B3-06 - Landsharks (Patreon)

Hanna had in fact visited Beirut before. Although that had been nearly twenty years ago, when she claimed she was ‘finding herself’. That had also been pre-Integration.

George and Yuri were excited about the satellites and Maya had to stop in orbit first, to toss off a test device. The only satellites that Maya could recall ever seeing were images of Sputnik and the Hubble Space Telescope, they were iconic and a part of history. Though she didn’t know if the Hubble counted as a satellite. The devices that Asoltolia sold them were the size of a four door sedan and didn’t have anything iconic or distinguishing about their design.

It was all plug and play, from the instructions Maya read and what Dianarios claimed. System tech at its finest, where the person didn’t have to fully understand its workings and operating it was a simple matter. Although George claimed it was simple to Maya due to her high Mental Stats.

The first satellite managed to boot up and began sending back information to the control console Maya had installed. There was an additional one that would be set up in the 4S for the Astronauts to use. Within an hour the satellite was fully operational and on a slow approach into orbit around earth.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of work,” George said watching the satellite move. “Every major satellite, we as humanity, put into space was a massive undertaking. This is unfair.”

“For a measly three million credits, you can have one of your own,” Maya said.

“Three million?” George asked.

“Shipping and handling, plus I gotta get my cut,” Maya grinned.

George shook his head and continued watching the satellite. “We best get to work then, the rest of the satellites need to be placed in orbit.”

“I’ll help them set it up,” Roci said. “I’ll make sure they don’t try to lock us out of it, we’ll be able to access the data anytime we’re on Earth or Earth orbit.”

“We would never try to gain full control of the satellites,” George said.

“Yeah, yeah, and I was born yesterday,” Roci remarked.

“She’s not wrong,” Maya said. “That there is an investment of twenty million credits, that could have been forty settlement deeds.”

“If you ever returned back to Earth,” Roci replied.

“Alright, kid. That’s enough. When did you become so surly? Is this because Tender made more credits and sold more items than you did?”

“He cheated!”

“A stupid rogue AI such as myself? Impossible,” Tender said.

“You’re still talking about that? That was weeks ago!”

“Now, now, kids. No fighting in front of guests. Especially when we’re trying to impress them with our technological prowess. Roci join George in setting up the satellites, if any of y’all wanna come with me to meet Anisa, then you’re welcomed.”

“I shall go with you to Beirut,” Yuri said.

“You sure, bud? You don’t wanna play with spy satellites and whatnot?”

“Lebanon is the close to Russia. I shall see if any word has arrived about the state of the world,” he said.

“Or you can get the satellites up and running, then spy on the all of Russia.”

“I shall go with you.”

“Alrighty, anyone else?”

Yuri and Hanna were going with Maya, while Zoya, Izumi, and Inez returned to the station with Roci and George. A part of Maya was glad Roci was joining the Astronauts; it wasn’t Roci’s behavior, instead Maya didn’t fully trust the Astronauts. They were good and smart people, for sure, but their status as allies was still up in the air. She knew that their loyalties lay with their countries of origin and that could eventually be a problem.

She was not foolish enough to think that the Cage or what she was capable of doing weren’t going to be noticed. The meetings with Bell’s Matriarch and Asoltolia showed that there were some people out there that knew exactly how to use the Cage to further their own needs and desires. How soon would it be before she was caught up in some country’s politics and forced to use the Cage as a weapon?

The Astronauts were great people, they were learning fast and beginning to see what system tech could do for humanity. Even with that, she didn’t know what they would do if their countries demanded they do something for them. In this apocalyptic world, they were in one of the few safe places and they had the ear and access to a magical machine that could appear anywhere.

Maya sighed and pushed away the grim thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on something that might not happen. She was finally going to see Anisa again. The thought made her grin as she settled down into her command chair. “Here we go!” she cried and with a slight lurch, the threshold disengaged from the 4S and reformed.

As the owner of the settlement deed, Maya could feel where the settlement was. It was what Maya was thinking of System-sense. An almost instinctual feeling that one gained from Skills. She could bring up screens and check on the status of the settlements and at the same time she knew what was going on, like ambient noise.

