The Navy was fighting hard. So far, in the first four waves, there was no real threat to the forty ships of the 32nd Task Force (TF Ixtik), but every way had been a threat to the two planets below and that meant that every speck of matter targetable had to be engaged and destroyed if possible.

But how does one attack every grain of sand in a sandstorm?

The ships had split into three groups. One for Telkan-1, mostly made up of destroyers, frigates, light cruisers, one for Telkan-2, made up of dedicated point defense vessels, torch-ships, and quickly slushed out vehicles that were nothing more than a cockpit, an engine, battle-screens, and massive amounts of laser point defense weapons. Then the third force, containing all the heavy ships, going out to meet the massive shadow that was still approaching.

It looked like a combination of a nautilus and a Rigellian Great Snail, with hundreds of tendrils at the front. The thing moved forward, the 'foot' rippling with graviton energy, the shell shifting as massive saw-toothed edged plates shifted over one another.

The heavy weapons of 3rd Group, 32nd Task Force (Ixtik) went to maximum firing rate as they moved toward the last two crescents protecting the great mothership. It wasn't the size of a Precursor Harvester Class like the Goliath or the Ymir units, but it was still fifteen miles long, three miles wide, and twelve miles from top to bottom. It pulsated with obscene life, sphincters opening up to disgorge more warriors.

C+ shells hit the shell of the great creature. Cannons that required new mathematics to gauge the shock and kinetic energy transfer. Plasma wave phased motion guns fired, the massive pistons rocking back, then cooled as fast as possible, and fired again. The energy, enough to glass Lost Terra's sub-nation of India, lanced across the solar system, moving faster than light. Huge nuclear blasts measured in the hundreds of megatons were detonated, compressed through graviton generators, magnetically arranged, and vomited from the guns in the form of a compressed directional laser-tipped nuclear blast capable of blowing a crater in planetary bedrock wide enough for a megaplex . Missiles were podded out, fired by the hundreds of thousand, screaming across the void with gibbering, capering warbois eagerly seeking out their targets. Torpedoes were fired, skipping in and out of the subspace foam, moving faster than light before surfacing to orient. Weapon pods were launched with eVI's, feral hashes that wanted nothing more than to strike out at the enemies of their parents in the name of humanity, the pods armed with missile pods, gun pods, shielding pods, complex overlapping weapon systems all with onboard VI's screeching with rage and following the orders of the eVI who wanted nothing more than to destroy the enemy.

Space shuddered and warped, screamed and twisted, with the energies passing through it.

The four crescents of organisms in front of the gigantic creature, tabbed Hotel, India, Juliet, and Kilo, with Kilo being the closest to the parent creature, all swarmed into motion. Crablike creatures with fan-like solar sails twisted to intercept missiles. Flatworms extended rippling cilia into subspace to tangle the torpedoes and bring them close in suicidal protection of the mothership. Weapon pods were rushed by the Hotel and India crescents, reaching out with unfurling tentacles to grab at the pods pull them close, wrap more tentacles, and squeeze/twist in different directions and wring it out like warsteel dishrags.

The gunpods survived. The C+ shells skipped through the ranks as if they weren't there, following the singing of the VI's and gestalt riding gunners, a fraction of the torpedoes, and a tiny percentage of the missiles pods made it through the four crescents.

Space around the giant creature exploded in the largest attack it had ever taken in its hundred million year old life.

The C+ hammers thundered onto its armor, neutronium that was immune to almost all weaponry was cracked, cratered, blown away in vast sheets as the organically extruded armor peeled away from the natural layering/sandwiching. The explosive flash stripped away tendrils, ruptured sensory organs, sealing wetly gleaming sphincters shut.

But did not penetrate the layers upon layers of natural armor.

The torpedoes oriented and came in from 'under' the great creature. They hit a subspace foam ripple and detonated. The energy tore at the foam, at the tiny fibers used as billions of 'feet' by the creature, but did little more than drop the creature's speed by a tiny fraction of a percent. Measurable, but ultimately, worthless.

