“And while Jenny’s got them all tangled up in her vines, I’m going to shoot them with my gamma ray gun. They’ll mutate into goo and drain away. And if that doesn’t work. Jon can move in with her super cryo freeze ray and cover them with ice so they can’t come any closer.”

  “Well, while you are doing that, I’ll punch them hard and just smash the Anti’s flat so they can’t hurt anyone. Dead is the best condition.”

  --Serious discussion heard among Sue Smith’s third grade class while on recess at Melanie Fizz-Snap Elementary.

  ***

  Again, I was thrust back from the edge. The ground now showed four stripes from my feet being thrust back. Several troopers’ shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, including Tarkin. I shot him a dirty look.

  “What the hell, Corie?” In my frustration I spoke out loud, in the conference, and directly to her.

  [“Warned you were. A powerful force is the twenty. Never to be used in kindness, only in anger.”] For her reply, Corie’s voice had taken on a creaky aspect, like an octogenarian with a chain-smoking habit. She was right; even a normal 20 mm round was punishing to shoulder fire. The common mount for it was on a vehicle for a reason. Even worse, the Hyper Compression round’s bullet weighed twice the gunpowder-based shot. Which, thanks to Newton and his third law of motion, increased the kickback proportionally.

  [“Is there any way to keep me from being thrown back like that? I think I could take it if my footing held.”]

  [“Resources you have. Closer than you think. The land is sound; getting a grip is your problem.”]

  [“That’s what I’m saying. The Gekko peds are supposed to improve my traction.”]

  [“And your socks remain in place.”] Corie smugly replied in her old woman voice again. [“Videos we have seen, much amusement was found.”] And now she taunted me that it’d been recorded. It was almost certainly being spread over the mesh already.

  [“You’re wearing normal boots, Marcus.”] Ginny pointed out.

  I looked at my feet, and she was right. I’d activated the Gekko ped footwear, but with my boots still on, they formed a sock inside the footwear. I kicked the boots and socks off, and the armor expanded to form barefoot running shoes over my feet. Even better, somehow my feet felt warmer than they had all day.

  This time, the recoil only rocked me back one step, and I could see firsthand the breadth of the damage. The round struck the Model Five just as its extensive tongue reached back to pluck quills off its back to launch them. High-velocity shrapnel shredded the alien and its closest kin, forming a pile of pulverized plant parts. Their injured partners soon fell to the troopers’ fire, whose attention had been drawn by the explosions.

  [“Capital classes coming in. You have a bloater crossing the river now.”] Tara was back to watching the drone feeds. [“And a crawler right behind it.”] In typical fashion, she had renamed the larger aliens, those with numbers in the teens, as a group as the capital class.

  [“I thought you were taking a break?”] I asked while switching magazines again, followed by switching in a power pack too. [“I’m switching to the sampler mag, Corie. Could you give me the rundown on each as they come up?”]

  In a corner of my visor, a list showed the order of the rounds and their size, but I wanted verbal confirmation in case I got distracted. Having multiple types of rounds in a single magazine was new to me. Even stranger was how each round would change how and where I shot.

  Movement to the right caught my attention, and I turned to find several M-3s working their way up the slope towards our flank. [“But first, blow the cannon.”]

  A deep droning hum rose for a second before an electronic resonant bong drowned out the rifle fire. All down the slope, a thin line flickered on the edge of sight and vanished, not even leaving an afterimage. The trees, brush, and grass jumped a little before falling downslope.

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  Along the edge, a single M-4 had managed to avoid most of the slicing, and I fired the chambered Hyper Compression round at it in case it had friends beyond it. [“Fire off the Atomizers.”]

  [“I’m on it. They’ll reach max coverage in a minute.”]

  “Keep an eye on that right flank. We might have some more coming out of the woods,” I said to the troopers around me. “Now, let’s see what I can do with those big-uns.”

  Two large antithesis entered the quarry, and some helpful officer tagged them with the purple icon indicating my primary targets. As if I could fail to see them.

