Finally! New chapter!
The human transports accelerated through the blackness of space. In the ****pit of the lead ship, Lieutenant McCoy and Second Lieutenant Fisher worked on the controls, keeping in synchronization with the other transport ships and fighters as they headed for the upper atmosphere. McCoy was not wearing her headset, keeping all of her attention on the complex controls arrayed before her eyes. Fuel levels, energy shields, power readings, heat shields, stabilizers, hull stability, engine stability, and dozens of other things which had to be monitored, adjusted and corrected to ensure the dangerous ride through the atmosphere. If anything went wrong, the sixty marines in the cargo hold could easily pay the ultimate price, not the mention her and Fisher. He made a few course corrections, and then typed in the angle and velocity of atmospheric entry into the auto pilot. The computer processed for a moment, then beeped in confirmation of the data and took over the controls. She let go with sigh of relief as the transport automatically shifted in direction toward the entry vector. She slumped back in her pilot’s seat, the form absorbing material curving around her body as she relaxed. But she didn’t get to relax for long, because a few seconds later Fisher tapped her on the shoulder. He turned her head around and answered.
“What?” He looked a little weirded out at something.
“You’re not going to believe this. We just got a transmission from the Andalite fleet command.” She perked up a little more here.
“And, what do they have to say?”
“They’re ordering for us to head back to the ships, they’re ordering us to leave.”
On the bridge of the Enterprise, anger and outrage filled the air.
“They’re ordering us to do WHAT?” Admiral Scott yelled at the communications officer.
“To recall back all of our transports and fighters, and either stand back or go back to Earth.” Admiral Scott’s eyes shot murder at first the comm officer, and then at the distant Andalite fleet. He stood still and quiet for a moment, then sprung into action. Pacing over to the main screen, he snapped out and order.
“Contact the Andalite Admiral, direct COMM now!”
“Yes sir.” The comm officer said and his fingers flashed over the holographic console. There was a few seconds pause, then the holographic screen in front of Admiral Scott flickered, and the mouthless face of an Andalite appeared in front of them.
<Human vessel, what in the purpose of this communication?> Admiral Scott wasted no time with formalities.
“You, Andalite! Let me speak to your admiral, or whoever’s in charge of this fleet NOW!” The Andalite warrior gave him look of pure arrogance and contempt, then answered.
<Admiral Farath is not available at the moment. He is currently-> The thoughtspeak was cut off by Admiral Scott’s sudden outburst.
“I don’t care if he’s meeting the Electorate in the middle of a damn black HOLE! I want to speak to him and I want to speak to him RIGHT NOW! So unless you want your sharp horses ASS stuck on latrine duty in SIBERBIA, I’d suggest you put him on right NOW!” The Andalite seemed slightly taken, back, but just for a moment. His layer of oozing arrogance slithered back on in no time, and with what seemed to be a huff, he marched off screen. There was silence for a minute, then the thudding of hooves, and finally another Andalite face appeared on screen. This face was old and scarred, the face of one who’d seen many battles and had had the tar kicked out of him in each one. If possible, he appeared even more arrogant and more contemptful than the previous Andalite. He stared at him through the screen as if he were a turd rolled around in a dump.
<Human, your impudence will be a source of great cost to you in both present and futu-> Again and outburst cut in on the telepathic reprimand.
“Are you the head admiral of the Andalite fleet here?”
<Yes, I am Admiral Menstral Agrath Farath, in charge of all Andalite operations within this system.>
“Good, because I am Admiral Preston James Scott, in charge of all human operations within this solar system. I and the rest of the ships under my command have just received a message from you, ordering us to pull out of the combat and head back to Earth. Please explain why you wish us to do so, and why you believe to have command over us?” The Andalite face looked irked.
<You humans, while you valor in battle in commendable, do not know the yeerks as we do. We have fought them from the beginning, and we will fight them to the end, their end and we will not accept outside assistance in our goal> He put emphasize on the word our. Admiral Scott Barked a short, humorless laugh.
“So you don’t want outside help eh?” Well good! I don’t want you’re either. Personally, I couldn’t give a rats ass if you wanted our help or not. We are here for the sole objective of destroying a high value Yeerk stronghold, with or without your assistance. If you don’t do squat to assist our operations, land or space, we will continue regardless until this battle is won. So if you don’t want us interfering with your battle, then fine. We don’t care. We will just attack the Yeerks until they’re all dead here, then go attack them somewhere else, with our without your help. Is that understood, Admiral?” The Andalite stood in silence for a full three seconds. Some of the arrogance was gone, replaced by what may have been slight respect.
