Then throw it away as you return to the SLAUGHTER!"
--Keiko Green-tones, pausing before a reporter drone during the 2053 double incursion in Salt Lake/Provo
***
Setting my hand on an uninjured shoulder, the scanner quickly ran through its routine and spit out a wall of data in my visor.
--The damage is extensive. The torso’s been crushed, with several ribs broken, bowels punctured, and one leg is deeply lacerated. We can provide minimal stabilization for evacuation, or you can spend a lot more and get her back up and running.
--The catalog alone costs 400 points and a token. She needs Class II healing to be back up anytime soon.
I looked at my points counter; a little over 8k.
"Catalog Unlocked: Class II Medical Utilities
Cost: 400 Remaining points: 7,754
"Purchased: Class II Bio-Regenerative Suite
Cost: 75 Remaining points: 7,679”
A large, clear cylinder filled with a thick orange paste appeared.
--Apply the paste liberally to the wounds. Any remaining paste should be poured out on the torso. It’s made of both the healing bionites and the nutrients they need to work.
The paste flowed from the container with the consistency of toothpaste, then hardened onto her body, forming bandages. She immediately started breathing easier. As I applied it to a gash on her face, I realized that I recognized the victim—Teia. My hand trembled, even as I forced it to continue to apply the paste. The slow, faint rise and fall of her breath and her cold skin proved how close she’d come to death.
As I applied the remaining paste, my mind flashed to the little melee I’d had on the way to the Twelve. Such a little thing, barely a few seconds. But that little battle, and the time lost panicking over my flechettes, had cost her. Nearly everything. I should have been here earlier. I’d wasted precious seconds that would have had me set and ready for the M-12’s appearance.
My tone, savage with recrimination, bled over on the mind chat, and I smashed the empty dispenser into a tree five meters away.
--We can look, but you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just dumb luck.
I blinked back tears, then gasped at another thought.
--I don’t think you’re ready to hear this, but you had no reason to expect that. I didn’t either. You did save her, however, and that’s the important part. Both in battle and now.
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--She should be up and about in half an hour, but leave the paste in place for at least three hours beyond that. It will fall off when done.
Medics arrived and pulled the injured woman off to the side. I grabbed one by the harness and passed on Corie’s instructions about the paste. But their presence and the gunfire all around us reminded me that we still had a battle going on. I closed my eyes and pictured stuffing the emotions into a box and shutting it. I’d have to deal with it, but later. Not now. Getting lost in my emotions now would only let more people get killed. Instead, I made a quick sweep along the length of the ridge, eliminating the few lingering M-4s.
[“Has your connection with your drones cleared up, Tara?”] I subvocalized in the chat as I found an open firing position and started attacking small fry down in the valley again. A couple of new capital-class corpses had joined the field during my time away.
[“Mostly. There’s still some flickers north, near the valley’s opening, but overall, it’s better. I can now see the whole north slope, which has hundreds of Threes crawling up the slope. You’re going to get trapped.”]
[“They’re making a slow go of it,”] Ginny said. [“You won’t see them for twenty minutes.”]
I thought for a few seconds about how to deal with this threat, then the sight of Teia lying on the ground flashed through my mind. A cold smile pulled at my lips as I decided that limiting my weapons gave the antithesis openings to hurt the people around me, and that was unacceptable. Even more so when any long-term impact could be fixed with more points.
[“Let’s see if we can’t thin them out. Corie, how large an area would an aerosol can of Rampage affect?”]
--So you’re going to AoE the pheromones? Are you sure you won’t regret doing that?
--No problem.
The mind speech exchange rushed by, and Corie’s response came as if the side conversation had never happened.
[“A standard canister would cover a thirty-meter diameter, the same as the Phero-repulsive Atomizer. But right now…”] She broke off as the hiss of rain in the trees rose enough to be heard over the rifle fire.
I looked up at a darkening sky only to be hit in the face with the first fat raindrops. “Could anything else go wrong?” I asked out loud, realizing that the rain would wash away the gas, rendering the pheromones useless.
The nearby troopers looked at me with startled expressions, and one even started crossing himself and praying. I looked at him sideways before turning back to the battlefield in the valley below.
[“Weather report shows on-and-off showers,”] Kaitlyn said. [“My map shows the rain will pass over soon.”]
[“Tara, keep an eye on that slope and let me know if they start getting close. Work with Corie on a way to collect them into groups where we can use the atomizers to set them on a Rampage.”]
[“We could use the Scarlet Macaw to draw them in,”] Ginny suggested.
I tuned them out as another Model Fourteen came through the gap with another big something behind it, maybe. The thick rain blurred my sight, even in the infrared and ultraviolet. I couldn’t tell if I was seeing multiple aliens or just an exceptionally long one.
“Stupid Twenty-Twos haven’t moved,” Gangnam grumbled in the Samurai channel. “Let’s invite them to dance; I’m tired of waiting on them to get their shit together.” Through the rain, I spotted several larger missiles launching from his position on the main battlefront. They flew high over the hills and out of my line of sight. As I switched to a partial magazine of Rampage, several large explosions echoed over the hills, adding a distant thunder under all the other fire from the battle below.
A wave of agitation passed along the anthesis, and they all started moving faster. The blur of capital-sized aliens I’d been watching split into three aliens that sped across the battlefield. My first shot caught the alien farthest from me while still a hundred meters from the battle line.
It immediately swerved and chomped on an M-6 while I adjusted aim. The two rear M-14 hadn’t split apart as much, and the middle alien was driven to the ground by the weight of its buddy dropping on it in a surprise backstab. A fourth large alien that I’d overlooked ran into a barrage of missiles streaking out from Gangnam.
“Is that you causing the Fourteens to kill each other, Zenovir? You know that inciting fratricide is illegal, right?” Gangnam asked in the channel.
“Sorry, I’ll report myself later.” I switched to the command channel and let them know about the effects of Rampage. On the field, the two capital class models duked it out, writhing in a rolling ball of plates, legs, and pincers. Dozens of smaller models tried to attack them and only ended up being rolled over and crushed.
The other Rampage inflicted Fourteen lifted its plates and dumped a hundred aliens in the middle of the battleground. I watched as one of the new models, a larger Three-B variant, swiped at an M-4 running by. The Three shook its head and turned towards the line of troopers firing into the chaos. But the damage has been done. The Four thrust its long tentacles into the side of the alien, slaying it.