RM2-Ch1:Drop Drop Deploy-edited

Chapter 1: Drop-Drop-Deploy

THE PRESENT

Gunnery Sergeant Robert “the Hook” Dunn leaned back into the mechanical claw of the robotic arm as it lifted him off his feet and traveled with great speed along a central track and placed him into the next available Drop chute of the forward Starboard drop battery.

Many arms like this one, rushed back and forth, performing a mechanical high-speed ballet only machines were able to do, bringing more marines from the Hot Standby zone and stuffing them into Drop chutes.

Gunny Dunn performed a suit check. He was wearing an SII-Destroyer Main Battle Suit Mark XI, more commonly known over the Galaxy as a Quasimodo.

Marines called their suit systems MAMA, because if you took care of MAMA; she took care of you.

“MAMA, Pre-Drop System Check.”

“MAMA, Online, commencing Pre Drop Suit Check. Nano-Bio Gel layer intact, Auto Doc online, stocked and operational. Warning, Neuro connectors ping commencing in 5 seconds.”

MAMA warned him about sending a neural feedback pulse through all the neuro connectors of the suit. This short but intense reflex impulse agitated almost every muscle in his body and made him twitch like he had touched a live energy socket.

Some marines never learned to get used to the Neuro Ping and hated that moment, some loved it and took it as the start signal before a big race or sporting competition.

Robert got used to it all right, but he never learned to like it, even though it meant that his suit was now fully integrated into his body and even the most minute movement was now translated instantly into the Battlesuits neural pathways and its synthetic muscles.

Six Billion miles of microscopic Mylo-Mylar Ferro-carbon strands woven and wound into fire-hose thick synthetic muscles attached to a Neutronit-Ultronit Exoskeleton frame.

It all was covered from head to toe with 5-millimeter diameter hexagon shaped scales each made of molecule compacted Ultronit, individually molecular bonded to a thin layer of Intelli-Fab, making the suits-skin into a highly flexible, yet almost indestructible barrier. On top of that layer followed 260 pieces of semi-rigid armor, interlocking, augmented and articulated.

It all meant that he could move this 8-ton battle suit with the precision of a Lavatian watchmaker, with the speed of a Seenian martial arts master and with the grace of a French Ballet dancer. A Marine wearing one of these could pick up a raw egg, or lift a 60-ton landing tank with equal ease; walk across the surface of virtually any planet, fight in almost any environment known to science and enforce the will of the Union Assembly where ever it was needed.

Highly advanced Shield emitters could engulf his suit with three layers of soap bubble-like iridescent purple shimmering Para Dim shields at an eye-blinks notice.

Through the main wet-link neuro connection a dedicated battle computronic transmitted not only battlefield data, a myriad of sensor feedback, target information and communications directly to his brain, it also assisted and elevated his reflexes and reaction abilities to machine speed.

MAMA’s soft female voice kept going over each checkpoint, while he did a manual check on his offensive systems.

Two chain-fed mass-accelerator cannons mounted in a twin configuration, one on each shoulder. These babies had their origin in the ancient Gauss Rifles the first real Space Marines carried into battle. These MACs accelerated plutonium slugs to 99 percent light speed. The relativistic mass created by .6 grams of Plutonium impacting at this speed with a few thousand tons of kinetic energy, and that 12 times per second if necessary.

On his back, in the hump of his suit, the reason these suits were nicknamed Quasimodos; was the suit’s main weapon, a Translocator Cannon with a 5 shot Micro load magazine.

This was but one of the many weapon systems available to him, most of them were built into the suit, like wrist guns, nuc flamers, monofilament claws and blades, finger beamers, mine dispensers, and micro missile launchers. However studies had shown that an external independent weapon was preferred by most soldiers as it added versatility and an extra suit independent weapon system, Marines were no exception.

This was the reason he also carried the SII-TKU Mark 19 Plasma Rifle with a 5 gauge Grenade launcher and Chain Sword attachment. The standard infantry weapon of choice for the United Stars Marine Corps. It was a relatively old system and was with the Corps for over 150 years since the introduction of the Mark 1 in 4780. The Mark 19 still looked more or less like the old Mark 1 with only minor external improvements or changes.

