“So there are a bunch of invisible Antithesis running around the woods, just outside the town, wiping out your patrols? What are we supposed to do about that?” Wild asked. “We can’t let those things get into the town! There are still civilians in there!”

  “Well, the good news is they may be invisible, but since they’re running around the woods, they probably can’t fly, so they need to either find gaps in our defenses, dig, or attack our barricades to get into the town,” I said. “Thankfully, I have enough bears to garrison the walls completely, so there are very few gaps in our defenses, and if they try to climb the barricades or dig, they’ll probably make enough noise that the foxes can detect them.”

  I paused, bit my lip, and glanced back at the town. “That being said, we should probably let the PMC know we might have a problem. I’ve got bears stationed around the evac point, but I don’t have enough forces to garrison the town completely. If they want to patrol around and look for any disturbances or unexplained deaths, that would help let us know if some of these things managed to get around us or not.”

  “I’ll tell Mud. He’s been trying to get the PMC organized and moving. Having a goal might help them with that?” Wild replied

  “Why has it taken them so long to get moving anyway? Most professional PMCs can get organized within minutes. I still haven’t caught a glance of any of this lot, even hours later,” I grumbled.

  “From what I understand, the CEO promoted them as a small, elite group with state-of-the-art equipment. Unfortunately, that state-of-the-art equipment includes network authentication and advanced biometric authentication, and when the planetfall started, the CEO immediately panicked and fucked off. Without him, they’re locked out of their vehicles, weapons, communications, pretty much everything,” Wild explained.

  “Fucking… Of course, corporate fuckery is the problem,” I muttered. “Nyx, can you connect to their network and bypass the security using my catalogs?”

  Easily. You should be aware that it appears their entire system is built on a constant authentication system. If they ever lose connection with the central system, or I stop providing authentication data, all their equipment will go dead again.

  “So the CEO didn’t want anyone to steal his expensive tech, but he didn’t trust his men enough to protect him even with it. Fucking typical. I’ll send some beavers down to see if they can pull out or bypass the authentication systems on all their equipment. Relying upon a network connection to make sure your rifles work is fucking stupid, and the last thing we need is for our backup’s weapons to fail during a firefight,” I grumbled.

  “You’re going to break into their computer systems and rebuild their equipment?” Wild asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Maybe if we were civilians, but samurai have limited immunity to prosecution, and we need reliable backup, so if hacking the shit out of their equipment gets them up and running, I’m going to do it,” I told her. “Anyways, we’ve been pulled off track. We need to figure out a way to deal with these stealthy assholes.”

  Despite only being able to gather ten units from the surrounding area, there was still sporadic gunfire from inside the forest. That either meant there weren’t that many of these TwentyOne-Nine-Four things, or they were solo predators. If they were going to hit us en masse, they would have easily wiped out those lookouts.

  “Those flowers you planted around the base of the walls, will they damage living Antithesis?” I asked.

  Wild shook her head. “Not heavily. They’re designed to latch on to dead tissue and accelerate decay. Against living things, they might score the Antithesis’ hide, but it would take extended exposure before they started causing any real damage.”

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  “Against enemies that rely upon stealth and active camo, scoring their skin might be enough. All we need to do is disrupt their invisibility enough that the foxes and chameleons can pick out the flaws from the surrounding area,” I told her.

  “Sitting behind the walls and waiting for our enemies to injure themself isn’t exactly the most reliable, or satisfying, way to deal with the Antithesis. Isn’t there something else we can do?” Wild asked.

  “We could flood the forest with gas and try to expose the Antithesis by watching for disturbances. The problem is that with such a massive open area, the gas will quickly dissipate. There’s also a chance these things are moving through the trees, so gas might not even be effective,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t they disturb the trees if they did that?”

  “True,” I muttered. “Probably not in the trees then. The point is we just need a way to detect these things or get them to reveal themselves reliably.”

  Wild wandered over to the wall and stared out at the wasteland. “I could maybe get some quick-growing plants that we could spread around the forest, which would be impossible to cross through without being disturbed. It would almost certainly disrupt the biome and kill the surrounding trees, though.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but at the rate the Antithesis are expanding, those trees out there are probably not going to survive this conflict. We can try and preserve them the best we can, but we can only do that if we can deal with the Antithesis attacking the town,” I told her.

  She sighed. “True. I just hate the idea of killing those trees off with my own hands.”

  Her eyes went glassy, and I saw her jaw and throat move subtly. She must have been subvocalizing with her AI. After a minute, a couple of small burlap sacks landed at her feet.

  “These will create a thick carpet of quick-growing grasses that change color when they’re disturbed. It should be an effective way to detect any stealth units going forward,” she said. “The problem is, we’ll have to surround the town for it to be effective fully, and that means we either have to eliminate this first wave of… whatever they are, or risk getting ambushed by them.”

  “I could try to upgrade the foxes again, but I need a couple more kills before I can do that. I bankrupted myself by buying the bear-acade walls around the town,” I said. “That doesn’t help us in the short term, but I think I have a way we could sow those seeds even with those monsters out there. Bob!”

  The big black bear came bounding towards the wall at my call, like some sort of oversized eager puppy. When he jumped onto the ladder and started to climb, the entire panel creaked from his weight. “What’s up, boss? Need something?”

  “Yeah. We’ve got a problem. There are a couple of Antithesis stealth models prowling around the forest, taking out our scouts, and we need some way to detect them so…”

  “Say no more! I’ve got it!” Bob declared, before leaping over the wall. Before I could say anything more, he disappeared into the woods.

  “Was that your plan? To send your big black bear into the woods to deal with the Antithesis in there?” Wild asked.

  “Of course not,” I muttered. “He doesn’t have any advanced sensors, tracking skills, or really any skills beyond punching shit. I was going to ask him to organize the badgers and have them spread the seeds. They’re strong enough to take a hit from some of the larger units, and if they were attacked, they have the equivalent of super-charged flamethrowers to flood the area the attack came from. I figured they were the safest way to sow the seeds. I didn’t mean for him to go in there.”

  “Shouldn’t you call him back then?” Wild asked. “He could get damaged or destroyed in there!”

  I turned towards her very slowly, eyebrows raised. “Ohhhhhh right… I haven’t taken the time to introduce my squad to you yet, have I? I really should do that.”

  “You’re taking the fact that one of your ‘squad members’ walked right into a kill zone suspiciously well,” Wild said suspiciously.

  “That’s because the only thing thicker than Bob’s head is his armor plating. I haven’t run into a single Antithesis that can penetrate his armor yet. Although with all those massive monsters crawling out of the megahive, his resilience might actually get tested in the next few days. Those stealth models? They’re no threat to him,” I explained.

  “Well… even if that’s true, what could he possibly do to those things? You told me he doesn’t have advanced sensors,” she asked. “Why let him just wander around out there?”

  “Because Bob’s developed his own technique for discovering stealth models. You see, while you and I know he’s a tank, the Antithesis don’t, so when they try to attack him…”

  As if on cue, a massive crack echoed out of the forest, and as we watched, the top of one of the trees deeper in the forest slowly teetered and fell over.

  “They quickly find there are serious consequences to their actions,” I grinned. “Although this makes sowing a little more difficult, it’s not the end of the world. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of my squad, and we’ll get one of them to handle the grass. They’d probably be a lot more reliable anyway. We can leave Bob to his work.”

  Behind me, there was another sharp crack. “The only ones that get hurt by his actions are the Antithesis after all.”

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