Once I got the ever-burning fire gel extinguished, which required a Class I grenade full of retardant to pull off, I decided to head to the roof. That’s when we realized that our tactics had backfired: Jamal had clogged the staircase with dead Model Sixes, which kept Antithesis from coming down, but also kept us from going up. I had to leave the others behind and make my way to the roof via jump jet just to get around all the bodies.
I stepped out onto the roof to find that, as we had cleared the most recent wave, we seemed to have a bit of a reprieve while the Antithesis fliers picked up the next one. I would need to be quick if I wanted to keep them from landing again.
“Juny, I need air defenses. Something that can kill those Elevens and Twelves before they get close enough to drop troops.” I walked towards the edge of the building, carefully standing plenty far away so that I couldn’t actually see down.
“To prevent the Antithesis from air-dropping units from high above, a self-propelled munition will be needed. However, it will have to be manned, as Model Twelves possess ECM that will disrupt any attempted at locking on, so a laser designator will be necessary to guide the missiles!” Juny advised.
“We can’t buy sensors that would cut through it? Something like the turret from Starcraft, just not…managed, I guess?” I asked.
“It would significantly increase the price!”
“Juny, we don’t have anyone else up here to operate it, and we don’t know how long it’ll be until the Antithesis return. Give me something we can leave up here that will do the job on its own,” I replied.
“In the case, you can purchase the Class I Automated Defenses catalogue for 150 points and a Xiangliu Anti-Air Rocket Turret for a further 1,800 points! It is compatible with standard guided rockets, so the mercenaries can reload it themselves as well!”
I confirmed the purchase and was utterly unsurprised when a Terran Missile Turret popped into existence in the middle of the roof, between all the landing pads, with its operator seat replaced with a box- probably sensors or a targeting AI. Almost immediately it beeped and began to rotate, the pods on its sides adjusting their positions. In rapid succession four rockets launched into the sky, exploding when they made contact with targets it was too dark to see. I got a lot of points for that. Not as much as if I killed those Antithesis myself, but each of those hits was killing a transport and everything onboard.
As the turret worked, I looked out in the direction it was firing in, resting my assault rifle on my shoulder in a none-too-subtle effort to emulate a certain pose my armor’s original wearer once made. It was nerdy, and a bit cringe, but no one was here to see me do it and it made me feel cool. There was a series of clunking sounds and then the turret fired again. Nothing seemed to be getting close anymore, so it seemed to be doing its job.
Once the roof was secured, things quieted down. Cleanup was going to require some extensive work, but that, blessedly, was not my job. The rest of the hours in my shift on watch passed without incident, and I eventually found myself in another meeting with Alana and a cluster of officers I never learned the names of. Major Thompson was present, largely because we didn’t have the resources to investigate whatever he was up to at the moment. The only thing we could confirm was that he wasn’t using any electronic systems if he was up to no good.
Unfortunately, there was no good news to be had on other fronts either.
“I’ve received word from the Family that the Mountaineer should be arriving later today. I have also been told by Dylta that according to current predictions, the Antithesis will overrun us about six hours before he arrives,” Alana announced. In the wake of that bombshell the room fell totally silent.
“We have two Samurai here. Surely there’s something you can do. Distribute weapons, buy some big Samurai-tech tank, reinforce the defenses with drones- right?” asked someone in the crowd, disbelief thick in their voice.
“Antithesis hives develop on an exponential scale, and low-numbered models like Threes only appear during the initial stages. We’ve been lucky that we’re dealing with a stealth hive that was taking a different approach than a full-on incursion would have, but we were always going to reach a point where weaker Models are phased out in favor of stronger models. Until now, they were scouting,” Alana replied.
“Let’s not jump straight to panic,” cautioned another officer. “What, specifically, are we going to be dealing with?”
“According to the data I’ve been getting back from scout drones, the Antithesis have begun mass production of Fourteens, Fifteens, and Twenty-Ones. I also have footage of a single Twenty-Three, which probably means there’s more. We have about six hours until they entirely replace their frontline of Threes, Fours, Fives, and Sixes,” Alana continued grimly.
