Slothman Sam: What you mean?
Radman76: Like, if one hive comes up with a new model, how does that get spread out? It spreads really fast.
Slothman Sam: maybe they just send out a tree dog to the next one over, and then on to the next and so forth.
Radman76: Can’t be that: when the first M-3b showed up in Western China, within weeks it was seen on every continent except Australia… yes, even Antarctica.
El Jeffe: Carrier pigeons
Moon Joyfinder: Hummingbirds are known to migrate over oceans
Slothman Sam: Antarctica? Wouldn’t they freeze?
El Jeffe: Naw, tigers and snow leopards are very closely related, so it would be easy to adapt the tiger influence to colder climes.
Radman76: Even a tree-chicken has to fly that distance. How fast is the natural long-distance flight record? I think it takes most birds months to do their migrations.
Moon Joyfinder: Do you think they have some kind of telepathy?
Radman76: Maybe long-range pheromones? IDK, they have to have some way to talk hive to hive.
Radman76: and if they can do that for model info, who’s to say they can’t coordinate their efforts? Or talk to other planets?
Slothman Sam: scary thought.
--Online chat forum, 2047
***
From my height, I could see the greater pattern of antithesis movement. A wave of change passed through the crowds like a breeze bending the ripe wheat as the Kill Me scent hit them. A quarter of the antithesis that had passed through turned around and started running back, crowding each other to attack at the pheromone-laden human. North of the gap, a few hundred more aliens still pushed in, but they too rushed at the surrounded Samurai
RAV moved away from the mobile hive’s corpse and started a spinning, moving dance of death with the smallfry aliens. His axe flashed out around him, always moving and never still, no matter how many aliens he killed. But one last capital class remained on the field, and it lifted up cobra-style to half leap at the Samurai.
The blow sent RAV flying to the side, and he rolled several meters in the dirt before coming up and facing the M-22. I forced my eyes away from that fight, as exciting as it would be to watch. The aliens coming back to attack RAV needed to be stopped or at least delayed.
I swapped in the mag, braced on a fallen tree, and started rapidly firing. My previous experience of getting bounced around from the large rounds paid off, as I only jumped heavily in place with each shot. With my shots, I drew an invisible arc about twenty meters from RAV, forming a wall of pheromone between the Samurai and the frontline horde.
Below, a loud ululation rang over the hillsides as RAV stuffed the Fourteen’s mouth, now missing pincers, with some kind of device. He bounced to the side and circled around to the M-14’s back, using the alien’s own body as a shield from the explosion. As it went off, I could see the Samurai leaning to one side and holding an arm close to his ribs. The Fourteen’s presence had held back the small fry, with the alien’s guts flying all over from the explosion, the swarm again surged in.
RAV began his dance again, moving more freely with what looked like several broken ribs than I expected, but he still didn’t take any steps to limit the horde coming his way. I wanted to yell at him. Even just moving closer to the corpse of the Twenty-Two would offer some relief or at least an unthreatened direction.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
My pheromone defensive line held; any antithesis that tried to cross the wall fed the dog-eat-dog melee as it started tearing into and being torn by its companions. That stopped any new ones from approaching, but I couldn’t shoot closer to RAV for fear of including him in the area of effect and making his situation worse. And even just on the south side, I estimated several hundred aliens still milled for their chance at the Samurai. Even worse, from where I stood, I couldn’t reach the even greater numbers to the north. A tree and boulder blocked my way.
RAV still kept killing the aliens in ones and twos as they closed into range of his axe. But his movements slowed, no longer as crisp and fast as before. I zoomed in and saw sweat drenching his shirt, and he was breathing heavier. That highlighted the problem: only dribbles and draps were dying while RAV continued to tire. Sooner or later, some alien was going to get lucky, and before I could say “boo,” he’d be literally buried in alien bodies, all trying to eat him.
What really killed me was that I had the perfect solution in my hands. The underbarrel and my guided flechettes were meant for this kind of battle, if only I could get in range. But the flechette’s lethality dropped off fast starting around two hundred meters. I’d never hurt a fly shooting them over the four hundred meters between me and RAV, even if most of that was vertical.
--Certainly. I have a number of options. Did you want a recommendation or a range of options?
Below me, RAV flung his offhand in a circle, and instantly a rumbling cascade of explosions ripped over the battle. He repeated the action, and the aliens dropped in clumps. As the space opened around him, I saw him pluck a can out of the air and down it. His shoulders lifted, and he moved with greater energy.
“See? I told you he’d be fine.” Gangnam had apparently been watching the fight too. “Like I said, he needs to work it out.”
“You mean like therapy?”
“That too. But really, it’s the drugs. He uses a ton of combat enhancers, but most of them have a bloodlust side effect. I sure couldn’t do what he does; the comedown and aftereffects are brutal. But a puny horde like this? Even for a melee Samurai like him, this is easy now that the big guys are gone.”
I continued to watch, since an accident could happen to anyone, but I had to admit that RAV could handle the horde on his own.
--So no descender?
Corie’s petulant tone was belied by an undercurrent of humor.
--Okay! As I said, I have several options that would work, both for just going down a cliff or building and ones that could be used in other situations too.
I pulled up my list app and added a note about a battlefield mobility device
--For the descender, there’s a full grapple system that integrates well with the Gekko peds. It does more than just let you drop safely. It can be used for climbing and swinging over spaces too…
As Corie listed options and we discussed the pros and cons, I kept an eye on RAV. Eventually, the horde ran down, leaving only a large mass milling around the original lure. With a bit of focused fire and a few satchel explosives, even that was gone. The troopers below started to sweep the valley, and those on the ridges turned to clear the northern slopes.
“Well, that leaves us with nothing but the cleanup.” I said in the Samurai chat. “How do we do that, each take a section? Or pool the points or what?”
“We’ll leave it for the specialists,” Gangnam said dismissively. “There’s both troops and Samurai that focus on cleanup efforts. The troops need experience, and the Samurai need points.” From the south, a convoy of trucks and buses started pulling up and disgorging people and equipment. “Besides, we aren’t done yet. There’s still the main hive. The commander’s asking for a face-to-face; I bet it’s to ask about our willingness to come along.”
[“How’s the backslope? Do I need to make a sweep?”]
[“What’s left, the troopers can handle. I’m sending updates to CILS of the ones that leaked through. They’d pout if we didn’t let them handle a couple Fours.”] As Tara spoke, I became aware of sporadic gunfire to the north of the ridge.
[“Good. I’m being called into a meeting with the commander. That should be about relocating to the hive.”]
[“Command channel’s full of troop orders, readying them to move out. Some of them are already loading up.”] Ginny reported from the command channels in CILS. [“On another note, I received an email from Kwoldanske Construction, asking if we have enough points to buy the materials Monday?”]
My points counter read 12,188. [“Unless something goes seriously wrong at the hive, we’re good.”]
[“Okay, I’ll let them know that you can drop materials off in the morning?”]
[“Yes, but not too early.”]
[“I’ll set it up. Master Centurion Rogers was asking for you in the company chat. He says he has a car at the south end of the ridge if you want to join him. He has to go to the meeting too.”]
[“Okay, I’m on my way.”]