Chapter Eighty-Five - Xenocide Act VII; Prelude

"Come and listen for a while, come and rest a while.

Let me speak of the Battle.

Let me speak of the soldiers.

Do you hear the ringing peal of the infantry guns?

Can you feel the banging thunder of the cannons?

The Butcher calls for slaughter and the battle culls His victims."

– The Butcher; Or, the Toll of the Antithesis Incursions, 2039

 

***

 

Feral joy suffused my mind as I slammed death through whatever neural tissue Antithesis models Five and Six had. But even as my mind emptied itself and swam in the euphoria of bomb go boom, hundreds of thought-processes flashed back and forth in the back of my head to keep pace with, and control of, the battle. Never more than a mental glance away, always there, yet perfectly unobtrusive and non-distracting.

A shard of me—more complex than most—tracked a few Fours scrambling up behind me and marked them for the Sentinel attached to my tail. 

All I had to do was to pull the virtual trigger, and 20mm grenades skipped off the ground to blast their torsos to pieces.

Satisfaction welled up in me that I realized wasn't and was mine, and I sent the bud an emotional thank-you. The simple happiness that was trying to be more than merely mine made me smile, even as I took another Five's head.

I'd hidden the whistle of my HSRP between the crash of exploding mines and slunk my fire through the auditory hail of the high-explosive missiles above, but bit by bit, the aliens still caught on and sniffed me out.

And now, the first runners were drawing close, hundreds of aliens stretched out behind them.

I laughed as I sniped the final Six's shoulder and neck and blew up the last Five in the same moment.

My body was an oiled machine and I was in the zone, every step, every twitch, exactly where I needed them. My decisions were effortless and my slaughter divine.

Little windows showed me how small packs of Threes and Fours were lured away from the battlefield into tiny minefields expertly placed to maximize their miniature payloads, and I cheered as Combat Command hit the figurative Big Red Button to rain death upon the Antithesis.

A carpet of high-explosive micro-missiles dashed at the horde of aliens rushing towards me, from above and between the distant trees in a rolling volley, drawing closer with the humidity-dampened reverberation of hundreds of small detonations.

I tasted ash and soot on my lips and across my sensilla as the explosions kicked up a great billowing wind of fire. I saw shreds of Antithesis plant matter thrown every which way, cooked and singed in the heat. 

The realization that these temperatures would've dried out my eyes without the additional membranes—and that I could freely appreciate the chaotic mayhem delivered by my weapons because of them—had me bare my teeth with savage amusement.

A worthy purchase, indeed, I thought with a chuckle.

Once the localized artificial meteor storm settled, there were about fifty Threes left, along with a few Fours—and two badly burnt Eights wiggling in pain.

"Tynea, let's put a few nanite loads into the Eights. That'll take care of the threat of any future nests here."

As you wish.

A loading bar appeared at the bottom of my HUD, titled "Production: 8x 'Carrier', 8x Nanite payload - Launch in: 10 seconds". The countdown was shrinking as the bar filled up.

I stepped forward as the first Three finally reached me, and broke its skull with the butt of the rifle. My eyes narrowed as my antennae sensed more cracking than just the bone's, however.

– Warning: Fine split in the stock's wood, melee action worsens its condition. –

Ah, you're at the limits of your endurance, huh? My fingertips slid across the hard walnut stock and found the hairline crack. A pull of the Sentinel's trigger plunged a 13mm dart with its nanite payload into the next monster, and with my fingers I felt the stock jumping at the split. AI-I saw it lengthen by another centimeter. Soon, the receiver would no longer be seated correctly.

A light trembling went through the ground beneath my feet and my attention jumped at the sensation. I did promise you a fine supper, did I not?, I giggled. Take a break, old friend. It's not your time to go just yet.

My tail flashed forward and bashed into the shoulder of the third Three, flinging it into the open jaws of its brother next to it. Mad joy was lightning in my torso as I heard splintering armor and the popping of joints, and I was off again.