“We have to switch to a fully defensive strategy,” Major Thompson insisted. “Like I’ve been saying all along, if we have two Samurai-“
“That’s not going to work,” I interrupted. The major glared at me, but I just stared him down, my helmet acting as a shield against his anger. “I have the points to buy a weapon or two that can kill a Model in the twenties now, but I can’t protect half of the frontline by myself.”
“According to Dylta, even a Class II vehicle would likely suffer damage fighting a Model Twenty-Three, but I don’t have the points for one anyway,” Alana added. “What about you, Erica? It would at least let us hold out a bit longer.”
I just looked at Juny.
“We do not have the points to purchase a sufficiently strong vehicle!” she announced.
“That AI sounds way too happy about telling us we’re screwed,” someone whispered, but I ignored it. Now they knew how it felt to be me.
“I probably could place some rocket turrets. Maybe some vehicles with heavy weapons. The more I have to buy, though, the lower the quality is going to be,” I offered, already considering what I could buy. Class I vehicle weapons were probably capable of damaging Models in the Twenty and up range- the problem was killing enough of them to matter. Picking off one at a time was doable. Fighting a horde of them was not.
“Can you send Dylta your point count?” Alana asked.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“It’s fine, Juny,” I told my AI. A moment later Alana looked back at me.
“I think with that amount we can buy ourselves a bit more time. An hour, maybe two, if we split it between a few heavy machine gun emplacements and some heavy weapons like railguns,” she told me.
“I would recommend splitting the cost!” Juny announced, and Alana gave the Eyebot a look.
“That’s only fair, but you sound like you have a reason for it.”
“You will individually earn fewer points, but the total will be higher!”
“Why didn’t Dylta tell you that?” I asked curiously.
“It doesn’t tell me much unless I ask directly,” the other Samurai explained.
“That’s a good start, but we need to do more than just buy a couple of hours,” Thompson asserted, dragging us back on topic.
“What if we collapse the buildings they’re making them in?” I asked, directing the question at Alana and ignoring Thompson. She didn’t speak for a moment and I assumed she was speaking to her AI.
“Dylta says it would delay the worst-case scenario slightly but we can’t locate and demolish all the buildings hiding hives before upper tier models start appearing. They’re too spread out and there’s too many, based on an extrapolation of our current data,” she responded at last.
“What if we just destroy all of them?” someone said at the edge of the room that I instantly recognized as Haley.
“Get that specialist out of here! What are enlisted even doing in here?” Thompson growled at his aide.
Before the man could move, though, Alana looked at him and said a single word: “Don’t.” The aide froze, stuck between his commanding officer and the Samurai that killed his boss’s boss. I didn’t envy his position.
“How would you even propose we do that?” another officer asked, entertaining the wild proposal.
“The town is surrounded by mountains. What if we cause a landslide?” I asked, figuring it was the best idea we had.
“They’re not steep or tall enough. The conditions aren’t right for it,” answered Alana. But I wasn’t letting go of the idea just yet.
“Water flows downhill no matter how steep it is. What’s the thing called- that thing earthquakes cause soil to do?” I snapped my fingers, trying to bring the word to mind.
“Liquefaction?”
“Yes! That. If we can cause that to happen, wouldn’t the soil flow downhill like it’s water?”
“Liquefaction can only occur in loose soil that has been saturated with water!” Juny clarified for me. For a moment I thought the idea had just been shot down- but she wasn’t done. “However, using terraforming technology, it may be possible to induce those conditions. You would need to plant hydration capsules and sonic piles at key points and trigger them in stages to destabilize the soil and cause a landslide in only the desired parts of town!”
“…that could work, but if we do that, it’s going to piss a lot of people off,” a woman pointed out. I noticed her nametag said Lafayette, which was the name of the local militia captain if I remembered correctly. “The outer city is abandoned, but it’s still owned by some large corpos.”
“It’s something to consider, but it’ll only matter if we survive this to begin with,” Alana replied.
“No. We would lose our entire contract! You can’t just destroy the city because it’s more convenient!” Thompson shouted. “And what if you fuck it up and bury this part of Boone?”
“As long as we follow our AIs’ instruction we’ll be fine. We just need to plant them in the right spots, right?” I asked Juny.
“Of course! And if we plant extra sonic piles, there may even be margin for error,” Juny confirmed.
