Chapter Seventy-One - She Without Sin Drops The First Shoe

"Whenever you think you have a clear and precise idea of what the Antithesis are capable of, a new model shows up that breaks that preconception.

It's very much possible that these creatures are not beholden to the same physical limitations that make like on Earth possible. Or perhaps it would be safer to say that they have found ways to circumvent, through blind chance or guided evolution, the laws that make for the foundations of our biological sciences."

--Doctor Evelyn "Dagger" Hargrove, 2034

***

"Myalis, what in the fuck is that?" I asked.

My mech's targeting software had no issues locking onto the big flyer above, probably because it was the size of a literal barn with nothing between us and it except for zipping tracer fire. I watched as lines of light machine gun fire stitched themselves across the alien's underside.

That is a Model Thirty-One. It's a space-capable flying model that can serve as a light transport and which can rapidly birth new hives. It can also produce its own sub-model type.

"It can make whats?" I asked.

The fat fuck above seemed to contract in on itself, then it shifted around, its wings sort of gorging outwards until they became larger. It looked a little like one of those manta-rays, but with a mouth at the front large enough to swallow a sedan.

Then more mouths opened up all along its sides. They had disturbingly human lips, and from the look of them, they were covering a hole large enough for someone to crawl into. The model swelled some more, then there was a loud spitting sound.

Large gobs of mucus shout out of the mouths all along its sides, each one flung in a different direction.

"What in the fuck," I muttered even as my mech's targetting locked onto the spit balls. They... turned in midair? I let the mech start shooting at them with its Gatling guns, but I marked the nearest to be left alone.

It swung around, the snot stuck to it peeling off as it flew. I squinted at it, then recoiled when it kind of stretched out.

It was an alien, not some lump of mucus or just a projectile. A small, cross-shaped bird thing with horizontal and vertical wings. Four long, thin tentacles trailed after it like streamers, and as they twisted and flicked, the little flying alien spun in the air and changed directions.

It came crashing down sharply just a dozen metres away, and I shifted my mech to have a better view of it.

The models 'wings' ripped off its back, turning into four long, multi-jointed arm things that it started to use to scamper about. Its tentacles were snapped out towards a nearby soldier who screamed and jumped away.

I walked over and stomped it flat with my mech's forepaw. "What the fuck was that?" I asked Myalis.

A model Thirty-One slash One. It's the Model Thirty-One's primary offensive tool. A sub-model that the larger flyer can create and spit out. They are somewhat unwieldy, but still quite strong. Fortunately, they are quite ill-suited to combat in a gravity-based environment. Their excretions and tentacles allow them a great deal of manoeuvrability in space, at least within relatively short ranges.

Yeah, fuck all of that. I flicked on the comms to the general channel that was being used for tactical shit. "Stray Cat here. Put a higher priority on the Model Thrity-Ones. The big fucks. They can summon smaller aliens. They don't seem that strong on their own, but we don't need them spreading around."

I got a few 'yes ma'ams' and nodded to myself as I refocused above. The Model Thirty-One was in a rough shape already. It had tanked a few more bigger strikes and the constant AA fire was ripping it apart.

Sure, it was a model in the thirties, which made is scary as fuck, but it was also taking on the full might of an entire anti-air network. I aimed my 105mm guns up and took a few pot-shots, then I aimed my railgun up and got a lock. It was somewhat awkward. The gun had piss-poor traversal, and it was in my mech's chest, so I had to stand with my forelegs on a small building, but I managed.

A single loud thump from my railgun and there was a hole punched through the Model Thirty-One from chest to back. Its armoured sides could only take on so much, it seemed.

That spelled the end for it. Its big sacs deflated, and after spitting out a couple more of those 31/1s, it came crashing down about two hundred metres out from the edge of the base around the Big Gun.

I glanced at the sky. There were still lots of aliens coming down, but I had a minute to spare. Rushing over and around some tents, I came out of the side of the base just in time to see Tankette rolling her tank in the same direction. "Just making sure it's dead-dead," I said as I linked to her.

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"Oh, that's good," she replied. Her speech was hard to make out over the rumble that came from inside her tank. "I was coming over to do just that."

I shrugged, and we both sat in comfortable... not-silence as we laid into the alien corpse. I switched out the ammo in my 105mm guns for some incendiary rounds to light it on fire after a bit. "Keep an eye on it," I said before stepping back towards the base.

Things were okay, more or less. A glance upwards revealed a dozen more Model Thirty-Ones, as well as plenty of big fliers moving around them as escorts, but for the most part we had some time before they got too close. Better yet, they weren't all able to withstand our AA fire.

Plenty of them were imitating the Hindenburg at the moment, turning into burning sacs of organic goop that were melting even as they came plummeting down out of control. The heavy thumps as they struck the ground were a good sign. I figured that terminal velocity was as good a weapon as any.

"Any updates?" I sent out.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Gomorrah called me a few seconds later. "Cat," she started.

"Hey," I said as I settled back and allowed my mech to take care of the lock-ons and the next few shots. At most I moved around a little to help line things up. "What's up?"

"Things are going... well enough. We're not too far from our best-case scenario for this engagement. At least, the Family's idea of a best-case."

"That's good, no?" I asked. "Best-case is the best case, let's go! Woo. Hurrah." I kept tracking some of the bigger models with my mech's eyes. The nearer ones were taking a fair bit of damage, but they were getting closer, and because the fire was focused closer, it meant that the ones behind were dropping lower with less damage taken. I was seeing a pattern forming, and I wasn't sure I liked it.

Then the sky filled with rocket-trails, some coming from nearby, others from way off near New Montreal, and the higher-flying models suddenly had to deal with massive explosions all around them.

"It is good, yes," Gomorrah said. "Except that we now have an issue, and that's a worse-case scenario kind of issue."

"Ah. You know, the moment you called I figured you were waiting with a shoe to drop on my head," I said.

"I'm surprised you even know that expression," Gomorrah said.

"When you're from a place like where I was raised, you get to learn all of the expressions that have to do with shit getting worse," I deadpanned. "What's the sitch?"

"We had a suspicion that the Antithesis would be dropping signal pheromones across the atmosphere," Gomorrah said. "It was one of the Family's bigger fears."

"Why? We're already in the middle of a global incursion."

"Because with prevailing winds, there's a very real chance that those signal pheromones will stay up there for weeks or months. It means trouble over a much greater timeframe."

I... had a hard time caring when the current issue we were dealing with was right in our face, not weeks or months away. "Who cares?" I asked.

"All the people who don't want to die in a week?" Gomorrah asked.

I rolled my eyes, then paused and did it again. Did... did my mech roll its eyes too? Why was that even programmed in? "We can take care of that later. Unless there's anything we can do about it now?"

"There might be some weather control systems that would pull the pheromones down. It won't be worth doing until we've finished clearing out the swarm, however. A reduction in visibility now would be ill-conceived. In the meantime, expect all nearby hives to awaken and converge. We know what they'll be producing."

"We do?" I asked.

Gomorrah sent over a package. I opened it, then stared. It was a scientific report. A Field Analysis of the Pheromones over the North American Hemisphere and Their Indicators and Possible Meanings.

The rest of the document was page after page of text, with a few graphs to break it up. It didn't even have the common courtesy to be in dark mode. "What's this?" I asked.

"The Pheromones will be summoning flying-type antithesis from any available hives. We can expect a surge in Model Ones in the next day, extending out to... whenever we get around to eliminating the hives that received the message."

"Well, that'll be something," I said.

Could be worse, could be better. We'd handle it. In the meantime, I wanted to see if I couldn't snipe more of those bigger fucks with my railgun.

***