She gave the word and in unison, twelve hypersuits boosted their wearers into assault position. The detachment advanced in tactical formation, crouching through the thick, wiry grass, mag guns ready.
Overhead, the full ANAD swarm was already replicating, flashing through the rain like silent lightning as the assemblers grabbed atoms furiously. Under Chen’s guidance, the swarm worked its way across the plateau and fell upon the barrier mechs at the cave with planned ferocity.
“Okay, DPS…let ‘em have it! Three pulses…then we go in!”
Samoya had already sighted the HERF weapon in.
“Charging…charging…weapon is enabled….firing NOW!”
A searing thunderclap of heat rolled through the grass and boomed off the flanks of the volcano. A hundred meters ahead, the barrier around the cave suddenly collapsed in a shower of sparks, before flowing along the base of the mountain, trying to reconstitute itself in another location.
But Samoya was wise to the move and fired the HERF gun again, several more times, spraying RF waves off the sides of the volcano.
“ANAD’s going in!” Liu yelled. “Config one…full effectors…bond disrupters ready—“
“We got the bugs on the run!” someone yelled over the net.
“Detachment…move in!” Tallant ordered. She cycled the action on her own magnetic impulse weapon and felt its reassuring heft as her suit servos drove her forward. It wouldn’t stop a full swarm for long but it could damage a lot of ‘bots…and knock the snot out of any human within three hundred meters.
The hypersuits lunged forward.
That’s when the rain became an enemy.
Tech Sergeant Claudia Rialto noticed it first.
“Hey—what the—“ Rialto stumbled forward, pitching heavily into the brush, as her suit gyros hiccupped. As she toggled buttons, trying to get the suit upright, she heard something she’d never forget as long as she lived….and that wasn’t going to be long, if she didn’t get up. A high-pitched, whirring sound, coupled with the unmistakable vibration of something eating away at the laminate armor of the suit outer shell. “Hey…hey!—I got a problem here guys---uh oh--!!”
Samoya dropped the HERF gun into the grass and peeled off from a dead run to see about Rialto. Even from a distance, he was stunned—what he thought was rain wasn’t…the rain drops had mutated, changed config, for Christ’s sake!...changed into nanobotic mechs and they were rapidly boring into Claudia’s suit.
“The rain---look out, it’s—“
And Tallant felt it too, the shrill whirring behind her neck. Zillions of ‘bots swarming her and her whole Detachment, falling out of the sky as rain, but it was only a disguise…they’d come in and changed config, like Samoya said, and were eating up Bravo Detachment.
And the ANAD swarm was a hundred meters away assaulting the cave.
Tallant put her suit servos at max gain and tried to flail at the bugs but it was no use. She was stunned at the speed of the assault, at how the ‘bots had concealed themselves as raindrops, at how the Detachment had been penetrated…at how she hadn’t seen it coming—
The swarm fell on the Detachment with a fury and there was no place to hide.
“I can’t hold structure!” Rialto yelled over the crewnet. She was trying to writhe and twist inside her suit, rolling like a big ceramic log through the grass, but it was no use. “They’re inside…they’re…AARRGGHH!—“
It wasn’t a pretty sight but no one else saw it. In a few minutes, Tech Sergeant Claudia Rialto had ceased to exist, reduced to elemental atomic fluff and molecular debris. From inside her helmet, the flicker of nanomech hell pulsated then died away.
Collin, Liu, Mwate…everybody was fighting their own battle.
“Sammy…get the HERF--!” Tallant yelled. “Blast ‘em to hell and back—“
Sergeant Samoya backpedaled away from Rialto’s suit and scrambled on all fours through the grass, kicking faster than his leg servos could fire, crawling, reaching for the weapon. He could hear the high keening whine at his neck and shoulders—just a few more millimeters of laminate—and he’d be food for the bugs just like Claudia—he groped and groped until his gloves found the barrel of the thing.
Antonio Samoya gritted his teeth and ordered his suit to set him upright. With a grinding gnash, it tried to but something failed and the best he could do was knees. Kneeling in the tall grass, Samoya charged the HERF and lit off the weapon—
“Fire in the hole!”
