(Rewritten) Ch. 67 – Xenocide Act V, Resupplying

"Alien circuits entwined with human flesh; we became both the invasion and the resistance."

– Tales from the Wired Frontier, AI-generated novel 2055

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I exhaled slowly, embraced by Leah, my face snuggled into the crook of her neck. Tension unknotted itself and breathing came easier. Even the constant patter and sizzle of the rain against my forcefield was soothing.

With a good last squeeze, I released her and stepped back, happy to return Leah's smile. Patting my ATV, I said, "These guys are starting to drag us down, me in particular. Can't ride it easily with my skirt, and you've got your piloting pod."

"Yeah. Once we cross the swamp and get on that old highway, we could just get something large enough to travel in that'll also store two quads, no issue."

"What kind of vehicle are you thinking of?"

"There's single-seater walking tanks with a few cubic meters of storage and a tiny bunk space for a passenger. They're not brawlers, barely armored against small caliber guns, but very quick and nimble. They're scouts, meant to be hard to hit." Leah grimaced, "Flying stuff is also an option, but we'd need a lot more points."

"You don't seem excited about that," I chuckled.

She groaned and said, "I hate flying. The hoverbusses make me wanna puke, every time. But," she sighed, "there's stuff we can buy to fix that, which is why I mentioned it. With enough points we get some hella dangerous aerial conveyances, good for fighting from the air. I'd still have more fun with ground pounders."

"Don't worry about it." I leaned against her shoulder. "I'll do the flying. If I let them grow naturally, it'll only cost two thousand points. And, I guess, it'll take long enough that I'll have time to learn how to manage massive wings on my back."

I sent her a picture of the wings as I'd designed them. She studied the file and oohed and aahed at them. "Pretty! Fluffy, too. And no kidding about them being huge. How the hell are you gonna carry them whenever you're not flying?"

"Oh, they won't be very heavy at all, actually. They're ultra-thin. Not even half a millimeter. See," I shifted the display, "how they can fold? Sure they'll get in the way some, which I'll have to get used to, but it's not like I'll be carrying around a house on my back."

She grinned at the mental picture. "That would be an issue, I guess. Neat. So, how much do these let you fly?"

"How much?"

"Like, how fast and stuff."

"Ah, I'll match a hovercycle. So…roundabout two to three hundred kilometers per hour? That's…around a hundred and twenty to ninety miles per hour, I think? Kinda slow for Protector tech, but they'll be good at instantly changing directions. More hummingbird than fighter jet. And I'll probably want to boost my metabolism to fly for more than a few minutes at a time."

"Hmmm… How are you going to, like, flap them? They seem kinda massive for that."

I zoomed in on the picture, highlighting a single one of the specialized oscillating scales. "Won't need to. They're not aerodynamic wings shaped for lift. Look at these microscopic scales, instead. They generate airflow with their vibration, and with a gazillion of these all across the surface, they'll push me anywhere I want to go. Even straight up."

"Huh." Leah zoomed out again and looked at the full picture. "They're beautiful. Seriously. Look like they'd be amazing to touch." She giggled. "I could see the kids being all over them. Speaking of which," she continued wryly, "how are you going to protect them? If they're that thin, they're probably not very tough, right?"

"Fire's gonna be an issue, but shooting holes in them won't matter—the membranes are meant to part and seal again, rather than injure. I'll probably buy devices to defend them, too. Esoteric Defense Systems will have interesting ones," I replied with a reassuring smile.

Taking her hand and squeezing it, I continued, "But let's get back to sorting out our gear. We've gotta reload the turrets and maybe figure out a way to let them handle it by themselves. And I was going to talk to Tynea about more missiles."

I followed up by sending Tynea a request to buy that ammo, and two heavy drum magazines fell out of the air in front of me.

Purchased:

Total cost: 62Remaining points: 5774

I scrambled to catch them, one with my free hand, the other with a foot. Leah clapped and said, "Nice catch. Can you do that with more at the same time?"

