System of the Damned

  Chapter 19-Roderick

  Patrols, demon frogs, and flashbacks

  Prophet was in a tank regrowing his left leg from the thigh down, so I had to cover his duties with the help of Honey. Vehicle and equipment losses had been heavy, like the loss of both of our siege tanks, but it was the loss of people that had hurt us the most. Gunny Anderson had been killed along with the other crew in Kermit, while Miss Piggy’s crew was nothing but ash after the fire. Nearly a full platoon worth of veterans and newer recruits were either in the tanks or being laid to rest. That was just the humans, the bunnies had lost sixteen in the attack, all but three of them were classed as civilian tradesmen.

  The Lo’Kar lost the squad of pulsars that’d been protecting my wife, giving their lives in the line of duty. The Ca’zeze had lost three squads worth of people when they’d tried to come and help, their forces had ended up mainly portalling into another trap. The crabs had apparently been watching us closely, far more closely than we’d thought possible. With my existing memory issues and the possible issues that might cause for me in the future, I put in a call to Honey, who met me at the Skull. Almost all of our furniture had been moved to the house or the barracks that was being dug out, so that left us with most of the kaiju’s brain cavity for my idea.

  Thankfully the Skull had been basically mined for its minerals and refilled with stone, so it was safe for myself and Omar Ayad (Honey) to get a catwalk setup. Two and a half stories worth of wall space, so we started at the upper level and I just didn’t look down, nor did Omar try and make me look down. Instead he’d brought a machine to make dog tags, and another to cut knife blanks. Every single death from our first battle during the storm now had a tag with name, rank or title, birth and death dates, and a gold alloy blade to hold it in place. The same went for every death since then from any of our battles or from accidents on colony projects. The only difference in the tags was a slight difference for race, which would make it easier for the others to find the names of their dead.

  I spent hours and hours using a hammer to gently tap in the alloy blades to hold the chains of the tags, and more hours walking back and forth reading the names. It wasn’t until I felt a small weight on my shoulder and got a tap on the side of my head that I paid attention to my surroundings. The tap came from Xavier, who was wearing a coat since he was regrowing his fur after the mine battle. He hugged my face and motioned at the wall and hugged my face again, but this time for a long moment. There were sounds of work being done that echoed softly around the inside of the repurposed room, and once I got down to ground level I found various people building stairs up to the variously marked catwalk levels and smaller catwalks built for the bunnies. It wasn’t just humans, but Rodu, who’d also lost some in the last attack, Ca’zeze, Lo’Kar, Bunnies, even a Manti wrapped in leathers and furs.

  I got head nods, various salutes, two hugs, including one from a Rodu that picked me up in said hug. A short bit later I grabbed my coat and slipped it on, walking out into the cold morning air, which was lit like early morning. That was apparently thanks to something the Eda had done in placing something in the solar system to bounce focused light and heat to the planet we were currently on. It was focused mainly on the equator, so we only got residual light, but it was enough to take some of the bite out of the air. My attention was brought back to the present when Xavier finished getting comfy beside my neck inside my hood and spoke, er chittered as they call it. “We need to talk about some things.”

  I let out a huff and held up a finger where he could see it, then dug around and got out a cigar, after I got a good puff off of it, and he got a hit, I spoke. “The Order is multiracial, you need to talk to the Alliance as a race. You’re bunnies in the same way that I’m human, I am, but I’m not at the same time. Are you ready for that step? It’s a pain in the ass dealing with politics.”

  “I deal with them, you, various races, your soldiers, the Order, my kids, the horde, and also lost most of my fur when I ejected from my suit to turn a crab to paste.” He chittered back and we both took another hit of calming smoke.

  “Thanks for that, but what are you going to call yourselves?” I asked curiously as I walked carefully along the cleared path for my truck.

  “Albert has coined the term Lagosapiens, since much of our initial enhanced dna was human. I think it’s rather fitting, and Eir agreed.” He stole another hit. “I’m making her First of medical sciences, she’s earned it.”

  “She does good work, and I like the mix of the words. Lagosapiens.” My implants and his were able to translate at the speed of thought, so neither of us had to pause for translation anymore. It also meant I’d been able to work through a command list and started the hydrogen engine that sat in the Warg now. No sense in needing to wait for the truck to warm up, and no one would say who’d installed the engine. I had a feeling it was something Xavier had come up with, especially since I was one of the few that knew he was a gear head.

