Chương 64: Chapter 62 - Filling in the Blanks

It took a minute for me to come to full consciousness. It was still dark out, and Nyx hadn't rung an alarm directly within my head, so I was slightly confused about the situation.

"Nyx, did I miss the meeting or…" I asked groggily. One of the columns was heavily delayed, so they pushed back the meeting to give everyone time to relax.

"Delayed by the Antithesis?" No, by faulty shelter designs. They actually needed to bring heavy machinery to open one facility. The door was just a six inch slab of steel which dropped into place, but the contractor never bothered to install proper hydraulics to open it again.

"Figures, laziness and greed are universal. It could have been worse, I'm sure there's more than one Shelter that failed to seal, or wasn't properly fortified against the Antithesis." I shook my head, "So, when IS the meeting supposed to occur?" About forty five minutes from now, in the central planning tent. I would recommend arriving much earlier though.

"Why? Did the Twins need to talk to me about something?" No, but if you don't get a spot near the front you're never going to be able to see anything. I frowned. Nyx wasn't exactly wrong about that, but it hurt to have it just pointed out like that.

"I'm going to swap into my clothes, even though this armor is fairly comfortable I regret sleeping in it." As I stretched something in my back popped, "I should ask Sharron if I can use her bathroom to clean up after the meeting. I'm used to being a little grubby, but being stuck in an outfit that doesn't breathe for half a day is gross." By the time I finished changing Sharron had left her RV.

She was lounging outside her new home in jeans and a casual sweater, a smile crossed her face as soon as she saw me leave my truck.

"Good morning sleeping beauty, glad to see you made it before the meeting started."

"I'm a growing girl, and I need my sleep sometimes," I huffed.

"Besides, Nyx already informed me that the meeting was delayed." I pulled the hoodie up over my head, blocking out the open skies above.

"That it was. It's a little early, but do you want to head over there?" I nodded, and the two of us started casually strolling towards the center of the camp. There were a ton of other Samurai out and about, most dressed in strange or exotic armor, and no two were alike. We were about halfway to the main tent when we saw Bright-Eyes, still dressed in her armor but without the helmet, chewing on a chicken leg. She waltzed over and fell into step beside us.

"I heard you two helped clear up the hives, it really helped us out there. As soon as you left we saw a significant drop in the number of Antithesis attacking the convoys." Sharron smiled, and gently slapped me on the back.

"Don't thank me, thank Evie here. She kept all the Antithesis off us while the rest of the team dealt with the hives."

"You took on all those Antithesis by yourself? Why?" Angeline raised an eyebrow.

"It wasn't intentional, at least at the start," I told her.

"We encountered some… issues along the way,""Yeah, a thirty foot tall shrimp with a massive right hook," Sharron cut in.

"Beg pardon?" Angeline stumbled for a moment. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Apparently it was based on something they found here on Earth." I shrugged, "Doesn't matter, it's dead now."

"Right…" Angeline just took another bite of her chicken.

"As long as we don't run into another one it's no big deal." The three of us continued walking in silence for a few minutes, until we came to the central tent. The planning table had been removed. Instead there was a small raised podium at the rear of the tent, and the rest of the space was filled with row upon row of cheap folding chairs. It looked like the setup for a press conference, rather than a meeting of dozens of Samurai in a warzone.

There were a couple of Samurai already seated around the tent, having quiet discussions in small isolated groups. Since I didn't recognize anyone I ignored them all and headed up to the front row and grabbed a seat there.

"Premium seats, you didn't want to sit further back?" Angeline asked.

"I wouldn't be able to see anything, even if I was standing back there. I suspect you already knew that," I replied. The two women next to me smirked, although Angeline hid hers behind the chicken leg. I pulled my hoodie down further, blocking out my friends' faces, and just slumped into my chair. I ignored the chuckles, and polite conversation that followed, pulled my legs up to my chest, and decided to wait for the briefing in silence. As the minutes passed the tent slowly filled up with Samurai.

Finally the Twins, Hel and Brutale stepped up to the podium, and the tent went quiet.

"Thank you all for coming," Brutale started, "We're here to update you on our progress over the last twenty four hours." One of Celestia's orbs flew forward and started projecting a hologram of the city. A few points were highlighted, including the kelp farms and a few sections of the outer city.

"A few hours ago a strike team managed to locate, and destroy a cluster of hives which was flooding the lower city with Antithesis." As he gestured at the farms highlighted in red, it turned green, "Which helped accelerate our rescue efforts. Unfortunately, even with these gains we've only managed to clear about ten percent of the shelters in the city. At this rate some of the Shelters may run out of food, water or air before we get to them.

If they're lucky the failsafes will kick in and release the doors and give those people a chance to survive. If not, people are going to die stuck in those shelters." The room erupted into a cacophony of noise, as some people started conversations with their neighbors, while others decided to shout questions, or just swear quietly. Hel stepped forward, holding up her arms, signaling for silence.

"We don't like the situation any more than you do. The plan is to send in additional convoys, but with minimal Samurai cover. Instead, we're going to start clearing the streets as quickly as possible. If we eliminate the Antithesis ahead of the convoys we won't only reduce the pressure on the military, but accelerate how quickly we can get people back into the city." There was another wave of mumbling, quieter this time.

"I'm sure some of you believe we should have pushed the Antithesis earlier, but this would have left the convoys vulnerable. Now that the hives have been destroyed we feel more confident that a street level operation will be successful. Questions?" Someone stood behind me, I couldn't see who through my hoodie, but the voice was very masculine.

"Do you expect us to do a door to door sweep? The Antithesis have had time to crawl into every crevice by now, if we leave pockets behind they'll just form more hives by the time the civilians move back in." It was Celestia that spoke up and answered his question, "We already have a few Samurai here, like myself, that are specialized in either post Incursion cleanup, or recon. We'll organize the cleanup crews around these people. Any other questions?" Another wave of grumbling, but no questions this time.

"We'll send your AIs a full update for those that want to review it, along with your next groups and assignments." Hel said from her place on the stage, "We'd like to get started within the next hour, so make whatever preparations you need, and find Brutale if you have any further questions. Dismissed!" Almost immediately people started to fill the aisles and filter out of the tent.

"I kind of expected a longer meeting," I muttered.

"Yeah, well, we hadn't finished making plans until an hour ago. It was better to keep the meeting, no matter how brief, canceling it would have just irritated a bunch of other Samurai," Atlantica replied, from the stage. I didn't expect anyone to hear me, so my eyes snapped in the other woman's direction.

"When you're in the presence of other Samurai you should always expect that someone will overhear you, a lot of us have improved senses." Atlantica tapped one of her ears to emphasise her words. She stood up, walked over, and placed a hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry about it for now, you have a long day ahead of you and a lot of people will be relying on you."

"When are they not?" I replied.