One of the most horrible things we discovered during the misguided and rather idiotic invasion of TerraSol was the fact that Terrans could survive levels of radiation that would kill anyone else. While they would still die later after a certain point, a Terran could survive over 500 rem of radiation and still keep killing, even survive with Terran medical treatment, was what led to something horrifying.

  No, not the fact they died later.

  It was the fact that radiation exposure drives Terrans mad.

  Atom Smasher Sickness, the troops called it.

  Where other species fall unconscious and begin to die at a sudden exposure of 200 rem or repeated 100 rem exposures totaling up to 300 rem, a Terran will just go crazy and kill everyone that isn't a Terran.

  And sometimes even each other.

  Atom Smasher Sickness.

  A terrible thing from a terrible time.

  I can still remember the screaming, drowning out the pounding of their footsteps as they charged our lines with red eyes and foaming mouths.

  It broke the Speaker's control almost instantly and we all broke and ran, leaving the Speakers to be ripped apart and literally eaten alive.

  The survivors from my platoon hid in a ruined building the rest of the war with a couple of greenies and a russet medic. - Excerpt from: Musings Upon My Personal Hell, black mantid Warrior assistant I Can Now Scream Loudly, New Mantid Press, 08 PG

  7721 wasn't a green greenie. He'd had his combat ticket punched. A nasty little bit of business between two members of the Confederacy that had required Confederate forces to stop the spiral of bloodshed and atrocities.

  He'd ridden with Telkans, with Rigellians, with Kobolds, even with a Treana'ad once.

  He'd never seen metrics like what he was seeing from the Admiral. No uptick in anxiety, no stressors, it was like the Admiral was simply sitting somewhere sunny and enjoying a picnic with friends.

  Even as she grabbed a Slapper and ripped its legs off while she laughed.

  Now he was watching her metrics as she slowly lifted herself up on her tiptoes and then back down, watching the Telkan work.

  The Telkan, one Cipdek, was the team's EW guy and 7721 had to admit he was pretty good at it.

  For a non-greenie.

  The Admiral was trying to decide between a block pixel skull, a 320p Doki Girl face, or a block pixel smiley face. 7721 watched as she chose the smiley face, replaced the eyes with 'X's, and put a big red block in the middle right up above the eyes.

  "Almost got the door," Cipdek said.

  7721 watched as the Admiral started breathing slow and steady, in through the mouth, long exhalation out of the nose. She was exhaling more than she was taking in, deliberately emptying her lungs.

  "Ten seconds," Cipdek said.

  "Get ready," the Telkan officer said.

  The Admiral moved over, making sure she had a straight shot through the doors.

  See that, 7721 got ready, all the macros to make the armor go from near-standby to full Terran combat mode, bypassing normal lockouts.

  "Five seconds," Cipdek said.

  Vak-tel glanced at his HUD, checking his ammo count and weapon status, then turned slightly to stare at the Admiral.

  VIP babysitting and I get stuck with someone who just facerolls, he thought to himself.

  Cipdek looked at the datastreams in his hand.

  The door was unlocked. The electromagnetic lockdown was on standby to be dropped. The emergency opening system was primed and ready to go.

  "Two seconds," Captain Kemtrelap said.

  The door swooshed open and 7721 felt like he was holding onto her shoulders with his body flying backwards as the Admiral took three steps in. 7721 hit the macro execute at the 'two seconds' warning and wasn't surprised when the system still hadn't spun up all the way by the time the Admiral was inside the 'egg.'

  The 'bridge' was an upright oval, with a large open area in the middle giving access to the platform-like levels up and down from the access corridor.

  Vak-tel blinked when he saw five of the slappers highlighted.

  "I WANT THOSE ALIVE!" the Admiral roared even as she moved forward, firing as she moved.

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  Vak-tel hurried after her, glancing down to make sure none of the Nookies down there were highlighted. When he saw that they weren't he pulled a grenade off his harness, yanked the pin, and tossed it lazily underhanded over the railing.

  It dropped out of sight right before one of the big lizard Nookie troops locked in on Vak-tel and put three triggerpulls of hate on the Telkan. All three rounds hit him in the chest, knocking Vak-tel backwards and slamming into Cipdek.

  There were three bright red spikes in his armor outline HUD.

  Oh, yeah, near-peer, Vak-tel thought as Cipdek shoved him forward.

  That lizard one fired twice more, hitting Vak-tel's shoulder and blowing part of the plating away.

  7721 saw the hits on the Telkan from the pistol and ran the spectrometer on the flashes. They weren't the bluish-white of antimatter, they were making a 'pock' noise...

  ...x-rays. Tight xray bursts all pointed inward at the point of impact instead of moving away.

  More of the lizards were running up to railways and firing at the Telkan, who had scattered and were engaged with Nookie troops that fought to keep the Telkan back from the consoles.

  While the individual bridge officers and technicians were only in softback armor, it was able to resist one or two trigger pulls, the AM6 rounds flashing whitish blue when they hit.

  And only leaving a three inch wide crater only a few millimeters deep.

  All of them had weapons, firing at the Telkan who were trying to take cover behind their consoles.

  Captain Kemtrelap grabbed the pistol out of the Nookie officer's hand, twisting to break the big hair bastard's wrist. He jammed his pistol into the Nookie's side, pushing the barrel in between the softplates and pulling the trigger twice.

