The BLTS Archive - Riding The Tick third in the Riding the Tick series by R. Schultz (cousindream@aol.com) --- Warning! Fictional people die here. Also found are a very few references to sex. People whose minds are screwed on so tight they can't think for themselves are advised to avoid this fic. Disclaimer: White guys at Paramount own Trek. Other rich guys now own America. I'm just borrowing one of the characters. Story mine under Berne Laws. 7900 words, May, 2003. Repeat Warning: This fic includes descriptions of war. This is a reminder to never forget the real cost of a war, even one easily won. Written for the Femme Fuh-Q Fest and other people. Will be archived at the ASCEML. --- IN THE BEGINNING: --- Angel was not sure in his own mind whether his father or his brothers or his uncles were examples of what a man should be. Role models. He had never thought about it, but the Teacher at the school had used the phrase many times. His father or uncles were as they were. Neither particularly brave or patient, but still examples for all that. | Aaah, but his dreams, however, were not of how many children he would have, or how it would feel to grow his own crops on his own farm holding. His dreams were of the vaguely understood world outside his little farming community. He dreamed of being a swaggering Federale in a fine uniform. Or a respected Judge in his wig and robe, like the one which visited twice a year for the Assizes. Or a rich Don on his fine horse and Silver trimmed saddle. Or even a rich merchant with his own skimmer which traveled for thousands of kilometers. Or a dealer in gange, like the one who came once a year to buy the few illegal kilos grown by his uncles and father. They needed the money, the few thin wafers of gold-pressed latinum. Or the man with the huge skimmer truck who visited in the fall to buy the sharp and very black wine made from the local grapes. Angel was also vaguely aware of such things as the Space Services, and the possibility of being a religious father, a Priest, or a Doctor. He had not yet made his decision, though. It was simply enough for him to know inside that he did not want to spend all his days as his parents had. After all, at the local age of twelve he had eons to go before he had to make a decision. Then had come the Freedom Army, with their uniforms all the same. And one who led them was the fine Officero, and his many hardened sub-Officeros. Men with fascinating weapons in their arms and with an exciting air about them. They were not as other men, and many were not much older than Angel himself. They were Liberty Fighters, and they fought to bring Freedom to Angel and his village. His father and uncles wondered about this Freedom, but kept their questions muted in the presence of those with the guns. Suddenly Angel knew he had discovered a hero to emulate. A man of the Resistance. Who felt he could not lose. He, himself, might perish, but his cause was both just and inevitable. The brave Officero talked of what a man had to do sometimes for his beliefs. Stamping out doubts and dissent within the ranks of the people he was fighting for. His vision even included the ending of his own insignificant life if it was necessary. Angel had never heard of the tick. --- TSCHIERPHONE --- Legion communications was good. Instead of burst transmissions, molecules were redirected in waves. You needed expensive and advanced equipment to listen in on Legion talk. Many Legion Troopers did not bother understanding arcane things like Molecule Breather Transmissions. It was all magic, to them. I liked to learn about ways of doing things that involved modern machines. Make-up, fashions, dresses, that was what I had been interested in when I was a swa, a prostie. A pretty swa did more scissors and earned more creds. Now I traced things that moved underneath reality. I wasn't going to remain a side-gunner forever. I wanted to handle Intel and Communications and Security. Some day. I'd already been in the tick. I wanted a better posting and the better pay that went with it. My neck had already been surgically mated with a female jack fitting. When plugged, I had a flex lead which ran from my helmet to the hole near my spinal column. I could plus in the helmet lead and see in 180 degrees in both the heat spectra and a little ultra. More importantly I could tongue display which showed me the exact positions of all tagged Legion personnel and vehicles, and showed all unknowns, bogies, enemy personnel and indigs. This was given each of us by the big AI's at Legion Command. The Legion AI Computer was said to be as good as the ones on the big Federation StarFleet ships. All of my troop were directly open to Legion Comm. "Alecto", "Megera" and "Tschierphone". Three air-effect N-collapsed Clamshell Armor, plasma main gun, fast scout vehicles. That's us. We're The Furies. "Tschierphone" is commanded by my main, my boy-friend. Hiro. He's a male human. He rescued me from Turkana, which is now a big radioactive cinder. Up front there's our driver and main gunner, Happy. And Kebnebe, assistant driver and assistant gunner. "Megera" is commanded by TipToe, a dumpy little blond dyke with a pushy attitude. Nice smile, though. She writes love poetry for her girlfriends in whatever port we happen to be in. "Alecto" used to be termed "Antigone", but the Commander, an Ensign named Sarawidrathura ('Sid'), decided one of the other names for 'his' Fury was better. My female squeeze is the assistant gunner on "Alecto", a flat-chested black-skinned Terran named Arex. She's also known as Unk. Short for Ukudlala, which means The Joker in Swahili, a language from that part of Old Terra where she hails from. She won't do guys, not even my boy-friend, and she's part of another vehicle, but we manage to have fun occasionally. My Hiro has more sense than to try to force me to choose between any once-in-a-while girlfriends and him. I was taking care of my boyfriend when the call came in for us to saddle up. Hiro and my mouth were busy. Back on Turkana I learned a lot of tricks in making a male happy. Womyn too. In any event it was Rock-And-Roll time again. Legion Command had found a hot spot for us to stabilize. We called it sterilize. Happy took our first call as my talented tongue and part of Hiro were otherwise occupied at the time. Armored Fighting Vehicle "Tschierphone" received both general and individualized instructions over Net. Enemy Indig Comm Intel never even heard the burst containing our flagging. Much less pegged the location of the receiving sets OR the transmitting ones. The enemy Indigs probably assumed we were using Comm Satellites. Friendly Indig Comm Intel never had a clue either. We liked it that way. Once I had my helmet back on and the U-jack plugged into the coupling at the base of my skull, I listened in on what Higher Authorities had to say to me. They said it was time for "Tschierphone", my Armored Fighting Car, and my line of fellow vehicles to go deal with a small problem. The Federacion, the contracting continental Indig government here, they had reported Rebel Unfriendlies sniping at vehicles throughout a stretch of secondary road. As the Indig's were still paying us, they wanted help in their pacification. Our Legion Command agreed we would have a little sweep. So okay, we weren't much more than a battalion of armored Infantry, four troops of Combat Cars, and two batteries of Satrap artillery. However, we were still the Legion. We'd been all that was needed to break twenty battalions of Rebels and eight of Friendlies last week. The Friendlies were religious fanatics, fighting to earn money for their hard-scrabble planets. Cheap mercenaries. Limited tech capabilities. They came from planets with names like Strong Right Arm of God, Salvation At Last, and God Is The Tester. In my opinion they were more alien than a few of the ones I'd met who think chromium is a delightful salt to throw on their still moving breakfast. The Friendlies spend a lot of time squabbling over niceties of religion that no one I've ever talked to could make sense of. As light infantry, they relied more on bravery than armor plating. Dumb. Game little squeals, but dumb. With the rounding up of the hitherto invincible Army of National Liberation (nee the Friendly mercenaries, plus a few tens of thousands of local armed amateurs), the war was over. Excepting maybe a painful guerrilla war to follow. Our contract had five days yet to run and the Federacion Indigs thought it would be nice if we smashed flat a few of the nodes of continuing resistance. Someone at LegionForce HQ sighed, said yes, and proceeded to formulate a campaign to smash flat a node of diehards. So first thing we did was gather Intel. When we fought, the ideal was that the other guy bled a lot and we walked away without a scratch. Faint hope. For our improbable perfect zapping, we needed more than Combat Cars and a few Satraps. We needed Intel. We needed to know just where the UnFriendlies were, and then we smashed them flat. First tool to hand was the IntelSatellites we had orbiting overhead. Expensive Satellites. We brought our own, and the Orbiting Killer Platforms to protect them. The Rebel forces (nee' the Friendlies) threw a few missiles up to nail our Satellites, but we'd been down that road before. They silenced one IntelSatellite with a nuke, and we nailed fifty-eight expensive Anti's. They might still have a Satellite killer missile or two hidden away, but we weren't worried. Once contract was over, it became the Federation's problem. We'd made the rest of the job relatively easy, and it became their job to finish the war. Somehow, someway. It became a war of shadows, and years later both exhausted parties would reach a negotiated peace they could have had months before. C'est la vie. Et morte. In any event, a few areas remained to be pacified. Diehards. Diehards are always a bitch. First you gotta find them before you can zap them. Afterwards sometimes I had to get out of the AFV and eyeball the area. That's scary. Diehards will sacrifice themselves to prove a pointless point. But then if I didn't like getting shot at I would have chosen another line of work. I'd been a prostie amongst other things. The Legion was a step up, believe me. Besides, it was exciting riding the tick. I could flux straight into the tick and the tick became all there was. Just me and my body on extreme overboost from the situation and the whoever was out there who'd like to zap me. Me against them. Mano e mano, one dyke against all of them. And me always winning. I wasn't ever going to die, not when I was riding the tick. At any rate, the