Chương 143: Book 2 - Chapter 61 - The Eye of the Storm

There was a massive crunch, which caused the Kodiak Humboldt and I were in to tilt to the side for a moment.

"I thought you said this thing could withstand whatever the antithesis could throw at it!" Humboldt yelled as she braced against the roof to keep herself upright.

"We're still flying, aren't we?" I shot back as I hung onto the passenger monitor for dear life. It seemed that a Model Eleven, tired of performing hit and run attacks, had attempted to board the Kodiak. The stupid, oversized flyer was now crawling across the back, trying to pry different parts off the vehicle. I sent a quick order to Bandit, who was in the gunner's seat, and a second later the cannon swung around and smashed into the creature, knocking it loose.

"See… problem solved," I said proudly, showing her the now cleared display.

"Uh huh," she said, obviously unimpressed.

"How much longer until we reach the other team?"

"We're practically there now," I replied.

"Problem is, there's no place to land."

"What? Why?" Humboldt asked as she made her way over to me to look at the monitor.

"They're fighting nearly back to back, to prevent themselves from being overrun," I reported, pulling up a shot of the team on the monitor.

"Doesn't leave any room for the antithesis, or us."

"So what do we do?"

"Make room," I replied with a smirk.

"All bears to the back!" I shouted, relaying the same command to the other Kodiak.

"Prepare to create a beachhead!" Bob smashed his knuckles together and cheered as the IFVs slid to a stop above the other team, then catapulted himself off the end of the lowering ramp. The other bears waited until the ramp was fully lowered before jumping after him. Even though I could have watched them through the monitor, I strode to the open hatch so I could watch them work. I only had a dozen bears, but they made quick work of the surrounding models, creating enough of a perimeter for the Kodiaks to land.

I turned back towards Humboldt.

"Front lines, everyone off!" I said with a smile.

"You could have just explained your plan," she said as she brushed past me, adding her lasers to the bears' firepower, further clearing the area around us.

"This was faster," I replied, stepping off the ramp after her. A few feet away, the other Kodiak landed and immediately disgorged dozens of squirrels. Unlike mine, these were white and carried a demolition charge. I'd honestly forgotten that Bright-Eyes was using the squirrels for combat or that she had them at all. She must have either recalled them all before getting on the Kodiak, or ordered more for the combat. Behind the squirrels came Bright-Eyes, Hoppy, Broodmother, and Raijin.

Mother immediately chucked a single scarab onto a nearby corpse, triggering the near exponential growth of her swarm, while Hoppy and Raijin provided covering fire.

"Now what?!" Raijin yelled over the relentless noise.

"I'd say coordinate with the others, but they're kind of busy right now!" I shouted back. You are in an ongoing chat group with the other samurai. You could use that to coordinate, Nyx cut in.

"Oh, right. Invite the others, will you?!" I shouted as I emptied my magazine into the mob.

"What?!" Hoppy yelled.

"Oh, never mind," she added a moment later as she was pulled into the chat. [Teddy: Hey everyone, I'm back with reinforcements. Did you miss me?] [Pestilence: Now is not the time to be cracking jokes.] [Magpie and Dreamer: Yes!] [Pestilence: …] Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. [BroodMother: Perhaps we should discuss how to bring down that central hive. I don't want to distract the frontliners any more than necessary.] [GreyGoo: Yes, this, Thanks!] [Whisperer: I have time. Mute us if you need to, Grey. We're advancing on the central pillar, but since it's coated in some sort of metallic armored bark, we need to get closer to deal with it. The plan was for Grey and Dreamer to try to either pry the bark off or smash through it, and then once we had an opening, Pestilence would start melting it with a custom plague.] [Raijin: How can we help?] [Executable: Opening up some extra space has given us some breathing room. Keep the antithesis back, so we can pull someone off the frontline for a break.] [Teddy: I've taken down a couple nests with my Kodiak while you were rampaging about. Do you want me to continue destroying the others or just rip into the locals?] [Temporal: We're getting pretty good at clearing up the antithesis, even the Twenty-Eights. Maybe you could try and take a couple shots at the central pillar? Create an opening before we get there?] [Magpie: Blow up the pillar! Just like Seattle!] [Teddy: I missed that one, intentionally. I wasn't going to blow up the central support for an entire city] [Magpie: This one isn't load bearing. Probably.] [BroodMother: Even if it is, we still need to take care of it, one way or another.] [Teddy: Alright. You might want to cover your ears, though.] I flicked the chat closed and stepped back into the Kodiak. The group was about two hundred meters away from the central tower, so it'd be hard to miss, even if I was the one aiming.

With a thought, I set both vehicles to target the exact same point on the central hive, crossed my fingers, and ordered them to fire. The vehicle shook violently as the repeating cannon fired shell after shell at the hive. I gripped the sides of the display, to both keep my feet and see the results of the attack. Each vehicle emptied ten rounds into the pillar, and when they were done, the armor plating was badly damaged but intact.

"What the fuck is that shit made of?" I mumbled to myself. The outer shell is most likely constructed of layers of tungsten, iron and titanium alloys interlaced with layers of corded plant fiber. It depends on what they managed to pull out of the ground.

"Fuck… all that to protect whatever the antithesis are trying to birth? That's not a fucking good sign," I said. [Teddy: Negative penetration. My guns weren't loaded with armor piercing ammunition, but I would have expected them to do more damage than they did.] [Dreamer: Are you sure you didn't hit something vital? It looks like the hive is shedding some of the bark. It's actually quite pretty.] I flicked to a wider view and watched as huge sections of bark, some had to be over six feet long, peeled away from the central stalk and fell away. Slowly at first, but the process was rapidly accelerating. [Teddy: I don't think I did that.] [AI Dyana: You've triggered the Hive's self preservation measures, it's attempting to birth the model early!] [Temporal: Isn't that a good thing?] [Humboldt: Depends how premature it is. If it's far enough along that the antithesis are willing to birth it now…] [Bright-Eyes: We might be in trouble.] I sprinted out the back of the Kodiak, rounding the side of the vehicle so I could look at the hive with my own two eyes. The entire cavern shuddered as the hive twisted and cracked along its entire length. The bottom exploded outwards, releasing an unfathomably long tail that coiled around the hive's debris. It thrashed about, trying to work free of its prison, and after a few seconds, a massive, eyeless, lamprey-like head exploded out of the top of the hive.

It immediately started ripping at the hive, pulling away pieces until another head popped free, then another. Four of these heads freed themselves before the central head broke free. This one was more serpentine, with a line of six eyes on each side of its head. The colossal creature barely fit within the cavern, I couldn't believe that something that large even fit within the hive. It had to be close to a hundred feet long, half as tall while it was reared up like this.

"Fuck me…" I heard someone mutter.

"Shoot it!" someone else yelled. We were still stuck in a brawl with the horde and now had to deal with this thing too, whatever it was.

"They're fucking reloading!" I shouted back.

"Nyx… please tell me you have good news," I muttered under my breath. I wish I could give you some, but you're looking at a Model Forty-Four-L. A hive defense model that's specialized in chemical and biological warfare. It not only constantly floods the area with a gas, which causes fear and terror responses in mammalian species, but it also spits a combination of acid and bacteria. Any wound created by that would be fatal, as the bacteria acts like nanites and causes victims to liquify from the inside out.

This one only appears to be half grown, but I'm unsure if your cannons will be able to penetrate the shell of this juvenile version.

"Do you have any useful advice at all?" I growled as the creature reared back. Don't get hit.