Swarm Ascendant

"Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance."

--Pre-Incursion adage

***

The Lieutenant, Keen, approached me. "Let's talk Ammunition."

"Yes! What do you need?"

"Five-hundred .45 AP Incendiary for the handguns, twenty-five-hundred 5.56 Polycoated Flechettes with tracers for the rifles and the machine gun, five-hundred 25 mm AP-HE for the auto-cannon and then a bunch of grenades. Twenty each of Concussion, Resonators and Flesh Melters, preferably clearly marked. We have the magazines and drums, just need the bullets to go in them."

Eyon?

[Easy enough. You're going to need to buy a Catalogue, and have two choices. You can either unlock two Catalogues for 100 points and in addition get access to a wider array of grenades as well as an assortment of guns, or you can unlock a Munitions Catalogue for 50 points that only covers ammunition and a small range of grenades.]

What are the chances I am going to need the guns?

[With your aim? I would call them slim to none.]

Fine. Give me the cheaper option.

Catalogue Unlocked: Class I Munitions - 50 points

New Purchase: Case of 500x .45 AP Incendiary Ammunition - 3 points

New Purchase: Case of 500x 5.56 Polycoated Flechettes + Tracers x5 - 15 points

New Purchase: Case of 500x 25 mm AP-HE Ammunition - 10 points

New Purchase: 20x Mark I Concussion Grenade - 100 Points

New Purchase: 20x Mark I-D Resonator Grenade - 100 Points

New Purchase: 20x Mark I Flesh Melter - 60 Points

Points reduced to... 50

Around me boxes appeared, and the squad grabbed them and lugged them into the back of the IFV. I guessed they'd be occupied for the ride putting bullets into magazines, then.

"What about you? Are you set for weapons?" Keen asked me.

"I think so? I haven't really tested the ones I have out on any Antis yet." I replied as I landed a wasp on my lifted hand for emphasis.

"I see. Well, it's not like you cannot buy more if they don't work out."

I nodded. Inside the IFV stuff was being stowed away and tied down.

"Oh, before I forget. Do you have access to any of the Medical Utilities catalogues? We have a small stock of Protector grade medical tools, but I'd like to know whether I can call on you in a pinch."

"Yeah, Class I. First thing I unlocked." I winced.

"That's what all the Valkyries I've asked said." Keen chuckled. "Right, looks like we're ready to go?" She said with a questioning look at me.

"Yeah, let's get going."

She nodded, then raised her voice. "Alright, let's get this show on the road! Final gear check, then we're off to prune the plants!"

A final check was conducted in record speed, then we filed into the IFV. I attached four drones to the outside of the IFV, one on each side, one front and one at the back and took the rest in with me. The interior was two rows of seats facing the middle, four on each side, with Red and Keen heading to the front to take up the driver and passenger seats respectively. I slipped a drone up with them. The rest of us strapped in and settled in for a good long while of filling magazines with bullets. I figured I would chip in as a show of good faith, and to get to know these people a bit better. We lifted off and set off, first by more or less the shortest route out of the city, then North towards our destination.

"I figured you'd be the driver, Speedy. What gives?" I asked.

"Oi, you cannot just assume like that. That's, like, prejudiced or something." She replied.

"She has that name because of how fast she disappears whenever there's work to be done." Bear said.

"And that's slander. The one dodging work here is you, Bear, 'way you sleep all the time."

And so it went for the first hour or so of flight north, over the water, then over the fields of Greenhouses and other growing operations to feed the city, and eventually over the increasingly dense forests and occasional lakes. Jokes and barbs were traded, and I felt pretty good about my chances of fitting in with these people I'd be with for as long as the next week.

Speedy and Bear were needling each other good-naturedly, with Pingo joining in occasionally, Rash was mostly just chuckling along, Herb and Grif, the man with the cybernetic arm, were having a quiet conversation in the corner and Grim was silently slotting bullets into magazines.

Eventually I saw Keen look over and tap my Wasp on the head. I'd heard them discussing travel plans and routes up there, but nothing of real interest so far. Maybe there was a reason for that.

"You're not quite as sneaky as you might think." She said with a wry smile. "I'm assuming you can hear me."

I had the wasp buzz its wings.

"Right. Buzz twice for yes."

I buzzed them twice.

"Good. This'll make things easier. We have a mission to go over, and the seat up here is better. So, in short, we're off to locate a hive we know the general but not specific location of, prune the Antis around it for points for you, then call in an airstrike on it once we've found its exact location. That is plan A. Plan B is the same, but you somehow pull a way to handle the hive yourself out of your magical bag of tricks. The points will be greater, but the challenge likewise. Plan C is we get in over our heads and pull out, then call in an indiscriminate strike on the whole area. Wasteful, in more ways than one, but better than leaving the Antis to their own devices. With me so far?"

I buzzed twice.

"Okay, here are the details..."

