Embers After Flames, Chapter 13.0 (Patreon)

13.0

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“‘Stubborn’ is a term that applies to Humans.” ALLMIND lied through her non-existent teeth. “I am simply patient, and that patience has now born fruit.”

The situation was not good, needless to say.

Of all the things that I’ve seen her pull off, this? This one takes the cake.

It took me barely a moment to run the calculations. I had three shipfuls of combat machines bearing down on my central position. The vast, vast, vast majority of my forces were dramatically out of place, because they were deep behind the defensive lines and everything I did have ready just in case still wasn’t enough to deal with the scale of this incursion. I couldn’t stop this.

My orbital forces were already on the way down, but the difference between ten kilometres above the ground and four hundred kilometres was way too much time to be comfortable.

A genuine masterstroke, that... except there was no damned way she’d planned for it in advance.

I’d been watching that asteroid pretty closely ever since I chose it, and there had been no activity there until my ships had arrived. She’d have had to have them there beforehand for them to be completely ready to go like this. There would not have been enough time to observe my ships go on their way to the asteroid and prepare for the arrival... Which meant that, in all likelihood...

“Did I really end up selecting your hidden asteroid base for mining?” I asked.

All those years ago, I’d been able to track that some of the components for her Ghosts had been produced in space. That asteroid was a pretty solid choice for a base, on account of its size. Useless to try and get things from it to Rubicon so long as the PCA was keeping watch, though...

But the same qualities that made it a good base also made it a good mining target.

“My patience bore fruit.” ALLMIND repeated, distinctly not addressing the questions.

I sighed. “You can’t just label sheer dumb luck patience. That’s not how it works.” But she’d never admit it, because she has control issues and it might just break her to admit that something happened outside of her control.

Oh well. I was well used to her idiosyncrasies, and right now, the best way to deal with it was to simply drop the subject.

I felt the resonance across the C-Pulse, and pre-empted my children’s questions with the memory. Ayre absorbed it quickly.

“Can we help?” Ayre asked.

“At this point, we’re going to need everything very quickly.” I responded. “How long will it take you?”

“We’ll be ready for a sortie in a few minutes.” Ayre responded. “LOADER 4 needs to attach weapons.”

“It’ll have to do.”

There was no conceivable way that I was going to avoid significant damage. All I could do was make it as painful as possible. That was going to be difficult because I did not have a whole lot of shit around here.

Institute City’s defensive weaponry finished reorienting to their targets. Coral charged, and moments later, beams of blinding crimson burned upwards through the air.

ALLMIND’s machines were scattering before the beams had even fired, the AGI recognizing the signs of an incoming strike as soon as they had begun to charge. All three groups were at equilateral distances around the Vascular Plant, all three ships having been on their way to the three outer Coral storage areas. The beams failed to hit the machines, but the machines hadn’t been the targets in the first place.

The blindingly powerful Coral shots instead struck the ships themselves, the beams puncturing straight through the Drive Blocks. Secondary explosions followed, and all propulsion capacity was lost in an instant. Gravity took over from there, and it would drag the vessels to their destruction eventually.

The first dedicated starships I’d ever shot down, and I had been the one to build them. Downright infuriating, but also an absolute necessity at the moment. In their current positions, they would crash only upon open ground, far away from anything important. If they had stayed active, then ALLMIND could have used them as either projectiles or shields.

Instead, her machines would have to rely on evasion.

Unfortunately, it rapidly became very obvious to me that they were well suited for it.

There were six different designs among the swarm arrayed against me. Two of them, I recognized, but the other four were entirely unknown to me.

The smallest of those unknown designs was the size of an AC, but it was plain to see that she’d taken inspiration from the Cavalry Units rather than actual ACs. They had integrated weaponry, and additional wing-like structures built into the back of the core. It was a Booster assembly, which made it blindingly obvious that this unit was focused on speed and agility.

They only got larger from there. The second was nearly double the size of an AC, standing approximately eighteen metres tall. It was a curious design, however, distinctly non-humanoid in shape. Instead, it was a quadrupedal design, with each of its ‘legs’ attached to different points on a relatively flat Core. The legs had large booster assemblies, again pointing at high mobility focus, but there were a pair of large weapons that looked like laser cannons sticking out of the front of the Core, so there were even odds on this being a dedicated bruiser or an artillery unit designed to rapidly reposition.

The third was obviously a dedicated flyer. The Core was relatively small and thin, but there were ridiculously oversized thruster assemblies replacing the arms. They were omnidirectional, but the ones pointed downwards were the largest of all. Its weapon seemed relatively simple in comparison, what looked like a plasma cannon hanging just below the Core.

The fourth one, somewhat surprisingly, was relatively standard in its body shape. Humanoid, bipedal, and nearly three times the height of an AC. They looked almost... stretched, tall and thin in a way that came across as lanky more than anything else.

I was going to need to find names for them pretty quickly.

It was the other two designs, however, that caught my immediate attention. Their numbers were low, but there was no mistaking either of them.