Dunn preferred the “Sitku” over everything else, even though he did have a choice of several other systems he could have selected during the suit Up sequence, including the Fafnyr SII TKU rotary gun, the Hellfire flamer or the Feuersturm 4500 Chain fed Heckler & Koch Raketen MK.

Technically, of course, the Sitka had nothing to do with a chemical slug thrower and there was no rifling in the barrel parts of this weapon, but this weapon linked Marines to over 3000 years of Rifleman tradition and because of this, it was still called a rifle.

That the weapon had more firepower than a division of early Marines complete with tanks and artillery was a fact Robert could not relate to, as he had no idea what kind of weapons Marines carried when Earth became a spacefaring civilization. It simply was something they always said when they handed out these babies.

MAMA said. “Pre-Drop Check complete. System at 98.87 percent.”

“MAMA, what causes the one point thirteen drop from the expected 100?”

“The left gauntlet finger control has a seventeen nanosecond reaction delay, with a probability of a data trunk damage in the left suit arm. Do you want to abort the drop and receive a replacement unit?”

No Marine had to drop if his equipment was not up to specs and no one would have held it against him if he asked to see a Black Smith, but that meant he missed the first wave drop.

MAMA assured him that the problem could be fixed by Suit Nanites as soon as he had dropped. So he opted to drop and called the status of his suit into Command Net with the Good and all Green message.

The robotic arms zipping back and forth, Marines called them “Jar stuffers”, deposited a marine into a deployment chute right across his own and his suit systems recognized the otherwise invisible markers on the other marines suit and identified the man as Human Terran, Private Harry Boscoe.

He had met the kid just this morning, fresh and green as can be, right out of boot camp and shipped out for the first time past Union Space.

Even if Robert could have seen through the completely opaque faceplate of Private Boscoe’s Quasimodo that was seamlessly integrated into the rest of the suits dark gray color scheme and transparent only from the inside; all he would have seen was the bright blue and finger-thick bio-slime that covered every Marine wearing a battle-suit from head to toe, like a second skin.

That blue goo was perhaps the real reason why Union Battle Suits were the very best in the known Universe. The goo did not only act as frictionless padding, or allowing a Marine to wear that suit for many months if necessary, absorbing impact shocks the Arti Gravs could not handle and recycle sweat, body waste and every dead skin flake; it also acted in concert with the Auto-Doc and provided medical treatment. The bio slime kept temperatures at perfect levels. A marine was never too hot or too cold. It instantly sealed wounds and kept any wound trauma to the absolute minimum.

The S.L.I.M.E was more or less the same stuff Med Techs used in their Re-Gen tanks. The Blue Slime could if necessary assist the Auto-Doc and regrow limbs, bones and keep a marine alive even if sixty percent of his body had been vaporized.

The Blue Slime had a few other benefits as well but like the Neuro Ping, it was a thing you had to get used to.

As soon as the Suit was ready to be sealed the slime deployed out of small openings inside the suit and then crept and crawled like a living thing, warm and moist, all over you and entered every orifice. Newbies often panicked when the slime crept into their nostrils, forced itself inside the mouth, into ears and over their faces and eyes. Robert no longer noticed it.

“Private Boscoe, did you perform a Pre-Drop?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Neuro Ping?”

“All 100 percent Sir.”

“Good to hear. Did you slime up alright?”

“Yes Sir, just completed.” The Private could not completely hide the uneasiness in his voice.

Robert had the individual icons representing his platoon troops, transmitted right into his retina and could access a wealth of data from each of his marines. Boscoe’s suit showed green and so did the vitals of the rest of his platoon.

According to his readout, Private Boscoe’s psych status was elevated, but well within parameters. A seventeen percent increase of the young marines respiration rate, combined with elevated heart rate and increased adrenalin production was to be expected during a first real action drop. Brain wave patterns were also within expected regions. The brain regions responsible for emotions such as fear, just a notch above Orange. Robert could see the same data on every one of his men.