“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Thompson said incredulously, his face now showing more worry than anger. “There are things we can try first. Maybe we can flood the tunnels. Or distract the Antithesis with hit and run attacks until help arrives. You already found one way to buy some time- we just need a few more options!”
“That one strategy buys us one to two hours by consuming nearly all of our points,” Alana told him, shaking her head. “If we do that we won’t have the budget for much else. Neither of those plans will work, anyway. Antithesis can survive underwater and hit and run attacks won’t meaningfully change anything once the big numbers start showing up.”
“Traps wouldn’t last six hours…air support might help, but they’d just make more fliers to fight back…a single weapon big enough to make a difference would be dangerous to us as well, not to mention a single point of failure…” I listed off, racking my brain for other options but coming up dry.
“Someone in here must have some ideas!” Thompson shouted, wheeling on the other officers. “Use your damn brains! Why is no one suggesting anything?”
The room was silent for a moment as everyone stared, wondering why he was so desperate to avoid this one solution.
“It may be of interest to you that the contract signed by the Stalking Tigers contains a termination clause in the case of a certain degree of damage to the outer city, but not for the inner city!” Juny piped up abruptly. Everyone looked at her for a moment before turning on Thompson.
“You weren’t even trying to protect us, were you?” Lafayette spat with disdain, realization dawning on her face. “You only used our walls because they were useful. Would you have just abandoned us if the outer town was lost?”
“I-I can’t speak on that, contracts are decided above my level,” Thompson stammered, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He did not, I noticed, look surprised¸ however. “It doesn’t change anything anyway. What about the environmental damage? Destroying one building kicked up a cloud of dust, so what do you expect this to do?”
“The troops already have gas masks and the civilians can stay inside until we’ve got it cleaned up. I’m not going anywhere until it’s sorted,” I responded.
“I’ve been hesitant to support the other one since she’s one of them, but you’re an outsider. That’s at least enough for a bit of trust from me. We’ll support you. The corpos have had too much of a say around here for way too long, and if they ever cleared out those buildings they’d just turn this into a captive company town anyway,” Lafayette told me. I nodded in response, but before I could speak, Thompson spoke up again.
“No. I’ve had enough of this farce. By law Samurai are only owed the equivalent to the rank of captain, and as a major I am the ranking officer here. I can’t allow you to do this,” he ranted, sweat dripping down his face. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of him. Something was off here. It was like he was more afraid of something else than the Antithesis- or us.
Alana must have noticed it too. She’d killed a man before. I could only think the reason this one was still breathing is that she wanted to know what had him so scared, but didn’t have time to interrogate him.
“…you didn’t actually think that would work, did you?” I asked him dryly. When no one agreed with him, he drew in a shuddering breath before deflating, his last card played.
“You have no idea what he consequences of this are going to be,” was all he said.
“No, Thompson, we just a bit more concerned with surviving this siege. Get him out of here. Put him under guard so he doesn’t do anything unpredictable,” Alana ordered Sergeant Jackson, who squeezed through the crowd of officers and put a hand on Thompson’s shoulder. The man allowed himself to be guided out of the room quietly. “Does anyone have another proposal for us to consider before we proceed?”
“Nothing that isn’t just as destructive,” someone spoke up after a few people shook their heads. The reality was that we just did not possess the means to fight back against an army of Models above twenty and everyone knew it. Maybe it would have been possible if we could cram the entire city into a single shelter and only had to defend a single entrance, but even then, we couldn’t guarantee the Antithesis wouldn’t find a way to dig their way in. So…any solution we came to was going to involve mass destruction, because the Antithesis were still subject to the laws of physics. Even a Twenty Three wasn’t going to survive thousands of tons of earth, trees, concrete, and rebar falling on its head.
“Then here’s what’s going to happen. Erica and I will each take a gunship and head out to plant the devices. Lieutenant Alvarez, I’m going to outfit your team with the same weapons mine is using. You’ll be commanding both squads and filling in any gaps in the defenses. Captain Lafayette, I’d like you to coordinate the defenses. Nguyen-”
With a plan in mind, Alana quickly began handing out orders to the officers assembled in the meeting room and working out the finer details of the defense. In the meantime, I started hatching ideas- I planned to spend as much as I could augmenting the defenders before we left.