The missiles howled in, updating their targeting systems as the VI's oriented and struck out, not at armor, but at any biological structure they could find. They had been moving for six hours, their final velocity .82C, and still had time on their multi-stage drives. They danced, seeking the best shots, and went off.

Not all of them were lasers, particle beams, or ion slugs. Some of them were what Treana'ad and Mantids and Rigellians all called 'Old Terra Dickishness', which was embodied by tungsten steel rods 500 meters long and 10 meters thicks, that when the missile went off, slammed into the enemy at astronomical speeds. The beams were absorbed, the massive creature drinking deep of the offered energy.

The steel rods, though, slammed into tissue, blowing it apart, sinking meters into the body before the thick fibrous tissue stopped it.

But meters didn't matter to a creature measured in kilometers.

But each of those rods were 'marked' with a thin core of Mars folded warglass full of particles that could be detected across space and time for light years in real time.

Targeting systems recalculated.

The creature was annoyed. It had been called in late. The prey had faster than light weaponry beyond any had possessed so far. The Prey's ships had seemingly bottomless magazines, firing steadily. They had not been gentled, they were aggressive and constantly updated and adapted their lines of battle.

It was wounded. It had not been wounded in strange aeons. Nothing more than pinpricks and bruises, but it felt them, and the creature had no idea how to counter.

The slaves had failed them. Had not warned that the Prey species, given over to them to watch over, had developed weapons that could harm the creature.

Had not the creature spared the Enslaved Ones?

On the Flag Bridge of the CSFN Arlargle Rear Admiral Ixeltikak Howell the III stared at the massive holodisplay showing the system. He should have been in his crash couch, but he had learned long ago that Terran Descent Humans found better if their leader moved around, displayed confidence in their movements, and stood before them.

Howell believed that it was part of their ancient pack mentality, that the leader should physically lead, not just lay about giving orders.

Moving up to the holodisplay of the system he stared at the sun.

"Are the stellar probes showing any more gravitonic focusing, scans?" He asked.

"No, sir," Scan-Eight answered.

"Check it again. I'm not willing to let some other gross garden slug come slipping into my back door," Howell said. He knew several of his Flag Bridge crew were snickering, and that was what he had been aiming for.

"Roger, sir," Scan-Eight replied, closing his eyes and engaging with his sensor web orbiting the star.

"Order the fleet elements engaging Big Slobbery Mo to reconfigure for C+ strike at a depth of fifteen hundred meters deep. Resonance tests have shown the armor is only five hundred to twelve hundred meters thick. Let's give Big Slobbery Mo a surprise," Howell snapped. "Reconfigure missile drones to go to kinetic strikes, it looks like our friend likes the taste of our focused energy arrays. Let's try density collapsed thorium-steel, see how he likes the taste of that."

"Roger, sir," the Fleet Targeting Officers answered, immediately passing the orders to the Captains and gunners of the rest of Task Force Ixtik.

Rear Admiral Howell made a scooping motion at the holotank, pulling out the data on the biggest one, the mothership, what he'd tagged as Old Slobbery Mo. It had thick neutronium armor, usually considered the most indestructable armor out there.

Five thousand years ago.

War fighting technology had moved on, the ever struggling race between armor and armor defeating weaponry pushing it far beyond neutronium.

"Weapon Pod pilots report that Big Slimer weaponry appears to have little effect on warsteel. Battle-screen algorithms are being updated, dual screens with an integrity screen between are the recommendation of the weapon pod pilots," Com-Twelve reported.

"Order all units to move to that configuration," Howell snapped, staring at the statistics on the biggest one. It was now ejecting other creatures, high energy neural tissue that the psionic arrays were reporting were linking together.

"Well, he's probably going to scream at us about how there's only enough ice cream for him and he's not going to share, isn't he?" Rear Admiral Howell said, turning to the holotank and looking at the data being updated.

Fighting with the Terran Space Force Navy was an exercise in patience and immediate decisions. When the distance between two forces could be measured in light months but FTL weapons allowed for fire to impact strikes with less than a minute, it could be difficult to handle.

Which is one of the things that made it difficult for some commanders to grapple with. More than a few promising officers were unable to handle the dissonance and washed out before reaching Captain, much less Rear Admiral.

