Chapter 639: The Spoked Offensive
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The lights of the stage dimmed until there were only two circles of illumination, highlighting the two figures on the stage. On the left was a Rigellian in a full body leotard, falsies on her chest to simulate breasts, a long tail with an arrowhead end flowing behind her. She was painted completely bright red to match the leotard, the 'nipples' were painted dark red, the same with the vee between her legs. She had long dark red hair that whipped around her as she twirled and spun toward the second figure. That figure, another Rigellian, was dressed in a Confederate Armed Services Army Officer's dress uniform, black hair cut short, her legs and arms and half of her face painted bright chrome.
"What wilt thou give unto mine hand?" the red Rigellian asked, twirling in place and laughing with a booming voice. "What sin and vice shalt thou confess unto me, oh man?"
The uniformed one raised her face to the spotlight as she stood to her full height, standing on one leg. Gentle illumination came up behind the uniformed ones, showing the shadowy figures of Rigellian females dressed in dark and torn Confederate Officer uniforms that danced slowly in unison with graceful movements.
"All that thy asks of me, oh Evil One," the chrome painted one sang. "For there is still a battle to be won!"
"Wilt thou consign unto me thine immortal soul?" the red painted on asked, prancing about the chrome painted one.
"I shalt willingly pay thy toll," the chrome one said. "If thou shalt save the dead soldiers of mine sin."
"Then willing sealed and accepted be our bargain!" the red one laughed.
Smoke billowed up and the two dancers vanished.
The slowly moving dancers, too dimly lit to see clearly, stared out of the darkness with red eyes as they slowly came to stop and stood swaying, the clacking sound of chattering teeth the only sound to be heard.
The curtain came down as the orchestra slowly went silent, the last sounds the slow tapping of a steel drum.
--"The Honor and Agony of Saint Manuel" as performed by the Bongistan Cyberqueen's Royal Rigellian Ballet Company, Rigel-7, 8679 PG.
------
They had held power for centuries in the outside world, longer than that in the massive computer system that made up their home.
Now there were outsiders inside the system. Before there had been only two and their mastery of the system allowed them to remain hidden even as they began to formulate plans to seize power in the outside world and then carry their plans out.
But now more outsiders had arrived, fighting with the two intruders.
Their plans were at risk.
They stood to lose what they cared the most about.
That would not stand.
As the intruders fought the defensive systems they prepared. As Atlantis itself was invaded they marshalled their forces.
When the Lady of Hell fell from the sky, silent, her tattered and ragged dress fluttering around her, they knew their chance had come.
They ordered their forces in as the Lady of Hell crashed to the ground and lay unmoving in the crater, her face blue tinted and ashen.
They would not be denied.
These intruders were nothing but a brief flicker of flame.
They were the fire.
Their forces, taken from thousands of years of careful selection, swarmed into the target, led by the finest they could suborn into serving them.
On its black iron throne the Detainee looked up, its baleful eyes smouldering. It could hear the sounds of weapons, of war cries, and feel the sudden invasion of its territory.
It looked at the bronze and copper armored form of Legion.
"Something's wrong," the Detainee growled.
----
Vuxten looked over as Trucker swore and began spinning his map, orienting on one. Vuxten couldn't see it but it was flashing red rapidly. Trucker put his fingers on his temple.
"Peter, we've got a problem," the big Terran said. He listed for a second. "Check the Traumatic Event Recovery System. I've got massive error codes and what looks like unfiltered data packet intrusion."
--get me closer-- 471 said.
Vuxten got up and moved over to the hologram around Trucker, moving around it slowly until 471 flashed a smiley face.
Whatever it was, Vuxten couldn't tell what was gone. It was nothing but a confusing jumble of icons, lines, colors, and flashing sections.
"What is it?" Vuxten asked 471.
--hell-- 471 answered. --under heavy attack--
"By who?" Vuxten asked.
Trucker looked up and shook his head. "They're under time dilation, running about a month for every second we're talking. Whoever is attacking, they're going for Dee herself and she's putting up a good fight but it's obvious she's not a military genius."
Trucker was silent a moment. "What do you mean there's nothing you can do? Flush the system!" Again there was silence and Vuxten moved over to the soda vending machine, opening his helmet. The bunny girl with the mask was sitting next to it and as Vuxten approached she opened the front.
"There's hundreds of billions, tens of trillions of people being processed! If whoever it is takes Hell, they can hold the whole system hostage!" Trucker snarled. He looked at the map and spun it. "They've already taken a fifth of Hell."
