Once you have your killing field set, you’re only a quarter of the way done. Don’t rest on your laurels; the antithesis will adapt eventually, and there is no perfect defense. Keep shaping your field, both to fill in the holes and to prepare for when the aliens do get around or through them. Build depth into your defenses. Make layers on layers that the enemy has to get through before they can get to you. Adjust to how the field is changing. The bodies alone will change how the field works, much less any other changes they make in trying to get through. Also be aware of the flanks.
The antithesis are mindless, but they are also multifarous and multitudinous. There’s always a bigger hammer or another force that will break or go around your defenses. Include mobility in your defenses, which is counterintuitive, I know. You need to leave yourself space to adjust to new attacks and to get out of there when the time comes. No one expects a heroic last stand from you; you aren’t going to get paid that much. Make sure you have a way out, and use it before it is compromised. If you’ve done your job right, you can fall back to the next defensive line before the aliens get free of the first.
-- Presentation to the PMC Association’s Conference on Antithesis Threats and Countermeasures, Lt Col Corin, 2055
***
Awkwardly, I knelt down and set a hand on her head. I could feel her trembling. “I’m not leaving. I promise. I’m only going over there to make sure we can get to that door. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.” She shook her head. I looked over my shoulder at the other two. Their faces showed a mix of awkwardness and concern. “Tara, look at me,” I said gently to her. She looked up, her eyes large and pleading. “I swear to all that I am that I won’t leave you. I’m a Samurai, protecting people is what I do. I won’t leave you in this deep hole.”
“Scout’s honor?” She asked in a small voice.
“On my honor.” I replied, “Did you want to come and help?” She relaxed a little. “Okay, let me help you up, and we’ll clear out these bodies as we go.”
Dozens of bodies littered the walkway from the two battles, making the footing unreliable. With Tara’s help, we cleared the whole way to the door and stairs. I glanced into the hallway to make sure it was still clear before turning to the stairs. “These Anti’s sure do make a mess.” Tara’s soprano was suddenly cold, and she spoke with a slight southern accent.
“You liked that name, did you? I think I do too.” I took a deep breath. “Corie, I’d like some kind of anti-personnel hedgehog barricade here on the stairs. Is there one in that combat engineering catalog?”
“There are several. I’d recommend the Stegosaur from Barins, Inc. It is two meters wide, self-installs using memory steel, and has been proven to block antithesis up to Model 15 if locked in place properly.”
The sheer luxury of getting the text without having to break out the tablet brought a smile to my face. That turned to a grin when a short video appeared in the glasses, showing a complex weave of metal spikes extending out from a flat base. A figure standing by the barricade showed that they would reach up to shoulder height.
“Yeah, one of those, about a quarter of the way down, please.”
"Purchased: Barins Stegosaur modular barrier.
Cost: 5 Remaining points: 496”
A long flat box appeared on the stairwell, reminiscent of the furniture his parents bought from that megacorp out of the Netherlands. It extended beyond the edges of the stair and caught on the railing before it could slide far. On impact, the box unfolded long spikes that jutted up, not quite randomly, to fill the air above it with sharp points at all heights.
A little sealing foam later, and it was secured to the stairway. I even added some foam to fill some of the gaps that I felt might let a starved M-3 through. Across the very top edge of the stair, I bought a two-meter length of the Nemani Self-Stabilizing Barrier, which again was glued in place.
As I added the last sealing point to the barrier, the Anti’s started streaming into the room. Tara started screaming and slowly backed away from them. Fortunately, she hit the wall of the room and followed it, rather than backing into the hall. I calmly readied the Tribulator and started firing on the M-3s swarming in.
Tara’s screams attracted the monsters, who immediately started to climb the staircase we’d blocked. Due to the wall I’d set, I did not have a shot on the stairway, but they couldn’t get past either. “Back to the console,” I barked at Tara. When she only drifted slowly along the wall, I pushed on her shoulder. “Move. I need you to get that ammo ready for Ginny and Kaitlyn.”
That seemed to unstick her, and she flew down the length of the room. I followed her more slowly, pausing now and then to shoot a monster that was getting too close to Kaitlyn and Ginny.
At the corner, I stopped and took advantage of the angle to set up a crossfire again, not that the Anti’s intentionally used cover. Their simple-minded aggressiveness leaned more towards swarm tactics to overwhelm their opponents rather than self-preservation. Trading a dozen M-3s for a single fighting human was a win for the Anti’s in their war of attrition. Especially if they could reclaim both the human body and those of the fallen Anti’s. The idea of using cover required a level of self-preservation that wasn’t in the Anti’s playbook.
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We cleared the wave without any monsters getting on the catwalk, but it was close. The body of an M-4 lay on the lowest step below the console.
I joined the ladies, handing a near-empty mag to Tara for refilling. “Good job; it was close, but we held on.” I patted Ginny on the shoulder as I headed down the stairs. At the foot, I placed another Stegosaur and another half way up.
After considering the stairs and console for a minute, I also sealed the top of the stairs with another solid barrier. It overlapped the console by several centimeters, which allowed for a three-sided protected space should something with range come. So far, the hive had only sent out cheap melee models. At some point, it would send some with ranged attacks.
