Harry looked behind his group as they moved toward the ruined city. It wasn’t much

bigger than a place like Gary, or Davenport, but ruined towers offered cover for his

group. They needed to take a break from the running they had done to get to the

outskirts.

“Get ready to hole up,” said Harry over his radio. “We’re going to take five before

we try to get across to the other side of the city and head up into the mountains.”

“Will provide cover,” said Har. He paused at the back of the group.

“Pick something that isn’t on its side and clear it out,” said Harry. “Har, we’re

going to need covers for the windows and doors once the building is empty of

anything but us. We’re going to take a minute to catch our breaths before we kill

ourselves running.”

“I have the clearing weapon,” said Howitz. “Can someone watch my back?”

“I’m right there,” said Yema. He let the rifle he used drop on its sling and pulled

the pistol stuck in his belt. “Detrac, can you watch the outside for us?”

“I’m here,” said Detrac. He fired his chest gun one more time and then pulled a short

carbine from a sling on his back. “Let’s go.”

Harry watched them start into one of the taller buildings surrounded by knocked over

rubble. He threw two hives into each of the closest buildings and backed up. He

climbed up a mound of broken concrete and steel and looked out over the

neighborhood with his visor on max.

The cloud of drones surrounding him flew out and lit up any xeno that closed enough

to attack. Some of the bigger grunts were slightly impervious to their energy beams.

Once those monsters attracted Harry’s attention, he fired grenades into them to open

them up so the bees could attack from the inside.

The buildings he had thrown hives into started answering with the whip crack of the

bee’s lightning attack. He knew the ruins were a trap for anyone who couldn’t clear

the buildings. His robotic minions would clear out his targeted buildings just as fast

as the rest of the contractors could search and destroy the one building they were

checking.

His points were halfway full thanks to the sun gun and the automated weapons

platforms still marching in the south. Some of his artillery had been lost as they

formed a narrow chain trying to reach him. The bees from the hives he had thrown

down at the start of the engagement were doing their best to provide air cover for

the moving army.

How much longer could they last? Maybe he had been a tad overambitious. A

thousand contractors could max out their points on the battlefield he was facing.

“The dry docks are posting out space forces, Harry,” reported Nick. “We just lost

our first corvette on the other side of the planet.”

“That’s good to know,” said Harry. He fired another box of Ripper rounds into the

horde trying to overwhelm them from the south. He had no illusions they weren’t

surrounded. They would have to punch through the encircling mass if they wanted

to reach the mountains. He reloaded with a fresh thousand rounds from the

quartermaster.

“Another corvette will be on the way in an hour,” said Nick. “Other forces will be

arriving in about the same time.”

“What other forces?,” asked Harry. He blinked as concentrated fire from his escort

ripped something like a rhino, giraffe, and octopus apart.

“Your support has dropped two docks in orbit around the gas giant,” said Nick. “They

are using it to build waves of small fighters and bombers to attack the respawn

factories. Once those are gone, the real cleaning up can begin.”

“Sounds good,” said Harry. “So we just have to reach the other contractors and

expand our grip. I can do that.”

“I’m not going to lie and say I think it will be easy,” said Nick. “The mana trackers

on the moons are reporting billions of pings on the surface and the air. There are so

many, I am wondering why we aren’t seeing more combinations like the one we did

on Earth. I imagined hordes of kaiju wondering around here.”

“Maybe they only combine under certain conditions,” said Harry. He watched the area

and nodded when his bees flexed the area clear of charging monsters. Every minute

they held out, the more bees he could build and field against his implacable enemy.

“I have seen some that resist particle streams.”

“Your bees in the south are still holding their spot,” said Nick. “Attacks are random.

It looks like the grunts are programmed to chase anything living that crosses them.

They are only attacking your drones and the rotary cannon because they are in the

way of coming here to wipe you out.”

“That’s fine,” said Harry. “If we can hold them off for a few hours, I will have enough

bees to hold this city against everything but a star whale. And if it gets too close,

we’ll make mincemeat of that too.”

“How are you holding up, Harry?,” said Nick. “This is a lot of fighting on top of what

you did on Wallens.”

“I will be able to take a break when we have some protective walls up,” said Harry.

“We could end up like Xin and his partner if we stay here too long.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Harry, we have cleared the building,” reported Yema.

“Have Har start throwing walls down around the block where the building and my

post are,” said Harry. “We’re only going to be able to rest for a bit. The xenos will

bring up something to knock the buildings down if we hang around for too long.”

“Agreed,” said Yema. “I’m up on the roof with Detrac. We’re going to see if we can

slow some of the grunts down with our main weapons.”

“Can you see the train tracks from up there?,” asked Harry. He decided that maybe

he should buy some more artillery pieces to help their defenses.

“Yes,” said Yema. “They run northwest into the mountains like we planned, but they

run southeast into the horde from where I am standing. We’re miles away from any

station.”

“Looks like we’re going to need a van,” said Harry.

“A fast, well-armed van from the looks of things,” said Yema.

Harry threw out six more fabricators and let the mobile platforms start populating

the streets in front of him. Lightning and missiles headed into the sky as soon as the

first mix rolled off the factory platforms.