  Him being a gear head was the most likely reason that my truck had a track loaded in the back of it. “I’ve been working on that since I got the specs for my suit’s size, I figured that since you had your truck, I could have a track.” He chittered calmly about the turbo and supercharged, sedan sized, armored assault track. They refused to call them tanks due to that being the term for their strong lot, even when I mentioned the term was taken from actual tanks.

  “I’m guessing you’re riding with me then, since it looks like it’s latched into place as well.” I paused and gave him a little poke in my hood. “Latched to tie down spots that appeared at the same time as the new motor…you did have that put in, didn’t you?”

  “That was Piston, and he asked Thunder first to make sure that it was ok to do. She agreed and he installed it along with the enhanced transmission. It also has stronger winches than it used to have since someone asked to be able to drag a mark ten away from combat…Thunder to be exact.” Xavier waited until I got into the warmth of my truck and peaked out to sneak another hit from my cigar.

  The engine was based on a beefed up and over tuned diesel engine that had almost no electronics, which had been the brainchild of the giant Piston. He’d worked with CPo Li Wei and the duo had been converting many of our vehicles to that with a battery backup. I just hadn’t known that it had been asked of my wife, the speed demon. “Are they still using liquid nitrogen for cooling?”

  “The green flames are less about the cooling system and more about it being a pain in the ass to not end up with nitrogen mixed into the fuel. It also looks rather cool and the crabs do not like fire of any color, so we haven’t fixed it for now. The tracks are still running rich as Piston put it, but that is now optional.” He chittered and shoved my hood off my head for me and hopped to strap himself in. Yes, my truck has seats for bunnies.

  “How long are they estimating on refitting and repairing the tanks?” I asked as I started off down the road.

  “Months most likely, especially on the one that had been set on fire. That is also without rearming them, that is just the general repair time. I’ve been told that the fission power systems need to be pulled and redone. I’ve been asked if they can scrap them.” I held my cigar over so he could take a hit and then took in a puff.

  After thinking for a long moment, I nodded. “Approved, I know someone is no doubt working on a new design with the shiny new tech we have access to.” I took another puff as we took a corner much more sanely than my wife took them. “Call it and its variations,The Anderson. In honor of the Gunny.”

  Xavier went silent for a moment with his eyes closed, then finally nodded. “Done, I have also tasked the Order to begin digging new construction spaces for the new tanks. It will most likely be between the Jackalope production area and the colony.”

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  “I gotta ask, what’s with your people and making bigger and bigger things? I know there’s a joke around about little guys with big trucks….”

  “Having tiny penises, and yes I do have a tiny penis, but I’m tiny.” Xavier looked at me and arched his brow. “What’s your excuse?”

  ***********************

  Hours later I stood in front of my armor hugging my wife and nuzzling her. “No beating anyone to death during this talk please. You or Lola…” I trailed off because Xavier and I had decided to let our wives go to the talks about the bunnies joining the Alliance.

  A few clicks left her and she batted my hands away from her swollen belly. “I will make no promises about that for either of us…which is why you and Xavier asked us to go. Lola is loved and feared, and I am…”

  “A hormonal hot potato?” I half asked and she didn’t even punch me, instead she looked thoughtful.

  “Mmmmm, potatoes…I want some of those…maybe with some…” I won’t write down what she described, because pregnant women eat some weird things. They can also get some crazy cravings. “Oh, and be careful on your patrol. I know you will be going into their territory and you haven’t seen one of their herd animals yet. Don’t leave your suits.” She poked me so I leaned down and we kissed before she left to go and be a diplomat.

  I might have forgotten to mention to her that Jackalope would be there with Dorothy, not at all as a possible emergency backup. I hadn’t asked Dorothy or Jackalope to loiter close or be nosy, I didn’t have to. Just me asking them to make sure that Thunder and Lola were safe would be enough to ensure the former would happen. Jackalope played twenty questions about everything, and let's see you try and ignore the equivalent of a curious toddler when it can hack your com system. I’ve tried, it doesn’t fecking work. I’m going to be raising a new word sponging child, I’m trying to more creatively curse.

