ERTUNU SYSTEM

35 PGT (Post Glassing of Terra)

The ship was massive, heavily armed and armored, with huge engines and heavy guns. The shields glimmered in space, nearly concealing the vessel. It moved with a slow, ominous purpose into the system.

The system was dying. The planets that could sustain life had taken heavy orbital bombardment. Any defensive emplacement had been blotted away with antimatter and nuclear detonation forged X-ray lasers that had raked and clawed at the very bedrock. Every defending ship was a slowly expanding debris field.

A second ship was moving in to intercept the first. No shields were up, but the ship was so different as to suggest different species. The second was baroque, ornate, the massive nCv cannons in the prow placed so as to seem as if they would be firing from the jaws of a massive skull. The eyes burned red as the ship slowed down to match velocity and heading with the first ship.

On the bridge of the first ship a man gave a slight snarl at the sight of the newcomer.

He was tall, powerfully built, clad in Imperium heavy assault trooper armor, which made him even taller and broader. His brown skin shone in the lights of the bridge, highlighting the scars on his scalp and sides of his head. His eyes were startling blue, with no white, just glittering sapphire-like blue. His teeth were white and even, his nose strong and broad, and his skin smooth shaven.

"MiLord, we're detecting a mat-trans..." one of the technicians started.

With a roar space split open in an open area of the bridge.

What stepped through was another man, followed by a heavily modified cybernetic hound. The man's features were blocky, heavy, and the tattoos on his face were peppered with small white scars. The hound's legs and its rear haunches were replaced by cybernetics, as was its spine.

"Daxin," the first man said, nodding.

"Brother," Daxin said, looking around. "No troopships. Planning on taking on the the Mantid on the planet by yourself, Kalki?"

The first man, Kalki, shook his head. "No, brother. They do not deserve nor warrant an expenditure of my effort or resources," he motioned at the cybernetic hound. "So, he is still succumbing to the Friend Plague?"

Daxin nodded, reaching down with outstretched fingers. The hound lifted its head to be scratched between the ears.

"You believe if you attach enough technology to him, you can save him," Kalki scoffed, turning and looking at the planet, which was displayed on the forward viewscreen as well as a half dozen holotanks.

"I don't give up on my friends," Daxin said. He took two steps forward. "I don't give up on my brothers."

Several of the bridge crew gasped at the heresy, that Daxin would speak such to their lord.

"Our Digital Father is dead, betrayed by Legion, who he raised from the least of us, as he betrayed us to the Imperium," Kalki said. "Matthias himself has spoken to me face to face of what he witnessed when our Digital Father was slain."

"Yet we are still brothers, are we not, Kalki?" Daxin asked. He looked at the holotank. "You did good work here. Fifty-three point five billion sentients, only twenty-two million mantid warrior caste. No queen, lilght speaker presence. Shouldn't take more than a month to clear the world."

Kalki shook his head. "Oh, it will be much quicker than that, brother. Those beings are cattle, have been cattle for only the Digital Omnimessiah knows how long. I will be doing them a mercy."

"We are within firing range, milord," one of the technicians said.

Daxin slowly turned to Kalki. "You best start explaining right quick, brother."

"Geological resonance weaponry will wipe away the mantid and their larder," Kalki said, as if none of it mattered. "This system provided food for two dozen worlds. Food for their warriors, speakers, queens, all of them. Emotions and flesh, misery and meat. I shall wipe it away and cripple their efforts in this sector."

Daxin reached down and petted the fur between the Dogboi's ears.

"Kalki, we can save these people. Bellona and Guanya can be here in hours. We can land in force, kill the mantid, save all of these people," Daxin said slowly. He looked at one of the tanks. "Biological Christ, Kalki, there's three species we've never even seen before on that planet."

"And how long have they been nothing but cattle? They may be unknown species, but they are little more than food. Mindless terror, forced breeding and feeding, corralled and harvested," Kalki said. He turned to the technicians. "Prepare the GRC," he said, referring to the geological resonance cannon.

"Belay that, dammit," Daxin snapped.