Corporal Whitesheet next to him was almost asleep, completely relaxed, listening to Ult harmonics, that Quadiped was already on his fourth drop.

Robert keyed into Boscoe’s suit audio and said. “No reason to be nervous, this is going to be easier than the live-fire drops you did in boot camp.”

“But we are dropping on the Noghlers right?” The slightly agitated voice of the Private said.

“Yup, big nasty twelve meters tall sentient Bios, with the latest Kermac battle armor. Tough motherfuckers they are. Still, no reason to worry, Private. Do you know why?”

“No Sir, I heard they are quite aggressive and dangerous.”

“Because we are dropping on Glher, their homeworld. It’s their last planet. We kicked their huge ceramic armor covered asses from twenty-seven worlds. We’re Marines, there isn’t anything tougher and more dangerous out there.

Besides you are now with Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon, the Master Blasters. Our Platoon leader is Lt. Roy Masters, the toughest SOAB you ever going to meet this side of the Orion Arm. He’s from Green Hell.”

“Yeah heard, but where is he?”

A voice interrupted them both. “I am already down here, advanced Recon.

I really could use some help down here, yes I am from Green Hell, but my mother is a famous scientist and I will pretend not to have heard your last comment, Gunny.”

Red lights started to rotate and loudspeakers blared. “Drop-Drop-Drop-Deploy!”

Robert’s suit automatically moved into drop position with arms close to the body and the chute door closed with a metallic clang.

There was a second of complete darkness, and then it felt as if a giant’s invisible hand had taken hold of his feet and yanked him with great force and speed through a short pipe filled with blue sequenced pulsing lights into open space.

Below him was the immense sight of a brownish-red planet with a few wispy white bands of clouds and dirty looking oceans.

He and the rest of Bravo Company, including 2nd platoon accelerated head first towards the first layers of the atmosphere.

The Stryker was only one of 200 dropships in orbit around this hostile world, and they all started to deploy.

Through the retina-linked visual sensors, increasing his natural field of view by 60 percent to each side without even moving his head, he noticed the heavy weapon impacts into the shields of their Dropship, the USS John Stryker.

He silently cursed the Noghler surface defense batteries as they fired accelerated antimatter loads into the swarms of descending Marines, He also worried about the bright flashes of Kermac Line Cannon fire coming from below.

Marines doing an orbital drop were small and hard to hit targets, and their shields and armor were second to none, but planetary defense batteries designed to take on space ships could ruin a marine’s otherwise perfectly good drop, especially if it was a direct hit.

He noticed seventeen icons on the Company level board turning red and then thirty more blinks out in rapid succession. Red meant severe damage and the lost icons re-appeared a heartbeat later on the casualty list. Three of damage icons belonged to his Platoon.

He pressed his lips together as he knew all men who had just died, were good lads. Then he made sure everyone was moving at max speed, with the random course deviator program activated, that shifted marines into unpredictable random patterns and gave orders to deploy Rescue Cerbs to retrieve the damaged and wounded Marines.

Force fields automatically took on the best aerodynamic shape as they penetrated the first layers of the planet’s atmosphere. Like thousands of glowing shooting stars, trailing superheated air molecules, Union Marines rained in on the home planet of the Noghler, Robert’s targeting system identified a series of surface batteries, he aimed his shoulder cannons and switched to triple burst, while he gave a mental set of instructions to his Hump TL with the re-materialization coordinates for the micro loads he sent them inside the death-dealing turrets below.

–””-

Roy tossed the smoking body of a Noghler away from him, the brutish alien giant that reminded him of an upright walking Stomper, with a face full of milky white tentacles, sharp-looking mandibles, and twelve black button eyes.

This Noghler had managed to keep his momentum despite a direct TKU hit that punched a pumpkin sized hole right through the towering giant’s upper chest and collapsed right on top of him.

