Swarm Ascendant

"Sometimes you need finesse. Sometimes you need precision. And sure, sometimes you even need control.

But most of the time, if you really think about it, what you actually need is a bigger explosion."

--Valkyrie BlastBug, in interview, 2047

***

The next day, after camping outside roughly fifty kilometres away, and a dinner and breakfast of intriguing but ultimately bad military rations, we set to implementing a new plan.

First, I bought a set of new drones from my Class II catalogue to allow me to take out the heavier models. It didn't hurt that they happened to be much, much faster, and have better sensors, too.

New Purchase: Class II Yellowjacket Mk 3 Warfare Drone x6 - 480 points

Points reduced to... 44

The Yellowjackets were much larger, nearly the length of my hand, and with something like a 20-25 cm wingspan. They were mostly yellow with black stripes and when I connected to them and had them fly in a circle around me, they quickly reached a speed that made them hard to follow with my eyes. Excellent. Time for the first step of the plan, hunt some more Antithesis and build up some points.

It was a good thing I'd had some practice herding the Wasps yesterday, because adding more to the mix didn't make it any easier. Still, whether it was my Mesh further settling, my Neural upgrades kicking in or just plain practice, I managed it without too much trouble.

We'd moved back into the general area where we'd fought the Antithesis the day before, although this time we stayed put in a defensive posture and let my drone swarm push forward alone in a careful sweep. I dispatched the Model Ones, Threes and Fours I came across, racking up points in preparation for stage two of the plan. Once my swarm was roughly four kilometres ahead of us, we boarded the IFV and set off to set up a new defensive position closer behind them. We repeated this twice, carefully moving deeper into the area where we suspected the hive was, cleaning up corpses as we went. Five times we were attacked by scouting forces that had evaded the sweep, but they were few in number and quickly gunned down each time.

Finally I started encountering heavier models lying in wait, Model Sixes which I relished having the Yellowjackets dispatch as the bastards stomped around futilely, and once what looked like a prepared ambush of seven of the bearlike, quill-firing Model Fives, supported by a large force of Threes and Fours. The fives turned out to be quite annoying, and I lost three Wasps when the Fives managed to impale them by saturating the air with their long, barbed quills fired at ludicrous speeds. They were beyond repair, and I silently thanked myself that I hadn't been giving them all names. Would have made this much harder.

Regardless, in the grand scheme of things, this was going much better. I left a few observers behind, then flew the rest of the swarm back for a resupply, before returning to my sweep.

I encountered and stung another couple of Sixes and a handful of Threes, when, quite without warning, I lost connection to some of my swarm. It felt terrible, like having parts of my senses ripped away as I lost contact with not only one of the wasps I'd been seeing through, but seven others around it. The Yellowjacket nearby was unaffected for now, though, and through it I saw a massive, truck-sized Antithesis with wings, six legs and a bulbous rear section covered in tapered spikes, advancing surrounded by smaller Antis.

[That is a Model Twelve. It houses an organ that interferes with electronic signals and systems. I would strongly advise retreat.]

Well, that wasn't good. But stage two would work here just as well as it would later. I drew the functioning part of my swarm back, leaving behind the eight inoperable Wasps, reluctant though I was, and kept an eye on the Twelve while keeping a healthy distance.

Okay, time for stage two. Buy me a mortar and some shells that'll hurt that thing.

[With pleasure.]

Catalogue Unlocked: Class I Indirect Fire Solutions - 50 points

New Purchase: XM120 Mortar - 25 points

New Purchase: 120mm Guided Mortar Munition HE x5 - 75 points

Points reduced to... 1641

A bulky tube on a round base plate appeared next to me, supported at an angle by two legs equipped with motors. Next to it, five mortar rounds appeared in a box, 75cm long cylinders tapered at each end, with a circular fin at the back. Grim grinned next to me, and bent down to pick up the first mortar round, while I connected to the mortar and painted a target on the Twelve through my augs, using my swarm as spotters. The mortar started adjusting its angle and direction automatically.

Once it had settled and blinked green in my augs, I nodded to Grim, who grinned even wider and dropped the round into the mortar.

It hit the bottom of the tube, then, with a loud thump, flew off.

He repeated the process four more times, firing a round every seven seconds, the mortar making minute adjustments in between firings.

