I stared blankly into space, at a loss after witnessing the aftermath of the attack. New Damond had been designed from the ground up to be resistant to sieges and most forms of attack. Until now, no one had truly considered that an attack would be able to cut through our defenses.
‘Fucking solar beam,’ I grit my teeth even as I forced myself to start addressing our wider needs. Distantly, I could feel the Reaver squadron vehemently battling with the biotic. Lightbringer was it’s name, unironically a straightforward depiction of its abilities. It was rapidly accruing damage, part of which appeared to be self inflicted. The Reaver squadron, or at least what was left of it, would take care of the rest of it. Yamak’s ship and a few lucky others appeared to have taken only glancing blows, their aircraft floating on the water far below the battle.
Taking some small solace that at least some of the squadron hadn’t been annihilated with the biotics attack, I pulled my attention back to the city.
“Matt!” I heard a voice connect the moment I put a call through, “You alright man?”
A bitter smile appeared on my face at the question. Daniel was still fighting even as he spoke to me, the unending tide of enemies approaching the walls still encroaching, but now moving even more recklessly forward. Every single one of the teams was contributing to the firepower now, and the line still held. Still, none of them had a calm expression after having felt the earth shake and the surge of light from the center of the city. They could clearly see the pillar of black smoke that rose like a chimney that led straight to hell.
“I’m alive-” barely, I mentally added, “-we weren’t the direct target, but most of the inner city has been devastated.”
“The fuck happened?” He asked, voice tight with no small amount of fear, “Did the lab explode?”
I shook my head, “Gen 4 biotic. It attacked at range over the ocean. The Reavers are killing it, so I don’t think it’ll have another shot, but it only needed one.”
Daniel’s expression shifted through shock, anger, and then a grim sort of acceptance in short order, “What was it aiming at?”
“The Obelisk. It wiped it out entirely.”
Silence lingered on the line for a moment as Daniel processed that, jaw hanging in bewilderment. Automatically, he checked his system in order to try to synthesize the Matter Energy that he’d gathered. A deep scowl set into his features at that, not easing up as he focused back onto me.
“Fuck.”
I nodded, “I’ll be updating Legion orders momentarily. Spread the word, don’t waste ammo. We’re limited now.”
Daniel nodded, voice grave, “I’ll spread it around. Do me a favor?”
I blinked at the sudden request, but nodded.
“Get that lab working faster.” He cut the connection then, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. That was a given, but I could understand where he came from with that. We no longer had the measure of our enemies, this was no longer an endless fight of attrition.
We couldn’t rearm our weapons, nor replace any lost equipment outside of what we had on sight. If it weren’t for the fact that we had stockpiles at all, I doubted that we could last the hour.
I updated orders going out to the Legion, but I didn’t have time to put on some grand speech for everyone. The only other people I contacted directly were Domino and Strauss, both of whom understood immediately how bad our situation had just become.
The walls were the most ammo hungry of our fortifications, and if we tried to keep them active, I knew that we wouldn’t last the day, even with our huge volumes of munitions stockpiled. It was a simple question of area.
So, the Legion understood the necessity of our next plan of action.
“Once logistics has everything set up, give the order to pull back the forces on the wall and drop every other section.” I spoke to the strategic center, “from there, I’ll leave it to all of you to determine how we’ll fight in the grid.”
Charlie Song nodded to me through the screen; after having gone through grueling simulations, he was acquainted enough with worst-case scenarios, albeit none quite like this one. I watched for a moment before being satisfied with the new war room’s actions. Every building in the city was designed with their own personal defenses, and entire blocks could shift to force any invading swarm to move through tighter areas, less like a city and more like a labyrinth. Reinforced concrete and plas-steel made moving through the obstacles directly an incredibly difficult task. Even the Axiom strain biotics wouldn’t be able to simply break through them, requiring tens of minutes to destroy barriers even while being shelled with munitions from the buildings and the teams within.
It would delay the enemy, but letting them into the walls admitted that we were fighting an eventual defeat. None of us were ignorant of that fact. Eventually they could make it through the labyrinth, though we had an ever greater amount of defenses deeper in the city. But if our enemies were practically without limit, then we would lose.
Already I’d sent emergency requests out to our nearest allies, but I didn’t hold out any hope that they might be able to help us. Half of their biotics had peeled off of their assault in order to come to presumably attack us. That fact didn’t mean any of these cities were going to be able to mount any decent ability to come and help us in time. The only thing that I could hope for is that they would eventually clear their enemies and be able to help us, and that it wouldn’t be too late.
I moved through the underground tunnel system with that on my mind. If I was being honest with myself, this kind of wishful thinking wasn’t reasonable. The only real possibility that we had of survival lay in the hands of the people I was going to meet now.
Under most situations, the underground routes were locked down to the major buildings, but given the current state of the surface, that had been shelved entirely. The evacuation routes were the only routes we now had in order to move around in the interior city.