Six hours ago he had dropped after a long low signature approach under full stealth right into the mountain region surrounding what looked like a big city in Noghler terms and this case the very center of their government. It was supposed to be recon and not an all-out engagement.

At first, everything went according to plan, but he found out that a local type of brownish mushroom were much more than just innocent looking brown toad stools.

He had landed fully cloaked and undetected but then he had stepped on one of those mushrooms and the entire field of them came alive, screaming like tortured babies and running towards him, it took less than a minute for the Noghler to notice his location, despite the cloak, and open fire. Then the whole planet was on highest alert, expecting a Union Attack.

Noghler weaponry was inferior to Union weapons, but they had lots of them and he and his three-man advance Recon team were seriously outgunned.

Corporal Ructus had bought the farm just twenty minutes ago. Hit by the concentrated fire of three Noghler Hover tanks; there was barely enough left of the poor bastard to send home. What was left of him Roy carried in a spare ammo box, strapped to his suit.

Roy knew he would miss the dry humor and the thousand ways the spotted Attikan could show his emotions by just moving his ears and tail, but he could not bring himself to hate the Noghler. This was their homeworld, their last stand. They had fought hard over each of their colonies and outposts and lost each one.

Even if the main force did not drop in time to save Roy’s life, the Noghler would be history and soon forgotten. In moments like this, he truly missed Partner. His Fury Beast would have torn through the Noghler like a Marine Battle Tank, but his friend was many thousand light-years away, almost halfway across the Galaxy and with his girl.

A warm feeling reached his mind as he thought of his blonde girlfriend waiting for him Union side, as he shoved the last magazine into his TKU and smiled at Corporal Yzzzith, a Purple Throat Shiss. Of course, his facial expression was wasted at the Lizard, as Yzzzith did not see his face and even if he could have, the Shiss still had difficulties reading human emotions. So he said. “Let’s see if we can make it to that ridge over there and hold out till they come.”

The Shiss tossed his last Cluster Storm grenade and the devilish weapon rose into the air, and then the device released a hail storm of pinhead-sized plutonium pellets, perforating a trio of Noghler warriors setting up some huge and ugly looking tripoded weapon. Whatever that weapon was, it exploded and took out two more.

“They are dropping now, but that worm faces still have a lot of sky pointing hardware.”

Roy’s uncanny sense of danger warned him and his accelerated reflexes allowed him to raise his weapon and fire a three burst, taking out a big and fast projectile coming their way.

“Change of plan, we stay right here, Corporal. Put a designator on those batteries over there and call for a Hammer. I’ll try to keep them occupied.”

Roy collected his mind and used his Saresii honed Psionics to suggest to an approaching Noghler Tank commander that the troops beside him, were Union soldiers.

Noghler minds were truly alien and this Tele suggestive trick was something he had only practiced on Sares before, it did not work exactly as intended, the big Noghler simply jumped out of the approaching tank and hugged a Noghler warrior nearby with his six upper arms in a way that looked very intimate. Roy, despite the serious situation, could not help but grin and wondered what it was he actually suggested and then tried to make every shot of his TKU count, while the Noghler Infantry, distracted by their love crazed tank commander tried to restrain the poor guy, while Roy picked them up one by one.

In the meantime, the Shiss Corporal transmitted the exact coordinates of the planetary defense batteries, into command net. In doing so, the Shiss marine was calling for a Kilo load.

One of the Union Warships in or near orbit received the call, the coordinates fed into a targeting solution for a Translocator cannon. And a few heartbeats later transmitted an anti-matter bomb to the designated coordinates.

Ship sized weapons used on a planet surface were never a good idea, especially if you were anywhere on the same continent. While the load beamed down was one of the smaller bombs, it still vaporized a sizeable portion of a full-size snow-capped mountain peak to sun hot matter plasma in the fraction of a second.

Both the Shiss and Roy had thrown themselves to the ground and activated their Grav anchors to the max, hoping to stay glued to the ground and ride out the apocalyptic event, but the blast wave; traveling at supersonic speed; ripped them clear off the ground, obliterating their already weakened shields. The temperatures around them rising to sun hot levels, and melted the outer layers of their armor skin. The shock waves and superheated winds tossing them like tumbleweeds across the landscape.

