Chương 382: Book 6 - Chapter 43 - Blindsided

"You know, this almost seems too easy," I muttered as I followed the Mauler forward. Deadbeat turned and stared at me for a moment.

"Why do you always say stuff like that?"

"Like what?" I asked blankly.

"I was just making an observation."

"You were tempting fate… like usual," Deadbeat hissed.

"You know I don't believe in that stuff," I scoffed.

"Besides, it's a valid observation. Despite the fact that we've come within spitting distance of the hive, all the Antithesis have thrown against us are the standard fare; Twenty-Eights and below. I expected us to run into one colossal model by now."

"Are you seriously complaining that things are going too well?" the little bear asked.

"More confused," I admitted.

"I used to think that the Antithesis had some sort of strategic intelligence guiding them, but their tactics are so inconsistent that I'm not sure anymore. Sometimes they throw something new and powerful at us, nearly breaking our lines, and at other times they just resort to the standard swarm tactics. I don't get it."

"You should be counting your blessings instead of courting disaster," Deadbeat grumbled. I glanced over at her and grinned.

"Please, what's the worst they could do?" The little bear just facepalmed.

"Whatever happens next, just remember: You brought this on yourself." I turned away from her and started heading towards the Mauler, but I only managed to get about three steps before I heard Bandit yelling over the gunfire.

"Boss, we've got incoming!"

"What? Where?" I shouted, scanning the battlefield in front of us. All I could see were the standard models. There were a couple of Model Twenty-Eights bumbling around in the back, but I hardly considered those as rare or difficult anymore. For a moment I thought maybe I just didn't have the right point of view to see what was coming, so I jumped up onto the nearest Kodiak to get a better look. Even from my new perch I couldn't make out anything particularly threatening.

"Do your sensors need calibration or something?" I asked.

"I don't see anything." By the time my brain registered Bandit's call of "Boss, get down!" It was already too late. I caught the faintest sound of flapping, a whisper of wind, before something smashed into me with enough force to send me flying. The blow was strong enough to send me tumbling through a group of bears, toppling them like bowling pins, before slamming into the side of the Mauler.

"Boss, are you okay?" Bob asked as he trundled over.

"Fuck! I think I broke my fucking arm," I howled.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I dunno, I didn't see anything," he replied just before his head snapped violently to one side.

"Felt it that though." Grabbing a hold of one of Bob's arms, I hauled myself to my feet, cradling my right arm.

"Bandit, report!"

"There's something in the air, something exceptionally big and exceptionally quiet. I was barely able to detect them before they started their attack runs," Bandit explained. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"They? As in multiple?" I asked. Before he could answer, I watched a Kodiak suddenly fly forward, tumbling end over end, crushing a squad of bears before it came to a stop some twenty feet away.

"Yes, multiple!" Bandit screamed back as another squad of bears was thrown into the air and scattered like leaves across the battlefield.

"We can't take much more of this," Heavy growled, firing his rotary laser wildly into the air.

"The troops weren't designed to take this much punishment.

"Bandit, I need you and the foxes to provide targeting data to the rest of the battlegroup. I don't care how accurate it is, just give us something!" I screamed. The heads-up display in my helmet pinged, displaying several extremely massive blurry blobs in the sky. When I took a couple quick shots at the nearest one, something that wasn't easy with a broken arm, I didn't seem to connect with anything.

"BANDIT!"

"We're doing our best, but whatever these things are, they're elusive. The best we can give you is a general area!" the fox shouted back.

"Why haven't the PAWS arrays fired? Aren't they supposed to automatically target airborne threats?" I asked.

"They've got built-in automated targeting systems and need to lock onto a target before they can fire," Deadbeat explained.

"Do they absolutely need one, or is that just the way we use them?" I growled, ducking down as Bob suddenly lurched towards me. The big bear reached back and scratched the back of his head.

"I wish they'd stop doing that."

"I… don't know…" Deadbeat admitted.

"NYX!" [The auto-targeting system can be disabled, but just be aware that the system is extremely sensitive, and if it's severed, you probably won't be able to reengage it without a complete overhaul,] my AI reported.

"Better a complete overhaul than a complete rebuild," I snarled.

"If we don't do something soon, the entire assault force will be lost. Do it!" All around me the active defense systems on all the Kodiaks opened up. Unlike the rotary laser cannons held by the moose, which were almost like constant streams, the PAWs fired all of their emitters simultaneously, creating a scattershot effect. While the particle beams were much weaker than other weapons, barely scratching whatever was attacking us, they were effective at highlighting our foes.

Once they had a general idea of where the enemy was, the moose wasted no time zoning in. The rotary laser cannons seemed to burn the Antithesis' flesh, leaving horrible scars that ruined the creature's camo, which gave the ones with the coilguns a chance to start putting the much heavier rounds into our opponents. Even though they had fairly heavy armor, even thicker than that of the Twenty-Eights, they didn't last long after that.

The first creature came crashing down into the middle of our forces, smashing into the side of one of the Kodiaks, sending it sliding away. Stepping over to the monster, I unloaded several rounds into its head, which served the double purpose of making sure it was dead and making me feel better. Nora walking over and stomping down on it, pulverizing its skull with her foot, was just the icing on the cake.

"What the fuck is that?" Nora asked, poking the oversized flyer.

"I dunno," I replied, trying to shift my arm into a more comfortable position. I could feel the bone shards shifting around as my body tried to put itself back together.

"It doesn't look like any bird I've ever seen."

"That's because it's not normally a flyer. The body seems to be extremely similar to a now extinct form of Aquatic life. The Manta Ray," Nyx reported, borrowing one of the nearby bears.

"From what planet?" I asked, poking it again. I really should have been paying attention to what the other half dozen flyers were doing, but by the time this one had gone down, the others had already been tenderized by my forces. They weren't long for this world.

"This one. Your planet once housed an amazing range of biodiversity," Nyx replied.

"It's a shame the Antithesis got to most of it."

"Yeah… then I wouldn't have to deal with overgrown shrimp and flying fish," I grumbled. I crouched down next to the thing and looked it over. Fifteen feet long and twenty-five feet wide, it looked more like a small aircraft than a creature. The strange thing was that, despite fucking us up, it lacked the jaws, claws, and spines of most bioforms.

"What is the point of this thing? If it had been better armed, it would have ripped our forces apart instead of just knocking us around. It's very un-Antithesis," I said.

"Uhhh… Boss… I hate to tell you this, but it's still moving," Deadbeat whispered.

"What?" I exclaimed, jumping back from the writhing edge of the creature just as a wave of maggots came crawling out. Each one looked like a flatter version of the Model Seven, and they moved much faster.

"It's a mobile infector," Nora spat, bringing her heel down on a small group of the worms.

"They must have been inside, or underneath or something. Disgusting. I wonder how many there are?"

"I don't want to find out," I growled.

"I'll get the badgers to burn them, while you warn the Family that we have a serious problem… if these things get out, who knows how many cities they could infect before we could stop them." As I stepped back from the writhing carpet of flesh, I gestured to the badgers, who came forward and bathed the entire thing in fire.

"We need to get to that hive. Now."