actually up and functioning now as overwatch, care to have a look?” He hadn’t told me what either weapon was on this tank, but I had a suspicion that the alien weapon was a laser.

  A pair of bulldozers were working on flattening out a section of plain, while wheeled loaders were building up earth walls toward enemy territory. All this was going on while the second tank, named Miss Piggy thanks to its ability to devour ammunition, sat on the back of a small rise, turret aimed over it. It took us about ten minutes to make it around the working vehicles, people, and across the terrain toward the other monster tank. The turret on it was now missing its mortar tubes. We were still about a hundred meters away from the tank when the Captain held up a hand to stop me. “What did they do?” I asked curiously.

  He smirked and touched a comm he’d stuck in his chest pocket. “Captain Rowland to Miss Piggy, have you gotten a look at any targets?”

  It took a few seconds for a rather young sounding voice to come back over the com. “Yes sir, it looks like they’re gathering up an assault force. I have confirmed readings of heavier weapons thanks to Rashka’s sensors.” Who the hell was Rashka? Maybe a Ca’zeze? Had they started to work them into the fighting forces?

  I was so lost when the Captain smiled and spoke. “Then sound the horn and let the pig squeal. I’ve been looking forward to getting to see it fire properly.” A bass horn sounded loudly from the tank while pistons on the back suddenly slammed spiked plates against the ground. Another blast of the horn sounded from the tank and I checked my screens to see that all work had stopped. “This is going to be loud.” Came from the Captain, only a split second before the barrels started to spin.

  The sound of a million shrill whistles rattled the air, like all the dog owners of earth had sounded at once. The air noticeably shifted around the sides and back of the tank and I was confused for the split second before the loud supersonic cracks erupted from the ends of the spinning barrels. Air pressure! They were using air pressure to fire a gatling cannon!? Fog fired out the end of the barrels with each shell that flew, quickly misting the air and turning it into a storm around the vehicle. All the while there was that horrid shrill whistling scream in the air, which I realized was from some form of compressor. I couldn’t truly tell, since even inside my suit...I had pulled down my ears and covered them with my handpaws. I might have also been squealing and closed my eyes toward the end.

  It seemed like an eternity that the tank fired, but was only at most a ten second burst of its cannon. My suit shivered and nearly fell over as it stopped firing, the tank having lifted its nose from the purple and blue grass it sat atop. Ok, so my suit did fall over, and yes it was because I’d freaked out in the controls, but no one made fun of me. I hadn’t been the only one to freak out at the noise. I stood my suit up and brushed it off as I panned the head around to see that the Captain was laughing, and many others were pulling hands from their ears and cursing. The area ahead of where the tank’s barrels ended, was a churned mass of chewed grass and soil that had blown away from it.

  I bent my suit’s knees after getting my head cleared, kicking it up into the air and triggering the jetpack on the back. A little careful work on my keyboard to route a copy of my camera feeds to the others, and sadly also the sound of my squeak. The squeak was thanks to not only the fact that the canyon’s ridge being chewed to gravel, it was also on fire, with clouds of white smoke rolling up into the sky. It seemed that wasn’t the only grouping of enemy aliens, because I had to dodge my suit around and let it drop down out of the air to escape enemy fire. As I landed, the tank was finishing a second burst of firing.

  Captain Rowland was jogging away from the tank as a few trucks, one of them pulling a trailer, pulled up near the assault vehicle. I moved to keep pace with him and soon enough we made it far enough away, and behind enough cover, that we could talk again. “Hiroshima came up with the new rounds!” He half shouted, and it appeared the tank had killed some of his hearing, hell I still had a ringing sound in my ears. “The core is just scrap from smelting salvaged ship armor, basically slag, then an outer shell of ceramic with white phosphorus inside the ceramic.” He was getting less loud as he spoke and wiggled a finger in one of his ears. “He talked the Rodu into producing the shells. Bollocks, that thing is loud!”

  “What in the name of jerky are they using to compress the air, that is louder than a shuttle at full burn!” My suit had gotten better tone settings worked in, but the programming still wasn’t quite right. I also couldn’t choke the Captain for the ringing in my ears.

  He smiled. “Rodu fuel compressors. They had a few suits left that were safe to use and are helping one of the teams do salvage on their ship. One of their engineers worked out how to do it using one of their portable fuel tanks.” He shrugged. “It looks terrifying, but it works, we’re getting some of their soldiers and some from the others, but mostly engineers from them.”

