Chapter 79 – There is no kill like Overkill

Chapter 79 – There is no kill like Overkill

“You gotta make sure they’re dead. And there’s only one way to guarantee that.”

“Maybe, but did you have to nuke an entire countryside? Fuck’s sake, did we as a species learn nothing from the german deadzone?”

- Overheard conversation between Samurai Overkill and Samurai Pestilence, 2056

Fighting aliens all alone was exhausting work. Sure, the Queen’s Guard were helping as much as they could, but I was very glad when it was time to call it a night. A sentiment the rest of Us shared.

Tiny getting wounded kind of sucked, since it put her out of commission for the night, but at least she was still alive. Taking on this many high level xenos wasn’t easy, and her only losing a pincer and an eye was a pretty good outcome.

She did have some ideas about upgrades for herself, which I more or less just waved through without any complaints. She most certainly earned it, in my opinion. And it would finally enable her to talk properly, so that was another definite plus.

Of course, she also got some armor upgrades. It was quite surprising how much she was able to do with even basic elements like carbon. I always thought that one was just the bad stuff making climate change worse, but apparently it could be used for something called ‘graphene’, which was very good at reinforcing the composite armor Tiny had put together.

So far I hadn’t really cared much to learn more about physics and chemistry, but even I had to admit that it was kind of interesting to see what you could do with that.

When I woke up the next morning, Bahamut and Glubber were getting everyone ready for the first phase of the final push. Spark had spent the entire night reinforcing Jenna’s defensive lines with the help of her Sentinels and a few of Us.

The forests were beginning to sprout, and Jenna had started to upgrade her Sentinels with the electric weapons Spark had at her disposal. We couldn’t really use them, since they required a power source which we didn’t have. Sure, we could have evolved for that, but it didn’t seem worth the effort, since we had other weapons to use.

Regardless, with the foundation for Sparks defensive forests now done, we could finally start our preparations for the first part of the final push. Jenna had reorganised her troops, sending whatever Sentinel she could spare to reinforce the Hive we had held so far.

It allowed Us to pull back a good chunk of our own troops, which were now getting ready to push to the core in one go and smash the xenos there decisively. Needless to say, it wouldn’t be easy, Kaysa was pretty sure that the model Twenty-Three would be done growing now, and the aliens had reinforced their own horde quite a bit in the meantime.

The Twenty-Three would be my responsibility to deal with. I should be able to kill it without too much trouble, according to Kaysa, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. The rest of Us would deal with everything else. To that end, we had spent roughly seventy thousand points to reinforce them as much as we were able, get them as much gear as we could, and otherwise prepare as many War Drones as was feasible.

Originally we wanted to do the limiter deactivation simulation that night, but because of the developing situation, we decided against it. The risk of the rest of Us still defending against the xenos, trying to push back, getting distracted was too great.

Immersing myself fully into the harmony, something that was straining Us quite a bit by this point, we turned our attention to the meeting at hand. Bahamut was going over troop placements, our angle of attack, and what to do in emergencies. It was mostly concerning the other Samurai, both Neuron Salvation and we would organise ourselves on our own.

Speaking about Neuron Salvation, she had also gotten as strong as she was able, getting help from other Samurai who shared their catalogues with her to get her as equipped as she could be. Her bodies were far less resilient than our Hexclaws, but with all the additional gear that gulf was by far not as vast anymore.

To that end, she had also gotten some Dream Learning courses to help with the fighting, as well as whatever course she thought would be even remotely helpful. A benefit she enjoyed, one we could not really take advantage of, was that she could have multiple bodies experience Dream Learning and get the full benefit from it. It allowed her to learn much more in one night than we could.

Both of us had a lot of points to spare, despite our preparation, in case we needed them deeper down. We would very likely make a lot of points either way, but we both wanted to have that lifeline.

We were currently standing on the surface, next to a contraption that Bobby had put down. The plan was to bury directly into the core of the Hive with the forces we were able to spare, while the rest of Us attacked from all sides. It was risky, but this way we would be able to corner the aliens much more effectively. The hope was that presenting multiple fronts would help Us push through.

