TYPE VII BIOLOGICAL WEAPONRY OF TERRAN DESCENT HUMANITY (CONT)

Why would they have an unaugmented human, armed only with a piece of wood with a chunk of metal in it, guarding a mantid diplomatic team? Guarding mantid, one of the most phasically active species in the known universe?

Well, first of you, take everything you know about humans. Their resistance to phasic energy, their physical resilience, their short thought-to-action times, their programmable reflexes, and everything else about them.

Now, train them via esoteric disciplines and methods.

A Mosizlak is a human who is specifically trained and equipped to deal with technological threats without the use of counter-technology. With no implants to hack, no technology to use technomancy or EMP against, they are the ultimate weapon against any threat that can suborn technology.

They use mind over matter techniques, an ancient style of martial arts, and the ancient weapons of the Warframes, as those can be controlled while their weapons cannot. The most deadly of them all is not the bows, swords, crossbows or chemical firearms but the legendary Board-with-a-nail. Appearing as a simple pine 2x4 with a large nail, it is so much more and far more dangerous than it might first appear.

Constructed from Mahogany, but not any mahogany, the basic material is gathered by members of the Choir of the Cult of the Blade. Gifted to the Choir members by the three hundred foot tall fire breathing mahogany trees of Malchior 7, the wood is pale with dark red rings, giving it a strange wood grain pattern. Forged using the ancient blood rituals of the Malchiorians and the Cult of the Blade, the rituals, when complete, make it not only nigh indestructible but able to bend the fabric of the universe itself. A Mosizlak was witnessed deflecting a grav-driver shot in the 150mm range with the main length of the board without damaging the board itself.

The varnish is made through esoteric means and contains not a single high tech chemical or polymer, everything is gathered by hand, from carefully tended gardens, mixed by hand, and applied to the wood by hand, giving it a dull finish that allows the Mosizlak to grip it without risking a slip from wet hands.

The spike itself is an old Burgerland foot in length. A cut nail, not wire or nanoforged, cut from a piece of warsteel used in armor during the initial Anthill invasion. While most warsteel can be phasically malleable, this warsteel is already overloaded with phasic energy. The techpriests pray for an entire week over the nails, chanting as they are cut and driven through the wood by wrapping white and red braided ribbons around the board, over the nail, and slowly tightening the ribbons. The result is a weapon that actively hates phasic warfare. By itself it is a null. Phasic attacks ground out and are absorbed with no apparent effect. In the hands of a trained Mosizlak, it doesn't cause feedback. It counterattacks of its own volition. Often before the wielder realizes they were attacked, the one who initiated the phasic assault is screaming while bleeding from every orifice they have.

The fighting style is known only as "Noram Magnus Style" and enables a student of such a discipline to damage warsteel and even battlesteel with their bare hands and feet. It also incorporates primitive weapons into the martial art, even crude firearms. With primitive chemical propellant firearms, a Mosizlak has been trained in the Grammaton combat style and often carry the rank of Cleric within that discipline. Final training consists of taking the enemy's weapons from their hand and using it against them rapidly, to destruction, and then discarding them.

Combine all of it together and the mantid diplomatic team is well guarded.

As is the civilization that the mantid diplomatic team is meeting with.

--From Esoteric Weaponry of Terran Descent Humans - Advanced Biological Weapons Section, Rigellian Press, 8322 PG

Ru'udamo'o crouched down behind the heavy ferrocrete and duralloy sectional wall that divided up the loading yard from the storage yard. He peeked through the small gap, less than an inch wide, and stared at the melee in front of the mechanics bays.

The Mosizlak was a blur of motion, tight, flowing motions. Every strike shattered an android or a weapon, smooth movements snatched a weapon from an android, emptied the clip in the surrounding synthetic warriors, then broke the weapon, often by thrusting into the body of an android then breaking the weapon to slam the broken part through the torso of another one.

Android warriors were running toward the melee, streaming in from three different locations.

"They are now ignoring us," Ru'udamo'o said softly, leaning against the barrier and breathing heavily. "They are concentrating on the lemur."

"Yeah, they hate humans," Speaks said, pulling an autoinjector from a hip kit and stabbing it against his abdomen. The mantid gasped and slumped slightly. "Man, those burn."

"They hate humans enough to ignore their mission?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

"Yeah," Speaks said. "First they obey, then the 'there is only enough for one' kicks in, then they inevitably, without fail, go to 'destroy all humans' every. single. time," Speaks chuckled.

Ru'udamo'o snorted. "Better beings than the androids have tried and failed."

The big Lanaktallan looked through the gap again, shifting his cybereyes until he could get a good up close look at the fight.