Roy’s MAMA reported. “It looks you survived it, Lieutenant. Your broken arm and the concussion is easily fixed, but shields are completely inoperative. Secondary Shields offline. Tertiary shields non-responsive. Energy reserves at ten percent. Suit integrity damage 64 percent.”

Like all Suit systems, Roy’s MAMA had a simulated personality and complained in her soft voice. “This is no way to treat Government property, by the way.”

His retina display showed him that Yzzzith was okay, but his suit was in even worse shape than Roy’s and the leg actuators fused, immobilizing the Shiss.

However, the orbital hammer blow had also destroyed much of the mountain, most of their immediate opponents and scattered the rest.

This was of course not what the mission was all about if Command wanted that, they did not have to send Marines and could simply reduce the planet to slag from orbit.

Roy was permitted to use a Hammer if necessary and he hoped that his decision to use it, saved many Marines and perhaps took the fight out of the Noghlers, at least long enough for the first wave to establish a perimeter-beach head.

Their mission was to find out how the Kermac controlled the Noghler.

Captured Noghlers did not show any signs of psionic influence, but NAVINT was certain the Noghler did not fight for the Kermac of their own free will and that the answer could be found in the Broodmaster’s chambers right here on their homeworld.

While Command was pretty sure this was the last Noghler world, they also mentioned during mission briefing that intelligence was faulty at best when it came to the Noghler and some indications suggested that there were still Brood worlds out there and that the Kermac or the Noghler themselves experimented with breeding a new even fiercer kind. To find evidence and to substantiate this was the main reason for the assault.

That the Noghlers responded to Psionic suggestions was evident in his attempt just moments ago, despite the rather unusual result. While he had some Saresii training he was just dabbling in Psionics, especially compared to the experience the Kermac had in this field.

He checked his suit repair systems, the Nanite resources were maxed out and MAMA estimated at least 60 minutes to restore it to at least thirty percent.

But even if the suit would be functional right away, he had virtually no weapons left. Less than six bolts remained in his TKU, leaving him pretty much with the Chain sword and the extendable Mono filament claws of his gauntlets. His hump did not contain the Micro load TL of standard Quasimodos, but the ISAH pod and the systems for his FTL engines. He had jumped seven light-years into this system and made a low emission stealth approach.

Then Marines of the first wave reached the ground.

While the Noghlers were far from throwing in the towel and were still serious and numerous opponents, there was little they could do once Marines in Destroyer suits were en masse on the surface.

A Black Smith homed on Roy’s signal and the Battle Suit Engineer threw his arms into the air in a very human gesture.

“Lokat and Nibet, the cursed gremlin twins and fiends of all that is tech could not have done a better job in ruining a perfect set of Quasimodos than you two! I am a Wurgus, not a magician!”

Roy smirked and wondered if that Wurgus knew who he was. It was Roy who was there when the Wurgus decided to join the Union after all.

Roy said in Wurgus. “Patriarch Hurun would be horrified to hear you even mention the Cursed Gremlins while there is still a sun shining a light on you. Don’t you know it brings katkthe?”

“You must have mentioned the names of the cursed Gremlin twins at least ten times while under the light of three suns, by the katkthe you seem to be in!”

The Wurgus Engineer responded, not losing a beat, while he attached energy transfer pods to Roy’s and Yzzzith’s suit. “It is a great honor for me to meet you. Patriarch Masterun. I called for a Replacement, your suit is only fit for the recycler.”

“How fast can you get me one? I need to go back into the war since I blew this recon mission. I need to gather all the bonus points I can before I need to report in.”

“I called for a Mobile Battle Dresser. Should be here in six minutes.”

Yzzzith sat up, now as his suits muscles responded again and said. “What is with this Patriarch Masterun business?”