diehards needed to coordinate with each other. Therefore our Sats looked for burst transmissions, read them, and transed the messages. The fact that the communiqués were beamed around in less than a nanosecond long burst didn't faze the Sats and Legion Comp at all. After all, we were the Legion. We cost big, but our hi-tech components would even rival StarFleet. I was very low-tech. Me and my DxG Maschinengewehr. Me and my machine gun was the expendable end of the Legion. I was the edge on the spear of the Legion. The dinged and dingy paint on the shield of civilization, etc., etc., etc. But in compensation I could ride the tick. HotLips is our head pill-roller, she's our Doctor. The tall blond Major Houlihan hasn't anything in her extensive Pharmaecopia, back in Med Corps, that can match the tick. First thing the tick does is make you angry. How DARE those Indig's try to zap me? That sort of thing. Then it makes me hot. Both Hiro and Arex say I'm unstable. They also think I'm hot. I like sex. And I'm always hot after I've rode the tick. I'm not the only one. Here, in the Legion, blow-out parties at the end of contract are something remarkable to experience. You've ridden the tick, and now you unwind. I wondered once what it was like, back on Terra, when the armies were all male, when the shooting came to be over? At any rate, one of the InTelSats orbiting the planet had determined what sort of a possible pesthole one of the local villages near the local supply channel had become. At least two companies of Main Force companies (I.E. about a hundred twenty armed amateurs) were holed up in this extended community. Ville. Village. Farming villages aren't neatly laid out. You have to remember most farming communities are strung out hither and yon. Low density of population and actually consisting of several clusters of buildings. I was a city girl, but I'd learnt fast. For initial assault, we were detailed all two batteries of Satraps, mobile Artillery. Four vehicles to a battery. After the stonk we were then to eyeball the remains. Translated it meant me and my DxG. Simplicity itself. Always a little bit dicey for the low-tech end of the Legion, which was me, but it was what I got paid for. I would get out and be a target for a while, see what pops up. Ride the tick. I'm the Infantry component of my fighting vehicle; i.e. CombatCar "Tschierphone". Did I mention Happy? The Driver was Happy. He's a Druid priest. Falkhyn's Legion lets him hold religious services four times a year. Fall and Spring Equinox (according to the Terran calendar for northern Europe) and on Winter Solstice and Mid-Summer Night's Eve. He uses some very expensive Terran woad to paint his nude body blue, and he preaches in Irish gael. I can't vouch for the authenticity, but he is utterly and totally beyond utter screaming belief to watch. I love the little golden hand scythe he makes his grand gestures with. Everyone loves theatre on a grand scale. His religion makes more sense than the one the Friendlies incessantly argue over. The Assistant Driver, the black skinned, and I do mean black skinned one, he with all the gold teeth, that's Kebnebe. He's teaching me to cuss in Creole and Tellarian. He pretends he's originally from the planet of Dakar, but he's actually from Oakland, near San Francisco. Legion records told me so. He and everyone else are unaware I can now access most Legion nets, and I'd just as soon keep them ignorant. Hiro says I'm smart as three whips. He brags I should be in StarFleet. Anyways, Kebnebe is still a charmer. I've done both him and Happy at End Of Contract blow-outs. It's sort of expected and I know sexing them gets them all to looking out for me. A gal needs all the help covering her back she can get, after all. Then there's the Car Commander, that's Hiro. Not hero. Hiro. He came from a planet named Shikkoku. He left for our good Combat pay, and bought farms for his brothers. He never went back. And his brothers never asked him to drop around. After all, he's the one who lives amongst the gaijin, the outsiders. Hiro's my boyfriend. But he'd better not ever get toooo jealous. The big problem these days is sometimes he gets the thousand-meter stare on him and I sorta wonder if he's been riding the tick too long. Burn-out. I worry about him. He's all I got, when you come right down to it. Of course part and parcel of the arrangement was that I still had the option of getting a girlfriend on the side. Or at least the occasional willing female. Hiro avoided asking many questions if he thought I was real chummy with some frail like Unk or TipToe. Like I said, we had an arrangement. On the other hand I don't EVER ask if he cranked anyone else in a end-of-contract party. Those are a special category. Well, it's Saddle-Up time. I always get nervous when it's time to ride the tick. Hiro says I talk too much and repeat myself. Happy goosed our two Rhad cold fusion power plants up, Kebnebe checked readings, and Hiro coordinated. Computer displayed route, and all of us moved out. We had an appointment with a bunch of Unfriendlies. They just didn't know it yet. --- - - -----We had many Klicks to go to find out target, but -----we had to keep our hatches closed anyways. Regs. -----So we moved out and kept well buttoned up. For -----the next two klicks, until our