Embers After Flames, Chapter 13.6 (Patreon)

13.6

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From far to the Xylem’s side, a quartet of transports were hurling through the exosphere towards the zone.

They were burning at a speed that was well beyond anything that was possible for an orbit. The only reason they were still so low was the fact that they were angled diagonally, and spending fuel to keep low. It was an incredibly inefficient way to do it, but this wasn’t about fuel or Delta-v. The only concern here had been to deliver the payloads as fast as physically possible, and what that demanded was travel as close to the atmosphere as possible without letting friction slow them down.

The transports opened up long before they actually came close. This may seem like a poor decision, but at velocities like this, it was entirely necessary.

Through the sensor fog created by the ambient agitated Coral, it was hard to see the figures that emerged from the transports, moving on a simple ballistic trajectory, but that changed in an instant when their Boosters fired and they did their best to slow down as much as possible.

Seven sets of bright red lights and one set of bright blue lights shone with more than enough energy to cut through the interference.

Between waves as they were, nothing changed on the Xylem- not yet.

It took about ten seconds before the transports entered the combat zone. You wouldn’t have even finished counting to eleven by the time they left it. They were there, and then they were gone, little more than a remembered trail.

Their cargo, even with the time they spent to match velocity, still arrived at speed that was only just on this side of dangerous- so of course, they had to show off.

One of them hit the surface of the Xylem and slid, trailing sparks of grinding metal through the void for a brief moment before they finally came to a stop- riiiiight to the side of Raven.

“Hey, Buddy.” Rusty spoke. “Been a while. Looks like things have gotten real interesting over here, huh?”

LOADER 4’s head shifted upwards and downwards. Rusty chuckled at the nod.

The rest came to a full stop shortly afterwards, having somewhat more powerful Boosters available to them and therefore taking a longer time to arrive.

One came to a stop above the group, floating over the Xylem’s surface. Another stopped to Raven’s other side, sliding much like Rusty had, but on a much shorter path.

The other five landed in a diamond formation, as coordinated as they had ever been.

“We’re here.” Seria spoke, piloting the very same CEL that she’d once requested to borrow and which I had then left with her as a momento. Instead of being mostly white, however, she’d since painted it black and red, mirroring her partner’s colour scheme.

“Firekeeper Alpha Squad reporting.” C5-6, Rutendo, Alpha Melee, spoke up next. “Nice to meet you Raven.” He seemed psyched up, at least. “Sorry we couldn’t all make it.”

“Our apologies for our late arrival.” Dolmayan said, his voice conveying his feelings perfectly. “We were not as prepared as we should have been.”

“That describes us all.” I huffed a laugh. “You’re here now, that’s what matters. Everyone, it looks like we’ve got a few more waves of ALLMIND’s machines to go. This set will be even larger than any one of the ones that came before, and she’s not going to stop. Hold nothing back, we can’t afford to stumble here and now. Kids, I want all of you to focus on thinning the horde as much as possible. For those of you who have got SOLs, I want you to go for as many wide-area attacks as possible. If any enemy C-Weapons show up, focus on them. For those who have CELs, you’re on support. Make sure that the SOLs don’t go down, and get as many of the stragglers as possible. Ayre, Carla, you’re on anti-group duties. Walter, Dolmayan, you’re on generalist duties. If its near, stab it. If its far, shoot it. Rusty, you’re our responder, so use your speed and make absolutely certain that nothing gets through.” Between everything else, it wasn’t likely, but it also wasn’t impossible. There was a lot of machines coming our way. “Firekeepers, you’ll be busy. Rutendo, to the front. Allana, Gregor, you’re on support. Maryna, you’re on intercepts. Alicia, you’re heavy firepower. If the enemy C-Weapons gang up, I want you to get rid of them.”

She was carrying an Ultimate Weapon, so I expected that the sheer threat of it would keep ALLMIND from grouping up.

That left only a single person.

“Raven.” I finished up. “Do what you do best.”

LOADER 4 shifted, Boosters flaring as Raven shot forwards, heading further down towards the back of the Xylem. Raven stopped right at the edge of the thrusters, the massive assemblies at the very back of the ship, where the enemy would be focusing most of their attention.

The SOLs and CELs flew overhead, taking up their own positions. Bolstered by the ambient Coral, each and every single one of them seemed to be wreathed in foaming clouds of lightning, flowing over their form.

“Nice of you to finally join us, sister!” Ezra chuckled. “The whole family is fighting together... Now, if only you had a machine too, mother.”

“Unfortunately, any further reinforcements will take a bit of time to get here.” The project I had been working on before all of this had kicked off was, technically, finished, but it hadn’t been completely tested, and it hadn’t been assembled. I had started reassembling it shortly into this entire thing, and while it was finishing up right now, it would still have to get up here. “The Xylem will have to suffice.”

The next wave of ALLMIND’s machines cross the engagement envelope.

I fired, sending out more bolts of blue light. Their energy was intense, and the beams tinged almost purple as they washed through the ambient Coral, exciting masses into sparking crimson. It certainly gave them a very unique appearance, but in truth it didn’t render them meaningfully more dangerous. A direct hit would have already been a kill, and this didn’t make the beams any faster or harder to dodge.

Now, the C-Weapons, and the ACs that had been designed from the ground up to incorporate Coral?

Different story.

