First Contact

The massive duralloy doors, sheathed with endosteel and covered with radar scattering stealth paint opened with a screech that could be heard for over a mile. Out lumbered eighty mechs in the 450 to 500 ton range, all heavily armed and armored, piloted by beings who had dozens if not hundreds of arena battles under their belts. The pilots accelerated to a light jog, heading toward where the 'medium armored vehicles, mix of assault, air defense, self-propelled artillery, and anti-armor" were heading toward the industrial facility, accompanied by over three thousand infantry.

"OK, you want to disable the anti-armor first," Tak squealed, bouncing up and down. "Bring up your long range radar scanners."

Ullmo'ok realized he had no idea how the long range scanner worked. "Bring it up for me on screen five," he ordered, selecting the display that usually showed his point total. "Have the others bring up the long range radar on their point and ranking display."

"Um, Okie-dokie," Tak said. It was a bunch of concentric circles, with a line sweeping around in a clockwise direction fairly rapidly. At the far ring, at the top, where a narrow V terminated, a bunch of dots started showing. "We're six miles and closing."

"Not a problem," Ullmo'ok answered. He was calm, centered, that strange feeling of lacking something he had his entire life surrounding and filling him. "Hook me in to everyone else."

"Done. Go ahead," Tak said.

"All right. We've all fought in the arena, you know how to fight in your Bashmechs, we practiced in the simulators. We know we can take these guys," Ullmo'ok said. "Lets trashbash 'em up."

He paused, shooting a narco-stim into his arm before looking at Tak's display.

"Close the channel," he told Tak.

"Um, sure, boss," Tak said. After a moment Tak said: "Don't you have a warplan?"

"Yeah. Scrap 'em," Ullmo'ok said. "It's like any junker mechbash."

"Um, hang on," Tak said. Ullmo'ok say the communication light come on but didn't hear anything. After a minute the light went out. "Uh, boss, have you ever fought for real before?"

"Over three hundred matches. I can fight, Tak," Ullmo'ok said, feeling the narco-stim run through his veins, making his heart rate jump and easing his muscles. "Don't worry, we'll scrap these guys, go back for repair and reload, and wait for the next batch."

"Uh, are you sure, boss?" Tak asked.

Ullmo'ok sighed. "Yes, I'm sure. We ran a lot of simulations against the Terran Military Armed Services estimations of these machines. Even the ones we are heading toward."

"All right, boss," Tak sounded unsure to Ullmo'ok, but the aVI went silent.

The miles swept under his feet as the eighty mechs thundered toward the enemy.

"117 Artillery is dropping smoke and chaff to cover your advance and soften them up a little. They can only dedicate two companies so it'll be light fire. When you exit the cover you'll be a half mile from long to extreme range of your long range weaponry and 117 will cease fire," Tak said.

"All right," Ullmo'ok answered.

An alarm went off and the screen he usually showed himself the crowd on blanked to reveal another radar screen, this one tracking blue lines.

"What is that?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"That's point defense radar, boss," Tak said. "Um, those are friendly artillery rounds. I just told you about them."

"Ah, yes," Ullmo'ok said. He felt his tendrils tremble slightly and ignored it.

"Uh, ok, boss," Tak sounded really unsure and Ullmo'ok noticed that the transmission light came on again.

His forward radar was suddenly fogged out, like a solid wall had appeared.

"Pop a drone, boss," Tak said.

"Hey, my radar isn't working ahead of me," was the common thread of twenty of his men suddenly comlinking him.

"It's the stuff your aVI told you about," he reassured them. Half of them commented that they'd told the annoying little VI to be quiet.

"Boss, don't let them do that. I'm serious, I don't think that's a good idea," Tak said. "Turn on your EW suite, boss. Seriously, turn it on. Pop a drone and hit your EW."

"My what?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"For the sake of my Digital Omnimessiah!" Tak yelled. Ullmo'ok saw a power drain he wasn't used to.

"Stop that, I balance my power load carefully," Ullmo'ok said. "Don't make me turn you off like the others."

"You guys shouldn't turn us off, boss! I'm serious, it's a really bad idea going into this fight!" Tak squealed.

"It will be all right. They know how to fight," Ullmo'ok reassured the aVI. Little Tak seemed like a very nervous sort. Ullmo'ok wondered for a moment if there was a way to give the little guy a narcojet hit or not.

They were into the cloud. A few of his fellow gladiators cursed, but they all ran through the smoke, coming out. Ullmo'ok noticed that his radar kept fuzzing and wavering.

Ullmo'ok's aVI suddenly carated all the dots on his radar, marking them with different shapes and colors.