Anisa Karam. She had helped Maya defeat Shen and his zombies. She had killed many of them during the battle. A tough woman if Maya had ever seen one. She had tried to help Maya, thinking she was lost or injured. How many people would do that, especially if they themselves were hungry, scared, and barely surviving as it was?  Maya was glad she had met the woman, she was thrilled at the progress she was making in creating her settlement.

Beirut had been a coastal city, but once Integration occurred, the seas heaved out waves upon monsters that had devastated the city. The story was played out all across the world, hundreds of cities devastated, millions upon millions dead in the first week.

One hundred and forty days had passed for Maya, a bit more as she wasn’t counting the days spent in Cage Time while battling the hiveship. That was fourteen days since Integration in Earth time. Fourteen days that humanity battled and died to the mana mutations that plagued Earth, the Tier 2 status of the planet pouring untold amounts of mana and essence into the creatures; making them far stronger than they would have been on any other world.

Maya’s grin faltered a bit as she dwelled on those thoughts. Two weeks had passed on Earth and she had only created three settlements. She had only gone to three places in nearly ten Earth days. A feeling of failure began to weigh down upon her as the threshold formed and a blank wall transformed into the Cage wall.

Beirut was a Level 2 Defense Settlement. In normal everyday System worlds, defense settlements were used as forts and bases to push into enemy territory or claim a frontier land. They weren’t supposed to be a solo thing, instead surrounded by support settlements, offering food, machinery, and repairs to the military forces.

Settlement deeds did not make fortresses or homes, they were simply deeds that were enforced by the System. In the case of Tier 2 Earth, the deeds helped in controlling the rampant mana renders, dimensional instabilities, and other chaos caused by high amounts of mana being pushed into the planet. It was up to the deed holder to build and fortify their position; in this case, Anisa had managed to secure a massive building that the system deed called the Grand Serail. It was a multistory building of white stone and orange tiles, but also sporting a lot of damage from heavy fighting.

Maya could sense there was history in the building, in what it represented. She cursed her lack of historical knowledge, even with her high Mental stats she could remember things from long ago, but one could not recall information they didn’t even learn about in the first place.

She noted people were in a panic. Even in the slowed down display on the view screen, Maya saw the looks of horror, panic, and fear etched into the survivors’ faces. She watched as men and women with guns, swords, and makeshift weapons rushed in one direction, while all the civilians rushed in the other.

“What’s going on?” Maya muttered, trying to use the scanners built into the Cage.

“Are we causing this?” Hanna asked.

“No, I don’t think they’ve even noticed the Cage yet,” Maya replied.

“They are being attacked,” Yuri said.

“By what?” Maya muttered again as she fiddled with the controls.

She had no visuals, but the scanners built a wireframe image of the surrounding area. The computer then shaded in areas and colored coded everything. Maya stared at the image for a moment and then cursed.

The scanners showed a massive wall of biological mana mutations moving toward the palace Anisa had made her settlement. They were big, finned, and had triangular shark heads filled with rows of teeth.

“The sea is being a bitch here,” Maya said, sighing.

“They’re going to be overrun,” Yuri said. “They cannot fight all of that.”

The computer was still doing its thing and finally spat out a number. Ten thousand Landsharks, big, mean, and ready to consume Anisa and her fellow survivors.

“Well, at least we got lucky and arrived in time,” Maya said. She pondered the image.

“What are we going to do? We can’t allow them to all die,” Hanna said. “Bring the civilians into the Cage, at least.”

“You have weapons and armor, give it to the people!” Yuri said.

“We need to help them!”

“Why aren’t you acting?”

Maya ignored the voices. She had spotted Anisa. It felt like ages ago that Maya had met her. She had been dirty, starving, and scared out of her mind, but she had been kind and helpful. It had been nine days since and Maya saw how much nine days could change a person.

Exhaustion was etched in every line of her face, deep, painful exhaustion. She still moved quickly and confidently, but Maya could tell she was bone tired. She had been thin, but now she almost looked skeletal. Yet she carried a massive sword over her shoulder and wore armor that seemed to be steel plates riveted together.

