Book 6 - Chapter 37 - Fungal Solution
I casually followed a missile as it streaked over my head, crossed no-man’s land, and smashed right into a Model Twenty-Eight the instant it stepped into the kill zone.
The bears were getting better and better at dispatching the large models, wiping them out at extreme range with the portable missile systems so the combination of rotary laser cannons and small arms could deal with the smaller models. A couple hours ago I probably would have been worried about spending too many points or wasting missiles against the ‘basic’ Antithesis units, but now I was more concerned about keeping the Antithesis far enough back that if the Antithesis sent another wave of titanic units against us, we’d have enough time to respond.
Besides, I was swimming in points right now. Even when they didn’t have the titanic siege and support models to support them, the Antithesis refused to let up the attack. Although I suspected that the Antithesis must have some sort of strategic intelligence in the hive, I was starting to question how smart it could actually be. The Antithesis just continued to throw wave upon wave of troops at Grand Falls with little apparent regard for the losses they were suffering or the lack of gains.
Granted, they were retrieving about ninety percent of the biomass from their losses, and they were able to reproduce fast enough to keep this assault up nearly permanently, however even a bad commander should have realized by now that not only were they not making progress, but they were being pushed further and further back over time.
Maybe the hive had such prodigious reproductive capabilities that they could keep up the assault here while sending waves through the newly dug super highways and repelling the assault rolling in from the East, but if that was the case, wouldn’t it have been better to focus on a single front rather than spreading out?
I just didn’t get it.
After shaking my head for a second, I triggered the vision enhancement module built into my helmet and zoomed in on the Antithesis lines several hundred meters away. Both Nora and Mud were out there, ripping the Antithesis apart.
Nora was bouncing from one heavy target to the next, jumping high into the air before engaging the jets and whatever other specialty tech she had built into her armor to smash down foot first on whatever threat was nearby.
When I looked at her now, it was hard to believe the two of us had been trapped together under a mountain deep in the rocky mountains, struggling to hold back the Twenty-Threes that formed the backbone of the forces there. Now Nora was killing them almost effortlessly, smashing their skulls with a single blow, while my bears blew them apart the instant they entered line of sight.
We’d come a long way.
As I panned over the battlefield, searching for Mud’s vehicle, something else caught my attention. It was a hovercar coming in fast, skirting the edge of the battlefield. Normally I’d be quite concerned seeing someone driving into an active battle zone in a civilian vehicle, but it was hard to mistake this pickup, especially when it was dragging a lab module behind it.
I opened up my augs and sent a quick message to the Wild, Hoppy and Mud. [I’m pretty sure our dose of Anti fungal just arrived, CBeRN’s here. I’m going to meet him.]
After hopping off the wall, I casually jogged towards the town gate. Based upon Bern’s trajectory, he was probably aiming to come in just behind our lines, so I raced to catch him. As his truck passed overhead, I sent out a quick command for the bears in town to clear the road and make a place for him.
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By the time I reached the gate, his truck was just touching down, settling into a parking lot that the bears had been using to reload the Kodiaks.
“Hey Bern,” I called, running over. “When I heard The Family was sending someone out to deliver the antifungal I didn’t expect you to deliver it yourself.”
The middle aged man looked around confused for a minute, adjusted the thick glasses on his face, until he finally spotted me. “Oh Evelyn, hello! Yes, well, they offered to send a courier, but I wanted to observe the phage’s effectiveness for myself, and this seemed like a good place to do it.”
I looked Bern up and down. The first time I’d seen him outside of his suit, I hadn’t recognized him. He didn’t have the physique that many other samurai developed fighting the antithesis-- highly athletic and toned-- instead, he had what someone would call a dad bod. Not only that, but he was slightly balding, had thick glasses, even though he could have easily fixed his eyesight with protector tech, and had a habit of wearing tweed sweaters.
He looked like the stereotypical academic, which was apt, because he specialized in analysis over combat.
That wasn’t to say that he couldn’t fight, it’s just that he didn’t fight in a traditional manner. His samurai name was derived from a combination of his given name, Bernard, and CBRN, as in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear. When Bern got serious, things died.
“Well, you’re welcome to stick around, but I recommend getting suited up before you approach the front line,” I told him. “The Fifteens have been throwing the same acid that we encountered in Jasper, and the Fives fire quills more like snipers than shotguns, so you need to be careful.”
“Very interesting… I’d heard about the Antithesis’ widespread use of biological and chemical weapons on Mars, but I don’t remember there being any mention of Model Five mutations,” Bern muttered, stroking his chin. “Then again, from what I remember, the assault force rarely encountered anything smaller than a Fifteen up there, so maybe they existed and just weren’t in the reports.”
“It’s possible, but when I first arrived, the Model Fives were pretty standard, and I saw a definite evolution to this new form over a couple hours,” I said.
“Real time evolution, fascinating!” Bern exclaimed. “Although I’ve encountered models that have been slightly modified or have been pulled from the Antithesis’ genetic memory. I’ve never seen them develop a new variation so quickly.”
“Yeah, well, most hives don’t have access to the reproductive capacity, or biomass recovery, that this one does. It must have been able to create thousands of generations in just a couple hours,” I grumbled.
“Indeed! I wish I’d been here to witness it,” Bern replied.
“I’m sure you’d change your mind if you’d seen what we’d been through over the last two days,” I grumbled. “So, I assume you’ve brought the antifungal, do you need a special applicator for it or…”
“Oh, we could just pour it directly on the fungus, and it would naturally spread through the mycelial network, but it would be far more effective if it was simultaneously deployed over a large area,” Bern replied.
“So… like, dropped from the Ursas?” I asked. “I could bring a couple here, and we could set them up like crop dusters or something.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Bern replied as he slowly wandered around the front of his truck.
“Uhhh… Okay… then how will we deploy it?” I asked as I jogged after him.
Once he got to the passenger-side door, Bern fished a little remote control from his pocket and pressed a couple buttons. The side of the trailer split open, sliding open like a pair of automatic doors, while the roof over the same section accordioned open.
There, sitting in the middle of the lab, sitting on a stand that was bolted to the floor, was something that looked like a combination of the mobile missile launchers that the bears carried and a mortar, but much wider.
“What’s that?” I asked blankly.
“The dispersal method,” Bern replied, as he hit another button on the remote.
The weapon made a loud ‘foomp’ noise as it ejected what looked like a single missile with dozens of canisters strapped around it. The weapon flew for a few feet before the missile ignited, just barely clearing the city wall before sharply turning upwards.
Once it crossed the Bear-acade wall, and got out over the battlefield, the canisters separated one row at a time, igniting their own boosters and spreading out horizontally, hanging in the air for much longer than I would have expected.
After all the canisters had been deployed, the missile and all the canisters simultaneously detonated, completely covering the entire battlefield in a thick orange mist.
I turned back to Bern, just in time to see him slide the controller back into his pocket. “Airburst. I would have liked to seed the clouds, but with all the talk of Anti-missile nodules, I couldn’t risk it. It should take about ten minutes to soak in, then the fungus should start experiencing an extreme reaction, dying back dozens of times faster than it originally grew. Don’t worry, it’s harmless to humans, only Antithesis so there won’t be any collateral damage,” he explained. “I hope you’re ready, because it’s time to finally start causing some damage.”