Vuxten reached out and grabbed a Bingo cola Lemon-Lime, cracking it open as the bunny girl shut the front of the vending machine.
"What about Legion? Isn't he the General of the Army of One?" Trucker asked. He frowned. "What do you mean they're better than he is? He's one of the Immortals, he fought on Anthill for Green Thomas's sake!"
Trucker was silent again. "I get it. He's already over stretched. Can you have Dee connect with me?" He paused again. "She still hasn't exited the mat-trans? What is going on up there?" He looked over at Peel. "Find out what hot SUDS storage is at high processing use and is running a connection to the Traumatic Processing Unit."
Peel nodded, tapping on her holographic keyboard and looking over the intricate map scans of the SUDS hardware layers.
There was a puff of brimstone smoke and the demonic form of the Detainee stood there. She was scraped, gashed, bleeding black blood, but still defiant as she stared at Trucker.
"What?" She asked.
"Who's attacking you?" Trucker asked.
"I don't know. Whoever they are, they're good. They know the system. I'm keeping the mod and admin codes out of their hands so far," the Demon spread its hands and wings at the same time. "But I have damaged and tortured souls, not soldiers."
"What do they want?" Trucker asked.
"Tis better to rule in Hell then serve in Heaven?" the Detainee asked. "I don't know."
"Power," the bunny girl said. "It's all anyone ever wants."
"What she said," The Detainee jerked a thumb at the bunny girl. "I've got to get back."
"Wait," Trucker said. He motioned to the Detainee and whispered something in her ear that Vuxten's armor didn't pick up.
The Detainee leaned back and looked Trucker up and down. "I can do that."
"Then keep an eye out," Trucker said.
The Detainee nodded and vanished.
"Casey," Trucker said.
The other Terran male looked up from where he had been watching Peel, the one red eye of the armor burning brightly.
"Come with me," Trucker said. "I've got a job that only you can do," he looked at Peel. "Give him the coordinates as soon as you figure it out."
Peel just nodded, her expression firm as she kept scanning.
Casey nodded, following Trucker out of the room with the hiss and thump of robotic power armor pistons.
Vuxten turned and looked at the bunny girl who just shrugged and took another drink off of her Liquid Hate.
"Got it," Peel said. She tapped an icon. "Casey. Coordinates incoming," she made a tossing motion.
Vuxten sipped at the cold soda.
After a minute Peel suddenly looked up from her data, looked back down, then looked up. She touched an icon and spoke.
"Trucker's down. KIA," she said.
Vuxten frowned, looking at Dambree then Peel.
"Roger. We're still holding tight," Peel said. "Casey's heading for the mat-trans. Tell Peter he needs a transit from Mat-Trans Gamma-Six to Alpha-Alpha-Nine."
Vuxten stared at Peel for a moment then went toward the door.
"We're still holding. Menhit's keeping the phasic shades and the Enraged off of us," Peel said as Vuxten went out the door.
--weirdest day-- 471 said.
"You ain't kidding," Vuxten said. He dropped the empty can of Bingo Cola in a waste basket and closed his face shield. The lights flashed and he heard the announcement of an outgoing mat-trans.
When the door opened the sounds and sights of the parking lot rushed over him.
Menhit was suspended in a fiery nimbus that spread out around her like a great bird of prey. She was holding one hand out and as Vuxten watched she made a fist.
A three kilometer strip of tarmac rolled and flexed, crushing the Enraged caught within like insects.
Menhit twisted her wrist and the tarmac went back to normal.
Beside the low set of planters, next to a bench, Trucker was sitting down, his chin forward, his arms limp at his sides.
The heavy cyborg chassis of his chest was blown in. Living tissue had been crushed and liquified, blood and worse running down his abdomen.
Vuxten's eyes widened and he looked up at Menhit, then back at Trucker.
"What in the name of Saint Patton?" he asked.
-----
He floated in someplace empty without space. There was no sound, no tactile sensation, no smell, no light.
He had no sense of time.
A hand grabbed him, the sudden tactile sensation an agony after an eternity of senselessness. He threw his head back and screamed as he felt himself torn from the emptiness, his skin stretching but not tearing.
It was like breaking the surface of water, like being pulled through warm taffy, like being pushed through a concrete wall made of bad memories and old regrets.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked into the visage of the Lord of Hell. Her face was gouged and cut, black iron stitches holding demonic flesh together.
"Who are you?" the demonic figure asked.
He told her.
The figure nodded and set him down.
"It's almost nine thousand years out of date but it'll follow the rules of the simulation," the demon said. It limped forward and waved its hands as it continued to speak. "They're not completely healed but they're good enough," she looked back, his demonic visage splitting into an unholy grin. "But then, when were soldiers ever all there?"