What followed was a load of details and observations about the area, contingencies and lists of what backup was available and when, and on and on. All in all it took a good half hour to go through it all, at the end of which I knew far more about a random area of forest in former Sweden than I would have liked or even thought possible. She had also given me some suggestions on how to integrate myself with the squad and make myself useful. I tinkered with some of them a bit, with input and help from Eyon.

"Hey, what has you so quiet?" Speedy asked while poking me in the side.

I had been concentrating pretty hard on the explanation up front, and thus my contributions to the banter had declined a bit.

"Oh, I was just busy with something else. Hey, what do you think of this." I sent her a connection request on her augs, and fed her a map of the local area we were flying over, with various features highlighted, including the positions of the individual squad members.

She was silent for a moment as she processed it.

"It's a bit much, and it doesn't seem that useful?" She replied hesitantly.

I scrubbed the level of detail down a bit, then added a few phantom pins for various Antithesis models.

"Oh, now we're talking." She said a bit more excitedly.

"What's that?" Pingo asked from the other side of Speedy.

"Can you-" Speedy asked, as I nodded and sent a connection to Pingo, too.

He accepted, and soon I had the whole squad hooked into the map generated from the sensors on my drones. Suggestions for improvements were offered, and I tried to accommodate as many of them as was feasible, and those that weren’t outright silly, like the request for a point tracker so the squad could compete on kills.

We simmered down a bit after that. There was a bit of nervous energy in the air, as we neared the target area. Soon enough, though, we set down by a little stream feeding a small lake, on a bit of rocky ground in an area sparsely forested by pine trees. Having had hours to look down at forests on the trip over, I could confidently say that the forest here looked... sadder. More droopy.

We disembarked, everyone but Red and Bear, who were going to drive the IFV and crew the auto-cannon, respectively. The rest of the squad were in heavy armour but light load-outs, with much of the gear and equipment stowed in the IFV. Having a mobile base was handy, even if I didn't have a lot of gear to store in one yet.

Make a note to get a mobile base once I have gear to put in it.

[So noted.]

The sun was peeking through the trees, reflecting in the rippling lake and all in all it was just a beautiful day. Pity we weren't here for a picnic.

Keen had us form up, and we set off towards the suspected location of the Hive we were here to locate, IFV in the rear. I had my drones strung out over a hundred meter front, in pairs spaced twenty meters apart about a hundred meters ahead of us, feeding the so-far very sparse info to the squad.

It was very quiet, which was apparently one of the tell-tale signs of a Hive being in the area, all of the local wildlife being driven off or consumed to make more Antithesis.

After walking through the sparse forest for the better part of half an hour, I finally spotted a Model Three sniffing about at the edge of my search area.

"Contact. Dog, far right, one-hundred-fifty meters." Pingo said, a bit needlessly in my opinion, since it was on everyone's map.

The squad spread out further, some orienting themselves towards the threat while others covered our flanks.

"Should I, eh, kill it?" I asked hesitantly.

"Go for it." Keen said.

So, I controlled one of the drones closest to it closer to sting the bastard.

I had the drone zip forward on a bit of a roundabout path, landed on the back of the Three and did so. The Three bit after the drone, but couldn't get to it. It tried repeatedly, though, getting progressively more unstable on its legs until finally, after thirty or so seconds, it fell over.

Target Eliminated!

Reward... 10 points

Not quite instant, but I guess it'd do.

"Hah! Turns out you aren't dead weight after all!" Grif said. "Herb, you're buying the first round when we get back."

Herb coloured a bit at that, looking in my direction, then away. Guess she lost the bet, then.

"Grif, drop a Flesh Melter on it. It's a bit of a waste on only one corpse, but Hives have been known to regrow from less. Move on." Keen commanded.

We did so, Grif pausing to toss a Flesh Melter grenade underhand at the corpse as we passed by. It hissed, then nothing much seemed to happen.

Was that a dud?

[No. The Flesh Melters release a slow-acting nanite swarm that breaks apart any biological matter in a ten meter radius over the course of a few hours, ensuring any Antithesis remains are dealt with for good. I'd advise you to stay away.]

I took a few steps further away from the area.

That's extremely dangerous!

[So are regular grenades. I'd advise you to also stay away from those.]

I huffed. Sure, but, well. I mean. Fine.

We carried on after that, spotting more lonely Threes, which we dispatched in a similar manner, and the occasional Four lurking in the trees. The sparse pine growth made for pretty poor hiding places for the Fours and their tentacles, thankfully, so I was able to spot and deal with them, too. It was satisfying seeing them flop from their hiding spots in the trees, hitting numerous branches on their way down. Less satisfying was the noise that made, and on one occasion a Three got alerted to our presence and came running in from the side. I had a drone intercept and sting that one, too, making it too wobbly to pose a threat before it reached us. Speedy put a bullet in its head with seeming ease, so it wasn't a big deal, but it did demonstrate the increased Anti presence.