The searing thump and hot wave of air erupted out of the grass, flattening everything within several hundred meters. Tallant felt the clatter of stunned nanomechs raining onto her helmet. Ahead, two hundred and fifty meters away, the cave entrance beckoned. The cave and the ANAD swarm—
“Detachment…move out! Head for that cave! Sammy…fry the bastards again! Set the damn thing on auto—“ She knew after about ten pulses, the HERF coils would melt and they’d be defenseless. But if they could just make the cave…and get ANAD back—
“IC1…break off the attack…we got to get ANAD back to cover us—“
Chen Liu was trying to fend off his own swarm. He had somehow managed to stand up, slapping away at the buggers, wobbly and unsteady as the suit gyros stabilized. “I’m trying to, Skipper…” But ANAD was caught in a vise at the cave entrance, battling a barrier shield of dumb sentry ‘bots and re-deploying to take on the mutated rain ‘bots.
Another thunderclap and Tallant kickstarted her leg servos into high gear. A hot wind gusted across the plateau and swirled like a tornado. With any luck, HERF could give them a few more blasts…just enough cover to make the cave and get behind ANAD’s protection.
She didn’t hear any more buzzing or whirring; the first pulse must have stunned the bastards.
GO, BABY… GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO…
The rest of Bravo Detachment staggered and scrambled and stumbled their way across the grass, dodging HERF blasts, fending off what was left of the rain ‘bots. Somewhere behind was Chen Liu, letting his suit slog ahead on full auto, while he drove ANAD from his wristpad.
The rain ‘bots---whatever the hell they were—had fully engulfed ANAD.
Chen was breathing hard, gasping for air, even though the suit was doing the work. That’s when he realized the ‘bots had breached his inner shell…he was fully exposed to the atmosphere around the volcano, the toxic air, the aire viciado…shit…better bust open the emergency supply…
He toggled the e-pack and seconds later, fresh oxygen streamed into his helmet from the emergency pack on his back. He had about ten minutes worth of good air.
Chen Liu let the suit carry him to the cave, keeping up with the Detachment, and went back to his eyepiece. ANAD was in the fight of his life.
No time to replicate now…got to get free…signal daughters…
Chen fired off a burst of instructions to gather all daughters ANAD had replicated going in. It might be too late.
His eyepiece view shook with the collision, then careened sideways. At that moment, the suit legs almost dumped him on his head…the left leg had stumbled across a gully and only quick action and gyro-stabilizing kept him upright. Chen bit his tongue, gritted his teeth. Don’t lose it now…don’t lose it now. That was the trouble with full auto in a hypersuit. The frontal sensors didn’t see everything.
More blasts from the HERF gun, but Chen could tell the thing was giving out. The impulse was getting weaker. Any moment, the rain ‘bots would re-assemble.
The cave was still thirty meters ahead, yawning like a jagged mouth with palm fronds for a moustache.
Back to the eyepiece. The imager view was raw acoustic. Whatever ANAD sensed with probes of sound waves, Chen Liu also saw.
The scene vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. What the hell were these nanobots that could masquerade as raindrops and flash down from the skies without warning?
Chen squinted, maxing the gain, studying the
enemy close up. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The scene was soon choked with debris.
Got to get in closer…take a look—Chen wanted to see one of the rain ‘bots for himself, see what kind of structure it had, what kind of weaknesses. If it had any.
Cautiously, he piloted the ANAD master toward a blurry shape, dimly visible in the sonic view, cutting back propulsors, approaching on a tangent, just to get a quick peek.
All around him, the hypersuit carried him forward, pumping his legs on auto as the cave and cover drew nearer. Though he didn’t notice them, what was left of the Detachment scrambled forward with him, stumbling along on both sides.
“Got to check this joker out…” he muttered to himself. Quickly, he signaled ANAD to prime its defensive mechanisms, and slowed the approach to a crawl.
Reconnoiter first. He remembered a line from Sun Tzu, the great nanowarrior of ancient China…
He who is skilled hides in the most secret recesses of the earth.