While the antithesis had a lot of bodies to throw at Us, we had drained their resources quite a bit over the last few days. With Us being able to replenish our own troops with points, a resource we could easily replenish, it should give Us the upper hand in such a split approach.

It required the Spotters, of course, so we had spread them out to all our forces, to ensure we always had a way to replenish ourselves. We would very likely lose many of our voices, something we really didn’t like, but it was a sacrifice we would have to accept if we wanted to ensure we could crush the xenos without them spreading out even more.

Chloe and Bobby would help with the push deeper into the Hive, while Jenna was on duty to keep the surroundings clear of any xenos. If things went sideways, it was her job to bomb the xenos with impunity. The Corvette was floating overhead, loaded up with mines and bombs courtesy of Bobby and Chloe. Her Enforcer was standing by close to the entrance point we would open up.

“We’re ready down here,” Chloe reported over the comms channel.

“As am I. Weapons are loaded and primed for fire,” Jenna added.

We nodded at that. “Good. We are ready as well. Everything is in position and ready to deploy.”

Our Protector had also been loaded up with as many heatbombs as Chloe could fit, a small contingent of War Drones waiting in her seating area. They would deploy the bombs the moment we had the core of the Hive weakened enough. So far we didn’t know what exactly would await Us, which is why we had decided to have her burrow in once we got a better idea of what was waiting for Us.

“The sensors are all prepped, the drill is ready for prime time,” Bobby said after a moment. “It’ll take a moment to get through to the core, then another for it to blow the entrance open for you to get through. I hope you have a plan on how to get down there.”

That was a problem, for which we had obtained two additional Juggernauts. They held a good portion of our forces, and would deposit them in the core of the Hive. At first we wanted to use them exclusively to burrow down, but Bobby had quite reasonably suggested opening up the top of the Hive so that the Corvette could lay down fire if need be.

“I am ready for deployment,” Neuron Salvation reported over the general channel.

“As are we. Got everything prepped as much as we can,” Virillion added.

Slowly we continued to push them back, winning more and more ground. Things got a bit dicey once the Twenty-Ones arrived, but now with our Protector and our Hive-Queen available, plus the wounds the aliens had already suffered, they were dispatched in short order, only managing to wound our Protector slightly.

A sudden explosion rang out, and part of the wall into the core collapsed, revealing Chloe rushing in with weapons at the ready. Behind her a group of Us filed in, the War Drones immediately starting to fire into the mess of aliens forced to get closer and closer to the flames our Protector had laid down.

It marked the final turning point for our victory, and as one we flooded the aliens desperately trying to defend. The War Drones, still stored away in our Protector’s seating area, began to prepare the heatbombs, placing them around the core whenever our Protector walked past.

Our defensive lines started to push forward, slowly making our way over to the opposite side of the cave, to push deeper into the Inner circle and take out the last remaining aliens still around.

Bobby, meanwhile, was making his way around the other side, also closing in on the core. It forced the aliens to flee towards the west, which was the most lightly defended side of the Hive. We had placed quite a few autonomous defences there, but the goal was not to entirely stop them, simply to slow them down so we could slowly crush their forces until nothing was left.

It took a little while to evacuate the core, slowly pushing into the rest of the Hive. Our Protector burrowed down once more, leaving behind only the heat bombs that were now in position. Once we had put sufficient distance between Us and the core, we could detonate them, thoroughly cleaning out any remaining antithesis biomass.

Our Feastmaster was doing her best to pull as much useful biomass out as she could, through the opening in the ceiling, since once the bombs went off there would be nothing left for Us to salvage.

We met a final hurdle, when we pushed towards the west side, finding another larger cave filled with a bigger Hive node. Model Thirteens met Us and decimated a good chunk of our troops, before we overwhelmed them, finding a model Twenty-Two being grown. It was luckily not far enough along to present a threat, and we quickly burned it down, before we cleaned out the rest of the cave.