"There's the anti-armor vehicles, boss! Get 'em!" the aVI squeaked.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok said. He activated his datalink to his men. "Kill the anti-armor first!" He clicked off his datalink and sped up, sprinting across the terrain. His men gave a shout over the datalink, breaking into a run with him.

"Boss, what are you doing? Boss?" the aVI squealed. "Turn on your battle-screens!"

"Moving to attack," Ullmo'ok answered. "I don't have battle-screens."

Lasers were being fired from the Precursor machines. He could see them now, heavy, blocky, bristling with weapons and thick with armor. They all moved on tracks that churned the ground, ran over small buildings, crushed houses and trees. They were making a straight line toward the mining facility.

"Uh, boss?" Tak asked. "Turn on your battle-screens!"

More lasers were lancing out, hitting the mechs charging them. Particle cannons, fired at extreme range joined in. Missiles started being fired from the machines, small ones, medium ones, seekers. Each mech's point defense shot down ones coming at them, picked off a few other, then went silent.

"Boss?" The aVI barked as Ullmo'ok's point defense went silent. A particle beam raked Ullmo'ok's leg but a quick glance showed Ullmo'ok that it hadn't done much more than minimal damage to his leg's thick armor.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok asked. He was satisfied that his point defense knocked down not only all of the ones coming at him but ones aimed at others too.

"Activating battle-screens!" Tak yelled. Ullmo'ok saw his power take a hit and his viewscreens shimmered slightly.

"What is that? Stop that, I need that power for my guns!" Ullmo'ok barked. "Clear my vision."

"You need that power for your screens or you're gonna get splattered!" Tak shot back. "How do you not know this? I'm like three hours old! Gimme a sec to compensate for the screens."

The displays cleared up right as Ullmo'ok increased power and pushed his speed back up, more lasers and missiles hitting, but this time deflected or detonated by a shimmering field surrounding him.

"SHOOT!" Tak screamed.

Tak jumped over a house, clearing it easily, and landed, raising his arms and triggering his missile launchers at the nearest set of tanks. Ullmo'ok knew missiles were point and shoot, the pilot's hand-eye mattering more than the computer reticle. The missiles, Terran military smart-weapons, shot out, blinked in surprised, armed, and impacted a second later before the VI's even went active. Both tanks shuddered, rocking back on their tracks, but continued forward, a half dozen craters in their forward glacis.

"BOSS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Tak screamed as Ullmo'ok raked the leading rank of tanks with his 200mm autocannons, his whole mech shuddering as he raked his massive fists across the front of the Precursor tanks. Ullmo'ok fired lasers, covered some in plasma-napalm, extended his sword and jumped into the air.

"BOSS! WHAT THE FUCK?" Tak shrieked as Ullmo'ok's massive feet slammed down on two enemy tanks, crushing them. He lunged forward and drove his sword through another tank, molten metal spraying from the impaled Precursor tank. He finished it off with a heavy laser shot as he yanked the chainsword free and turned to face the next one.

"Told you, going to mechbash these guys," Ullmo'ok said, feeling a slight trickle of something as two heavy cannon rounds his mech, forcing him back a step off the destroyed tanks.

He selected a single target and unloaded his two heavy missile pods, pouring a hundred heavy missiles into the front of the armor.

The missiles, normally long range smart missiles capable of dodging point defense, making popup attacks, or even circling wide to come around for another pass didn't even have a chance to completely unhash before they realized they were about to hit and armed the impact triggers.

The tank, a medium air defense tank with minimal armor, exploded into fury even as the missiles kept streaming into the fire, most of them barely able to fire up the sensors before they slammed into the ground and exploded. Most of the damage was from unburned fuel exploding and the sheer kinetic hit rather then their complex warheads designed to feet heavy warmech armor.

"BOSS! THIS ISN'T AN ARENA FIGHT!" Tak shrieked. "WHAT THE FUCK, BOSS?"

A shot hit Ullmo'ok from the side and he turned in place, firing his autocannons as he did so, raking it across the front and sides of the robot tanks around him.

"Boss, you're losing men! I mean, really losing men! You gotta run!" Tak said. "Total armor is down by 50% and you're getting close to getting blow-through!"

Ullmo'ok bellowed and fired everything he had at a tank, his cockpit flushing with heat. Lasers, cannon shot, autocannon, and particle beams were raking at his mech. His point defense was overheating and he was losing armor fast.

"Boss, run!" Tak yelled. "I'm overwhelmed! I can't can't can't can't allocate screen-een-eens and point-tah-tah-tah defense-se-se."

