--Popular T-shirt meme
***
On my mini-map, eight circles appeared in the general area of the antithesis. The Threes were about halfway to us, followed by a smaller wave of Fours loping along with their tentacles flapping behind them. I ignored the small fry and turned to the Twelves, who had started to flap their wings. Their glowing hind abdomens made beacons in the darkness.
I held out my hand, and a new magazine dropped into it, which I swapped in. First I shot another of the same rounds I’d been using on the Fifteens. The second shot, also fired at the same target, thrust me back halfway over the combine, thanks to being much larger. When the round hit, the abdomen flickered, then went black.
I let out a breath of relief after seeing that. Shutting down the ECM of the Model Twelves was critical to the plan. I’d thought about going straight to killing the Twelves, but I wasn’t confident in making that many quick kills in a row at this range. I had no choice but to hit them while standing out in the open. The only cover I could make would hide both sides from the other if the ECM stayed active.
Corie had promised that the EMP round would block the jamming of the antithesis, but trusting our whole strategy on an untried round was difficult. I was relieved to see the round working as intended. I quickly gave the other three Twelves the same double tap, ending just as the first dog-like alien leapt onto the combine. I rolled onto my back and kicked at it, sending it over the edge.
“Go! Go!” I yelled as I stood up. “Make to the right side and straight on up. Corie will guide you.”
--Aria Continuous Smoke Generator started…It’s time for this old gal to sing!
A massive volume of smoke billowed out of the long-tubed auger as the combine moved forward. The sudden motion caught some of the antithesis off guard, and they fell under its treads.
“Almost makes me wish I’d brought the corn head.” Laurie said. “But it’s too flacking expensive, and I’d never get enough for that from the flackers.”
I jumped off into the smoke using my visor’s compass to navigate. The emitter on the combine could cover a half acre in seconds, putting out a dense smoke that confounded both visible and infrared vision. I would have found navigation impossible if not for the compass and millimeter wave radar in my visor and the auric senses from my upgrades.
I started off going west to where a treeline offered a little cover. Along the short run, I paused three times to buy and place a small array of knee-high tubes set in a box, slanting up slope.
I asked as I set the last one and turned upslope.
--They’ll reach. The Concerto Launcher has an effective range of five hundred meters. The slope isn’t steep enough to matter.
Side mission completed, I ran up the hill until the smoke thinned out. Taking a stance, I switched the Deuce’s upper barrel to a large-capacity magazine mostly full of Armor Piercing High Explosive rounds. However, one in five had a Corrosive payload instead. Since I’d be firing blind, I wanted the extended damage as a backup. On the drive up I’d put in a fresh power pack and magazine of flechettes, so I was now ready to rock.
I started with the highest priority threat, setting the reticle on the nearest M-12’s signal. With the EM tracker round embedded in it and its interference down, the signal served as a spotlight that cut through the thickest smoke. A small circle showed in my visor, indicating the tracker’s general position. Since the radio positioning wasn’t precise, I settled for volume, firing several groups of shots at and around the tracker. I knew I’d hit when the signal veered, then dropped suddenly. I flagged it as dead when it stopped moving.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The air stirred to my left, tickling my Auric Sensor, and I ducked under the leaping M-3 that followed. The Deuce landed at my feet while I drew pistol and sword.
The sword flashed up, slicing the Three in thirds while I fired the laser in another direction, killing an M-4 before it could see me. A quick little melee occurred where I twisted and dodged the blind attacks by Threes and Fours drawn to my fire. The air displaced ahead of them tickled my auric symbiont, showing their location and velocity often before they could even find me. With the way the smoke degraded the lasers, I could sense them farther than I could shoot.
After killing the incoming aliens for several minutes, they trickled off, then stopped coming. I held still, listening. In the distance, the combine downshifted, followed by the crunching of splitting wood. When I faced uphill, it was to my right and behind some.
“What the flack? Was that a chicken coop?” Laura said. “That better not flack my drive shaft, or I’ll be truly flacked.” Corie was leading her on a swerving path up the hillside, adding to the confusion.
“Fire the Concertos,” I said while I cast about for where I’d dropped my rifle. “Kill your headlights.” I found the Deuce half under a diced M-3 and wiped alien blood off it. A series of dull thuds rang out downslope. Ahead of me I heard a smaller impact, followed by a hiss, then all around me, the smoke began thickening again.
“Full spread fired,” Corie reported. “Laura, turn right a bit…Now straight. And gun it.”
A short sprint uphill and a bit to the right cleared my line on the next Twelve. This time I didn’t fire as many bursts and moved more between them. It soon plummeted, and I could see the tracker bouncing down the slope.
“-Grunt-” Laura’s mechanical voice was back.
I double-checked, and the M-12 was close to the combine, based on the trackers.
“You okay there?” I asked.
“Yeah. That whatever rolled into me. Bounced the chassis about and added a few more dents for the insurance company is all.”
I continued working my way up the slope, taking out groups of the smaller antithesis if necessary, but concentrating on the M-12s. I wanted to be sure they couldn’t restart their ECM. When the last of them were no longer flying, I switched to blade and pistol and closed in on the landing places.
In the smoke, even with the auric senses and millimeter wave radar, it was easy to become disoriented. When I stumbled on the first capital class corpse, I jumped as a wall jumped out of the gloom, startling me. I shot it several times before I sheepishly realized it hadn’t reacted. A quick check in infrared confirmed the dropping temperature of a dead body, so I labeled the tracker signal as a kill and moved on. In my visor, one of the other trackers changed to a confirmed kill.
“You think you can stop me, you tiny little Six? You’ll have to get bigger for that. Too late! You go squish!” Laura sounded like she was having fun. I could picture her grinning from ear to ear as she drove the combine against the invasive plants.
I found the garage structure and a convenient piece of equipment to climb onto the roof. If the Threes and Fours kept their search to the ground, I could concentrate on the Fifteens. The slope of the metal-clad roof rose away to the north, troublesome but not dangerous. With the added traction of my boots, I felt safe standing and walking up it.
My prey were straight ahead: a long line of M-15e tracker beacons, lined up and ready for the slaughter. Again, I had to spray and pray around the trackers, and I ran sideways on the roof between shots, secure in the belief that the darkness would protect me.
The first two stopped moving after several volleys. But, as I fired on the third M-15e’s tracker, I felt a wave of something heading at me fast in my auric senses. I dropped to the roof, and a handful of impacts rang on my helmet and chest, along with several stings on my exposed arms and legs.
The force of so many impacts pushed me back. I stumbled and rolled down the backside of the roof, sliding on the slick surface until I slammed a hand down. The Gekko ped glove glommed onto the roof like those industrial electromagnets used to carry giant chunks of metal. With a wrench on my shoulder, I came to a stop with my feet over the edge and a death grip on the Deuce with my other hand.
Above me I could feel hundreds of spines passing by as I scrambled to get my feet on the roof. I lay protected by the angle of the roof and the smoke-filled darkness. A quick check showed a couple slices along my arms and one embedded deep in my thigh.
--Yes, you should. You might want an antidote too.