We've got one life to live.
It's ours to throw away.
Let's get it over with. - Volunteer Az'zkykrmo'o, Mar-gite Siege of the Cygnus Orion Galactic Arm Spur
Mar-gite screaming echoed through the city, punctuated by the rumbling collapse of skyrakers, the hammering of gun and cannon fire, and the thunder from the storm clouds that the dust had created. The streets were full of dust to the point that anything more than 200 meters out was completely obscured. Volunteer Az'zkykrmo'o was holding on to the dented sideboard of the truck as it slid around the corner, one of the tires barking loudly as it grabbed and lost traction in a shuddering rhythm that made Azzy's shoulder ache.
The four "Solarians" sitting at the back of the truck were checking their weapons. Azzy noticed they were heavier than his mag-ac rifle. Bulkier, almost unfinished looking, where his was sleek and obviously the product of many many hours of engineering perfection.
ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC
There was the dusty blue-white snap and then the rumble through the ground and the swirling of the dust but other than that it was too far or too shielded to do much more.
"TWO MINUTES!" Breaker yelled.
The commo channels were full of hash. Mar-gite shrieks, sobbing, pleading, and screams from those being absorbed and still possessing a comlink.
The nervous system is the last devoured, like the Mar-gite enjoy the suffering, Azzy remembered.
Normally Coms would edit out the screams, but there was just too much. Too many life signs screaming for help.
He'd grown used to seeing the robotic EMT services get swarmed down and ripped apart by the Mar-gite.
Even the nanite-constructs kept getting overwhelmed. The atomics had damaged the remainder and Azzy had personally seen nanite emergency service technology robots appear then fall back into dust when the Mar-gite got near and screeched.
So the screams still echoed on the comlinks and over most radio/communications/cellular bands.
The truck slewed around another corner, the back deck swinging toward where a Mar-gite had suddenly stood up.
One of the Solarian's brought his rifle around and triggered a burst, cutting the Mar-gite in half and folding it over, before the truck hit it and bounced over the corpse.
Azzy had stopped being surprised at the reaction time of the Solarians.
The truck came to a stop so fast that Azzy half expected the front of the truck to lift up.
"DISMOUNT!" Breaker yelled.
Azzy jumped out, almost bouncing off of one of the Solarians. The four had already spread out and were shooting into the dust. Short, sharp burst that sounded like one shot but Azzy knew from the long hours since he'd raised his hands was actually three to five.
"Set up right here! Command says they're heading straight down this boulevard by the thousands! They'll be here in less than twenty-mikes!" Breaker was shouting, pointing with his finger to draw lines and flick out fortification icons that everyone could see with either their cybereyes, retinal links, or the lens covering one eye that the Solarians kept referring to as "Scouters".
Azzy began helping push cars from the side of the street to across the street. The Solarians were pushing transit buses across the side avenue.
There was another bright flash through the dust followed by a rumble and Azzy knew another skyraker had just lost the fight.
Volunteer Yethy was next to a garbage can that was somehow still full, yanking the garbage out of it and shoving the trash into the grinder strapped to the side of her rocket launcher. The launcher was beat up and battered, far past its "fire 10 and dispose of or turn into armory" lifespan. She stopped to adjust the too big helmet then went back to shoving garbage into the grinder.
Azzy smiled at the memory of Yethy having everyone shit into the grinder like an hour or so ago.
Just like Azzy had started out with a laser rifle and then a light magac rifle and now had a heavy magac rifle.
Sergeant Grak'el was checking over his smart harness with the help of 7782. The cut down M318 had overheat marks on the barrel and the forward heat shroud and the butt had a crack in it that had been filled with foam sealant.
Breaker walked by, still helmetless, pointing out more positions.
Two of the Solarians switched to firing in the air.
Azzy didn't bother trying to figure it out. He had blockades to help make.