laager area was -----over the ridge line and a memory. Then we -----flipped the hatches and stuck our heads out. -----Tash crawled up on my lap and put her face in the -----slipstream too. Her hair wasn't a centimeter -----long, but she liked a breeze running through it. -----She also liked teasing me. She knew I liked her -----nice big rear end, and she didn't mind rubbing a -----stick with her tight butt if I managed to grow one. -----It's been less than eight months since Turkana, -----and she'd worked up fine as our side gunner. She -----worked up better as my fuck-buddy, my girl. -----Almost. -----I'm not sure if I was supposed to know her and -----The Joker made sex together, but she'd been -----up-front and plain about that when we first -----teamed up, back there on Turkana. She did -----girls and if I couldn't stand sharing her, we -----should separate. Not something I wanted to do. -----She'd also done Happy and Kebnebe a few times, -----but that was end-of-contract, and we were all -----family in this Combat Car. An incesteous -----family to be sure, but family. Certainly more -----of a family than the one I owned by blood. It -----irked me sometimes that my brothers had never -----invited me to visit back home. I wouldn't -----have gone, I don't think, but they could have -----asked. But they didn't like gaijin females -----and I probably would have brought one along -----with me. At least they'd never asked for any -----more Credits from me. I bought them farms, -----and that was the end of my familial obligations. -----I wondered if Tasha would ever consider -----marrying me? Outside the Legion, of course. I -----could hardly stand the dread now whenever she -----stuck her head out that hatch. It was custom -----now, but I'd always sneak my hand between her -----pants and her butt whenever she went out to risk -----her life. I'd fondle her, grab her crotch -----usually, get excited by the hot wet feel of her -----damned exciting sex. And then she'd be outside, -----getting shot at and she's been wounded a few -----times. Trying to stop the blood loss on my -----woman is not a sensation to be recommended, -----let me tell you. -----I'm getting to be in love with her. No, the -----truth. I am damned well in love with her. -----The fucking crazy tease. That kind of -----worry'll get me killed one of these days. -----I daydream sometimes, when we're on a long -----run cross-country, of how she'd look with -----twenty years on her. Big droopy breasts, -----twenty kilos and three kids. Not a bad -----day dream. When I first met her she had -----long blond hair. I'd like to run my fingers -----through it when I'm a hundred and it's a fan -----spread over my face. -----I've got to stop thinking like this if I -----want either of us to survive for very long. -----I worry too much these days. --- Angel thought it was almost fun. It was hard work for everyone, but it was exciting times for him. Everyone except the very young assisted in digging the tunnels and underground bunkers, including Angel's father and mother and two older sisters and everyone's family. The Officero told them it was done for their freedom, but his father just whispered to his Mother how they weren't free to go do something else when the tunnels needed digging. He had fields to tend to. But the soldiers had guns. His Mother complained so many of their chickens and two pigs had become meals for the soldiers. But the soldiers had guns. His older sisters complained of everything. Angel thought it almost fun. He liked scuttling through the tunnels that had already been dug, memorizing their twists and turns. The Officero liked Angel, and told him how their deep tunnels and their many exits and many war rooms made them impossible to destroy now. He liked Angel's older sister, Pieta. Angel could tell, but she didn't want anything to do with a man not as old as her, and one who didn't even own a farm or business to boot. Angel's sister Raellita, she had big eyes for the Officero and a few of the other strangers as well. Maman always stayed near to her, she didn't trust any of the soldiers alone with his sisters. Angel's uncle Rudiferio didn't complain anymore, but he had cried a lot when his silo was emptied of grain. Before the Officero and his men came he was the biggest landowner in the valley. Then he complained and was called unpatriotic. Now he lived with Angel and his family. His stables, his barn, his silo, his home, had all been turned into fortified bunkers. To a stranger they still looked like buildings and stables, but there were giant guns now underneath the house and stables. The Officero said they could throw half-meter long shells ten kilometers. They were tank killers. Angel had never seen an armored vehicle, a 'tank', but he was awed by the weapon. In addition a big pit had been dug in the sometimes-metalled road north, between the valleys, and it had a fake 'road' laid over the top of the pit. Underneath the pit was a multi-barrel anti-missile battery, called a Preacher. It's ten barrels searched the sky overhead and it's shells searched for incoming munitions and exploded them before they hit Freedom Army positions or weapons. Or at least that was the theory. It didn't need to be uncovered to function. It's shells remained inert during the first part of their