Chương 366: Book 6 - Chapter 27 - Chemical Smell

Even though Dial-Up and Lag had joined the eastern front, the Antithesis assault didn't let up. It did die down for a little while, but quickly picked up again right after I finished my call with Charlotte.

Either the Antithesis were completely ignoring the two heavyweights, which I imagine would have been a bad idea for them—two battleship-sized tanks could probably cause quite a lot of damage to the hive structure just by driving over it—or the Antithesis were capable of pumping out more units than I'd first realized.

"Hey Dusty, anything to report?" I asked the tan-colored bear as I conducted my rounds.

"Nothing of note," he replied casually, shouldering his rifle.

"It seems like the Antithesis have started to throw a lot more small shit our way and pulled back the larger models. Maybe they've redirected them towards those tanks in the east I've heard about?" I glanced out over the massive no man's land, full of fungus, carbon spears, and dead Antithesis, and frowned.

"They have? Since when?" I asked.

"I dunno, maybe an hour. The Twenty-Eights slowly disappeared first, then the Twenty-Threes, and finally the Fourteens. You know, the biggest fuckers," he reported, before pausing.

"Well… the biggest regular fuckers. They can't hold a candle to those, what do you call them, megapedes?"

"The Antithesis stopped throwing the larger models at us?" I asked suspiciously.

"Why didn't anyone inform me?"

"Uhhhh… we did. Everyone sent you notifications through the command network," Dusty replied.

"Did you forget to check again?" I sighed, closed my eyes, and dove into the command network. The Class II version allowed me to handle command bears and handle tactical decisions on a subconscious level. I could view the battlefield through a bear's eyes, take direct command of individual units, and monitor everything at a strategic level too, but that required actual effort on my part.

I physically needed to call up the interface to do it, and since I had my squad mates monitoring the battlefield, I didn't go into it much. Flicking up the notification queue, I quickly found a whole swath of notifications about the change of Antithesis tactics and troop composition. Dusty was correct. The notifications about the Twenties slowly withdrawing from the fight, were buried in a list that included notifications of the Scarabs and Megapedes showing up and noticeable mutations.

"Okay, new rule. When you notice something important that you think I might have overlooked, you contact me directly and let me know," I declared.

"During a battle this size the command logs get cluttered with hundreds of thousands of logs, and I'm bound to overlook important information."

"Are you sure that's the reason?" Dusty chuckled.

"You sure you don't just forget to check?"

"It doesn't matter the reason," I huffed.

"If I don't have the relevant information, I can't make the right tactical decisions. Where's Bandit?"

"Right behind you!" the fox called. I jumped and looked down from the Bear-acade to find the camo cloak-wearing fox leaning on his rifle just a couple feet away.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

"Not long. I was doing my rounds and heard you ranting, so I thought I'd come over and see what was going on," he explained with a grin.

"What's up?"

"The Twenty-Eights are missing," I grumbled.

"Uh-huh…" the fox replied. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Along with the Fourteens," I continued.

"And the Twenty-Threes, I know. I'm one of the people that sent you notifications about the change in tactics," Bandit said, nodding.

"What's your point?"

"Remember what we learned in Jasper? If Fourteens are properly fed, they can follow Twenty-Eights and coat their tunnels with an organic polymer that dampens sound and is much more difficult to detect," I said.

"The fact that both of them disappeared at the same time is extremely suspicious!"

"They're also the biggest regular bodies the Antithesis have access to," Bandit pointed out.

"If the Antithesis wanted to try and break out, or even slow the advance of another team, those are the models they'd rely upon."

"That may be true… but after everything we've encountered, I would like to think whatever intelligence that has been directing the Antithesis here is smart enough to realize that throwing anything smaller than one of those scarabs, or megapedes, against something the size of a battleship would be a fruitless endeavor," I grumbled.

"It doesn't have to be against Dial-up and Lag," Dusty pointed out.

"You said the samurai around the perimeter were finally starting to lock things down, right? Maybe the Antithesis are trying to push out elsewhere?"