"Ignore him. Continue preparing the GRC," Kalki said, his voice dead and empty of anything but an echo of fury and rage, a slight spice of hate dusted across the cold words.

"Dammit, Kalki, those are living people down there. There's one point two billion humans down there! That's more humans than are alive in the Sol System, in the entire blasted Republic!" Daxin yelled, pointing.

"Nothing but cattle for two, three generations," Kalki said, still staring at the tank. "I bring them our Digital Father's mercy."

"Don't you give me that. Do not fire on that planet. I'll liberate it myself if I have to. Get Bellona, hell, get Kibuka, Green Thomas, even Peter would be with us for that. There's over a billion humans down there. Do. Not. Fire," Daxin said, stepping forward.

"You don't give orders on this ship, Daxin, this isn't the Hamburger Kingdom," Kalki said, finally turning to face his brother. Purple sparks snapped in his white teeth as he spoke. "I give the orders here. The Imperium bestowed upon me this ship, commanded me to wipe the mantid from the universe, and I will carry that directive out."

"At what cost?" Daxin asked, spreading his hands out. "We're on the edge of going out, there's less than a billion of us in known space, and you're about to kill more than we even thought existed."

"Don't speak to me of morality, Burgerlander," Kalki sneered. "Your nation is gone, glassed, just as mine was. Do not speak to me as if you are a lord on high and I your peasant."

Kalki turned away. "Things changed with the glassing of Terra, you should be aware of such. Not even your status as the first of the Biological Apostles carries weight here, nor does your rank within the weak and fallen Combine or even the failed Third Republic. There is no hamburger here for you to devour, no oil for you to covet, no precious metal for you to rip from the earth, no children to set to work in slave factories to produce luxuries for your idle parasites."

"You got a lot of guts saying shit like that after everything that has happened," Daxin snarled.

"It was your people who reached for the stars, let the mantid know we were here, Burgerlander. You and the Your-A-Goons. No longer are people like me afraid to speak out. Legion has slain our Digital Father and the Imperium has stripped away the bindings of our brotherhood. Do not bring morality into this, Burgerlander, I remember what your people have done in the name of greed and the Feast of the Pig. Go be fat and stupid somewhere else, brother."

"Don't give me that, you Andes Mountains goat-fucking sheep herder. You couldn't tell me the name of your origin country if I put a gun in your ear. Before we found you you couldn't have counted to twenty-one without opening your pants," Daxin snapped. "You couldn't even read when our Digital Father found you, starving and dying of radiation that you couldn't understand. He saved you, I begged him to save you, down on one knee."

"That no matters, Burgerlander."

Daxin clenched his fists. "Our Digital Father made us equal to one another, as we were in his eyes. He washed away the sins of our past and let us see. We're brothers, Kalki."

"That was then, brother, this is now," Kalki said.

"GRC at 50% and rising," a technician said.

"I'm warning you, Kalki," Daxin said.

Kalki laughed, turning fully to face Daxin, one hand dropping down to the forceblade at his hip. "You dare attempt to defy me on the very bridge of my armored hate made manifest."

Daxin's hands opened closed slowly, sparks popping off his knuckles. "Don't do this, brother. In the name of our Digital Father, do not do this. Do not make me do this."

"Typical Burgerlander, proclaiming innocence and placing the blame on the one he is making threats and ultimatums toward," Kalki sneered. "But I am no defenseless village girl, and you are no Red Can Mercenary."

The two men faced one another, thin tendrils of electricity crawling over their armor, sparks snarling on their knuckles.

"Set aside the old hatreds, Kalki, as our Digital Father bade us. Spare these people. I will join you in liberating them," Daxin said. "Slow your roll, brother, and show these people mercy."

"I am showing them mercy," Kalki sneered. "The mercy of the strong to the weak, as the Hamburger Kingdom taught the world."

"GRC at 75%."

"Don't. Do. This," Daxin growled.

Kalki's eyes narrowed and he moved, far faster than anyone that large had any right to, far faster than any normal man. His hand pulled his force blade from his waist, the blade igniting with a crack, a burning arc of fiery energy that he pulled back and brought down into the face of his brother.