Under Chen’s guidance, ANAD maneuvered among the jostling molecules of chlorine and sodium and potassium. The aire viciado, he realized. These things shouldn’t even be here. A huge snakelike cluster of chlorine molecules drifted by. Chen had an idea. He signaled ANAD to grab a few chlorines as a shield. Seizing the ends of the molecule with its effectors, ANAD held on tight, as commanded.
Gradually the shape and size of the rain ‘bot became clearer. Bristling with effectors and arms, it looked like a miniature Apollo Lunar Module from the mid-twentieth century. The head was a multi-lobed cluster of spheres and hexagons; inside the churning electron cloud dimmed out any detail.
Below the head was a cylindrical sheath, covered with pyramidal facets and undulating beads of proteins—the assembler’s probes and effectors. Chen was frankly awed at the sight.
Hell of a lot of gear for this bastard. I wonder where you came from?
Indeed, the horde of enemy assemblers were rigged out like battleships, with devices for every conceivable mechanical or chemical action. A flat baseplate capped one end of the sheathed body. The tail structure was a dense thicket of fibers, each tipped with penetrator clusters. The penetrators enabled the mech to attach to and enter any structure.
Chen brought ANAD to a complete stop. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The data was all wrong…there was no way BioShield should have ever let something this sophisticated into the open, outside of containment…
They had almost reached the cave when the first coilgun rounds exploded right behind Chen, knocking him forward in his hypersuit. He lost stability as the gyros toppled and pitched him headlong into the grass, landing with a heavy thump on his side, knocking the breath out of him.
The voice in his ears was Jeff Collin’s.
“Bandits at eleven o’clock! Spread out--! Take cover!”
Programmable kinetic rounds sizzled through the air, exploding in a coordinated pattern among the scrambling Bravo Detachment. The nanotroopers peeled away from each other, commanding their suits to lower them into cover, which happened much slower than it should have. Joey Mwate took a direct hit and his hypersuit exploded in a geyser of flame and debris.
“JOEY!!!--”
Inside the cave, several faces appeared, human faces, in crude breathing gear, armed with coilgun launchers. Both fired several rounds, peppering the ground with death and shrapnel. The PKRs could slice through a hypersuit like a hot knife in butter.
Dana Tallant grunted as she fell chest first to the ground. Finally, the bastards show themselves…with human faces. “DPS, get our guys airborne…launch the whole shebang and shred that position!!”
Samoya was already scrambling through the grass. “I’m on it—“ Crap…The launch canister had been jerked off its mount when his suit had hit the ground. He fumbled in the grass, grabbed the cylinder and toggled the firing panel. Holding the canister upright at a slight angle, like a mortar, it self-pressurized and then whooshed a small tornado of hot gas as it discharged a horde of coilgun ‘bots into the sky. The tiny uav’s formed up in a tight V, like geese returning from winter, and lit off their own rounds at the enemy position.
A line of explosions rocked the mouth of the cave, stitching flame and death at the entrance.
“That ought to keep their heads down!” Tallant crowed. “Chen, can you break off an element of ANAD, and execute a clampdown inside that cave? Ten to one, there are more where they came from.” Now that the enemy had shown himself, she intended to grab the bastards by the throat and throttle them but good. And there were still the rain ‘bots swarming overhead…they had to get into some kind of cover or the Detachment was finished.
Chen was still wrestling ANAD closer to the nearest rain ‘bot. “I’ll try, Skipper…but I’ve got my hands full keeping these bugs off our backs!”
Jeff Collin had gone through some IC training a year back. “Give me a batch, Chen…I’ll do the clampdown! We’re getting eaten alive here and we’re exposed…detach now and I’ll take ‘em with my controls.”
Chen obliged, severing a portion of the ANAD swarm and handing off control to the exec. Collin’s fingers flew over his wristpad, setting up the link. Soon enough, he had a signal.
“I’ve got it…I’ve got it…forming up now—“ he pecked out the codes for the clampdown maneuver as fast as his fingers would fly, all the while hearing the high whine of approaching rain ‘bots, ready to swarm the detachment again.