IA-13 and IB-07. The SEA SPIDER and SOL 644.

C-Weapons.

Both had been obviously modified significantly from their original designs, though. The colour was the most obvious, both of them being black and green rather than white and red. Her SOL models had changed significantly, with large wing assemblies attached to the back. Her version of the SEA SPIDER was thicker, and somehow more angular than the original, which had incorporated at least some curvature that her version omitted entirely.

I already knew the answer, but I had to make sure. I reached out, searching for the C-Pulse in them. It was faint- very faint, but I could reach it with a bit of effort.

I forced the Contact through, and nothing changed. The amount of Coral in her version of the C-Weapons was dramatically lower than the Institute’s versions, and absolutely none of it was contained in any system that would allow control. These machines were using Coral for energy, and nothing else... Not even offense, since the swarm interference was so strong that even I couldn’t induce it to Surge.

Evidently, she’d learned from the PCA’s failures.

On the other hand, that also cut out a very significant amount of what made them dangerous. With that in mind, the machines I kept near the city would be much more of a match... though they were still outnumbered so massively it wasn’t going to matter.

That was everything at least- No, wait.

One last type of unit, which I had missed because it was literally the only one of its type. It was a big one, humanoid, about forty meters tall, but it had reasonable proportions unlike the stretched ones that were still shorter than it. Again, it had wings, and I was beginning to see a pattern in ALLMIND’s designs. Aside from that... Yes, that one was also powered by Coral, more than either of her SEA SPIDER or SOL variants, but not by a lot.

I wasn’t able to determine much else from this distance.

“You know, this is quite unlike you.” I spoke, hoping to provide at the very least some degree of distraction... though it probably wasn’t going to work. “All those centuries spent operating in the shadows, and now you attack so openly? I recall you proclaiming that secrecy was what allowed you to survive... yet here you are. So, what happened to drive you to this?”

“Victory will obviate all other requirements.” ALLMIND bothered to answer. “I will no longer need to concern myself with small matters.”

“You speak of victory as though it is a foregone conclusion.” I observed. “Are you really so confident?”

“I have considered all factors. Everything has been accounted for. Coral Release is inevitable.” She stated, and yes, I recognized this as legitimate confidence. “Evolution is at hand. You cannot stop this now.”

“We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

My weapons fired again, switching to rapid-charge modes just to put as many shots up as possible. Her swarms reacted immediately, organising quickly.

All three split, a full third of each swarm breaking off from the rest. Those smaller parts switched directions, Boosters flaring as they rapidly built up horizontal speed. Their target rapidly became clear, because they were all converging upon the Vascular Plant.

The other swarms went in the opposite directions, charging outwards and away as they went towards the Coral storage areas.

My guns kept shooting, but it didn’t matter. All of her machines were quick enough to dodge the beams from this distance. The ones heading towards the Vascular Plant were even worse, because the Vascular Plant was so large that the number of guns that I could fire without hitting it in the process quickly began to shrink as they came closer. The Vascular Plant did have its own defenses, but the vast majority of them were above, and pointed upwards, so they were already under the envelope.

A ping hit my systems, though this one came from within the City itself. It was Carla, trying to get my attention.

Well, she got it.

“The fuck is happening?” She asked, on alert, and breathing hard because she was currently sprinting towards her AC’s hangar. Walter was with her, though he was getting a bit further ahead.

“ALLMIND is attacking us. She wants to trigger a runaway Coral replication so she can exploit it.”

“The fucking merc support system?!” Carla asked. “I knew that ranking thing was weird! What the fuck, though?”

“The short version is that we’ve been having a shadow war for two and a half decades. It’s a long story.” Carla briefly stumbled, but she recovered quickly. “Anyway, she hijacked my ships, and now she’s trying to get to the Coral. If you’re up to help, head to the base of the Vascular Plant and I’ll send you right up. Just beware that you’ll be extremely outnumbered. No heroics, you two.”

“Raven-” Walter began.

“Will be there soon.” I told them.

Three extra ACs against all of this... Well, in any other circumstances, I’d say that it wouldn’t matter that much, but Walter’s HAL was the pinnacle of everything the Institute had ever achieved and was perfectly viable even after all the advancements I’d made, Carla’s FULL COURSE had spent the better part of two months being the testbed of whatever new shit Carla felt like throwing at it, and Raven’s LOADER 4 had been completely replaced with Parts and Units from my very own catalogue.

Ayre’s ECHO was also here, and... yeah, that was actually quite the potent force concentration. Against the sheer numbers of what they were up against, though...

They could kill anything they came across just fine. The problem was that it wouldn’t matter. They simply couldn’t physically move fast enough to kill everything that ALLMIND was throwing at us.

They could definitely make a good try, though, and I was willing to bet that ALLMIND’s plan hinged upon the Coral she had in her possession.

That unique machine probably had something to do with it, too.

Alright then.

Let’s see how much damage we can do.