An hour had passed and the cloud had spread out. Where before it had been nearly fifty miles at the base and a hundred miles at the top, it had spread out to over a hundred miles at the base and a hundred and thirty at the top. The cloud rippled with lightning and flashes could be seen deep inside.

It had reached the suburbs of all four nearby cities, two of them it was into the outskirts.

"Sisters of Wrath and the Sons of Hateful Mars have still not launched," Ensign Yvera said from her console.

The Admiral looked at the holotank again, where grav-shock warnings, temporal dissonance warnings, and just plain atomic detonations were spiking off every second.

The Admiral had never thought he'd consider multiple rapidfire atomic detonations in the 400 kiloton range to be 'just plain' in his worst nightmares.

"Raise the Sisters of Wrath," the Admiral ordered.

The holotank wiped away the view of the dust cloud where First Telkan was engaged, to be replaced by the ornate wallpaper of the Sisters of Wrath. After a moment it flickered and a large female Terran, clad in ornate Imperium armor appeared.

"Joan Anath, you were supposed to make planetfall thirty-eight minutes ago," the Admiral started.

"You have deployed a Knight Æsir encased in Novastar Armor in Valkyrie mode," the Joan said, her strong brown-skinned face was both stern and furious. "Explain yourself, Admiral."

Admiral Shtuklar frowned. "What?"

"Your warplan ordered us to make planetary landing, yet you have deployed a Knight Æsir to that planet. Why was I not informed you have set upon an Exterminus Ragnarok for this world?" the Joan asked.

"Exterminus Ragnarok?" the Admiral said. "What..."

"Is it your opinion that due to Dwellerspawn infestation this world cannot be saved and it will soon become a breeding world, threatening all worlds around it?" The Joan asked.

"No, which is why you were supposed to land to reinforce First Telkan once they established a landing zone and began to pull the enemy toward them and away from the city," the Admiral said.

"You claim we are to assist the Noble Telkan Martial Order and their Pater Belli , yet you have deployed a Knight Æsir and order us to assist him," the Joan said.

"Why haven't you?" The Admiral asked.

The Joan shook her head, her pleated hair clicking as the beads and metal tokens in the tightly woven plaits shook. "We will not insult a Knight Æsir by inferring he suffers from weakness. He needs no reinforcement. Again, why have you declared an Exterminus Ragnarok upon this world?"

"No. I deployed Sergeant Casey to..." the Admiral started.

The Joan's expression changed to something that made everyone in the command center gape in shock.

Fear.

"Thou hast released an Æsir Ring Breaker upon this world, Admiral?" the Joan whispered. It took a moment for the holotank to translate her speech, making her lips out of synch with her words. "Art thou maddened? Didst thou restrain such a creature with spells and incantations? With whispered orders and secret commands? Didst thou not commune with a norn to restrain the living embodiment of humanity's wrath and hate? Didst thou bind an cailleach armúr to the Ring Breaker?"

The Admiral frowned. "Do a what now?"

"Thou didst not!" the Joan proclaimed, her face horrified. She stared at the screen. "We shall protect and succor the gentle people of this world, but thou art as wind and dust unto the Sisters of Mercury's Blessing. We shalt not heed thy warnings nor thy requests."

The channel suddenly closed.

"Shall I contact the Martial Order of..." the Communications officer started to ask.

The holotank fuzzed and a young girl appeared. Her face was round, covered in pink and white fur. Her eyes burned with pink fire, and the tips of her white cat-ears were tufted with pink. Her armor was thick, heavy, baroque, scarred and marked, painted white and pink with a bird of prey done in burning pink warsteel on her chest.

"Doki? DOKI? ಠ益ಠ DOKI?!" she exclaimed. She pointed at the holotank. "Hideo kawaii (◕︵◕) doki (◕︵◕) doki (⊙︿⊙✿) neko (⊙︿⊙✿)neko minikui ̿̿’̿’̵͇̿̿=(•̪●)=/̵͇̿̿/’̿̿ ̿ ̿ ̿ desu?!?!"