The feeling of failure and foolishness hit Maya in the gut. All these days, all this time she had been dicking around, lying in bed, playing with holograms, and chatting with Asoltolia; Anisa had been fighting day in and day out. Keeping her people alive and trying to secure a safe place for her daughter.

“God damn it,” Maya muttered.

Maya released the Cage and the threshold changed. Yuri and Hanna cried out, demanding to know what she was doing. Maya ignored them and reconnected the door to the space station. The satellite she had launched as a test was still active. She sighed with relief as it was in an orbit that had it over Beirut.

The data came in and Maya watched as the horde of landsharks thundered forward, the line of human defenders barely forming and very thin compared to the creatures coming at them. Maya pulled up the coordinates and images of the standing soldiers.

“What are you doing!” Yuri demanded to know.

“We need to help them!”

Maya grimaced and focused her mind on the defenders. She saw each face, she saw each weapon they held, she began to expand the Cage, pushing it to the maximin limit that it could reach. Nearly a kilometer wide. It caused her head to ache.

“You can’t be doing this, Maya,” Nan’s voice suddenly cut through. “You’re not completely healed yet.”

“What is she doing?” Yuri demanded.

“She’s trying to save them,” Bell replied. He set a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t kill yourself.”

Maya chuckled and closed the door once more. The satellite feed cut off, but Maya had enough information now. She had a mental picture, a map, and the Cage warped to her commands. A bulkhead rose between the gathered and the door, but they could see into it as she made it somewhat transparent without reducing its integrity. A large kilometer wide room formed with nearly thirty meters from the massive door to the wall they stood behind.

“What is this?” Hanna asked.

Maya didn’t answer, instead she grunted and forced the Cage to reconnect.

***

.

The landsharks only knew one thing, they were hungry. They hungered for flesh and mana. The best source of both were the fleshy creatures that dwelled in caverns made of strange stone. There were thousands of them upon a hill, out of the water, yes, but they oozed with mana. Their flesh was soaked in it and the landsharks wanted that flesh.

They had left the sea, the hunting there was becoming scarce now days. For days they had hunted and killed the mana soaked fleshy creatures, they had caught them on shores, they had pulled them from floating crafts, and they had found islands filled with them. They had feasted, they had grown, in numbers and in levels.

But the constant hunger gnawed at them. Soon they would be eating one another and that would be bad. Every time they went against the mana soaked fleshy creatures, many would die. The fleshies were strange, but the landsharks were stronger. Soon they would be feasting.

The thought pushed the horde of over ten thousand landsharks forward, they shoved and jostled, constantly pushing the ones ahead of them forward or trying to push themselves ahead to be the first to feast upon the fleshies.

***

The gathered warriors of Beirut were only a thousand strong. They were the best hunters and warriors they had. They stood behind hastily erected defenses, dread and fear seeping out of every pore. They had faced horrors in the last two weeks, but those had been solo creatures, not an entire army of monsters.

Anisa Karam, the Defender of Beirut, stood before the men and women. She was tired, so very tired, but as she looked upon the vast horde approaching, she didn’t feel sadden or angry. She had fought, she had become the woman that her daughter had wanted her to be; she had defended them with everything she could muster. If she died here, no one would claim she had failed. There was a time when it just became too much.

Now was that time. She would face death; not with fear or terror, but with calmness and determination. She would not give up; she would fight until her last breath.

Anisa raised her sword and prepared herself.

***

The landsharks lacked sapience or sentience, but they had the cunning of predators. They quickened their steps as they reached an incline, there shattered buildings and ruins of the city barely slowing them down. They smelled the blood in the air, the mana thick in the flesh of those creatures.

If they could howl, they would have. But they moved with terrifying silence. They were descended from sharks and they did not howl, snarl, or growl. Instead, there stamping feet was more than enough to weaken knees.

The gathered fleshies before them shimmered for moment, as if they were looking through a veil of water. The lead landshark paused, but the following bodies shoved them forward. They tried to figure out what was going on, but the pressure behind them was too great. Blood and flesh had been scented and the horde was moving fast now. They eagerly wanted what lay ahead of them.