<Very well Human. Continue with your invasion as you wish>
Post Merged: April 11, 2010, 11:00:00 PM
With the orders from the Andalites reprimanded and countered, the armada of human dropships continued their journey to the hostile planet below. Normally the Yeerkish planetary automatic defense grid would have targeted, identified, and blew them to carbon atoms. However this time it was the other way around. Out of dracon range, human Rachel class destroyers targeted, identified, and blew the defensive orbital weapons platforms to smoking wreckages with their ultra-long range particle accelerator cannons. As these burning hulks lost momentum and stated their descent to burn up in atmosphere, the dropships entered the outer layer. Immediately the heat shielded noses of the dropships started to glow a hot orange with reentry friction. Besides them, fighters and heavy transports also started to catch fire as they entered the gas layer.
Felrack 436 of the Sha Neght pool had heard the news. A massive Andalite armada, consisting of thirty of their dome ships had popped out of zero space and launched a massive assault against the Yeerk force defending the Taxxon world of Taxxola. They’d always known that the attack was coming to them, just not so soon. Zero space monitoring probes had seen several groups large ships with silhouettes of dome ships gathering in the neighboring Aiif system and had started gathering a fleet to attack them while they were weak and forming up. But it was too late, the fleet had attacked. It was not as bad as it could have been, they were prepared with seven pool ships, fifteen of the boomerang shaped destroyers, and nine bladeships so they were not defenseless, not at all. But there was an additional surprise. An alien fleet consisting of fifteen vessels with varying, but very advanced weaponry had attacked with the Andalites.
Scanners had confirmed them as humans commandeering the ships, meaning of course their origin was almost defiantly human. This fact had concerned the yeerk command very much. In only eighteen years, humans had apparently utilized given Andalite technology and stolen and scavenged yeerk technology to create some very advanced technology of their own, easily rivaling the yeerk and Andalites. The initial attack had not gone well. Three destroyers and one bladeship destroyed against one domeship destroyed. But they had been caught unawares, now they would be prepared and fight much better.
But until then, there was another concern. The human ships had detached a large invasion force set to land on the ground and most likely attempt to take out the main spaceport and barracks. If they lost this would most likely lose the space battle also. Without any place to repair to refuel their ships they would eventually lose power and be burnt to cinders, either by the humans and Andalites or by the atmosphere. So Felrack 436 and his unit were being sent in to intercept a portion of the invasion force and to disorientate and disorganize the human soldiers. Felrack and the rest of the Hork-Bajir soldiers had several distinct advantages over the human marines. For starters they were physically superior. They were larger, faster, quicker than humans, and they had a natural arsenal of blades with were adhered to their skeleton and erupted from the skin at their wrists, elbows, forearms, legs, and knees. Pus that they had a thick spiked tail, razor sharp horns sprouting from their heads and clawed feet which could easily disembowel a human. The Hork-Bajir were also more experienced. Most, if not all of them, were veterans on famed conflicts such as the Hork-Bajir homeworld, Earth, the Taxxon rebellion, and of course the bombardment of the Anati world of Anat among others. So they were all tough, battle hardened veterans. But the humans did have a few advantages as well, minor as some of them may be. While the Hork-Bajir were easily stronger and faster, the humans were much more manuverable. Their size also took away an advantage the yeerks had long enjoyed while fighting the Andalites, namely their lack of the ability to hide behind cover easily. While they were fast and powerful, the Andalites quadruped lower half of their body prohibited them from doing evasive maneuvers such as rolling behind cover or dropping to the ground to avoid dracon fire. However the human marines would have no problem at all with their small, nimble, agile frames to duck and roll and such. Thus because of all these factors they would be much harder targets to track, especially with the Yeerk issue hand held dracon beams. `
The other major factor of concern to the yeerk warriors would be the weapons. Virtually all of the yeerk soldiers were equipped with hand held dracon beams, with the occasional sniper equipped with a long range rifle. But the rest were issued only hand held weapons, which did perform well. Rugged and durable, they could take a lot of punishment before failing. And since they were energy beam weapons, their accuracy was impeccable, but aiming was another matter. A small, dodging running and weaving target would be hard to hit with a handheld, regardless of accuracy. And in the middle of a pitched firefight with rounds being exchanged aiming would be only all the harder. S the advantage humans had was weapons with more steady aim but still, the yeerks would most likely win against the inexperienced human marines.