The forceblade was stopped by Daxin's heavily gauntleted hand. Kalki's eyes opened in surprise as Daxin's hand squeezed, the blade's generators starting to whine and the hilt heating up in Kalki's hand. Sparks showered over the two men, arcing up in an umbrella from where the blade was held.

"You made me do this," Daxin snarled, his face lit by the showering sparks.

"Typical Burgerlander, always putting the blame on your victims," Kalki sneered, his eyes sparkling with the fury of his stilled blade. "What do you think you will do, as we are evenly matched, brother."

The punch, heavy knuckles scarred with decades of fighting, powered by rock hard enhanced muscle and the pistons of the heavy combat armor, smashed into Kalki's face, flattening his nose, spraying out a fan of blood. The second punch took Kalki in the eye, smashing the socket, turning the eye white.

The third hit him in the side of the head, making his knees buckle.

Only his enhancements saved him from the sheer power of punches that could rip through battlesteel.

"We never fought, not for real, Kalki," Daxin snarled as the other man went down on his knees. Kalki looked up, his working eye confused, his face swelling. "I survived Delta City."

"I survived Aspen," Daxin kneed him in the chin, snapping Kalki's head back, his jaw breaking with a loud crack.

"I survived the Immortals Project," Daxin drove his fist into Kalki's face, teeth shattering and lips splitting.

"I survived Anthill." Kalki landed on his back with a crash, staring up, his one working eye glazed.

"Shut down the GRC," Daxin ordered, putting his boot on Kalki's chest.

The bridge crew set about following his orders.

Daxin looked down at Kalki. "The Imperium infected you with some kind of sickness, brother," he said softly. "But you cannot just omnicide everyone you come across."

"Do it, Burgerlander. Kill me, as is your people's ways," Kalki burbled through blood and broken teeth.

"You couldn't find Burgerland on a map, much less tell me what it really was. But the past is gone, brother, as is our nations and all of those grievances," he said softly. He looked up. "Bellona, Menhit, we need you," he said softly.

With a puff of purple smoke the two women appeared. Bellona wore an Imperium Admiral's uniform, Menhit was clad in ornate heavy assault power armor.

"Take our brother back to Earth. Back to his beloved Andes Mountains," Daxin said. He looked down at the half conscious Immortal at his feet. "Perhaps some time home will heal his spirit."

"You did not slay him," Bellona said, gurgling slightly. "You remembered that he is, and always will be, our beloved brother."

"His deeds are not yet done. He still has tasks of great importance to perform," Menhit said softly. She moved over to Kalki and knelt down, touching the unbruised side of his face. "Like us, he is in great pain. The Imperium has twisted and warped our brother into a mockery of the loving man he once was."

"Take him home, Menhit," Daxin said. He looked at the planet, which still sat in the holotanks and on the viewscreen. "Alert Green Thomas and Cybernetic Peter, as well as Kibuka, I need their help."

"As you will, Eldest Brother," Menhit said. She closed her eyes.

Kalki and Menhit suddenly dissolved into long strings that writhed and twisted and vibrated, still appearing as themselves, with the same coloration, but made entirely out of hair thin strings. With a puff of red and white streaked smoke they were gone.

"And me?" Bellona asked.

Daxin shifted, putting his hands on a railing. "Keep looking."

"Are you sure?" Bellona asked. "Armored Matthias said it is useless, that he has fled the galatic arm toward the core, and bade me to rejoin the war effort."

"No. I want him found," Daxin snarled. Lighting flickered off his clenched hands, dancing on the metal bar he was holding. "Find him, and bring him to me."

"As you will," Bellona said.

With a puff of purple smoke she was gone.

"You betrayed us all," Daxin said softly, reaching down to scratch the fur between the canine's ears. "But you did not kill Matthias when he discovered you standing over the sundered code of our Digital Father, and you did not kill me before Matthias could warn me."

He stared at the planet, feeling the rage well up in him.

"For those mistakes, you'll pay in blood," Daxin growled.

**find badboi dhruv daxin** appeared in Daxin's vision.

"I know we will, boy," Daxin said.

