I was still trying to process what happened when things went from bad to worse.

  Alerts flashed through my brain as the Ursas that were performing strafing runs and holding back the swarm were blown out of the sky. From my position behind the wall, I could see dozens of spikes being sprayed through the air, saturating the area with their equivalent of anti-aircraft fire.

  “Mother fuckers…” I whispered. “Why now?”

  The hive probably had rerouted most of its energy over the last few hours to developing that shell and that anti-orbital weapon after taking all that damage earlier. Now that the weapon’s operational, and it’s taken care of a potential threat, the hive can once again focus on expanding and dealing with more local threats, Nyx explained.

  “Since when do the Antithesis have anti-orbital capabilities anyways?” I asked. “I found the fact that they had anti-aircraft capabilities surprising enough. My air superiority has been enough to deal with them in the past, but anti-orbital? What the fuck?”

  Humanity has, for the most part, only faced the most basic Antithesis forces up to this point, and you’ve been diligent at cleaning up any hives and infestations you’ve encountered. This is what happens when you encounter a strain that has survived multiple engagements, learning and adapting over time. The oldest, and most powerful, Antithesis strains are able to keep even the protectors at bay, and the one you're facing right now learned from fighting most of Earth’s most powerful samurai over months. It would make sense that they develop anti-orbital weapons to deal with the terran battle ships in orbit.

  “So we’ve got a specialized anti-human strain that now feels confident enough in its capabilities to throw everything it has our direction,” I said. “Is there any good news?”

  The hive probably isn’t big enough to harvest minerals from the surrounding area yet, like they had been in Jasper, or on Mars, which means they can only create a limited number of advanced models. Those heavies wandering the perimeter probably arrived on the chunk of hive and they don’t have the materials to create more yet.

  “Yeah, but as long as they die on the fungus the Antithesis can recover all the materials used to birth them, and just rebirth a new model,” I grumbled.

  Unfortunately, true, Nyx agreed.

  “What type of minerals do the Antithesis need to create advanced models? Copper? Iron?” I asked.

  It depends on the model. They can do a lot with the Carbon pulled from the local biomass, but in order to do something like creating carapaces as strong as diamond, requires weeks of gestation, so it’s faster for them to integrate other elements into their biome to accelerate the process. They weave metals into their armor to make them stronger, lightweight elements allow them to field larger flyers, and as you experienced in Jasper, they can mix elements into new, stronger chemical-based weapons.

  A chill ran down my spine. “So it would probably be bad if they got their feelers on a massive chunk of pure tungsten. Say… if someone dropped one on them from space.”

  Based upon my observations, the Antithesis are probably using that to weave that shell over the hive, but yes, you may be encountering Antithesis with much tougher shells in the next few engagements.

  “Wonderful,” I grumbled. I wandered over to the wall and jumped up on an abandoned car nearby. There was a good chance that I could receive a faceful of acid from a rogue projectile, but I didn’t care right now. Despite the fact that the Bear-acade wall was blocking my view of the hive, I could still see a red-orange glow beyond. “How long do you think the M17 will manage to keep the Antithesis at bay? I don’t know if they took down the Ursas to break through the barrier or just to remove the aircraft from the area. Either way, I’m glad we’re using a long-burning material.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The M17 does have a long lifetime, but it’s not unlimited. I suspect the first small gaps will appear in an hour or two, but the majority of it will last five or six.

  “Will that be long enough to get the ICBMs online?” I asked.

  It’ll be close.

  “Well, if they’re not online by the time the main assault happens, we’ll have to hold out until they are,” I said as I hopped down from the car and leaned against the wall. “Why do you think the Antithesis are pushing so hard in this direction? I can’t imagine it’s because of the biomass; it would be easier to devour the surrounding trees than break into a city and attack the people.”

  Evelyn… what have we just been discussing for the last few minutes? Nyx sighed.

  I cocked my head to the side. “What? You mean mineral thing?”

  The Antithesis have plenty of biomass, but their ability to produce more advanced forms is heavily bottlenecked by the lack of resources. They could dig down and search for deposits under the hive, but a much faster solution would be for them to loot surface deposits near the hive.

  “You’re talking about Grand Falls,” I said.

  There’s a reason why the Antithesis like attacking Sentient species. They tend to be social, which means plenty of biomass packed into a small space, and if they actually manage to develop to the point where they need minerals, the sentient species have already done most of the hard part and gathered it all in one place for them to devour. It’s not just metals, but the Antithesis will devour chemicals, pills, and pretty much anything else they can get their jaws on. It’ll all be broken down and used to develop more advanced models.

  “So if our defenses fail here…” I started.

  It would be bad Evelyn, very bad. In the five days it takes the Mars assault fleet to return, this hive could spread up the west coast and establish defenses equivalent to anything they faced on the red planet.

  “So, no pressure then,” I grumbled before pushing off the wall and shaking my head. “Well, if the Antithesis think Grand Falls is going to be an easy target, they’ve got another thing coming. The bears can handle most of the basic Antithesis models. We just need to prepare for the larger models. Hopefully the UHR and ICBMs will be enough, but if not, maybe Wild and Mud will have some ideas. They’ve got some unique catalogs, so maybe they’ll have something that allows us to bypass their defenses.”

  The heavies have probably been hardened against all sorts of unique biological and chemical weapons to survive on Mars,--don’t expect to find an easy solution, Nyx warned.

  “Oh, I don’t expect the solution to be easy,” I replied, “but if there’s one thing I’ve learned since becoming a samurai, it’s that there’s more catalogs, and unique techs than there are stars in the sky. Those big bastards may be hardened against what the Mars samurai were throwing at them, but us earthbound samurai will be throwing completely different shit at them. I’m sure we’ll find something that’ll work.”

  I still think you should do everything you can before the Antithesis break through the M17, you have a ton of points.

  “I know, but I was hoping to get a couple tokens before I spent them all,” I sighed. “Do I have enough points to fully enclose the town in Bear-acades, and expand the self replicating mine fields all the way down the front line?”

  Yes, but that won’t help you against the heavier models.

  “I’m aware,” I snapped. “The only thing that’ll help there is…” I paused. “Do I have enough to mount a second UHR yet?”

  No, you’re close though.

  “Ugh… it’s probably our best chance against the big boys, so it might be smarter to save until I can install the second UHR in the main turret, but I still want the walls and mines. The mines proved effective at staving off those new Twenty-Ones, and they’ll thin out the smaller Antithesis. Who knows, maybe they’ll even prove effective against the big boys,” I said. “Granted, it’s a very small chance, but we’re going to need every advantage we can get to survive the oncoming assault long enough to get reinforcements.”

  I glanced up into the sky. It was early afternoon, which meant the M17 was going to start fading in the evening, and the main assault was going to hit at night. Not ideal circumstances, but what else was new?

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught what looked like a couple small meteors entering the atmosphere. I knew that’s not what they were, they were probably parts of the orbital station that was hit. Hopefully they managed to recover, and survive. Earth would probably need that weapon again later.

  For now though, we were on our own.

  With that sobering though I stepped away from the wall and started looking for Wild and Mud.

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