Felrack 436 was part of a very large force, three hundred Hork-Bajir and seven hundred Taxxons, all armed with dracon beams. Fifty nine skimmers were also to be deployed and provide heavy and agile fire for the yeerk soldiers. All in all, two hundred transports blazed through the Taxxon atmosphere, closely escorted by twenty fighters. It would be a heavier protection, but the bulk of the bug fighters were in space, preparing for the second round of combat against the human and Andalite coalition. Felrack hoped that would not be an action that would be regretted. He sat in the oddly designed chair, dracon beam firmly gripped in his claws. He was of a very low rank, the equivalent of a human private, but well versed in the ways of battle. He had no care for honor or heroism; he just cared about killing the enemy regardless of the method. Back-stabbing, treachery and deceit were all fully available options to him if it would kill his opponent quickest. He’d fought the Andalites before, many times in seven different engagements. He had not advanced because he wasn’t capable of command, just following orders. He had kept count of his fallen enemies and his tally now stood at twenty nine Andalites slain by his hand. He had already readied a fresh new tally for his soon-to-be numerous human kills. The dropship buckled slightly as its descent slowed. He gripped his seat a little harder, and checked the rest of his unit. Ten other hulking Hork-Bajir, looking even larger in the smaller space occupied this section of the dropship. His unit commander, Sub-Visser 439, sat by the hatch, his dracon at the ready, as were all the yeerk soldiers on board. Then, he heard something. Actually they all heard something; it was a sound they all knew too well. The sound of an explosion, a large one. The ship rocked a bit more as the shockwave hit it. As did many other unit members, Felrack went over to a viewport and looked outside.
Post Merged: June 16, 2010, 02:55:02 PM
An attack! A wing of human fighters screamed in through the atmosphere, firing. Ghost like trails indicated the paths of missiles, many of which had hit. The explosives didn’t damage the ships themselves, but the energy shields flared up, over loaded and collapsed. During this window of vulnerability they were destroyed as dozens of forty millimeter armour piercing rounds tore through the hulls and ripped apart pilots. He could see close to a dozen flaming bug fighters spiraling toward the barren Taxxon ground. Coming out of the sun, was close to twenty four of the human fighters. They were in a steep, near vertical dive on the yeerk task force, firing all weapons. Missiles streaked and homed in on targets and the heavy guns blazed away. One of the Yeerkish transports shields flared as several missiles exploded and washed it in flames, and finally they could take no more. The protective energy barrier collapsed, and almost immediately a hail of bullets struck it. The armored hull puckered as hundreds of rounds tore it asunder and found an important spot. The transport flared from somewhere within, then tongues of flame jetted outwards from the hull. Moments later, the whole ship exploded into millions of tiny metal fragments. But the human fighters would not get away without consequence. Two of them suddenly exploded as yeerk dracon beams burned through their shields and set the craft alight. There were no parachutes of course, no time for any. The rest of the human attackers suddenly dived again, and dropped two hundred feet. They then suddenly pulled up and leveled out in a heartbeat, a maneuver no yeerk fighter could hope to do, though several did try. Three tried to pull up as they did, and exploded as their compensators wore off immediately with atmospheric friction. The other bug fighters still giving chase fired at the retreating ships from above. Seven other fighters burned and fell to the ground. The others however suddenly flared and shot out of range as the after burners activated and propelled them to mach 2. The bug fighters returned to formation, guarding the task force. The escorts were after all, escorts and had no orders to give chase and leave the task force unprotected.
Ten minutes later, Felrack could feel the transport start to descend. There was a slight lurch as it began a quick descent towards the ground and the engines started to hum louder. Out the viewport, he could see the other transports start the journey to the Taxxon desert. Sub Visser 439 was now standing up, ready to leap out when the hatch opened. He turned to face his unit and spoke in Galard.
“Warriors, prepare for battle.” The other Hork-Bajir rose to their clawed feet and reached their seven foot height. They all quickly stretched out their lean muscles, and drew the dracon beams.
“Take no prisoners, give and show no quarter to the human insects, I doubt they will give you any.” Sub-visser was right; no soldier in their right mind would give a yeerk mercy or quarter, especially a yeerk controlling a creature as fearsome as a Hork-Bajir. In the transport ship, a yellow light suddenly flashed twice, the signal to prepare for landing. The warriors on board tensed up, right to jump out and kill. Then Felrack heard something. A loud banging sound, not an explosion though. It sounded more like a thunder clap from when Felrack was stationed on earth, but the Taxxon world was too dry for such humidity based weather patterns. He checked out the viewport in time to see a yeerk dropship explode, torn apart. He did a double take and checked again. The ship had indeed exploded, torn apart by some great force. He checked around the air, searching for the source. Then it happened again. A thunder clap, followed by an explosion as a bug fighter was suddenly torn to burning metal. Felrack only saw flash of light, then the explosion. He checked again, and then looked down. He could see the rapidly approaching ground, and in the distance he could see movement. Thousands of moving objects, some larger and some smaller. The humans! It was the human invasion force! Their target! Yes it was, he could see the first twenty five bug fighters start to accelerate toward the humans, moving in to strafe with their dracon beams. In the midst of the humans, he saw a flash of light, an explosion of sound, and another bug fighter was torn to shreds. More thunder claps followed, each followed by a destroyed yeerk ship. He saw this destruction and for the first time in his twenty years of service, he was afraid.
