Well, that was a thing...

Ret.lek was a Crel'tek. One of the larger of the Civilized Species, standing at 1.2 meters tall and weighing in at a heavy fifty-point-five kilograms at his last weigh-in, Ret.lek was the first of his species to pass the intense combat course that Ret.lek had seen wash out Unified Military Council veterans. With short brown fur down his spine and across his shoulders, his exposed skin was pebbled and soft to the touch, a deep gray with dark green highlights. His big violet eyes were close set like a predator despite the fact his species had herbivore's teeth.

He was also a combat decorated veteran.

A Davion Class Warmek pilot, he piloted a single operator Storm Reaver. Ninety metric short tons of armor, weapons, defensive systems, and sheer unstoppable Confederate Armed Services attitude. Storm Reavers, packed four snub-nosed PPC's, two 15-pack long range missile launchers and four 6-pack launchers as well as a handful of pulse lasers and a quad rotary autocannon.

It was the pride and joy of Private First Class Ret.lek and four green mantid engineers.

During the Shade Night he had fought shoulder to shoulder with the Treana'ad War Hordes and the Lanaktallan Cybernetic Herd, standing next to the unit XO, the only living Terran that Ret.lek had ever seen, swinging a Treana'ad warrior caste survival knife with both hands.

Now he sat next to Lance Commander Norgulk in the briefing room while Captain Stomps Your Guts Out leaned against the wall, watching the new First Shirt go through the briefing. The black mantid officer had his bladearms folded behind his back and his grasping arms folded on his chest.

Ret.lek was paying attention even though the First Shirt kept going over the same data.

Enemy uses high energy coherent light weaponry. Check.

Enemy uses multiple multi-role vehicle types. Check.

Enemy uses air support in multiple roles. Check.

Enemy uses infantry supported multi-role armored units. Check.

Ret.lek doodled a Hesstlan wearing a grav-skiing mask with an axe chasing an Atrekna that had 'scared squid noises' above some wavy lines emanating from its head as the First Shirt kept droning on and on.

"That's good, First Sergeant," Captain Stomps said, pushing himself away from the wall.

The First Shirt nodded and moved away as the Captain moved up.

"All right, pay attention again, gentlebeings," the Captain said.

Ret.lek looked up from where he had animated the doodle on his datapad.

"The enemy is in force. There is no civilian populace to be concerned with, since this is one of the Terran Tomb Worlds. Scans have shown no shades or walking dead present, so at least we have that going for them. The enemy has largely dug in around universities, R&D labs, and other technology heavy areas," the Captain said. "Our job is to show them that even though the Terrans are gone, this is still Confederate Space and the Confederacy will still defend it."

He reached back and tapped the overhead projector screen. "The important part is the planet. Space Force will take on the enemy's naval capability, we'll kick them off the planet. It's a standard search and destroy with a loosened ROE."

Ret.lek nodded to himself.

"You'll be podding in. Lance clusters only. We'll going full Shawkenaww, podding in straight into the enemy's forces. Guns free as soon as your pod unfolds. We'll get updates from NAVINT and MILINT once we're on the ground," Stomps said. He tapped the screen again, making the red lines ripple. "We're the first mekjawks on the ground from Council Space. Let's show everyone else that we've got what it takes to face off in The Zone."

The Captain put his bladearm behind his back and leaned forward. "Get to your meks."

Ret.lek joined the others in yelling "HOOAH!" as he stood up.

-----

"How's Twinkle Toes looking, guys?" Ret.lek asked his four green mantid engineers.

204, 772, and 930 had been with him since Operation Black Cherry Buster. The newbie, 336, had replaced the green mantid that had died during Shade Night. They were all in armor and strapped into their engineer compartments.

**big made of metal picture of naked terran on it** 204 said.

**like big stompy robot** 772 answered.

**hurr dee hurr* 930 said, flashing a picture of a Terran male dressed all in black with blanket on his back, holding a megaphone, and yelling at some old buildings 'HAS ANYONE SEEN THE JOKER?".

**good green boards good to go** 336 answered, feeling slightly nervous and flashing symbols of worry between his antenna.

"All right. We're in the launch queue," Ret.lek informed them. He knew that they knew that, but it was part of pre-launch to come right out and say it.

**wait was in ice cream line** 772 said.

930 threw out a meme of a black haired Terran male in a nice suit looking one way, then the other, confusion on his face.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ret.lek laughed.

His counter went to 2 and Ret.lek let the greenies know.

The counter went to 1.

"Warm up the PPC's. These guys use heavy superconductor laminates in their armor, let's see if we can blow the outer armor off. Gimme shake and bake templates ready to in the rotary," Ret.lek ordered. He closed his eyes and opened them again. "Probably have a few stealth missions after this."

**lurr dee lurr** 930 answered.

"Are you ever going to get your translator fixed?" Ret.lek asked.

