NationStates Jolt Archive

Twelve years ago, in the star system known as Achlem on the fourth habitable planet which the indigenous race called Alep an anthropogenic species that called themselves Kyrsiken, five hundred thousand Hoplites, and twice again that number of Seibutsan and Cleech helot regulars dropped from orbit. In under a week of the planet's average daylengths, the Trailarii had taken the capitol with minimal losses. The battleplan was being executed like clockwork. That was when things went wrong. Pre-Contact scrying had not revealed that the Kyrsyk race possesed FTLi technology. Under constant bombardment and without reinforcement, the relatively small Traileric invasion fleet didn't stand a chance, and was utterly destroyed by the numerically superior Kyrsyk force.

Stranded and without hope of rescue, half of Legica XVII Kylo Bronto (In the Basic tongue, this translates to Rolling Thunder) fought for its survival in the semi-underground capitol city of Ulinas.

This is their story.


A loud, booming voice at the center of his being, "..get the fuck up Ephesian, you call yourself a soldier?! I said get the FUCK UP!"

His ears were ringing..everything felt..soft..

A second voice, clearer now, "On your feet Hoplite! Earn your father's shield! I'm not losing my entire lance in this shit hole!"

Vision was returning, sounds and sensations regained clarity. His eyes were open, but something was wrong: he couldn't see. He fumbled with his helm for a moment before he remembered how to remove it. With a hiss, the containment field disengaged, and the crumpled piece of metal parted from the rest of his powered armor. A rush of hot air and the taste of dust, smoke and blood confronted his newfound vision. Suddenly, he was able to remember who he was and what was going on. Eurydiceus of New Ephesus clambered to his feet, servos whirring. He glanced down at his shield. The metal was furrowed and warped from a rather impressive impact crater that marred its once pristine surface. Eurydiceus looked up at his lances lohkatai (sergeant equivalent). He was still a little fuzzy about the details of what had just transpired.

Something was missing.. "Where are Cleseus and Hadone?", asked the rattled Hoplite.

"They didn't manage to whirl on that tank thing, but they held on to their shields Gods damn them, and died with honor. We're four men short now, and it's just midday. Counter-artillery silenced their guns, but they've still got half a clutch running around making trouble. You with me yet boy? If yer that fucked up you need a cutter. If not hoist that shield, there's killin to do." responded the sergeant.

Eurydiceus nodded slowly, his wits coming back to order.

The lohkatai stepped at him menacingly "..I think you meant to say 'I don't need no cutter Lohk, get me back in the fight', or do I gotta stick a spear up your iron clad ass?"

Eurydiceus straightened quickly, and shouted, "I don't need no cutter Lohk!", at the top of his lungs.

"Thats what I thought you said. Grab yourself the least damaged helm you can find, I'm not gonna lose you to heat exhaustion after all the precious time I've taken outta my day to wake you up from your little nap.", at that, the lohkatai turned and crouched, sprinting after a handful of Hoplite heavy infantry that were crouch-running up the street. Wordlessly, Eurydiceus began pilfering his fallen brothers for a good helm. He found a working Phrygian variant and slapped it onto his head. Immediately, his battle-HUD alerted him that both his shield-bearer and spear-bearer were both living and nearby. After glancing around, he saw them squatting on a pile of steaming rubble.

"Alright boys, you heard Lohk. Bloody business has just begun.", he thundered, taking a moment to check his ammunition.

Five rounds left. This was gonna be an ugly, ugly afternoon.

Jack hated this part. It was where he remembered his days of combat.

Jack's father had been a great man. An extremely gifted man. He was the precursor to everything Jack was. His father was the late Captain James. He'd died doing what his empire asked of him. Not that Jack felt any reason to serve the Traileric Empire when his father had told him he was deploying. Jack was a military man himself, granted just a lowly Petty Officer, but he was still a military man. His father had spent his entire life a paper pusher, so sometime last year he decided he wanted to get some action, where better than the Traileric Empire and their quest to take whatever it was they wanted. Jack tried to convince his father not to go. Tried to convince him of the horrors Jack himself had seen and indeed done. It was a funny thing when you'd experienced more than your father. It was a funny thing when you felt older than your father. That's where Jack was. Well there and at his father's funeral.