trajectories, arming themselves twenty meters in the air. They fired right through the camouflaged road overhead. Angel was awed by the size of the weapon and it's slaved ammunition boxes that auto-fed the Preacher. Angel and his two closest friends wanted to join the exciting Liberation Army and fire the giant guns. Angel had a personal Hero now, the Officero. He wanted to wear a uniform and fight gloriously for the Liberation of his people. But he didn't dare tell his parents that little fact. Not yet. --- Across reasonably smooth rolling country we could average 175 KPH on our air-effect AFV's. Across this sort of low worn ridges and the rolling little valleys between, we could still do a nice 125 without dinging our skirts. I was getting a little tight thinking about our next TAOR. I looked up from my bag and watched Hiro doze in the command chair. Then at the estimated time to target. Plenty of time. --- -----Tash moving brought me fully awake, out -----of an almost-funk state. She rolled from -----her bag and pulled down three more bags -----down on the deck. Then she began removing -----her boots. No one removes their boots in -----a combat situation but a fool. Or a Tash -----with something on her mind. -----She pulled the compartment curtain closed, -----and wormed herself out of the rest of her -----clothes. Grinning like a madwoman all the -----time. By the time she was down to unders, -----she crawled over and was immediately -----tugging my own boots off. -----"Talked with Happy We've got thirty klicks -----on a river coming up. Should be smooth as -----glass for our run upstream. We've got a -----little under an hour of that before we're -----going cross-country again." -----She didn't bother asking polite like if I -----wanted to sex her. I could feel the tick -----already myself. A little work with her -----mouth and hands and I was ready to ride her. -----Ride the damned tick later. Great Buddha, -----but she was wet and hot. And tight -----enough to geld me! -----Tash came quick. -----She was already riding the tick. --- We were at target TAOR just a little before sunrise. We got hull down on a rise overlooking the Ville, our route determined by the fact no heat signs or sentries seemed posted here. Hiro did Display first, then stuck his head out the top hatch for an eyeball. We all had our jacks in our necks and were on full vehicle display ourselves. Kebnebe kept the AP charges passive primed, ready to spray a lethal cloud of twisted compolodial shards out from the skirts and edges of the AFV, if necessary. You never knew, after all. Some Indig might be out there in a Chameleon Suit. Hidden from the sensors, waiting to suddenly rise up and put a buzzbomb in your side. Low probability, Chameleon Suits cost like you wouldn't believe, but it was stupid to expect no surprises. We had dozens of pits on the outside of our AFV, and there were these little munitions in the cavities. We could gang fire all of these directional mines at one time, or every sixth or eighth one or whatever. Anyone without personal armor or a personal force field within five meters of our AFV got shredded. One of my jobs was to keep re-loading the cavity canisters when necessary. If possible. After firing sometimes the mini-magazine-holders got warped, and then they're a bitch to reload. At any rate, we overlooked the target valley and Ville and were all on Net, like good little boys and girls, when Legion Comp took over our firing commands. --- -----As soon as the Satraps began to fire, we -----launched Pogo's as anti-missile and counter -----battery. Comp timed everything. For good -----measure we began firing plasma into -----selected areas. Plasma even when it hits -----the target is still over 2200 degrees -----Kelvin. It tends to act like a bucket of -----flame when it hits. --- I've become an expert of sorts on the ways a town can burn. When the plasma hits, concrete burns and animals turn into charcoal sticks. I stuck my head out the side hatch and watched the plasma balls arc through the sky on their way to the village. It splatters when it hits. StarFleet doesn't use plasma weapons. They consider it inhumane. I got no problem with us using plasma. Better them than me. First artillery rounds were on the three large crew-served weapons Intel had spotted. In a rural community like this one, large metal weapons showed up easy to our Sat detectors, just like it would to StarFleet. Initially all Satrap battery fire concentrated on what Intel presumed was the Preacher. If we allowed the Preacher to function like it was supposed to, the entire morning could be spent in fruitless counter-battery fire. Suppressing their one big anti-missile item was of utmost importance. Preacher sensor net was triggered as soon as the arcs of our fired shells and missiles appeared and registered. The Preacher had a replicator running on its own power plant, just like the ones on the Satraps. One out of every eight rounds fired by the Satraps were firecracker rounds. Hundreds of tiny bomblets which exploded a few meters above any surface, scything down anything within range. Two out of every eight rounds were contact explosives. Usually they split into four sub-munitions a few meters above ground surface, in order to increase the radius of destruction. In this initial