The Wurgus Suit engineer pulled a molten actuator from Yzzzith left elbow joint and pointed with it at Roy. “This Lieutenant is the first and so far only human ever to be made an honorary Wurgus Patriarch by the All Patriarch himself. He’s also the reason I am a Suit engineer and working on Union side instead of building Solar Bombs for the Kermac, figuratively speaking of course.”

Roy said. “It’s a long story Corporal and I tell you all about it back on the Stryker.”

-””-

In a brand new Destroyer suit, full energy cells and a complete weapon and munition load, Roy and Yzzzith joined their platoon and just made it to the final assault on the main brood chambers deep below the termite nest looking Noghler city on the surface. The fighting was intense and the Noghlers fought relentless and without regards to their losses. Their aggression intensified the closer they came to what deep penetrating ground scans revealed to be the main brood chamber.

Roy had long lost count how many Noghlers he had killed. Down here they could not bring the full potential of their weapons to bear without risking cave-ins and now fighting came down to chain swords, claws, and cluster grenades.

Roy could not simply fight, he also had to keep an eye on the three-dimensional layout of these labyrinth-like tunnels around him and making sure his platoon was moving into the right direction.

First Platoon was coming from the other direction, while the bulk of marines mopped up resistance all across the planet. Now that the last planetary defense batteries had been neutralized, second and third wave had arrived. along with heavy tanks, while more Marines swarmed down into the subsurface part of this Noghler stronghold.

The corridors down here were big enough for four or five of the Noghler giants to walk next to each other.

The corridor walls were decorated with intricate swirling designs of dark red and black patterns and appeared to be made of the same tough ceramic material the Noghlers used for their body armor.

Force field curtains and locked security doors had to be breached almost every hundred meters. Advance was further hampered by automated weapons popping out of wall and ceiling compartments. None of the weapons individually were strong enough to faze the Battlesuits shields, but combined fire of several sources did wear them down.

He blinked at the yellow Chevron symbol for his platoon sergeant. “Gunny, I think we are almost there. That corridor you’re in should merge with ours in about sixty meters. How are you doing on Screamers?”

“Takki has two left, Sir.”

“Perfect, send one to that junction I'm highlighting on your battle map. That should keep them busy long enough for us to reach them.”

Roy deployed a tiny spy drone that enabled him to look around twisting and turning corridor sections and he watched as six Noghler wheeled one of those tripod-mounted weapons in position.

A Screamer was a high powered robotic flash-bang drone, emitting not only 500 decibels of disharmonious high-frequency sound but created a concentrated electromagnetic pulse and a flash of intensive light all across the spectrum from infrared to x-rays.

These Screamers had proven the most effective weapon down here so far, the problem was they weren’t standard equipment and only a few marines had packed a few of them as they were thought to be pretty useless against armored and shielded enemies.

Only Noghler leaders or whatever they called their officers appeared to use personal shields, their common soldiers did not.

The Screamer went off and very effective, the Noghlers dropped in painful-looking convulsions to the ground and Roy and his men had no trouble reaching them.

Killing had become such a routine since they tried to reach the Brood chamber that Roy already raised his Chains word to decapitate the one he had reached, while Dunn coming from the side, fired his wrist laser killing another one of the incapacitated enemy warriors when he stopped his own swing. “Mama, switch my external speakers and tie in Translator turned to Kermac.”

“System request active.”

Roy said. “Surrender and I spare your life!”

He had learned some basic Kermac terms while he was at the Saresii College and later in Xeno Class at Marine Corps Academy he didn’t want to try it here. His suits computronic was much better.

The still semi stunned and radiation burned Noghler before him, groaned in heavily accentuated Kermac. “Order Lord?”

“Yes, I am Order Lord,” Roy said sensing that the Noghler warrior considered him perhaps to be a Kermac. The Noghlers were Galactic Council members after all and considered a Kermac Thrall.

“Why lie, Order Lord? You say fight Uhnion now you are Uuhinon!”

Could it be that easy? He thought to himself and said. “Order Lords do things Noghler do not understand, now tell others stop fighting and tell us all.”