  I nodded inside my suit and it nodded as I thought about it. “They’re the most recent arrivals before us, odd to think of herbivores being such good combat engineers…”

  Captain Rowland snorted. “Says the bunny in a mech made from an exoskeleton.” He sighed. “Who I’m going to end up letting his son grow his own personal army for...I need a drink.” He sighed the last bit out and started back for his shuttle, me at his side.

  Mimics started to bounce, roll, and in one case...walk toward where the tank had been firing, passing myself and the Captain. The walking mimic had kept its oddly gelatinous look, while taking on an ill proportioned humanoid form. Eye stalks stuck out on each of the mimics, a few mouths as well were present, but the biped was the creepiest. The mouth was in the stubby torso, eyes in the shoulders and waist, while tendrils toted a smaller mimic at the end of each arm. Three of the ones bouncing and rolling, stopped, then wiggled as their bodies took on the form of the odd lobster crab aliens, only smaller. That actually made the Captain stop and stare as they scuttled along beside the biped, and soon enough more of the mimics took on new forms.

  I stared at the pack of mimics, there were now seven small crabs, two shorter bipeds that looked oddly armored like a bulldozer’s blade was painted. The first biped had seemed to form spiked hammers and tank armor for skin, which flexed and moved in an odd organic way. I popped my suit open and wiggled out to stand atop the head, staring and blinking as I watched more move to join the pack. “They’re….they’re...the mimics…” I chittered in a dumbfounded stammer, my ear twitching as a cargo container suddenly flexed and twisted into something new. My jaw hung open as the many weapons we’d scavenged from the dead aliens suddenly were in the ten hands of a terrifying creature.

  This last mimic’s form was a mix, flesh like a rock studded with thousands of the spines that the weapons fired, but in a fashion like fur. One of the hands held my person’s shield, another held his sword, and...it was like a boulder, a spider, and my person had been combined, but his big fluffy form. It towered over the others as it caught up, its heavy steps thudding audibly and I realized something...no one was moving. Every single being around us that was standing, sitting in a machine, or running a vehicle, was staring, at mimics...going to battle.

  A rumbling in the ground and the rattle of tracks caused me to look behind myself, eyeing the still unfinished tank with Stanley and Honey atop the turret. The duo were fitting on the new base framing for the armor that was sitting in a pile atop the turret. “Porky” Anderson was sticking out of the command hatch, looking through the telescopic mount that’d just been mounted. There were revving engines and I looked past the tank at the multi-wheeled trucks that were carrying a mass of workers. Humans, Ca’zeze, Lo’kar, and Rodu were getting out of the back of the trucks, tool packs in hand. Two of the trucks had soldiers of the various races, and one oddity, there was a retrieval truck...and it had a buff wingless praying mantis standing atop it.

  “That’s the truck that we sent to help break down the no man's land between those two races that you scared the shit out of.” Captain Rowland said as he stepped up beside me. “It's moving without a driver…” He trailed off as the mantis trilled something and waved an arm toward the mimic’s heading for battle...food...noise.

  I just chittered and swung down into my suit, barely having time to close the chest before a brilliant string of curses started to flow from the Captain. The salvage truck had apparently been mostly eaten, this was a mimic. It was GROWLING! Who the hell had thought that the growling empty vehicle was anything other than...the...the grill was a mouth. It was a mouth! The “cab” shifted just a little, eyes forming on various places as it started to roll forward after the other mimics. The alien mantis riding atop it like it was a human on a horse, a big horse, with a great big crane. The Captain was still cursing up a storm and hadn’t repeated himself yet, even as some of the combat vehicles started to move to follow the mimics.

  I myself was puffing on one of my cigarettes and typing up a full report, my suit’s hands making the same motions in the air. The humans would listen to the Captain, but the non humans most likely wouldn’t. It looked like this skirmish had started to trend toward a battle, and was that a whistling sound? I looked up and squeaked.

  “INCOMING!” Was shouted by several people, human and alien alike.

  Captain Rowland was running for cover when my suit’s arms snapped around him, a shout rising from him as I worked my controls. I was calm as could be, he was shouting, especially when I kicked the pedals and lit my jetpack, firing us up into the air and away from the large spear-like weapons that slammed across the ground. Many of those odd weapons seemed to erupt in the poisoned spines that the crab guns fired. “Let's get you to your shuttle, and then back to base. I’m going to need to get more supplies here quickly.” It turned out that British humans could pout, even when being carried through the air. Human breeds were so odd, but interesting to figure out. They made such wonderful pets.