Afraid of the humans.
“Good shot O’Connor!”
“Thank you sir, it was a good shot.” Corporal Brian O’Connor was happy. Not only was Sergeant Mackenzie actually giving him praise, which was rare enough, he’d hit it! The yeerk transport had simply exploded, torn apart by the supersonic shell. It was a satisfying sight he had to admit. This must be what god felt like, capable of smiting anyone at will. Well he wasn’t god, but this was pretty darn close. Fleet intelligence had anticipated a preemptive strike on the invasion force while they were still unloading, so they had gotten a solution to the danger of the invasion force being draconed to ash while unloading their gear. That solution, the machine which O’Connor was currently controlling, was the M23 Rachel class Gauss cannon. Fittingly named after the Animorph hero Rachel Berenson, the cannon used magnetic coils to fire a super dense 88 mm tungsten slug at speeds of up to mach 4 with pin point accuracy. The supersonic round had been tested, and was proven in the lab and now in the field of being capable of overloading the shields of a yeerk transport with kinetic energy and putting a hole clean through it in a single shot. With a range that could easily reach and hit a target five feet in diameter on the horizon, it was clearly a great anti-aircraft battery. With an automatic loading system and a computer capable of tracking up to fifty targets at a range of sixty miles away, it had very excellent potential, potential it was now demonstrating as the batteries fired away at the incoming yeerk force with deadly precision. Of course they could not destroy the entire yeerk force, there were only about twenty batteries with the invasion force, but they could sure blow a hole in it. And that exactly what they planned to do.
Private Miles was busy. He was busy making sure the Sergeant was happy, because when the sarge wasn’t happy, nobody was happy. So it was the marines unofficial duty to keep the sergeants happy by doing all sort of BS, like cleaning their guns every hour, or polishing their boots. Their boots! Miles had never understood this, boots were boots. There were going to get filthy, polish or no polish, especially with all this freaking dust on this planet, the dust which got into everything and everywhere. It wouldn’t really damage the equipment or anything, but sure was a pain. Every time he opened his mouth, it got in and formed a really nasty paste which covered his teeth like plaque, so he just kept quiet. Bloody dust even got through the dust masks they were issued. It got in and then stayed there, blowing around every time he breathed, so he just ditched it. But he had other things to think of besides dust, like the gun turret he was setting up. A multi-barreled fifty caliber gun turret, weighed about fifty pounds alone, then he had to lug around the tripod, the barrier to protect it, and of course the multiple cases of ammunition. He was just about done setting it up though, it was on its tripod and planted firmly into the ground, with the barricade placed right making it and its operator a smaller target. The ammunition cases were also set up correctly, placed to make themselves a smaller target and so they wouldn’t spill or anything like that. He was just about to load the first belt of ammo into it, when a bomb exploded ten feet away.
He hit the ground, crunched up into a ball and clutching his helmet in his sweaty hands. That’s it, he was dead. But he didn’t hear angels singing or demons laughing. Well, he did hear laughing, and some of those guys laughing might qualify as demons. He looked up, and saw the rest of his squad laughing themselves pissless at him. Then he saw what had made the bang. O’Connor, grinning at him, was sitting in the seat of the new gauss cannon AA gun which Miles had just set himself. The barrel was smoking from the recent discharge. Then a different thought occurred to him. Why had they just shot the gun? Well, he would have to find out. He turned around to the direction the barrel was pointing. In the distance, almost on the horizon. Specks of black, with tiny little flickers of red coming out the rear of them. It took miles about two seconds to realize what they were.
“Yeerk ships, the attack force.” Turning to O’Connor, he asked him. “You get one?” O’Connor kept on grinning like a moron as he answered.
“Sure as hell I did man, oh and you should cover your ears.” Miles started to cover his ears when it happened again. Like a thunder clap twenty feet away, another gauss gun fired a supersonic round. Miles clasped his ears, and then looked at the yeerk ships which were getting larger by the second. One of the black dots suddenly flared into faint orange flames as the shell hit it dead on. Miles stared at it for a moment, and then covered his ears. Just in time too, because moments later the other guns opened up. His guts turned to jelly and his teeth rattled in his head as thunder bellowed as the shells smashed through the sound barrier. In the distance, he could see more black dots flare orange as the shells and their targets met. Then he saw several dots flare red as their engines picked up speed. They quickly gained speed, and started their approach. The guns thundered again, and many of the dots exploded, more visibly this time, but the rest kept coming. They were the size of peas now, and getting larger. Then he saw several bright red flashes, not engines or explosions. He turned to run just as the dracon beams struck.