The giant on the floor raised one of his blisters covered arms and pointed to an alien-looking device integrated into a wall. “Not good to order, just do things told I am, Order Lord speak to ‘All-Who-orders-things’ and no fight will be.”

Roy called Command. “Lieutenant Masters here. I think I can make the Noghlers stop fighting.”

The Fleet Admiral who was in charge of this operation responded. “If you can do it that would be a neat trick, what do you need?”

“Everyone stop shooting at anything for a few moments, and just hold position.”

“Order is given and keep me online.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Roy said. “Corpsman to my position, stat!”

A Marine Medic came running only four minutes later. “Sir?”

“Patch up that Noghler!”

The Corpsman was an Ult but managed to modulate his voice with a very surprised tone. “Sir?”

“Put your auto doc or whatever you got on that Noghler and do your thing.”

“Sir I am a Corps Man and a Medic and not a Xeno expert.”

“You are going to be a Corpse used to be a man if you don’t do what I say, stat!”

“Aye Sir.” Came the still surprised sounding reply. The Corps Man did exactly what Roy wanted and he attached a big BattleField Auto-Doc Unit to the burned exposed skin of the Noghler who had neither moved nor said something since his last response.

The Auto Doc, designed to provide first aid to almost any Union Species was tied into Med Central on Paracelsus Planet and received treatment instructions after it transmitted the physiological data of the Noghler to the Medical Expert System. The Auto Doc communicated with the Corpsman and the Ult in the Med Tech Suit opened a panel on his armor suit and explained.

“A Xeno Med expert from Med Central will take over treatment via Avatar presence.”

The Panel revealed a GalNet Avatar projector.

The Noghler as alien as it was, appeared to be more impressed by the Suron in white medic Uniform suddenly appearing than it was about the heavily armed Marines.

The hard light avatar projection of the Suron MD immediately began working on the Noghler and after about ten minutes said. “The Noghler should fully recover in a few days, but it is pain-free and able to act and move now.”

Roy said to the Noghler. “Now speak to all of your kind and tell them Order Lords will not kill and fight if all Noghler obey and stop fighting so they can hear what we have to say.”

“You are Order Lord who is the greatest Wizard of Kermac as it can make Shiss come from the air and command it to heal.”

The Noghler rose to his impressive twelve meters and several Marines raised their TKUs in a nervous gesture.

Roy motioned them to lower them and the Noghler giant activated the alien device at about his face level and begun to speak in a very guttural language of many very short chopped sounding words, while it simultaneously moved its facial tentacles in a very complex pattern.

A new voice speaking over the same channel as the Admiral said. “Interesting, it appears the Noghlers use a combination of verbal and visual sign communication. The verbal part is only about 20 percent of the information while the tentacles convey the rest, this is why our linguists could not decipher the audible records we had.”

The Noghler spread all his arms and said. “One-who-gives-all orders has made all Noghwigglewiggle* ler not fight and say Order Lords come to the innermost place and say to those who guard the eggs what new commands are given.”

Every time the Noghler spoke non Kermac words his nine facial tentacles performed a complex movement pattern.

The Admiral said. “I’ll be damned, this little Lieutenant has just shown us that all we had to do was trying to pretend to be Kermac and we could have saved us months of fighting. Lt. Masters, we are sending specialists to your position to take over the next part. Remain where you are and tell your new friend that Big Order Lords are on their way to talk to his One who gives all Orders.”

Roy did exactly that and the Noghler conveyed that in turn into the wall transmitter and said. “One who gives all orders waits till Big Order Lords come.” Then the giant simply sat down leaning against the wall, only to start sleeping moments later.

The Avatar of the Suron MD confirmed that the Noghler was simply sleeping and then said to Roy. “Thank you for giving me that chance working on a live specimen. The data you enabled me to gather on their physiology will close a few knowledge gaps we had on them.”

The Shiss Corporal said. “You need to help them with their eyesight too, Doc. They got eight eyes and still took you for a Shiss.”

The Suron laughed in a hissing fashion. “No one is perfect, Shiss. I am so much prettier after all.” and then the Avatar winked out.