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Grass Eaters 2 | 6 | Holdouts I
🕑 Added 2024-05-29 16:47:01 +0000 UTCPriunt Spaceport, Datsot-3
POV: Skhork, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Six Whiskers)
The crew of the armored Longclaw unit formerly known as Fearless laid on their bellies, thermal blankets draped over their bodies, trying their best not to silhouette themselves against the hill they were on.
Six Whiskers Skhork looked down at the target in his optical rangefinder: a sprawling spaceport complex, pulsating with lights and activity even at this late hour. The giant loading cranes moved ponderously transferring cargo from landed ships to vehicles on the ground.
Just two months ago, this had been solidly in the hands of the Znosian Ground Forces, but with the loss of orbital superiority over Datsot, their units all over the planet had been on the run, forced into hiding, slowly being whittled away by the enemies backed by orbital firepower.
The battalion of conscript infantry that his Longclaw platoon had been attached to had met various fates. It was already understrength to begin with due to the supply shortage, and in the aftermath of the chaos following the loss of orbital superiority, they had no more than a dozen platoons: two platoons were wiped to the last in a poorly planned supply raid.
Another platoon was taken out by an orbital strike following their use of a radio to respond to a plea for help from a nearby shuttle pilot who was downed by enemy atmospheric aircraft.
Supposed pilot, anyway.
Later events and a field assignment-of-responsibility meeting determined two new lessons: one, the enemy were monitoring their radio signals and two, there was no downed shuttle. The enemy was somehow generating fake distress calls and responding to them in perfectly spoken Znosian with the right response codes. And they were doing it in real time.
That was a new trick. The remaining holdouts switched off their radios after that.
His own platoon of Longclaws fared little better. They had been devastated during the confusion of the retreat. Of their four heavy armored vehicles, Fearless Three was destroyed at the Battle for Hill 37, a heavy sacrifice of both creature and machine that seemed pointless in hindsight. Fearless Four was heavily damaged there as well, losing its gravity engines and having to be towed back to base. Along with Fearless Two, the two Longclaws had to be destroyed by their own crews to prevent capture by the enemies when their forward operating base was overrun by Lesser Predators.
Only his command vehicle remained operational, by a rather liberal definition of that word. Out of supplies or part replacement, a dozen of its internal systems had been rendered either non-functional or so inefficient they might as well have been. It had run out of all but a fraction of its combat shells and a few belts of coaxial kinetic ammunition. Thankfully, its weak combat computer was still capable of giving field directives to the diminishing number of troops under Skhork. Its crew had hidden it in the forestry nearby under some carefully placed foliage.
Next to him, Skhork’s Gunner grunted at him for the device in his paws. He passed the rangefinder over.
She peered through the digital lens, whispering, “I don’t remember the autocannon turret at the back gate from last time.”
He whispered back at her, “It’s new. They must have put it in last week.”
She squinted through the optics, her eyes flickering over its outlines. “Looks fairly low caliber,” she assessed. “Twenty-five to thirty-five millimeters. Not enough to penetrate the front or side armor of the Longclaw—”
“—But more than enough to turn the flesh of every infantry unit we have into red mist,” he finished grimly.
“Inconvenient. We’ll have to take that out first when we mount our attack here— wait— what’s that?” she said, shifting her view over to the landing pad busy unloading area. After a few moments, her eyes widened with a dawning realization. She hissed, “Combat robots!”
“What?” Skhork asked in disbelief. “Nonsense! Give me that.”
He reclaimed the rangefinder from her paws, and zoomed into the area that captured his Gunner’s attention.
“Near the crates…”
Sure enough, a small group of Lesser Predators had gathered in a semi-circle around two of the unloaded, half-open metal crates, pointing excitedly at the cargo being unpacked. Inside one of the crates — through the machinery — he could see a squad of non-active but still menacing looking, bipedal combat robots armed with an assortment of predator small-arms weapons and at least one of them with a compact rocket launcher.
They looked about a head taller than the Lesser Predator Marines around them, just under 2 meters as measured by his rangefinder. Two front paws. Two standing paws. Fully upright. No tail. Manipulators with five claws on each paw. Their oval heads, crowned with six cylindrical optics, bore a stark resemblance to the four on his own night vision combat gear, albeit bulkier. A thick layer of armor shielded their torsos, obscured partially by utilitarian pouches brimming with ammunition and various items.
Embedded in their backs was a mysterious solid black rectangle.
Battery pack, perhaps?
As he watched, one of the Lesser Predators fiddled with a handheld control, prompting one of the robots to unpack itself and walk out of its packaging, rendering a crisp Lesser Predator salute at it. Several of the creatures around the leader whooped and cheered, clapping each other on their backs in enthusiasm.
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Skhork would not have believed it. He stuttered, “But— but how? We didn’t get any intelligence on these!”
Gunner shrugged beside him. She speculated, “They must have had these before the war. Maybe they finally figured out how to make use of them.”
Skhork’s mind raced, sifting through memories of his training, recalling the little they’d learn about fighting them. The Znosian Marines used non-combat robots extensively, mostly highly specialized ones on planets that were not hospitable to life, but few of the enemies they’d had to face used them in combat roles. What they’d known about those few… ranged from inconsequential to mythical. The Znosians themselves had seen no use for such expendable machines in battle: after all, breeding was basically free, and no job was considered too dangerous for Znosian conscripts.
And these Lesser Predators? Of all the many enemies of the Znosian Dominion, the Malgeir were the last they’d expect to have these.
And yet here they were, being unloaded onto a planet that was already effectively retaken by the enemy.