The heavy bulkhead doors opened at my approach to reveal the white corridor. Six guards stood at attention on either side, all of whom had known that I was coming already. They saluted as I passed, and I stoically continued forward. One other individual waited for me at the end of the short procession, a lab assistant that worked with Dr. Ross and Yaga frequently.
“Sir.” He greeted me with a short nod before matching my brisk pace.
“Dr. Ross said that he’s had some breakthroughs, explain.” I ordered straight away.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The man nodded professionally before handing me a few pages of data while saying, “We’ve mapped out what we think is one of the signals that the biotics are always broadcasting. Yaga believes that we can use that as our frequency to access the biotics' more base instincts, giving us a way in.”
I nodded in satisfaction, “That is good news. What can this do to them?”
He shrugged apologetically, “I’m afraid we don’t know yet. It’s a door in, but we don’t know what part of the biotics we can access with it yet. We’re hopeful it’ll be enough to stall them, if nothing else.”
“That…” I shook my head helplessly, “I guess that’s the best we can hope for right now.”
“It has potential,” the man said carefully, “but it’s not the only thing we’re working on. There’s a problem now, however.”
I turned my eyes to the man next to me as we entered the larger lab proper, “What problem?”
“The relay we were planning to use is on the upper floors.” He began, “unfortunately, the equipment seems to be damaged. We’re hoping to repair it enough to be of use, but it might be a good idea to look for a secondary system.”
‘That’s just fucking great.’ I kept the words to myself, but given the grim expression the assistant bore, he expected no less.
“How mobile is the device going to be?” I kept my dissatisfaction to myself, as we entered the main room.
“Well, the main device is huge, but-” he gestured forward as we entered the main room, but before he could finish speaking, Dr. Ross had walked up and caught the trailing end of the conversation.
“But we have a somewhat smaller transmitter that can bounce the signal from this big scrap heap here.” He finished for the assistant while nodding to him. The assistant nodded - gratefully I thought - to the man before rushing off to his work elsewhere.
“How much smaller are we talking?” I frowned, looking up with no small sense of shock. The spherical machine that they’d been working on had been utterly bastardized since I’d seen it last. All manner of strange devices hung off of internal rings that moved around a central object. That object I recognized as the mass of biotic cores that were currently sealed within a three dimensional octagonal container. It spun rapidly before slowing, twisting and turning seemingly at random with the motions of the many rings around it.
“A big mech can probably carry it, though not likely anything else.” He gestured to the corner of the room where a bulky replica of the hovering core of the rings sat. The octagonal device was uglier than the one in the middle of the psionic relay, roughly welded plates of metal with antennae and a hefty battery and miscellaneous equipment pack attached to some of the panels.
“We’ll make due then.” I nodded, “is it ready to move now? It’ll be better to do this before the biotics swarm over the radio station.”
Dr. Ross blinked, “Radio station?... Hmm… yeah I guess that’ll work. But, no, it can’t be moved yet. We’re installing the remote control unit in more durable shelling before we let it go anywhere.”
I could certainly appreciate that. He could probably envision a scene where someone had to manually interact with it and wanted to avoid that if at all possible. Most of the psy-relay child unit seemed to be at least designed with durability in mind, albeit at the expense in size. That was just fine by me, though, considering the tradeoff.
“We need it done as soon as possible.” I nodded to him before turning and looking around the lab, “what can I do to help?”
-Elsewhere in New Damond, hours later-
The tide of bodies cracked and cried out in shrill, screeching voices as they continued to charge forward. Everywhere they stepped was silvery blood and fragmented chitin interspersed with limbs, some of which were naught more than mulch that gradually disintegrated. The Centaur’s ceaseless advance had never stopped, but they threw themselves forward with an even greater ferver in the wake of the blooming fire beyond the walls that they could only just see.
It wasn’t their decision, but instead the malignant mind behind them that overrode their higher thinking and drove them forward. Any biotic above a Gen 1 had some measure of a preservation instinct, albeit often warped and lacking. These creatures, however, were an exception. Bred for the explicit purpose of being The King’s Army, they bore no greater will of their own. No connection to one another beyond the recognition that they were small parts of a great whole. An absence of any kind of instinctive need to feed, nor any desire to hold territory of their own.
They were, for lack of The King’s ‘Grace’, empty puppets ready to be filled.
But that was what made them a perfect soldier for The King. Their advance continued for hours, heedless of their growing casualties. The other biotics that had joined in the swarm were far less eager, but had no choice either. The force in their heads prevented their wills from asserting themselves. Just as they’d charged seemingly mindlessly at Gilramore or Sunvilla, these biotics had no choice but to do so again at New Damond.
Still, things had gradually begun to change in the last few minutes of the siege. The firepower that rained down upon them had lessened somewhat. While a casual observer might not notice the difference, the sheer weight of minds that shared the swarm's pain could easily pick up something as straightforward as a change in the tempo in which they died.