But that was all right, the lower ranks of the officer corps needed highly skilled and motivated beings in their ranks also.

Admiral Howell's datalink pinged him, pulling his attention back to the job. He ground his mandibles for a moment, wondering what had led him down that path of musing when...

"Big Slobbery Mo won't produce anything that it doesn't determine may be useful. It will built a psionic array next, then we'll see how he reacts when the Terrans punch him right back in his psychic nards," Howell said, moving past the holotank, flicking his wrist to toss the updated datascan on the mothership back into the tank.

"Rear Admiral of the Bronze Sashinmet wants to know if his command is ready to move to detached duty," Com-Fifteen called out.

Sashinmet is the kind of being who brings substandard knockoff ice cream with bland flavors to a date and then wonders why she ate his head before blaming his situation upon the cows that gave the milk, Howell thought to himself.

"Tell him to stay in position. Remind him that he's supposed to be protecting the stringdrive jump point. If we lose that we can't bring in any New Metal," Howell snapped. "His guns can't even reach the enemy at this point."

The Fleet finished reconfiguring its weapons, retargeting and firing the first salvo, a heavy pounding of C+ guns and FTL missile pod vehicles. Its forward units, all light units with heavy screening weapons, were starting to engage Crescent Delta units.

Massive creatures unfurled their solar 'wings' and began moving, using bioplasma powered bioengineered reactionless engines to begin manuevering. Their neutronium shells were centimeters thick, able to repel heavy energy weapons, absorb the energy of the lesser energetic ones. Biologically generated battle-screens spun up to intercept weapons.

Missile pods dropped out of the scraping edge of the hyperatomic plane where they had been riding the thin slice of dimensional reality between realspace and Hellspace, their protective shells pitted and scarred. They blew free the shells and the launchers fired out from the twelve-pack launchers. The launcher itself reconfigured and fired, pulling its matter into the magnetic launching 'tube' that existed for only a split second, pulling all the matter around the 'launching tube' that was little more than precisely aligned graviton and magnetically aligned planes of acceleration.

To use a particularly pithy Mechanek phrase, it vanished up its own ass and fired its own body at the target.

The creatures, the size of frigates, reeled under the impacts. Biomatter plumed up from impacts or geysered from the exit point of the shots. nCv slugs hit and cracked shells. Great crab-like creatures with long dangling fronds hanging from their mouths reeled as their shells cracked and cratered from the nCv shells and then burst when the missiles hit, slamming the collapsed density rods through the shells so that follow up shots blew through bioengineered flesh.

Admiral of the Iron John Nanbi stared at the images before her mind's eye, flipping through them quickly as she looked at each of them.

Bioengineered. Customized. The chopping block of weapon engineering rather than natural evolution. The hammer of defensive engineering rather than the slow smoothing hand of nature, She thought to herself. She swept them aside, dumping them into a 'box' labeled "DANGER LIVE MARMOSETS" on the side, and clicked through her data-link array.

"Hyper-com Nine here, ma'am," came the voice back.

"Fire up the string communicator. This goes to TerraSol and see-see the Clone Military Directorate and the Biological Systems MILINT on it. We're going to need a genome cracker and biomass fleet out here," she said. "We can probably take Big Momma and her spawn, but the planet might be a total loss unless we get someone out here to fix this."

She composed the memo quickly, tossing it to the hyper-com officer.

"String Com only," Admiral Nanbi ordered.

"Yes, ma'am. String Com only. TerraSol and CC: Clone World Military Directorate and Biological Systems MILINT," the officer answered.

Admiral Nanbi switched her viewpoint to an overview of the system.

Big Momma was taking a hammering. Admiral Howell was alternating weapons, switching between weapon types and range of abilities, not giving the great creature a chance to predict and adapt.

A lesson from the Precursor War.

The problem wasn't the space battle. Nanbi had been part of enough of those to understand how one was going to turn out through some sixth sense. This one was going to be over within a few days and the Terran Confederate Space Force Navy would again be victorious. She could tell from the way everything was panning out on the system overlays.

It was Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 she was looking at.

Without a Genome Cracker and a Biomass Fleet, those worlds were lost.