He snorted.
The black space vanished and he found himself standing next to an old obsolete tank design.
In front of him were drawn up ranks of troops and idling tanks.
He climbed up on the tank and looked out at the assembled troops.
The banners and penants of their units snapped in a non-existent breeze above the guidon bearer and the tanks.
The gathered men ranged from intact but pale and bloodless to rotted corpses in full combat armor to bare skeletons wearing rags of adaptive camouflage under their gear.
"I led you in death once before!" he yelled out, his voice echoing around him. "Now, I lead you in death again!"
There was a sigh that moved like a breeze through the ranks.
"We may be dead but our oaths still hold power of us even as we lie in the chill of the grave!" he called out. He pointed behind him and the flat gray plane they were all gathered on rippled and changed.
Tanks, self-propelled artillery, infantry, and hover-strikers moved toward a massive gate made of bronze and burning copper. On either side of the gate two great pillars of orange fire burned around a stack of warsteel skulls that reached into the sky.
"The dead cry out for rescue! The innocent being processed for the afterlife are under assault and WE are the only thing that can stop the enemy!" he yelled. He climbed up on the cupola and stood next to the tank commander's gun.
"Follow me, men, as you followed me in life!" he called out.
As he dropped into the old obsolete tank a hundred thousand dead throats roared their approval, engines roared to life, and weapons were readied.
-----
Legion was sweating inside his armor. He was at max, something he had experience with but didn't really like.
The enemy was pouring through the main data transmission line in waves. Between each wave the line's I/O gate would slam shut for what felt like only a few hours.
Something was throttling the system, slowing down Hades, allowing the enemy to regroup and rearm and come back at him.
He had been forced back, mile after mile, leaving behind trenchworks and battlements full of the dead, of souls that still twitched and moaned despite their horrific wounds. He had trouble dissipating and reforming wounded versions of himself into healthy fully armed versions of himself, as if Hades itself wanted him to continue his suffering.
Flying above the latest battle, on wings of hammered bronze, Legion stared at the I/O Gate and snarled.
It would be only a few hours before the gates opened to allow more enemy through. All of his gains would be lost as the refreshed enemy would pour through by the millions and force him back again.
The troops he had that were not him had taken to calling it The Blood War.
Legion started to drop down when the massive bronze gates suddenly rang like a bell as something impacted from the other side. He stared at the two huge bronze doors as they rang again, bulging slightly in the middle. A third impact rang out and the seam split slightly.
Before he could react the doors slammed open, one falling from its hinges as the network firewall collapsed completely and the program crashed.
A massive tank, ancient in design and terrible in power, roared through the gap. Its guns fired, pouring hate into the back ranks of the enemy that had been throwing themselves against Legion's lines.
He could see the figure in the lead tank, holding tight to the fifty-caliber machinegun as the TC raked the flapping demons of the enemy from the sky.
He recognized the commander even before the man spit tobacco off the side of the tank and onto the blasted ground of Gehenna.
The rest of Third Armor Division and Eighth Infantry Division poured through the Gates of Hell, following their General into Hell itself.
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
The lights of the stage dimmed until there were only two circles of illumination, highlighting the two figures on the stage. On the left was a Rigellian in a full body leotard, falsies on her chest to simulate breasts, a long tail with an arrowhead end flowing behind her. She was painted completely bright red to match the leotard, the 'nipples' were painted dark red, the same with the vee between her legs. She had long dark red hair that whipped around her as she twirled and spun toward the second figure. That figure, another Rigellian, was dressed in a Confederate Armed Services Army Officer's dress uniform, black hair cut short, her legs and arms and half of her face painted bright chrome.
"What wilt thou give unto mine hand?" the red Rigellian asked, twirling in place and laughing with a booming voice. "What sin and vice shalt thou confess unto me, oh man?"
The uniformed one raised her face to the spotlight as she stood to her full height, standing on one leg. Gentle illumination came up behind the uniformed ones, showing the shadowy figures of Rigellian females dressed in dark and torn Confederate Officer uniforms that danced slowly in unison with graceful movements.
"All that thy asks of me, oh Evil One," the chrome painted one sang. "For there is still a battle to be won!"
"Wilt thou consign unto me thine immortal soul?" the red painted on asked, prancing about the chrome painted one.
"I shalt willingly pay thy toll," the chrome one said. "If thou shalt save the dead soldiers of mine sin."
"Then willing sealed and accepted be our bargain!" the red one laughed.