It was then that parts of the wall before them, dreaded and full of death-dealing implements, began to collapse down into the ground. Great pillars shuddered, concrete and plas-steel groaning as they slid down into the earth beneath. The process took tens of seconds, but half of the firepower that rained upon the swarm vanished in that moment.
The biotics maintained their last orders to charge even as the mind behind them watched in curiosity at the tactic shown to it. The King knew that it would eventually win now that it had cut off the humans ability to rearm themselves with the energies of the fallen. A cruel sort of certainty had settled upon him, and he found himself giving a sense of approval to the enemy at their shift in strategy.
They would need to force his army into more confined spaces, trying to slow them down in the city and mowing them down en masse.
He had no grand plan to counter this, there was no need for trickery or finesse. The only way was forward now. Every minute that he delayed risked the entire plan. If the humans completed their device, he would lose.
The biotics knew none of what passed through the mind that commanded them, only rushing headlong through the gaps in the walls. Some strayed, attempting to attack the remaining pillars themselves, but very few bothered. The price paid in dead biotics from the remnant defenses was treated as no different than a toll booth, spent and forgotten in moments.
The cityscape before them greeted them, dozens of routes deeper within revealed to the swarm. On all sides the scene was shared in unison, a brief moment of consideration mid-stride given to the various routes before they poured ever onward, rivers of moving flesh guided by one singular mind.
One such stream entered through the labyrinth, the roads common to the city void of vehicles, something eerily reminiscent of a ghost town. All around them, tall structures loomed, the Centaur casting glances at every window and corner that they passed.
It was then that they heard a voice call out.
A hundred roaring weapons unleashed at that moment as Legion squads stepped out from various alcoves and fired down from high above. The press of bodies had no room to move, and the Legion had no need to aim. Any shot would hit a target.
In the next moment, the buildings themselves shuddered as compact turrets emerged from their sides and corners, dozens to any given building face. They opened fire, shredding through the biotics beneath them, the combined munitions reaping through them like a scythe through wheat.
The biotics didn’t hesitate, only continuing to push onwards into the grinder. Even so, they were slowed rapidly, the bodies of their rapidly decomposing allies not conducive to proper footing. The pile grew with every second, forcing the biotics to push them forward with them, giving them much needed cover if only for a second at a time. Their advance was slow, but it was an advance. The squads above continued to fire for several minutes, reloading and using up the stockpiled magazines in the buildings they were in.
Just before they were fully out, they retreated to the rooftops, hooking into robust pulley systems that carried them to the next building, only to run across to the building after. They leap-frogged allies in the building previous to them, and only once they were situated in their new attack locations did the adjacent building empty, only for the process to repeat.
The buildings themselves continued to fire, though the turrets were rapidly running out of ammo, or being destroyed by the Centaur attacks from below. Long gone were the days in which the Centaur didn’t understand their own weapons. Now, sprays of pressurized acid and compressed explosions from their spiked tails sent attacks back at the Legion teams and turrets overhead. Injuries mounted over time, turrets were eventually torn asunder, and ground was lost.
But this was all within expectations.
The King felt frustration well up within it, an emotion that surprised it even as it began to bury it. The delaying tactics were much more effective than he’d given them credit for. None of the other cities he’d encountered were so well fortified as this. Across the world, some smaller cities had already been breached by lesser biotics, and he learned actively from his successes and failures, implementing changes that would be beneficial to him in other theatres.
New Damond was one of the few exceptions to that rule. It had been built from the ground up as a killing field. Argedwall was similar, as were a handful of other bastions across the planet. If it weren’t for what was at stake, The King would never have resorted to such a rudimentary and wasteful assault.
He would regenerate his forces after this, though, and he would be the most powerful biotic on the planet at the end of this.
He had no choice but to be.
The city itself had six boundary lines, not including the wall. Already, the biotics had managed to penetrate into the fifth boundary after two more hours of siege. The Legionaries that constantly battled were tiring, taking shifts with their replacement squads for a few precious minutes. It cost them a little bit of extra ground, but they needed everyone to be as fresh as possible for the fourth boundary.
They had to hold them there. The inner two were devastated already, save only the underground bunkers that held and saved the population therein. The third had suffered slight damage, but was the source of a huge amount of ammo that remained. The stockpiles deeper within had been destroyed, resulting in huge loss to their longevity.
What was the most important, however, was the fact that one of the few remaining sites that could host the psy-relay child unit remained in the fourth boundary, just on the edge to the third.
However, they knew that they didn’t need to buy much time.
“Let’s get moving.” A cold voice reverberated through power armor, flanked by dozens of Legionnaires. They stepped out of the lab with the device strapped to a member of the Iron Chariots mech. All around them, black robots stood at attention, hundreds of Determinators ready for their march to war.