Six people. Six people led by a nihilistic lunatic. That's all it took to modify the most deadly virus we've ever seen on earth and deliberately release it to the world. And none of them had any experience in gene editing before this. Three only had high school diplomas and mad internet research skills.
That epidemic was horrific, and it was only by blind chance and the amazing response by the Japanese government that their tailored disease didn't go planet-wide. If that had happened, we would have lost at least southern France and Syria, and probably Quebec City too. Can you imagine fighting the antithesis while also battling a full-on pandemic?
The treaty will be our first line of defense against micro terrorist groups like that. It will both keep the production of genetic printers out of their hands and also limit their ability to jailbreak known viruses into deadlier versions, which is what the Hokkaido virus was.
I signed under the personal and corporate signatory provisions, which will close the loophole of entities that are not bound by the laws of nations. And I'm proud to see that several key corporations like Moderna have signed on board.
It won't stop genetic research and using it to produce some of the most amazing medical advances in our era, but it will control who can just destroy the world on a whim.
-- Thandbar 2038
***
Another meter appeared in the lower left of my visor. It had an icon of a mule with both hind hooves lifted in a bucking motion beside a meter that showed three-quarters full.
Warned by Corie, I braced and found my target on the forward thorax. Even prepared for it, the recoil thrust me back half a meter. The round burst in a conical form right before impact, shattering the armor in a meter-wide circle. I needed that large, soft hole for my next round, whose delicate nature couldn’t punch through the hard shell and reach deep enough to do its work. I kept my aim on the broken armor as the model crossed the stream. As it started to crawl out, I fired again.
The shot found the exposed wound, and the M-12 jerked to a stop when the round activated inside it. I’d been waiting for a good chance to use this round. Once deployed, the Dimensionally Locked Anchor Round used technology similar to dimensional shunting to block any attempts to move the round. The large alien strained forward but then stopped, and I grimaced in sympathy.
With the round and its dozen extruded spikes locked in place, moving in any direction would result in heavy internal damage. The DLAR did not cause damage itself, unless the target was moving at high speed. But it did prevent the target from moving. That made it good for blocking up doorways or filling rivers to form impromptu bridges.
My sympathy didn’t prevent me from hitting the beast with three High Explosive rounds in the head, though. The beast relaxed into the stillness of death, hanging in the air suspended by the round inside it. The small fry models that had been hanging onto it made the short jump from its back to the southern shore, and soon others followed.
“You make that look easy. That was what? Six shots?” Gangnam must have been watching my efforts. “Can you make more bridges?”
“I can certainly try,” I said. I smiled to myself at the more experienced Samurai’s words. His praise eased a tension in my chest I’d had ever since the bullet train yesterday. It confirmed that I was on the right track with my shooting and that I had nothing to worry about taking on greater challenges. All I needed was some creativity and the right rounds.
The next two capital classes were Fourteens, and I managed to drop the first where it formed a full bridge, but for the second one I tried to get fancy and anchored the tail in place first. I’d hoped to drop the front while the alien lay all stretched out, but instead of pulling forward, the giant plant-bug curled back on itself to try to bite its own body and free itself. I ended up killing it with only half of the body in the river. It still let the models leap over the water, but not as effectively as its full-body-bridging brothers.
“Incoming, widespread of frags,” Gangnam warned as a barrage of missiles leapt out over the battlefield. They peaked, then split into dozens of fragments, which exploded on landing. The small fry were starting to build up, for which we needed broader effects.
I slowed down my fire, concentrating on taking out the M-6s and M-5s since we had a pause in capital class Anti’s coming through the gap. The army should be able to handle the Threes and Fours no matter how many came along.
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I tried some of the Rampage on M-5s, but they died too fast to their fellows, resulting in a net point loss. Against this horde of smaller models, my single shots were effective but inefficient. I'd have to get within the much shorter range of my flechettes to make an impact on the thousands of small fry now pushing through down in the valley. Unless I could affect more of them with one upper barrel round.
--The simplest way would be to throw out some aerosol canisters, but I don’t think you can throw that far.