"Ready!"
The nine bullet ceremony was just starting. Five men with rifles with blank rounds, except one would be live.
"Prepare!"
Each man threw the bolt to the rifle with a crisp movement. The rifles were in the fashion of rifles from about a thousand years ago.
"Aim!"
They all stepped forward and leveled the rifles.
"Fire!"
The terrible sound of a rifle discharge went off. Of course it was nothing like a rifle today discharging.
"Reverse!"
Each man stepped back and brought the rifles down to their chest.
"Prepare!"
The sequence started again, this time only one thing would be different.
"Aim!"
Once again they stepped forward and leveled their rifles. The center man clicked a pin on his rifle.
"Fire!"
Each riflemen fired, but only four rounds discharged. The center man threw the bolt to his rifle and caught the discharged round. He stepped forward one step while the other four riflemen stepped back. He extended the weapon to perpendicular to the ground, out to his right. In his left hand he held the empty brass casing. The man stepped forward and handed Jack the round. He accepted it with a shaking hand. The man then pulled the weapon across his chest at shoulder level in a salute. He then surrendered the weapon to Jack. He knew down the barrel was a hunk of lead that was at one point a bullet. He sat down with the two old tools of war. He sat and cried.

When the ceremony was over he went home to his empty apartment. He set down the rifle and brass on the closest table and cried. Slowly, he let himself fall into memories of his own tour with the Traileric Empire. Slowly, he let himself try and put himself in his father's shoes.

"Ephesian, that helmet really does compliment your girlish figure!" Jack laughed at how silly his friend looked with the strange armor assortment.

"I suggest you find some ammo that half a clutch they've got left has a hard on for us apparently." Jack let his rifle slip out of his grip and disengaged his ammo link to it. He dropped the bent weapon on the ground and picked up one of his fallen comrade's rifle and synced with it. He took a moment checking to make sure his internal systems check had found it as the right weapon. His neural implant projected his ammo count onto the inside of his eyeball and weapon condition. His aiming radical appeared and synced with his weapon's projection trajectory.

satisfied with his new weapon, he disconnected his link with it and threw it back onto his back, letting his skin tight armor grab the weapon and hold it tight.

He popped two grenades(which were no larger this his eyeballs) off of his belt in quick succession. He began spinning them in one hand, a habit he'd picked up quickly. Every Seibutsan soldier did it. It increased the magnetics between the two balls and made them that much more deadly later.

His com sparkled to life." Fireteam Quad to Hell Lance."
"Petty Officer Michaels here. What's up?"
"We've spotted your missing clutch. They're heading right for you. I wish I could drop in and give you a hand, but I've got ordered to get behind them and knock out some HQ they've got setup. They're about 15 minutes out, prep for them. Inwreathed Star be with you."
"You too kid. Thanks for the heads up."

"You ready yet Ephesian?" His voice was far too happy. He'd remembered a while back speaking to a foreign merchant. The guy had never quit talking, but he'd said something that caught Jack's attention. "War is hell." The guy said it was some famous quote from his culture. Some genius had said it Jack was sure. It was almost sad that Jack enjoyed it. Almost.

The eerily pupiless metal eyes of the Phrygian helm glanced back at Jack and the wordless Cleech, Ekabun. These past two months had been the relatively young Cleech's first tour of duty, and he had really gone turtle on the rest of Hell Lance, or as it was technically named '308th Combat Lance, 23rd File, 8th Phalanx, 1st Colomn, 3rd Configuration, 17th Imperial Legion, Rolling Thunder.'

But all that shit was too much for the common dirt phalangite to remember, so a few years ago, the old First Lohk started calling it his hell lance. Unfortunately, this was looking more and more like Hell Lance's last tour.

The mic in the side of his helm clicked, "Yeah yeah. Dig in boys. We need a foxhole I can fit my slim, well toned feminine ass into, or we're gonna bite it where we stan-"

Eurydiceus was interrupted by the sky roaring as if alive with thunder. Outgoing. Artillery was reaching out and making someone's day really lively..

After the sound of the mag slings died down, he gave an official order, "Scratch that. Keep your eyes skyward for incoming. Eka, find me a stable structure we can hole up in.", he paused, using his neural lace to pull up his lohkatai's link, "Lohk? We're gonna dig in here and try to get the drop on the bugs."

A brief moment of silence before that lovable, gravelly voice came back, "Try to stay alive till I get there. I've got eyes on our pals here. I'll put numbers in this brood at about twenty. Your outta ammo and so am I. How many spears you got boy?"

In the upper right corner of his helm, Eurydiceus could see lohkatai Andelos picking his way down the side of a capsized slab of upheaved pavement, "I'm down to three. I can make em last till we get back. I scrambled for spears earlier but they're all bent, broken, or stuck in a bug."

"Well I've got a full load, but my damn cannon won't eject. If we got time you're gonna pry it off me. If not it's a club. Why the hell arn't you diggin? Nevermind, check your four, that looks like a mostly stable platform we can hole up on."

