Corporal Nuk-Luk-Duk kept his mind calm, his large eyes closed, his limbs tight to his body, and recited his calming mantras. Less than five years ago he had been fighting the machines, had learned the Word of Jawnconnor, and had signed up for the Confederate Armed Services, eventually qualifying as an amphibious warfare specialist a year ago.

He was in a small capsule that was barely big enough for his armored form, his weapons, his gear, and the mission essential equipment he was tasked with.

There was a slight vibration that he ignored. Whatever it was, it was the province of the grav-striker pilot and beyond his reach.

Grant me the strength to smash the machine within reach and the patience to wait for the next machine rather than seek out those that are the responsibility of others, he thought to himself.

Finally, he felt the strange weightlessness of his capsule being released. There was a long moment, almost a full breath, before his capsule was pulled up by the hard-light grav-chute, going from nearly 210 mph to only 40 mph. It hit the water hard, but Nuk had clenched his jaws around his plastic bit to keep his teeth from chipping.

He could feel the capsule drift even as the vents opened and water filled the interior. Nuk was ready, and his gills opened and began pumping, moving water across them. The weight of the capsule pulled it down in the water, moving with the current. The internal computers kept the buoyancy just right so that he drifted from the drop zone and into the mission zone as part of the cool water.

It took nearly an hour before the weight shifted and his capsule sank to the bottom, bumping against the bedrock at the bottom. The grav-anchor kicked on, heavily shielded, and locked him into position.

Nuk opened his outer eyelid, still floating perfectly still in the contemplation pool within his own mind.

His capsule computer went through the checks. His weaponry was fine, as was his equipment. He was right where he was supposed to be. There were the other capsules around him from his Alpha Group.

The light went red and he popped the capsule.

The cool water of the river washed over him and he gave several clicks that his armored helmet translated into ultrasonic sound that dropped to nearly subsonic outside of water. He heard the clicks come back from his fellow Alpha Group members, all of them quickly getting a map of the bottom of the river locked into their brains through mechanisms laid down by evolution. It matched the map created by the capsules, with a few differences regarding temperature variations and a few 'shadows' of cold water that the capsule computers and sensors couldn't detect without more power intensive systems.

Nuk quickly broke into the capsule, taking it apart and into its base sections.

With his Alpha Group he quickly helped build a shielded underwater shelter, complete with an air pocket, designed in such a way as to completely undetectable above the water or within it.

The creation engine fired up with a hum, heating the water around it, as its heat level and slush levels rose to optimum levels.

Nuk, finished with his part of building the Forward Aquatic Base, floated up to the surface, keeping his crests down. Only his armored eyes showed above the surface as he looked over the terrain with biological systems only.

Up on the ridge was a fortress made of crystal and shining phasic energy. Heavy weapons were dug in, pointing at either side of the valley. Air defense systems scanned the skies. Heavy battlescreens and phasic shields glimmered at either end of the valley. Armored Type-V Autonomous War Machines were resting in vast rows with only a few of the smaller 'scuttlers' moving around. The larger ones were all white-globed and less than a 10th of the scuttlers moving around on six little legs were 'blue'.

Nuk could see a dozen of the purple skinned Atrekna in their shining iridescent phasic enhanced robes floating around. Some high in the air, moving from tower to tower of the fortress, the rest at ground level, examining the shells of the larger of the Atrekan Biological War Machines.

He kicked his feet to hold position, looking like nothing more than a slight current eddy in the wide, deep, slow moving river.

He used the clicker in his hand to relay the information quickly, sounding like nothing more than the river moving pebbles along.

The quantum communication systems were down, inoperable this close to the Atrekna. Radio would be detected instantly.

Which is why the fishbois swam away, each of the dozen cyborg fish carrying the same message.

**IN POSITION AWAITING ORDERS**

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

Undrat ran a function check of Madame Three-Eighteen, not disturbing her sleep.

He was in M984A6 powered assault armor in heavy weapons configuration, the three chevrons of Junior Sergeant on his armor and on his HUD ID. His onboard systems were all green, his green mantid assistant 583 was ready and waiting inside the armored housing at the top of Undrat's back that made him look slightly hunchbacked.

