Kelvak stayed silent as the body was picked back up, the head ripped off in a shower of blood, and the face of the dead Terran Major slowly peeled away to first reveal the skull, then the brain. The brain suddenly pulled free of the skull, vanishing.

There was a scream, a high pitched squeal of disgust and pain, and purple light started flashing brightly enough that it dazzled Kelvak. The squealing scream trailed off and Kelvak's vision slowly cleared.

Laying on the ground was a bright purple figure, dressed in a shimmering robe. It was contorting, foam running out from behind the tendrils on the lower third of the face, the huge white eyes bloodshot and bleeding around the edges. Its feet, clad in slippers, were drumming against the ground, its six fingered hands were clawing at the dirt, and it was banging its head on the ground. Its back suddenly arced, almost a bow.

The head exploded, showering Kelvak in purple goo. The body began to shrivel up, steam, and as Kelvak watched it slowly dissolved, leaving behind nothing but a purple stain on the ground and the gobbets of flesh from when the head exploded.

The Major's head was lying on the ground, the front of it missing, the skull inside empty.

"Timestamp mark," Kelvak gasped. "Rewind, verbal search 'do you see that?'. Play." Kelvak saw the video recording start. "Timestamp mark. Deep storage data between timestamp marks."

"Affirmative," his suit managed to grind out.

A long moment later he caught himself dozing off. It was strange, he knew his body was badly damaged, but he couldn't feel anything below his neck any more. Not warm and tingly, not sleepy, not painful, just a complete absence of information.

He knew the nanites were working, keeping him from bleeding out, keeping him from dying of shock. Armor built by the Terrans to let Telkans wage war against a universe that took everything and laughed while it did so.

He wanted to cry, but he wouldn't.

He was a Terran Confederate Marine, of the Second Telkan Marine Division.

He wasn't a child any more. He'd stopped being a child during the Precursor War.

He could still remember it. The smell of the basement shelter, the trembling of the ground, the way dust raised up in two bands, one from the floor, one from the ceiling, slowly drifting together before spreading through the room.

The way the lights flickered as the explosions shook the very earth as the Terrans and the Precursors locked in mortal combat over Telkan-2 itself.

A sip of tepid water slaked the thirst slightly and he licked his dry lips before taking another sip. He closed his eyes. He was so tired.

Himf'thalla was petting his hair, crooning to him, her tail wrapped around him as he rocked back and forth and cried over the deaths of his parents. His siblings were orphans now, some of them podlings too young to understand why mommy and daddy weren't coming back. Why something they'd never met, never done anything to, never wronged, had slaughtered their parents with mechanical glee.

All they had left was him and the two brood-mommies, who were trying to use the act of comforting all of the littles as a way to deal with their own grief. Plemill'till was wrapped in the blanket from his mother and father's bed, the littles and the podlings wrapped up with her.

There were so many tears left.

His mother, his father, his two brothers and his sister, all gone. Blotted away by the Precursor attack that he could hear rumbling above them.

He rocked back and forth, crying, pressing his paws against his face, feeling nothing but black despair at the loss of his siblings and parents.

'shh ok to cry broodmommy love Kelvak shh' Himf'thalla said softly, rocking him, holding him as he wept. A metallic clinking sounded out and Himf'thalla hugged him, brushing his face with her furry tail, rocking him back and forth.

The clinking noise wouldn't stop.

He woke up with a jerk and a screamed, banging his head against the deflated pressure sleeve. His retinal display was warning that his suit's power was running low. He knew that had to mean the onboard reactor and batteries were damaged. His suit should be good for nearly a week of straight combat without running into power problems.

"Activate audio recording," Kelvak coughed. It was hard to breathe.

**AUDIO RECORDING ACTIVE**

"Hi, guys," Kelvak said. "I know I said I'd be home, but, well, things went a little different," he coughed for a moment, pausing the recording, then starting once he got his breath back. "I wanted to make a difference, and I think I did. In a good way. I know things for our family have been tough, but you guys will be all right."

He paused the recording for a moment, coughing.

"Podlings, listen to Himf'thalla and Plemill'till. Be good podlings. Be brave, be smart, be strong, be clever. Grow up to be good Telkans. Grow up and take good care of your brood-mommies, they love you with all their hearts," Kelvak said. He paused it again to get control of his emotions. He felt tired, like just making the recording was exhausting.

"Grow up to be strong, and clever, and brave, and kind. Grow up to love, and laugh. Live free, podlings. Himf'thalla and Plemill'till, you were the best broodmommies ever. Nobody ever had broodmommies who loved them as much as you loved me. When mom and dad died, when my siblings died, you made me feel like someone still loved me. I love all of you, and I'm sorry I can't come home. Podlings, take care of your broodmommies, and I love you."

Kelvak took a deep breath, as deep as he could. "End recording."