Smoke billowed up and the two dancers vanished.
The slowly moving dancers, too dimly lit to see clearly, stared out of the darkness with red eyes as they slowly came to stop and stood swaying, the clacking sound of chattering teeth the only sound to be heard.
The curtain came down as the orchestra slowly went silent, the last sounds the slow tapping of a steel drum.
--"The Honor and Agony of Saint Manuel" as performed by the Bongistan Cyberqueen's Royal Rigellian Ballet Company, Rigel-7, 8679 PG.
------
They had held power for centuries in the outside world, longer than that in the massive computer system that made up their home.
Now there were outsiders inside the system. Before there had been only two and their mastery of the system allowed them to remain hidden even as they began to formulate plans to seize power in the outside world and then carry their plans out.
But now more outsiders had arrived, fighting with the two intruders.
Their plans were at risk.
They stood to lose what they cared the most about.
That would not stand.
As the intruders fought the defensive systems they prepared. As Atlantis itself was invaded they marshalled their forces.
When the Lady of Hell fell from the sky, silent, her tattered and ragged dress fluttering around her, they knew their chance had come.
They ordered their forces in as the Lady of Hell crashed to the ground and lay unmoving in the crater, her face blue tinted and ashen.
They would not be denied.
These intruders were nothing but a brief flicker of flame.
They were the fire.
Their forces, taken from thousands of years of careful selection, swarmed into the target, led by the finest they could suborn into serving them.
On its black iron throne the Detainee looked up, its baleful eyes smouldering. It could hear the sounds of weapons, of war cries, and feel the sudden invasion of its territory.
It looked at the bronze and copper armored form of Legion.
"Something's wrong," the Detainee growled.
----
Vuxten looked over as Trucker swore and began spinning his map, orienting on one. Vuxten couldn't see it but it was flashing red rapidly. Trucker put his fingers on his temple.
"Peter, we've got a problem," the big Terran said. He listed for a second. "Check the Traumatic Event Recovery System. I've got massive error codes and what looks like unfiltered data packet intrusion."
--get me closer-- 471 said.
Vuxten got up and moved over to the hologram around Trucker, moving around it slowly until 471 flashed a smiley face.
Whatever it was, Vuxten couldn't tell what was gone. It was nothing but a confusing jumble of icons, lines, colors, and flashing sections.
"What is it?" Vuxten asked 471.
--hell-- 471 answered. --under heavy attack--
"By who?" Vuxten asked.
Trucker looked up and shook his head. "They're under time dilation, running about a month for every second we're talking. Whoever is attacking, they're going for Dee herself and she's putting up a good fight but it's obvious she's not a military genius."
Trucker was silent a moment. "What do you mean there's nothing you can do? Flush the system!" Again there was silence and Vuxten moved over to the soda vending machine, opening his helmet. The bunny girl with the mask was sitting next to it and as Vuxten approached she opened the front.
"There's hundreds of billions, tens of trillions of people being processed! If whoever it is takes Hell, they can hold the whole system hostage!" Trucker snarled. He looked at the map and spun it. "They've already taken a fifth of Hell."
Vuxten reached out and grabbed a Bingo cola Lemon-Lime, cracking it open as the bunny girl shut the front of the vending machine.
"What about Legion? Isn't he the General of the Army of One?" Trucker asked. He frowned. "What do you mean they're better than he is? He's one of the Immortals, he fought on Anthill for Green Thomas's sake!"
Trucker was silent again. "I get it. He's already over stretched. Can you have Dee connect with me?" He paused again. "She still hasn't exited the mat-trans? What is going on up there?" He looked over at Peel. "Find out what hot SUDS storage is at high processing use and is running a connection to the Traumatic Processing Unit."
Peel nodded, tapping on her holographic keyboard and looking over the intricate map scans of the SUDS hardware layers.
There was a puff of brimstone smoke and the demonic form of the Detainee stood there. She was scraped, gashed, bleeding black blood, but still defiant as she stared at Trucker.
"What?" She asked.
"Who's attacking you?" Trucker asked.
"I don't know. Whoever they are, they're good. They know the system. I'm keeping the mod and admin codes out of their hands so far," the Demon spread its hands and wings at the same time. "But I have damaged and tortured souls, not soldiers."
"What do they want?" Trucker asked.
"Tis better to rule in Hell then serve in Heaven?" the Detainee asked. "I don't know."
"Power," the bunny girl said. "It's all anyone ever wants."
"What she said," The Detainee jerked a thumb at the bunny girl. "I've got to get back."
