Sounds of a stealth hovercar’s doors slamming shut.
“Is it done?”
“The enhanced subject has been released near the target alongside proper material to carry the rest of the mission out.”
“Good work. Be on standby for your next mission.”
-Recovered Contingent Unit audio recording, 2056
In accordance with the purposes you want these drones for I made sure they were small, yet robust.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 46.1615%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">New Purchases!</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right"> </td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">Class I Modular Combat Robotics</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right"> </td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right">100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">Class I Robotic Sensor Modules</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right"> </td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right">50</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">MKII Combat Assistant Drone (Modified)</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right">x2</td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right">500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">Total Cost:</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right"> </td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right">650</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 32.2222%">Points Reduced To:</td>
<td style="width: 6.16157%; text-align: right"> </td>
<td style="width: 7.77772%; text-align: right">1964</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Two decent sized boxes dropped on the ground and opened themselves up revealing two unfolding robots that, uhhhhh.
An uncultured swine would say they’re ugly. Endoskeletons, meatless bones of metal stood before me. No shielding or shell to pretty them up, but that wasn''t their fault. But outside of that they kind of looked like foxes with their big ‘ears’ and long tails with electrical bands.
“Okay what can they do?”
Both drones come equipped with claws and tails capable of conducting lethal amounts of electricity into various weaker Models. For ranged options.
Both drones popped a turret out of a hatch in their backs.
These turrets are effectively the equivalent to your Amp-Thrower. They are well equipped alongside your Auto-Zapper to provide chaff cleanup while you handle larger threats.
Nodding, I motioned towards the finishing barns. “Let''s finish this then.” With that I took off at a decently fast pace (considering all the stuff on my back) with the drones following behind me. I didn’t spot anything on the way there so I quickly pulled up the map I had been ignoring for a while.
The barns were all various shades of red with the central outside areas being flooded with the red dots I had learned to hate. Turning to the pair of fox-bots behind me I began to give them orders.
“Okay so…” I crouched down and scrawled an R on one and an M on the other with a marker from my toolbelt, “You’re Robin, and you’re Marian. I want you both to stay as close as reasonably possible. Robin, you take out stuff further away, and Marian you deal with the closer stuff. Pyri can you make sure the Auto-Zapper doesn’t killsteal or vice-versa?”
Yes, and those names are quite adorable.
I turned to hide my blush, realized that with my helmet on it didn’t matter anyway, and made my way towards the driveway that I got spotted on earlier.
Only to hear my ringtone in my helmet.
Who is calling me now?
I crouched down, and opened the call with a frown.
“Spaaaaaark are you ok?”
Blinking, I facepalmed, only for my hand to slap my smooth helmet instead.
“Summer!” I loudly whispered, “Why are you calling me?”
I could hear her pout through the call, “Well because you haven’t sent anything to us for a while and I wanted to make sure you were ok!”
Your helmet is muffling the sound of you talking, so be as loud as you want.
I began to actually creep forward, focusing on not getting ambushed again when I heard her shout to the bunker, “He’s ok! And kinda grumpy!”
“She, actually.”
Not noticing what I actually said, I continued forward.
Spark dear, I think you broke Summer.
“Huh? What do you mean? Summer’s fine. Right Summer?”
A few seconds of silence passed before Summer responded in a conspiratorial whisper, “What do you mean she?”If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
I froze and pulled up the transcript of the call only to facepalm fail again.
Why did I say thaaaaaaat?
Thinking quickly I said something that would guarantee Summer would keep things quiet for me. “Ok Summer if I tell you, you have to keep it a secret alright? Like a spy!”
“I will protect the secret with my life! No evildoer will make me talk! She very loudly whispered into the phone. “Um, can I tell Autumn though? She will want to play spy too!”
I ignored Pyri’s amused chuckles as I acquiesced to Summer’s request and told her to call over her sister.
“Autumn!” she shouted, “Spark wants to talk to both of us!!!”
I quickly looked all around me to make sure I wasn’t going to be ambushed again, before crouching behind one of the ripped off pitfans. Pyri was full on laughing at my predicament by the time Autumn’s subdued voice came through.
“Hello?”
“Hey Autumn, Summer asked me to include you in this, but basically, I’m using she and her pronouns now because I learnt some things about myself earlier.”
I was only slightly stressed about their response.
“Oh, so you’re trans?”
A record squealed to a grinding halt in my head. “Huh? Yes? How do you know about that?”
She seemed to get a bit quieter, “Dad was saying angry things about it, so I looked up what ‘trans’ was, and did research.” She paused for a moment, “Dad said some really mean things about them, but don’t worry! I’ll fight him for you!”
“I’ll help fight him too!” Summer interjected, “Being mean is bad and I’ll give him a karate chop if he is mean to you!”