Hey, I had a free hand now! And look at that, it shot forward and tickled Leah in her ribs!

She jerked away and giggle-laughed at me. Wait a second! Was she not as immune to tickles as I'd thought her suit made her? Further testing required! Later. When she's not expecting it.

I tossed the two Coffin Nail magazines to her and said, "Give those to the single turret on your ATV. I've got another two each for the ones on your pilot pod thing."

Still laughing she chirped, "Roger!" And wandered off.

"Tynea, gimme the four remaining ones one-after-the-other, please?"

Will do. You'll be seeing a smaller group of Threes very soon, coming in from behind you.

"Small?"

Twenty units.

"Understood."

I tabbed up forty high-explosive missiles, with the cheap kerosene since I wasn't expecting to launch so many I'd suffocate myself again.

When I stepped up to it the egg lowered its butt, making it easy for me to reach up and hand the magazines to the little arms at the bottom of each robotic turret. They stored them somewhere inside the weapons' slots, presumably to be loaded whenever the current ones were used up.

"Four hundred rounds per gun. That should be enough for a bigger battle, right?" I turned around, in the direction the Threes would come from, while feeding my Sentinels all the other magazines I'd ordered.

Enough for three minutes of continuous shooting per gun, at medium cycling rates, and the nanite payload will finish a target even if the 7.62 round won't always kill on hit.

"Alright. Good enough. Say, could you just spawn the magazines right where they can grab them? It's annoying and possibly impossible to resupply them during combat."

Yes, but only in close proximity. If you or Leah are nearby, then we can locate the teleport near enough that no further manual interaction is necessary.

"And if we're not?"

If you cannot make the time to dash by, then you could buy teleport-receptacles. Those order more magazines as they need them, too. It does cost a little more per bullet, and the reward is lessened.

My brows scrunched. "Lessened?"

The more distance and steps of automation there are between you and your kill, the less it's worth.

"Huh. I see. Can you get diminishing returns to a degree where a strategy, even if otherwise successful, could net you nothing?"

It's very rare that a kill wouldn't get you more points than you had to invest in it. But there are some examples. Certain single-use lower tier weapons will match the power of higher tier weapons, but a kill with one might cost exactly as much as the kill was worth. A single missile worth a hundred points will kill a double digit flier where a cheaper swarm of your micro-missiles may or may not, but the kill is also worth only a hundred points.

"Okay. Well, I'll just run by the turrets and let you teleport the magazines when they need them."

Understood.

"That leaves us with two things. Materials and blueprints. I've got enough to build a few more penetrators, and a little less than two hundred high-explosive, if we don't count the five hundred already in production, so we need to replace what I've used up."

Breaking branches announced the presence of aliens hurtling towards us. All three turrets twitched towards them, but I forced them to stay passive.

I quickly set my targets and watched as the Myriad slowly launched one missile after the other. They kept low to the ground, and their exhaust gasses threw up wakes of muddy water like speed boats. The Myriad guided the missiles such that I'd waste as few as possible, and several got double kills. Satisfied, I counted only twelve rockets for twenty dead Threes.

I'd been a bit worried about economy—rockets and missiles were notoriously expensive, and these guys didn't have the power of my grenade shells. It looked like I'd be able to make do, though.

"Alright. So, blueprints. The penetrators are great against Fives and Sixes, but carving long tunnels larger than my fist didn't seem to do much against something as massive as a Fourteen."

If timed well, you could perhaps have followed the penetrators with high-explosives. It would require hundreds of your micro-missiles and not be very point-efficient, but they would have been able to destroy the Fourteen by digging out and expanding those 'tunnels', even as they collapsed.

"Oh. Yeah, I didn't think of that." I scratched my chin.

Alternatively, another twenty-four to fifty-six of the Javelins in critical locations would have destroyed most nerve-centers of the creature. Your initial volley did hit those in the second segment, after all.

I did remember that segment being a little out of sync with twitching legs. Hmm… I should probably really familiarize myself more with my stuff, huh?

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