firing, the other five were exclusively penetrators. They hit, ignited, penetrated through any soft material, and eventually exploded. Their shaped charge meant they projected a bolt of super hot plasma traveling so fast it acted like an instantaneous jet with incredible lancing power. The Preacher was able to swing into action almost immediately. But almost wasn't good enough. The first volley had already left the barrels of the Preacher, and penetrated the cover of logs and dirt overhead. But they weren't armed yet, and they passed in mid air the first rounds of fire from the Satrap batteries. Their counter-battery sought and killed the second round of Satrap shells and went after two of the third salvo. One Satrap round sterilized the surface of the road over the Preacher, and incidentally shredded the fifteen sheep and one shepherd girl in an adjoining field. Two rounds burst the cover over the multi-barrel anti-missile and shell weapon, turning most of it into shrapnel bits moving in excess of 900 KPS. One penetrator round went to the side of the firing pit, and therefore had no effect on events within the chamber. Four lance shells struck the camouflage cover and converted into a spear of gas fifteen centimeters in diameter, four to six meters long and traveling at a velocity in excess of 20,000 KPS. The jets of gas went through all the dirt and logs without pausing. I knew everything about what happened inside the comparatively spacious openness of the firing pit chamber. For a nanosecond it approached the heat near the surface of the sun. --- + The gas began to open up while internal + + temperature was still the approximately + + 4500 Kelvin it started with. As the gas + + expanded, its temperature dropped + + exponentially. Four lances of explosive + + gas filled the chamber. Even allowing for + + expansion and cooling, for two seconds, + + the interior of the firing pit reached an + + ambient temperature of 2800 degrees Kelvin. + + The six soldiers (two of them young girls), + + one officer and two NCO's were reduced to + + glowing calcinated carbon gas. Many of the + + softer components of the Preacher were also + + incinerated, especially it's all-important + + square compolodial circuitry tabs. By the + + time chamber temperature dropped to 1000 + + degrees Kelvin the conveyor belts leading + + to the Preacher had melted under the impact + + of the heat. Immediately the ammunition + + in the burrow magazines dug alongside the + + Preacher began to fire in sympathetic + + reaction to the intense heat which swept + + over them from the main firing chamber. + + An additional four soldiers, none of them + + over twelve years old by Terran standards, + +_ were turned into excited gaseous traces. + --- Everyone in Combat Car "Tschierphone" saw the immense explosion as everything down there gang fired. The Preacher's second volley that got into the air interdicted our third and fourth salvo tagged for the Preacher. The fifth salvo fell into the cauldron of an exploding firing pit. It was not necessary. Five salvos of munitions had blanketed the area of the Preacher. Then, while all of the first rounds from the Satraps were still in the air and the Preacher hadn't yet fired, Legion Command switched Satrap fire to the extensive farm holdings where the Flat Trajectory artillery weapons were supposedly hidden. Seven salvos were fired specifically targeting the farm area, with the same mix of firecracker, impact and penetrator rounds as before. --- + Forty-one Rebel soldiers were + + incinerated when the penetrator + + and other rounds hit. Eight of + + them were female, and ten were + + under fourteen years of age. + + Two large stepped firing chambers + + and six underground bunkers and + + three hundred meters of tunnel + + disappeared in the explosions. + + Also turned into gas was one + + young female being wooed by the + + Battery Commander, and five local + + farmboys taking a lunch break + + topside from doing tunneling work. + --- Before the first round ever hit, Legion Comp had already switched targets on the Satrap boards. Now they went after known tunnels and bunkers, and suspected tunnels and bunkers. Firecrackers were always in the mix, and impact explosives. Before first stonk pause, seven hundred and sixty-eight rounds had already been fired. Then thirty-three special rounds were fired, which were essentially rocket-driven spears which buried themselves into the ground throughout the valley. After a few seconds, most of their instrument packages proceeded to function, detailing the Intel picture of the local sub-surface. Some did not. Enough worked so that the picture was complete. We all hoped. Six hundred and eight more rounds were then fired. The Satrap replicators were constantly reproducing more munitions. Seven more sensor shells were fired, and it appeared all the tunnels and bunkers had been destroyed. Our Combat Cars now moved up to personally inspect the target area. --- Angel didn't know what had happened, and his confusion lasted perhaps twenty minutes as the smoke diminished and the silence of his bleeding and broken ears began to rise in an eerie pitch of non-noise. He rose to his small height and looked about him. There were no more buildings. Not a church, or farm house, or Cantina, or anything whatsoever. As he