The lohkatai was in visual range now, crouch running again. He knelt by a dead Hoplite that looked like something big had been chewing on it and rummaged with it until he came away with what looked like a long, heavy cylinder, "Found you another spear, kid. Get to the building, we're about to have company."

"Uhh, guys, I'm rather short on ammo. Ten to be exact. We need to burn some time so I can replicate some more. Obstacles or something maybe?"

The building wasn't far off, just somewhat less of a building than Jack expected. It was less of a building and more of a used to be a building. The cover didn't look like it'd last long, maybe enough to get a few kills and run. Or die, one or the other.

Eurydiceus had already thrown off his cannon, and the lohk was worse with not being able to eject the cannon. Long range was up to Jack and Eurydiceus' spear bearer, where ever he was.

Jack checked his ammo count and looked up to the horizon. Ammo was around 300, well up from the 10 it used to be, but sadly, that was all he'd get, the enemy was just over the horizon, it wouldn't be long now. Carnage was close.

The ground shook as the ordinance hit. Crustcrackers. The batteries were targeting the subterranean tunnels that the Kyrsi used for troop movement; such tactics were never good news for Hoplites in the field, as it meant that they had to watch for enemies both above and below the dry caked earth.

As he was musing this, the silent Ekabun waved from a reasonably sound structure shaped something like a partially collapsed dome. There were holes that could be used as firing ports on the top floor, though the same wall had crumbled on the reverse side of the small dome, which could feasibly be a problem. However, it was far better than remaining in the open with hostiles roaming.

A second wave of artillery rattled the earth, knocking dust and sand from the Hoplite's powered armor.

The Lokhatai approached Eurydiceus and handed him the collapsed spear before muttering, "Use it wisely" into the comm.

No sooner had his commander spoken that some three hundred yards from them the arid ground began to crack, split and cave in as if a sink hole had formed. Eurydiceus was charging toward the building for cover even as he heard his comrades crying the warning of incoming bugs. Over the comms, he could hear the cursing of Lokh behind him and the rattle of Ekabun's assault rifle. The remarkably tall Cleech national had the long thin thing against his shoulder and was pumping clip after clip into the newly formed hole.

As he reached the building, Eurydiceus's HUD was clambering at him. Incoming hostiles. He took the ascent at maximum stride as parts of the structure groaned beneath the weight of his armor. The Lokh was right behind him, and Jack had already joined his Spearbearer at the impromptu firing ports, his own nanotechnological assault weapon spitting death. The Hoplite glanced back towards the hole once more, just in time to see the emerging warrior-strain creatures. Zeus, they were ugly.

Dear god are they ugly. The thought came to his mind every engagement. The warrior strain was the ugliest, at least the other strains were more... basic. These guys were just giant ants. With just a large body, and 12 legs used to bring anything it could reach deep into the crushing jaws that made up the body. Basic insectoid armor protected the ugly things from basic small arms fire until they jumped for a target. The soft underbelly made for easy killing, but with the heavy fire power Hoplites brought to bear, or the eating nanites that Jack was loaded with there was nothing wrong with shooting at the armored side either.

Well positioned on the upper story shooting out of a small crack that ran down the dome, the kills were easy. Despite his rifle being designed for closer combat, it still was extremely easy to take out targets, although he seemed to be expending ammo faster than normal because of the range. He laughed almost whole heartily when he caught one in the closest thing to a face they had and it reared up exposing it's weak underbelly, subsequently only increasing the pain. He watched as the twenty slowly dwindled down from his and Ekabun's rifle fire. Once his ammo count dwindled down to 50 rounds he stopped his assault and moved down to the lower levels to join the rest of his squad.

As the first survivors of his attack reached close enough to make their leaps, Jack was just coming down the impromptu stairs and wasn't in range for a good hack, but that didn't stop Eurydiceus from getting a few good bugs on a spear before discarding the spear off to the side due to not being able to get the heavy bugs off of the spear.

With a crash, Jack's attention was drawn from the battle in front to the structure that kept him safe from the onslaught the bugs could dish out in open field. He followed the sound with his eyes until it was just over the crack that made the building less than ideal. Luckily, the dome was weak there. Aiming at the sound of the noise as the bug reached the edge, Jack let off another ten rounds and smiled as he was rewarded with their terrible screech. He advanced to the melee line as he watched the grey blood of the bug above drip onto Eurydiceus.