My spear flashed into my waiting hand even as my tail whipped in staccato movement to wrap the rifle's fixed stock in silken bandages.

On clawed feet I wove around a Four's grasping tentacles as one hand slashed the spear through the fifth Three's neck, and glittering, crystalline dust trailed in the wake of the shimmering blade. My other hand held the hunting rifle by the warm barrel, keeping it steady for my tail to sling it to my back again.

Instants later that hand flashed forwards to grasp the spear, just as the Myriad launched the octuple delivery of flesh-melting nanites, and knocked one of the tiny missiles off-course. Fast as a viper my hand struck to catch the rocket and I tossed it high into the air, where Tynea took over and ignited its thrusters to reorient it towards its target.

With both hands finally on my weapon, I laughed as I perforated the heart of the Four trying to grapple me. Spinning clockwise on my feet, I tore the blade through its body out its back, where the weapon shed the used layer like pixie dust.

Another step, another quarter twirl in the same direction to dodge one Three's lunge, and the rear blade severed the legs of another leaping at my head. Its limbless body sailed past me and smacked into a trunk, where it flopped like a worm on the ground, trying to get to me.

Through the Prism I tracked the nanite missiles as they skimmed at hip height between the trees towards the Eights. I whooped as two each darted into the maw of the huge worms, and another two each burst against their bodies, one third from either end. Within seconds, circles of black sludge of decomposing organic matter began to slowly spread across the massive, nearly four meter wide and twenty meter long beasts.

Intense pleasure warred with insane delight as I danced from monster to monster, spear whirling in my hands, the razor-sharp monomolecular edges on either end laying open green muscle and severing bones, dusting the air with more glitter after every attack.

 

***

 

Leah was taking a page from Tinea's book as she ran large circles around the massive gathering of Antithesis, creating a whirlpool of clumping units and letting her two turrets shave away at them.

There were Threes and Fours, Fives and Sixes, a ridiculous amount of Ones uselessly dive-bombing her pod every few seconds and getting very slowly whittled down by her bank of electrolasers—usually by diverting the projectiles of the Fives to shred like dervishes through them—and units she hadn't personally seen before, fifty Tens. Little monkey aliens with six five-fingered arms, no legs and no head.

The weird monkeys weren't much of a threat, even with the little blades stuck to the back of their double-thumbed hands. They were the size of children, and while they could climb with amazing agility, they didn't have much strength. But their presence indicated a proper hive, of which they would usually be the caretakers ferrying around biomass and checking on growth sacs, and she was close enough that they were openly attacking her, instead of staying safe.

"Looks like the Twenty-Two rooted, huh?"

Yup! It's probably turned itself into a nest!

"Shit. That's hella annoying. I was hoping to make it move so I could ambush it with my cannons."

She'd hidden her towed cannon on top of a small hill two hundred meters away. The elevation would help it target anything around her—except something that was underground.

Well, maybe it can create enough of a crater to expose the nest?

"Ypsi, how deep is the thing dug in, likely?"

Probably just a meter or two! You can still see the ruts from its legs over there!

Indeed Leah could. There were deep, meter-wide circular furrows, six of them, into which the rainwater and mud had settled. She'd actually marked them on her map so she wouldn't stumble into them by accident, though she figured they wouldn't really be a problem for her four-legged egg.

A kerchak told her the pod's cannon was finished reloading its two magazines, and she whipped around her butt so the muzzle pointed at the aliens again.

For just a moment she stopped dead and braced with the pod leaning forwards to prepare against the recoil. Before the aliens, only meters away and trying to catch up to her, could adjust, she fired.

Her cannon belched a dense cloud of pellets from the loaded canister, and the storm of lead carved a cone through the entire gathering.

Heh, Leah grinned. That'll never get old. What's a shotgun?

She immediately picked up her four feet again and kept running. One of her turrets beeped empty, and she summoned a new magazine of two hundred rounds of plastic-tipped 7.62x39mm Hollow Point.

They weren't nearly as good as the stuff Tinea had been able to offer earlier when they were still near each other, but these were doing just fine against the Threes and even the Fours.