"Wait," Trucker said. He motioned to the Detainee and whispered something in her ear that Vuxten's armor didn't pick up.
The Detainee leaned back and looked Trucker up and down. "I can do that."
"Then keep an eye out," Trucker said.
The Detainee nodded and vanished.
"Casey," Trucker said.
The other Terran male looked up from where he had been watching Peel, the one red eye of the armor burning brightly.
"Come with me," Trucker said. "I've got a job that only you can do," he looked at Peel. "Give him the coordinates as soon as you figure it out."
Peel just nodded, her expression firm as she kept scanning.
Casey nodded, following Trucker out of the room with the hiss and thump of robotic power armor pistons.
Vuxten turned and looked at the bunny girl who just shrugged and took another drink off of her Liquid Hate.
"Got it," Peel said. She tapped an icon. "Casey. Coordinates incoming," she made a tossing motion.
Vuxten sipped at the cold soda.
After a minute Peel suddenly looked up from her data, looked back down, then looked up. She touched an icon and spoke.
"Trucker's down. KIA," she said.
Vuxten frowned, looking at Dambree then Peel.
"Roger. We're still holding tight," Peel said. "Casey's heading for the mat-trans. Tell Peter he needs a transit from Mat-Trans Gamma-Six to Alpha-Alpha-Nine."
Vuxten stared at Peel for a moment then went toward the door.
"We're still holding. Menhit's keeping the phasic shades and the Enraged off of us," Peel said as Vuxten went out the door.
--weirdest day-- 471 said.
"You ain't kidding," Vuxten said. He dropped the empty can of Bingo Cola in a waste basket and closed his face shield. The lights flashed and he heard the announcement of an outgoing mat-trans.
When the door opened the sounds and sights of the parking lot rushed over him.
Menhit was suspended in a fiery nimbus that spread out around her like a great bird of prey. She was holding one hand out and as Vuxten watched she made a fist.
A three kilometer strip of tarmac rolled and flexed, crushing the Enraged caught within like insects.
Menhit twisted her wrist and the tarmac went back to normal.
Beside the low set of planters, next to a bench, Trucker was sitting down, his chin forward, his arms limp at his sides.
The heavy cyborg chassis of his chest was blown in. Living tissue had been crushed and liquified, blood and worse running down his abdomen.
Vuxten's eyes widened and he looked up at Menhit, then back at Trucker.
"What in the name of Saint Patton?" he asked.
-----
He floated in someplace empty without space. There was no sound, no tactile sensation, no smell, no light.
He had no sense of time.
A hand grabbed him, the sudden tactile sensation an agony after an eternity of senselessness. He threw his head back and screamed as he felt himself torn from the emptiness, his skin stretching but not tearing.
It was like breaking the surface of water, like being pulled through warm taffy, like being pushed through a concrete wall made of bad memories and old regrets.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked into the visage of the Lord of Hell. Her face was gouged and cut, black iron stitches holding demonic flesh together.
"Who are you?" the demonic figure asked.
He told her.
The figure nodded and set him down.
"It's almost nine thousand years out of date but it'll follow the rules of the simulation," the demon said. It limped forward and waved its hands as it continued to speak. "They're not completely healed but they're good enough," she looked back, his demonic visage splitting into an unholy grin. "But then, when were soldiers ever all there?"
He snorted.
The black space vanished and he found himself standing next to an old obsolete tank design.
In front of him were drawn up ranks of troops and idling tanks.
He climbed up on the tank and looked out at the assembled troops.
The banners and penants of their units snapped in a non-existent breeze above the guidon bearer and the tanks.
The gathered men ranged from intact but pale and bloodless to rotted corpses in full combat armor to bare skeletons wearing rags of adaptive camouflage under their gear.
"I led you in death once before!" he yelled out, his voice echoing around him. "Now, I lead you in death again!"
There was a sigh that moved like a breeze through the ranks.
"We may be dead but our oaths still hold power of us even as we lie in the chill of the grave!" he called out. He pointed behind him and the flat gray plane they were all gathered on rippled and changed.
Tanks, self-propelled artillery, infantry, and hover-strikers moved toward a massive gate made of bronze and burning copper. On either side of the gate two great pillars of orange fire burned around a stack of warsteel skulls that reached into the sky.
"The dead cry out for rescue! The innocent being processed for the afterlife are under assault and WE are the only thing that can stop the enemy!" he yelled. He climbed up on the cupola and stood next to the tank commander's gun.
"Follow me, men, as you followed me in life!" he called out.
As he dropped into the old obsolete tank a hundred thousand dead throats roared their approval, engines roared to life, and weapons were readied.
