Continuation of animorphs 54
In the year 2015, eighteen years after the renowned invasion of earth and the brave group of teenagers called the Animorphs who thwarted their attempts, humanity had improved greatly. Countries across the globe now knew of a threat bigger than anything they had ever thought possible. Just because the yeerks had been pushed back once didn't mean they wouldn't attack again to claim the wealth of human host bodies. So in 2005 the United Nations dissolved into the Earth Space Command. This organization was more or less like the United Nations, but more focused on humanities stellar presence. They started construction of warships, and scavenging captured yeerk dracon beams to create their own weapons. In the year 2012, the ESC declared war on the Yeerk Empire and was committed to wiping them out. By 2015, the First Stellar fleet set sail for the Aiif system, two stars away from the Taxxon home world.
Aiif system
The domeship Treeblade cruised through the Aiif system along with the other twenty eight domeships. The fleet had been gathering in this system for over two weeks, preparing for the massive assault on the Taxxon world. If the Taxxon world was retaken, the Yeerks would lose a huge tract of soldiers, ships, resources and host bodies. This would give the Andalites a huge edge in the war, and as soon as the remaining vessel arrived the attack would commence.
Captain Farrel-Gafrel-Nomen stood on the bridge of the Treeblade, watching the fleet move past. All around him warriors were at their stations, working on consoles and making hand signs to each other to avoid thought speak clatter.
Report The Tactical Officer, or TO responded.
Captain Sir, the Elfangor says they will here in another seventeen point 0391 minutes The captain pondered this data.
Good, good. Then we shall commence the attack in another twenty minutes. Inform the fleet, begin final preparations for combat
Yes sir, I am informing the fleet of the status now He ran over to a console and stood in front of it, communicating to the fleets computers via though speak. Throughout the fleet final preparations were made for the battle, pilots attended their fighters and prepared for launch, while boarding parties and warriors boarded transports, already loaded with mobile shredder cannon and skimmers. The ships shredder cannons were powered on and charged, while shields popped into place around the vessels. And then it happened.
Captain! One of the warriors working the consoles said. Captain! Zero-Space rupture! The captain immediately started giving out orders.
Yeerk ships? Ours? What type are they, lock on main shredder cannons to fire on my command! The warrior replied.
Neither sir, vessels of unknown type and race As he spoke a space contorted and twisted, then split. Thirteen vessels came through this rip in space, which disappeared immediately. The captain squinted at them and ordered them to be magnified. The view zoomed forward to provide a clear view of the alien vessels. They were odd indeed, colored a drab dark tan/beige colour. They had three subspace engine cones at the back and a neck-like structure extending from these engines and narrowing and splitting into two at the end. A mound that appeared to be the bridge was located at the joint between the engines and neck structure. Eight of these vessels were smaller than the others, four larger still and one vessel a third larger than either. They glided toward the Andalite fleet, intention unknown to the Andalites.
The captain just stared at the vessels with all four eyes, as did the other warriors on the bridge. Getting a hold of himself, the captain was about to hail them when his TO spoke.
Captain, we are being hailed
On screen A holographic screen appeared in front of him. A face materialized, a face the Captain never expected.
Human.
The captain was at a loss for words for a moment. He managed to regain his composer and voice. With authority, he spoke.
Human, what are you and your vessels doing in this sector of space? The human replied in kind.
"Hello Captain. I am Fleet Admiral Preston Scott, in charge of the First Stellar Fleet. We have orders from ESC High Command to assist your forces in your assault on the Taxxon planet." The Captain laughed.
Don't be absurd human, your chemical explosives would be useless against yeerk energy shielding The human moved his mouth, twisting it in a position the Captain recognized as a smirk.
"You may want to run a full scan on our ships systems Captain." The Captain turned his stalk eyes to a warrior manning the scanners systems.
Run a systems scan on the human ship communicating with us.
Yes sir The warrior touched a couple of holographic icons and awaited the results. His main eyes got wider and wider as he read the result. He turned to the Captain and said.
Sir, I don't know if you'll believe this. Scans show the human vessel is armed with six hundred high explosive chemical tracking rockets, six electro-magnetic propulsion systems, each capable of launching high velocity high density rounds, and one high power particle accelerator cannon The captain froze when he heard the last weapon. He slowly turned his stalk eyes to face the warrior.
A Particle accelerator cannon? The warrior nodded silently. The Captain continued.
