NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: The Swarm
The double thump of Springer's belt fed grenade launcher rang out behind me as I ran from my position to the low stone wall ten meters away that was the first scrap of decent cover. As soon as my feet touched the cobblestones of the plaza the drones came online. I watched a scrap of sheet metal get launched into the air as the sand colored drone underneath it stood up and began firing.
It was a networked bipedal area denial drone, or NBADD. They weren't much more than two legs with a machine gun on top and an armored plate in front to protect the CPU. Once their ammunition was spent they would rush forward and self-destruct, killing anyone within fifty meters.
I just made it behind cover as the grenades hit. Springer had shot them at a high angle like a mortar. The blast from the high explosive 40mm grenades combined with the drone’s self-destruct charges rattled my teeth.
I snapped back into the fight and got ready to offer covering fire. Red triangles appeared all around me as the NBADDs emerged from their spider holes and our drone flying above reclassified them as definite threats.
They weren't rushing us like I expected. Groups of them were breaking off and circling around to prevent our escape through the alleys to the north. They were acting as an intelligent swarm and preparing to hit us from both sides in a classic pincer movement. We had cover from the ones attacking from the west, but those coming down from the north would tear us to shreds.
It was hectic. There was too much to keep track of. NBADDs were closing in from all sides and I didn't know if we could hold them off. But in that chaos I found a precious pool of calm in our team link.
My anxiousness faded away as I opened myself up to it, surrendered to it, got lost in it. I drank deeply from that reservoir of strength and let it fill me.
We became a mesh of minds as our wetware linked us together into one being. There was no I or he, only us, only the pack. My eyes were our eyes. My claws were our claws. My life was our life. Only the pack mattered.
The NBADDs had heavy front armor but the sides and top were made of much thinner material. With seconds to go before the first wave would be in range to engage us we sprinted west towards the approaching enemy. The NBADDs were stacking up against a tall concrete wall at the edge of the plaza getting ready to rush through what had once been the west gate.
Springer stopped and aimed a salvo of 40mm grenades along the seam where the wall met the cobblestones of the plaza and the building it was attached to. There was an explosion of dust and debris as the grenades hit. But the wall the NBADDs were hiding behind was still standing, if barely.
As one we leapt up onto the wall and kicked with both feet, all eight of us putting our full weight into pushing it over. Stone cracked and the wall slowly began to fall over. We landed on our feet and ran toward a ruined two story building on the north side of the plaza. We had originally dismissed it as an exfil route because the north walls were intact. But we had explosives and knew how to use them.
There was a tortured crunch as the falling western wall of the plaza crushed a dozen NBADDs beneath it like a brick landing on a nest of roaches. A second later they self-destructed, the concrete wall on top of them directing the brunt of the explosion along the ground directly into the drones lucky enough to avoid being crushed. They exploded in a wave of sympathetic detonations that cleared the western side of the plaza.
Laüfer hit the button on his detonator and made an exit for us. Once we came out through the hole we would be behind the northern group of NBADDs in a perfect flanking position. I felt my weapon come online as we divided up the available targets our drone had marked for us. I told my carbine which ones I wanted to shoot and where I wanted to hit them.
I wasn't just aiming at NBADDs anymore hoping to get a hit. I was aiming through them, into them, highlighting the areas that my shot would do the most damage. Normally smart carbines like mine were set to fire if they were aimed within six centimeters of their chosen target, choosing speed over precision. I dialed that down to two centimeters and stepped out sideways through the hole in the wall, bringing my carbine up and firing as soon as I was clear.
Once again the NBADDs closest to us had stacked up against the wall as they waited their turn to enter the alley that led into the plaza. Normally sticking close to the wall would have been a smart way to stop someone like Springer from hammering them with indirect fire from his grenade launcher. But it made them sitting ducks for our flanking maneuver.
For the first time I could see exactly where I needed to aim. My carbine felt like an extension of my body as it fed information from the camera on top of it through me and to the rest of the team. I sent two rounds through the CPU of my first target then rode the recoil and put two more through the exact same spot on the second and third NBADDs.
I dove behind a pile of debris and felt the shockwave roll over me as the destroyed NBADDs self-destructed. My head was ringing. But I knew we had to finish off the ones in the alley before they could turn around and get their heavy front armor and machine guns pointed our direction.
I also knew there wasn't enough time to get into position because the alley was fifty meters away. Through the link I felt someone realize that the building on the east side of the alley furthest away from us was a story taller than the one to the west.
In unison Bauer and I ran forward and pulled the pins on our hand grenades. We threw them in perfect arcs, bouncing them off the eastern building like a backstop. We watched as the shockwave from the NBADDs exploding in the confined space of the alley rippled through the air. There were more coming but they were on the south and east sides of the plaza, too far away to intercept us.
***
We made it to the waypoint with time to spare and collapsed on the ground. Our bodies made us promises of pain to come but we were just happy to be alive. A Döbian officer wearing a long black wool coat and a cap with the silver wolf skull insignia of the Howlers strutted over.
"How did the other groups do?" I asked, still panting from the exertion. "Are we the last ones through?"
The old Döbian barked out a cold laugh of derision. "You freaks are the only ones that made it. The others were all cut down, not that it matters. I don't care if you die out here or back in the camps. You're just putting off the inevitable."
"Perhaps." I said as I sat up, looking the officer in the eye even though he held the power of life and death over me. Someone I recognized was coming up behind him. It was a tall slender Döbian wearing a poorly made white sweater. "Or perhaps I will survive Herr Gershwin's experiments and come to seek you out one day. Would that not be something?" I asked.
The officer took out his pistol and pointed it at my head. It was an intricate device covered in exposed computer chips, one of the first generation smart pistols. "Perhaps I should end you right now." He said.
"Commandant Goeth!" Called out a pleasant male voice in formal Döbian. It was filled with confidence and privilege. "I would advise that you are allowed to pull that trigger, but if you do so you will find yourself taking his place. Good help is so hard to find, you know?"
The commandant holstered his pistol and stiffly turned around to salute the hund behind him. I noticed that Goeth's legs were trembling and there was a hint of fear in the air.
Gershwin looked the officer up and down. He waved the long thin cigar in his hand as he spoke. The scientist looked oddly out of place amongst these soldiers and officers in his hand knit wool sweater.
"Perhaps I should take your brain out and put it into a katzen to see what happens. It is certainly doing us no favors in its current position." Gershwin cheerfully rapped his fist on the officer's forehead and made a knocking sound.
Gershwin looked down at me and winked. "As I suspected… it's hollow." He said with a conspiratorial grin.
The officer began to sputter out an excuse. "I didn't think that-"
"Clearly not." Gershwin cut him off with a gesture. "Perhaps you should go 'not think' somewhere else before I take it upon myself to improve that brain of yours, or at least dissect it to find out why it functions so poorly."
Goeth didn't answer, he just ran like the devil himself was after him. Gershwin made a show of counting down from ten on his fingers then sighed dramatically when he got to zero.
"I can't help it. Now I'm curious." He said, pointing a long thin finger at the retreating commandant. "Simon, please bring me his head. I wish to study it."
"Yes, Herr Gershwin." I stood up and took aim with my carbine, putting a round right between Goeth's shoulder blades and blowing his heart out in a spray of crimson.
"I can't help but feel bad." I said as I watched the Howler fall forward, dead and lifeless. "That was a really nice coat."