It actually took me a while to clean up the antithesis at street level. It wasn’t that the job was all that difficult--it was just that the antithesis pulled out of the surrounding buildings, all died a couple of feet from each other.

  Since I didn’t want to use grenades on each individual antithesis, I had the bears take a couple of minutes to stack up the corpses before disposal. This especially pleased Bob, who had felt cooped up in the back of the Kodiak while he was overseeing the town defenses.

  “From downtown!” Bob yelled as he casually threw a Model Four thirty feet onto the nearest pile of bodies. “It’s good!”

  “Look, I know you were bored handling the town defenses, but can you please take this a little seriously?” I chided.

  “I can’t help it boss. It just feels good to get my muscles moving!”

  “You don’t have muscles,” I grumbled. “How do things look outside? Any issues?”

  “Nope, everything’s quiet. A few samurai stopped in to check on the defenses before moving on towards the hives, but no antithesis yet,” Bob reported.

  “That’s good news. Hopefully they can knock out a couple of those hives before they become a problem, and I can reassign a squad of Kodiaks back here to help with the incursion. I’d really like to get the other lures back here, but they’re the best way to keep the antithesis away from those unfortified towns. It’ll have to wait until the horde is significantly reduced.”

  “You know… I could send a couple of units out to start clearing. Most of our forces are just sitting there, waiting,” Bob suggested.

  “I don’t want to compromise the safety of the people in those towns,” I said after a couple seconds. “If you think you can pull a couple units out, and still guarantee their protection, you have my permission.”

  “I won’t take many!” Bob promised. “But killing antithesis makes it easier to defend the towns, which means I can move more units out to kill antithesis. You’ll see, I’ll be super strategical about it!”

  “I’m significantly less confident about this choice now,” I mumbled under my breath.

  After throwing a fleshmelter into the pile of corpses, I took a look around. There was still a little debris scattered about from the seedpod, but it didn’t seem like any of it could take root and cause problems later. It was probably safe enough to move on.

  The problem was that Nora was still missing. I didn’t know exactly where she was, but I didn’t want to move on without at least checking in on her, so I gave her a call.

  [Yo! I’m done down here on the street. How are things up there? Need a hand?] I asked as soon as she picked up.

  [I’m fine… I’m just doing some cleanup,] Nora replied. I could just hear the frustration oozing out of her voice.

  [You okay?]

  [Like I said, I’m fine. It’s just that almost every single one of these landing pods has a Model Eight in it. They’re bulky, slow, and don’t fucking die until I crush every single one of their fucking segments!] Nora growled. Even though I couldn’t hear any background noise, augs were practically brain to brain after all, I could absolutely imagine the squishing noises as she stomped her way through one of the massive ten-foot-long segmented worms.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  [You know you could leave the Eights until the cleanup. They move so slowly that they’re not a threat to anyone, and even if they did manage to gather enough biomass on their own and start turning into a hive, the cleanup crew would probably be here before it could become operational.]

  [I know, I know. I just hate leaving even the smallest possible threat behind,] Nora admitted. [So, are you waiting on me to move on to the next location?]

  [More checking in. I am ready to move on, but I can wait if you’re close to finishing, or I can move on by myself if you think there’s more you can do here,] I explained.

  [No, I’m pretty much done too. If you come pick me up, we can move on to the next location. I’ll have Bitsy send you my location, if you’d like to come pick me up.]

  [Sounds good, I’ll see you in a minute,] I chirped before ending the call.

  “Everyone back in the vehicle! Time to move on to the next location,” I yelled, as I grabbed my rifle off the ground and casually leapt on top of the Kodiak. “Break time’s over, we’ve got a lot of fighting left to do.”

  As soon as the bears were loaded, I mentally prodded Dusty to take off, and head towards the coordinates that Nora had provided. It looked like they were a couple of buildings down, up near the thirtieth floor.

  About halfway up, the sky started to darken. At first I thought it was maybe a change in the weather, but that’s when the Kodiak’s PAWS APS opened up for the first time. The little semi circular array shot a spray of particle beams directly upwards.

  My head shot upward, and I strained to see what it was shooting at, only to get a pigeon sized antithesis right in the face. “Model Ones? I forgot you assholes existed,” I grumbled, casually tossing the carcass off the side of the Kodiak.

  Despite their small size, and the fact that they were nearly harmless to anyone wearing any sort of armor, the Model Ones had two things going for them. Prodigious numbers, and the ability to fly.

  As I watched, the diminutive antithesis surged around the surrounding buildings until there were thousands of them swarming above me. The APS was doing its best, swatting dozens a second, but even that wasn’t enough to keep up with the gathering flock.

  “This is going to be an issue… isn’t it?” I muttered as the swarm finally dove towards the vehicle.

  The stupid alien birds slammed into both me and the Kodiak with all the force they could muster, which wasn’t much. The Kodiak just kept advancing towards Nora’s position while I was knocked around by their constant diving attacks. I stumbled about, blinded by the swarm, until my foot caught a raised section of the armor, and I smashed face-first into one of the hatches.

  “I’m not getting killed by a bunch of alien chickens,” I growled as a couple Model Ones landed on my prone body and began pecking at my armor. “Nyx! Anti-air support!”

  Anything specific or…

  “Don’t be an ass. Something to clear out this swarm before I get shoved off the top of the vehicle! More APS arrays, or a flak cannon, or something!”

  Since you’ve taken a liking to riding on top of your vehicles, instead of inside like they were designed, I wouldn’t recommend anything explosive. Instead, I recommend just increasing the vehicle’s existing firepower, by adding additional PAWS APS arrays.

  “Just fucking do it already!”

  Purchased - PAWS APS System x 3 - 150 points

  Purchased - IFV APS vehicle mount - 21 points

  Points remaining: 2943

  A few seconds later, the pressure from the massive flock of Model Ones lessened, as four times as many particle beams started eating through the small creatures. Any that tried to dive down at me were cut down before mid-flight, and the relentless weight of fire that the APS arrays put out finally started to chew through the swarm as a whole.

  Despite the carnage, and flaming bodies falling around me, my mind fixated on something completely different.

  “When was the last time I fucking bought something?” I mumbled. “I feel like I haven’t seen that message in forever.”

  It was over six months ago. You asked me to suppress the alert for any minor purchases, and although that technically applies here, I thought it would be appropriate to inform you exactly what was purchased. I know this must be very nostalgic for you, but I recommend paying attention to the situation at hand. You’re not out of the woods yet.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.

  After pushing myself to my feet, I glanced around wearily. The Model Ones were being handled now, but the last thing I needed was for something bigger to come along and knock me right off this fucking vehicle. I was still scanning the area when the Kodiak finally arrived at Nora’s location.

  As soon as the Kodiak leveled off, Nora leapt out of the nearest window, and casually landed next to me.

  “Rough trip?” she chuckled.

  “You don’t know the half of it. A swarm of Model Ones nearly knocked me right off the IFV. I’m never going to underestimate the smaller models ever again,” I grumbled.

  “Oh, I know,” she replied cheerfully. “I watched it happen. Bitsy even got a recording of it.”

  “What? Why?” I asked, confused.

  “So she can post it to the net, people love shit like that.”

  “And I thought this day couldn’t get any worse,” I groaned.

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