Felrack could see the humans much better now, making out shapes and bodies. He could see on a holographic projection now in front of him what was causing so much destruction. Twenty gun batteries firing some sort of kinetic round which was easily piercing the yeerk shields, even from the great distances they were at. But the inadequate number of cannons would not stop the yeerk advance, though they would take large casualties from them. The transports were now flying a mere fifty feet above the ground and slowing down in preparation to disembark the soldiers on board. This did however; make them incredibly easy targets for the deadly accurate human cannons. The thunder claps increased, and twenty dropships and fighters went down almost simultaneously. But Felrack and his transport kept going forward, having not have been targeted, at least not yet. They kept going, get slower and lower, lower, slower. Then it happened. The red light flashed once, the signal to get out. The main hatch popped open with a hiss and the Sub Visser jumped out, Dracon beam ready.
“Go warriors, go, go, go!” Felrack was next, he jumped out of the ship and dropped ten feet t other ground below. He absorbed the impact with his massive knees and stood up. He quickly checked around him. They were about one hundred feet from the human front lines. All around him, dropships and transports were unloading soldiers and skimmers. The Sub visser was giving out orders for them to move for the human lines now. He obeyed and turned towards his enemy, and immediately ducked. A rocket shot over his head with a woosh and slammed into a Taxxon unit and detonated. All twenty Taxxon were killed either torn apart by the explosion or ripped open by the shock wave. Immediately other Taxxons came and naturally began their natural process of devouring them. Felrack didn’t care for either the worms or the yeerks inside, for he considered Taxxons and Taxxon controllers inferior to him. He then turned and saw one of his units heads explode in a fountain of blood and gore. He hit the ground again as several more soldiers were killed by human snipers. He could hear the metallic crackle of the human automatic weapons as they opened up and started to pour lead death into the Yeerkish ranks. Hork-Bajir and Taxxons alike were cut down under the lead scythes. But the attack would not go unanswered, for a moment later the yeerks fired.
Hundreds of red energy beams fired, their combined heat causing the air to waver. He could see human soldiers ahead of them burst into flames or vaporize. Good. The initial fire slowed, as the human had to reorganize. He hand the rest of the yeerks used this lull to attack, and a horde of alien warriors gave out a battle cry and charged. A mass of beings charged, whooping and hissing their lust for blood charged the human lines, each wanting to be the first to draw blood.
Miles was scared. Who wouldn’t be? A horde of seven foot aliens covered in blades each with a very powerful energy weapon accompanied by ten foot long worms each looking like demons from hell was charging at him and the rest of the marines. It seemed like they would just shrug off the nine millimeter rounds from his HK 66 like he would shrug off mosquitoes. Time to put that theory to the test. He thought as he readied his assault rifle. The Yeerkish forces had landed only a mere one hundred feet away and were now about fifty feet away. Already marines were opening fire. Tracers sliced through air and flesh, and grenades blew the ground to craters. Miles ran forward and dropped to his knees. He aimed the HK 66 and looked for a target. There, the Hork-Bajir getting close to the lines. He placed the red dot sight on the creature’s chest. It collapsed; someone else had gotten him first. The mighty alien fell to the desert floor with a line of holes in its chest. Miles switched targets, another Hork-Bajir. He aimed, breathed out to steady his aim, and fired. He held the trigger down for a moment and released it. The horkies he’d aimed at stopped like he hit a wall and fell, chest and abdomen ravaged by the high velocity bullets. It wasn’t dramatic like the movies, the guys didn’t fly through the air or anything, they just collapsed like a sack of potatoes, like a puppet that’s string got cut off. Besides him the marine fighting got hit by a dracon beam. His armour superheated and exploded. He drew back, screaming in terror. He would have kept screaming except at that moment another energy blast hit his head. His head exploded, throwing superheated tissue all over the place. Miles just watched in abject horror. He was dead. He was there, living, breathing one moment, then dead the next. Miles knew him, Jacobson. He was a nice guy; he’d bought Miles some beer back on earth when he forgot his wallet. And now dead, killed right before his eyes. Miles suddenly realized he was crying, he wiped the tears from his grimy face. He was dead, and nothing could be done to bring him back. Nothing to do, except to kill those murdering swine that’d killed him. Sadness and grief was replaced by hatred and disgust. He would kill those body snatching aliens, even
if it killed him. And it most likely would.