  On to the fun of my day though, the wife was off doing proper talky political things, and I was going to go on the ancient tradition of a patrol. A patrol is a wondrous thing, you go for a ride or more usually a rather long walk and look around. This usually makes enemy forces get the idea that it would be fun to attack you, and I’d just recently been given this nice shiny sack of grenade rounds. So our plan was simple, go into the recently missile hit region and “patrol” then when the enemy forces attack, we kill them.

  “You’re wanting us to go on a long hike through the snow, in recently bombed areas, and see if the crabs are pissy enough to attack us?” Miss Li asked in better pronounced English than I could do with a maw. Her suit was still marred from the mine-fight, though I noticed she had more ammo pouches strapped to it than before.

  “That is the idea behind a patrol, we are going to be taking a nice long hike, checking things out, and killing anything with more than two legs that tries to pick a fight.” I moved to climb into my suit, the chest and head lowering down to latch and seal over me. “

  Yinyang and Jira were helping around the FOB and the major issue of securing the tunnel the enemy used, so it was Spot that went into a string of Mandarin curses and not Jira. I just smiled as it went on for a good minute as he climbed into his suit. “And you’re going to stick me with those two insane twins again, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, you’re very good at using your chains to bind up the crabs…” I trailed off as two Mark Eight suits walked in, which were heavily armored mining suits. The addition of a grenade launcher to the shoulder of either suit was new though. One had the mk nineteen launcher on the left shoulder, while the other had it on the right shoulder, both having nice big ammunition boxes on their backs. “We were just speaking about you two…are those chainsaws?!”

  The duo held up the respective arms of their suits that ended in nasty looking chainsaws, revving them up to a high pitch scream. “Burrow Saws!” Boomed the twins as they moved to take up position on either side of Spot, who gave a thumbs up. His own laser cannon was mounted to his left shoulder.

  “You three are going to be point team, Li is overwatch.” I said firmly, or in my “sergeant’s voice” as Evans called it. “I’ll be in the middle of the team with…”

  “Me…” Sounded with a gentle tone from a Mark Nine that stepped out of a portal with a wrapped…something. It was much like Xavier’s suit, except this one had a portal staff…well the big gem of one mounted to its shoulder in an armored mount. The helmet’s face was lifted up showing a Lo’Kar female with more swirl patterns in her flesh than usual. “You may call me Echo…that is my team name as you humans call them. I am a hunter and first wife of Squall.” The “hunter” part showed in the fact that her suit carried no ranged weapons, well if you didn’t count the bushel of spears hung from the back.

  I nodded to her. “Echo is going to be our evacuation and reinforcement caller. Keep her covered and safe…”

  “This is for you from my husband…” She said as she moved to me, her suit unwrapping the hide and leathers from…my gods. It was beautiful. It was an ax much like a brush ax, but the handle was some sort of alloy and bone. “It was his father’s boarding weapon, the bone is from what you might call a shark from our home world. Since you are now the next lord in line….” She pulsed out a squeak as my suit picked hers up in a hug.

  ***************************************

  Five hours later we were miles out from the FOB trudging through the knee deep snow, the Spots were about fifty paces ahead of me. Echo was two paces behind me, and Li was about fifteen paces back…and was up in the trees. We’d run across small groups of crabs twice already and had dealt with them. Those burrow saws were some sort of caltunium, diamond, and alloy mix that glowed nice and bright as it sawed into a crab’s shell.

  “Canyon up ahead, looks like the missile really messed things up.” Spot called back on the com.

  “Send a feed.” I called back and after a second I was looking through his helmet feed as he looked out over the blast zone of the first missile. Frozen ponds of ice were meshed with shattered trees strewn across the landscape. There were also the broken husks of crabs and the odd organic weapons they used. The troubling part was the signs of recent movement that had to have happened after the strike. “Even with the damage, that is defensible…look on the east side. The hell is that moving over there?”

  The view shifted to the side and slowly zoomed in on…shit whatever it was moved back behind rubble. “Permission to poke it?” Spot asked curiously.

  “Left and Right, five rounds around that area.” I could hear the “thump thump thump” of their mk nineteens and noticed Echo looking over at me, so I held up four fingers, then three, then two, then the thuds of the rounds hitting reached us. “Report.”

