Out of Space
Chapter 267: It is A Good Day to Die

Aaron pushed himself to a kneeling position before giving a sudden twist to his dislocated left shoulder, snapping it back into place with a cry of pain.

He looked up at the towering spider tank which had stopped about 50 meters away from him. He glanced around seeing all his Orcs were littered around either dead or dying.

He sighed as he picked up his M7A1 and stood up facing the spider tank. "You know, it's hard to train these guys... Such a waste of my time and energy..."

"Spaceman Senior Aaron Hart! You are charged with desertion during combat and accessory to the murder of two fellow crew members!" A human Marine yelled from the top of the spider tank. "Under Article 75, you are to stand down! Drop your weapons and do not resist!"

"Damn Marines..." Aaron cursed. "You assholes think you are all better than us squids? Always strutting around and the damn navy gets all your leftover shit..."

"I WILL NOT REPEAT AGAIN! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND STAND DOWN NOW!" The Marine yelled again.

Aaron shook his head and gave a grin instead and yelled back, "Why don't you come down here and make me?"

A crack of a rifle shot echoed out and the dirt before Aaron's feet blew up as the Marine fired a warning shot. "LAST WARNING! STAND DOWN NOW!!!"

Aaron swept his left hand up and gave the bird to the Marine and he dived to the right as the area around him exploded as the Marine open fired. He rolled swiftly to his feet and fired his pulse rifle just as he finished his roll.

The high powered advanced 6.8 mm rifle rounds penetrated the simple armor of the MAW and blew chunks off its already weakened armor together with parts of its living rock systems. The spider tank wobbled as his rounds punched deep into the innards of the tank, destroying magic circuits and living rock muscles.

He wondered how the hell did they manage to build a mech out here with the limited technology and manufacturing capabilities. It must be powered by magic, thought Aaron as he ran closer to the spider tank while keeping as low as he could.

He emptied the entire magazine at one of the legs joints, and the high powered rounds sawed the leg off, spewing out some kind of silvery liquid and coolant fluid. The spider tank rotated and it seemed that the pilot was trying to stabilize the tank with the loss of a leg, making the gunners unable to properly draw a bead on him.

Even the two Marines on the top hull had to grab on to something as the tank tried to balance itself. Aaron grinned as he quickly took the opportunity to reload his rifle. Just as he was about to fire, the side sponson turret swiveled towards him and fired.

He grunted loudly in surprise as suddenly he felt something punched and jerked him backward violently all of a sudden.

-----

The young Oerkin Chief stood before his kinsman who had formed up in a loose cluster. Each Oerkin carried either a great ax or heavy sword. Some were armed with black powdered hand cannons or carried quivers filled with throwing spears.

He looked to the left and right of his warriors, seeing the rest of Oerkins' clans and tribes forming up together with his warriors. He nodded grimly to himself and turned to look at the billowing black smoke.

The air smell acidic as ashes were carried over by the winds and the whole plains appeared dark and forbidding as the skies were overcast with dark red thunderous clouds while a raging fire burnt underneath the skies.

The scouts had returned and they brought news of the Thing appeared to wounded by the strange flying creatures that came from the skies. The Elders and Chiefs insisted on waiting for the Shamans to return with the army of spirit warriors while the younger Chieftains followed his lead, urging for the attack to start before nightfall.

In the end, more than two third of the Council followed him, and the gathered army now laid before him, all eager to rush into battle.

He pulled his great ax off his back and raised it high in one hand and roared, "IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE! CHAAAARGHHH!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!"

Over ten thousand of Oerkins' voices roared out as one as they jogged forward towards the Thing that clearly sensed their challenge.

-----

It laid exhausted on its side as it tried to circulate its flow of mana to recover its injuries it had sustained. The grass around it burned but it ignored the fire as it was barely able to scorch its body. Only the detested hellfire still burning away around its den gave it pause.

It suddenly cocked its head as it heard a faint roaring cry coming from beyond the flames and smoke. It tried to sniff the air and see through the smoke only to smell the bitter sour ashes in the air while its eyes were blinded by the heat and smoke.

But its senses were still very much acute and it slithered out of the flames and smoke to see a massive army delivering themselves right to its feet.

Its golden eyes widen in anticipation at the offerings coming to its doorstep and it lurched forward with its jaws wide hungrily, its wounds temporarily forgotten.

-----

Drake braced himself carefully as the MAW finally stabilized and he quickly climbed down the side with Slow. He gave a couple of hand signals to Slow who nodded and they spread off to the sides to surround the human deserter that had half its torso blown away.

Remembering that the deserter had some sort of power like the Hero, Drake moved cautiously forward. His scoped rifle was slung behind his back while he swapped to his service revolver and thrust it out, aiming at the unmoving body on the floor.

He glanced with the corner of his eye and saw Slow hip carrying his machine gun and covering the body from the other side. The MAW had settled down on its haunches while all the guns seemed to be aimed at the unmoving body.