Coral flowed into the SOLs and CELs as they prepared to attack, hastening the charging of their weapons dramatically. My children went fully free, pressing the devices to their physical limits rather than their pratical ones.

For the CELs, that meant that they could wreathe themselves in cloaks of Coral lightning. It meant that their Orbit drones would be able to draw in infinite amounts of energy, never needing to return to their mother unit in order to recharge. This alone made them into a deluge of firepower, the Orbits spitting blasts towards the enemy every single second, but coupled with the Oscillators of the CELs themselves, they could lock down an entire approach vector all on their own, sweeping back and forth across the zones while looking more like flying Coral Blades than the relatively thin machines they actually were.

The SOLs had that, but even better. They were more advanced in every way. Their Oscillators were more powerful, and extremely variable. Their Boosters were larger and more capable, and coupled with their transformation capabilities, there was no other machine on the battlefield that was faster. They lacked Orbit Drones, yes, and some might make the mistake of thinking that this made them only a single target, but in truth?

As I watched, I could see the Coral shimmering around the SOLs as they moved. Not just the chaos of barely controlled Coral, no, this was structured. One of them twisted away from its current flight path, turning sharply to the right.

The Coral continued onwards, a red afterimage shooting towards the original target. It shifted as it moved, a fading copy of the SOL that had formed it, and promptly cut one of the machines in half as it dissolved.

That was not, as it happened, a programmed behaviour of the SOL models. It was something that was possible because of just how advanced its Coral manipulation technology was, combined with the Coral Minds pushing it to its full potential... Truly, it was incredible to see this culmination of effort.

All of my children were certainly enjoying themselves, though it was Ezra’s outright giggling that gave the game away on just how much fun they were all having.

As for the ACs, they were just about the same. I watched my Firekeepers unleash an endless supply of firepower, guns going at their maximum rate, limited only by their need to cool down. Rutendo was a whirlwind of blades up the front, Allana and Gregor offering ranged support so that he wasn’t overwhelmed. Maryna zipped from side to side, devilishly fast with mech, gun, and blade all. Alicia hung near the back, anchored directly in the path of a Coral wind bouncing off of the Xylems, and her Ultimate Weapon was enjoying the benefits. The Coral Oscillator fired every fifteen seconds like clockwork, reaching out and obliterating whatever target she was looking at.

In this environment, Carla’s missiles couldn’t run out of fuel. They simply hung wherever she left them, spitting out bolts of Coral Lightwave continuously until they melted from their own activity. Walter kept things simple, swapping between his blade and his rifle as he needed, letting one cool while the other was used to destroy the enemy. The shield that surrounded his mech was permanently active, and much thicker than it usually was. Ayre was a combination of the two, her own Coral Lightwave missiles limited more by heat than energy, but her choice of weaponry aside from that was rifle and blade, taking the same benefits that Walter did. Dolmayan was also amped up, all of his weapons well suited for this environment. Rusty was the only one who wasn’t being boosted to the nines, but he still had infinite energy and with his AC? He was just this side of untouchable.

And then there was Raven... Well, Raven probably didn’t need it to begin with, but now that LOADER 4 was enjoying all the benefits?

Raven had always been death incarnate. Now, Raven was simply better.

ALLMIND’s machines didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow. They kept coming, over and over and over, until the entire back half of the Xylem was littered with scorchmarks and melted metal. The waves grew in size, pushed harder and more desperately with every passing minute-

And then, ultimately, it started to shift.

I judged that there was about half of the forces she’d sent to take the Vascular Plant remaining. ALLMIND had evidently come to the realisation that simply sending a continually escalating number of units in a continuous stream simply wasn’t working, and so had changed her approach.

The upcoming wave pulled back, delaying their attack. I saw another split further back in the incoming units, the entire incoming mass splitting up, forming into two distinct groups. The first was about half the size of the second, split along some distance in between the closest and furthest units.

“I’m sending Sherpas. Use them, because you’re not going to have the chance later.”

She’s going to try two very large waves, and hope that enough to overwhelm us... Unfortunately, a good plan.

It’s a punch I don’t have any real response to. We just have to take it on the chin.

The gathering of the enemy forces didn’t even give us a full minute of reprieve, but that was enough for the ACs to resupply and get some patch jobs for their armour.

It was obvious when it started moving. The entire horde came forth as one, the lights of their Boosters shining like tiny stars, a wall of metal advancing.

We met them as best as we could.

They crashed upon the Xylem like an ocean wave.

Red and blue warred, beams flying black and forth. Bolts of crimson lightning crackled over the battlefield, filling empty space with dangerous light.

I fired, and fired, and fired, and fired. The Xylem’s guns didn’t fall silent for even a second, tracking target after target, providing all the support I could provide. The numbers were intense, and the damage piled up. There was so much energy being thrown around that the signal noise from that alone was almost as bad as the rest of the ambient Coral.

And then-

The alarms shrieked, and not the ones that should have been shrieking.

There was an energy build-up, a warning of a charged laser attack, except it came from behind the line. Directly in front of the Ramjet Engines, where none of her machines should have reached. As numerous as they were, I had kept track of everything I’d seen.

I accessed the cameras, and I saw...

Nothing.

But it was never truly nothing when it came to ALLMIND, was it?

The Xylem’s scanners pulsed, and confirmed my immediate suspicion.

Motherfucker.

A Ghost.