She'd seen enough battles to know when someone was being overrun and it was rapidly reducing to 'Hold What You've Got!" time in the immortal words of Mobile Infantry's Radcheck from the Black Egg War.

She checked the data. Estimations put it at 99.9878% of the land destination organisms had been destroyed but only 31.727% of the ocean borne organisms had been stopped.

The war is already lost on the planet, she thought to herself. This is a biomass attack, a full blown ecological meltdown attack. We need the genome guns out here.

"Signal the planet. They need to begin plans for evacuation. We lost the planets the minute those cells starting entering the atmosphere," She ordered. "The Telkan people are just going to have stay with the neighbors and couch surf for awhile."

"It will take three to four days for the shelters to reconfigure," Her ground operations officer answered.

"That's Telkan Ground Command's issue. Give the evac order," she snapped. "All shelters. All civilians. We'll get the lanes clear up here, we'll signal when they can jump safely. If it goes tits up, we'll pull apart the Task Force and attach vessels f or escort, but get those planets clear!"

"Military and Civilian Command?" Ground-Com One asked.

"Alert Colonel Harvey and Madame Director Brentili'ik that we've temporarily lost the planets," she ordered.

"General Imak Takilikakik says there's no evidence that ground forces will be overrun. He states that there has been no enemy sightings," Ground-Com reported. "He's stating that you are overstepping your authority in ordered a ground evacuation."

"General Tic-Tak is as fat as he is stupid. Bypass him, go directly to Madame Director with the order. If you have to, get me on a live line with her and I'll explain it to her," Nanbi ordered. She looked at the estimation of biomass that had made planetfall. Nearly two thousand tons of it.

She'd seen planets burn with less than a tenth of that invading the envirosphere.

"He is again refusing your order, stating there is no need since he has it under control. He reminds you that Planetary Control is under the authority of the Army, not Navy or Marines," Ground-Com said.

General Takilikakik had been find for a peace-time post-war cleanup. An effective and gifted administrator he was able to fully feed a million beings with only the rations for half of that number and still ensure everyone got slightly more than their caloric needs. He was adapt at using the Black Market rather than just attempting to surpress it, using it as a gauge of what people wanted.

But he was also highly jealous of his command area and had a problem with combat forces, having spent his entire career within logistics. He was part of the cadre that believed that war interfered with the proper Digital Omnimessiah ordained way of the promotion list.

"Contact Colonel Harvey directly. He's a dual-ladder man," Nanbi ordered.

"Roger that, ma'am," Coms replied.

The signal reached out, through the viruses floating in the upper atmosphere, past the bacteria in the middle atmosphere, and punching through the spores in the lower atmosphere to touch a signal repeater on the surface.

Brentili'ik almost shrieked when Harvey suddenly sat up. He'd been lounging on his chair with his eyes shut for two days, only waking up enough to eat and use the latrine.

"Harvey here, go ahead, Space Force," he snapped. He made a chopping motion and the plans Brentili'ik had been working on for possibly educating the broodcarriers saved and went black, clearing the holotank. An image of the shelters appeared.

Brentili'ik had been fascinated by the massive shelters. They had used six massive drill arrays to burrow down into the ground, to drag massive shelters capable of housing thousands, tens of thousands of Telkan.

Now, as she watched, the shelters underwent a complex shifting of parts, the drills moving to the top, pulling the shelters up, until they could lift off.

"It's going to take six to eight days to reconfigure the shelters to system evacuation systems," He said. "I'm going to need the ground forces to hold them if you are right. Check with Colonel Kosey on Telkan-2, he's probably going to need the same kind of time."

Brentili'ik was worried about the way Harvey was suddenly stalking around the room, pacing around the holodisplay, narrowing his eyes at it.

"General Tic-Tak thinks it won't come to ground combat," a new voice spoke up. Brentili'ik realized that Harvey was routing the communications through her datalink as well. Her datalink's optical nerve linkage identified the speaker as Colonel Kosey - Telkan-2 Defense Force.

