ShipCore

USD: ~12 Hour contact mark with Hadenic forces.

Location: Nu Crateris, Hades, Heaven’s Fire II Landing Zone, Tunnel Breach

The heavy mining machine slowly rolled back as the last meter of rock was reached. Heeler watched as engineer brothers quickly packed the end of the tunnel with shaped charges, explosives designed to blow the rock into the compartment and clear a path for the last assault.

He lowered a tentacle to the ground. The thrum of the enemy on the other side of the rock was palpable. The Hadenics had been waiting for them to breach the other side with the machine.

They would taste the bite of fire and rock instead of succeeding in their ambush.

A blast shield was still required to protect the first wave of brothers from the initial explosion, but nearly all the force would be directed outward into the rock and waiting chamber.

Preparations complete, Heeler gave the signal to detonate the charges.

The explosion was deafening to every Rexxor possessing hearing, and the blast shield was nearly torn from the rock it was anchored to. Huge chunks of rock were thrown outward into the waiting Hadenic forces.

Giving them no time to recover, the first wave of Rexxor stormed through the breach, their tusks and armored shells tearing apart scores of small Hadenic creatures that were stunned from the blast.

Heeler followed with the second wave, his tentacles lashing out to slap and crush the wounded Hadenics that had been left trampled on the ground. Nestlings scurried around him, their turrets opening fire on anything that still showed life-signs while tearing out chunks of flesh with their metal jaws.

Nearby, a second explosion rocked the tunnel as a second Rexxor assault group breached the compartment. There had been two dozen landing zones, and each one had their own breach team and assault force.

Thousands of Rexxor poured in, but in the distance, Heeler could see the larger Hadenic creatures beginning to emerge from the chamber’s peripheral. The area was extensive enough to hold dozens of starships if they had been able to fit through the tunnel.

The Rexxor would be limited in their firepower at the enemy’s heart.

“Deploy the artillery,” Heeler ordered, his mental voice resounding through the engineers.

They had already been in the process of dragging the heavy machines through the tunnel to follow the assault force, but the order encouraged them to redouble their efforts.

The swarm of smaller Hadenics was quickly pushed back as the front line expanded, and the artillery units quickly began to set up their railgun emplacements. Shells were already on site when the first gun was ready, and it fired almost immediately into one of the oncoming Hadenic giants.

The shell punched through the creature’s flesh, sending a geyser of yellow acid and gore into the next wave of oncoming attackers. A second emplacement completed its setup and unleashed a salvo of dozens of guided rockets. The simple explosive charges spread out before the Rexxor attack in a fan-like wave before detonating in the air.

Thick sprays of hypervelocity shrapnel pelted the Hadenic monsters on the ground, the smaller of them being chopped into giblets while leaving the larger, heavier armored ones with deep gouges and wounds.

Heeler found an elevated position from which to observe, bringing the engineers trailing him with the superconducting cable skidding to a halt. The Hadenics had been given a bloody nose, but they were far from helpless.

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He emitted a mental command to brace for impact as purple ovals began to fall from the ceiling like a rain of death. Each one unfurled its wings as it reached the halfway mark, the sudden breaking sending a spray of spikes straight down onto the Rexxor warriors.

One artillery emplacement exploded as its reactor was pierced before its overhead protection could be put in place. Nestlings were skewered by the dozen, and the heavier brothers stood tall to allow as many of their smaller brother's safety under their bellies.

Around him, spikes fell around, impaling some engineers and other nestlings, and Heeler growled as his tentacles ripped the Hadenic spikes from their bodies. With the addition of nanite-enhanced strength, he tossed them back at the creatures that had thrown them.

Gatling turrets on the backs of dead nestlings fired into the air without abating. When the wave of spikes finally finished, the luckier survivors poured out from their hasty cover, yapping and yowling furiously as their automated weapons sought the source of the attack.

The hectic scene was chaos, but Heeler’s mind was clear. They had already developed a weapon for the airborne threat. The railguns and rocket launchers weren’t the only heavy weapons arriving through the tunnel.

Modified triumvir with large platforms on their backs in place of the armored shields on their heads charged into the compartment, their gigantic size barely letting them fit through the tunnel.

As soon as they cleared the breach, the turrets on their backs began to swivel and track upward before the quad barrels began spitting out a hail of fire. Dozens of rapid-fire chain guns spit out a stream of high velocity shaped flak rounds, which detonated just before impact.

The tiny pellets shredded the small airborne spike bombers, and the threat from above was neutralized.

All according to plan.

Until the ground began to shake. This close to the moon’s core, the gravity was nearly negated, and the tremors sent Rexxor and Hadenic alike stumbling and flying in a jumble.

Heeler anchored himself to the ground with his tentacles, his optical sensors searching the ground for the source of the disturbance. Engineer brothers attached themselves to whatever they could—the superconducting cable, weapon platforms, or the larger brothers themselves.

The nestlings were the only ones undeterred, leaping from place to place while their turrets continued to fire.

The ground split open in a dozen places, massive wormlike creatures exploding upward with torsos at least ten meters thick.

The larger brothers slammed into the base of them as soon as they had regained their footing, but their sharp tusks and heavy armor only made resounding gongs as they struck the creatures.

“Redirect fire!” Heeler growled in sync with his mental command. The railguns began to swivel and depress, but before they were in position, the worms struck.

Instead of falling and crushing the warriors nearby like Heeler expected, they vibrated and then puked up a massive stream of acid that fanned out as it fell.

Whatever it was, the metallic armor and carapaces were not immune. A large gob of the material flew directly for Heeler himself.

Instead of dodging, a electric hum filled the air as the surrounding ground began to glow blue. His tentacles lashed the air, and then a counter wave of blue nanites flew from the surrounding area to intercept.

He had been converting the ground around him since the breach, and now the defensive preparation proved its worth as nanites sizzled and popped, neutralizing the acid at the expense of themselves.

The Rexxor warriors were not so lucky, and the acid quickly tore through their armor and flesh. As the acid hit the ground, it began to evaporate into an even worse mist that began to eat away at any warriors that had avoided the initial spray.

A railgun spat revenge, the yellow streak a laser beam as the shell traveled through the air in a straight line, digging through the worm and out the other side to slam into the wall of the chamber. A second shot followed, the hypersonic crack sending a shockwave through the air strong enough to push the acid mist backwards toward the worms.

The few warriors remaining alive at the front fought even harder to press forward to avoid being engulfed.

The losses were horrific, but the Rexxor warriors continued. Even more tunnels opened into the chamber from the other landing zones. The third wave consisted of tens of thousands more warriors, all pouring into the chamber. Every breach was followed by their own engineers and heavy weapons platforms.

A surge through the superconducting capable told Heeler it was time to begin the next stage of the assault. Through the connection back to the Heaven’s Fire II, all the computronics began to churn at maximum capacity.

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