  First came a bus-sized, bulbous Model Twelve burdened by several M-4s clinging to its sides. It slowly flew over the chaos of downed trees, bobbing up and down. I couldn’t tell if it flew low to avoid fire or if its load was too heavy to fly higher. Beside it came a Model Fourteen, and its long sectional body used dozens of insectile legs to crawl over the difficult terrain as if it were a highway. It stretched longer than the Max’s light rail cars.

  [“The first round is the Slap3 Penetrator. A discarding sabot around a small, dense core. Hits deep and punches through armor.”]

  I had been aiming at the flying model while tracking the other in the corner of my eye. At the word “penetrator,” I switched to the centipedal Model Fourteen. It started to shudder until I shot it halfway down the second section. Its legs spasmed, preventing it from coming closer.

  [“Was that a miss?”] Ginny asked in the chat. I could see how she would think that; the entry wound was tiny.

  [“No, it hit right where I needed it,”] I said, pleased with the shot. Only now, after the shot, did the training module inform my conscious mind about the weakness I’d exploited.

  [“There’s a gland right where I hit it that controls the release of its cargo. The M-14’s a transport model. Its biggest threat comes from the quantity of smaller models that it carries inside its armored body. I prevented it from dropping who knows how many more antithesis onto the battlefield. Based on the length of that beast, it had to be a lot.”]

  A rush of smoke drove at the Fourteen, ending in an explosion. When the smoke cleared, the carapace had cracked, but otherwise it was undamaged. I claimed both of the large aliens in CILS to save the troopers from wasting more ammo.

  [“Next up is a Corrosive round,”] Corie said. [“Biggest problem with corrosion and acid rounds is that they’re slow. Good for weakening armor, though, and should fit well with the round after it.”] I glanced at the list in my visor and adjusted my aim to the head.

  The round cracked against the chitin plates but otherwise had no effect other than to annoy the plant. It lifted up to a height even with me and lumbered in our direction. I switched to the lower barrel and used the guided flechettes to pick off the models clinging to its sides.

  When it drew close, I let loose the shaped, frangible round called the RFG Splitter. The shotgun-like round clung together until impact, where eight iridium rods broke away, causing damage in a cone from the impact point, shredding the central nervous system and any other flesh on the way. One or two of the rods broke free, smashing out the back of the head at odd angles. The bug went splat into the wall at our feet and fell on the models that clawed at the foot of the rock wall.

  A notice appeared in CILS, and three separate troopers threw an enzyme pill on the corpse. Those, plus the continuing corrosive, should prevent the smaller aliens from using it as a ramp.

  Another Twelve came into range, its bulbous behind glowing from its ECM. My next round left a small hole in the bulbous body. Within seconds, the shell around the hole frosted over, and the glow began to flicker.

  [“Let me guess, another slow-acting effect, only cold this time?”] Kaitlyn asked.

  [“The cold comes from an extreme endothermic reaction. The flesh drops to cryogenic temperatures in half a second and spreads as the reaction cascades. It’s faster than the corrosive round, but still not instantaneous.”] Corie was still in editorial mode.

  [“In gaming terms they’d call it a HoT round,”] Tara said.

  [“So it’s a HoT Cold DoT?”] Kaitlyn asked. I guessed she was using the conversation to add color to the media feed.

  [“No, a DoT, Damage over Time, is different; slower. They often take minutes to complete. A HoT, Harm over Time, only hits for a few seconds, maybe half a minute at most. It does more damage in a shorter time.”]

  [“I’m trying to concentrate here. Can you put the Statler and Waldorf routine on a different channel?”] I complained while clearing out clumps of M-5 with guided flechettes.

  Meanwhile, the M-14 that I’d injured had been convulsing like a constipated old man as it tried to unload all the single-digit models it had been carrying. It finally gave up and charged forward to take personal part in the mayhem. It raised up the front of its body, the head coming even with the shelf we stood on. It swayed there in the classic pose of a cobra about to strike, and I took aim at the underbelly.