Most of the aliens were dealt with by this point, but it had cost Us dearly. We had still managed to get an overall point surplus, but we had to get many more drones during the duration of the fight. Now we would have to spread out once more, placing more heat bombs and making sure that we did not miss any hidden pockets of antithesis.

Truth be told, we were glad that we got closer to the finish line. Our concentration was beginning to falter, our mental exhaustion far too great. For days we had kept up the harmony, and after today, between all the deaths and the endless fighting, we were running low on energy.

It had even escaped Us that we had taken nearly the entire day clearing the Hive, concentrated as we had been. It made Us worried about the second part of our attack, since we really could not be sure if we could keep it up long enough. Perhaps it was time for Us to take a break. A proper break.

But that had to wait. We still had to flush out the last antithesis and make sure the entire place was cleared out.

It took until late evening before we were confident that we did not miss anything. Slowly we pulled our forces out of the Hive, leaving behind a number of heat bombs that would turn much of the area into a slagged mess. If anything still lived down there, it wouldn’t by the time we were done. Not with the temperatures that Chloe was throwing at the problem.

Watching from afar, we gave Chloe the signal and she activated the heat bombs. Heat bombs being heat bombs, there was no explosion. Really, at first nothing seemed to happen at all. It got to the point where we were wondering if something went wrong.

Then we could feel it. The Silthens noticed it first, the slowly rising temperature around the Hive, and once the first change was felt, it increased rapidly. Within only a few minutes the entire area was hot enough for the last few bits of remaining grass to catch fire.

More and more it rose, until the visible heat haze made it hard to watch. Even from a few hundred meters away we could feel the immense heat, and the entire area slowly began to slag, the stone melting and the soil slowly turning into a strange hard and brittle mess.

“I may have overdone it on the heat bombs,” Chloe muttered over the comms. “I didn’t want to slag the entire place, only burn it out. This will make the replanting a lot more complicated.”

“I was about to say,” Spark agreed, sounding a bit miffed. “This will take days to fix, and for that everything needs to cool down first.” She sighed dramatically, “I suppose, at least this way, no antithesis can use this area anymore. You destroyed any and all useful materials in there for them to use. Really, we will have to replace the entire section of land if we want anything to grow here ever again. Moisture, nutrients, any elements that are needed and typically locked in crystalline structures or captured in the rock and ground will be gone.”

“Sorry, Spark. I thought it was better to be safe than sorry, but this is far more than I anticipated.” Chloe said in a remorseful tone.

Again the energetic woman sighed, “It’s fine, I guess. Will just need more work. I’ll think about what to do.”

We watched for a little longer, our harmony slowly dissolving as the mental exhaustion became too much. Emerging from the chorus, I stretched, once more in my Kitsune form. “I think it’s time for a break. We are fucking tired...”

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed, yawning, “Time to call it a day and have some res-”

She was interrupted by a whole tidal wave of pings and warnings from the surveillance systems that Snapshot had placed around the northernmost Hive. For a moment the flood of information was almost overwhelming, and when I finally had the time to go over it all, Bahamut came on the horn.

“All units, prepare for combat. The last Hive was just breached, something big is pushing through. From the readings, I’d say it’s a model Twenty-Four variant of some kind, although I can’t be certain. We need feet on the ground now!”

I groaned, but didn’t waste any time, shifting my form into that of a Envoli Raptor and quickly took to the skies. “We’re on our way. Anything you can tell Us?”

“Only that it’s big, it’s powerful, and it opened a direct way into the core. We have hundreds, if not thousands of aliens crawling out of it. Hold up... We see more big models on the scanners now. There’s too much interference to make any coherent guesses.”

Bahamut’s declaration was met with silence for a moment.

“Guess sleep has to wait... I’m on my way,” Chloe muttered, sounding decidedly pissed.

And we agreed with that. We were tired and exhausted. This entire expedition turned out to be a massive pain in the arse. And, of course, thank be ol’ Murphy, shit wouldn’t go according to plan all the way through to the end...



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