**durrrr* 930 replied, tossing up an image of a fat yellow Terran sitting in a chair next to a machine marked "LIE DETECTOR" that suddenly exploded.

"Understood," Ret.lek answered, smiling and shaking his head.

The picture flickered and the iron haired XO appeared, his image made up of shades of silver and red.

"You good, Wrecker?" the XO asked. He looked perfectly calm, in his neural helmet and cooling vest, a smokestick in his mouth.

Ret.lek nodded. "Good, sir."

"All right. You'll be launching in ninety. Stay frosty," the XO said.

The picture winked out.

A thirty second countdown appeared.

"Get ready," Ret.lek warned.

He felt the 'kick' of the graviton drivers firing his mek drop-pod at the planet's surface.

For long minutes, nothing happened, then the pod began to vibrate slightly.

**graviton seven kicking checky checky** 772 said.

Ret.lek checked the board. The graviton stabilizers were handling the re-entry now that he was hitting actual atmosphere. Graviton stabilizer seven handled the lower Z-axis stabilization.

"Negative, leave it unless the issue doubles," Ret.lek ordered.

**roger roger** 772 said. 930 threw up an image of a beige robot with a weird cone head saying the same thing.

The shuddering started getting worse and Ret.lek kept his eyes on his re-entry trajectory. Last thing he wanted was to start tumbling or somehow end up of his trajectory so that he ended up fighting on his own for a day or two like a few drops prior.

"Sigma Lance, check in," LC Norgulk ordered.

Ret.lek waited till it was his turn. "Sigma-Five, green lights, still in the pipe," he said.

"Sigma-Five, you're point by eight kilometers. Adjusting your pipeline," the Lance Commander said.

The channel closed.

Ret.lek could feel the graviton systems shifting his flight profile. Graviton seven kicked a few times, but stayed in tolerances.

A minute later heavy thumping could be heard and Ret.lek looked over at the pod status.

His pod was dumping flares and countermeasures, the laser anti-missile system going live and firing.

"Taking ground fire," Ret.lek reported. "Plasma blooms and light high altitude low speed supersonic missiles."

"Roger, Sigma-Five," LC Norgulk answered.

Ret.lek watched the feeds as more missiles and plasma bursts started being disrupted. The VI decided that a few of the hits were close enough and fired up the battlescreens on the pods. Parabolic curve reversal was ran through and transmitted to Fleet for counter-battery fire. Missile trajectory was reverse plotted and sent to MILINT and NAVINT.

There was a white flash that blanked the screens for a split second as someone popped off an atom smahser.

"XO's pod is hit and tumbling," Lieutenant Gawnarwark said. "Taking over XO slot."

"Roger," Captain Stomps said.

He was at 80,000 meters and dropping fast, the ground fire was picking up volume as he dropped into closer missile and rocket range.

"Anyone see any strikers?" Gamma-Four asked over the channel.

"Negative," was the responses.

Ret.lek checked his feed. He was in the lead of the entire division by five kilometers and widening out.

"Any reason we're fastballing it here, fellas?" he asked the mantids.

**checking** they answered.

75,000 meters. He was moving at 575 m/s at a hard angle. Heat was rising, but the ablative heat shielding was still holding at just below ablation temperature. Friction heating was far below even warming temperature for warsteel-v, so Ret.lek wasn't worried about temp.

**all green** 204 said. **kicking boards**

930 sent a meme of a haggard looking Terran swinging a wrench and beating a computer console yelling "Burgerland parts! Vodkatrog parts! All made in CMOS Island!"

Speed was starting to drop at atmospheric resistance got thicker. Ret.lek felt the pod shudder as it dropped below supersonic, air displacement no longer producing the 'sonic boom'.

The pod shuddered again as groundfire picked up.

"We're an easy target, guys," Ret.lek warned.

**boards all green** 204 sent back.

Ret.lek just nodded. "Warm up the battlescreen projectors. Hotload the cyclic replacements. Bring the weapons up to amber," Ret.lek said.

"Sigma-Five, you're getting a little ahead of the band, twirling your baton up there," Sigma-Leader LC Norgulk warned.

"All boards green. Must have been my flight profile," Ret.lek said. "Still using loaded flight profile."

"You're going to overshoot the landing zone by at least five miles," Norgulk warned.

"I'll jog back," Ret.lek grinned.

60,000 meters and 420 m/s.

"Doublecheck the drogue chutes and the physical suits, warm up the hard-light braking chutes," Ret.lek said.

It was weird. He felt perfectly calm, even though this was something he had only experienced in the simulator once, during AIT.

55,000 meters altitude, 390 m/s.

He had the computer run the landing trajectory again.

318.21 seconds, 4G impact at 22 m/s.

Ret.lek nodded.

"Spin up the integrity for Twinkle, we're going to hit pretty hard," Ret.lek warned.