"I am a Telkan Marine," he said softly to himself. "I cannot be beaten. Not by metal, not by flesh. I may die, but I live on within the Corps. Even if I am defeated, the Corps, Telkan, cannot be beaten."

He raised his head, inside his helmet, and stared at his black faceplate.

He blinked for a moment, trying to get his visor to come online before he realized it was dead. He managed to chin the release and the faceplate cracked open. He gulped the thick foul tasting air, the metallic taste overlaying scorched meat and something thick and cloying. The crack wasn't wide, the visor had jammed retracting, but he could still see.

The city was sullenly burning around him, the orange lighting up the clouds in the sky. Lightning, orange and blue, flickered in the clouds. Ash was drifting down, settling on everything, giving it a grayish-black hue.

--where am I-- appeared in his retinal display. --what hit me--

"Triple-Dee? Is that you?" he gasped.

--think so. what happened-- 222 asked.

"We landed bad," Kelvak said.

--clamshell jammed. help-- 222 said.

"Sorry, buddy. I can't help," Kelvak said. He coughed, hacked, and spit out saliva, blood, and ash.

--suit offline you ok--

"Better than the other guys," Kelvak said. He laughed and groaned as it caused sharp pains in his spine at the top of his shoulders.

--we in combat--

"No. Just kind of laying around," Kelvak had never understood the dark humor so many of the other guys had, but he was getting now.

The realization of why he was understand the black humor, the dark comedy of his situation, made him laugh, then groan at the pain.

--gonna try to pop the shell-- 222 said.

"Luck, buddy," Kelvak said.

--you aren't alone Marine I am here with you--

"Thanks. I need that right now," Kelvak said.

--almost--

"Open mantid protective housing," Kelvak coughed.

The suit shuddered for a moment, a grinding came from behind him, and for a split second pain roared up and down his spine. He gasped, but didn't scream, as blackness took him.

222 saw the clamshell open slightly before the flatware motor's gears stripped out. He pulled a spreader out of his toolrack and attached it.

He kept getting dizzy. Both of his antenna had broken off at the base and his skull hurt. The only reason he had both eyes was he had been wearing his helmet, the eyepieces on his helmet cracked. Even so, both of his sensitive bladearms were still in the armor's access ports.

They'd snapped free when they'd hit the ground.

The air was sweet to 222 AKA Triple-Deuce AKA Triple-Dee, flowing in through the small gap. He got the spreader locked in and began cranking on the ratchet to slowly open it.

The warsteel crumbled and 222 stared at it. He picked up some of it in his gripping hands and twisted it.

It broke apart like carbonized circuit board. Like wood pulled from the fire.

222 got a hammer and broke off enough chunks of the armor to see his next problem. He was trapped by a chunk of ferrocrete. Sighing, he kept using the hammer, pausing to take a break now and then while he panted. He hit his O2 supply twice and got back to work.

Finally he had a hole big enough to wiggle through. It took a minute, he had to leave his magac rifle behind and pull it up with one footpad, but he managed to climb out.

The night was full of electromagnetic screaming, full of howling particles, the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum was a howling rainbow of screaming chaos around him.

He was suddenly, insanely, glad his antenna were broken off. He'd be nearly blind.

--Kelvak?-- he moved up onto the helmet of his Marine and looked around. --Kelvak?--

They were only a little ways away from a lake. A destroyed super-heavy warmech was half in the lake, half out, and a dismembered human was scattered around. There were weapon-crates for a Terran Army Heavy Infantry Assault Platoon Weapons Squad around them, all of them reading green. There were fourteen telecom lines still active under the road. Broadcast power systems were fluctuating badly. Major power arteries below the ground were still active. It was raining ash, complex molecular particulate chains with moderate radioactivity, vaporized metal, carbonized flesh, and other debris uptake from the detonation of atomic weaponry.

222 shut the opaque shields on his eyes for a moment, steadying himself.

--Kelvak?-- he tried again.

No answer.

He looked down and his heart sank.

The Telkan Marine's legs were driven into the ground. One was nearly twelve feet away and 222's brain computed the angle of descent from the hole in the building to the craters and knew the Marine had cartwheeled in. His left leg had hit first, slamming deep into the ground and breaking off at the knee.

That made 222 give the electronic equivalent of a frown.

He hustled over to the leg, looking at the armor. He reached out and grabbed a piece, pulling, and it broke off in his hand.

He hurried back to the Telkan Marine, holding tight to his magac rifle and looking around.

--deep in the bush-- he thought to himself, scurrying around the front again.

Kelvak had a two inch endosteel rebar sticking out of his torso, pinkish kinetic absorption fluid had oozed out of the cracked hole, the edges bent outwards, looking like watery blood.