Breaker was tapping on the pop-up holo icons from a grenade, moving through the menu, as he walked by Azzy. He stopped at the cars, used his finger to point stuff out, then tossed the grenade underhand. The grenade went off with a 'poof' and mist that settled through the dust and onto the road.
Azzy watched jagged spikes rise up from the roadway until they were nearly two feet high.
"Drink two pulls of water, choke down a nutripaste tube," Breaker ordered.
There was a rumble but no flash.
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Azzy's stomach clenched. He wondered what had collapsed. He'd lived in the city all his life, and knew a lot of it at least by sight. He'd ridden transport around the city, he'd walked around the city. He had friends from around the city, not just from inside the skyraker he had lived in.
I'll burn the city down myself if it means saving as many as possible, he thought to himself.
Breaker suddenly straightened up, hand to his temple. He spun and pointed at the group.
"TAKE A KNEE!" he yelled.
Azzy turned, facing the way Breaker was pointing, going down on two knees, leaning forward to press how lower hands against the tarmac, his upper right hand holding his rifle barrel pointing up, his left hand covering his forward eyes. For a moment nothing happened.
Then there was a bright white light off in the distance that made the dust crackle and spark.
The Solarians suddenly moved forward, toward the light.
"HERE IT COMES!" Breaker shouted. "BRACE YOURSELVES!"
0-0-0-0-0
Vice-Tyrant Admiral Kra'akenwulf watched as a corner of one of the massive constructs broke off and tumbled toward the planet. It began to break apart, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of Mar-gite suddenly releasing their graviton enhanced hold on one another. They were slowly falling into the gravity well of the most populated planet, with a population of just over a trillion living beings.
Most of whom were in shelters, which was a slight comfort.
"BIOWARFARE IS HERE!" rang out.
The ships that appeared along the entry vectors were like nothing that Kra'akenwulf had ever seen. Smooth biological looking lines, sweeping battlements, and cannons sticking out of the superstructure. At the back it looked like three nautilus shells welded together. As the ships moved in huge wings unfolded, rotating to soak up the stellar mass's energy.
Thousands of smaller vessels, all of them looking like insects, flooded out from the larger ships.
He turned his attention back to the battle.
Eight more clusters had warped in but Odin had already fired his guns, the massive singularity shock cannons tearing apart even Tetra-Clusters.
"WE HOLD THIS LINE!" Odin roared out, the sound somehow carrying through vacuum to shiver the hulls of the Kraat System Naval Forces.
"MA-JITAITO COCO DEE SUSSY MENU!" the voice of Captain MacSato bellowed out. The translator assured Kra'akenwulf that it was merely a battlecry that the Mar-gite would go no further, the language grazing at Kawaii-Speak but avoiding the Engrish-Emoji.
"Order Task Forces Nineteen through Fifty-Two to fall back, replenish mass, and give the crews downtime," Kra'akenwulf ordered. "We're on our ninety-two hours of combat."
"Aye, sir, transmitting orders," the commo officer replied.
Long minutes went by as Kra'akenwulf gave the commands to keep the Mar-gite engaged, prevent them from sinking into the gas giants or warping out.
His orders had been updated.
Hold the line.
Stop the Mar-gite from warping out.
System Inhabitants Expendable.
It was the last part that burned. The Kra'at Systems did not give up on citizens easily.
But as three more Mari-gite Petra-Clusters appeared, wavering as they solidified.
Only to hit a full broadside of Odin's singularity shocker cannon salvos.
The Peta-Cluster tore into smaller sections, tumbling as the Mar-gite shifted and adjusted to try to regain control of the living ship that was made up of trillions of them.
The smaller ships of Kra'akenwulf's task forces darted in, firing at the pieces.
There is no shame in playing 'cleanup duty' to these horror ships, Kra'akenwulf thought.
He moved around slowly, hands behind his back, staring at the holotanks.
Not a single construct had made it to the opposite side of the system to warp back out.
As he watched, several of the Task Force Trials of Armed Conflict's ships moved in.