Felrack smiled his hideous Hork-Bajir grin, made even more grotesque by the scars which criss-crossed his goblin face. The stupid human insect, trying to fight the Yeerk Empire! Felrack shot him with a low power blast, blowing off the pathetic armour on him, then shot off his head with a smile. Stupid creatures! They had no future except slavery for the mighty empire! Though he despised them, he had to give the creatures credit. They held their ground, he didn’t flee their doom, and they stood their ground to fight it out. And they fought it out well; the yeerk charge was taking casualties. But they were now only ten feet from the front lines, and with a leap he jumped over it the two startled marines who’d been shooting at him. They stared at him, useless mouths splayed open. Useless, no point to it all. He landed and attacked, burning one to a lump of charred flesh with his dracon beams and slicing the other ones neck open with his wrist blade. They both fell without a sound. And now, other yeerks had breached the front line, leaping over the humans. But most of the human marines had retreated to their next line of defenses, retreating and spraying the yeerks with their primitive but effective weapons. Felrack took aim and fired. Two marines burst into flames and fell down dead. The other one fell to the ground missing a large portion of his right leg. He turned around and fired from his back at Felrack. Like a quicksilver he ducked and avoided the metal spray. He fired again and the wounded man vaporized into atoms. More and more yeerks were crossing the lines, shooting at anything that moved. The humans were in full retreat, running now. But strangely, he could not see many. There were supposed to be hundreds of the insects, but he had only seen a few, seventy or eighty perhaps. Where were they? His question was answered by a faint, gruff human voice.
“Ok corporal, blast ‘em. Send those bastards to hell where they belong.” He recognized the words from the human language and deciphered the threat. He turned around looking for the weapon the humans would deploy. He looked up, side to side and behind and in front of him. He checked everywhere, except below him.
“Ok corporal, blast ‘em. Send those bastards to hell where they belong.” Barked Sergeant Mackenzie.
“Yes sir!” Corporal O’Connor said gleefully. He flipped open the detonator and pressed the red button fittingly labeled ‘inferno.’ There was moment’s pause, then the spider web pattern of H109 Hades anti-personal mines exploded in a flash of hellfire. They leapt four feet in the air, and detonated, throwing thousands of little metal ball bearing everywhere at speeds of four hundred miles an hour. The explosion lasted only a few seconds and was not very noticeable. The wave of screams of pain which followed from any yeerk misfortunate enough to survive was quite noticeable though however. O’Connor looked up from the shelter and checked the once smooth and clean desert floor. It looked like a slaughter house had exploded from the inside out. Hundreds and hundreds of aliens lay in pieces. Literally, the entire attack force had been ripped apart in a most graphic and gory fashion by the speeding metal ball bearings. Most of the Hork-Bajir attackers had been cut in half at midsection, and their bloody halves lay all over the plains. The Taxxons were even worse; they looked like they’d been shot at point blank range by shotguns, all of them. A few Taxxons lingered on however, their cannibalistic nature forcing them to eat their own remains, as well as the remains of any of their brothers near them with their last seconds. A few Hork-Bajir appeared to be alive to their horror. Any survivors had gaping holes in them, or were missing limbs; none had been left un-touched.
O’Connor took one look, then doubled over and threw up violently. Even the tough as nails sergeant Mackenzie looked pale at this level of carnage and destruction. Miles dared to peek his head over the barricade, and scanned the butchery. His stomach held up to the sight of it all, but his nose did not as the ungodly stench of torn open Taxxons assailed his un-conditioned nostrils. Under this new, sudden fetid sensation, Miles promptly buckled to his knees, grasped his stomach which had just started to heave, and let loose his MREs. He stayed in such a position for a good ten seconds before his stomach and sufficiently emptied itself of contents. Not that that made a matter, Miles found that out as another whiff of the rancid stench sent him into a horrific bout of dry heaves. Mouth locked open in disgust, a stream of disgusting yellow bile streamed out like a putrid waterfall. Finally, after another fifteen seconds of this, he stopped and managed to pull himself to his feet. A strand of bile still hung from his open mouth, extruding a foul taste. He wiped his mouth off on his armored sleeve, and took a swig of water from his canteen, swishing the now-warm liquid around in his mouth to wash it of the raunchy substance. He quickly spat out the polluted water onto the alien dust where it was quickly drained away by the parched ground. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he took another gulp of the warm metallic water to quench his dry throat and tongue.
It was good; the water washed over his dry mouth and perked him up. He quickly cut the flow of liquid, took the canteen away from his wetted lips and screwed the plastic cap back on, and hung the contained back at his side. He then quickly covered his face with his dusty hands and immediately began to breathe through his mouth, largely evading the horrendous stench which was already wrecking havoc among the other marines.
Post Merged: June 24, 2010, 07:29:14 PM
If the Sarge was affected in any way by the stench, he didn’t show it. With a face that was akin to one sculpted from steel, he stood firm, totally non-caring of the mass of ravaged alien corpses which blanketed the ground in front of him and generated an aroma worthy of the pits of hell. He stood there, casually observing the situation. Then, turning to the men under his command, he yelled out orders.
