After a long, drawn-out battle between Bear Force One and the massive Anti-air Antithesis, things started to calm down. The Antithesis hadn’t given up the assault, but by now the battlefield was absolutely covered in metal spikes from the Shatterstorm. They were so thick that the smaller Antithesis had a serious problem climbing over them. The larger models, like the Twelves, Fourteens, and Twenty-Threes, could barge through, but it still slowed them down, and most of them ended up skewered by the Shatterstorm cannons before they got anywhere near the wall.

  After so many assaults, the projectiles had created a better barrier than the walls at this point.

  From the top of the wall I enjoyed watching the bears snipe the antithesis struggling through the field of spikes, while I considered what to do next.

  “How many of those… I dunno let's call them Thirty-Five-GFs have we killed so far?” I asked.

  Thirty-Five-GF? How’d you decide on that moniker? Nyx replied, a touch of amusement in their voice.

  “Well, the models that end in five, that’s the fives and fifteens, appear to be the ranged models, and they appear to be stronger than a twenty, so I jumped to the thirties,” I explained. “GF stands for Grand Falls.”

  I’m pretty sure that I’ve told you before, the Model numbers don’t have any specific classification. They just represent the order that humanity encountered those specific models, Nyx reminded me.

  “Yeah, well… then how do you explain variants?” I asked.

  There are millions of different active Antithesis strains out there, and if we AI stuck to the human numbering system, not only would it be in the tens of thousands, but also none of you would remember the numbers properly. Many strains have similar power levels and uses, so it was easier to describe those as variants, Nyx explained.

  “And if you did have to assign a variant, which number would you use?” I prompted.

  … Thirty-Five-AS. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we planned for the ranged units to line up to the fives, it just turned out that way, Nyx muttered.

  “Uh huh,” I replied. “How many have we killed so far?”

  Eleven. Unfortunately they were traveling as a group, and since the UHR has a long charge and cooldown cycle, most of them managed to get a shot off.

  “But that means I’m now rolling in the tokens, right?“

  I wouldn’t say that, but you have a couple now. Why? Do you have some ideas on what you want to spend them on? Nyx asked.

  When I was stuck inside Grand Falls, unable to even approach the walls, I was convinced that my next upgrade should be some elemental resistance, and Class III armor catalogs, but now…” I said. “Do you think if I upgraded Bear Force One’s armor it would withstand a blow from those Thirty-Five variants?”

  Depends on how you went about it. You could invest in a couple material catalogs to increase its strength and resilience, but I’d recommend investing in either some layered or active defense catalogs first, Nyx said.

  “What if I upgraded the shields?”

  The Stratocarrier’s defenses would be a lot more reliable against most attacks, but it wouldn’t be enough to completely negate the damage of those bio shells. From what I can tell, the Antithesis around here have developed something similar to the radula tooth structure of a cone snail. It allows them to apply an extreme amount of acceleration to projectiles. Sort of a biological analog to your coil and rail weapons. Nyx explained.

  “Great, my greatest advantage over the Antithesis was my advanced weaponry, and now they’re taking that advantage away,” I grumbled. “At least they haven’t applied that adaptation to the smaller models, like the Model Fives, I’d hate to get into a shooting war.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  …

  “Nyx?”

  You haven’t been monitoring all the skirmish reports, have you? Nyx asked.

  “I’ve been glancing at them, why?”

  You might want to double-check Heavy’s latest series of reports.

  I sighed and opened up the command network. It took me a couple minutes to sort through the thousands of different reports to find the ones from my squad mates, and more specifically, the ones from Heavy.

  I made a mental note to change the AI settings so that the squads would only file reports during abnormal combat activity and not every single encounter. When we were in the middle of a siege I didn’t need an after action report every time the bears fired upon an Antithesis.

  Once I’d cleaned up the message queue, I browsed through Heavy’s reports. The first couple were all pretty standard, but the last couple caused me to raise my eyebrows. “Seriously? How does this always seem to happen to me? Do I have some sort of superpower that allows whatever issues I talk about to manifest into reality?”

  I’ve been observing you for a long time and even performed a number of experiments, but there doesn’t appear to be any scientific reason for it. Perhaps you’re capable of picking up minute changes in the environment and subconsciously processing them. Maybe you’re just unlucky. Nyx said.