How is this possible? Our top scientists deemed them impossible after a decade of work! And yet these humans have managed to create them? They succeed where we failed? How
I cannot say sir. All I can say is that such a weapon is very powerful The human voice started again.
"I see from your astounded looks that you are in denial that me posses such firepower. But it is very possible and very true, so if you do not mind captain, my fleet will join yours." The Captain stewed for a moment, and then surrendered.
Your fleet is being synchronized to leave with ours The human admiral smiled.
"Thank you so very much Captain. I'm sure you will find our services very helpful. With that, he terminated the transmission to leave the Andalites to stew and nurse their broken pride.
Aboard the ESC Cruiser Enterprise, Private Jared Miles sat in his bunk, staring at the grey steel ceiling. The cruiser was tunnelling through Z-space with the rest of the ESC and Andalite fleet. Going through z-space was like swimming through milk, nothing to see but blank white. Man, he couldn't believe he was actually going into interstellar combat. Just eighteen years ago the only people who believed in aliens were usually in loony bins. Now they had blue centaurs turning into humans and gorging themselves on fast food. Andalite tourists were easy to see, because they were either, a) eating something, or b) looking for something to eat. He had signed up as an ESC marine because he had spent five years watching star wars and star trek. He thought he'd be on the bridge of a star ship, bravely going where no man had gone before, in a galaxy a long, long time ago and all that crap. But here he was, staring at the ceiling six inches above his face on a metal bunk in a room with four other guys. Now they were heading with the blue centaurs to fight the evil worms. That'd make a great title for a fifties sci-fi show, Attack of the evil Worm Beings! Didn't sound too scary, until you saw them eat people in seconds, vaporize creatures with laser guns and even eat themselves, ugh. And they were backed up by those giant walking wood chippers/dragons. Yeah, really scary crap and hall. His captain had said they would reach the planet in a few minutes, so he was supposed to get ready for battle. He decided to wait until the call to general quarters was announced. It wasn't a long wait. An alarm started blaring and a voice boomed out from speakers.
"General Quarters, General Quarters this is no drill." He sat up, banged his head on the ceiling, swore and crawled off the bed. He landed on the floor and stood to his feet. He went to his locker, popped it open and started clipping on his magnetic armour so it just snapped together. His chest armour was already on so he started putting on his leg and shin armour plus the protection for his arms. He clipped the colt .45 twelve shot to his waist and grabbed his HK-66 assault rifle. Holding it in one hand he pulled on his helmet and secured it in place on his head. Now that he was ready, he opened the door, slung his rifle on his shoulder and ran down the corridor among the other bustling crewmen and marines. His transport was in hanger B which was very close by so it took him only a minute to get there. A huge carnivorous space met his eyes, loaded with transports and fighters and such. The big Draco class transports were ready, loaded with M3 A3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and other heavy vehicles. The smaller Osprey dropships were already loading up with Marines. His dropship was on the second pier, tether seven. He ran over and saw his squad commander, Captain Parker. He was yelling, as usual.
"Move it, move it! We're dropping into real space in five minutes so hurry up!" Miles arrived the Osprey and saluted Parker.
"Ready to go sir."
"Good, now get in!" He obliged and pulled himself up into the hovering transport. Sitting down, he could see the other ten members of his squad, no wait. McCoy was still missing.
"Hey Miles, what you think?" Miles turned to see Rogers, the squad's demolitions expert talking to him.
"Huh, think of what?" Rogers snorted.
"The weather, no idiot the intergalactic battle we're entering." Miles replied with a sheepish grin.
"Oh, yeah that. I guess I'm pretty freaked out. Like, we're battling alien's man, not some radical towel heads or whatever. I hope I leave, but I kind of doubt it." McCoy suddenly popped in, followed by Parker. They both took a seat. McCoy opened up.
"Sorry I'm late fellahs, I was sleeping when the alarm woke me up." Silence greeted this statement and conversation died. They were all thinking they pretty soon they'd go to sleep, and not wake up. The Whole ship suddenly jolted and the speaker erupted.
"Ok marines, this is you're pilot. We've entered normal space and are going to head to the planet as soon as possible. Better buckle up." The voice vanished and Miles grabbed the belt and pulled it over his waist and shoulders, fastening it in the middle with a click. He felt the ship rumble, and he wondered what the devil was happening out there.
