I looked over my sensory inputs, from the Witchcraft and from the scout Owl. The impression from both is a bit overwhelming. There is a cave opening about halfway up the mountain that is wide enough for the Witchcraft to fly down, with enough space that even a half-blind drunk could navigate down with little risk of hitting anything.
I’m assuming its wide to accommodate the Model Sixty. Which means of course, we can take the Witchcraft down far enough to find it and try to gather pheromone samples or at least finish it off. But before all that, there are a few things that need to be taken care of before we plunge the Witchcraft into danger against the Model Sixty.
In the last battle it’s EMP and tongue harpoon caused some serious damage and some upgrades need to be made.
“It looks like we will be taking the Witchcraft down into that thing.” I vocalized to Devoy and Merlin.
“Last fight I ran into a massive flying Antithesis we are calling a Model Sixty.” I explained to Devoy. “It had a very powerful EMP, strong enough to drop the Witchcraft and it also shot its tongue out like a freaky harpoon.”
“That does not sound like your garden variety Antithesis, ideas to counter it?” Devoy responds.
“The best way to counter EMP is to harden your electronics with shielding or shut them all off. I’m hoping our AI friends have some sort of tech that can manage one or both, Merlin?”
The control panel on the Witchcraft lights up and projects a mini hologram of a wizard in black robes covered in stars.
“There are many options available that would work for you, and the Witchcraft.” Said the little hologram, Merlin.
“First a rapidly expandible layer of copper lined nanites that would sit flush to the surface, creating a solid faraday cage, these would also double as heat sinks. Option two as you said, shutting down the power to the Witchcraft, however I don’t think I need to tell you why that’s a bad idea?” He implied, as if we were dumb.
“No, Merlin, I don’t think having the ships nanites shutting off while flying is a good idea. Any other options, surely, the Protectors have something fancier than copper shielding?” I said, annoyed.
“Right you are!” He continued. “I think the best and most functional method is an energy absorbing conduit substrate installed into the ships hull.” He said, sounding rather smug. “This would suck the EMP blast into the ship and funnel it into specifically designed sinks, that convert the blast into a concentrated beam of plasma, that then can be used to shoot back at the Antithesis.”
A little Witchcraft model pops up in hologram form, then gets hit by a EMP wave. The energy gets sucked down into glowing lines across the hull, and is directed back at the Model Sixty hologram, blowing it up.
Devoy looked over at me, his eyes raised. “That sounds pretty awesome!” He chimed in.
“It does.” I reply skeptically.
“How much is this upgrade going to cost though?”
“Not terribly too much, within your price range, it is in your Class II Warcaster technology catalog, so don’t need to open a new one. For nine hundred points you can have it installed and fully operational!” He said back.
“Okay, and what about the tongue harpoon then? That thing blasted right through the shielding and armor of the ship.” I asked him.
“That is a bit more of an issue; as it stands, the kinetic energy it produces is so focused it overloads the shields and armor almost instantly. Do not fret! There are options available to counter its power.” He said, raising his voice ominously.
“With the power of dimensional shunting, of course! When the tongue fires, or any focused kinetic energy attack, the shunting generator creates a small portal that intercepts the attack, dissipating the energy into a pocket dimension.” He said, displaying a demonstration of it working via hologram.
“That definitely sounds like something to have, and how much does that upgrade cost?” I asked him.
“One thousand points, so in all nineteen hundred points for the upgrades.” Said the little hologram.
I look at Devoy for input. He shrugs and responds with. “Your call, they all sound good to me, and the way you describe this thing, we want as many tools as we can get.”
“Alright, go ahead and get the upgrades, Merlin.”
“Loot inbound!”
New Purchase: Class II Energy Redirecting Substrate:
Points reduced to: 4624
New Purchase: Class II Small Diameter Point Defense Dimensional Shunting Portals:
Points reduced to: 3624
Instead of boxes appearing at my feet to open like normal, a small swarm of nanites appears outside the ship and swirls into the hull.
“Installing software upgrades, and UI for ship and user!” Chimes in Merlin.
Instantly I see the new tech options in the ship’s controls, for how complex the tech is, it is remarkably simple to control.
“I think we are all set to go, then.” I confirm, looking at Devoy.
“I think so too, lets take a last look at your scout info and build a plan, though.” He said.
I pull up all the scout data on the control panel, in a 3d rendering of the mountain.