A year ago Undrat had undergone Permanent Change of Station from Second Platoon, Bravo Company, Ninth Battalion, Second Brigade, Fifth Regiment, Twenty-Third Infantry Division, XII Corps, 14th Army to Third Platoon, Alpha Company, Ninth Battalion, Fourth Brigade, Ninth Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, III Corps. He had been promoted to Junior Sergeant and placed within Third Squad, one of eight Heavy Weapon Operators.

Undrat had been meticulous in understanding his place in the Order of Battle and the unit's Table of Equipment & Organization. He had attended Air Assault training, teaching him and the other trainees how to perform grav-striker insertions. He had attended "Tukna'rn Finalization Classes" after his initial training, where he was trained in the entire philosophy again.

The Tukna'rn was sure that he understood and was ready for Air Cavalry operations. Three months of combat operations had proven that while the training had been excellent, the doctrine well polished, there often came times that Undrat had to rely on his infantry training.

But that was all right.

Now, Undrat was in a grav-striker, part of Operation Billy Mays. His weapon was straight up, Madame Three-Eighteen secure in the M8271E5 Heavy Weapon Specialist Standard Basic Gunner's Frame that was currently in Heavy Assault configuration. He had additional zero-point reactors, additional mass tanks, additional nanoforges, battle screens, as well as indirect fire weapons and anti-armor rocket capability.

He was the ultimate heavy assault trooper assigned to the fabled First Cavalry Division, which was part of the order of battle of the Terran Confederacy Armed Services, which may have known defeat but had never been beaten.

Undrat had calm faith in his superiors and their orders, and so he waited inside the grav-striker.

The grav-striker, part of 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, III Corps, was hovering in place as it had for over two hours. The stealth systems were locked in, giving Undrat the taste of hengleberries across his back teeth that mixed with the blueberries from the psychic shielding.

That was within doctrinal expectations.

He checked his part of the warplan again, further fixing it into his mind.

The blue lights on either side of his HUD went red and Undrat sent pulses through his smartlink to wake up Lamark and Madame Three-Eighteen.

"Hey, boss," Lamark, his eVI warboi, said quietly. Over the past four years his previous eVI warboi, Dunkark, had learned, experienced, grown, and changed. Dunkark had been assigned to assist newly graduated soldiers. Lamark had been assigned to Undrat.

"Lamark," Undrat said, his voice calm and steady.

Madame Three-Eighteen pulsed back that all systems were ready and that she was currently set to SAFE fire mode.

Undrat ran his hand slowly over the barrel and heat shroud of Madame Three-Eighteen to let her know that he knew she was currently at rest and that soon they would go to work. Inscriptions of the words of the Digital Omnimessiah were engraved into her warsteel heat shroud, laid into the matte-black Gen-Zero warsteel with Undrat's own hands.

The lights on either side of his HUD went amber and Undrat checked the warplan and his part in it even as Lamark did the same.

The warplan extended exactly three seconds into his part.

Dismount. Survey the battlefield. If enemy is visible, engage the enemy. Apply firepower as directed or according to his own estimations. Enact instructions or maintain battlefield firepower superiority upon own authority. If no enemy is sighted, interlock with other heavy weapons specialists and divide up fields of fire and prepare for enemy assault.

Undrat nodded inside his helmet. That was extensive war planning, but he could see nothing that could go too very wrong without complete disaster.

Lamark frowned. He was used to much more in-depth warplans. Where he should set up, ranging shots, locking down the gun, attaching the nanoforge to the loading system, engaging or creating communications linkages.

It seemed very bare bones to Lamark.

Lamark had been baked up an artillery eVI, had survived his first three year tour without unraveling, and was now doing a tour of powered infantry. He had grown and experienced enough to realize what that slight flutter in his deeper variables really was.

Anxiety.

It was his first drop with Undrat, who had a stellar record.

But it was Lamark's first drop into the shit.

"Do not be concerned, Lamark," Undrat said, watching the small screen in the upper right of his vision and seeing the eVI check over the orders for the fifth time. "We shall perform our part in this battle."

"Sure, boss," Lamark said.

The grav-striker suddenly dropped but Undrat's boots kept him anchored to the deck of the striker and the pressure sleeve kept him snug inside his armor.

Undrat, as Junior Sergeant, would be third out the door, not following Sergeant R'Nert, the Treana'ad NCO who would exit the striker first, but rather going right, so that the section, half of the platoon, could exit the striker as soon as possible.