The shimmer became more apparent as they neared it, but the horde didn’t stop. It was some kind of fleshie trickery. The lead landshark braced themselves to hit the shimmer, but that wasn’t necessary. There was no resistance, no wall; the image before them dissolved and the landshark was faced with a massive darken room.

Once their entire body entered the room, they were suddenly pulled forward so quickly and so suddenly; the landshark barely had the time to comprehend what was occurring before they slammed against a bulkhead and all the life was crushed out of them. Behind them, an avalanche of landsharks followed their leader.

***

Blood dripped from Maya’s nose. She could feel every single one of the thousands of landsharks slamming into her bulkhead.  One by one they hit, sending a tremor through her.

There was no up or down, there was no gravity, time, or space within the Cage. Maya had used the same methods to defeat the hiveship weeks prior, now she used it on the monsters attacking Beirut.

When the landshark entered, gravity shifted, instead of walking into a room, they were now falling thirty meters into a pit. A pit with the gravitational force twenty times that of Earth. They hit the bulkhead and just… splattered. Dead before they even knew what happened.

The first ones in were the lucky ones, they died quick. The next batch, they mostly died, but many survived from being cushioned by the layer of flesh beneath them. The next, there were more and more survivors as the bodies began to pile up.

Hanna and Yuri and Bell all stared as the landsharks were turned into paste. After a while, Hanna and Yuri both turned pale and had to leave. Bell stood beside Maya, his eyes upon her instead and slowly talking to her.

“You don’t have to push yourself too hard,” he said.

“They’ll die if I don’t,” Maya said.

“They’ll die if you kill yourself too,” he replied.

Maya only nodded and wiped the blood away. She focused on keeping the doorway open, nearly half of the army had entered, some had bypassed the door as it wasn’t big enough to catch them all. But the vast majority were entering and dying.

“This is cheating,” Bell said, watching as another avalanche of bodies thudded against the bulkhead.

“I’m not getting any experience points,” Maya cursed.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the System doesn’t view this as an actual kill.”

Bell shook his head. “You’re operating a machine that’s killing mana mutations, if that doesn’t qualify as a kill, then using weapons won’t either.”

“So I’m being screwed over from getting free experience points?’ Maya asked.

Bell shrugged. “No one’s ever done this before.”

Maya chuckled painfully.

“Well, these mutations are very interesting,” Bell said, eyeing a creature. “If you can store the bodies, I think we might be able to harvest and test the mana trace on their organs and flesh.”

“Gross.”

“There is nothing gross about it. Many alchemical ingredients are taken from the flesh of mana mutations, their organs hold a lot of mana and by identifying the mana trace, your people can begin figuring out how to use your natural resources to create alchemical items.”

“Good point,” Maya muttered.

“In addition, it’s free biomass.”

“Oh, good. I was running out of chocolate and coffee.” Maya groaned. “How long have I been doing this?”

“Nearly two hours.”

“Where’s everyone?”

“They got spooked by all the thudding and exploding bodies,” Bell replied.

“Well, I think the tail ends aren’t getting splattered,” Maya remarked. She could see a few landsharks feebly kicking as they landed upon their brethren. “How are you going to sort those all that?”

“Good point, maybe you can… strain out the whole parts?” Bell asked.

“Gross.”

***

The landsharks were predators, but they also knew when the tides turned. Thousands of their brethren had vanished into a shimmer, nothing came back out. Thousands gone in an eye blink, and soon those that had passed the shimmer saw that they were alone. A great gap had been cut into the center of their lines, leaving those that had bypassed the shimmer to be exposed.

They died quickly from the attacks of the defenders.

Soon panic and fear gripped them and they turned and fled back to the sea.

Anisa Karam watched as the strange blank space stood half a kilometer from their lines. It was like a wall had appeared, spreading across the entire battlefield. Was it a miracle, someone’s Skill? The people were faint with relief, they had been saved.

It reminded Anisa of another wall she had come across. A door that she hadn’t seen before in her scavenging, and a woman who lay unconscious within.