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

HESSTLA SYSTEM

THIRD BATTLE FOR HESSTLA

NOW

Pure singing purpose filled Kalki, lifting his spirit, bringing a song to his lips. He did not know what had lifted the darkness from his soul, from his mind, what had leeched the poison from deep within him, but something had.

Something had stripped away the mantle of Kalki the Omnicidal from him shoulders in one painful, agonizing moment that had made him scream in agony. A great clawed hand had pinned him in place, on the bridge of his ship, tearing his soul from his body, pressing it against blackened, twisted, and blasted plains of brown dirt, and ripped away the profane from his soul with cruel mocking laughter.

The poisoned blood had flowed from him, taking the sickness the Imperium had placed inside him with cruel instruments that they had torn open his brain with.

Then the pain had stopped.

And he was complete again.

He could hear their prayers. To his Digital Father. To Daxin. To Peter.

To Kalki the Furious, Defender of the Little Peoples, of Those Too Small to Fight, of the Forgotten and Lost, Bringer of Hope to the Hopeless and Forlorn.

And at long last he was able to answer.

Beside him, on either side, were flickering white phasic shades of baby goats that danced and pranced. The Dwellerspawn and mechanical minions of the Atrekna that touched them dissolved or crashed to the ground smoking and destroyed.

Behind him, the massive war machine, almost like an Imperium Warbound, but full of singing that made Kalki's soul sing in return, was with him as they strode from the wreckage of the parking garage.

And into the face of the enemy.

As he fought, he sang.

brave podling strong podling one and one is two two and two is four yellow square is yellow blue circle is round red triangle is funny fruit is good and veggies yummy pat your head and rub your tummy

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

Undrat saw Gunnery Sergeant KaLa'aki's icon blink on his HUD right before Dunkark spoke.

"Gunny wants to talk to you," Dunkark said. His voice sounded a little fuzzy still, the repeated Temporal Resonance Cannon hits having battered and bruised the eVI.

"Private Undrat here, Gunny," Undrat said, tabbing the icon.

"Dismount your gun. Delta Company is being redeployed," the Gunny said over the comms, despite the fact he was only ten feet away. The big Treana'ad warrior was stepping back from his own gun, letting another Treana'ad take over. "Go back to the armory."

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant," Undrat said. He quit firing, stomping the bar to cool his weapon, then pulled the heavy autocannon free of the mount.

Ertralp stepped up and placed his own Madame Three-Eighteen into the fixed position, locking it in and attaching it.

Undrat moved to the back of the fighting position, to where the armory was, buried slightly deeper and with heavier protection. He noticed that the Dread Corporal, the Ultion Knight, was standing silent by the back wall.

"Command has a mission for us," Gunny KaLa'aki stated. "Apparently the Atrekna will keep bringing in reinforcements at the same place until they eventually overrun us. Command believes, based on previous engagements, that if we can take that area, plant temporal stabilizers, that we can deny the enemy that beachhead."

Undrat merely listened, as did the rest of the Tukna'rn of the company.

"The Navy will give us a single Temporal Resonance Cannon shot to knock out the enemy. We'll have full striker close air support and close artillery support from the 19th Treana'ad Artillery Brigade. We'll be marching straight into the enemy's teeth, men," the Treana'ad said.

The armorer was putting on the heavy combat gear on to the Gunnery Sergeant.

"Dread Corporal, any comments?" the Gunnery Sergeant asked.

"If we can take the area, I may be able to spot the Atrekna themselves," the Dread Corporal's voice was heavily synthesized. "I can engage them and possibly kill them. If I can see the Shift Seed, I can disable it, prevent them from using it. Which should be my target?"

"Can another Atrekna reactivate the 'shift seed' if you knock it out?" Gunny asked.

"No. No temporal or spacial shifting can take place in that zone any longer, it will be ripped away from the Atrekna's powers," the Dread Corporal said.

"Then target the shift seed first. Mark the Atrekna if you see them," he turned and looked. "Undrat, you're the best marksman with your Madame Three-Eighteen, if the Dread Corporal marks any actual Atrekna, engage them immediately, don't shift munitions, just finger on the trigger."

