There were several events that had a cataclysmic reaction for the rest of the universe.

  The Precursor Autonomous War Machine attack upon TerraSol. It proved theories they had already been examining. A single system that had barely colonized more than their origin planet in their origin system defeated a Goliath Class Harvester.

  The Glassing of Terra by the Mantid as the opening attack of the First Human-Mantid War.

  The Unified Civilized Council's invasion of the Sol System.

  The Atrekna's attack that resulted in the Terran Extinction Event.

  Shade Night.

  The Noocracy's assault upon TerraSol.

  Historians and educators are charged with digging out the repercussions of those events that are hidden by the piles of bodies the Terrans stacked in response. - Right Side Down, Mantid Philosopher

  The air around him thrummed, waking him up as his suit vibrated slightly. Pan'nikk blinked twice and looked around.

  His suit was still on full autonomous operation, hooked into the MILINT systems, the point defense systems, and supplemental indirect fire. As he yawned and grabbed a quick sip of tepid lime juice flavored water he saw his rocket launcher was firing 2.75" rockets and had been reconfigured.

  There was a data window that opened up, showing the LT Singer's rank, name, and his face.

  "Your metrics are good. You can enter wakeful duty," the Lieutenant said.

  Pan'nikk thought it was interesting that the LT's head was kind of a square with short, almost needle-like hair on his head. He had to admit, those eyes were often disconcerting.

  "Thank you, sir," Pan'nikk said.

  The LT's image vanished and Staff Sergeant Grayeyes appeared.

  "Sergeant Pan'nikk," the Solarian didn't bother with pleasantries.

  Weirdly. Pan'nikk found himself caring a lot less about them.

  "Here, Sergeant," Pan'nikk said.

  "Good. Sending you a mission package. Look it over, give me your thoughts, then prepare the mission," the Section Sergeant said. "By the way, Telkan Marine Corps TO&E update for Rippentear's operation: you'll be retrofitted with a greenie housing."

  Pan'nikk managed not to roll his eyes.

  The datalink went live and a good amount of data dropped through the suit and into the memory, then hooked into his datalink.

  "Stay on autonomous..."

  the picture went all static and again Pan'nikk felt his suit thrum.

  This time he could recognize what it was.

  Someone was using a heavy GLASER at the platoon, but the interlocked battlescreens and screener munitions were keeping the grav-beam from really hitting anyone.

  The window came back.

  "Stay on autonomous movement while you put it together," Grayeyes stated. "Tap tap if you need any clarification or additional data."

  "Yes, Sergeant," Pan'nikk said.

  The Staff Sergeant didn't say anything, just cut out.

  A glance showed that the steadily moving forward platoon had just been engaged by a couple dozen Noocracy tanks and the platoon section he was part of had just moved to engage them back. His HUD flashed icons to let him know that he was not part of the tactical movement.

  Pan'nikk had already learned that his blazer rifle, his 40mm grenade launcher, and his (now) 2.75" rocket launcher was little more than support weaponry compared to the horrific firepower those big blocky Solarian suits were putting out.

  The covers flipped back on the missile racks on the ones in front of him and the three suits, which were still putting out directed energy weapons at the same time, each fired one hundred twenty missiles each. The missiles went hypersonic less than a hundred meters from the power armor, vanishing with a huge set of ripples. The big 10" missiles carried a heavy enough payload that they'd rip buildings apart.

  Pan'nikk could tell they were firing thermobaric cluster munitions. He'd seen those things deploy the cluster bombs and those cluster bombs just dissolve a hardened building.

  The Solarian armor kept up a steady stream of them. The four squads taking turns so that there were always four armors firing at a time.

  One of the big Noocracy super-tanks appeared over the horizon.

  Artillery and hypersonics started dropping on it. Some fired up to twenty minutes beforehand by the BOLO continental siege engines. Glittering GLASER streak appeared as the power armors picked up the pace of fire.

  Pan'nikk's armor fired off some masking agents that had interdiction in the smoke, a mix of microprisms suspended in the droplets and some kind of alloy that spoofed most sensors. The exploded out in between and Pan'nikk's armor took a second to adapt to the masking agent.

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  By the time his motherbox cleaned away the masking agent, the super-tank was on fire, huge pillars of flame gouting out from at least eight spots. The barrels on the main guns were all shattered an the two smaller forward turrets were exploded at the top, the metal peeled outward.

  What looked like beams of glitter that then exploded into showers of rainbow prisms and glitter started striking at the platoon. Immediately Pan'nikk's armor went to "air defense mode" and start firing at Noocracy strikers that suddenly appeared.

  Pan'nikk's motherbox estimated that the power requirement for the weapons overloaded Noocracy capacitor manufacturing capability and past the limits of Noocracy capacitance gel so when the weapons were fired the cloaking system turned off.

  Several of the Solarian suits went down. Two had an explosion of glitter erupt from the chest as they fell backwards, the antimatter burning with a bluish white light before the glitter smothered it. Three went down missing limbs.

  One of the beams missed Pan'nikk by less than a yard. His battlescreen went down instantly from the graze, his armor held but even then his whole side went burning and tingling and the side of his suit was covered in sparkling glitter.

  All fifteen of the Noocracy strikers went down, half of them exploding in mid-air, the others exploding when laser guided munitions hammered their crash site for good measure. The two that went down had others move forward and pull them up, dragging the downed men with them.

  Guns on the ridge they were approaching opened up. More glittering beams, some beams that had red edging and purple core that looked like a flat ribbon no matter what angle they were viewed from, and sharp bolts that screamed and made the optic nerve shiver.

