Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

Check that, I'm a military prodigy II

It had worked. Blatvec couldn’t believe it. The 74th, finding strength in the abandonment of the code, had demonstrated once again why they were considered an elite force. The Celzi forces had been routed, and the cyclone of traitorous Vulza and Celzi which had allowed such a feat had finally run its course, leaving only severely damaged Celzi and crippled Vulza in its wake.

The battle wasn’t over though. Even though the Celzi line had been destroyed, the sensor outpost which was the purpose for this fight still required attention. The only problem was its defenses. While the 74th may have managed to vanquish the mobile guarding force, the Celzi had controlled this station since the beginning of the war, giving them ample time to make its defenses nigh impregnable.

Artillery pulse turrets, coilguns, even a few plasma cannons dotted the landscape surrounding the compound. As large as their force was, too many from the 74th had died before they could commandeer a vehicle of their own. Blatvec doubted his forces would be able to punch through the Celzi defenses and survive with a force large enough to combat the token guarding squadron inside the station.

The battle plan he had been briefed on had told him orbital forces would destroy the compound’s defenses from a safe distance, making it so that all Blatvec had to do was stroll in and claim a victory. He had been told that, while the fighting on the ground would be difficult, the fighting above the planet would be a walk in the park, with friendly forces outnumbering hostiles four to one. The battle on the ground had taken even longer than expected. Admiral Licik, the commander of the armada that had acted as escort to the 74th, should have long ago finished his work above.

+What’s keeping him+ mused Blatvec. They couldn’t afford to wait long. Every moment they waited gave the Celzi more time to regroup and mount a counteroffensive. They were scattered for now, but if they managed to reformed they would pose a significant threat.

+*I’ll give him two rics (one hour), then we’ll have no choice but to charge and hope for the best.*+

I take back that whole military prodigy part.

These Xenos are just military idiots.

Manthlel had fainted while I was still laughing at the thumbs up he had given me. Really, it wasn’t all that funny. The absurdity of the situation had just struck me at an odd moment and I couldn’t help it. I guess all the blood loss did a spell on him, and I ended carrying him and the other guy who was missing his legs out of the hole for the squad medic to take a look at. Leaving Manthlel and Kecce – that was the other guy’s name – in Hectal’s capable medical hands, I sought out Turkey.

Trxcl was still in shock. He stood, transfixed, outside of the hastily excavated hole he and his other squad mates had created underneath their overturned rover.

+I’m still alive, right? Things got a little crazy at the end there. Maybe I got hit, but didn’t die right away, and the blood-loss has me hallucinating. Maybe I’ll be dead soon and this will all be over+ Then human walked around the side of the disabled rover. Trxcl groaned. It wasn't over. If it was, and Human was in his hallucinations, then he hoped he would die quickly. But if it wasn’t a hallucination, then that meant it really was possible for a species like Human to exist, although after seeing him fight today, Trxcl would have sworn it to be a fever dream or the result of a soldier’s story gone too far, if such a thing were possible.

Human began to move his hands.

+Not what I want, unfortunately+ Thought Trxcl, but his hands flashed the orders he himself had only just received,

Shit. This would be hard. Human hadn’t been able to be briefed on the existence of the sensor station. They didn’t have a word for it, so how could they? Really, his only task had been to fight, and he’d gone well above and beyond the call of duty on that one. Trxcl decided to use the words available to him rather than try to teach Human new gestures.

At least, that’s what Trcxl hoped he had said. Really, their language was just a conglomeration of nouns and verbs and a few vital adjectives that they arranged in chronological order, with the verb coming after the noun. Trxcl didn’t know why such a strange sentence structure was used, but he guessed it made sense to Human. It seemed he had understood, because his next response made contextual sense.

Human gesticulated.

Trxcl was surprised by the question. Such a thought hadn’t occurred to him at all, yet he wasn’t a strategist. After he thought about it for a moment though, he could see why the plan was flawed.

Still, it was an interesting concept.

+*Maybe if we used the vehicular drop ships from the 13th and 32nd to drop the tanks behind enemy lines?*+

No, that wouldn’t work either. The vehicular drop ships were basically just a cockpit connected to a pair of clamps in the back. The clamps would lock onto the outside of the vehicle in question and then carry it, crew inside, to the necessary location. That meant, aside from a structural force field to protect the vehicle form the vacuum of space, its outer hull was exposed to energy based attacks, and the power from a plasma or coil shot would easily overwhelm the force field. Even if the stations defenses would have difficulties damaging the heavily plated hulls of the drop ships, they would still be able to shoot the vehicles right out from under their charges, resulting in an airborne m******e.

Trxcl had allowed his mind to wander. A whirlwind of action erupted directly in front of him, and he jumped back in surprise, startled as human almost hit him in the face trying to regain his attention.

An exasperated look upon his face, Human signed

Confused, Trxcl guessed at Human’s meaning,

With an abrupt motion of his arm Human cut him off, then started gesturing with short, frustrated signs,

Trxcl must have misunderstood. What his mind had translated hadn’t made any sense. The drop ships only had the one turret. How else could they be used offensively? Human gave him a flat stare, grabbed his hand, then, with a force Trxcl was scared would tear his arm off, started dragging him towards the nearest operational tank.