From my swarm position, I observed the Twelve and its attendant horde from multiple angles, the anticipation building. Then, forty seconds later, the first shell arrived, guided into position. It landed just to the side of the Twelve in a massive explosion, blowing it to the other side and taking off a leg. It was followed by another explosion every seven seconds. The second round hit a tree on the way down, exploding high in the sky, but the third, fourth and fifth were direct hits, mulching the Twelve and blowing chunks of Antithesis all over the forest floor.

Target Eliminated!

Reward... 100 points

Grinning, I reestablished contact with my stranded drones, then set upon the remaining horde of sixty or so lesser models with my entire swarm.

Afterwards, I carried on my search pattern, this time careful to have some few vanguards out ahead in case of more Twelves.

We moved up yet again, and I carried on my search pattern, finding and stabbing to death Antis as I went, sweeping through the forest looking for the centre of this infestation. The forest grew thicker here, darker and with denser trees. I gradually had to slow my search down, to make sure I didn't miss anything within the tree cover.

It took another half an hour, but eventually I found the tell-tale roots of a hive, dark green and trunk-sized, spreading through the forest floor. The place was thick with Antis, and looking at it, I figured it was time to start shelling the place.

We found a good spot on a hill some four kilometres away, while I mapped out the edges of the root system and picked off the occasional Anti with the swarm. The Hive was a mass of roots and bulbs and fronds and other growths at least a hundred meters across, with occasional tendrils stretching out twice that, all situated among the trees. I plotted it on the map, then we settled down, I ordered in another XM120 Mortar and we began shelling the hive from two tubes. We started by softening the place up with high- and penetrating-explosives, blowing the attendant Tens, Threes and Fours into pieces, and sending the birdlike Ones into a swarming frenzy, trying to locate the source of the attack. Instead they ran into my swarm, and that fight was decidedly one-sided, with only small losses on my side.

Soon, streams of Antis came in towards the hive from pretty much all sides, as it sent out a distress signal of both pheromones and a keening wail, calling all its forces. We kept the bombardment up, switching to a thermite-like substance to burn the hive down to its roots, and covering the Antithesis arriving to help in fire as well.

After forty-five minutes of intermittent shelling, the streams of Antis had slowed to a crawl and after an hour it had stopped. We decided to let the fire burn itself out, which took a few hours, then dropped Flesh Eaters on the remains in a grid pattern. In all this time we had been accosted by few Ones and a pack of Threes, but they were quickly picked off by rifles.

All in all, it probably wasn't the most cost-efficient way to take out a hive, but it was both pretty safe as well as satisfying, and that counted for a lot.

Targets Eliminated!

Reward... 3993 points

Reward... One token

Purchase: 120mm Guided Mortar Munition HE x35 - 525 points

Purchase: 120mm Guided Mortar Munition Sparkfire x27 - 405 points

Purchase: 120mm Guided Mortar Munition Flesh Eater x25 - 375 points

Current point total: 5129

I winced. The cost in mortar shells had been pretty steep, though.

We called in our progress and requested a cleanup-crew to the location, to catch the corpses we might have missed disposing of and make sure any stragglers were dealt with, then packed up our gear. It was time to head home.

It was a boisterous trip, filled with tellings and retellings of episodes from our trip and comparisons to previous encounters, as well as plenty of one-upmanship, bragging and bravado.

I mostly stayed silent throughout, however, even though I was asked multiple times to tell my view of this and that. I was exhausted, the mental strain of multi-tasking my drones, of keeping them on task and making sure they didn't all just attack the same target or fly about ineffectually, had finally caught up with me. Eventually, I had my helmet muffle the voices and noise around me, let the others know of my intentions, and went to sleep.

***

I woke up to Speedy nudging me insistently. It was several hours later, and we were apparently back in Scania. I yawned. It wasn't quite dark out, but it was getting there.

I saw her mouth move, but didn't hear anything, then remembered to undeafen myself.

"Sorry, what was that?" I asked.

"I said we've arrived, sleepy-head. You're almost as bad as Bear. Anyway, we're heading for a debrief, then it's off to the bar. Want to come with?"

I yawned again. "I guess. Is the debrief optional?"

Speedy laughed. "It is, for you. But we'd appreciate it if you came along. You were the only one who saw much of what happened, after all."

"Okay, that's fair. One moment."

I unclipped myself and got up, having a Yellowjacket fly out from my backpack and landing it on my shoulder facing backwards. Much better.