Unfortunately the bugs were far heavier than Jack could handle even in his armor. Eurydiceus on the other hand could heft the bugs around like an empty cardboard box. Due to this difference, the two had already agreed that Jack's most effective move at this range would be to get to the armored side of the bugs and crack the armor with his rifle turned ax. In preparation to do just that, Jack swapped the grip on his rifle and held it by the barrel, activating the blade on the other side at the same time. Along the sight of his rifle appeared the plasma blade that made him so deadly in the closer ranges. With a simple leap, he found himself on the back of one bug that was trying to get a grip on Eurydiceus. With a quick and deadly stroke, he severed the bug into two separate pieces, letting Eurydiceus throw the two halves to the side, but not without covering his armor in the ugly, gray bug blood.

"I think that color goes excellent on you Eurydiceus." Jack commented as he jumped onto the back of another bug and severed the bug in half, just like the last.

The earth trembled beneath them once again, this time yielding another clutch of the monsters. As the Helots reloaded and began picking the creatures off, the Hoplites paused.

STERILIZATION IMMINENT

The Lohkatai immediately began descending the building as he yelled his orders, "Move move move! Don't waste your time with them, we need to make tracks for Command!"

This produced a quizzical look from the long faced Ekabun who rather relished destroying the godless abominations that had claimed so many of his kin. "Why?", said the spear bearer who rarely voiced any opinions let alone a direct question.

Before a proper reprimand could be shouted by the retreating Lohkatai, Jack spied from his impromptu gunport multiple sinkholes forming near the first, each one spewing forth a clutch of the hideous antlike warrior bugs and attemped to formulate the word 'Bugs', "B-bu" was he produced. After making several attempts at coherent communication, he gave up and began sprinting down the collapsed structure at full tilt.

The Lohk hit the ground next to Eurydiceus who was finishing off the last of the original group of ant-things; the two Trailarii wasted no time making tracks away from the building, and were soon passed by Jack, with Ekabun (who had also spied the dozen something sinkholes and god knows how many insectoids) right on Jack's heels.

The Lance fled across the desolate landscape; the two Hoplites bringing up the rear, with the Helots out ahead firing back over their shoulders at a veritable horde of bugs that were practically nipping at the heels of the Traileric soldiers.

Without any further warning, a blinding flash lit up the sky from behind the fleeing Lance. Beyond their field of view, at the very edge of the horizon, the blue flare of heavy nuclear ordinance kissed the sky. The clouds parted before it's fury, and the unmistakable column and bloom could be seen in the distance. The flash was enough to drive the soldiers the flee faster, pushing themselves to their limits. As if this were not enough, the initial flash was followed by a storm of like flashes in quick succession, yielding similar, progressively closer explosions.

The bugs seemed to pay no heed to the thermonuclear storm in the distance, and instead pursued their prey with illogical, vigor; snapping their muscular jaws at the soldier's heels. Even as the four ran for their lives, those white flashes seemed to burn at their backs with increasing frequency.

They ran for what seemed like an eternity, their augmentation servos whining at the overuse. Every step brought them closer to safety and outside of the harmful radioactive fallout zone. A kilometer. Half. A hundred meters more and they would be in the greenzone. The Helots, whose HUD's did not display such information, continued to sprint after they were safe, only to see the Hoplites look at each other, and slow their flight.

Eurydiceus produced a spear from his armor's containment compartment, and allowed his interface to activate the weapon. What was once a thick metal cylinder roughly a meter in length abruptly seemed to decompress and triple in length. At the top end of the staff a dormant knob of metal at it's end blazed to life, intense magnetic fields activated, and a flow of plasma was introduced to them, forming the spears cutting head.

Eurydiceus halted in his tracks, and brought himself around as fast as the bulky suit would allow him. The massive round shield (agraspyd) that was his main defense held before him. The closest bug that had previously been chasing the lance was nearly upon him and in it's blind rage ran full tilt into the firmly planted heavy armor only to crumple as it's exoskeleton rippled and cracked from the impact of driving it's massive eyeless head into the dense metal of the shield. This first bug fell aside, only to be replaced by a dozen more. At this point the Helots realized the fight was on, and were sprinting back toward the Hoplitai, their advanced guns spitting death into the herd of insects that were at this point crowding into each other to get a bite of Greek flesh.

Eurydiceus did not have time to think. Bug after bug attempted to rip his shield from his arm to get to his softer armor, and bug after bug met a gory end, spit upon his spear. He and the Lohkatai stood shoulder to shoulder, forming of themselves a two-man phalanx.

In the distance, the nukes could clearly be seen now. It was the first time they had levied against the bugs in this war, and was a omen of how desperate the fight had become.