"Zero Two to Overwatch, is he dead?" Drake's earpiece suddenly spoke.

He hit the push to talk button of his comms and replied. "Unsure, keep your fingers on the trigger!"

"Roger!"

Drake advanced till he less than two meters away from the body and he cursed as he saw the massive gaping hole on the body of Aaron had wisps of smoke that appeared to be knitting its body together.

"Fuck!" He quickly kicked away the discarded rifle before emptying his revolver point blank at the regenerating body and stepped back to reload while Slow came up with his machine gun and hosed a stream of red hot lead at the unnatural thing flopping away from the impacts of the bullets.

"Ahahahahahahaaaaaa.... ack..." The body suddenly laughed as it jerked and spasm. "You can't... kill... me... I AM... IMMORTAL!"

"Fuck you!" Drake cried out as he and Slow stepped back. "ZERO TWO, POUR IT ON!"

The MAW had a total of four hardpoints for the .50 caliber machine guns. The pilot controls the hardpoint for a dual forward facing .50 cal, a single .50 cal for each of the side sponson ball turrets and the last was for the commander on the main gun turret.

A total of five .50 caliber guns each spewed out a mixture of tracer, ball, and armor piercing rounds at a 1 : 2 : 2 ratio at a muzzle velocity of 908 meters per second at 510 rounds per minute.

Forty two .50 caliber rounds were fired out of the 5 guns every second and it took not even a split second to hammer into the laughing human at the force of almost 20,000 Joules. Close to 850,000 Joules of energy was dumped into the body of the human every second.

A short five seconds later, the guns fell silent and what remained behind the smoking pockmarked holes of the churned up ground was just pieces of a booted foot and bits of unidentified parts.

Wisps of black smoke drifted up destroyed ground and Drake frowned as he watched the smoke attached itself to the booted foot. He looked over to Slow who was eyeing the smoke warily and asked, "Fire?"

Slow nodded, "Fire good, fire clean evil!"

"Zero Two to Overwatch, is that thing dead now?" Drake's comms ringed again.

"Negative, we are gonna burn it!" Drake replied. "Got any incendiary rounds?"

"Erm, negative, want to try the 3" HE?" Sath asked from the comms.

"Hmmm... Sure, why not?" Drake grinned and he waved Slow to back off further.

A humanoid shape was being formed out of the wisps of smoke and another rasping laughter came out from the regenerating human. "Hahahahaa! I am... immortal! You... can't... kill me with those puny... weapons!"

-----

Sath shook his head as his cracked display showed the human being regrown by tendrils of black smoke and shuddered. "Load HE!"

"Aye, load HE!" The loaders repeated the command and went to work with the 3" gun.

"UP!"

"Ready!"

Sath watched the two Marines backing off to a safe distance before he gave the order, "FIRE!"

The scratched stub barrel of the 3" cannon roared!

-----

"- can't kill me... Hahahahahahaa!" Aaron coughed and laughed deliriously as the pain of reconstruction his body drove him close to insanity. "Ahahahaha... Fuckers can't k-!!?!"

-----

The 3" HE shell detonated right in his center of mass, the 0.68 kg of trinitrotoluene bursting charge filled the hollow steel shell ignited when the fire runes crumbled together with a force of 3,136,208 joules, instantly vapourised everything within an eight meter radius.

When the smoke and flames cleared, another small smoking crater was formed and nothing remained of the human.

Drake and Slow went up and poked around, trying to see if they can replace any traces of the human but there seemed to be nothing remaining of the human. "Well, Zero Two, I think that did it!" Drake reported after over fifteen minutes of searching. "Can't replace any parts of the fucker remaining!"

"Good job people!" Zero Two replied amidst the background cheering of the crew. "We wait for a while more to be sure before we make some repairs to the MAW. That asshole chewed up the lady pretty badly!"

Drake gestured Slow to keep on searching to be double sure that that guy was well and truly dead. They walked up and down and dug a bit around the ground before they were called back. Drake stood next to the MAW on watch while the crew busied themselves over the exposed panels to repair and service the MAW as much as they could.

He looked up at the clear beautiful blue skies that contrasted greatly with the stormy clouds in the distance and gave off a deep breath of contentment that he was still alive.

"Damn, it is a good day to die..."

-----

The Owleye UAV hummed softly to itself as it hovered at a height of over two fifty hundred meters in the sky over the raging battle below it. Its smart camo paint under its belly allowed it to somewhat blend into the skies as it spied on the people below it.

It's high powered camera recorded and streamed thousands of gigabytes of data back to its control center as it watched impassively at thousands of toy like Orcs throwing their lives against the Giant Serpent.

It's engines continued to hum softly to itself as it repositions itself over the victorious Giant Serpent that was crushing the remaining few pockets of resistance as it feasted on the Orcs souls and it's once exposed wounds slowly closed up and healed.

The UAV continued on to video and stream data back as the satisfied Serpent slithered off in search of a new place to hole up till nightfall, leaving behind thousands of dead and dismembered bodies of the Orcs.