"Uhh..." the Admiral said.

"(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ " she screamed.

The holotank cut off.

"Did anyone understand that?" the Admiral said, trying to put levity in his tone.

"The last part. Kind of," Commodore Asshesha said. His reptillian face was still stiff with anger, his spinal ridge spines were still lifted, and his fan-like crests around his neck were still out and shaking slightly.

"Well, Commodore?" the Admiral asked.

"She said you were an idiot and have killed everyone on the planet and she thinks you are a fool who should be thrown out the airlock," the Commodore said.

Admiral Shtuklar went rigid with anger. "I beg your pardon!"

"That was her words, not mine," he said.

"It was gibberish, everyone knows that," the Admiral said, glaring.

"Sir," another tech said. Shtuklar turned and looked at the ensign, who was pointing at the holotank.

The computer had managed to translate the girl's speech.

YOU IDIOT NO KAWAII HAVE/WILL/DID KILLED/DEADED AN ENTIRE PLANET I SHOULD THROW/HURL/HUCK YOU A NO KAWAII FOOL OUT AN OPEN AIRLOCK was scrolling across the bottom.

"Oh," the Admiral said.

"Sir, transmission from Terra Will Not Yield, flagship of the Martial Order of Hateful Mars," the ensign said.

"Put him through to..." the Admiral started.

The holotank rippled and the patrician features of a Terran in full Imperium Marine armor appeared.

"Explain yourself, Admiral," the man said, his voice as cold as liquid helium.

"I was not made aware of the status of..." Shtuklar started.

"You were not aware of the weapon in your midst?" the man sounded disbelieving. "You were not aware that you have deployed an Æsir Ring Breaker onto the surface of a planet still occupied by civilians?"

"I..."

"You deployed a fully armed and operational Knight Æsir clad in Holy Armor but you were not aware of it?" the man asked.

"His service record merely shows extensive power armor experience and then non-combat arms postings," Admiral Shtuklar said.

"Were you not aware that V Corps (Old Metal) is a World Breaker armed unit?" the Imperium Commander asked, raising one eyebrow. "For it's history, since the Dawning of the Age of Blessed Atomic Fire, V Corps has always held the power of humanity's ability of ultimate destruction in its hands."

The commander leaned forward. "Explain yourself, Admiral, why you have declared an Exterminus Ragnarok upon this planet and why you have deployed an Æsir Ring Breaker."

"The situation is desperate. Virtually all of the Terran Descent Human soldiers are dead. 3rd Armor and 8th Infantry have been wiped out. For all intent and purposes, 7th Army is wiped out," the Admiral said.

"The situation is always desperate, Admiral, that is why it is called war and battle," The Imperium Marine Commander shook his head. "Humanity is always on the brink of extermination. It is our place within this, the malevolent and hateful universe that is our mother, to be harried and scourged so as to temper us as the wrath plasma of Holy Mars tempers the warsteel blade."

The Admiral swallowed, his head reeling. Normally the Martial Orders were strictly former, with little to no communication with Confederate units.

Now he was being yelled at by people that had been widely called "The Idiots" for longer than the Admiral had been alive.

"We will interlock with commanders on the ground. We are uninterested in any attempts at coordination of combat from you, Admiral," the Preceptor said. He made a chopping motion and the holotank cleared.

Admiral Shtuklar managed to take one deep breath before the holotank rippled, fuzzed, and then somewhat cleared.

The image was grainy, flickering, shot through with static. In the middle were two hugely muscled beings with dark black hair, tusks, wide faces, serrated ears, and heavy lower jaws. They were fist fighting until one, who appeared to be wearing several wigs, punched the other on the point of the chin with an upper cut. The victim went stiff then fell offscreen. The winner turned and faced the Admiral.

"YOU! YOU SEND RING BREAKER! YOU TRY TO MAKE SONS OF VENUS LAND ON PLANET!" the huge green monster roared, blowing spittle. "YOU TRY TO BREAK SONS OF VENUS?" the last part was barely a question.

