Chapter Eighty-Nine - Xenocide Act VII; The Battlepoem

"Sneezing is a biological reflex.

So are orgasms, actually."

– Somewhere on the internet

 

***

 

Leah stabbed her claws forcefully into the fleshy ceiling and hooked her barbs into the plant matter as she traversed the dome upside down. Ypsi called a few drones into and above the hole, so she'd stay connected through all the solid obstructions.

Blood rushed into her head uncomfortably, but step by step, she stabbed her way down the sphere the acid had dug out.

There was a caustic mix of boiling water, dirt, and sludge at the bottom, but Ypsi had reassured her that it wasn't aggressive enough to damage the egg or its legs.

She let her attention wander up the walls she'd traveled, and marveled at the thick crust of hardened, porous brick as it sweated moisture that escaped as steam through the large chimney of a hole. The heat down here was immense—it would literally cook her alive and her muscles would slough off her bones, if she opened the pod for even seconds.

Um, it's way too toxic down here, right now, but in a few hundred years, this place could be really good for some special plants or mushrooms! And the porous rock might be great for insects, too! Maybe.

"Huh." Leah looked around. "Figure it's worth it to prepare the place a little? How many points would that cost?"

A few hundred? Oh, but! Tinea has that bacteria stuff. She could probably do something about all the poison for little points?

Leah hummed, as she tilted her egg sideways. "I guess I'll mention it later… For now, we've got a job to do."

I can mark the spots to shoot again. I'm helpful and polite, after all!

"Yup, you sure are. Please do, dear." Leah giggled.

Okie!

Three dozen new X's appeared on the ceiling above, and Leah planted her butt on the ground and stretched her forelimbs until she could point her cannon at the first mark.

The shot tunneled through the hard rock bits and squished through soft Antithesis matter, until it detonated inside the Twenty-Two and set yet another section of it on fire.

Leah moved on to hit the next X, and repeated the pattern until the entire dome was perforated by jets of burning magnesium. The temperatures quickly rose to levels uncomfortable even for her metallic skin.

Not nearly enough to cause damage, but enough that she preferred getting out of there.

She followed the path she'd taken back up, with some deviations to not get grilled between the, heh, bollocks of her gun, and soon stood above ground again, some twenty meters from the crater of a hole, gazing with her head tilted at the nearly invisible steam being ejected, which turned into incredibly active clouds just a few meters up. Even the earth around the hole was slowly getting torn up and ripped into the sky.

"That shit's seriously hot, huh?"

Ypsilon reacted to her pensive tone and spoke, Yes. The amount of energy being generated inside the 'bottle' underground is creating a great deal of pressure. It isn't until the vapor of fluids can expand that we see the condensing liquids. It won't last much longer, the incendiaries are almost used up.

"Alright." Leah shifted inside her egg, settling a bit deeper into the cushions. "Let's see what Tinea's up to while I'm waiting for the Twenty-Two to properly die, hmm?"

As you wish.

 

***

 

Not quite time to go yet, old friend. One last meal for you. My eyes met those of the monster in front of me, and I giggled. Look, dinner's up!

The nasal foghorn hit me in the chest like a train.

My antennae, ears, and face were protected by the hardening forcefield that blocked the vocal assault, but my chest shook and my bones vibrated.

For a second my heart froze, only to race into an epic triple-beat that pried open my jaws and pushed an exhilarated, mad scream from my lungs.

A fresh wave of single digits streamed towards the clearing from somewhere behind the Twenty-Two.

AI-I counted them.

– Model One: 200 –
– Model Three: 86 –
– Model Four: 12 –
– Model Six: 1 –

– Observation: More units trickling in by the second. –

They'd been somewhat nearby, and the Six had kept them out of the fight, presumably waiting to collect a much bigger gathering. But, as it was designed to, the foghorn blast from the Twenty-Two had forced the issue.

I laughed as I jumped backwards, giving myself some distance as the monster slowly lifted one leg.

To run me down? To turn away?