-----
Legion was sweating inside his armor. He was at max, something he had experience with but didn't really like.
The enemy was pouring through the main data transmission line in waves. Between each wave the line's I/O gate would slam shut for what felt like only a few hours.
Something was throttling the system, slowing down Hades, allowing the enemy to regroup and rearm and come back at him.
He had been forced back, mile after mile, leaving behind trenchworks and battlements full of the dead, of souls that still twitched and moaned despite their horrific wounds. He had trouble dissipating and reforming wounded versions of himself into healthy fully armed versions of himself, as if Hades itself wanted him to continue his suffering.
Flying above the latest battle, on wings of hammered bronze, Legion stared at the I/O Gate and snarled.
It would be only a few hours before the gates opened to allow more enemy through. All of his gains would be lost as the refreshed enemy would pour through by the millions and force him back again.
The troops he had that were not him had taken to calling it The Blood War.
Legion started to drop down when the massive bronze gates suddenly rang like a bell as something impacted from the other side. He stared at the two huge bronze doors as they rang again, bulging slightly in the middle. A third impact rang out and the seam split slightly.
Before he could react the doors slammed open, one falling from its hinges as the network firewall collapsed completely and the program crashed.
A massive tank, ancient in design and terrible in power, roared through the gap. Its guns fired, pouring hate into the back ranks of the enemy that had been throwing themselves against Legion's lines.
He could see the figure in the lead tank, holding tight to the fifty-caliber machinegun as the TC raked the flapping demons of the enemy from the sky.
He recognized the commander even before the man spit tobacco off the side of the tank and onto the blasted ground of Gehenna.
The rest of Third Armor Division and Eighth Infantry Division poured through the Gates of Hell, following their General into Hell itself.
The lights of the stage dimmed until there were only two circles of illumination, highlighting the two figures on the stage. On the left was a Rigellian in a full body leotard, falsies on her chest to simulate breasts, a long tail with an arrowhead end flowing behind her. She was painted completely bright red to match the leotard, the 'nipples' were painted dark red, the same with the vee between her legs. She had long dark red hair that whipped around her as she twirled and spun toward the second figure. That figure, another Rigellian, was dressed in a Confederate Armed Services Army Officer's dress uniform, black hair cut short, her legs and arms and half of her face painted bright chrome."What wilt thou give unto mine hand?" the red Rigellian asked, twirling in place and laughing with a booming voice. "What sin and vice shalt thou confess unto me, oh man?"The uniformed one raised her face to the spotlight as she stood to her full height, standing on one leg. Gentle illumination came up behind the uniformed ones, showing the shadowy figures of Rigellian females dressed in dark and torn Confederate Officer uniforms that danced slowly in unison with graceful movements."All that thy asks of me, oh Evil One," the chrome painted one sang. "For there is still a battle to be won!""Wilt thou consign unto me thine immortal soul?" the red painted on asked, prancing about the chrome painted one."I shalt willingly pay thy toll," the chrome one said. "If thou shalt save the dead soldiers of mine sin.""Then willing sealed and accepted be our bargain!" the red one laughed.Smoke billowed up and the two dancers vanished.The slowly moving dancers, too dimly lit to see clearly, stared out of the darkness with red eyes as they slowly came to stop and stood swaying, the clacking sound of chattering teeth the only sound to be heard.The curtain came down as the orchestra slowly went silent, the last sounds the slow tapping of a steel drum.--"The Honor and Agony of Saint Manuel" as performed by the Bongistan Cyberqueen's Royal Rigellian Ballet Company, Rigel-7, 8679 PG.------They had held power for centuries in the outside world, longer than that in the massive computer system that made up their home.Now there were outsiders inside the system. Before there had been only two and their mastery of the system allowed them to remain hidden even as they began to formulate plans to seize power in the outside world and then carry their plans out.But now more outsiders had arrived, fighting with the two intruders.Their plans were at risk.They stood to lose what they cared the most about.That would not stand.As the intruders fought the defensive systems they prepared. As Atlantis itself was invaded they marshalled their forces.When the Lady of Hell fell from the sky, silent, her tattered and ragged dress fluttering around her, they knew their chance had come.They ordered their forces in as the Lady of Hell crashed to the ground and lay unmoving in the crater, her face blue tinted and ashen.They would not be denied.These intruders were nothing but a brief flicker of flame.They were the fire.Their forces, taken from thousands of years of careful selection, swarmed into the target, led by the finest they could suborn into serving them.On its black iron throne the Detainee looked up, its baleful eyes smouldering. It could hear the sounds of weapons, of war cries, and feel the sudden invasion of its territory.It looked at the bronze and copper armored form of Legion."Something's wrong," the Detainee growled.