“Execute…execute NOW!” Tallant yelled. There was no telling how many Red Hammer guards might be inside the cave, or whether they wore suits or had protection. There was no time to wonder about it. The rain ‘bots were coming back and they had no defense. Their best chance, maybe their only chance was to make the cave and try to hold off the buggers until help came. “Smother ‘em so they can’t breathe!” She signaled Samoya over the crewnet to get ready in case more guards appeared and the Detachment came under fire. “Replicate max rate, Jeff…carbenes and radicals at the ends…blanket the place!”
Collin manned the config controls, stabbing out commands on his wristpad. He sent the command, silently praying that this small part of the ANAD swarm would perform the clampdown properly. Any foul-ups now and Bravo would be atomic fluff in minutes. No hiccups today, he muttered to himself. Not ‘til we’re in, not ‘til we’re inside that cave….
In seconds, the air itself burned with the pressure of exponentially dividing ANAD replicants; a heavy, searing weight pressing down on everything in sight.
Just inside the mouth of the cave, a small force of Red Hammer guards tried to scream.
The defenders, unable to react, clawed at their lungs and staggered back from the entrance, pitching backward, ears and eyes bleeding from the pressure, suffocated by ANAD.
It was all over in less than a minute.
Tallant waited until the clampdown was lifted and on command, ANAD began to disperse. “Get the MOB ready, we’ll put it on ‘em,” she told Collin. “Keep ‘em away from the entrance…when Chen gives the word, we’ll break for the cave.”
Collin tapped commands on his wristpad. “Done, Captain.”
“Chen--?
The IC1 studied the tactical situation. The rain ‘bots were gathering and hypersuits were useless…they’d already lost Mwate to coilgun fire and Rialto was gone…they had to get some cover and regroup, re-config ANAD to hold off the rain ‘bots—Jesus, what kind of assembler could disguise itself like a raindrop and chew up hypersuits like stale bread?
More importantly, they needed to bring back one of the ‘bots to examine…if Red Hammer had advanced this far, there was no telling what they could do.
Recon showed the source of the atmosphere perturbations emanating from Kurabantu came from the cave…even Skinner, in his memory traces had alluded to caves near the volcano. This had
to be it.
“I’m re-configging ANAD, Skipper…trying something new—“
Tallant eyed the swirling squall that was a nanomech storm apprehensively. So far, the IC1 had duked it out with the enemy ‘bots and held the worst of the swarm off, barely.
“Whatever it is, Chen, make it quick.”
“I’m trying, Skipper…I’m trying—“
Tallant knew they have to make a break for the cave in the next few moments, swarm or no. “Form up on me,” she ordered the rest of the Detachment. As the troopers scrambled closer, Chen pecked out commands on his wristpad, commanding trillions of ANAD assemblers to swarm into a new formation, a faint coruscating iridescence pulsating through the air. “Okay, troops, here’s what we’re going to do.”
She laid out the plan. “Samoya, when I give the word, lay down suppressing fire with your coilgun ‘bots…all along the mouth of that cave. Chen, at the same time, can you give us a bubble to move in?”
“I think so, Captain…it won’t last long as we move, but I can hold ‘em off for a few moments.”
Tallant figured that was good enough. They didn’t have a HERF gun anymore. It was fried. “I don’t know what’s in that cave, but we’ll have to take our chances.” The mission had been to reconnoiter the island and determine the extent and scale of Red Hammer operations. Now, they’d be lucky if they could last long enough holed up in the cave to get reinforcements.
“Eric, can you work the comm?”
Richter had crossed trained with Rialto. “No sweat, Skipper. I’m qualified in quantum couplers, satradio and all the rest.”
“Super…get a message to Singapore…tell ‘em were surrounded and outgunned…some kind of badass assembler swarm that can masquerade as rain and God knows what else. We need relief and fast. Tony—“
Samoya came on the crewnet. “Here…Skipper.”
“Charioteer still orbiting the island?”
Samoya checked the readouts on his eyepiece. The hyperjet was on full autopilot, cruising around Kurabantu at ten thousand feet. “Like an old dog, Captain…you want me to bring her in?”
“Get her ready…we may have to try a new trick…she’s got fastcables, doesn’t she?”