Leah chewed her lips. Should I just buy that catalog, too? Waste of points once we're back together, and these guys are managing…

Then the hot, smoking brass of the canister was ejected and splashed into the water with a sizzle, and Leah jerked sideways again for another demolishing blast.

Nah… Cannons are me.

"Hey Ypsi, wanna unlock some twenty-plus mil ammunition? I think it's time I upgrade my turrets some, too. Let's give 'em real punch."

Okay! How about Class I Warforge Technologies Addon: Emplaced Autocannons, and Class I General Cannon Ammunition? That'll let you get more than the basic rounds for every cannon you have and can currently buy, or buy from that catalog.

"What's it cost?"

Two hundred and one hundred!

"And what weapons would replace my turrets?"

The robot arms of the pod are a bit little, so, um, quasi-recoilless rifles? They're a big mix of stuff that helps with recoil, and shoot partially self-propelled grenades, mostly. The general cannon ammunition catalog has the right cartridges, too!

"Oh? Sounds interesting. Are there any issues with those?"

They can't fire quickly for autocannons! But they do a lot of hurt with each shot.

Leah hesitated as she jinked out of the range of a few enterprising Threes, and considered as she twitched her agile turrets to puree their brains in moments.

She was kind of relying on the fast fire rate to cull those Antithesis closest to her. She had the 75mm caliber to cut swathes through the masses already…

Ah, but they were still autocannons, and small ones at that. So they'd fire slowly for tiny autocannons, not necessarily slowly in general. And she'd be shooting shells with payloads, not merely kinetic projectiles. Hmm.

Decisions, decisions.

"Ypsi, how fast do they fire?"

About a hundred rounds per minute if you get the twenty millimeter ones! Um, half that for thirty.

So, a little less than one second between shells… That was easily enough. A little more than a second for the bigger caliber.

"Uh, can they shoot either caliber?"

No, they're not variable, sadly.

Ah… That was fine, actually. She wanted proper cannons, but she didn't need them, strictly speaking. Not yet, anyway.

"Ypsi, let's buy those catalogs and two twenty-mils, okay? Do I need to get out of the pod for the mounting?"

Yes! Oh, but you can buy drones to do it for you. I think that would be safer, right now.

"Yep. What do the drones cost?"

The Class I Combat Maintenance and Refitting Drones catalog costs one hundred and fifty points. And the drone itself, um, if you only want it to help switch out the weapons, thirty points. But if you pay a bit more, it can also do stuff like recover and store guns you aren't using currently. Then you could, like, switch back and forth! That would cost at least one hundred, but more points get you bigger drones.

"Oh, that's useful indeed," Leah nodded. "And they can't use those weapons themselves?"

No! Um, well. This time, they can. They're meant to be exposed during combat at least for some time, so they're well-armored and can equip self-defense weapons. Your current weapons are small enough to fit! But any cannons would be too big for the tiny hardpoints.

So, mobile weapon lockers that let her change her loadout mid-fight, huh? And if they were armored, she could probably, hmm, misuse them to block the occasional projectile, too…

"Yup, I like the idea, Ypsi. Buy everything, including a middle-sized and very tough drone! And hey, wanna try the thing Tinea and Tynea do, with the tables? Those look neat."

Okie!

 

Cost	Tkn	Unlock
200		Class I Warforge Technologies Addon: Emplaced Autocannons
100		Class I General Cannon Ammunition
150		Class I Combat Maintenance and Refitting Drones
450		Total
2321		Remaining Points

 

Cost	x	Item
150	2	Class I Warforge Technologies 'Little Envy' 20mm Self-Stabilizing Autocannons, Semi-Recoilless, rifled
300	1	Class I 'Big Brother' Maintenance/Refit Drone, combat-ready, reinforced, six small arms hardpoints
20	2	Class I 20mm HE-Frag Shell, self-propelled with launch-assisting charge, Magazine of 80
640		Total
1681		Remaining Points

 

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