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant," Undrat said. The armorer was placing his weapon in a smartgun harness, his assistant attaching a secondary nanoforge and additional cooling.

"This will be ugly," the Gunny said. "But wars are not won without taking risks."

The Tukna'rn all nodded.

"I'm ready," the Dread Corporal said.

"As soon as everyone is geared up, we march," the Gunny said.

-----------

The Atrekna felt the buildup of chronotrons in orbit, snarling at the fact that space vessel was beyond their reach. Still, they had developed a counter-measure to keep themselves safe when the devastating weapon fired. They only had a scant few seconds warning, but when your defenses could be reconfigured at the speed of thought, you only needed a split second.

The gun fired, and outside turned into a thousand stars being born, dying, and reborn. The planet whipped through billions of years, and the chronotrons all screamed and vibrated as the massive gun caused them all to resonate in a rippling pattern.

The Atrekna held within their protections, taking a moment to let their bodies heal from the minor bruises and abrasions they had suffered.

Look, one sent to the others.

The Atrekna turned their attention to the fighting line between the rivers, which had so far been content to waste their strength upon wave after wave of easily replaced spawn.

Nearly two hundred armored beings had left the shelters, moving quickly through the steaming knee deep morass of riven flesh and boiled fluids.

The Atrekna sneered and activated what the Dread Corporal had called the 'shift seed', anchoring where the Atrekna were through time and space, to make it all one eternal instant and allow them to take what was or what would be into the now, to copy them, and send them into combat. They undid the protections, letting it shine in their sensors, and fed it psychic power.

Artillery started pounding the field, sending up huge sprays of dirt at first, then gouts of flesh and blood as the thickly clustered shells began to fall among the Dwellerspawn and combat machines brought, again, to this moment as a perfect copy.

The primitives were still rushing forward to their doom.

They brought forward more to face the primitives.

The damnable air combat craft swept in, dropping flaming gel, hammering with bullets, raking with missiles and rockets, almost directly in front of the primitives, who charged through the flames with a disregard to their own safety.

The slavespawn and mechanical war machines rushed forward.

Artillery and rockets blew them to scrap, hitting directly in front of the advancing primitives. Shrapnel from the rounds and from the shattered chitin and armor bounced off the advancing primitives, their armor saving them from injury.

They kept drawing closer.

The Atrekna were not worried. They would simply shift the primitives somewhen else, pin them, trap them, in a repeating loop until their strength was spent and they succumbed to a battle they were forced to fight eternally.

The Atrekna paused bringing in more slavespawn, to lure the primitives in.

The primitives rushed into the ambush.

The Atrekna reached for the shift seed, to use it to bring forth a multitude of slavespawn and combat machines.

One of the primitives, different looking than the others, who's psychic shielding screamed and raved and howled in primal agony, turned and faced the shift seed as if they could see it.

ONE AND ONE IS NONE WE NEED THREE WHERE IS THE DAWN IN THIS DARKNESS?

screamed out from the primitive as a black beam, a tear in space and time, in reality itself, lanced out and touched the shiftseed.

At the same time, before the Atrekna could react, could recover from that primal howl of agony, one of the other primitives, one of dull wit and mind, lifted his weapon.

The strange matter white phosphorous cored warsteel tipped flechettes exploded against the Atrekna psychic shields, forcing the Atrekna to devote so much psychic power that the shields became visible.

The shiftseed vanished.

Everything turned inside out for a moment as the Atrekna's power rebounded on them.

Before they could recover, the flechettes found them.

And then they were gone, what remained falling from the sky as the strange matter phosphorous burned brightly, each bit no bigger than a fractured grain of sand, the Atrekna bodies smoking as they fell to the ground.

The dull witted primitive raked fire across the larger pieces.

The tide, which had been flowing in the Atrekna's direction, was halted.

Those fighting the tide did not stop to breathe, instead, they set their feet, shifted their hands, took a deep breath, and resumed pushing.

The tide hadn't turned.

Not yet.

The Third Battle for Hesstla raged on.