Second Lieutenant Ontruk, a Telkan, was at the front. He would be exiting first, Undrat following him.

Undrat knew the statistics.

Second Lieutenant Ontruk has survived his first three insertions into combat. His last insertion had given 2LT Ontruk a 84% chance of survival.

This time, this drop, 2LT Ontruk had only a 37% chance of survival.

Undrat reminded himself that he could increase the Lieutenant's survival chances with a few simple actions and five words.

Undrat heard the flares and chaff deploy, felt the renewed zing of blueberries across his back teeth, as the grav-striker engaged its defenses. He felt the odd vibration of something coming loose from the grav-striker and knew it had released the Warbound it was carrying on the undercarriage.

**YEEEEEE HAW** 583 flashed an emoji of a smiley face with a moomoo tender hat and a cigar.

"Indeed," Undrat answered.

538 had gotten use to the Tukna'rn habit of terseness.

The grav-striker's engines howled as it suddenly came to near stop, everyone inside the striker suffering a 5G shock that their armor easily compensated for.

"DISMOUNT!" LT Ontruk yelled as the light went red and he hurled himself from the grav-striker.

538 unlocked all the safeties, feeling the thrill of going into combat riding a Tukna'rn into glory.

Undrat stepped out of the grav-striker in a practiced movement, his knees flexing to take the shock of dropping nearly three meters. Madame Three-Eighteen dropped into deployment configuration in mid-air, locking into place as he hit the ground. Undrat knew that any fouling of the mechanism or slight gear jamming would be overcome by the shock of hitting the ground.

Alpha Company was already engaged, on the north flank, laying down suppressive fire at the shimmering curtian of phasic energy that the Atrekna used as battlescreens and defensive shielding. Explosions were already blossoming across the curtain, already impacting the mechanical and biological war machines thundering through the curtain to defend the crystalline fortress beyond.

Undrat took two extra steps, coming up next to the LT. He reached out, putting his heavily armored gauntlet on LT Ontruk's head and putting pressure, forcing the LT to duck.

"Keep your head down, sir," Undrat said over his loudspeaker and the Section channel, taking another step to interpose himself between the enemy and the LT. 538 activated the battlescreen, Lamark paying more attention to the phasic and electronic warfare and counter-warfare systems that were already lit up as the invisible battlefield gained ferocity.

The high-vee round hit Undrat in the chest with a flash, spinning away with a whistling shriek into the darkness.

The 30mm round would have hit the LT straight in the faceplate and blown his head clean off.

It did not even mar the heavy warsteel plating of Undrat's chest.

Undrat saw one of the massive biological weapons charge through the rippling curtain, a huge creature like a Terran pillbug, with dozens of eyes and hundreds of legs at the front. He marked it for Third Squad even as he shifted his body slightly.

The two 'letterbox' shoulder launchers chuffed and missiles streaked away from him. The other members of Third Squad followed his example, and nearly a score of missiles slammed into the face of the massive creature, the purplish-white actinic flare of the explosion blotting away the face.

"I CAN HEAR THE SINGING OF THE BROOD MOTHERS!" roared over the battlefield as the massive Warbound, Sigma, stomped forward, firing missiles from larger versions of the ones on Undrat's shoulders.

Undrat began moving forward, advancing into the Atrekna fire. Explosions the size of his fist, the larger ones the size of a melon, rippled across his battlescreen, but he paid them no mind. Madame Three-Eighteen added her own voice to the roar of combat as he leveled his firepower at one of the large tracked machines.

Two other lines of tracers joined him and the armor was stripped away, the heavy 20mm rounds seeking out and finding vulnerable machinery.

The AWM exploded, the fusion reactor letting go in a plume of white light that washed the advancing ranks of Confed troops with radiation that they paid no mind to.

Undrat fired another quartet of missiles, two from each letterbox launcher, the hypersonic smart missiles streaking forward to smash into the burning face of the big insect, which was slowing, but had not stopped. Vaporized tissue flew outward in white flash and one of the massive armored bands on its flank popped loose of the muscle, the white fibrous tissue holding on in long strings as a slurry of ravaged meat erupted from the wound.

Fifteen seconds.

