Shattered super-soldier

Following the unexpected boon of finding a biological source of high grade industrial acid, Matthew spent the rest of the evening harvesting other beast which Alina brought to him while he explained the significance of this find, as the two moved to a nearby creek which Alina had found while exploring the surroundings Alina seemed to somewhat understand the significance of the giant white furred ant

[Replenishing internal water storage…]

“So, so how much infrastructure is, is needed to make this acid normally?”

“Aea?”

[Calculating… Depending on available resources, up to 4 class 1 chemical plants with on site storage and logistics hub would need around 4 metric tons of high grade metal along other natural and manufactured resources]

Alina froze for a few moments before she finally spoke

“That sounds like, like a lot… But what is, is this acid used for?”

Matthew showed a smile

“Anything from fertilizers, explosives, metal refining and most importantly for us, capacitor manufacturing”

“Capacitor? That’s a kind of, of battery, right?”

Alina was slowly learning of the different concepts of high technological complements from Aea, given the low tech of the current world which had yet to undergo an industrial revolution or establish a period table of known elements this was an uphill battle, so Matthew gave her a pass

“While that’s somewhat true, it serves many of the same functions but if I were to name a single difference is that a capacitor is the ability to almost instantly transfer all stored energy which has great military applications”

“Military?”

Matthew nodded and thought on an example

“Do you know what a cannon is?”

Alina nodded

“It, it is a metal tube that fires a projectile with a propellant”

Matthew nodded

“Yep, a capacitor is used as reusable propellant on a rail gun, not only that but most rail guns and the lower caliber coil rifles used caseless ammunition and don’t have many movable parts which ease maintenance”

Alina gazed blankly at Matthew, he had realized that she had lost his line of thought and quickly gave another example

“Well… Capacitors have very little maintenance cost beyond their initial construction cost and I highly recommend them”

“Okay… So should we hunt, hunt these ants?”

Matthew showed a smile and nodded, from harvesting the remains of the white furred ant Aea had identified pheromone glands which suggested the white furred ant existed in some sort of social structure

[Water storage replenished, infrastructure automata nearing competition]

Matthew stepped out of the shallow creek and the two headed back towards the basecamp in silence, the surrounding forest was somewhat silent with only the distance cries of beats and the chips of birds and insects that followed along with the mid-summer heat, as the two returned to the camp Alina quickly laid eyes on the finished infrastructure automata, it was a metal cube 5 by 5 meters, just as she was about to ask how it worked she picked up a order on Aea’s local network

[Blueprint received, infrastructure automata 1 deploying…]

The metal cube quickly split open and transformed outwards until it transformed completely as the metal panels on the bottom flashed with heat as the whole thing began vibrating while letting out a low hum, that’s when Alina noticed that it was slowly sinking into the ground, Matthew spoke up

“It is going to go down about 30 meters over the next hour or so before excavating a underground complex over the next few days”

Alina walked up to in a kneeled down as she watched the edge of the hole the automata were slowly sinking into, an edge had formed from what looked like brown ceramic that was slowly expanding as the automata slowly sunk into the ground

“It uses the soil to create a silicate concrete which reinforces the tunnel as it is constructed, after the initial underground complex is completed it will be reinforced further”

Alina nodded, while she had little to no concept of structural integrity of a bunker or the mathematical calculations that went into ensuring an underground complex of this size wouldn’t cave in on itself it still seemed impressive and interesting to her

Well, most of that was because it was Matthew that was telling her about it, but she wouldn’t admit that

“So what, what do we do now?”

Matthew thought for a few moments before she asked Alina

“Are you in the mood to gather some more metal?”

“How, how much more?”

Matthew thought for a few moments as he consulted Aea and had the A. I. modify a schematic to shave off as much material as possible

“Around 2 worker android’s worth”

Alina nodded and walked over to one of the thermal generators and sat down with her back against it as she began focusing, Matthew didn’t disturb her and went back to chopping down trees to expand the clearing after he assigned a schematic to Aea to construct a capacitor out of the materials he had harvested from the white furred ant

‘...Enough resources for about 1 and 1/10 of a personal capacitor per ant, these things are literally just walking capacitors ready to be harvested’

As Matthew finished chopping the 3rd tree he suddenly paused and looked around, the summer night had gone somewhat silent, he moved to the center of the basecamp and snapped Alina out of her metal gathering focus by calling out to her as he kept up his vigilance

“Alina”

Alina looked around and nodded before she spoke

“There’s a, a lot approaching”

Matthew nodded and faced the same direction as Alina as he brandished his ax and lowered his posture as he moved to shield Alina that heightened her focus for a few moments before she spoke

“It, it is more ants”

As she finished speaking, a giant white furred ant fell from the sky and smashed down onto the ground at the edge of the clearing, a few moments later another fell, then another, after the 4th fell Matthew spotted the large group of approaching ants that were swarming towards the clearing and quickly made a decision

“Aea, break down 4 of the worker androids and get me a coil rifle as quickly as possible, Alina I will guard you so keep thinning their numbers”

[Forge nannies assigned, cannibalizing worker androids, estimated schematic completion in 14 minutes…]

“Should we, we not run?”

