Chapter Thirty-Five - Sally Out
Chapter Thirty-Five - Sally Out
"Often, when fighting the Antithesis, there is an almost instinctual desire to stay hidden and protected behind walls and barriers, keeping the enemy at bay with traps and large, cleared lines of sight.
For all of human history until now, keeping your distance from local predators and creating impassable barriers has been enough to keep you safe.
This is a mistake with the Antithesis."
Your Guide to Walls, 4th Edition, 2046
*
The door slowly closed, foot-thick steel moving at about the same speed as a grandma could walk until the view into the outside of the city was closed off with a heavy thump.
With how slow that was, it might be impossible to mount a truly 'surprise' attack. The aliens would see it opening.
Oh well. I moved myself aside, the mech took up a fair bit of space and there were lots of vehicles on the move. Once I wasn't in their way, I glanced over the overall tactical situation.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a fancy plotter or anything. The only thing I could rely on was listening in on the army's comms, and those were a well-organized mess. Half of the messages were in code. Not to be secretive, but they were numbered codes that meant something to the people supposed to be listening in on the conversation, and it kept them from having to explain things.
Unfortunately, I wasn't learned into those, so the numbers and chatter meat fuck all to me. A few were explaining things in a way that I did get, however.
"Fuck! We've got three big bogeys that made it past the AA!" a young man called in a panic.
I glanced up and saw three massive black blurs swoop past the top of the wall. Two of them dipped down, and a third swept upwards. That last one was killed almost immediately. There were automated guns set up at even intervals maybe a hundred metres from the wall that spun around and delivered a devastating brrt that left the alien punched full of holes.
It tumbled down, and I noticed that as it fell, little Model Ones came falling off of it.
That was going to be a pain.
The other two, however, were low enough that the automated guns didn't fire at them. Probably some sort of safety cut-off, to prevent the guns from blasting holes into the backside of the wall and damaging other equipment.
It wasn't long before they adjusted their flight and made for the artillery guns.
"Dammit," I muttered.
Then the two Model Elevens twisted and bucked in mid-air. In a blink, they were pinned through by long spikes, each one at least a couple of metres long, like thin black spears. The aliens lost the ability to fly soon after and came crashing down a few metres away from the nearest artillery piece.
I glanced around for the person responsible and found Hedgehog looking down at a tablet not too far off. He wasn't even paying attention, but there was a large military-looking thing next to him. All matt and green, with a flat board at the front that had little spear-tips poking out of it. A few of those were missing.
An anti-air spear launcher of some sort? Maybe they were rockets. If so, they moved damned fast, because I hadn't seen them until they were punched through the Model Elevens.
I switched my focus onto the livestream. The chat was moving just as fast. The livestream drone was hovering somewhere over the wall, and was mostly focused on the incoming tide of aliens.
Our artillery was doing a number on the Antithesis. Every second or two there was another explosion, an even split between direct-impact high explosives and air-burst rounds.
Still, the aliens were spreading out, and even with explosions landing inside of the wall of smoke they were spewing out, it was hard to see what was going on in there except for the occasional glimpse.
There was a lot of doomerism in the livestream chat. Plenty of 'you're fucked' and 'y'all deads.' I could kind of understand it. We were probably killing a hundred aliens a minute, but there were thousands, maybe ends of thousands of the assholes.
I still didn't know how they planned on making it past the wall.
Still... the wall would hold better with more bodies, and people wouldn't panic so much if there was something they could do about their impending doom.
"Myalis, can I link into the stream, to talk?" I asked.
Certainly. Just say when.
I nodded, then opened the cockpit up. "Hey, can I get a drink real quick? Something with caffeine."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A can appeared in my hand, cold enough that it almost stung my fleshy fingers when I grabbed it, so I switched hands, then I stood up so that I was half in and half-out of the MEOW.
"Alright, switch coms on," I said.
You're live.
The livestream camera slowly spun around, then zoomed in on me. I hadn't done it on purpose, but my mech was parked halfway between the shadow of the wall and the sunlight, so the image was pretty badass as I set a foot on the edge of the cockpit. I cracked the can open, which made a nice, satisfying noise. "Hey, you fucks listening to this shit. If you're just going to whine and complain, then shut the fuck up. If you want to do something about it, you could have volunteered to help a few weeks ago. Next best time to get off your ass is now. Grab a gun and come shoot some aliens or something. Morons. Otherwise, stop being a bitch in the comments and let the adults handle this."
I cut the comms off, then downed the entire can while the camera slowly panned away.
That ought to do it, yeah?
I tossed the can aside, then fell back into my seat. The livestream had returned to the aliens just in time to see the first of them run into Gomorrah's minefield.
The first mine jumped off the ground a metre ahead of an approaching Model Three, then blasted the alien with a short-lived spray of direct fire before covering the area all around with more liquid flames that clung to the ground and created a circle of fire that the next aliens ran around to avoid... and right into the next set of mines.
That was slowing the advance down, at least a little, but the rest of the horde was coming closer anyway.
At the range they were now at--maybe a hundred and fifty metres from the wall--soldiers were able to pick them out with rifle fire, and they did. The aliens spewing fog ate some AP rounds to their tentacle-y faces and went down, and the cloud of gas rose, at least a little.
It revealed what was behind, which confused the shit out of me, because it was mostly Model Tens.
Those were not the strongest. They were about as tall as my hip, with six arms equipped with good grippers, but that was about it. They were like chimps, really, and I'd rarely seen them outside of the area right next to a hive.
They were gardeners, not soldiers. So why were there a few thousand of the fucks out here?
Between them were Model Fifteens, which did make sense. They were bigger, more artillery-like aliens, a cross between a trebuchet and a grasshopper able to flick these fat balls of exploding crap across a battlefield.
And they started to do just that. I caught blurs before their first projectiles crashed into the wall and did... not too much, from the looks of it.
I frowned. That was wasteful and stupid, it didn't track.
The camera drone moved forwards a little and turned, taking in the wall which seemed mostly undamaged except that a few rare bits had splotches on them. The impacts looked like they had stuck to the wall, spreading long fibrous ropes around.
The next wave came, then a third half a minute later. Our own guns were taking down the Model Fifteens as quickly as they could reload and zero in on them.
Then, at some unknown signal, the Antithesis rushed forwards. All of the Model Tens turning into a tide that scampered with surprising speed.
They triggered more mines, were swept up by overlapping fields of machinegun fire, and were picked off by the soldiers on the wall, and they kept coming anyway, climbing over bodies to rush over.
Was that the plan? To make a corpse ramp to the top?
But no.
I felt a shiver run down my spine as the first Model Ten reached the wall, jumped, and gripped onto the ropey tendrils left behind by the Model Fifteen's attack.
"Ah, shit," I said.
They'd made a ladder for themselves, of a sort. A shitty net ladder that the Model Tens climbed up with the speed of a cocained-up chimp. They were more than small enough to slip through the narrow windows that soldiers were shooting out of.
There was a buzz in my ears, then Gomorrah was talking. "Catherine. I'll clean the wall off in a few minutes. I need someone to take out those Model Fifteens. Lieutenant Colonel Juno has cleared the use of some walking mechanized units. They're going to need an escort."
"Alright, I'm down to sally out," I said.
It'd be more fun than sitting back here and waiting. Though... I did need to piss, so it'd have to be fast.
*