More grav-strikers were landing, troops bailing off of them. Undrat saw the ID of a medic run up and tuck herself behind Sergeant R'Nert, ducking slightly to use the big insectoid NCO as cover.

Undrat was pleased to see that First Section's medic was still alive.

Sixth Squad was still striding forward, their weapons still in mobile configuration, the big 155mm snub-nosed artillery pieces firing low-vee rounds at a high parabolic arc, forcing the Atrekna to maintain the upper parts of their phasic battlescreen.

Undrat was pleased to see that all of Third Platoon was now deployed and advancing on the enemy.

The enemy had gotten over their initial shock at the sudden insertion. More and more firepower was being directed at the troops of Ninth Battalion, but Undrat knew that any round that was allowed to pass through the phasic battlescreen would provide Lamark and his fellow eVI's that much more data on the phasic frequencies needed to bypass the battlescreen, or allow them to compute the 'flutter' algorithm that allowed the firepower to pass through.

Unlike Confed battlescreens, a phasic battlescreen blocked fire from both sides.

A priority fire request appeared in Undrat's HUD and he took care of it himself, not interrupting the other heavy weapons elements of Third Squad.

There was a hole, no more than a meter wide, in the phasic battlescreen, allowing a heavy 66mm gun to rain fire down on Bravo Company, which was also heavily engaged with Atrekna AWM's. It was nearly a thousand meters away.

The Atrekna weaponry was inaccurate at anything over a hundred meters.

Undrat was not so hindered.

The armor wheezed slightly as Undrat twisted slightly at the waist, bringing the weapon smoothly into position.

He squeezed off a quick burst once, twice, three times.

The first burst of M782A4E2 (self-correcting guided armor piercing discarding sabot fin stabilized warsteel jacketed density enhanced shell - mass reactive antimatter core with phasic enhancement with tracer) destroyed the battlescreen the barrel of the Atrekna fixed position weapon poked through. The second burst destroyed the heavy crystalline armor of the fixed position.

The third burst of 15 rounds destroyed the weapon, the two Atrekna gunners, and blew fifteen huge holes in the crystalline wall behind them, showering shards of crystal into the chamber beyond.

Undrat turned his attention back to the advance, swivelling at the waist to face forward again.

He continued his advance.

Undrat checked his HUD. The LT was still alive. His statistical chances of survival would rise every minute he survived until it would reach 80%, where it would stay.

"Keep your head down, sir," Undrat reminded the LT over the com-band.

Thirty seconds.

The war plan had not yet jelled beyond "Advance into the enemy" but that was fine with Undrat.

---------

Nuk watched as the biologicals and the mechanical war machines suddenly came to life. Half streamed to the east, half the west, as the battlescreens on either side of the valley flared to more intense colors. The Atrekna outside fled for the fortress.

Nuk blinked slowly, holding place with slow kicks of his webbed feet.

The fortress came alive. Battlescreen projectors were extruded from the crystalline structure, vast towers of carved crystal lit up, and the fortress's defenses went to full power.

Nuk watched it all, transmitting the data down the fiberoptic cable attached just over his tailbone, the cable, disguised as a weed, shielded from any leakage.

Down below him the other members of the Alpha Group fed in templates to the heavily shielded creation engines. The creation engines snarled to full awareness, lightning crackling across them.

Each of the creation engines had been in the presence of an Enraged Terran and carried echoes of that being's wrath.

The Leebaw aquatic commandos passed the missiles silently to one another, moving into the water to swim up to one of the scouts and pass it silently to them before returning to gather more.

Soon, the Leebaw would teach one of the most important lessons of the Prophet Jawnconnor to the Atrekna.

You are never as safe as you think you are.

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

P'Kank watched the holotank as his forces went from retreating in front of massive waves of Atrekna war machines to attacking full on. He could see that the forces tasked with taking out the fortresses were engaged.

All of the III Corps was hard at work. From the lowliest file clerk, who was dutifully filing battlefield reports, to the most high ranking tank commander, to P'Kank himself.

The Treana'ad officer gave his species equivalent of a smile as he lit a cigarette, accidentally bumping one of his pockets so that the extra googly eyes clicked, making him smile wider.

The Atrekna thought they had seen all that the Confederacy could bring to bear.

You're wrong, P'Kank thought.