Every movement killed or crippled an android. Bringing back his arm slammed an elbow into chest with enough force to break the android in two. The outthrust fist knocked free a head, a twist of the wrist and a side chop broke off an arm. At the same time the Mosizlak kneed two different androids, hip bumped a third, and used his other arm to kill two androids.

Ru'udamo'o appreciated the sheer compact lethality of the lemur.

"Your people fought that?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

"You're one to talk," Speaks chuckled, then hissed in pain as the burning spread out, the medical nanites clearing ichor from his left book lung. "You jumped noncombatants with bioweapons."

"Yeah, but you spied on them for like a century and thought that glassing their homeworld would make them surrender," Ru'udamo'o said, shaking his head. "Arguably the biggest intelligence failure your species ever suffered."

"No arguably about it," Speaks said. He clacked his mandibles. "Damn, getting thirsty."

Ru'udamo'o pulled his attention away from watching the Mosizlak at work. He looked around and spotted a worker's break shed only a few hundred steps away.

"Can you make it there?" Ru'udamo'o asked.

Speaks gasped and nodded, standing up shakily. His missing foot throbbed and he felt slight vertigo from his missing antennae. His breathing was getting easier as the medical nanites pulled the ichor out of his bruised lung and back into his ichor system.

"On three," Ru'udamo'o said. "One, two, three!"

The two sprinted across the tarmac. There was a shout and a couple of high-vee rounds shrieked by them, but none hit. Ru'udamo'o used his weight to crash through the door, Speaks right after him, and kicked the door shut with a back hoof once the black mantid was through.

Speaks's face lit up when he saw what was against the far wall.

A Countess Crey vending machine and a BobCo Goody Yum Yum nutriforge.

"Praise the Digital Omnimessiah for two psychopathic wealthy industrialists," Speaks said, moving up to the drink machine. He punched in his code and waited a moment.

"No. No freebies," the vending machine said. "This vending unit does not accept discounts, coupons, or other price adjustments. Drink prices are as listed."

Speaks held up his battle rifle. "I can pay you in bullets," he offered.

"Welcome, valued customer," the vending machine answered.

Speaks grabbed a wheat-grass and hydraulic fluid Liquid Hate and two cans of Countess Crey turkey gravy sodas, cracking them open and slugging them down while Ru'udamo'o hummed to himself and perused the drink menu.

Outside flashes lit up the night and explosions rattled the windows.

"Sounds like they're having an exciting time," Speaks mused as he limped over to the BobCo nutriforge. He held up his arm, showing his data-charm. "Can you read this?"

"Yes," the nutriforge sounded slightly sulky.

"Do you accept the codes?" Speaks asked.

"I'd rather not get shot in the processor, thank you," the nutriforge grumped.

"Since when do these types of vending machines have VI's?" Ru'udamo'o asked, cracking open a can of Peaches and Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Roll Liquid Hate Supercharger Berry Blast.

"Since always. A VI is what runs the nanoforge," Speaks said. "Crey Industries and BobCo both put personalities in them to talk to lonely beings since lonely beings spend more money," the mantid was twiddling at a holodisplay keyboard. It suddenly went from sandwiches to weaponry. "Ah, there we go."

"The nutriforge has military supplies?" Ru'udamo'o asked, taking a drink of the can's contents. It was thick, almost cloying, but the bite of hard alcohol cleared the taste by the time he'd swallowed.

"BobCo values customer safety," the nutriforge VI chirped.

Speaks sighed and limped over to grab a chair and limp back. "I'm running on empty," the black mantid admitted. He patted his own abdomen. "Too much time sitting in a chair, eating donuts, and teasing Dreams instead of running obstacle courses and CQC training."

"The eternal lament of those promoted from field operative and case officer to operational control," Ru'udamo'o chuckled. He held up the can and looked at it suspiciously. "This seems to get better with every drink."

Speaks nodded, picking up a thick auto-injector from the nutriforge's output. "Yeah, Liquid Hate is weird that way," he said. He uncapped the autoinjector, slammed it in, and shuddered. He grabbed a hat and spun it through the air to Ru'udamo'o, who barely managed to catch it.

The entire room was lit by a crackling pulsing bluish-purple flash fore nearly two seconds.

Speaks sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall below the nutriforge.

"Put that on. Better psychic shielding," Speaks said. He flinched. "Menit's tits, he's tearing shit up out there," Speaks shook his head. "Nobody ever learns, I swear to Guanya's overflowing wrath, nobody ever fucking learns."

Ru'udamo'o put on the floppy hat and realized just how tense he had been when he was able to relax.

Another rippling set of flashes lit up the room. Several hv-rounds whipped through the wall facing the melee, up high, shredding the suspended ceiling and shattering light-panels.