looked around figures began to appear from amongst the ruins. None he recognized, but they all looked so different now, even without the filth of whatever it was they had just gone through. They'd been shelled! He knew that much. He oriented himself, and began to walk towards the village well. It was hard to walk, what with the litter and soft slippery things underfoot he decided he didn't want to think about. The sharp and sickening stench was unbelievable, so he blanked out what he could. Where was everyone? His Mother, and sisters, and father, and the brave Officero and his men? --- I'd never seen such a classic stonk before. My spirits lifted as we began the ride towards the village's central area. We passed a pig screaming and two sheep crying like hurt children on the way. One old woman was leaning against a stone road wall, blood darkening one shoulder. She stared at us and we ignored her. She was the only survivor we saw before we reached a junction of three little tracks which might have passed for a village center before the stonk. We skittered to the side, and AFVIntel tagged all possible enemy within fifty meters. Or so we hoped. Some ten were tagged a bright blue in our screens, indicating a cooling body, and presumably dead. The blue bits on the screen were hundreds of chunks of what might have been humanoids at one time, or domestic animals. Happy kept air pressure up in our pleneum chamber, so we could move out fast if we had to. If we had a chance to react. A buzz bomb at close quarters and we all might never know we'd been zapped. "Your turn," Hiro said into the air. Meaning I had to exit the vehicle and test the waters. I crawled over to him first so he could grope me. I groped him too. I think that was now our good luck charm. Then it was time to earn my credits. First my head came out the top hatch for an eyeball. I plotted my moves once I got out the side hatch, and Hiro and I discussed our objectives. Mostly eyeball the immediate area. "Alecto" and "Megara" were also letting their side gunners get out and earn their pay, even if I couldn't see them. Time to ride the tick. Surprisingly I was able to zing and sag across about three hundred meters of pasturage before I got to what once was a small grove of trees. They'd been mutated to live on damned near any human-settled planet, but I still recognized olive trees. I could tell by the millions of little unripe fruits. Now most of the trees had been uprooted. I could see a twisted figure aligned with a tunnel entrance dug into the tree roots. Blast had stripped it naked, flayed it and robbed it of any sexual ID characteristics. He or she had been in the tunnel heading for the exit when it died. The blast had thrown it five meters from the tunnel entrance and an unknown distance through the tunnel itself. You could see low spots in the grain crop where nearby penetrators had collapsed the tunnel hidden underneath the young grains. I thought a pig was buried for a minute before I realized it was just part of him there. "Tschierphone" paralleled me slowly, the close-defense DxG Maschienengewehr guns nervously traversing the remnants of the village. Covering me, backing me up. But not getting too close. Both of us looking for diehards with buzz bomb launchers. I thought two bundles of rags against a stone fence might be survivors, but they were deader's without a mark on them. Now I was skirting around a few collapsed buildings, purpose unknown. Vehicle Intel did not detect any live ones inside either place, and I did not think any could have survived the collapse. The local church was spread out for hundreds of meters, and the bunker underneath it was just a shell crater now. Two women were wailing, over to my left, but stopped and ran as soon as they realized what I was and what was edging closer to them. A figure in uniform was stapled to what remained of a large tree in the village center. Stapled by a section of iron beam bent into a jagged U. Weird. Maybe we were going to go through this Ville without getting pinked. A small boy erratically avoided me while making his way to the dead soldier. No danger from him. No danger from anyone here now. This Ville was a deader. The thought made me breathe easier, but I felt depressed and tired at the same time. They were The Enemy. Big deal. They were dead and that's what was important. I hoped the kid had someone to go home to. --- Angel found the Officero. Across from what had once been the home of the village Padre. He knew the Officero was dead. The house alongside looked like some giant had kicked it. Hard. A metal cup and a plate of food still sat on the log in front of the Priest's doorway. Angel remembered marveling how the food had survived but the eater was nowhere in sight, unless he was the Officero. There was one of the enemy crossing the square at an angle, just walking around, a big machine gun in it's hands. Angel didn't even notice the Combat Car following at a distance of a few meters. Being deaf now he certainly didn't hear it riding on its air-effect fans. It wouldn't have mattered even if he had noticed. Part of him realized he didn't even have a village now. --- I Commed Hiro and he told me I'd better walk right through the entire Ville epicenter. There was an upside down olive tree about six hundred meters ENE, I