The Telkan himself had his eyes closed and 222 felt a rush of relief when he saw the Telkan's whiskers tremble and nostrils flare as he inhaled slowly.

--Marine Corps tough-- he thought, checking the Telkan's leg stump. The suit had auto-sealed it, so that was good. One arm was bent badly but still attached.

The situation was bad, but 222 was a Marine Corps Tactical Engineer, and bad was when he did his best work.

222 managed to get the suit's diagnostic port open by banging on it with his hammer, then plugged in a cable he ran from the armor to the port on the back of the warsteel datalink that wrapped around the back of his head. He let his fingers run over the surface of his datalink. It felt pebbly, granular.

He filed the information away.

The armor had taken a beating. The warsteel had failed, the laminate had been comprimised. The reactor had gone into shut-down and it was running off of batteries. Communications were out, all of the systems except for the battlefield recording and emergency medical were offline.

The nanites had their hands full keeping the Telkan from dying from his injuries.

--Triple-Dee's got you, Kelvak-- the mantid flashed over his head, then turned and looked at what was pretty much a gift from the Gods.

The warmech.

The human obviously didn't need it any more.

Sure, its legs were broken at the upper thighs, the cockpit had been peeled open, but 222 could see sparks shooting out from damaged circuitry, faintly hear the whining of servors and actuators on standby.

222 turned back to the unconscious Telkan and patted his nose.

--I got you--

He scurried to the bounty that was the dead warmech.

It took two dozen trips, but he managed to get enough parts over to get the suit juice again. The Telkan's breathing was slow and steady, not raggedy any longer. 222 took the time to work with the welder and cut away the endosteel rebar sticking out of the Telkan's torso.

The whole time he worked, he hummed a pop-song from Rigel.

--my chubby little duck's a pretty duck-- he hummed as he used a hammer to break away the ferrocrete behind the Telkan's armor. --glossy feathers and a pretty beak-- He used the torch to cut the bar away from the back. --little waddling walk and such cute webbed feet-- he used a come-along to pull the Telkan straight. --singing pretty in the morning noon and night-- 222 went and dug the leg out of the ground and carried it over to tie it to the opposite leg with a length of fiber-optic cable taken from the dead warmech. --he's the prettiest duck you ever had in sight--

222 was inside the warmech's chassis, metering the output of the secondary reactor, when one of the proximity alarms he'd set up began to ping. He climbed out quickly but quietly, his magac rifle held tight, exiting out of the maintenance hatch in the upper shoulder of the mech.

"Hey, Sergeant, check it out," a voice over the radio said. "Someone dropped some infantry snack packs."

"Check 'em out, see who's they are," the voice was experience, gruff. "Someone check that Telkan Marine, see if the tough little bastard's alive."

222 pulled a glowstick out, breaking it across his abdomen, and waved it. The sun wasn't quite up, just a sullen band of ocher in the horizon, and he didn't want to take the chance of someone's reflex trigger splashing him across the mech's armor.

"Sergeant, got a Mantid engineer," one said.

"Yeah, Sergeant, he's alive. Tough little fucker," another said.

One of the Terran troops, big and bulky in his powered armor, moved up and looked at 222.

"You've had an exciting day," the Terran said.

--tell me about it-- 222 said. --my Marine needs a hospital. can you evac--

"Yeah, we've got an ambulance from 2nd Armor running casualties to a striker base about thirty miles out," the Terran said.

222 felt relief fill him.

------------

Screams watched as they carried in the Telkan Marine. His leg had been amputated just below the hip, his other leg was nothing but shattered bone, he had a broken spine, compromised spinal cord, and massive internal organ damage mostly centered around the piece of endosteel that was still driven through his torso. He was pretty much running off of nanites and stubborness.

She looked at the battered and injured green mantid, still in combat armor, hanging on the wall and watching. The little greenie saw her looking and flashed --never leave one behind--

Screams nodded, stepped into the steri-field, and went to work.

-----------

Mukstet froze the playback and leaned back, sighing. The Terrans and other Telkan in the tent all shook their heads.

"Now we know," one of the Rigellians said.

"Which means now we know who to fucking kill," the Terran growled, his eyes hot amber.

"You are all going to leave command up to me during this, aren't you?" Mukstet complained.

"You're the ranking striker on this striker base," a black Mantid wearing a beret and carrying a rifle said, rubbing his wings in a form of a shrug. "This is your show."

"Gee, thanks," Mukstet said. "Lets put our heads together and figure out how to work this out."

"That kid survive?" A Treana'ad with only three legs asked.

Mukstet nodded. "Barely. The war's over for him. His mantid survived too, but until he gets implants, war's over for him too."

Mukstet looked at the maps on the table. "It's still on for us. Let's figure this out."

Outside a bright white flash lit up the horizon as someone cracked off another atomic.

The war went on.