--Are you thinking of using some of the Biochemicals in bulk?
--Everything you use can be cleaned up afterwards. I keep a record of what you use where, and we can always go back and release a counteragent, of which there are many. And the Vanguards who specialize in cleaning up incursions and hives will have no problem neutralizing the toxins long before they can become a problem.
I selected and eliminated the M-6s in the horde absent-mindedly while scrolling through my list of ammo types. One caught my eye.
--A quantity of material, usually an acid or other corrosive, is stored using a dimensional shunt. When the round, and it’s a large, slow one, hits, that material releases all at once, covering the target and an area around it. Due to the substances inside and the impact trigger, it’s a surprisingly focused area application.
--More complex triggers can be used, but it will decrease the amount of payload you can deliver. The default impact trigger takes up the least amount of space.
[“I have drones glitching all over, getting closer,”] Tara said in the chat before I could follow up with Corie. [“It’s coming fast!”] Her voice was tinged with panic.
Up the ridge, the tenor of the firing changed, switching from single pops to rapid bursts of automatic fire. I sprinted up the ridge towards the fire and switched to a fresh magazine of APHE rounds. The Armor Penetrating, High Explosive rounds made a good default when I didn’t know what to expect.
Coming around a bend in the path, I found a handful of troopers firing at a group of M-4s that were close and charging. I switched to the lower barrel on the Deuce and shot off a burst of flechettes. In my visor, I directed the finned needles, seeking out the vulnerable points on the aliens.
As the second burst flew out, I realized that all of the first set had missed. And the second ones now also flew wide. As the distance closed still more, I fired one last burst, being careful to target the center of mass on the aliens. One of the targets, the center in the array, caught the whole burst in its body and crumpled.
--The EMI is exceedingly high. It must be interfering with the commands to direct the rounds.
As she said this, I became aware of the shiver grating on my bones.
The aliens were on me now, and I switched to melee, slinging the Deuce on my back and drawing both swords in one motion. The troopers behind me had been retreating as they fired, which left me as the closest target, and the aliens swarmed around me.
The first one lashed a tentacle at me, only to lose the limb when I parried it. I stepped in and stabbed it deep before spinning away to pull my blade out and slice the head off another. A few seconds later, I had several diced M-4s at my feet and none standing. What I hadn’t killed with the Longknives, the troopers had finished off. A quick flick of the wrist each to remove the blood, and I switched back to the Deuce. Behind me, the troopers stared, one literally having his jaw hanging open.
“There’s more where they came from,” I said. “Wherever that was.” The jaw-dropped private pointed further down the path, then snapped out of it and turned to start firing into the valley below.
I ran on and found another clearing, where several more M-4s were attacking another firing position. I raised the rifle and fired a burst of flechettes. Again, a complete miss of every missile. The flechettes were still acting like simple ballistic rounds: striking as hard as ever, but nowhere near where I had directed them.
At the same time, a familiar bulbous body peaked over the tree line and dropped on the troopers. The long front legs speared a trooper while I was still turning. Its four-jawed head dropped and caught the woman in the torso.
I fired, first a short burst of useless, undirected flechettes into the neck, before switching to the upper barrel on the upper abdomen. The explosive rounds turned small holes into large chunks as they went off deep inside. I hammered the body as fast as I could pull the trigger, and my shots rang out as fast as a machine gun on full auto.
An eternity measured in eight rounds later, the durable alien released the screaming trooper. Before it could find a new victim, I switched to the head, and soon it lay dead on the ground. The pincers just missed crushing the body below it.
The shiver subsided. And a swarm of my flechettes, finally behaving again, swept the area of Fours in seconds. As I turned to the hurt trooper, I noted, without seeing, the sergeant’s insignia and long blonde hair. Several people knelt around her already, administering bandages, but their expressions were grim. One of them looked at another, eyebrow raised. His look was met with a slight head shake and thinned lips.
When I tried to push in, one of the troopers held me back until I quietly said, “Samurai healing might make the difference.”