"No, no, he was deployed in the wrong config..." the Admiral started.

"YOU NOT KNOW? WHY YOU HAVE SUCH NICE HAT IF SO STUPID?" the green creature roared. "TOO STUPID!" he turned and pointed at Ensign Rawglishin, a well muscled Rigellian female. "YOU! YOU STRONG! STAB HIM! STAB HIM NOW! TAKE HIS HAT!"

The ensign gaped at the green figure for a long moment.

"TAKE HIS HAT AND WOMEN!"

"Uhh..."

"WE NO LISTEN! WE GO! WE FIGHT! RING BREAKER CAN BREAK PLANET BY SELF!" the figure roared.

The holotank went dead.

Admiral Shtuklar was too busy staring at the holotank, which had gone back to an orbital view of protocontinent, where he could see the slowly growing cloud around where Fiirst Telkan had landed. He did not notice Ensign Rawglishin and Commodore Shretsherk got up quietly and left the bridge.

The Admiral turned to the Master Gunnery Mate and shook his head, focusing his thoughts. "What's the status on First Armored Recon?"

"They've entered atmosphere. They'll be landing at their drop zone in ten minutes. Ground fire has been sporadic and they've suffered no casualties," the Saurian Compact Kobold said.

The Admiral nodded. That sounded better. He rubbed his hands together.

He had made a mistake, he had to admit, by not realizing that the Army and Marines needed a more detailed Rules of Engagement than he was used to giving out to his Space Force elements.

Perhaps he could still pull this out of the fire. After all, it didn't look like First Telkan was going to take too heavy casualties with the amount of firepower they seemed to be able to put out.

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

The highly desirable female was unclad except for a lavish hat that looked like stacked boxes, with tassels and ribbons and sparklies. She had a thick braided chain of gold/warsteel alloy around her waist, each of her four feet had lavish curled toed slippers with bells on them. She held ice cream cones in each hand, each cone holding over a dozen scoops of fantastic ice cream such as geppleberry candy crunch, Dakota cherry sparkle, and even the coveted P'Thok Moomoo Surprise.

She was dancing inside of a refrigeration unit stacked with boxes of ice cream of too many flavors to even absorb, with thick dribbles of ice cream run down the sides.

"Come dance with me," she chittered, fluttering her wings coyly.

He moved up, heavy combat boots on his feet thumping on the blasted dirt of a world he had conquered, stomping out the latest dance.

She expressed pleasure at his dominating and masculine dance, fluttering her blood flushed wings again.

He could smell the mating and pleasure pheromones as he approached.

"Genera, wake up," she said in a melodious voice. "General, we need you to wake up!"

Smokey No stopped, staring at the female.

"We're going to have to turn off the beam, he's totally gorked," the female said.

Pain came back in a rush. His left side hurt all down the side and breathing was a painful thing.

The highly attractive female wavered and vanished.

General NoDra'ak blinked his opaque eyeshields several times, slowly coming up out of the anesthetic dream.

"General, you have to wake up," Ensign Rawglishin said. Smokey No blinked at her, confusing the Rigellian female with the dancing Matron due to them having the same voice.

"Wha... what's wrong?" He asked. He was starting to remember now.

His flagship had dropped out of hyperspace suddenly and he had been thrown across the bridge, slamming against the wall as most of his bridge crew had suddenly slumped over their controls.

He remember the ships DS screaming in agony as the shields had dropped and the high energy particles of hyperspace had shredded them apart. He remembered how he had laid on the deck, bleeding, as a Kobold midshipman put a nanite medkit on this thorax.

NoDra'ak cleared his throat, blinking again. "What's wrong, Ensign?"

The Kobold bobbed his head. "The Admiral," he started.

"Which one?" NoDra'ak said. He tried to turn around and realized he was in a back brace and the pressor/tractor beams were holding him still.