“Maybe they’re being shipped in for transit to another sector,” he pondered out loud. “They might be having more trouble with our frontline units in the—”
As he watched the combat robots move towards positions guarding hardpoints around the spaceport and a third crate was opened to reveal yet another squad of the machines, his next sentence died in his throat.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“The new combat robots change nothing,” Skhork declared confidently to his briefing of his circle of infantry platoon leaders. “Our planned assault on the spaceport will continue as previously discussed with some minor adjustments.”
A conscript commander, her uniform worn, raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Have you fought them before?”
He shook his head.
“Has anyone here fought them before?” she pressed on, her gaze sweeping across the circle. None of the veteran commanders replied.
“We saw their weapons; they’re just regular infantry units,” Skhork interrupted. “And our Longclaw combat computer agreed: we expect them to be more accurate and effective than the Lesser Predator units we’ve been facing before, but they are still no match for our Longclaws.”
His platoon leaders murmured their agreement, and no further objections came. If the combat computer said that, it must be so.
“The assault on the spaceport is still weeks down the line,” Skhork said, continuing steadily with his briefing. “Before that, we must charge the internal battery of our Longclaw. Without it, we have no chance. And to charge our Longclaw, we must find parts to make a battery charger.”
He gestured towards a crude makeshift map laid out on the forest floor, composed of fallen tree sticks and bits of vegetation, pointing his claws individually to each of the points of interest. “There are six Lesser Predator power plants within range of our location. During our occupation, one of our other Longclaw Marine units recorded that the power plants in this area had equipment that could possibly be used to fashion a charger for our batteries.”
“That information is still up to date?” one of the platoon leaders asked.
“We don’t know,” Skhork admitted. “But we don’t have much of a choice.” Then he added, with a hint of resolve, “But even if it does not work, power plants are considered high value infrastructure targets under our ongoing directive anyway.”
The abandoned units on Datsot had all been given one final order before the Navy pulled up stakes: they were to sabotage and destroy as much of the Lesser Predators’ fighting power and war potential as they could, even without the support of the fleet. At any cost. After all, their lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day they left the hatchling pools.
It was up to each individual unit how they wanted to implement that directive. Skhork’s cell had been raiding the countryside for weeks now, gathering supplies for the coming fights.
“We will hit the power plants sequentially with our infantry platoons,” he detailed. “Hopefully the first one we attack will have all the equipment we need, but it is possible it will not. We will hit as many of them as we need until we accomplish our objective. Once we get the parts to make the charger, we will hit a final power plant with our Longclaw in tow, and we will charge its battery to full in preparation for the attack on the spaceport.”
“This is the first power plant,” Skhork continued, circling part of the map on the ground with a claw. Then, he drew a diamond split into four. “This old fusion plant has four campuses: north, east, south, and west reactors. We will take the north reactor because it is closest to the tree line, north of the campus. It will be a standard supply raid much like the ones we have been doing for weeks. According to our reconnaissance the past couple days, there is a guard shift rotation at midnight. We will hit it two hours afterward to ensure that we face the least number of enemies.”
He pointed at the platoon leaders in charge of each phase of the attack.
“Platoons 2 to 6 will hit the guard house. Platoons 2 and 3, you will stay there to ensure that our way out is clear. Platoons 4 to 6 will then proceed to the reactor control center together. Kill anything with forward-facing eyes and try not to shoot anything that looks like it can blow up in your face. Once they secure the campus, Platoons 7 and 8 will then escort my Engineer to the maintenance shed. Guard him with your life because unless one of your conscripts was a mechanic in their past life, he is the only one here who knows how the Longclaw battery works.”
“How long do we have?” one of the platoon leaders asked.
“One hour at most. We will not get long before units from the spaceport respond to the raid, but we have a plan for them too. Platoon 9 will setup a kill box to the north of the main road to delay their forward elements. Once my Engineer has scoured the control room for parts for the Longclaw charger, rig the control room to overload and blow. But be sure not to set it off before we are all well clear of the campus: from what our combat computer calculates, the radius of a secondary explosion can be… considerable.”
“What about enemy artillery?” another platoon leader inquired.
“Based on the orbital patterns we’ve seen over the last few days,” Skhork reassured her, “there should be nothing overhead for at least an hour during the time. But we’ll be spotting them on the ground; if any of their support ships try to move into position over us, I’ll pull you out.”
Unanimous nods of understanding rippled through the circle.
“One more thing, there may be unarmed Lesser Predators in the control center. Should some of them indicate a willingness to come quietly… take the two that seem to be highest-ranking and dispose of the rest. We may need them for information on the other power plants or local enemy movements. And remember to check them for radio devices this time.” He said the last part looking at Platoon 6’s leader, whose whiskers subtly twitched at the admonition.
“If they are not properly ranked?” disgust colored one platoon leader’s voice.
“Then grab the oldest-looking ones. If anything goes badly, fall back to my Engineer and escort him to the northern tree line. All your platoons’ combined lives are worth less to me than his,” Skhork declared frankly.
More nods. One of the platoon leaders muttered under her breath, “Our lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day we left the hatchling pools.”
“Any other questions for the power plant? No? Good. We are Fearless. We are the claws that make predators tremble in the night. Trust in your herd! Trust in your platoons! Awoo?”
“Awoo awoo awoooooooo!”
Comments
Desurtfawks
Wonder what other "alien" tech the pups are going to pull of their magical boxes. 101s are a good start!
Valdis Trautmanis
Finally! The Terminators make their entry 😈