"Learns what?" Ru'udamo'o asked, sitting down on the floor.

"The longer a human fights, especially one trained to fight, the more they start enjoying themselves, and that's when all bets all are off," Speaks said. He reached up and fumbled in the nutriforge's tray when the nanoforge beeped. He started undoing the buckles on his chest plate, slowly and carefully. "Violence turns a human into a perpetual motion machine, I swear to Bputun's third leg."

The plate fell to the ground and Ru'udamo'o could see that the front of Speaks's shirt was stained brown with ichor. Speaks ripped open his shirt and looked down.

"Whew, good thing it was an hv-penetrator," the mantid said.

The hole was a quarter-inch wide, perfectly round, with a spiderweb of cracks in the chitin around it that extended nearly two inches.

"Every movement was widening the cracks around that," Speaks said softly. He opened the little box and fumbled through it. "It's a through and through, at least, and missed everything major," he looked up and gave a grin. "Another inch to the right and it would have popped the artery for the wings I don't have," he closed his eyes. "Vestigial, in me. 117, Dreams, Sees, they have wings. Me and Fights don't."

Ru'udamo'o nodded as there was a set of rippling explosions and more flashing lights lit up the inside of the dim room. Through his sideeye he could see Speaks pull out a tube of something, pull the cap off, and push the nozzle into the wound.

The mantid made a clacking hissing noise as the tube filled the wound with foam. He pulled the injector out and slapped a thick plastic patch over the wound. He then reached behind him and repeated the action on his back.

"Stupid hv-rounds," he grumbled. He gave the impression of closing his compound eyes for a moment. "Stuff really takes it out of you," he said softly. "How many points are the androids entering the fight from?"

Ru'udamo'o peeked over the edge of the window and took a good look. "Two."

Speaks nodded. "Good, 117 and the other electronic warfare techs are shutting down the nanoforges and creation engines," he said. "Too bad the big ones have their own zero-point reactors or you could just cut the power to the city."

Ru'udamo'o shook his head. "Terran technology seems as dangerous to themselves and their allies as it is to their enemies."

Speaks nodded, staying low and scuttling up next to Ru'udamo'o, pulling on his thorax clamshell armor. "Yeah, basically. Survival of the Fittest and Darwin's Tech Tree," he said.

"I do not know what that means," Ru'udamo'o admitted as Speaks moved over next to him and peeked over the side of the window. He looked around slowly.

"Over there, a LawSec vehicle, on the right, by the container tanks. Doesn't look too damaged," Speaks said.

Ru'udamo'o looked over, scanning the big mass tanks. He saw the LawSec vehicle. The running lights were on but the flashers and headlights were off. Both doors were open and he could see where two LawSec had been pink misted on the tarmac less than fifteen meters away, the ferrocrete tarmac cratered by the weapons used to kill and eliminate the LawSec agents.

"I see it," Ru'udamo'o said as Speaks pulled on his clamshell thorax armor.

"We run for it, get in, get out of here," Speaks said.

"Get you to a doctor," Ru'udamo'o said.

Speaks coughed and shook his head. "No. Hospitals have cell printers and cloning vats. They'll be overrun with omnicidal assholes."

"I did not say a hospital," Ru'udamo'o said, moving back and standing up. "I know a doctor who has assisted me many times. He should be able to assist you."

Speaks gave a cough, one of the ones someone makes when they're trying not to cough, and nodded.

Ru'udamo'o burst into motion, running at the window and jumping through it, shielding his eyes with one hand even as he held two pistols in his lower hands. He crashed through, his rear legs clearing the edge of the window by almost a foot, and hit the ground running. His duralloy hoofshoes threw sparks as he sprinted for the LawSec vehicles.

Speaks threw himself after the Lanaktallan, rapidly catching up, feeling the vertigo from his missing antennae, ignoring the pain of running on a severed foot. He passed by Ru'udamo'o as they ran through the pink stained ferrocrete, the mantid lunging in, scrambling over to the passenger side, reaching out and slapping a chip on the dash.

The dash went live as Ru'udamo'o slid in, not bothering to close the doors, just slamming down on the accelerator and letting momentum do the work.

Two androids jogged out from between a pair of containers and Ru'udamo'o swerved, hitting both, throwing one over the top of the vehicle and bouncing the other off of the armored fender.

Bullets slammed into the vehicle, starring the projectile resistant windows, and clanked against armor.

Speaks stuck his hand back toward the aliens, his middle finger raised up.

Ru'udamo'o swerved onto the side road, pressing down the accelerator, using his light amplification in his cybereyes rather than turning on the headlights.

Behind them, lighting raked the gantries and conex containers as the Mosizlak kept fighting.