Both Alina and Matthew could tell by now that the approaching ant swarm numbered over a hundred, taking the number of cow sized ants that could spew acid and were protected in a thick exoskeleton was a huge gamble

“If we pull through here it will pay off massively, besides there is no guarantee that we won’t run into something more dangerous if we run… It’s time to stand our ground”

Alina didn’t respond, but judging from the increasing amount of ants that fell from the sky and suddenly experienced the ruthlessness of gravity first-hand increasing, she had been convinced by Matthew’s argument a few moments passed before the ants started entering the clearing and Matthew kicked off the ground to handle them before they got to close to Alina

“Easy there!”

Sidestepping an acid spewing, Matthew instantly stepped in and chopped the head of the white furred ant in two with his ax before dodging the mandibles of another which he paid back with a backhand which shattered the carapace on its head where he hit it, though it didn’t outright kill it as Matthew had hoped, and he quickly leaped over it as lunched at him before he planted the ax in its back with a ruthless force which shattered its midsection almost completely, Matthew quickly dodged to the side as another ant lunged at him which proved to be a coordinated attack as it left him open to another that was about to spew acid at him before its figure suddenly vanished

“Thanks!”

Matthew kicked off the ground and delivered a kicked to the side of another ant's head which shattered it completely, though it still lunged its headless body at him which he sidestepped while chopping off a leg of the headless ant which caught it off balance so it couldn’t continue on its path towards Alina before he was forced to block the stab of a front leg of another white furred ant which he repaid by collapsing his block and stepping in as lunched the ax head up and chopped the head of the white furred ant in two as he slid under its body right before it collapsed

‘No thanks!’

Matthew quickly stabbed the ax into the ground which lunched him over a spew of acid from another ant and spun around in the air as landed a hell on the back of another white furred ant which shattered its carapace before he rolled off it and grabbed the leg of the white furred ant which still trashed around and swung it into another than were charging at him

The next minutes stretched out as Matthew continued to fight off the ants in full focus while holding nothing back, Alina supported him, but even then it quickly became apparent that this was a losing fight as the ax which had been increasingly covered in acid became more brittle before the head finally shattered as Matthew attempted to finish off another ant with a chop to the head

‘Shit!’

Clicking his tongue, Matthew dodged the ant's lunge and planted the sharp metal handle that remained of the ax into the side of the ant’s head as it passed him, now without a weapon it wasn’t long before the wounds began appearing on Matthew’s body as he manhandled the cow sized ants with his bare hands, even with Alina offering help Matthew told her to hold off until finally after what felt like an eternity had passed Aea notified Matthew

[Schematic completion confirmed]

“NOW!”

Alina quickly leaped towards the center of the clearing as Alina appeared in the air above a large group of ants as she instantly compressed about a cubic meter of air, a few hundred of times and let it loose just above the white furred ants, the shockwave extended Matthew’s leap a few meters where he rolled upon his rough landing to maintain his momentum as he quickly reached the completed coil rifle that laid on top of the thermal generator, he quickly double-checked the magazine and capacitor charge as the stripped down coil rifle finished linking with Aea and the capacitor whirled with a loud electric hum

[Link confirmed, fire when ready]

Matthew brought the coil rifle up against his shoulder as he yelled

“Firing!”

A moment later, he squeezed the trigger and the unshielded electromagnets and circuitry lit the surroundings in a white light as the 4mm metal slug was accelerated to twice the speed of sound and a instance later went through the head of a white furred ant, the negative pressure caused by the sudden appearance of the 4mm wide circular tunnel that had suddenly opened up along the length of the white furred ant’s body wrecked its internal organs as a large chunk of it was sucked out of the exit wound

Matthew didn’t let go of the trigger as he moved the iron sights over the next target while the coil rifle cycled before rapidly snapping it onto the next target, by the time the 60 round magazine was depleted the bare metal body of the coil rifle had left burns on Matthew’s skin as it glowed orange, Matthew didn’t seem to mind as he quickly inserted a new magazine ready to fire, however a few moments later Aea confirmed

[All nearby threats eliminated]

Matthew quickly removed the capacitor from the coil rifle before throwing it onto the ground in front of him before he let out a deep breath as he sat down with the nostalgic smell of burning metal and ozone around him

“And that’s that…”