On the bridge of the Enterprise, it was an entirely different story. They knew exactly what was happening. The white blankness of z-space vanished into the view of the Taxxon world, and the yeerk armada around it. Admiral Scott started talking immediately, giving out orders.
"What's our position to the yeerk force?"
"Two hundred thousand kilometres and closing sir."
"Good, particle cannon status?"
"Charged and ready to fire sir."
"Good, what's the nearest target to us?"
"Yeerk bladeship, range 139654 kilometres and closing sir."
"Lock onto target and fire at will and open an interfleet channel."
"Yes sir, channel open." Admiral Scott cleared his voice and spoke.
"All ESC ships, this is Admiral Scott. Target at will and fire, repeat target and fire at will."
"Firing sir." Came the Ensigns voice. There was a thump and the deck lights dimmed as the beam of super dense charged particles lance towards an axe shaped bladeship. A brilliant white beam cut into it and hit the shields. The energy barrier flared briefly and failed. The beam blasted a hole right through the center of the ship. A small explosion ripped a large hole in the center of the vessel to add further damage.
"Direct hit sir."
"Excellent shot ensign, lock on missile pods 1-4 and fire."
"Lock achieved sir, firing." Dozens of missiles sped toward the crippled yeerk ship, leaving ghostly white trails behind them.
"Sir, increase in Theta through Alpha radiation detected. They're charging dracon beams. Four burning beams of red sliced through space and hit inbound missiles. Half of them vaporized, but the rest impacted on the ship, either ripping off chunks of the armored hull or hitting the previous wounds and causing internal explosions. Multiple explosions tore open the engines, sending the shattered ship drifting helplessly through space. Scott smiled, and gave another order.
"Fire rail cannons one and two, aim for the bridge."
"Yes sir, locking on, and firing." There were two more thumps as the rail guns fired twin ultra dense depleted uranium rounds at the helpless bladeship. Two blazing white rounds shot through space and hit the bridge, tearing it apart. Suddenly, two thick brilliant green shredder beams ripped the rest of the wreck to pieces. Scott smiled and said.
"Acquire new target, and commence firing.""Yes sir, locking onto new target, primary cannon will recharge in five seconds." Another Ensign called out.
"Sir, the Abernathy just got hit."
"Status report?"
"She's fine; shields are down to twenty seven percent. She's pulling away from the fight for now."
Aboard the Treeblade the Captain saw the human vessel get hit by dracon beams.
Prepare to search for survivors
Yes si-sir, the human ship is fully intact!
Impossible! Our own shields cannot withstand twin dracon beams at close range such as twenty seven thousand kilometers! How could theirs?
I do not know sir, but their shields are at twenty seven percent and recharging The Captain said nothing for a moment, then spoke again.
Lock onto nearest yeerk ship and destroy it
Yes sir, sir! The Planetgrass has just been destroyed! The captain looked out a viewport and saw the mighty domeship explode into flames. He asked.
Any survivors?
Scanning, negative sir The captain's heart sank to his hooves, then another report came in.
Sir, the yeerks are retreating to the far side of the solar system. It appears we caught them in a bad time for them and scattered them. They are regrouping
Prepare to pursue them, but first send the transports to the planet
Yes sir, transports being deployed
In space, yeerk bug fighters duelled with the human F-35 Red tails. In honour of the Animorph Tobias, the Martin-Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter had been renamed the F-35 Red tail. Designed for high manageability in atmosphere, they were far superior in space and with hefty arms consisting of one Vulcan 40 mm Gatling gun and assorted missiles like sparrows AM-RAMs and sidewinders they presented a real danger to the yeerk ships. One of the roach like ships did a barrel roll and dived, trying to avoid a missile. This explosive hit it though and exploded, overloading and collapsing its relatively weak shielding. The Red tail opened up with a 40 mm burst and riddled the bug with holes and tore up the insides. There was a gout of flame, and then the craft exploded into millions of burning shards of metal. The F-35 pilot checked the skies again, and then radioed in the transports.
"Hawk-one to mother goose, all bugs have been exterminated. You are clear to drop of the ducks."
"Copy that Hawk-one, mother goose inbound." The bay doors for the human frigates, destroyers and cruiser opened up and a myriad of transports started the descent to the planet below.
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
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 of protective gases which shielded the delicate life on the planet from the harshness of space. 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 cursed Andalite 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 coalition fleet 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. Plus 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. So the advantage humans had in that factor 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.
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. 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.