Then I followed Speedy out of the IFV, which had apparently been mostly emptied while I was asleep. Outside, I found the rest of the squad waiting. We went down the stairs into the Military HQ complex, through any number of corridors until we reached a conference room, within which we settled down to wait. I used the time to send my Dad and Mother a message, letting them know I was back in the city, but I'd be home a bit late.

Five minutes later, a couple of serious looking men and a woman with stars on their shoulders, as well as Laura, my Valkyrie-Military contact, showed up. The squad got up and saluted. I hesitated for too long, and was interrupted before I got up myself.

"At ease. Please, sit down." One of the men said.

There was some scratching of chairs on floor for a while, then eventually everyone found a seat.

"So. It would appear your mission was a success?" The same man asked.

"Yes, sir." Keen replied. "We had some initial difficulties, but changed our strategy and overcame them. No serious casualties, although some wounds were sustained. Healed up in the field, sir."

"What difficulties were these?" A serious woman asked.

"We overestimated our direct firepower, and had to adjust, ma'am."

A lot of serious faces looked in my direction. I thought some of them looked a bit judgemental, like the lack of firepower was a personal failing of mine.

"I see. Please describe your troubles and solutions in more detail."

"Yes, ma'am." Keen then went on to describe the mission, how we had deployed, being trampled by a Six and thrown around by an Eleven, and our solution of basically not engaging the Antithesis. Once she had finished telling how we'd shelled the Hive out of existence, there was a brief silence, as if in appreciation.

"Good work." Said the serious woman. "It's not the most common way to engage the Antithesis, but then, you have to work with the resources you have." She glanced at me, then back to Keen. "Good thinking on the mortars. Did you consider using the IFV as a flying platform, say to drop munitions from?"

"We considered it, ma'am, but didn't want to risk it in case more Elevens showed up."

"A sensible precaution." One of the men commented, then directed the next question to me. "Hornet, I'm sorry if this is impertinent, but did you consider using more... esoteric munitions?"

I startled a bit at being addressed, and stammered out, "Uh, why do you ask?"

"Such a prolonged shelling must have been expensive. I am surprised you didn't go for a bigger, single strike."

"I was advised bigger explosions spreads parts of the hive further and are best avoided. Was this wrong?"

"No no, just curious is all. I'd like to know your reasoning so we can make sure to employ the most effective strategies going forward." He asked.

"Well, we just wanted to be thorough, to not take any chances."

"Very commendable." He said, then continued under his breath. "Would that more Valkyries had such attitudes."

More questions followed, trying to pick apart our ideas and actions, see if any of them could have been done better, if there were any lessons to be learned.

Once we were done, and the serious people had left the room, I was waved over by Laura.

"Hey Hornet." She smiled at me. "Good job out there, a very good job on your first mission."

"Thank you. It was a bit stressful, not going to lie. I felt somewhat useless at times." I said.

"Well, you should take some time to decompress, a week or so at least. We'll be in touch if something comes up, but it probably won't be for a bit."

"Yeah, I could use a bit of time off. Thanks."

"As to you feeling useless, you're only just getting started, I'm sure you will improve in effectiveness as soon as you spend whatever points you have accumulated. Speaking of which, would you like to talk to a more experienced Valkyrie? We don't quite have a mentorship program, but we do try to encourage the sharing of information. Talking to someone who has been through what you're experiencing tends to help."

"Oh yes please." I immediately said. "I have so many questions."

"Excellent. I'll see if I can't set up something with Ghost Widow. I'll get back to you with a time and date soon."

"Thank you." I said, before I fully parsed what she had said. "Wait, Ghost Widow?! But she's like, super famous and probably busy and..." very hot, I finished in my mind. "...anyway, I can't just bother Ghost Widow with my insignificant problems!"

Laura laughed. "Don't you worry, she's very nice, once you get to know her. I'm sure she'll be able to help you. And, it just so happens she's on a bit of a vacation right now. "

"That's even worse!" I most definitely didn't shriek. "If she's on a vacation she definitely doesn't want me to show up out of nowhere and bother her."

"You let me worry about that." Laura said with a smile. "Now, it looks like your friends are waiting for you."

I turned around, to see the squad hanging around near the door. Speedy waved, and called out. "Ready to get drunk?"

I... This was all a bit much. Drunk sounded pretty good.