Flying would get them killed on this planet until they had the air advantage.

Blue walls sprang into existence around the selected area. They were about two

stories high with tracks at the base and top. The bees were confused for a moment

until they realized they could fly over the wall and shoot down at the xenos.

The expanding net of wheelsons, gun beetles, and tracked missile launchers were on

the outside of the wall. Their concentrated fire would help keep some of the big boys

from just plowing the defense down.

And the bees had cleared, or were clearing, out any buildings inside the fence for

security. The only way to get in easily was to fly over the wall, or through some

underground conduit the group didn’t have time to seal up from infiltrators.

Yema’s and Detrac’s main guns were firing into the sky. Harry didn’t think they were

hitting anything, but he wished them the best of luck.

Howitz had come out of the building chosen by Har and entered another building

closer to the fence. He appeared on the roof and set up a self-feeding mortar to drop

rounds over the fence and into the crowd of xenos trying to get to the group of

contractors.

Harry looked around. Inside the fence, they were mana free. That was good. The

problem was they only had so much time before something knocked the blue

walls down and cut through his expanding line of shooters.

Not even the growing swarm of bees would stop that.

So they had to take a break and get something to eat and then try to make a run

to the tracks and use that cleared route out of the city.

The main problem would be something dumped on the tracks in the fighting with the

locals.

“All right, guys,” said Harry. “It looks like we have a few minutes to plan, maybe get

something to drink and eat.”

He jogged over to Yema’s building and started climbing the ten flights of stairs.

He grimaced as he worked his way to the roof. Yema’s rifle and Detrac’s sun gun

were taking turns at bigger targets out in the night.

Harry ignored the markers for targets and the sound of weapons blasting into the

night. They were earning their ammo cost back with every kill they brought down. He

dialed in his visor and examined the whole area, placing it against the map in his

visor.

They were barely ahead of the hoard. Once they were on the tracks, they needed

speed or overwhelming firepower. He could see being dragged down halfway to

target.

Their deaths would not be pretty going by past encounters with the monsters.

“I can get a mech if I get a thousand more points,” said Howitz. He looked out over

the battlefield. “I don’t know how much difference it would make against this.”

“We might need it for a last stand,” said Harry. “Hold on to that idea. You guys

should be happy. We have created our firebase, and succeeded in the first half of the

mission.”

“Are we staying here then?,” asked Har. “One titan and we’re done. I would like

to move on after our break.”

“The buildings are set in a grid,” said Yema. “The tracks are almost due north from

this spot. We certainly are not going to be able to fly over there. It was an act of

creation that we landed as safe as we did.”

“We’re talking about a lot of firepower,” said Detrac. “I think we could do it if we

brought enough force to bear.”

“I think maybe we could do it,” said Harry. “It will take some doing, but the bees are

spreading out to the buildings and taking them over, the platforms are working to

keep the wall clear, and Howitz’s mortar is paying for itself. The main problem is we

only have until a star whale takes an interest, or one of their artillery monsters start

shooting over the walls.”

He frowned as he looked at the train tracks.

“We need time to build fabricators to make something that will carry us into the

mountains and hold off any attacks,” said Harry. “A train full of guns is what we

need.”

“I agree with that,” said Howitz. “We would need hours to make such a thing.”

“All we need is a base,” said Harry. “The rest would have to be added on as we went.

The problem is if we are doing this on the move, then we will be exposed to the xenos

while we are running away from them.”

“And that is chance of failure,” said Har. “We have already come a long way. I don’t

see why we can’t do the rest.”

“All right,” said Harry. “We have time to build something we can use as our base,

and then we will have to bust out of here to the tracks. We are going to have to buy

platforms to mount weapons on as we go. Then we use that to get to the last leg of

the trip. The rest is going to be another offensive on foot.”

“We don’t have to go on foot,” said Yema. “There will be something that presents

itself when we get close to the objective. The main thing is fighting out of here when

we are ready to go. The enemy will try to pick us off one at a time if they can.”

“A cargo hauler would be the best base for a land vehicle for what we need,” said

Detrac. “It’s already pulling freight behind it, and we can use that as the base of

our platform.”

“All right,” said Harry. “Let me add some covering weapons for us on these

buildings, and then we’ll head out from the north wall. Grab your chow and water

from the quartermaster on the way down. As soon as I’m done, we’ll take off.”

Harry looked at his point scale. It was heading out to max with the way the drones

and automated weapons were doing their work. It wouldn’t be long the way things

were going.

He planted a fabricator on the roof of the central building, then headed for the stairs

behind Yema and Detrac. Har and Howitz would be retreating from their perches

while he had to climb up their buildings and plant the first of his surprise gifts.

The other part would be planted when they were ready to leave.

A tractor trailer took him back to good old Optimus. Maybe they could use Howitz’s

mech as part of the design.

That thought carried him to the next building as the first sun gun fired overhead.

Once he had the rest planted, he would have fingers of fire burning anything that

couldn’t take a direct impact with a sun.

Hopefully the second surprise would buy them even more time to operate.

It was a good thing his points were still climbing to the top of the scale.