I depressed the trigger half-way and racked the bolt, until it unlocked and could be withdrawn from the receiver. With the barrel free and open, I lined it up and looked through it at the thing's head, and giggled.

This was the last time my angry old friend would speak. Yeah.

The last time.

That requires special measures, I thought. But first… There are pests to take care of.

My gaze took in the smattering of smaller Antithesis units being driven into a confused frenzy, wanting to rush me yet kept on a tight leash by the Six, and I smirked.

They really didn't look like shit now. I'd gotten so much stronger, so fast, that I almost disregarded them entirely, especially with no Fives present.

But that wouldn't do. No, not at all. My fingers stroked my old friend's barrel. You deserve a proper performance.

The opening scenes of a certain movie ran through my mind, and my grin widened into something rather more predatory. A gritty, mystical sci-fi remake of the '07 movie 300.

Yes, I laughed. Yes, that would be appropriate.

I stood up, and my javelin flashed into my hand, before I stuck it into the ground next to me.

"Hey Tynea," I said as I loaded the irregular cartridge and locked the bolt again.

The little jury-rigging gadget went to work and sealed the receiver and chamber even tighter. I would not access the bolt again. I couldn't even use the iron sights, much less a scope. The thing even printed reinforcing bands around the barrel, before it let itself fall off the muzzle and dropped at my feet.

Yes?

"Gimme a shield. One like those ancient Spartans used. An Aspis? With a notch for the gun, please."

Understood.

 

Cost	Tkn	Unlock
100		Class I Martial Weapons: Shields Of The Legion
100		Total
4856		Remaining Points

 

Cost	x	Item
200	1	Class I 'Death's Knell' Reinforced Aspis, siege-enabled, customized
200		Total
4656		Remaining Points

 

Ready.

At Tynea's go-ahead, I made a grabbing motion in front of me, and I held a large, round shield by its grip near the edge.

The convex disc of burnished metal went from my shoulder to my knee and weighed maybe a quarter of my own weight. There was some machinery I didn't know the use of on the inside, and a lot of thick cushioning. The edge wasn't sharp, but very hard. Looking at it, I got the visceral feeling that it would bite back viciously if I tried to smash it. The metal was black on the outside, and dusted with glittering diamond shards that transformed the surface into something that would strip the skin from anybody trying to push against it.

I rotated my arm until it lay naturally against the upholstery and the shield snapped closer to my elbow where straps of leather reeled around my forearm and secured the Aspis against me.

There was a port for the gun just above my fist around the Argive grip, but I wouldn't need that yet. I slung the gun to my back once more.

I stood back up and plucked the Raptor's Dance from the ground as my eyes wandered through the forest behind the Twenty-Two, studying the smaller units rushing to join their waiting, milling, impatient brethren.

Above me, the late evening slowly tinged the sky red, reminding me of that first incursion where I became a Vanguard. My head tilted and the first lines of a poem quietly slipped past my lips.

 

Endless the Enemy
Voracious and Unceasing
Beneath the Crimson Sky

 

Then the foghorn smashed my heart again and rattled my bones, shattered the standoff, and the plant beasts dashed at me.

My lips stretched into a wild grin as I stepped forward quick as a snake and loosed the javelin at the six, and I cackled.

 

Tearing Teeth
And bloodied Fangs
Thousands They were

 

I leapt forward at the Threes, kneeing the first one hard in the skull until it shattered. As it tumbled away, I grabbed it by its broken neck and used it to clobber aside the next one.

Another jumped at me, triple-hinged jaws wide open, and I yelled again even as I wound up and thrust the edge of my Aspis at it.

 

Anointed in Toxic Waste
Encrusted with armor
Avarice borne on Ragged Claws

 

The moment the shield's metal rim made contact with the Three's throat, a pulse went through it and with an unearthly gong, a force exploded like the strike of a hammer. I laughed hysterically as the alien's neck and throat were splattered and its body thrown clear. Death's Knell, indeed!

But the Antithesis didn't stop.