One of the screens blinked and Ret.lek saw "MILINT/NAVINT UPDATE" flash on the screen. He tabbed it up and cursed.

He'd be slamming down in the middle of at least two division's worth of enemy armor, all packed.

"We'll be engaged as soon as we pop the pod," he warned.

32,000. 315 m/s. 295 seconds.

"Sigma Leader, this Sigma-Five, request authorization for Bowie-Spikes," Ret.lek transmitted. He switched the greenies. "Set pod configuration from an infantry gut truck to a warmek support pod."

**roger roger**

"Sigma-Five, you are authorized for Bowie-Spike. No friendlies or civilians in your Aye-Oh-Oh," the Lance Commander answered after thirty seconds. "Hold what you take."

"Roger," Ret.lek said.

18,000. 240 m/s. 216 seconds.

He felt the graviton and the antigrav kick on, slamming him hard against the restraint buckles. The pod howled even as it shuddered.

NAVINT was feeding him optics on the landing area.

"Load up the lipstick, boys," Ret.lek said.

**bowie spike templates loading** 204 answered.,

Hundreds of armored vehicles, all drawn up in neat lines. He could see beings running from buildings toward the tanks, made insect sized by the distance.

"We'll come out hot," Ret.lek warned.

He tapped the system, altering his landing profile, so he'd hit dead center of the vehicle yard.

The graviton system howled as the pod shifted its flight profile slightly to the east and north.

"Get ready," Ret.lek said. He grabbed his mouth guard and put it in, biting hard.

10,000 meters. 195 m/s. 75 seconds.

He closed his eyes and hit the button. The cyberjack slid home and he felt his body expand. The neural helmet went live and his vest tightened as the coolant pumped into it. The cockpit suddenly went chilly and he felt Twinkle Toes go live as the reactor went from standby to full power.

"Thirty seconds," he warned. "Overpressurize weapon cooling fluid."

The greenies flashed back ready.

The retrothruster systems roared and the graviton systems howled.

"IMPACT IMPACT IM..." Ret.lek chanted.

The pod hit, slamming hard into the ground. The shockwave sent nearby armored vehicles tumbling, blew a crater in the ground, and shook the surrounding buildings. Beings, some in just uniforms, others in armor, went flying away. Those closest were torn apart by the shockwave, the ones furthest staggered as the ground heaved and the shockwave passed over them.

"PACT!" Ret.lek said.

"DEPLOY! DEPLOY! DEPLOY!" Ret.lek yelled, dropping the side of the pod.

Everything went live as Ret.lek stomped out of the pod. The wide whined as Ret.lek leveled both arms on the massive warmek and triggered the PPC's in alternating fire order. The man-made lightning tore apart armor and shattered the vehicles, sending debris showering everywhere.

He could see the logo on the buildings.

FLYING BRICK AEROSPACE INDUSTRIAL CARTEL was on all the buildings. Warehouses, pressurized tanks, huge pipes, office buildings.

Hope nobody's heavily invested in their stock, Ret.lek thought to himself.

"FOX-ONE! AWAY ONE!" Ret.lek called out, firing a single missile from his SRM rack.

The missile arced up, clawing for altitude, even as Ret.lek slowly turned, firing his PPC's, arms down, elbows bent, even as he walked forward. The pod had closed and guns were popping up.

The missile hit 2,500 meters and detonated.

The 15 kt atom smasher washed over him, not even ticking his rad warnings or discoloring his armor as he went to work.

The others began to detonate.

He stood in the middle of an circle of nearly a dozen 15 kt atomic explosions, going to full rapid fire on his guns. The buildings were all modern hyperalloy construction, the armored vehicles were all modern battlesteel laminates.

They survived.

The crews and infantry running for the tanks didn't.

Pipes shattered, macroplas windows exploded inwards, paper and other materials burst into flame from the thermal pulse. The shockwave pulped the beings running for their vehicles, throwing others against the vehicles or just picking them up, tearing them apart, and throwing the pieces.

Ret.lek knew that if the explosive force was sufficient to tear apart metal it would rip apart meat, even if you jumped in the air.

He planted his feet, vented the weapon coolant in a spray of superheated steam, and started firing even as he stomped in a circle around the pod.

**xo transponder go blinky blinky** 204 said.

"Like a fall from orbit is gonna kill a human," Ret.lek snickered, raking the building with all the antenna with his autocannon, watching the entire side blow in.

930 sent a meme of a Terran with short hair listening to his cellphone as he fell through the air toward city streets, with the caption "I should check my voicemail" underneath.

Ret.lek laughed even as he raked another building with the dual underslung snub-nose PPC's on his right arm. The building exploded outward as the energy transfer superheated the ferrocrete. White light shown as the lime in the ferrocrete began to burn.

Detainee's tits, I love this job!