It looks like a giant ant’s nest, tunnels fill almost the entire mountain and seem to dead end randomly, or merge into others, making never ending loops. Two of the tunnels drop out of sight and head deeper underground.
One of them shrinks down to about twenty feet across, while the other remains large enough to fly the Witchcraft through easily. If I had to guess, that is where our wayward Model Sixty has gone.
Pointing at the larger tunnel, I tell Devoy my plan. “This looks like the tunnel for our buddy, I think if we follow it down, we should find some clues, or him.”
Devoy agrees, saying. “I think you’re right, let’s go take a look and see what we find.”
I point the Witchcraft down the cave entrance and fly down it at a moderate pace. I want to be able to react to any surprises that pop up. You never know what sort of trap or ploy the Antithesis will come up with. They seem to be coming up with clever ways to ambush and fight their monkey prey.
Several hundred feet in; the walls of the cave start showing signs of an Antithesis hive that is well rooted. Massive root structures with leaves grow along every surface. The sensors are telling me the heat and humidity levels are rising as we get deeper. The light from the surface has long been gone, and we are solely flying using the Witchcrafts sensor suite, in which I can see the full image of the surroundings in my hive mind augs, but I have it showing on the screen for Devoy’s sake.
So far though, no sign of any Antithesis, which is odd considering how old this hive appears to be. I would like to think it should be swarming with them. That and the swarm I fought off should still be around, a large portion got away.
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I underestimated the scale of the mountain because we were still traveling down and not too slowly, and we still had not reached the point where the tunnels go off the scouted map. In-fact we are only about a quarter of the way down the winding tunnels.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this Mori. Where are the Antithesis?” Devoy whispered, like they could hear him.
I was getting the same feeling, but without any solid reason to back out, other than a gut feeling, I pressed on.
“You know Mori, I’m wondering if this is a trap. If they knew that they were being tracked, they could have intentionally led us down here.” Devoy offered.
That thought had crossed my mind, with how the Antithesis have been adapting, and by their very nature of having several Antithesis designed for ambush.
“What do you suggest then?” I asked, I know Devoy has a very tactical mind and this is the sort of thing he would excel at.
“Well, if you know you are walking into an ambush, often it is better to go around it, and attack from another angle that they are not expecting.” He leaned back into his chair before continuing. “Or spring the trap on purpose once you know what it is and having a stronger counter ready.” He finished.
I check the scouted map that we had, and I did not see any other routes down to where the Model Sixty went.
“Well, I don’t see another path down, so we have to spring it. The problem is, what and where is the trap?”
“That is the tricky part, finding the trap without the enemy knowing that you are on to them. Where are your scout drones?” Devoy wondered.
Checking my augs, the drone is down near the bottom of the tunnel but stopped, the logs show that it stopped because the signal farther down was being blocked and would cause the swarm to lose cohesion and fail. That must be where it is, or the very edge of the trap.
I zoom into the section where the Owl stopped and show him the data.
“The Swarm stopped at the bottom here, if they continued, they would lose their ability to transmit and share data amongst themselves. I think that is where our trap will be.” I said.
He puts his hand up to his chin in thought. “Can you still send them in, and have them return to transmit data after?” He asked.
“I think so, but we won’t know if something goes wrong, they will just not return. I think it is worth a shot though.” Taking control of the swarm manually I give the instructions to scout down the tunnel for three minuets and then return. So, in six minutes we will have an answer one way or another.
An agonizingly long six minuets later the swarm returns up the tunnel, transmitting the new information.
“Huh.” Is all that I can say once I see what is below.
The tunnel opens up into a massive cavern, where a full-sized hive is chilling. The drone’s sensory data is showing heavy ECM emissions coming from the hive, which explains the blackout. But that is not even the interesting part, latched onto the massive tree like structure of the hive is the Model Sixty. It’s using its tentacles to grab up the smaller Antithesis around it and swallowing them whole. The damage that Valk, and I did to it was almost gone, I’m guessing it was accelerating its healing by eating other Antithesis whole.
“That.” Devoy commented. “Is a lot of Antithesis in a small area, and while I have picked up a few upgrades, I do not like the odds of taking on a full hive, the Model Sixty, and all their buddies.”
And I agreed, there were easily twenty or thirty thousand Antithesis down there, of all model types.
Yet… I needed Antithesis samples and I had a bone to pick with the Model Sixty.
“Okay, hear me out.” I started at Devoy. His face went white as a sheet, while I had a grin on my face.