----Vuxten looked over as Trucker swore and began spinning his map, orienting on one. Vuxten couldn't see it but it was flashing red rapidly. Trucker put his fingers on his temple."Peter, we've got a problem," the big Terran said. He listed for a second. "Check the Traumatic Event Recovery System. I've got massive error codes and what looks like unfiltered data packet intrusion."--get me closer-- 471 said.Vuxten got up and moved over to the hologram around Trucker, moving around it slowly until 471 flashed a smiley face.Whatever it was, Vuxten couldn't tell what was gone. It was nothing but a confusing jumble of icons, lines, colors, and flashing sections."What is it?" Vuxten asked 471.--hell-- 471 answered. --under heavy attack--"By who?" Vuxten asked.Trucker looked up and shook his head. "They're under time dilation, running about a month for every second we're talking. Whoever is attacking, they're going for Dee herself and she's putting up a good fight but it's obvious she's not a military genius."Trucker was silent a moment. "What do you mean there's nothing you can do? Flush the system!" Again there was silence and Vuxten moved over to the soda vending machine, opening his helmet. The bunny girl with the mask was sitting next to it and as Vuxten approached she opened the front."There's hundreds of billions, tens of trillions of people being processed! If whoever it is takes Hell, they can hold the whole system hostage!" Trucker snarled. He looked at the map and spun it. "They've already taken a fifth of Hell."Vuxten reached out and grabbed a Bingo cola Lemon-Lime, cracking it open as the bunny girl shut the front of the vending machine."What about Legion? Isn't he the General of the Army of One?" Trucker asked. He frowned. "What do you mean they're better than he is? He's one of the Immortals, he fought on Anthill for Green Thomas's sake!"Trucker was silent again. "I get it. He's already over stretched. Can you have Dee connect with me?" He paused again. "She still hasn't exited the mat-trans? What is going on up there?" He looked over at Peel. "Find out what hot SUDS storage is at high processing use and is running a connection to the Traumatic Processing Unit."Peel nodded, tapping on her holographic keyboard and looking over the intricate map scans of the SUDS hardware layers.There was a puff of brimstone smoke and the demonic form of the Detainee stood there. She was scraped, gashed, bleeding black blood, but still defiant as she stared at Trucker."What?" She asked."Who's attacking you?" Trucker asked."I don't know. Whoever they are, they're good. They know the system. I'm keeping the mod and admin codes out of their hands so far," the Demon spread its hands and wings at the same time. "But I have damaged and tortured souls, not soldiers.""What do they want?" Trucker asked."Tis better to rule in Hell then serve in Heaven?" the Detainee asked. "I don't know.""Power," the bunny girl said. "It's all anyone ever wants.""What she said," The Detainee jerked a thumb at the bunny girl. "I've got to get back.""Wait," Trucker said. He motioned to the Detainee and whispered something in her ear that Vuxten's armor didn't pick up.The Detainee leaned back and looked Trucker up and down. "I can do that.""Then keep an eye out," Trucker said.The Detainee nodded and vanished."Casey," Trucker said.The other Terran male looked up from where he had been watching Peel, the one red eye of the armor burning brightly."Come with me," Trucker said. "I've got a job that only you can do," he looked at Peel. "Give him the coordinates as soon as you figure it out."Peel just nodded, her expression firm as she kept scanning.Casey nodded, following Trucker out of the room with the hiss and thump of robotic power armor pistons.Vuxten turned and looked at the bunny girl who just shrugged and took another drink off of her Liquid Hate."Got it," Peel said. She tapped an icon. "Casey. Coordinates incoming," she made a tossing motion.Vuxten sipped at the cold soda.After a minute Peel suddenly looked up from her data, looked back down, then looked up. She touched an icon and spoke."Trucker's down. KIA," she said.Vuxten frowned, looking at Dambree then Peel."Roger. We're still holding tight," Peel said. "Casey's heading for the mat-trans. Tell Peter he needs a transit from Mat-Trans Gamma-Six to Alpha-Alpha-Nine."Vuxten stared at Peel for a moment then went toward the door."We're still holding. Menhit's keeping the phasic shades and the Enraged off of us," Peel said as Vuxten went out the door.