As soon as the lure went active, the antithesis started pouring out of the surrounding buildings. They were unorganized, filing out slowly instead of attacking all at once, but still enough to be dangerous.

  I strode from one side of the Kodiak to the other, constantly checking how my bears were faring against the onslaught and providing a little extra firepower whenever necessary. Stationed off the rig’s front, Heavy didn’t need any help, he just hosed down anything that stuck its nose out of one of the buildings ahead of us. But with only two bears protecting the sides and back of the transport, they needed a little help every once in a while.

  Amy seemed to be having a whale of a time. Every time she spotted a large group of antithesis, she sprinted in their direction and unloaded both of her SMGs into the oncoming pack. I thought she’d have trouble lifting both guns at the same time, never mind firing them, but I guess samurai-grade weapons were just on another level compared to the old broken-down model that I tried firing way back at the start of my samurai career.

  Nora, on the other hand, was storming into buildings and systematically eliminating every antithesis inside before moving on to her next target. I’m not sure how she was able to track all those antithesis or how she knew a building was clear, but once she finally left a building, no new aliens crawled out of it. Maybe those swept-back ears on her helmet weren’t just for show after all.

  In half an hour we managed to advance about three blocks, which wasn’t the greatest progress, but it was enough time for the two additional squads to show up. Unfortunately the additional two IFVs, and a dozen bears didn’t really speed up the clean up that much, because we still had to wait for the antithesis to filter out of the buildings. It was a slow process. At least, not until we approached the heart of the drop zone.

  “What the fuck is that?” I asked stupidly after we turned the last corner and actually got a look at the drop zone.

  “That’s the seed pod’s core. It’s even the same type as the one you destroyed earlier,” Nyx reported.

  “Bullshit! The last one didn’t look anything like that,” I barked.

  This pod had apparently come in at an angle because it embedded itself in the side of a building, two floors up. The long wooden core was still there, but in the hour or so since this one had landed, it had undergone massive changes.

  Masses of writhing vines had grown out, anchoring the core to the building before spreading out and, for a lack of a better word, blooming. There were half a dozen large flowers and irregular growths lining the street underneath the crashed pod, and the antithesis were already piling whatever biomass they could find up underneath it.

  “I did tell you that one of the core’s secondary functions was to quickly develop into a hive. Did you think I was joking?” Nyx replied.

  “No, but I didn’t think it would develop this fast,” I growled.

  “That’s a hive? Really? I thought they typically developed in a basement or out in the wilderness, where they were hard to find,” Amy said, gawking at the structure.

  “Apparently, that’s not always the case,” I grumbled. “I’m about to demonstrate why developing one so overtly doesn’t work out so well. Dusty!”

  The turrets on all three Kodiaks snapped towards the nascent hive structure, targeting different sections, before simultaneously opening fire. At least one of the vehicles had been packing incendiary rounds and the foliage on the ground caught fire like dry leaves in an incinerator. An explosive round caught the spar dead on, causing it to shatter and raining debris across the entire street.

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  As soon as the hive disintegrated, all hell broke loose. Antithesis flooded onto the street, not just around the Kodiaks, but from every building in the area.

  “I don’t think they liked that,” Amy whispered.

  “Well, sucks to be them,” I chuckled, then raised my voice. “Heavy! Front and center!”

  I didn’t have to yell; I’d already subconsciously sent the mental command long before I could shout, but it felt good to do and let other people know what was going on.

  While bears scrambled about, taking defensive positions, the moose wandered back into the intersection behind us to prevent any antithesis from flanking.

  “Shouldn’t we be taking cover or something?” Amy squeaked as the streets completely filled with antithesis barreling towards us.

  “This is why we recommended you pick up some armor,” I yelled over the stampeding feet charging towards us. “Don’t worry, this is fine though.”

  “How could this possibly be fine?” Amy shouted.

  Then the bears opened fire. Heavy raked the front lines with his rotary laser, cutting down the weaker models, while the other bears picked off the slightly stronger targets. Within a few seconds, the charge was slowed, then completely stopped, as the antithesis died faster than they could advance.

  “Fuck me…” Amy hissed. “How long will it take until I can do shit like that?”

  “It has less to do with time and more to do with exposure. It’s all about the points and how you use them,” Nora explained. “Figuring out a fighting style that works for you and focusing on that is better than spreading your points over a dozen catalogs you’ll never use again.”

  “Well, at least for most of us…” I muttered under my breath.

  While Nora was giving Amy some quick pointers right in the middle of the fight, I wandered towards the rear to check on the moose. Although they were covering three roads, we’d pretty much cleared one on the way in, and far fewer antithesis were piling out of the buildings on the other two, so they weren’t having much difficulty.

  I started turning back to the main battle, but before I could, there was a gust of wind and a blur as something slammed into the side of one of the moose. The bot was sent tumbling, rolling end over end until it finally smashed into the side of a nearby car. Even though the car crumpled around it, the Moose simply stood up and did its best to extricate itself from the wreck.

  I snapped up my rifle and took a couple pot shots at the shape as it took off into the air. Even with the advantage of the micro missile ammunition automatically locking on to targets, I shot far too wide to hit the beast.

  My eyes narrowed as the four-winged, six-eyed flying monstrosity the size of a large truck gained altitude.

  “What is with the aerial models today?” I grumbled. “First it’s the Ones, now the Elevens are fucking with me. Can’t anything go smoothly?”

  I wasn’t really worried about the moose, they could take a Bob level beating and still stand up again, but if they kept getting interrupted like that, we were going to have issues with the antithesis approaching behind. Even now the second moose was having to split fire between the two streets to keep the antithesis at bay.

  As I tracked the Eleven’s flight, I saw it level off around the top of the buildings, where two more green and brown shapes were waiting before all three fell into a steep dive.

  “No, you fucking don’t!” I snarled, sighting the front flyer.

  At this distance I would have had little chance of hitting the diving antithesis with a normal gun. If I was being honest, I probably would have had a problem consistently hitting them when they were sitting still twenty feet away with a normal gun. But the LCARS was anything but a normal gun.

  I quickly brought the sights over the closest blur and pulled the trigger, releasing a quick burst. The micro missiles corrected for my bad aim mid-flight and struck the front creature dead center. Even at this distance I could see the explosives all but remove the creature’s head, turning its controlled dive into a dead drop.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate, though, because the other two Elevens were closing fast. Like some sort of bird of prey, they were using the dive to build up speed before their strike, and I couldn’t afford to lose another bear off the lines. Snapping my rifle towards the second shape, I started firing before it was fully in the crosshairs. Although a couple of rounds probably missed, enough connected with the creature’s wing to pretty much remove it, causing the monster to fall into a death spiral.

  By the time I finally brought my rifle over the third shape, it was almost at ground level, starting to level off. There was no time to really aim, so I just sprayed my entire clip in the general direction of the Eleven. Some of it even hit.

  Explosions erupted over the entire length of the final Eleven, and its shape went limp. The creature smashed into the street, just barely missing the Moose which was still standing, before rolling and skidding down the street.

  I threw myself out of the way as the body tumbled right past where I’d been standing, before sliding to a stop a couple inches from the back of the Kodiaks.

  By the time I stood up, the second Moose had returned to his position, like nothing had even happened. I doubted Nora and Amy even realized anything had happened.

  Groaning, I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled over to the corpse, just so I could kick it in the head. Just once.

  “Stupid birds,” I muttered.

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