After making sure Ginny and Kaitlyn were reloaded and had a full set of magazines handy, I pointed down the walkway.
“To be clear, our priority is to keep the walkway clear. That is our only way out. And yes, that does worry me. Corie, does that combat engineer’s catalog include demolitions?”
“Some. Nothing that’s oriented towards killing antithesis. That would take a different catalog.”
“I’m thinking more about breaking through a wall. Shaped charges, breachers, or the equivalent.”
“There’s several options for that, and a couple even use explosives. Are you thinking of making a second door?”
“I’m trying to make sure I know what’s possible in case of an emergency.” I stared towards the far left corner where the Anti’s had been coming from as my mind raced. There were several things I wanted, and I wasn’t sure what the best balance was. Better warning of when the Anti’s were coming would help a lot. But completing that initial upgrade weighed heavily on my mind too. On the other hand, I was also worried that we didn’t have a good escape plan.
At some point, probably soon, they would start throwing Model Fives at us. The tougher monsters were slower, which was good: more time to kill them before they closed. The problem was that they could launch quills hard enough to be a threat even to my body armor.
Whether we’d need to deal with them wasn’t certain. From the stories I’d been raised on, they were around the size of a hover car. They might not be able to get around in the narrower hallways. But family wisdom also said that the Anti’s could adapt to any situation. Getting some warning systems set up, like drones, was the smart move.
But that kept pushing back the upgrade. I felt that I wasn’t really a Samurai until I had that upgrade. I knew the feeling was not rational, especially after getting the upgraded glasses. Nevertheless, it persisted and nagged at the back corners of my mind.
After a few minutes, I realized I was thinking in loops and that I needed more data to make a decision. “Corie, I need some hard info here. How many points do I have? And how much is needed for that initial upgrade?” Out of the corner of my eye was a flicker of movement up on the ceiling. I continued to keep an eye out for motion or a change in the area.
“You currently have 1026 points. The augment interface upgrade will cost 600 points. That includes two catalogs: Class I Cyberwarfare Utilities (100 points) and Valerian SymSynTech (300 points), plus the Valerian SymTech Gland itself (100 points).”
“So I could do the upgrade now? I’d be short on points, but that could be made up with the next wave.”
“I can’t recommend that you do the upgrade right now. The upgrade will knock you out for as much as ten minutes. There haven’t been ten minutes between waves since you arrived here. You would be leaving the girls helpless during that time, and yourself.”
I was sorely tempted to risk it. “What would a cheap drone or two cost? Something that we can send out to check on the Anti’s and see what they are doing.” I frowned at the ceiling. Was that something moving closer? It felt like that pipe wasn’t there before.
“Are you going to be investing a lot in remotes? We have to buy a catalog no matter what, and it will be cheaper in the long run to get one that fits now over having to piece several together later.”
“I don’t think so, not yet at least. I’m thinking of mini scouts, so we don’t get surprised. I’m too hands on to be happy with fighting by drone proxy, so any arms would be defensive. That's the same reason I refused to be a manager at work.”
“In that case, I recommend two options. The more expensive would be a full stealth catalog for 200 points. That would get you stealth drones, but it also has other gear like camouflage armor and silent weapons. The other would be a more specialized catalog. Being more limited lowers the cost quite a bit. That would be only 50 points. The trade-off is that the cheaper catalog can only provide small, lightweight sensor drones with a limited carry capacity.”
That was a non-decision for me. While I respected people who used stealth and knew it could be a major advantage, there was a reason my best range shooting was under 500 meters: I lacked the patience that a true sniper needed.
“The cheaper catalog will do fine. I’m not someone who needs to be spying on my neighbors. And what stealth I do use is more to get into position unmolested than for a surprise attack. The right clothing and sneakers will be enough for that.” A tentacle slipped past a patch of light about halfway down the room, but it was gone faster than I could react. I kept searching, looking off to the side, and waiting for more movement.
“And the antithesis are known to ignore a drone unless there is a biological component to it, there is a Model One around to chase it down, or it does something to attract attention. That will let us use the Basic Sensor Drones catalog, from which I recommend the Chibat two-mode drone with low-light upgrade. That is a net 90 points.”
Before I fully registered what I was seeing, the Tribulator barked out a single shot, and an M-4 dropped to the floor. Kaitlyn jerked upright, scrambling for the rifle that had nearly fallen out of her grip.
Her fair skin flared red as she blushed. “Sorry, I haven’t slept since we were taken. That’s... what day is it?”
I glanced at the glasses’ day/date display. “Tuesday,” I said in time with Kaitlyn. I blinked in surprise as the time registered. It had only been a couple hours since I rammed my car into the side of an M-6 on a busy street. It felt much longer.
“Um…seventy some hours, maybe eighty,” she continued.
I pulled some energy drinks out of my backpack along with a flashlight. The drinks never did anything for me, and I only kept them there in case a client started to crash. Sleepy on a firing range was not a safe situation. While the ladies filled up on liquid energy, I painted the ceiling with light. The last thing we needed was for an M-4 to drop on us. Sure enough, I found four more to introduce to gravity, and they joined the growing pile of corpses.