  “The fuck are those?” Came from Li on the com as I got fed her view…from the tree to my right, hadn’t even heard her hop to it. The view though…

  “What the fuck…” Was all I said as I tried to process what I was seeing, it was a horde…herd maybe? But the animals or whatever the hell those were, were hopping around in an angry mass that were moving more into the open.

  “Let me see.” Echo said calmly and after a moment I heard a string of familiar Lo’Kar curses. “Rika! Major, we need to call in heavy fire if a herd of them is here. They are very dangerous creatures.” She sounded worried, which made me think for a moment.

  “Li…shoot one of them, use a phosphorus round.” I said firmly and watched from her view as she switched rounds, took aim, and fired. The thud of sound was reduced quite a bit by that massive suppressor she had, but I saw several of the creatures turn our way. “Oh…shit…” The one she’d shot was knocked over onto its back flailing as the round set it on fire. It didn’t kill it, instead I saw the view zoom into onto the most unholy frog I’d ever seen.

  “Oh, fuck this planet.” Came from Spot as we all got to see a close up view of…ok. Take a toad, now take a handful of scales and some fur for giggles and glue it all over it while snorting cocaine. Now glue a wide beak onto it and stuff its mouth full of sewing needles, and finally…make it the size of a small car. Then feed it a bunch of pcp and hate, and take a bucket of about four hundred of them and shake it to piss em off, then pour them out. That is what we got to see pouring out of the canyon’s half a click wide mouth…at us.

  “Forward! Move up in line with the Spots!” I barked out and rushed forward, raising my suit’s arms as I got in line with them. Echo grabbed the grenade round bag from my suit along with one of my pistols. “Fire for effect! Fire for Effect! Fire for Effect!” I snarled out as both Left and Right Spots launchers snapped up and started to chug out rounds.

  “We need help!” Came from Li as her suppressor landed behind me, the air suddenly being filled with the blast of her rifle firing.

  As it got very bright from Spot firing his laser cannon into the leading edge of the tide, I flicked on my com to the FOB. “Calling for fire support forward of my position! We have a Rika herd incoming!” Another big flash of light since the laser cannon had a cooling cycle.

  “The hell is a rika?” Came back over the com.

  “Oh a demonic toad the size of a fucking car. I need your guns to be firing soldier!” I snapped back.

  “One five five incoming!” Luckily we’d managed to save the artillery and I’d ordered them manned at all times since the surprise attack. Aside from one really unlucky crab that got fed a one hundred and fifty five millimeter shell at point blank range, they’d not been used in that fight.

  Spent casings rained down from my suit’s arm weapons, from the tree behind me, and were piling up around the Spots as their launchers ran dry. “Echo! Second level reinforcements!” I barked out, and yes literally barked. Ha ha, he’s a big dog…go feck yourself.

  She sprinted back from the short line and I got to hear her com call. “Level two reinforcements needed. Opening portal!” Two hundred meters was the closest demon frog, and even with the scream of shells coming in, the Spots bombardment, my fire, and Li shooting them in the face…there were a lot of them. In other words…we’d just pissed in a very angry pond.

  And then the Spots and I…got run over…from behind. Xavier had been in charge of reinforcements and apparently level two, the “oh shit” middle answer was assault tracks. The second track to run over me got ramped into the air as I shoved myself off the ground, drawing up my remaining revolver and my new ax.

  The not that bright day was lit up rather well as two shuttles erupted out of portals, and was that my damned truck! Yep, that was my truck with Lola’s armor standing in the back and gatling cannon firing at the mouth of the canyon. I just stopped and zoomed in on the cab of my truck as it ran into a crab that had been in the mix of Rika, getting to see Johnson driving. Ok, it wasn’t Thunder.

  There were crabs in this herd of Rika though and shells were flying past me from the revolver Echo had borrowed, my arm lifting up my remaining one to fire shells into the horrors twenty meters off. The legs and torso of my suit locked in place as the ammo bins were opened on it, I barely heard the rattle of shells being fed into the system. Two more mark eights moved up and started loading belts of grenades into the Spots suits.

  A wrench thunked my helmet as my suit unlocked, letting me step forward as I holstered my empty revolver. “Hold the line!” I roared as suits, tracks, and that damned mecha formed around me. Flashes of light flared around me and the world shifted, the claws started to te