--weirdest day-- 471 said."You ain't kidding," Vuxten said. He dropped the empty can of Bingo Cola in a waste basket and closed his face shield. The lights flashed and he heard the announcement of an outgoing mat-trans.When the door opened the sounds and sights of the parking lot rushed over him.Menhit was suspended in a fiery nimbus that spread out around her like a great bird of prey. She was holding one hand out and as Vuxten watched she made a fist.A three kilometer strip of tarmac rolled and flexed, crushing the Enraged caught within like insects.Menhit twisted her wrist and the tarmac went back to normal.Beside the low set of planters, next to a bench, Trucker was sitting down, his chin forward, his arms limp at his sides.The heavy cyborg chassis of his chest was blown in. Living tissue had been crushed and liquified, blood and worse running down his abdomen.Vuxten's eyes widened and he looked up at Menhit, then back at Trucker."What in the name of Saint Patton?" he asked.-----He floated in someplace empty without space. There was no sound, no tactile sensation, no smell, no light.He had no sense of time.A hand grabbed him, the sudden tactile sensation an agony after an eternity of senselessness. He threw his head back and screamed as he felt himself torn from the emptiness, his skin stretching but not tearing.It was like breaking the surface of water, like being pulled through warm taffy, like being pushed through a concrete wall made of bad memories and old regrets.His eyes fluttered open and he looked into the visage of the Lord of Hell. Her face was gouged and cut, black iron stitches holding demonic flesh together."Who are you?" the demonic figure asked.He told her.The figure nodded and set him down."It's almost nine thousand years out of date but it'll follow the rules of the simulation," the demon said. It limped forward and waved its hands as it continued to speak. "They're not completely healed but they're good enough," she looked back, his demonic visage splitting into an unholy grin. "But then, when were soldiers ever all there?"He snorted.The black space vanished and he found himself standing next to an old obsolete tank design.In front of him were drawn up ranks of troops and idling tanks.He climbed up on the tank and looked out at the assembled troops.The banners and penants of their units snapped in a non-existent breeze above the guidon bearer and the tanks.The gathered men ranged from intact but pale and bloodless to rotted corpses in full combat armor to bare skeletons wearing rags of adaptive camouflage under their gear."I led you in death once before!" he yelled out, his voice echoing around him. "Now, I lead you in death again!"There was a sigh that moved like a breeze through the ranks."We may be dead but our oaths still hold power of us even as we lie in the chill of the grave!" he called out. He pointed behind him and the flat gray plane they were all gathered on rippled and changed.Tanks, self-propelled artillery, infantry, and hover-strikers moved toward a massive gate made of bronze and burning copper. On either side of the gate two great pillars of orange fire burned around a stack of warsteel skulls that reached into the sky."The dead cry out for rescue! The innocent being processed for the afterlife are under assault and WE are the only thing that can stop the enemy!" he yelled. He climbed up on the cupola and stood next to the tank commander's gun."Follow me, men, as you followed me in life!" he called out.As he dropped into the old obsolete tank a hundred thousand dead throats roared their approval, engines roared to life, and weapons were readied.-----Legion was sweating inside his armor. He was at max, something he had experience with but didn't really like.The enemy was pouring through the main data transmission line in waves. Between each wave the line's I/O gate would slam shut for what felt like only a few hours.Something was throttling the system, slowing down Hades, allowing the enemy to regroup and rearm and come back at him.He had been forced back, mile after mile, leaving behind trenchworks and battlements full of the dead, of souls that still twitched and moaned despite their horrific wounds. He had trouble dissipating and reforming wounded versions of himself into healthy fully armed versions of himself, as if Hades itself wanted him to continue his suffering.Flying above the latest battle, on wings of hammered bronze, Legion stared at the I/O Gate and snarled.It would be only a few hours before the gates opened to allow more enemy through. All of his gains would be lost as the refreshed enemy would pour through by the millions and force him back again.The troops he had that were not him had taken to calling it The Blood War.Legion started to drop down when the massive bronze gates suddenly rang like a bell as something impacted from the other side. He stared at the two huge bronze doors as they rang again, bulging slightly in the middle. A third impact rang out and the seam split slightly.Before he could react the doors slammed open, one falling from its hinges as the network firewall collapsed completely and the program crashed.A massive tank, ancient in design and terrible in power, roared through the gap. Its guns fired, pouring hate into the back ranks of the enemy that had been throwing themselves against Legion's lines.He could see the figure in the lead tank, holding tight to the fifty-caliber machinegun as the TC raked the flapping demons of the enemy from the sky.He recognized the commander even before the man spit tobacco off the side of the tank and onto the blasted ground of Gehenna.The rest of Third Armor Division and Eighth Infantry Division poured through the Gates of Hell, following their General into Hell itself.