"Everyone, back to base," Ullmo'ok said, finishing his turn and running out, stomping on tanks as he went, slashing right and left with his chainsword, firing his weapons into the side of the tanks. He got clear, running back into the remains of the smoke and chaff, confident the others were right behind him.

There was silence for a long time, broken only by the whirring of the cooling fans in the cockpit, the thud of his mech's feet, and the howl of his point defense going off.

He broke free of the smoke, running for the cave where the repair teams were.

"Close Air Support from 3-12 is coming in to clean it up," Tak said, his voice quiet. "117 is supporting them. They can dedicate the entire brigade now."

"All right," Ullmo'ok said.

It was silent for a long time. The small quarry that the cave opened up into came into view before Tak spoke again.

"That wasn't a sim or an arena fight, boss," Tak said.

"I know," Ullmo'ok answered.

"No, boss, I don't think you do," Tak said.

The aVI was quiet as Ullmo'ok slowed down and came to a stop in the quarry. Nearly a dozen of his fellow gladiator's mechs were already there, being worked on by mechanics. He was pleased to see how light the damage was, although it looked to him as if they'd taken a lot of damage to the rear quarter.

"I'm gonna talk to some friends," Tak said softly as Ullmo'ok started to shut down his mech.

"All right," Ullmo'ok said. The mech slowly shut down, a winding sound moaning through the cockpit. He popped the armored hatch and took a breath of fresh air. He could smell scorched and burnt metal, hot lubricant, and overheated cooling-cores. He breathed deep, relishing the cool air even though his bashmech was radiating heat. The ladder steps that he'd customized for his four legged form deployed and he moved down them. Mechanics were rushing forward with coolant hoses, grinders, welders and he moved past them.

Feeling the flush of victory from his first mass combat he moved toward where his fellow gladiators were, looking around for the narcobrew as he did so.

That was all right, but it still felt... lacking, he thought to himself.

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

"This is it?" Ullmo'ok asked, staring at the last mech to come in. It was stumbling junk, both legs ravaged down to the warsteel internal structures. Actuators were blown out, artificial muscle fiber was shredded or missing, armor was completely gone. The bashmech was stumbling junk, half of its weapons destroyed.

"That's it, boss," one of the mechanics said. "Everyone else is dead or had to eject."

"And got slaughtered by those machines before they could even get out of their ejection seats," One of his fellow gladiators, Mustlik, said, shaking his head. "If that bombing didn't happen and those aircraft hadn't have started pounding them, they would have gotten me too."

The Frestilek put his face in his hands and began crying. "I can't do it, Ullmo'ok, I can't go back into something like that again."

Ullmo'ok nodded, staring at the gladiator's mech. It had been ravaged by missile fire, laser beams, and particle beams. There was a hole clear through the lower torso on the mech, its skirting missing.

Only forty-three had made it back. The mechanics had told Ullmo'ok that eight of them were too damaged to return to service quickly, it would take a week or more working full time to fix them.

On of the other gladiators led Mustlik away, patting the smaller being on his back. The one leading Mustlik away glared at Ullmo'ot, clacking her beak in agitation.

"I will not go back either. I'm a Bashmech driver, not someone to race to the slaughter," she clacked.

Ullmo'ok shrugged. "I will not force anyone to fight who does not want to."

"Boss," Tak spoke up for the first time in hours.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok answered, taking a sip off his narcobrew.

"We need to talk, somewhere private," the aVI said, it's voice was deeper, less squeaky, and sounded very serious.

Ullmo'ok got up and moved to the old mine supervisor's office, resting on the sling-like chair.

"What?" Ullmo'ok asked, taking another drink.

"That happens again, and you're dead. Your family in those bunkers are dead," The aVI said.

Ullmo'ok gave the equivalent of a shrug. "All right."

"Boss, did you train at all?" Tak asked.

"Simulators. Against Terran VR representations of Precursor machines," Ullmo'ok said. He unwrapped a ration and shoved it into his mouth, pushing it into his jowls so he could chew it slowly. "True, we did better in the simulators, but I think we did well. We stopped them, didn't we?"

"That was one battle, boss. This is the ninety-eighth century, not a battlefield in Europe during the Bronze Age!" Tak said. "By the Digital Omnimessiah, boss, did all of you do solo fights in the simulators?"

"We trained at the same time. Why?" Ullmo'ok said.

"No, were all of you on the same VR battlefield?" Tak asked.

"No. We each watched the others to learn from them," Ullmo'ok answered. "We knew we could fight next to each other. We had fought one another, we knew each other's tactics."