  That caused me to pause, and frown. “You’ve been conducting experiments on me?”

  Completely non-invasively. That’s not the important thing right now. Over the last few hours your bears have begun encountering a new Model Five variant that’s capable of firing from much further away. Nyx said, trying to get me back on track.

  “They might be able to exchange fire with my troops before dying, but it’s not like they can do any damage to them. Their… spines? Bones? Whatever it is they’re firing isn’t capable of penetrating the bear’s armor,” I said. “What good is the extra range if they lack penetration?”

  They lack penetration for now, but once they get their mandibles on some more advanced materials I’m sure they’ll effectiveness will spike.

  “Yeah, well, they’d have to completely overrun my defenses in order to get at it, so that’s not going to happen,” I smirked.

  Oh really? You can’t think of a single place for them to harvest metal from? Nyx asked. Have you looked over the wall lately?

  I frowned and glanced over at no man’s land for several seconds before I realized what they were talking about. “Oh… shit.”

  Oh shit indeed. The Shatterstorm cannons have spread metal across the entire area, I have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before they start harvesting your projectiles and using them against you.

  “How long?” I asked.

  Until you start seeing the more advanced models? I don’t know. If they’ve already started nibbling at the far end of the field, a couple hours at most. They’ll start sending prototype upgrade Models at you first, figure out which strains work best, and iterate with the most effective ones.

  “Wonderful,” I grumbled. “Is there anything I can do?”

  I’d stop firing the Shatterstorms over the horizon so your bears can shoot any Antithesis that tires to salvage. It probably would be a good idea to swap to a different material too, one that is either harder for the Antithesis to integrate into their genome or something that breaks down into a more basic element.

  “So… what? You want me to throw rocks and sticks at them?” I hissed. “I'm pretty sure those’ll have problems penetrating the Antithesis’ thick hides.”

  I was actually thinking of compressed carbon rods fit into magnetic shells. Although the Antithesis could break them down, they'd be hard-pressed to make use of them, since carbon is the basis of most lifeforms, Nyx replied. It might not be quite as effective as metal projectiles, but the advantages outweigh the downsides.

  “Why would I do that? Wouldn't that be just as bad as delivering them trees and other biomass directly to their door?” I grumbled. “Maybe we should even mulch them up for easier digestion.”

  Nyx sighed. There's more to complex life than just carbon. Yes, it's something the Antithesis can use, but they have an excess from other sources, so it wouldn't benefit them as much as other minerals.

  “Oh… I guess that makes sense. Sorry, I guess I'm a little testy because I didn't think there’d be any ramifications of using the Shatterstorms and relied too heavily on them. I wish I could send some harvesting crews out with the molecular disassemblers and recover all that material,” I said.

  Why don't you then? Nyx asked.

  “Because although I'd like to keep more tungsten out of the Antithesis hands, I know they have some scary stuff over there, and the last thing I want to do is start losing bears where the Antithesis can get to them,” I said. “Because facing Antithesis augmented with tungsten is bad, I have a feeling that facing them when augmented with whatever the bears are made of would be a hundred times worse. I'm surprised you didn't think of that.”

  Oh, I did. I just wanted to hear your explanation. I would have advised you to stop if you'd tried.

  “Pfffttt, right,” I muttered under my breath. “Let's replace the shells, and change the coverage area so the Shatter storms only fire out to the horizon line. Just in case.”

  That’ll allow the Fifteens to get into range again.

  “I think that was inevitable anyways. They can't hurt the bears or melt through our combat armor anymore, so let them come. Better that than boost their effectiveness over time,” I replied.

  So what are you going to do about the new Fives? Nyx asked.

  “Deploy chameleons along the walls and try to deal with them before they get too close. If they do get strong enough to damage the bears, the bears have autorepair functions, and we have replacements waiting,” I told my AI.

  And if they start inflicting serious casualties?

  “Then I'll have to switch up my strategy. Right now my plan is just to outlast the assault until the Mars fleet can clean up. Try to avoid making things worse,” I said

  And if you can't? Nyx asked.

  “Wow, Nyx, it's like you have no faith in me,” I chuckled. “If the situation changes, I'll just improvise. It'll be no problem at all.”

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