Jack stood between Eurydiceus and his spear bearer with his hands on his knees. Nanite enhancements or not, ten miles at a full sprint will tire anyone. Looking up he watched the fireworks display burn away his enemies. With the bodies of bugs around him, and the stench of more in the distance, Jack felt something he hadn't felt since the lance began their scouting, that was safety. He didn't know why he felt it, considering this was just a small victory, but he felt it.

Jack looked to Ekabun and nudged him in the side and let loose a cruel joke. "That's why". Ekabun just nodded.

Although Jack's breathing slowed, the explosions only increased. They all continued to watch the radioactive holocaust that was unveiled upon the terrible creatures. Jack knew that wasn't the last of them in the area though. Suddenly his com sparked to life.
"Fireteam Quad to Hell Lance, you read me?"
With his most sarcastic voice possible, Jack responded. "Thank you for calling Hell Lance, this is Petty Officer Michaels how may I help you?"
"Glad to hear you're still kicking, I saw the nukes, didn't know if you'd made it out of there in time. I just got orders for a search and rescue for you guys."
"No rescue needed. Although I think Eurydiceus might need a wheelchair," although Jack wasn't looking at Eurydiceus, he could still feel his glare, "rendezvous at Ulinas in half an hour? Our shift is over."
"Ours too. See you in 30."

Jack wished he could go back and stop himself right here. Just leave the planet, let the god damned bugs have their fucking planet back. But unfortunately, although his nanite augmented brain could remember perfect details, he couldn't change the past. His father was still dead, and he still went through with the failing operation. Sometimes, perfect memory wasn't so perfect. He could still remember every detail of the terrible fighting on Alep. The color and shape of the ugly as sin bugs. He hated it, he hated every time he went back to this memory, he hated that he could still smell the charred flesh Kyrsyk, Seibutsian, Traileric, and Cleech alike. At the time, he thought it ironic that charred flesh, no matter what race, all smelled the same. Now, he just wanted to forget it, but most of all he still wanted his father back.

He fell deeper into the memory. They called it a scouting mission. James Michaels had died in a force recon mission. The thought that he had almost died in one too was terrifying. He wept again for his father.

"..Two hundred second File, you will deploy from Cloudfortress Drakentas. As with the rest of of our Phalanx, it is your mission to reconoiter the submerged Kyrsyk dens here, here and here." Hell Lance's Tetrach, Domestratos, commander of their Phalanx, stood upon a crumbled lump that had once been a Kyr building. As he spoke he gestured in the air, his movements matching up with a three dimensional map that the Hoplites and Helots could see on their visors. The map had zoomed in on a rather large raised mound far out beyond the city limits. It was territory that had not been ventured into since the loss of the invasion fleet, but High Command seemed to believe that more aggressive maneuvers were necessary to ensure their survival. Previously in the briefing it had been explained to the formation that merely defending the city would not be enough if the bugs could simply birth new generations of fighters on a monthly basis. Thus it was deemed imperative that they ascertain that these dens were in fact bug nests, and if they were, torch them.

"Each file will be split into demi files commanded by your Lochagos, and each demi file will be assigned a den to investigate. We have reason to believe that these nests are only rudimentarily defended by obsolete warrior strains. Additional instructions will be relayed to your Lohkatai upon contact. Good luck sons of Hercules, Ares go with you." Domestratos stepped down from his makeshift platform, and the various Dilochetes raised their unit banners, calling over double files of soldiers and grouping them into fireteams comprised of six lances each. The Hoplites had been standing at attention in two large squares of perfectly aligned powered armor, with the Helots arranged loosely around the outside of these instructional formations.

A kilometer or two away, four Cloudfortress moved in formation. They cast great shadows across the ruined city of mud and stone. Their hulls were shaped like the ancient Trireme warships that plied the seas of the Homeworld ten thousand years ago, though the skyships were far larger. The sails of old had been replaced with e-war projection spires and mighty battle standards, and the banks of oars were now more modern rotary autocannons and multipurpose unguided rocket batteries. The underbelly of the vessels were heavily armored and fit with graviton projectors that kept them afloat, yet they maintained that sleek ramming vessel shape, and traditional eyes and teeth painted upon their bow.

The Drakentas passed overhead, heading to the outskirts of the city where there would be enough room for her to touch down. Hell Lance threaded its way through the crowd of soldiers until the Helots were reunited with the Hoplites.

Uncharacteristically, Ekabun spoke up first, addressing Eurydiceus. "Vah-bek, does this not seem a bit suicidal? Two hundred soldiers per..what is word...'hive?'" It was rare for the Cleech to address the Hoplite at all, let alone with his cultures own terms of respect or urgency, and his deep pupiless eyes almost glittered with urgency.