  The Solarian suits returned fire, blowing huge chunks out of the ridge, the battlescreens on the defenders collapsing and the emplaced positions ceasing to exist in the blink of an eye.

  FLASHGATE

  FLASHGATE

  FLASHGATE

  suddenly ran down the corner of his vision.

  Pan'nikk spun in place in time to see a whole cloud of missiles exiting a window in mid-air measurable in kilometers wide and a half kilometer high. Weapons went to rapid fire, wiping away the leading edge.

  Bringing his arms in close, keeping his elbows down, he ducked his chin.

  Enough missiles got through that he took a good dozen on his heavily reinforced forearms before his battlescreen could spin back up. The standoff distance wasn't deep enough and his whole forearms were coated with gleaming osmium that cooled instantly.

  Behind the missiles came vehicles and power armor.

  Waypoints flashed in Pan'nikk's visor and he immediately turned and ran for his, ignoring his instincts that screamed at him not to turn his back on the enemy vehicles and armor suits.

  He passed two members of the platoon that were already firing back.

  His motherbox was IDing things as fast as possible. Noocracy 'High Rapid Mobility Gun Vehicles' were ID'd, which was basically at 90mm gun on a six wheeled chassis that had almost no armor. His armor was spitting rockets behind him, aiming at the HRMGV's, hoping to catch one without its battlescreen up.

  Several beams whipped by him, tearing long slices in reality as coherent energy packets were fired and tore open the very air. One knocked his ass over teakettle but long training had him roll and come up still running.

  On the plus side, it threw red veins all over the glitter on his side.

  He jumped up, mounting the ridge in seconds. At his waypoint he crouched down, a timer appearing.

  He could see the city now. Twelve or fifteen miles away, the skyrakers were easily visible now that he was on top of the ridge.

  Missiles and rockets exploded in air around him as the point defense got more accurate.

  The swept wing strikers roared out of a flashgate up in the sky in a wedge.

  His visor was flashing warnings. Grav. Atomic. Antimatter.

  One of the hypervelocity missiles got through the striker's air defense and instead of going for one of the strikers veered suddenly and sped through the flashgate.

  Everything went flat and white, the shadows missing.

  FUSION FUSION FUSION

  NUKE NUKE NUKE

  Fire and dust burst out of the flashgate in the split second it still existed after the equipment to create, stabilize, and maintain it vanished in a cloud of H3 fusion.

  Wherever that was, it was out of line of sight by Pan'nikk.

  Enough missiles remained that where he was crouched down was peppered.

  Waypoints appeared.

  "Get us a route out," the LT ordered.

  Pan'nikk noted that the LT had a cut on his forehead that was bleeding. The blood was startling red colored.

  Things that are poisonous in nature are red went through his mind.

  He just nodded, his motherbox translating it into a double-pulse acknowledged signal, and he got moving.

  Behind him, the platoon was under heavy fire but giving back as good as they got.

  The first waypoint led straight into a tunnel.

  Yeah, no.

  Second waypoint had at least five miles completely out in the open.

  Third was a burning suburb.

  The last looped around and would be moving through a so-far undamaged industrial area.

  He moved back to the third waypoint and flashed the waypoint.

  It was obviously one of the food/slave species living areas, lit on fire and left to burn during the assault. Either to provide cover, to distract, or just out of malevolence.

  Whatever the case, it would work.

  He tossed out a message drone and three recon drones.

  Then he moved into the burning flames.

  His suit didn't even register them as a threat. The glitter and red veins caught on fire, turned into thick black ash, and vanished off his suit. His battlescreen flickered now and then, but otherwise stayed stable.

  The fire and smoke provided good cover. The burning buildings would set off nap of earth munitions.

  He stopped at the edge, where the buildings changed to ferrocrete.

  The recon drones flickered and vanished as their optical camo engaged.

  Pan'nikk crouched down, watching the two feeds that he moved into the middle of his visor. Both swept in, banking around buildings, moving by shattered windows to check the interior, across roofs, through alleys and streets.

  Behind him someone flashed off an atomic and the fire roared higher around him.

  Not that he paid attention, he was focused on his drones.

  He marked the static gun positions that had been built back far enough from shattered windows to be difficult to see. He marked where several tanks were parked hull down, giving up their mobility for dubious protection. He marked where at least an infantry company of the spider-like Ornislarp were dug in.

  He forwarded the feed to the LT.

  His Section Sergeant appeared.

  "On our way. LT's gonna use your launchers," the SSG said, then vanished.

  Pan'nikk knelt down, putting one knee and the opposite fist to ground.

  His launcher was cut out of his weapon loadout. The ammo forge blinked several times and Pan'nikk saw the lockout lift by the LTs authority.

  It took nearly five minutes, the whole time the platoon was slowly making their way toward him, a fighting retreat that advanced toward the city.

  His launcher fired four times.

  ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

  All four, fired in sequence, did their terminal maneuvers and detonated together.

  The infantry company took a top down airburst. The buildings exploded as the 225 kiloton tactical weapons went off, the gun emplacements hidden inside vanishing with the buildings. The tanks were smashed to the ground. The armor holding, the tanks holding, but still damaged.

  The suburb was swept away, leaving behind odd walls and foundations.

  The dust cloud covered everything in radioactive particles as the salted weapons put out ten times the normal sleet of radiation.

  The platoon, gathered together in barely a five hundred yard wide front (definitely inside their five mile intervals, Pan'nikk grinned), moved up around Pan'nikk and stopped.

  "Good route," the LT said. "Everyone take a pull of two of nutripaste and a swallow of water," he paused for a second.

  The city skyline highlighted.

  "Time to bring the pain to the Slappers."