“Ok men, get over there and pop any survivors. After your done cleanup, get prepped and ready for an immediate counter attack on target Hades.” He said in reference to the official term coined for the Yeerk spaceport they were due to obliterate. Acting out with extreme reluctance, Miles began trudging out into the blood filled sand, stepping gingerly into the mess of gore. His face turned pale as he started wading through the grisly mess.
With such a reek of this magnitude, even breathing shallowly through the mouth did little to filter out the stench. Now it was so thick, he started to taste it as opposed to smelling it. This nearly caused another round of heaving, so he quickly switched to breathing through his nose, which surprisingly, was better now. Moving quickly now, he trod through the mess of savaged sapience, looking for survivors. There were few to see, and those few were rather hard to distinguish from the deceased with the exception of their pitiful, agonized groans of shock. Stepping around a particularly large mound of disintegrated Taxxons, he spotted a moaning Hork-Bajir, missing large portions of limbs and with several large holes in its stomach. Moving quickly, he closed the distance and fired his rifle at the pitiful aliens head. As the head blew open, the poor animals spirit was freed’ from the tyrannies of the physical as his pained groans ceased. Miles didn’t dare look back at his mercy killing, he’d fall on his hands and knees again for sure, and this time in the field of gore. Moving quickly, he ended the life of one final alien, only to notice its ear.
Halfway out of the ear, was a small, gray, slimy slug. The yeerk had left the host Hork-Bajir. Miles was suddenly pale and shaking, appalled at his action. He’d seen Hork-Bajir before, they were nice! Scary looking, but lovable and friendly, kind of like Barney mixed with a gargoyle and a roto-tiller. Never one to turn down a human visitor and always willing with a great strip of bark for lunch, they were a lot like a toddler, a scary looking toddler.
And he’d just killed one.
Miles legs buckled under the sudden weight of guilt and horror as he took a deep strangled sob laced with grief and terror. Forcing himself to take another breathe, he waved his left arm to try and steady himself, loathing to fall in the heinous mess below him. Half-staggering, he turned around; breathe still ripping out of his throat and tears blinding his vision. He forced his half-jellified legs forward, urging them to transport himself off this field of atrocities committed by sapience. It was a mercy killing, I did him a favor. No person would ever want to live like that with those wounds and pain. It was a favor, a favor, a favor.” He kept on repeating these words to himself, over and over, as he slowly, jerkily, walked off the evil scene.
Many of the marines, the ‘ground pounders’ as they were aptly referred to, often resented, loathed, or envied the pilots. The ground soldiers often considered them to be a load of glorified taxi pilots, just dumping the troops off and then flying away as fast as they could. Many of they didn’t realize how dangerous the job was. They didn’t realize that with the Yeerk dracon beams, there was no time to even think about bailing out. They didn’t realize there was no medic waiting in the sky to tow their craft away if battered or damaged in the fight. And they damn well didn’t realize that a pilot had the highest fatality rate in the whole task force.
All these inconveniences aside, First Lieutenant Parker loved the job. Sure every time he took off he had an eighty percent chance of death, but the whole spit ‘n’ polish and crap was pretty much non-existent here, probably because none of the brass wanted the pilots last memory of earth while their plane slammed into the ground at six hundred miles an hour to be the memory of polishing a boot. Especially on this planet, dustier than, well, a place with a helluva lot of dust.
And though he didn’t like to boast, the air force got much better chow than the marines did. Sure, maybe they were spoiled, chewing on steak while the ground pounders tried to loosen MREs by banging them on rocks, but he wasn’t about to complain. If every mission was probably to be his last, his was going to make every meal count as such. Alas, being a pilot was not all fun and steaks; there were also some very serious and nasty work to get done. So as it was, Parker was working on his B-63/F Harrier gunship, preparing to for takeoff.
Word had come in from the top brass that in light of the Yeerk pre-emptive strike, the Yeerks were most likely partially weakened by the sudden loss of soldiers, so it was best if the human task force, the 306th Infantry Division, the Seventh Armored Brigade, and the 12th Air group among others were going to lead the attack, while the Andalite force, the Third Army of Skies were going to assault the Yeerk complex from the East. The main problem facing them was the perimeter force field, a powerful dome of protective energy surrounding the area. The plane included an orbital strike from the Particle accelerator cannons on the orbiting warships. Several bolts of energy would hit the barrier and knock it out and allowing the coalitional armies to charge through and destroy every single one of the slimy slugs.