  Red steam exploded from the hairy fuck's mouth and coated Kemtrelap's visor. He nudged the switch with his chin and his faceplate cleared even as he threw the Nookie away from him and crouched down behind the console that had the system's geometry on one of the screens.

  "This is Delta-Three-Actual, we are pinned down by heavy firepower and are in need of reinforcement," Captain Kemtrelap said over the command channel.

  "I see you. Eight minutes," a bored sounding voice said.

  "Got you. Twelve minutes," the deep bubbly voice said.

  7721 didn't know any of it, he was holding tight inside his clamshell even though there wasn't anything to hold tight to.

  The Admiral was in steady motion, firing one handed even as she snatched her hand axe from behind her back. A swipe with the axe hacked off limbs or left heads hanging by thin tissue strands. She shot her foes in the face, in the side of the knee, at the edge of the groin plating.

  Senior Sergeant Impton went left to her right, his axes in his hands as he kept in motion. He was smiling inside his helmet, not pausing even if the one hack hit armor and nothing else. He knew that motion was the key, that staying moving would keep him alive.

  A Nookie officer reared up and Impton just shouldered him, slamming into him, swinging the axe as the Nookie fell backwards, severing two of the legs with two quick chops before he was past.

  The Admiral wanted one, had marked it with a strobing red outline.

  And Impton was planning on getting it.

  He'd learned it fighting beside the Warfather during the Second Telkan War. Honed it during the endless battles and conflict of the snow bound field of Rossaya as he had emerged from the deep caves with a weapon in his hand and violence in his heart during blizzards. Now he was firmly ensconsed in it.

  How to move without thinking about it.

  A lizard popped up aiming a pistol and he turned slightly on the step, his feet crossing one another sideways, out of the way, and hacked off both of the lizard's hands with one hard chop. He spun in place to get his balance.

  The lizard and a big hairy bastard's heads popped free of the bodies.

  Vak-tel was rolling around on the floor with one of the hairy ones. He could feel the blows and it wasn't until he grabbed a handful of flesh and ripped it away to reveal robotics and cybernetics that he understood what he was fighting.

  "Droids! The big ones are droids!" he yelled out over the din.

  The CO ducked underneath a vibrosword and popped back up, putting his pistol under the bear things chin and pulling the trigger.

  Blood and brains went with vaporized chunks of skull. He glanced in time to see one of his men get thrown over the railing by one of the big lizards, who had holes in its side revealing interlocked armor plates.

  Nrexla flailed for a second, trying to change his position, then just pulled his arms and legs in tight and ducked his chin. He hit the deck hard, but the pressure sleeve did its job and kept him from feeling too much of the twenty meter drop.

  His weapon, on the other hand, snapped in half at the back receiver retaining pin.

  He threw the pieces away, drawing his chainsword and coming up on his feet.

  A lizard put two shots into his back, sending his stumbling forward.

  An alarm wailed in his ears and his eyes widened as he saw his battle-buddy's icon turn into an X with a purple ring around it.

  He whipped around by dropped down on one knee and using his hand to stop his momentum and turn.

  The lizard put two shots over his head.

  Nrexla threw himself forward, ducking his chin. One shot glanced off his helmet, but it wasn't enough. He slammed into the lizard, the cutting bar ripping all the way through. He ignored training in his anger, reached out and grabbed the enemy's pistol, turning to find a target.

  The damn thing blew up in his hand.

  Two rounds hit him in the hip and his armor started wailing. He glanced up at his HUD and felt shock roll through him. Red spikes, warnings of armor breaches.

  Captain Kemtrelap saw the red strobing on half of his strike force. The Admiral and that accursed Impton were still blue, not even green, but he had multiple men strobing red.

  "ADMIRAL!" he shouted, even as the Terran woman hacked her way through a half dozen of the big hairy ones. He pointed down. "Man down!"

  The Admiral didn't do anything to make sure that Kemtrelap knew she had heard him.

  She just put one hand on the railing and jumped.

  Breastasteel put her handaxes away, grabbing her stubber as she dropped. It was almost two seconds to drop the whole distance, plenty of time for her to start firing again. She popped off four bursts before she hit right next to the Telkan that was down.

  She landed in a crouch, steadying her weapon even as she kept firing. She'd forgone AM6, cycling her weapon to good ol' warsteel ring penetrators with osmium cores. Sure, it didn't shuck them out like an oyster.

  But any of the Nookies that went down with a chest of dimples didn't get back up, the rounds bouncing around inside their armor.

  Kept firing, letting the Nooky troops know she wasn't interested in what they were selling.

  "Fuck it, kill the VIP's!" she yelled.

  Impton nodded, spinning his handaxe around in his hand.

  He buried the blade in the Nooky Fleet Admiral's visor.

  That's life, he thought.

  Cipdek popped up from behind cover, throwing a handful of stingerbee drones out. The marble looking things spun, deployed wings, and soared across the distance. When they got close, they made top-down attacks, ignoring EMP and ECM, their little brains too smooth for anything to effect them.

  Vak-tel clenched his teeth.

  This whole thing has gone to complete shit, and it's that damned Admiral's fault for not waiting for reinforcements, he thought.

  He changed a magazine, shaking his head.

  What a shit sandwich.