"Arena tactics, boss," Tak said. "Arena tactics. This was one battle in a war that might last for months, years, depending on how much metal the Precursors are willing to bring to bear."

"We did well," Ullmo'ok said. "We outfought the..."

"No, boss, you didn't. Your entire force destroyed less than one hundred-twenty tanks, damaged only two hundred, and in return you lost almost fifty medium grade mechs," Tak interrupted. "You took over fifty percent casualties and only inflicted twenty-percent on the enemy. If it wasn't for 3-12 and 117 those Precursors would be digging your family out of those bunkers to tear them apart with their claws. Boss, you barely touched their infantry support."

Ullmo'ok frowned. He remembered destroying at least a half dozen.

"Why didn't you shoot boss? Why?" Tak asked. His voice sounded close to tears. "Why didn't you order them to turn on their electronic warfare suites or battle-screens? Why did you sprint at them like that?"

Ullmo'ok thought. "It's how we fight."

"I had friends on those mechs, boss. You didn't know what you were doing and you ran straight into a meat grinder and got them all killed," Tak said. "I might only be eight hours old, but those were my friends, we were hashed together. Half of them died in their sleep, boss. Warbois, dying in their sleep."

"My condolences. I did not know your kind formed attachments so quickly," Ullmo'ok answered.

"Boss, what about your fellow gladiators?" Tak asked.

Ullmo'ok shrugged. "They died gloriously, in combat, just like they were all prepared to do in the arena."

There was silence a moment. "No, boss, they didn't."

There was silence a moment.

"You got them killed. You wasted them. I'm not sure if I want to be your warboi any more."

And Tak was gone.

Ullmo'ok sat in the office, sipping his narcobrew, trying to understand what the aVI had been telling him.

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

"All right, hook me in," Ullmo'ok said, staring at the technician. The Puntimat nodded, reaching out and hitting the keyboard.

Ullmo'ok felt his awareness expand. He was over the battlefield, looking down, the feed from multiple Terran satellites all merged by the technicians. He had asked Tak to get him some data and Tak had reluctantly agreed.

He saw his mechs, in a ragged staggered line, charging forward. Some stumbled and recovered, some slid, a few almost tripped on buildings. He saw designations come up in a line in front of the mechs and then around the Precursor machines his mechs were running toward. He'd seen those markings on his radar and scanner screens and queried his implant.

Artillery markers. Type, estimated time to impact, unit of origin, target.

Ullmo'ot loaded the information in his datalink into QikRAM, so it would automatically come to mind when he saw those markings again.

The artillery shells started hitting, creating a solid looking barrier of white smoke, chaff, and EM jammers. Other artillery rounds, anti-armor and fuel air, started detonating among the tanks.

He saw his mechs charge through the smoke, saw new icons pop up. According to his datalink that meant 117 Field Artillery Brigade had stopped firing. By the time they came out of the smoke the last of the rounds had hit.

Most of the infantry had been destroyed by the fuel-air.

He stopped the replay, then watched from each cockpit.

Each gladiator fought like masters. Putting fire into the tanks, raking them with autocannons, lasers, missiles, ballerinas in a ballet of death. Each one that went down fell to superior numbers, going down yelling and firing. Some ejected, their mechs smashed to junk.

After the last one, he rewound the sim and played it again.

He watched his own mech and that of the gladiators sprint into the Precursor tanks. Four of the mechs stopped, firing missiles from just outside the smoke. Firing heavy lasers and the lighter autocannons that didn't kick so badly and could stay on target. One went down from a lucky particle beam that punched through the cockpit.

The rest, the seventy-five, charged in, laying about them with their weapons in a frenzy. Three times Ullmo'ok saw a mech accidentally hit another one. Once from the rear, blowing the friendly mech apart. The tanks began concentrating on the mechs inside their own formation, shifting rapidly. The slower anti-tank vehicles maneuvered, getting shots on the mechs.

Less than thirty of them had their battle-screens and the electronic warfare suite activated. Most of them only had one or the other. As he watched they were pounded on, hammered, reduced to scrap. One, then two, then more began to run away. Those without battle-screens barely made it halfway to the smoke before getting destroyed.

Only some of them ejected.

He saw himself give tell the others to run. Only a dozen made it, most of those staggering. The ones that had stayed by the fading wall of smoke turned and ran when they saw Ullmo'ok coming.

He kept watched as artillery started hammering the tanks, followed by aircraft roaring in to drop heavy explosives. It took six passes, and two of the aircraft were blown out of the sky, and another artillery barrage before the Precursor tanks were stopped.

