Once Lime-Light had subdued her partner, she dragged the knocked-out mermaid back to the ship. The girl had blown in like a hurricane and disappeared just as quickly.

  I couldn’t blame her, she probably wanted to check on her partner, but that left Skyler and me to clean up the area. Even though the antithesis onslaught had nearly come to an end, there were still plenty of smaller models around. The breach was far too large for us to close, and even with multiple stationary torpedo drones, there was a slow but steady flow of antithesis leaking through.

  There were so many pouring through that we didn’t have a prayer of killing them all. I felt stressed just trying to intercept the ones that made a beeline directly for Skyler.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have to hold out for very long. With the tail end of the wave came samurai reinforcements, the same samurai who had been struggling to cut down the antithesis’ numbers the last few days.

  I nearly sliced Thermal Current as she slipped through the gap to check out our situation, only registering she wasn’t another antithesis invader at the last second. It’s not like her outfit resembled an antithesis at all; it was a fairly standard-looking black wetsuit with warm orange armor plates over all the vital areas. It was more that I didn’t expect a person to just casually swim into our defensive zone.

  I guess I should have taken the fact that both the sonic cannons and torpedo drones had fallen silent as a hint.

  “Woah! Careful there, that thing looks sharp,” Thermal laughed, throwing up her hands. “I’m friendly, I promise.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, as I stared blankly at the woman.

  “Killing the antithesis, just like you. Although, I’m using a thermal beam so I don’t have to rush back and forth like you are. Seems like a frantic way of fighting.”

  “It works better on the surface,” I admitted.

  “Please excuse my partner, she’s been at this awhile,” Skyler said as she swam up behind me and placed a hand on my back. “We both have, but she had to work a little bit harder than I did.”

  I didn’t argue, because I was too tired. Instead, I just slipped Rending Wave into its sheath and let Skyler take the lead.

  “What’s the situation outside? Is everything finally under control?” Skyler asked.

  “Not even close, but at least we managed to shut down this wave. The bigger models really managed to slow us down at the start, but we just need to clean up the dregs now. How are things here?” Thermal replied flippantly.

  “We have multiple holes in the defenses, and Ghost-Light took a little bit of a bump, so she had to be evacuated back to the ship. Reina and I have been trying to hold the line, but there are only two of us,” Skyler reported. “I’ve just been directing my drones, and I’m tired. I can’t imagine how Reina must feel.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about it now. Reinforcements have arrived! I’m just the vanguard, and the others should be arriving in a couple of minutes.” She gave me a sly smile, then turned and tossed a small orb into the middle of the gap. Without Skyler’s drones continuously bombarding the area, a group of Model Three-Os tried to sneak through, only for the orb to snap open and fire some sort of beam at the group. The creatures were flash-fried within a second.

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  “Now that we’ve secured the gap, we have time to talk. I’d like to perform a more permanent fix, but we’ll have to wait until the engineers arrive for that,” Thermal said, making sure the opening was clear before turning back towards us.

  “I don’t know how you have the energy right now,” I grumbled. “We just arrived at the start of this wave, and I’m already exhausted.”

  “Well, I’ve had years of experience and tons of genetic mods to help with that. As for the newer samurai, they had the good sense to retreat to the support fleet and take breaks occasionally,” Thermal replied with a coy smile.

  “Unfortunately we didn’t really have the liberty of taking breaks,” I snapped. “First there was the armored eels, then the giant horned leviathan, which created a breach in the wall, then the tunneling bug things, and finally the kraken. We’ve had a busy day.”

  Thermal’s smile dropped. “The Swordfish, and the Kraken. We had kill teams out looking for both of them--I didn’t think they’d rush the wall like that. Especially the Kraken. It was a particularly powerful type of mobile hive, and going it alone is not normal for that type. If that had managed to get through, it would have been a disaster if that thing had reached the shore.”

  “Well, we’re lucky the Starchaser and her crew were here. I don’t think we would have been able to stop either of them by ourselves,” Skyler muttered quietly.

  “I would expect so, aren’t you two new? Awakened just this week? Most samurai have never seen anything that strong, never mind fought one,” Thermal explained solemnly.

  “Why do you call them Swordfish and Kraken? Aren’t they numbered like the others?” I grumbled.

  “Right now? No, they don’t. None of our AIs could find a matching model in any of their databases, so they appear to have been grown using terrestrial DNA.”

  Skyler gasped. “How is that possible? What could they possibly have grown those monsters out of?”

  “Narwhals, swordfish, sharks, cuttlefish, nautiloids, and colossal squid,” Thermal signed. “Problem is every single one of those species is supposed to be nearly extinct. They were wiped out early in the 2030s, before we understood the antithesis could survive underwater and the threat could come from anywhere. I doubt those things have been around that long, so where did they get that DNA? Maybe some of the early antithesis survived and passed on that knowledge? Who knows? All we know right now is that these two monstrosities appear to be entirely new breeds. Once we report their existence to the other samurai, someone will figure out the best way to classify them.”

  “Why is the process so complicated?” I asked.

  “Because there are millions, maybe even billions, of different types of antithesis. Someone has to figure out if they have a similar function and threat level to any existing model, then if they fit into any known existing variant line, before finally naming them,” Thermal explained.

  “Why couldn’t we just give them normal names? Wouldn’t that have been easier?” Skyler asked curiously.

  “It would have, at first. I’m sure people would love calling the Threes hounds, Fives as Spiny Hogs, and so forth, but things would get complicated after the first twenty or so,” Thermal said. “Better to group them by function, so when a model is described as a Three variant, you know it’s a basic swarmer. Ones are tiny flying flocking types. Even new samurai understand what to expect after their first few encounters.”

  “I guess that makes some sort of sense,” I admitted. I was already starting to feel a little bit better after just floating here, resting. “What do you want us to do now?”

  “You two? Nothing. I can already tell you’re both exhausted. We honestly should have sent a couple of samurai ahead to reinforce you, but I thought the sonic cannons, backed up by the Starchaser, would be able to hold. That was my mistake. I didn’t expect the leviathans to head directly for the city. I’m sorry we left you alone to deal with that,” Thermal apologized. “Now that reinforcements are here, you can take a rest. The crisis is over for now, but we’ll have plenty of work to do later.”

  “That’s it?” Skyler asked, surprised.

  “For now. There’s no point in pushing yourselves to the point of collapse. When you’re tired, you make mistakes, and we really don’t need you getting injured, or worse, due to a stupid mistake. We can handle things for now, so take some time to rest, and if you still want to help in the morning, we can talk then.”

  “If we want to help?” I scowled.

  Thermal raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you two normally work on the ground? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the help, but I’m sure they can use your help above water just as much as we could use it down here. Figure out what you want to do, and have your AI contact me when you’re ready to jump back in the water.”

  “We can do that.Thank you for your help,” Skyler said, before I could say anything else. “We’ll head back to the surface and get some rest.”

  “Take care, you two, and good work today,” Thermal chirped before turning back towards the breach. Her little drone deactivated just long enough for her to slip through before activating again.

  “You didn’t have to interrupt me there I was going to be polite,” I mumbled.

  “I know you were, but I figured it was better if we went our separate ways. You definitely need a nap.”

  “I do not,” I growled.

  “Alright, whatever you say, grumpy,” Skyler replied, rolling her eyes. “Let’s head back up to the Starchaser and check in with the girls before we head home. We’re both tired, but we should definitely stop in and say thank you for watching our backs. We probably wouldn’t have gotten through the day without them.”

  I slumped. “You’re right, we need to be polite. We should also check on Ghost-Light, see how she’s doing before we go. Let’s head back up.”

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