> I agree. We need to stay and continue observation, but I think we ren-des-vous to exchange crew and send our second ship away. I would prefer to remove our juniors from such an uncertain situation.
>
> -Intercepted transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens
Flip was fetching the gunpowder and Alexandra was trying to initiate an evacuation, which left me in charge aboveground.
I immediately flashed a Basic Hologram in the air a few hundred feet past the edge of the Quarry, a gigantic red-and-yellow cartoonish “BOOM!” in a direct line between the Pylon and ourselves, then blasted an Announcement across the entire neighborhood.
Threat incoming toward Fort Autumn. Heavily armored, huge, and hard to damage. Moving slowly, about eight minutes away. We need to stop it! We’ll use all our stockpiled gunpowder at the indicated position. Steer clear of that location or be aware of the danger! Anything you can do to slow the Threat or enhance the explosion, please do! We get one chance! …If you’re inside the Quarry, please exit calmly and obey authorities.
I saw Vince raise an eyebrow at my last sentence, and I shrugged guiltily. I’d started making the Announcement for the sake of the people outside and only realized belatedly what panic I was likely creating below.
Alexandra will handle it, I told myself. I need to focus.
Flip had already emerged from the Quarry with one giant plastic storage bin filled with powder, and I saw a speedster running behind her carrying an oversized shopping tote under each arm, gray dust flying out the open tops.
Oof. That’s suboptimal. I guess we didn’t really have barrels to store it in. Too late now. Uhh…
“Marie, message Helen! Put the shapers in charge of putting the gunpowder under pressure. If we leave it loose like this I think it’ll just burn. Byron, you’re in charge of figuring out ignition. Either get in place to do it yourself or organize someone else.”
Both Marie and Byron nodded. I left them to it, trusting them to their tasks. “What else can we do?” I muttered.
“Draw Attention?” Gavin suggested.
“It’s worth a try, but it lasts only seconds on a Titan. I doubt it’ll slow this guy for more than an eyeblink.”
“Do you have anyone with Adhesive?” Vince asked. “It doesn't seem very flexible. If you leave stuff in its path that will stick to its legs it might not be able to move at all.”
I snapped my fingers. “Now there’s an idea! And we should get our farmers out there… tangle it up in vines and stuff. They won’t be strong enough to stop it, but we mostly need to slow it down. Can you pass the orders along, Marie? Draw Attention, Adhesive, and Shape Plants.”
“Already did.” The woman grimaced. “I’ve got two other communication specialists trying to locate our allies with those abilities. I’m sure most of them won’t be able to get into position quickly enough to help, though.”
I grunted in acknowledgement. It was hard not to kick myself not for having our entire fighting force spread across the neighborhood, but we’d had no idea what was coming. If the new Threat had been aggressively oriented, rather than defensively, leaving everyone out in the open could have easily led to hundreds of deaths.
I’d left Analyze running, allowing me to notice the barest shudder in the behemoth’s advance - almost certainly a Draw Attention from the strike team we’d left near the Pylon. It had bought us a third of a second; not nothing, but not the miracle we were looking for either. Already, more than a minute had passed. I’d seen more speedsters carrying bags and boxes of gunpowder, and Flip had returned below for another load.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Part of the wall of the fort had been melted into a staircase, allowing the guards easy access to the outside. Several had run over to the area beneath my “Boom!” sign a few hundred feet away, where a dome like half an eggshell was already taking shape. As I watched, I saw a man morph a sheet of metal into a canister and stick it onto the outside of the eggshell… only to have another person cuff him and point angrily back at the fort. Chastened, the man picked up his canister and moved it to the far side of the dome.
He made some kind of pipe bomb, I guess? Not a bad plan. But not enough. Ariel, what have you got for me? Anything? What kind of senses does this thing have? It must have some, or Draw Attention wouldn’t have done anything. Can we confuse it?
They know we have you. I realized. They wanted to limit how helpful any information we received from you would be, so they’re throwing a big chonker us. No subtlety, no cleverness, just incredible toughness and size.
<“Chonker” unknown, but definition presumed from context. Hypothesis likely correct.>
The monster actually halted briefly, its surface writhing like boiling water as it readjusted. When it continued moving forward, I saw several chunks of concrete stuck to its back and sides.
Good news for the future, I told her, but I don’t think that’s going to save us right now. That bought maybe four seconds.
“No reaction to Gravity Null. No sensitivity to water or acid, at least while exoskeleton is intact,” Marie reported.
“It must have some weakness,” Vince said. “Sonic attacks? Heat? Electricity?”
Marie shook her head. “Our initial attack team tried all of those. It didn’t seem immune, but none of it seemed especially effective, either.”
The stupid thing was about a minute out from my “Boom!” hologram.
60 seconds until explosion. Get to a safe place. People on the western side of the Quarry, move to the central or eastern side. Stoneshapers, be ready to reinforce the structure! Wait until the dome is all the way under the monster before triggering it.
If there was one blessing, it was that the behemoth’s implacable advance had been easy to predict. I’d been worried that our efforts to turn it aside would mean it would no longer walk over our prepared trap, but our failure to sway it had been a mixed blessing in that respect. It was still headed straight for us, and our pile of gunpowder was right in its path.
Flip made one last delivery before the stone dome sealed over and everyone nearby bolted back to the comparative safety of Fort Autumn’s walls. I could see several canisters around the edge of the back. There were probably more on the far side, little bundles of shrapnel to give the explosion extra teeth. I didn’t know how Byron planned to light it off - he’d remained in the Tower with us - but he didn’t look concerned, so I assumed the plan was in place and going well.
The massive monster slid over the dome as if it wasn’t there, the stone cracking under its weight. That concerned me, but hopefully it would still be okay.
The explosion seemed to be taking forever. It was hard not to worry that something had gone wrong. I knew that wasn’t true: Analyze made it very clear to me that the monster wasn’t yet in the optimal position. It was moving slowly and dozens of feet long. It was smart to be patient, to wait for the best moment, when the Threat was nearly centered over our hastily-assembled trap.
My gut was still worried. Even if I was intellectually sure that I didn’t yet have reason, I couldn’t stop myself from opening my mouth to anxiously ask if everything was okay.
That was when the explosion was finally triggered: a glorious deafening rumble and a blast of smoke and fire.