Would Yeerks be hurt at all by salt? Such a though crossed through Parkers mind. Would it? Was Yeerk biology like that of the common garden slug back on Earth as that salt would cause it’s skin to foam up and boil in such a fascinating manner? Who knew, he’d have to ask one of the science geeks sometime, maybe if he got back from this ****amamie mission.
Parker’s gunship, personally named
The Flying Salamander, was as mentioned before a Boeing 63 Model F Harrier VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) style gunship. It was capable of carrying ten soldiers or two tons of supplies or weapons. It was lifted up and propelled by four VTOL-style engines which expulsed a steady stream of charged ions which were all that were needed to push the gunship along on its anti-gravity field at a fair cruising speed of one hundred miles per hour and a top speed of seven hundred. Nowhere near fast enough to outrun a Yeerk fighter, but that’s not what it was made for. It was designed to deliver soldiers and supplies to hot-zones, and to blow the hot out of hot zones. For the latter objective it was well-equipped to do so such.
In the chin of the Harrier was a pair of thirty millimeter miniguns, each capable of firing a deadly twenty rounds per second, more than sufficient to reduce an advancing Hork-Bajir force to fleshy ribbons. Below these twin chainguns was a forty millimeter automatic cannon which fired a variety of rounds, ranging from high-explosive anti-personal rounds, fragmentation rounds, armour piercing rounds and incendiary rounds to name a few. Under the wings were several pods and racks, both containing missiles and rockets of the armour piercing and high explosive variety. Added to this was a pair of remote-controlled Havoc Direct Energy Weapons, each of which fired a beam of super-heated energy particles. These were not the particle accelerator cannons such as the type that were stationed upon the larger warships; these were merely an improved version of scavenged Yeerk dracon beams. And to top off this formidable arsenal were a pair of forty millimeter chainguns on the doors, allowing two sweepings fields of fire with almost 180 degree angles of which lead could be poured at enemy positions and give personal departing the gunship fairly safe protection.
Post Merged: September 02, 2010, 06:05:04 PM
So as it was, the
Salamander was basically a flying armory with energy shields, pretty damn scary. And now Parker was preparing it for a load of marines to tromp on in and prepare for the big honking’ assault. Sure, he would probably get vaped by some hot bug fighter, but consarnit he would give a darn good account of himself before his life was reduced to a smoldering wreckage of burnt metal and carbonized bone and cooked flesh. Those Taxxons would love it.
“Hey boss, when’s we gonna take off?” Parker turned his head to see Sergeant Toni looking at him. Toni was born in Brooklyn, and he had an almost comical stereotype New York accent, which made him sound like he was getting ready to snuff you. Shrugging his dusty shoulders Parker replied.
“Dunno Toni, thinks we’re gonna leave soon, but we’re really waiting on the clompers.” Clompers, a term coined by the airman and navy swabbies for the marines. Toni rolled his eyes in annoyance.
“Aye yiy yiy, what the pluck’s taking ‘em so long? The Yeerks are hurtin’ from that kamikaze thing of theirs, so shouldn’t we hit ‘em while the wounds still fresh?”
“I know, I know, believe me I want to fly over there and break some faces too, but we can’t go without the cargo.”
“Meh, still wish they’d hurry up.”
“Me too Toni, me to- well speak of the devil.” His head and attention had both switched from the Sergeant Noncom to a pair of marine fireteams heading for their ship. Then looking around more, he saw that the action was being repeated almost simultaneously around the whole landing area. It appeared that the clompers were clomping the way over to the so-called air-heads. He wiped his sweating forehead on a grimy, dusty sleeve which left a red paste on his head as he breathed in relief.
“It’s about bloody time.” The remark came from Sergeant Travis, an Englishmen who was Parkers other door gunner along with Toni.
“Yeah, you can say that again.” remarked Parker.
“Very well, it’s about bloody time.” Parker rolled his eyes as he started for the ****pit of his craft.
Miles had just climbed aboard the Harrier with the rest of his fireteam, Private First Class McCoy, Private First Class Rogers, and Lance Corporal O’Connor. They were all lead by Sergeant Mackenzie and were joined by another fireteam headed by a guy named Sergeant Lawrence. He’d boarded under the angry and aggravated looks of the door gunners who’d clearly thought that the marines were running late. From their looks, you’d think the marines had burnt their mothers alive or kicked their dogs with metal cleats instead of just arriving behind their made-up schedule.
Whatever, Miles didn’t give a tug about what the buzz-boys thought, he just cared about smoking the Yeerks, getting home, and try to shirk away the rest of his time with the marines on anything but frontline duty. Of course, seeing as they were fighting an intergalactic alien threat, there probably wouldn’t be much but frontline duty.
Settling into his uncomfortable metal seat, Miles propped his assault rifle in-between his knees and got ready