noted it's location and confirmed to Hiro. He said we'd go that far and no further unless Legion demanded it. Enough was enough already. I cussed a little and prepared to go to the ruined tree. The DxG Maschinengewehr never felt so heavy in my arms. --- + The child named Angel took the pistol + + from the hand of his now-dead hero, + + turned, and fired it at the enemy. + + Tasha Yar. Tasha was seventeen years + + old and had killed too many people in + + her time. She was getting tired of + + it. She was already developing her + + own thousand meter stare. Hiro and + + Happy and even Kebnebe worried about + + her. The Joker tried not to think + + of her sometimes lover, Tasha, dead. + + TipToe thought of her also. From the + + open hatch of her own Combat Car she + + could see Tasha walk across the dead + + moonscape of the village. Through + + her binocs she saw the child raise + + something and aim it at Tasha. By + + luck he aimed straight. + + The pistol was Kargazian, a revolver. + + It carried five large 12mm rounds, + + all of which were Frag rounds. When + + the bullet was fired the outer softer + + casing began to spin and torque. When + + it hit anything it fragmented into + + 144 separate pre-notched fragments, + + thus acting like a shotgun shell. + + The first bullet hit Natasha Yar in + + the chest, at a point where she had + + her personal armor jacket open for + + ventilation and to reduce chafing. + + It hit the edge of her armor jacket + + and was already spreading out in a + + vicious arc when it actually hit her. + + Which was fortunate in a way. If it + + had just went straight into Natasha + + much of her back would have gone. + + This just killed her. + --- The heat was tremendous, the sun would have been blinding without my filters locked down from my helmet, and damned if my chest didn't hurt now. I had to rest. On my way down I kept folding, and suddenly I knew I was lying in the ground and when I felt the sharper pain in my chest and my eyes changed, I knew I'd been hit. Hiro'll take out the kid. Don't want that. "Don't shoot," I barely whispered to Car AI. --- Angel kept firing the pistol, wishing to shoot the enemy until it was empty. Then he threw the now useless pistol away. His eyes were shedding tears now. He was in pain and didn't know for sure whether he had hit the Enemy. But he knew somehow he was through with that world now. He turned and went towards the shattered village plaza, looking for his Mother and Sisters. He found them quickly, but did not know it. There were so many bodies there now, and they no longer resembled the people he once knew. --- -----Car acquired the kid as a target, but the -----AFV Computer failed to tag the kid. I -----queried Computer, and it said Tash had -----said not to shoot. -----I went through the check list by habit -----alone. Happy knew what to do next, -----though. He maneuvered the AFV so that -----it's armored plenum skirts rode -----centimeters above Tash's prone body. -----Computer gave her ID tag a bluish -----verge. Brain death must soon follow. -----Happy centered the Ship's Well on her, -----then settled and tagged Retrieval. -----The AFV now automatically created a -----safe space about Tash, leading from -----our vehicle and her bloody figure. -----We'd already called one of our Robot -----MediVac skimmers. -----Vehicle picked Tash up, and began -----injecting her with dozens of chemicals, -----cocooned her in a stasis foam, and -----lifted again when we began drawing Tash -----inside. -----In fourteen minutes the frigid -----molecularly petrified flesh that once -----housed the essential "I" of Natasha -----Yar had been transferred to the -----Ambulance. HotLips would have her to -----work on in a few more minutes. -----"Tschierphone" quickly retreated at my -----command, as did the other two Furies. -----We began laying down plasma hits as we -----scuttled back over the cover of the -----ridge we'd been behind less than an -----hour before. -----I didn't hate whoever in the Ville -----had zapped Tash. None of us did. -----Hate wasn't really much a part of -----our responses any more. That had -----been years ago. Centuries. -----Millenia. -----We were professionals now, and we -----didn't think about the Ville as -----anything but a target. On Display -----all AFVs retreated, allowing Legion -----Comp to once more work over the area. -----After five hundred and sixty -----additional rounds fired, the number -----of survivors remaining within three -----klicks of Ville center point dropped -----from six hundred and three to two -----hundred and two. Approximately. -----That according to LegionInTel. -----I wondered how the young boy had -----made out? I didn't hold out any hope -----for him. Probably no one nearer than -----fifth cousins remained who could -----possibly remember him. And the -----survivors had other problems -----occupying their attention. --- -----On the first day we sat around the -----Legion vehicle laager. Happy had a -----pair of bottles of local wine, but no -----one felt like drinking. -----On the second day I did feel like -----drinking. We all got a mild buzz on, -----nothing more. Legion discipline. On the third day Natasha Yar rose up from the dead. --- continued in the fourth story in the Riding The Tick series 'Tea and Sympathy'