Chương 434: Book 7 - Chapter 30 - Frenzy

[My scout has encountered an extremely large wave of mid-sized Antithesis,] I announced to the samurai comm channel. [I'm sending my troops to engage, but I don't think I have enough firepower to stop them all.] [You're saying with all your firepower you're unable to stop a small school of Antithesis?] someone who I didn't recognize asked sarcastically. [My bears are exceptionally good at taking and holding ground based locations,] I growled. [I only have a handful of bears adapted for aquatic combat. Who is this, anyways? Why the fuck are you trying to start a fight in the middle of an emergency situation anyways?" Whoever it was just snorted and went quiet. [We've dispatched reinforcements. It'll still take more than ten minutes for the main fleet to arrive,] Claire announced. [We still haven't completed repairs to the damaged ships, so that's slowing us down.] [The Sisterhood isn't having any problems taking care of the Antithesis trying to penetrate this part of the line, so I'll double back to help you,] Sharron said. [Can you hold for a couple minutes?] [You know me, I'll do my best,] I replied. Down in the deep, the otter was darting back and forth, ducking behind whatever cover it could find as it desperately attempted to avoid the oncoming wave. I had no doubt it would be able to take down one or two of the massive eels on its own, but there were dozens trying to chase it down right now. On top of that, there were several slightly slower species of Antithesis moving in behind the eels, ignoring the otter and pushing towards the north. I couldn't just have the otter retreat; even though there had to be hundreds of Antithesis pouring into the area, I was a little concerned that I might lose track of the front line before the bears could regroup. Unfortunately, as fast and agile as the otter was, it was dealing with a pack of instinctive hunters. During one of its attempted evasive manuvers, when it slipped around a rock outcropping, it found a pair of the slippery eels already waiting for it, mouths wide. It flared the jets on its back and just barely managed to slip past the first one, only to put itself directly in the path of the second one. I watched in horror as the oversized jaws snapped closed on the otter's arm like a bear trap, and started thrashing about, throwing the bot back and forth. Instead of panicking, the otter simply pulled the rifle off its back, pressed the barrel to the side of the creature's head, and pulled the trigger. The searing laser pulse cut right through the oversized eel, searing flesh and sundering bone. It thrashed even harder for a moment before finally lying still with it's jaws still firmly locked around the otter's arm. As the other eels closed in, the otter attempted to cut the eel's jaw open in order to free itself, and when that failed, it started firing into the rest of the swarm. It managed to cut down more than half of the incoming monsters before one got close enough to bite down on the weapon and disarm the bot, and once that was done, the rest of the swarm closed in for the kill. I cut the link to the otter before it was ripped limb from limb. Even though the bot was tough, I knew the chances of it surviving an extended assault were exceptionally slim. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. It had served its purpose and bought me enough time for the bears to regroup in front of the oncoming swarm, and I made a mental note to send a squad to try and save it, or at least recover it, once there was an opening. With the eels distracted, the rest of the Antithesis swarm met my aquatic brigade head-on. At the head of the Antithesis were a group of shark-like creatures, with massive jaws that seemed to take up a full third of their bodies. As soon as the bears got close enough, the tentacles on the back of their armors activated, whipping forward and unleashing a barrage of lasers. I knew that Sharron's tech was effective underwater, but I hadn't expected it to be that effective. The blasts didn't seem to suffer any attenuation at all under the water, and within seconds the bears had ripped the strange sharks apart. Unfortunately, those sharks were just the vanguard of the swarm, and as soon as they died, they were replaced by other species. Sharks with tentacles, Whales that were spawning the tiny Model One Skates, Translucent fish that expanded and shot off waves of spikes, and dozens more. The bears did their best to slow the onslaught, using the speed of the scooters and the power of their combat armor to slow the swarm down. Even though the lasers ripped apart the smaller models, and the torpedoes launched from the mouths of the scooters did an admirable job of killing the larger models, fifty bears just wasn't enough to completely stem the tide of Antithesis streaming through the area. If this battle had been on land and I had enough time to set up a handful of fortifications and chokepoints, fifty bears would be able to hold off a low-level horde like this almost indefinitely. Under the water, battles weren't limited to a single plane, and nearly every combatant was capable of swimming, so it was extremely easy for the Antithesis to bypass our defensive line. Fifty bears just wasn't enough. I was seriously considering ordering Spooky to fire another salvo of missiles directly into the midst of the Antithesis horde and risk damaging both my bots and Mako's opinion of me when something detonated in the middle of the horde. The blast wave ripped through the swarm extremely quickly, tearing the Antithesis caught inside fin from fin in a massive area. In just seconds it had done more damage to the swarm than all my bears combined had managed in the last few minutes. I blinked in surprise and ordered the bears to quickly scan the area. It took them a moment to actually spot who had interceded on our behalf. A feminine figure in a familiar-looking suit of blue-grey metal armor came jetting in. She flipped around to bleed off her speed a set of metallic tentacles slowly emerged from the back of her suit. Sharron quickly waved at the nearest bear before turning to face the swarm. While the four smaller tentacles slowly picked apart the swarm with the same lasers that I remembered, the two larger tentacles, which used to have melee weapons, swept forward and unleashed a pair of cylindrical blasts, which tore apart every Antithesis in the area. While her tentacles quickly cleared the area, Sharron aimed the oversized weapon she was carring at the center of the swarm and pulled the trigger. Something that resembled an unstable singularity shot out of her weapon, cutting a clean hole through any Antithesis which happened to wander into the way. The projectile traveled out around two hundred meters away from Sharron before detonating, shredding anything caught in the blast zone." I have no idea what she's using, but that thing is fucking scary," I muttered." Is that Deep Dweller tech?" Yes, a Class IV Abyssal Rupture Cannon. It's one of the Deep Dweller's first forays into subspace weaponry, Nyx said." Why would a water-based mining race focus on subspace weaponry?" I asked. Because it's far more efficient to rip rock apart at a molecular level and teleport it to the far reaches of the universe than it is to dig it out, Nyx replied. I frowned." Are you being serious or…?" Well, to answer your question, let me ask one of my own. If you had the choice of slowly mining out tunnels over several days or using dangerous, untested tech to perform the same work in seconds? Nyx asked." You know the answer to that," I muttered, "but I'm a single person, and I don't represent the entire species." Well, humanity may not have access to that level of tech, but one day, once they progress, they'll make the same choice." The lazy but stupidly dangerous choice? I have no doubt that they will," I grumbled. I focused on the battle below and found that with Sharron's intervention the situation was quickly stabilizing. The Antithesis were still streaming into the area, but they weren't able to penetrate the defensive line very easily." Assuming we get that far," I muttered." Right now I need to focus on the present to make sure we survive that long."