"He's unwilling to risk his posting being taken over by one of us combatacons and missing out on all that sweet sweet promotion packets," Harvey said, shaking his head. "Dammit, every Staff Officer in all of Space Force screams for a man like Tic-Tak when the battle or war is over but he can't see past his lack of a combat action badge."

"I'll drop the engines for the shelters. You get your engineers working on prepping the shelters," Admiral Nanbi ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Harvey answered.

"Tell Madame Director Brentili'ik to interface with her subordinates on Telkan-1 and Telkan-2. We understand that it's precious cargo in those shelters. In the meantime, I'll coordinate with TerraSol Refugee Command, find them a world or two they can stay on," Admiral Nanbi said. "Those worlds are lost already."

'These worlds are our homes!" Brentili'ik said.

"And Volturnus was my home, but I had to stay on couches till the Elven Queens got done after the Sathar attacks," Nanbi snapped. "Carry our your duty, Madame Director. Your people depend on your leadership now more than ever. Nanbi, out."

The holodisplay went dead as Harvey turned to her.

"Madame Director, we need to prepare as if the system was lost," Harvey said slowly, distinctly. "The shelters must be reconfigured for interstellar transport."

"But... but... this is Telkan. I was born here. My people took our first upright steps here," Brentili'ik argued.

"And your descendants will come back. Your race will raise podlings here eventually, but if she says the planet is lost, then the planet is lost," Harvey said. "Trust her, trust me. If worse comes to worst they'll bring in the Elven Queens and they'll terraform it back to what it was before the Lanaktallan came, but right now, it's lost."

Brentili'ik hugged herself in distress, looking at the two different planets on the holotank. They both rotated slowly, covered in yellow and red and (too few) green splotches. The pictures of male and female and broodcarrier Telkans as well as a picture of three little podlings were on the side of each planet, with numbers in the millions. She shivered for a moment then straightened up.

"Can we evacuate the entire population?" She asked, willing her voice to firm up.

Harvey nodded. "Every one of the shelters can be reconfigured for space flight. They'll need FTL engines to jump out of the system, but they can be evacuated."

Brentili'ik pushed away the shock and slight fear that the Terrans could move every Telkan in the system to somewhere else.

"And my authority?" she asked. She felt the need, an urge, to hear it from the Terran's mouth.

"Madame Director Brentili'ik, you are the representative for the entire Telkan people in the Telkan system to the Terran Confederacy," Harvey said, slowly bringing himself to attention.

"Give the order. Protect the shelters. Reconfigure them for planetary evacuation," She said slowly.

"Our worlds are lost."

----------------------

TELKAN GESTALT

We're going to need to stay with someone.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We'll ask

* * * * * * * *

TERRASOL

SEARCHING

SEARCHING

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT VIABLE SYSTEMS FOUND

RECOMMEND: MAVELEEN-228

STATUS: WOOD ELF TERRAFORMING COMPLETE. AWAITING FINALIZATION AND CUSTOMIZATOIN

* * * * NOTHING FOLLOWS * * * *

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oooh, that's a nice one. Stellar output looks close to your home. Rich system. It just never developed life.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Man, he's been active lately. I'd actually believe he's listening in instead of off doing his own thing.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

If you want that one, we'll send out a Queen to oversee it and have it adjusted for you.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

Yes, please. We're getting ready to abandon our homes. Our homes.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Come here, dear. I know it hurts, but happens sometimes.

You will still be alive, though, and that's what matters.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Just ask the Terrans.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

* * * * * * *

TERRASOL

WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE

HOPE IS THE SISTER TO LOVE THE BROTHER OF WRATH THE WIFE OF WILL THE HUSBAND OF DETERMINATION

WHERE THERE IS HOPE THERE IS LIFE

* * * * * *

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Trust us, TELKAN, we've seen people come back from worst. We'll help you, let you stay at our place, help you find a place to rent while your place gets rebuilt.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We are still unsure where the leakage is coming from. Combine and Imperium Codes are still hardwired into the system. But these are ancient codes that we did not know still existed.

We are concerned.

Wait, what did we miss?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

TELKAN has to abandon their home.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We are with you in this, TELKAN. We too have faced loss. We will shield you, protect you.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

Thank you, all of you. We never had anyone care before.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------