"Possible," I admitted.

"But I still think the fact that both models disappeared at the same time is too suspicious. Bandit, are you sure none of our scouts have detected any suspicious seismic disturbances lately?"

"Not since the Megapede stampede," Bandit replied.

"And trust me, the vibrations we detected during that time weren't caused by digging."

"Nothing at all? What about from the salvage teams?" I asked, gesturing to the heavily armored collection trucks outside the wall.

"They're closer to the hive."

"They also don't have foxes or chameleons attached to them, just regular bears," Bandit explained.

"You should know that. You're the one that put those teams together."

"I threw those teams together," I corrected him.

"It's not like I put any thought into it!"

"Well, maybe you should put more thought into decisions like that going forward," Dusty snorted. I shot the bear a dirty look, then sighed.

"Are you sure you're not detecting anything suspicious? No digging? No other change of tactics? No new Antithesis pheromones on the wind? Because if you aren't, I'll need to send the other teams an alert that we've lost a couple of the larger models." It looked like the fox was going to shake his head, but he paused before doing so.

"Well… there is a chemical smell wafting over from the direction of the hive. It kind of has an acidic tinge to it."

"Can you identify it?" I asked.

"Not really… If I had to guess, it's something similar to hydrofluoric acid. Kind of hard to tell when it's been so heavily diluted. Just a handful of parts per billion making it this far," Bandit explained. I stared at him blankly.

"And how is that different from the shit the Model Fifteens throw at us, or the shit they use in the digestion pits?"

"Oh, it's similar to the stuff the Fifteens throw at us, but it has a subtle tinge to it. Something… earthy…" Bandit replied, stroking his chin.

"So you're smelling an acid while being bathed in the same acid," I muttered.

"Wonderful. Very helpful."

"It might be similar, but it's not identical," Bandit huffed.

"My nose can detect one part in hundreds of billions. I can tell when there's a difference. This smell, it's a little more metallic… oh!" He stood up a little straighter and looked towards the hive, his ears twitching.

"Oh? What oh? Don't oh without sharing your insights," I snapped.

"Well… Both Hydrofluoric and Hydrochloric acids can be used to dissolve certain types of stone to assist with digging operations," Bandit explained.

"The only thing is, they're also extremely dangerous to living creatures. So the Antithesis couldn't use them in the presence of Model Twenty-Eights, it would just be counterproductive."

"Unless they didn't stop sending Model Twenty-Eights our way because they sent them elsewhere, but instead they started producing a new version of the Twenty-Eight that's either immune to acid or relies upon it to dig, and they didn't want to tip their hand," Dusty said. Bandit flinched.

"I… uh… may have been hearing the sound of running liquids underground, intermittently," he admitted.

"I thought it was just the acid from the Fifteen projectiles slowly sinking into the ground and finding channels in the rock below."

"But now you don't anymore," I pressed.

"It did seem like a lot of liquid, more than I would have expected, just not a completely unrealistic amount," the fox replied defensively.

"But if the Antithesis were boring towards the town with acid…"

"It would be a better explanation," I finished for him.

"Fuck!"

"So, what do we do?" Dusty asked.

"We immediately start counter-tunnel operations," I declared.

"Bandit, you take command of the beavers. Direct them where to dig to intercept those noises. Dusty, organize the defensive teams. If there is something down there, we may have to throw a lot of troops in that direction."

"We don't exactly have the best digging equipment," Bandit said.

"If the Antithesis are down there, they'll get a lot closer before we can intercept them."

"Unfortunately, that can't be helped. I just spent all my points on upgrades," I said.

"But… I did just upgrade the salvage teams. Talk with the beavers and see if they could work with the deconstructors. If not, they'll have to do it manually."

"Got it boss," Dusty declared, and Bandit nodded his agreement.

"Then get to it," I ordered.

"If we wait too long, the Antithesis might burst up behind the walls, and if that happens, it could be catastrophic. There's no way I'm going to let this happen."