Chương 769: Chapter Forty-Five - Ambush

"Communism is actually the perfect form of government for resisting the Antithesis threat. The commoners just need to leave the capital to the upper echelons and worry about keeping the enemy at bay." --Reddit comment, 2029

"Give me a minute," I called out to the others. Our strike group slowed to a stop, not that we were moving all that fast anyway. Still, I had everyone move into a formation that spaced out the ATVs and tanks so that anything coming at us would be in the crosshairs of at least a few guns. Then I moved back, with the MEOW stomping over to the corpses of the aliens that had jumped out at us and that we had summarily crushed.

"I'm switching comm channels, signal me over the priority channel if anything happens," I said.

"Understood, ma'am," came Hatner's reply.

"Strike Group Hammer will keep you safe." I was happy that no one could see me roll my eyes. Or maybe not, it was a good and proper eye-roll. They were getting way too into that name. I stopped next to the body, then checked it over with my exterior cameras. I had a feeling we'd be running into a lot more of these, soon.

"Do you think the army knows about these?" I asked. The army is aware of the Antithesis' propensity to adapt to new environments. This is a more extreme adaptation, but it's not beyond the bounds of expectation.

"Yeah," I muttered. I captured some video, poking at the corpse with one of the mech's feet to turn it over. Then I packaged that as a video file and sent it off in our little group chat, with a ping added for Princess and Knight. A second copy was sent to the Lieutenant and then Major Tinwhistle. I wasn't sure if they would do anything about it, but I was basically just trying to do my due diligence. Also, I was a little curious.

"When you say they can adapt, what do you mean? Like, I get this thing is made for water, but that looks kind of extreme." The adaptability of the Antithesis is perhaps their greatest strength. In aquatic environments they birth new models with gills, or birth them without the need to breathe at all.

"Wait... you can do that?" I asked. Breathing is merely a process by which to supply energy-giving oxygen to cells and to regulate internal waste storage. The Antithesis favour models with short lifespans. In that regard, they can give birth to models that are meant to only live for days or weeks, feeding off of internal energy reserves. The vast majority of Antithesis models do not have the ability to eat or excrete, regardless of their environment.

"Fucked up," I muttered. I squished the aquatic Model Three, and it predictably popped like an overripe fruit. I instantly regretted it because I now had squished alien all over my mech's foot. I... or someone, was going to have to clean that off later. I started to walk back towards the others, but Myalis went on. I think she liked the lesson time. The Antithesis on Earth exhibit a relatively narrow band of common adaptations, seeing as how Earth's environmental differences aren't that great.

The planet's temperature band is fairly narrow, though its ecology is fairly diverse. In any case, you are mostly running into the more common variants of the Antithesis found on Earth. If you were to visit a more desert-like environment, you'd discover Model Threes with wider feet and thick fur, as well as certain small adaptations, like longer eyelashes.

"For the sand?" Exactly. In heavily forested areas and jungles, camouflage and additional dexterity for climbing is more common, as well as eyes better adapted to finding prey in that environment. In rocky regions, the Antithesis tend to be lighter, wider, and have more limbs to handle vertical surfaces with greater ease. Right, so the aliens I was used to and thought of as the normal ones were just the 'normal' ones to me.

"You ever considered becoming a teacher? You're good at lecturing." Have you ever considered becoming a student? You have a lot to learn.

"Ouch," I said before chuckling.

"If you're done roasting me, let's get back to the others. Are there any special things I need to know about the aquatic bunch? Special weaknesses or something?" The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I'll never be done roasting you, Catherine. As for weaknesses, aquatic Antithesis tend to have more permeable skin. Their eyesight may also be worse. That might be good to know, actually. I wasn't sure what I could do about the skin thing.

I didn't exactly use too many biological weapons since they weren't my style, and to be honest, I wasn't sure what permeable meant, but the eyesight thing I could get. Having been mostly blind most of my life, I knew what kind of a disadvantage came with poor eyesight.

"We might want to use smoke or something." I switched back to the strike group comms.

"I'm back. Let's keep moving. Hatner, do you have smoke on your tanks?"

"Yes, ma'am, we do," Hatner said.

"We have thermals to see through it, as well. Not the Wolverines, though."

"Feel free to pop that smoke when we're leaving the area," I said.

"The aliens we're fighting might have worse eyesight than usual. I think that one looked a bit slower on land as well, but that could just be me. Let's just move to the left edge of the road, just in case." We did just that. It wasn't much, but an extra metre or two of space between us and the river's edge couldn't hurt. We drove almost a full kilometre out, then moved the Pikes up that small embankment I had marked out.

It gave them both a nice view of the area ahead, almost unobstructed all the way to the space we were rushing towards. Then the main group of the strike force continued on. I was starting to think that it was a little too easy when there was finally something over the comms.

"Ma'am, sighting to our left, incoming on our position," Hatner said.

"What are we dealing with?" I asked. I imagined a lot of models coming around to hit us from that side. We'd have the river at our back, which would have been ideal if it wasn't probably full of monsters. Maybe a counter push, into the incoming aliens to gain some ground?

"Flyers, ma'am," Hatner said.

"A big swarm of them. Pike two reports a few bigger models in the mix."

"Well, shit. ETA?"

"One minute." I nodded along, then made my choice.

"We'll keep moving, then. Slow down to fifteen an hour. Is there a procedure for anti-air?"

"We have one. Alternating fire on the smaller vehicles, so that they reload at different times. One in five focus on clearing out any that make it onto our tanks and stick to them. That's with small-arms only."

"Fair enough," I said.

"You know the formation better than I do. We have a few seconds, get into position if you can."

"Yes, ma'am!" When I said that, I didn't mean 'around me' but I think that's what they got from it. I hardly needed the protection, but soon the formation shifted and rode up and I was covered on all sides. Annoying, but it was too late to do anything about it. There was a wave of dark figures rushing our way from above, with others skimming just across the ground. I spun the MEOW's main gun around and set it to auto-aim and fire. Then I did the same with its smaller gimbal-mounted machine guns.

The first shots came seconds later. An explosion rocked the centre of one group, blowing a hole through the chest of a Model Eleven and sending it tumbling down. Then the smaller fire raked across the Model Ones, turning them into splatters of black-green ichor. The rest of the strike group joined in, and while their shots weren't nearly as accurate, there was a certain quality in quantity, especially when it came to bullets fired. By the time the flyers reached us, well over half were dead.

Half wasn't all, however. I winced as Model Elevens struck my mech at near terminal velocity. Fortunately, they weighed fuck all, so it was like blood-filled rain off a windshield. Still, it was gonna be a pain to wash out later. The rest of the strike group wasn't quite as lucky. The tanks shrugged off the attack, but two of our Wolverines ended up with Model Ones slip into them and I saw the pilots losing their shit trying to kill the homicidal birds. Somehow, they managed to more or less keep in formation.

So we fired at the aliens swooping off for a second run, then came to a slow stop.

"Check on the injured," I said.

"And someone keep an eye open for another wave. If they managed this much, then they know that we're coming."