"Admiral Shtuklar, General," Commodore Shretsherk said.

NoDra'ak blinked again, trying to remember.

Admiral Shtuklar, he'd replaced the previous Admiral when the Space Force Task Force supporting 7th Army had rotated out. Mainly Space Force, but NoDra'ak couldn't remember if the Admiral had been involved in the planning phase of any ground assaults.

"Doctor," NoDra'ak rasped. His whole left side hurt. He shook his head, trying to clear it. "Trucker?"

"Probably dead," the ensign said. "There's less than a dozen humans left alive."

"There's one that's the problem," the Commodore said. He turned to the ensign. "Go get a doctor."

"Yes, sir," the ensign moved out of the recovery room.

"What?" NoDra'ak coughed. "Cigarette?" he could smell the ensign and the Commodore's distress.

"Casey," the Commodore said. "Sorry, I don't have any with me."

"He get killed? That the problem? Can't respawn him?" NoDra'ak coughed.

The Commodore gave a harsh laugh. "The enemy wishes," he said. He sobered up. "The Admiral reclassified him back to his old MOS and put him in power armor."

NoDra'ak groaned as the adrenaline hit his system and the blood flush through his abdomen and wings. He could smell his own anxiety and sudden fear.

"That's..." he coughed. "That's... that was not wise."

Commodore Shretsherk shook her head. "No. He apparently authorized Casey to wear whatever armor he wanted, or, as the Admiral put it 'whatever armor will be most effective in defeating the enemy on the planet'"

NoDra'ak shook his head. "And Casey, somehow, just happened to have laying around nanoforge templates for a suit of Novastar VII power armor, and somehow, mysteriously, by accident and a miracle of the Digital Omnimessiah and Enraged Phillip, a suit just fell right out of the nanoforge and landed at his feet," NoDra'ak coughed again. "Oh, lucky day, who would have thought there would be this suit made entirely out of war crimes right here when I need it," he said in a mocking tone.

"Pretty much, General."

"How bad is it on the ground," NoDra'ak asked. His mind was clearing up.

"Casey's on the ground, First Telkan is with him. The Idiots refuse to deploy," the Commodore said.

"Because Casey is on the ground," NoDra'ak said. He coughed again, wishing he had a cigarette to clear away the stress pheromones.

"They were upset. First Armored Recon is probably on the ground by now."

"Trucker?" NoDra'ak asked again.

"Dead," the Commodore said.

"Are you sure? Check your implant?" NoDra'ak said.

"Why would he be alive? He would have suffered cyberware rejection like everyone else," the Commodore said.

"Just check," NoDra'ak said.

"Operator, status of General Trucker."

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

Exquisite Melding of Chrome and Flesh put the donut in her mouth as she went into the cyberware clinic. The bodies of the human technicians had finally been cleared away, but the midshipmen wanted her to unlock one of the cleanroom doors for them. Apparently a patient had been undergoing treatment and was now stuck inside and they wanted to be able to remove the body.

She put her palm, covered in a light dusting of powdered sugar, against the palm scanner. The room would have to be scrubbed anyway if a Terran had been dead for nearly 24 hours inside the room.

The door opened and she moved in, humming the latest pop song from Signus as she passed the sinks and the sterilizers. She could see through the smartglass that there was a patient hanging in the heavy conversion diagnostic rig and sighed.

Poor human,Chrome thought to herself. She bumped the sensor with her bladearm, opening the door and walked in.

She hummed to herself and moved around in front of the human in the full diagnostic and replacement grav-cradle.

The human was 'exploded' to use the parlance. Completely disconnected from all of his cyberware, even the bioware implants had been removed, even the datalink and eyes. The human was merely a torso, neck, arms that only went down to mid-biceps, and eyeless head.

Technically, she mused, he's still alive, since he's on bypass and spinal cord stimulation.

She looked at the brain wave monitor, almost out of habit.

Reflexes took over and she slapped the button.

The alarms howled, summoning cyberneticists and doctors.