The sim ended and Ullmo'ok gasped as he opened his eyes. The techs were looking at him and he motioned for a narcobrew. After he had a few drinks to settle down he nodded.

"Load up the file Tak got me. I want to see it. I need to know," Ullmo'ok stated.

The world vanished in a dazzle of pixels, loading back up another composite view. This time was fifty light military grade mechs, roughly the same firepower and armor and shielding as his own. They were advancing on nearly three times what Ullmo'ok and his force had attacked.

He had asked Tak to find him a sim like this, as close to what his own battle had been like between forces and terrain.

He watched as they didn't sprint through the cloud, they walked, a slow steady metronome of steps. He saw drones pop up. He had drones on his own mech, but hadn't used them. From the cloud was fired heavy missiles. His datalink implant identified them as long range missiles. He watched them streak in, going to evasive maneuvers, hugging low to the ground, only popping up at the last second to hit the top of the Precursor vehicles. The mechs fired staggered, one set then another while the first reloaded, keeping the area flooded with missiles. The more enemy tanks that were destroyed, the more gaps appeared in the point defense, the more missiles hit. A few of the light mechs fired off smoke and chaff of their own, keeping the mechs surrounded by the cloud. More drones popped up, getting targeting data for the mechs. Artillery joined in, the rounds impacting with more accuracy thanks to the drones. The mechs expended 20% of their missile loads and stopped firing.

The smoke starteed to clear and the mechs began advancing on the tattered remained of the tanks, firing long range weapons. Only a few of the tanks had the reach to strike back. Ullmo'ok noted that the light mechs worked in teams, three to five each concentrating on the heavier tanks till it exploded.

They moved through the wreckage, pausing at each wreck, firing short range but powerful plasma guns, the type that the gladiators used to augment fist punches, into the shattered Precursor mechs.

The replay sim ended as the mechs moved on.

It didn't seem like a proper battle to Ullmo'ok, who was used to getting in his foe's face. It seemed almost dishonorable.

Until he saw the casualties.

None. Hardly any armor damage. Less than 20% of munitions used, including the drones.

That group of mechs were still fighting, still engaged in combat. They had only been reloaded once during the day and had not needed to stop to be repaired.

"End sim," Ullmo'ok said. When the world cleared he lifted up his narcobrew and took a long drink off of it. "Get the Bashmech pilots still willing to fight."

The mechanic nodded as Ullmo'ok went into his datalink, looking for anything that would help him.

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

Twenty-five bashmech pilots, that was all he had left willing to fight.

"All right, boss, we'll listen. For now," The leader, Frestilek named Cranten, said, his voice serious.

"I made a mistake," Ullmo'ok said honestly. The others all nodded in agreement. "We trained in the simulators, we trained in the arena, but we did not train together. Worse, I found a quote from a long ago Terran leader that summed up what happened.

"Simulation training is nothing like field exercise training. Field exercise training is nothing like battle. Battle is nothing like war. Men must be trained to work with one another, to know what the man on his left and right will do, to know and understand how an army makes war."

Ullmo'ok finished the quote and stared at his fellow gladiators for a long moment. "I trained us for one on one fighting, we practiced in our mechs, but we did not do what Terrans call field exercise, and this is why I led you all to your deaths. We should have trained, all together, to work as one. Like cogs in a well made machine," he finished.

"Watch the recording I sent you. Look it over. See how the Terrans fight, how a military fights," Ullmo'ok said. He heaved a deep breath. "Then decide if you still wish to fight with me, because that is how we must fight and there is no time for practice."

The others nodded, slowly breaking away from the group, leaving Ullmo'ok alone.

"Boss?" Tak said quietly.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"You don't have long," Tak said.

"How long?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"A few hours. The Precursors, that Jotun nearby, he sent more. A lot more. All light armor units and robotic infantry, but a lot of them. They're carrying close range anti-tank weaponry," Tak said. "Boss, you can't stop them, not if you fight like that again."

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

V CORPS MEMO

TO: aVI-4236a55z24 "Tak"

Request for reassignment denied. Train them up, teach them to fight. You have access to the training library, use it. Help these people help themselves.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

KESTIMET DEFENDS REFINERY SUCCESSFULLY

Kistimet CorpSec forces successfully defended the refinery held by the outlaw Ullmo'ok, despite the lack of Terran military forces. CorpSec has reported only minimal casualties while destroying the entire Precursor force of thousands sent to attack the critical facility, perhaps offered the valuable refinery by the outlaw Ullmo'ok.

CorpSec wishes to remind all Corporation Citizens and Employees that they are only contracted to protect you if you are in a designated shelter.