"Armed Conflict is firing on Tetra-Cluster Seven," he heard.
The weapons fired by the Armed Conflict ships looked like standard torpedoes only with scoops on the sides. They hit the Tetra-Cluster, punching deep inside.
It looked like there was no effect.
"Strategic Theater High Mutator Volkanaar reports that initial data gathering is underway. Weapon testing will begin once initial mutations are developed. Two hour ETA to first mutational trial," communications stated. "They request Tetra-Cluster Seven be taken out of firing queue."
"Signal the Armed Conflict Fleet that we understand," Kra'akenwulf said.
"Dappled Sunrise Ocean is reporting Mar-gite landings in the tens of millions at site designated Mar-gite Landing Point One. The port city of Arcensweega is within striking range. Orbital reports that it looks like the Mar-gite are heading there now," Kra'akenwulf heard. "Ocean is rapidly becoming seeded with Mar-gite remains from those that were destroyed on impact with the water. Milint has determined that the contaminated patch will be capable of producing Mar-gite by the millions within seventy-two hours if uninterrupted."
The Tyrant nodded slowly. "Execute Ground Swell on Mar-gite Landing Point One."
"Aye, sir. Sending orders to execute Ground Swell."
In orbit one of the many stealthed defense satellites slowly unfolded. Solar panels unfolded, providing energy to jumpstart the reactor. The reactor came online, feeding power into the flaps that had spread open. Graviton pulses shifted the satellite in order to bring the target inline.
The atmospheric clutter was severe but within operational range for the satellite, which was designed to help protect the planet even against Precursor Autonomous War Machine landings. Targeting data flooded the VI and even more minute adjustments were made with vapor squirting.
The cannon charged quickly.
And fired.
A straight lance of energy nearly a kilometer across. A pulsing, flickering lance made up of thousands of meter wide spooky particle pumped coherent light beams.
The superheated air exploded outward, compacted into almost a solid mass, it shover the water ahead of it.
Millions of tons of seawater and Mar-gite chum instantly converted to their base components, the hydrogen and oxygen exploding in white, almost transparent flame that had purple edging.
The superheated steam exploded outward.
Still the laser fired.
Nearly sixty seconds went by until the laser, which had incinerated the silt at the ocean bed and carved into the bedrock until there was a huge callop torn from the continental shelf ridge, finally stopped firing.
The satellite folded back up, going on standby.
0-0-0-0-0
Azzy heard it first. The booming noise.
"HOLD YOUR BREATH!" Breaker shouted.,
The four Solarians suddenly expanded, growing to easily five or ten times their previous mass. One roared and had red hot liquid warsteel pour from its mouth. All of them knelt forward and slammed their fists against the ground.
A rippling battlescreen spun up in front of the Solarians.
The temperature suddenly spiked. Humidity skyrocketed.
It went higher as the battlescreen flared.
The steam flooded over the battlescreen. Azzy closed his eyes as the steam washed over him, getting hotter by the second.
Azzy could feel his skin blistering.
I will not die I will not die I will not die
Yee suddenly popped up with her rocket launcher, her helmet askew.
"BOWIE BOWIE BOWIE!" she howled out.
Azzy saw it appear on his vision as she fired.
ATOMIC ATO
The round went off only 500m down the boulevard. The harsh white light making the battlescreen projected by the four Solarians go almost completely opaque.
Azzy felt his radiation detector scream at him even as his cyberoptic retinal link crashed and rebooted.
The 15kt detonation swept away the superheated steam, breaking its oncoming, forcing it back.
For a second the street was completely clear. No dust. No steam.
Black rain started showing from the sky. Windows shattered and cubes of macroplas rained from the sky.
The steam, somehow cooler after being blunted back by an atomic weapon, swept over the squad.
Azzy could feel it cooling.
"ROCKETS FUCKING RULE!" Yee howled out.
Breaker stood up slowly.
"Sound off," the NCO called out.