The next one tried to jump at my head, and in a smooth whirling motion, I unslung my rifle, bashed it aside with the stock, and re-slung the gun, even as more of the poem poured from my mouth.

 

Shoved ever onwards
By Bone and Sinew
Against Your Rage

 

The Myriad emptied its last reserves as two hundred rockets vaulted fifty meters into the sky.

 

Deliver unto Them

Sacred Powder and Holy Alloy
Revenge and Retribution

 

I stretched my arm up into the sky and the javelin's engines roared. It flashed into my open hand at the same time as explosions wracked the clearing.

Shrapnel rained against my shield as I hunkered down behind it, but some hit me from the sides. My skin was too tough for it to be penetrated deeply, but I still suffered a large number of small cuts. My lips kept moving.

 

Inexorable Your Wrath
Thunderous Your Voice
And bloody Your Toll

 

Blood trickled down my back and the flanks of my torso, painting my body as red as the sky.

Bionites raced through my bloodstream to heal me and I stood up, looking around the battlefield.

The single digits were all dead, the cut-grass-and-mold smell of their corpses clogging my sensilla.

I turned my gaze onto the last living enemy.

Plant gore coated it and me.

As I took slow, measured steps towards the towering monster, its birth sacks disgorged a few Threes. Once again I threw my javelin, and Combat Command steered it to scythe through the little aliens in cutting and whirling motions.

With every lumbering step, the Twenty-Two shook the clearing.

 

Battle's Eve
And Final Stand
Ceaseless Ire coated in Brass

 

But it was alone. It wasn't meant to fight. It was prey.

I removed my trusty hunting rifle from my back as I stood only meters away from the giant beast, looking up at its masticating, uncanny, eerily human jaws.

I knelt down and lifted the Aspis in front of me.

I inserted the gun into its port, and the shield started humming. Its weight disappeared and with my antennae I sensed an electromagnetic bubble snap into existence around me. The siege mode thing?

I stroked my weapon's barrel one last time, smiled, then lined up the muzzle.

 

Lay Your Eye Upon
Their Great Bastion
And unto the Eternal Hunger

 

My finger lightly touched upon the trigger and began to calmly, almost peacefully, pull it back.

 

I shall send, Only You.
And in Thy Last Hour
Speak Thy Last Word

 

I breathed out. The hammer clicked. The primer ignited and I sensed Tynea and AI-I communicating with the warhead.

In an instant between instants, I felt the gunpowder charge catch fire. Explosively expanding gas rammed into the bullet from the rear and forced it down a barrel too small, too weak for it.

Jury-rigged bands took up the force and contained the raging inferno within the chamber. Reinforcements supported the barrel and kept the muzzle straight as the harbinger of solar wrath compressed the chrome-vanadium steel of the rifling, too hard to be shaped by it.

Cracks raced down the barrel, keeping time with the warhead. Beneath the wrapping, the receiver warped to an unrecoverable degree.

The muzzle broke and burst as the projectile finally liberated itself from the tight confines of the barrel, and an almost gasmic frisson ran through my body with the visceral violence of it. I whined somewhere in the back of my mind.

The warhead jumped through the air and buried itself unceremoniously past the face of the Twenty-Two. It dug deeper until it came to rest within the center of the creature.

In that broken moment, I gazed at the monster along my weapon's barrel, and with my cheek resting on the wrapped-up stock, I completed the poem.

 

Rest
In
Peace.

 

The world flashed white, so white it seared my eyes and I almost went blind even through the triple protection of the membranes, the forcefield of Leah's gift to me, and whatever that sphere of the Aspis was.

But I didn't go blind, and I saw as the plasma engulfed me and radiation ate at the shielding.

I saw as forces beyond my comprehension bent and tore at the bubble, and I realized how close I was to death.

 

***

A sketch of Tinea by Jero, who also drew the cover and Leah/Lily. This was one of two sketches for a new cover, and I'd rejected and had him clean it up a little instead. 

And here, much prettier, is the actual cover for the first volume of Tinea and Leah.