“You can’t be serious Mori, you want to try to fight them all?”
“Not all of them, look, we fly in there, shoot off some fireballs and lightning, wait for the Model Sixty to use its EMP burst, then fire it back at it. Once it’s down we can zip down and secure a few samples that I need, and off we go!”
Devoy is looking at me like I was growing a second head.
“You are! Okay well let’s try this. Drop me off near the edge, and I will grab the samples, while you distract them all. They should be so focused on you that I will be mostly ignored.” He suggested.
“I get what you're saying, but you will still be on your own, and what about the trap? I just noticed the cave opening is ringed with Model Fours, and Fifteens. That’s a lot of melee ambushers and artillery.”
“I did see them, but I can penetrate that line fairly easily. What sample types did you need to get?” He humble bragged, flexing his arms ironically.
“I need to get as many types of Antithesis that have the tracking pheromone as possible. I’m not sure which ones have it, but it could be any of the models we ran into while in Beatty. So, a bunch.”
“Right…” He said, looking a bit overwhelmed.
“Don’t fret! I have a device that will capture them safely and allow for easy transport. Merlin, can you purchase, say… twenty of the vessels, please.”
New Purchase: Class II Antithesis Biological Containment Vessel x 20:
Points reduced to: 2624
A black and purple backpack plops onto the ground unceremoniously.
You’re right. Let me try that again.
The bag vanishes into thin air, replaced by spinning hexagonal, multilayered, purple magic arrays, and the backpack slowly rises up out of its center.
Devoy looks at me with a raised eyebrow, looking for an explanation.
“Don’t ask, Merlin is being sassy.” He nods in understanding.
“Any way, in the bag are twenty containment vessels, you should just have to hit an Antithesis with one and it will trap it inside.”
Devoy opens the bag and pulls one out. It’s a black and purple sphere, with a stylized “M” on the front, and its about the size of a softball. He drops it back in and slings the backpack over his shoulder.
“All right, let’s do this.” Devoy says, he manipulates the hologram and drops a pin outside the cave, but before the entrance. “Drop me here, and I will wait until you start the fireworks before I make my move.”
I gave him a concerned look.
“I will be fine, I have some new toys and upgrades. I should be the worried one, after your last battle against the Model Sixty”
“Well, I too have a upgrades on the ship, so we can both feel better about our respective roles.” I said back to him.
He laughed at my comment.
I re-focus on maneuvering the ship into position to drop off Devoy.
“This is going to be a hot drop; can you handle it?” I ask, without looking at him.
I hear him sealing up his helm before answering.
“Course I can.” He replies.
Initializing the Witchcrafts defenses, I ramp up the speed and prepare for a intense fight.
As we approach the drop zone for Devoy, I lower the rear hatch and link our position to him so he can jump when he is ready.
A few moments later, I sense him jump out.
Tracking him with the ships sensors, I see him land a good distance away from the cave entrance, and it looks like none of the Antithesis respond to his arrival, so that’s good.
I focus back onto my own situation. I’ve entered the main cave, and unlike Devoy’s arrival, the Antithesis definitely noticed.
The Model Sixty immediately unlatches from the hive and unwinds its mass of tentacles. The horde of Antithesis below responds as well, countless flying models leave the ground and form into a giant swarm of claws and spines. The ground based ones seem to swarm, and try to follow the ship on the ground, which I find amusing.
I also pick up, on the edge of the cavern, the Model Fifteens launching their balls of spines up into the air like flack. It appears they have no concern for friendly fire.
The ships shields flare up and intercept the incoming wave of ranged attacks, or at least the ones that would have hit, I’m trying my best to dodge as many as I can. I swerve the ship side to side, do some rolls, and adjust speed to provide the hardest target possible.
I am not letting them get free shots in, either. I have my fireball launchers working overtime, pelting the ground units with max sized fireballs. The “thwump thuwmp” of the launchers firing rapidly fills the ship.
Massive explosions tear through the hordes of xenos, sowing death and chaos in their wake.
I am refilling your weapons supplies as we go, figured you may appreciate that, by the way.
You are indeed, and a fairly large amount of them too, I will total them after if you make it out of here.
I am fairly confident in your escape, but you never know.
The flying Antithesis are not left unscathed either. I enter my lightning plotter, and make rapid small pathways, creating and unleashing lightning blasts through their formations.
They fall by the score, plummeting into the masses below them.
Everything was going well until the Model Sixty unleashed its attacks.