Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Three: A Clash of Armies (Patreon)

I got an aerial view of the ‘ground’ situation as I swooped in.

Groups of civilians, escorted by police, were walking towards the shelters. Ambulances and supply trucks were out in force, and soldiers were marching in formation towards their targets. With earplugs.

The city hadn’t forgotten the lessons of the last attack, it seemed.

I landed next to my missile truck. “Everyone okay? Where’s Indradhanush?”

“He’s out of it for now,” Chequers radioed. “The power in those packs nearly overloaded him.”

“Is he okay?”

“Doctors say he just fainted. Exhaustion. But he brought down the ship, so they’re treating him with kid gloves.”

“Mahotsukoi did her bit too.”

“Yeah, she did. They’re good kids.”

Nanocloud spoke up on the tacnet. “Folks - need help. There’s a lot of buildings near the crash zone. Half of them are on fire, thousands of civilians needing evacuation.”

“Agni here. I can help with the fires.”

“Phoenix Company will support,” Daisy Cullen announced. “We’ll start northwest of Enderby and work our way down.”

“What about buildings under the crash area?” asked Unity.

“Most of my nanobots there were wiped out, but there aren’t many survivors.”

“Oh no,” a faint voice sounded. Mahotsukoi. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong, Mahotsukoi. I gave the order.” I scanned the ultras around me. “Folks - gather round a moment?”

In a second, I had everyone’s attention.

Good. They needed to hear this.

“The aliens have dropped two million soldiers on Tanisport, backed by that.” I pointed at the battleship.

The behemoth had smashed into the city at an angle. The brutal black hulk of Hierarchy steel towered over the city like a leaning skyscraper.

“The cannons on that thing are still active,” I said softly. “They could start bombarding the city at any moment. The only reason they haven’t - is because they’ve got troops ready to go. To sterilize the city on the ground, instead of from the sky.

“Do I need to tell you what their intentions are?”

A low laugh from Devilmade. “They’re not planning on leaving anyone alive, are they?”

I nodded. “This is an extermination. They’ll try to overrun us first, then hunt down the civilians for as long as they can, until their relief comes - or the Air Force nukes the city.”

“Then it’s hopeless?” a small voice whispered.

“I’ve never lost a battle, Mirantibus, and I don’t intend to start today.”

A few of the ultras chuckled.

“But we can only win if we hit them with everything we have. Don’t hold back today.”

“Collateral damage is an ugly word,” added Chequers, “but sometimes it’s the only choice.”

A moment of silence greeted my announcement, as ultras across the city digested the harsh truth.

To their credit, nobody backed out.

“Dyzer here, Nanocloud. If you can give us a detailed view of the streets south of Nemesh, I can pull people out of those buildings. My suit’s fireproof.”

“Okay. I’ll have to pull bots from other areas, though…”

“You can pull them from Enderby,” Agni said. “I have my own surveillance.”

“Right, rerouting bots. There are fourteen shelters near the ship and, um, six under it.”

“Are they intact?” I asked, almost fearing the answer.

“Those are the ones that didn’t collapse. Four shelters caved in when the ship hit the ground - my bots in there went dark seconds after. Don’t have an exact count on the dead.”

“We’ll have to focus on the ones outside the perimeter first,” Aspenthorn said. “Team Endurance can help… we’ll need eyes, though.”

“You’ll have some bots. I don’t know where I’ll get them from, but you’ll have some.”

“We need to keep some folks focused on containing the aliens if they break out,” I added. “Supreme. Unity. Jetstream. Warriors of the Ten Thousand Fists. I’d like you to take positions north, east, west and south of the ship. As soon as the aliens push in your sector, sound the alarm. When that happens, everyone stops the search and rescue and assembles for a counterattack.”

“You coming with us?” asked Supreme.

“I need to resupply first, but I’ll be there. Devilmade, Mirantibus, Chequers and I are the rapid response team. When you call, we’ll be there.”

“Belessar, we can’t all fly like you,” Devilmade pouted.

“Well, today’s your lucky day. Rapid response means when I move, you get to ride.”

“I’d be happy to ride you anytime.”

A sputter of chuckles sounded across the channel.

Then Agni spoke up. “Devilmade, after the battle you and I will have a little chat. How the chat goes depends on how you behave today. Understood?”

“My suit has a wide array of cameras,” I added helpfully, “and Agni has access to the feed.”

Devilmade’s pout was almost audible on the radio. “Spoilsports.”

“Moving on from my brother’s personal life,” a strained Nanocloud announced, “we’ll need a lot more troops to surround that ship. Anybody know if we’re getting more help?”

“Let me check.” I switched to the command channel. “Any word on reinforcements?”

“We’re getting some troops from friendly countries,” Devlin Heath replied. “It’s a mixed bag, they’re sending us whatever’s ready to go right now.”

“How many troops?”

“About eight thousand so far from eleven different countries.”

“That’s not enough…”

“For now, the strategy is containment. We’re bringing up artillery, but we need it to stay put for a while.”

“It’ll take a lot of artillery to dent that thing.”

“Hence the eleven countries. Belessar, that green beam you shot to knock down the shields - any chance we can duplicate that?”

I shook my head. “The ultra who did it is unconscious, and he used my power packs for the effect - which are drained. We’ll have to crack the armour the old-fashioned way.”

“Noted. The USAF is sending us some can openers, consider twenty minutes for them to get here.”

“Can openers?”

“Close-attack craft.”

“I didn’t know we had anything that could peel one of these apart.”

“They’re technically meant to crack shuttles, not starships, but we don’t have a bigger gun at the moment. Unless you’ve been holding something in reserve?”

“Just more missiles, although I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

Hellfires, Starfalls and Javelins slotted into the Wolf’s inventory as I frantically reloaded. With two thousand kilos of cargo capacity, the Wolf could carry almost thirty missiles onboard, in addition to an assortment of plasma grenades, mass driver rounds, and nanoblade javelins.

Considering the forces arrayed against us, it definitely wasn’t going to be enough.