I could just about cry from these two absolute beans for what they were willing to do for me at the drop of a hat.
“So are you a girl then Spark?” Autumn softly asked.
“I uhhh, yes, yes I am Autumn.” I stammered out.
In a tone that could only be described as pure glee from the soft spoken girl she smugly responded, “Then we get to teach you makeup.”
I snorted at her priorities, when Pyri made herself known in the call.
[Thank you both for your words of support. They mean more than you realize. Spark has to focus on beating up the bad guys now though, so we need to cut this short ok?]
“Ok Miss Pyridae!” Summer replied, “Bye Spark! Have fun beating up the bad guys!”
“Be careful,” Autumn added, “We won’t tell anyone.”
“Like spies!”
“Summer spies don’t shout that they’re spies!-“
The line cut off from the other end as I shook my head in amusement.
As downright heartwarming it was to listen to that, I do suggest you continue forward before a wayward Model spots you dear.
I sighed, “I know. Right now I’m mainly just shocked that conversation went so well.”
Without any more interruptions, I finally reached the nearest finishing barn. After ordering Robin and Marian to guard the entrance, I snuck through a hole torn in the wall finding this particular room empty. The barn was trashed with gates torn off their hinges and blood everywhere. Even a few of the concrete half-walls for the pens were shattered as if something large and heavy was thrown through them.
Just your everyday level of destruction when the antithesis are around.
I quickly forced the thoughts away with a shake of my head and crept to the other side to get a look at the carnage I was about to face. The way the finishing barns were set up was a set of two on the north side, and a set of three on the south side. Both sets had one small room for loading and unloading pigs on the north east and south west corners respectively. Finally on the far sides of the center driveway were long hallways for moving pigs to those rooms creating a giant upside down ‘U’ on the north end, and a sideways ‘E’ on the south end.
To the west was the manure lagoon, which wasn’t visible to me at the moment. What was visible to me though was the wide open space between all the barns which had been turned into a massive processing center for the antithesis.
Fresh Ones and Threes were hatching from gelatinous sacs as monkey things rushed about the network of vines, and flowers. The same corpse pile in the direct center of the place I saw earlier was still being picked over by the Seventeen, and behind it was a field of pigs laying in the dirt convulsing as the Model Sevens inside them finished taking over their brains. Multiple vines snaked back towards the lagoon, and were most likely draining the nitrogen rich slurry right now.
“Pyri, what the fuck am I looking at?”
This is the start of a hive, growing under the direction of a Model Seventeen that is fully aware of how much biomass is nearby. If you fail at destroying it yourself, they will most likely level the entire farm before being firebombed into dust by the local Samurai.
“Any suggestions for making them regret ever setting foot here?”
I advise against any explosives due to the high likelihood of pollinated dust being sent into the air. The Seventeen and the Sixes are the current greatest threat due to their ability to direct the swarm.
“Ok so no explosives and focus the leaders down, how should I remove the hive itself?”
There are specific Vulgoran weapons designed to specifically deal with hive tissue by sending a lower voltage and current throughout the structure which will not only damage the plant over time, but will chemically affect the liquids inside of them. Of particular note is the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
I felt my eye twitch, “Pyri won’t that cause a massive explosion the second an electrical arc lights those gases up?
No, but it will light them on fire.
I thought for a few moments, “How long will they take?”
You can have multiple disposable emitters working at once which will drop the time down to around fifteen minutes. Each one will cost you ten points.
“We’ll deal with it after I’m done clearing everything else then.” I crept back away from my vantage point. “Let’s get out of this death trap and give them a really nice surprise.”
A quick rendezvous with my foxbots later I was creeping towards the end of the barn, where I would have the quickest and cleanest shot at the Seventeen possible.
Rounding the corner, I brought the Trill up, and sighted the Seventeen. With a feral grin, I fired a beautiful cyan bolt of energy towards the offending crab thing. A flower of hissing electricity sprouted from the impact point zapping a few nearby Model Threes. After around ten seconds of continuous fire, I took my finger off the trigger expecting a twitching corpse.
Only to find it did… nothing?
The only evidence I had even struck it was the blood covering it, which had been charred into soot.
“Uh, Pyri, why isn’t it dead?”
That should’ve killed it. Something is wrong.
Pyri’s shock unnerved me.
The only explanation is either a Variant-Vulgora Seventeen appeared out of nowhere and somehow didn’t influence the local antithesis to produce some electrical resistance into the population.
“Orrrr,” I prompted.
This antithesis has been artificially hardened, judging by its somewhat larger carapace. The latter is most likely.
I didn’t have the time to process the implications of that judgment as I now had the eyes of the entire hive staring right at me.
I sighed, “So much for an ambush…”