The Antithesis came flowing over the horizon like a tidal wave.

  Even though the area between Grand Falls and the hive had been coated in M17, creating a massive wall of fire, the horde that came stampeding across no-man’s land seemed far larger than any we’d weathered before.

  I immediately dismissed the salvaging crews and sent them back to Bear Force One. If I lost them, it wouldn’t be long until I was low on raw materials, which would heavily hamper my war effort. I couldn’t risk that.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t get away cleanly. The first wave of Antithesis consisted of a large number of mutant Model Fives, which sprayed my collection crews with their supersonic metallic spikes.

  These upgraded ranged organs were able to penetrate the armor of my line troops, so they had no problem penetrating the flimsy, unarmored chassis of the collection vehicles. More than one vehicle suffered serious damage and had to make an emergency landing behind the walls of Grand Falls to wait for repairs. A couple even came crashing down from the damage.

  “Motherfuckers… I thought the M17 would buy us time. Not trigger another attack,” I growled before turning to the troops closest to me and yelling, “Open fire!”

  Every bear on the wall opened fire, scything through the oncoming forces.

  Despite the pure weight of fire being poured into the Antithesis lines, the aliens managed to slowly push forward. After a minute or two the new Model Five variants had approached close enough to start returning fire.

  The sound of metal pinging off metal started echoing around me. Every time a bear was hit, it staggered backwards from the force, and more often than not they had to dig the heavy spines out of their armor, but once that was done, they were able to waddle back into the fight.

  If I hadn’t invested in squad-based shield generators for the Moose, those same spines probably would have been tearing through our defenses.

  Even with the increased resilience provided by the shield generators, the bears weren’t invincible. Every once in a while one of them would receive a spine through an ocular sensor or another weak point, putting that unit down permanently. The losses were slow, but they were there.

  The situation wasn’t great, but between the ground troops and the Shatterstorm cannons the situation seemed to be stable.

  That was until the Goliaths showed up.

  The crazy thing was, there was a good chance that I might have completely overlooked the first wave of them if it wasn’t for Spooky and the UHR.

  While I was pacing back and forth on the wall, taking pot shots at the Model Twenties mixed into the horde, the UHR swiveled down and fired into something a couple hundred feet away. The impact caused an absolutely colossal Antithesis to spasm, arching its body and shooting its head way up into the air.

  It was an absolutely titanic millipede. Only a couple meters tall, but several dozen feet wide and hundreds of feet long. It was like someone had stepped on a Model Fourteen, flattened it, and elongated it several dozen times.

  While the monster thrashed about, killing scores of the smaller creatures in its death throes, I tried to figure out exactly what the point of the creature was for. Its design didn’t quite make sense to me.

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  It didn’t take long for them to reveal their purpose.

  Several of the massive Anthropods popped up, extending their legs until they towered over the other Antithesis forces, and started zigzagging across the battlefield. Even with their erratic pattern, they were rapidly closing on the walls.

  In response to the charge, all the Kodiaks stationed behind the bear-acade, along with all the secondary turrets on Bear Force One, focused fire on the Antithesis Megapedes. Dozens of heavy coilguns smashed into the creatures, but unlike the UHR these smaller rounds simply bounced off their heavy carapaces.

  As they closed in, Spooky started firing off missiles from the four remaining tubes, which hadn’t been dedicated to spreading M17. The heavy missiles streaked through the air before lancing down into the nearest creatures, blasting apart their heavy armor with the strength of their explosives.

  Even with the added firepower of the missiles, we couldn’t completely stop the monsters. They were both too numerous and too fast to completely exterminate before they hit our lines.

  After the first salvo of missiles, one of the megapedes managed to clear the Antithesis line. As soon as it passed the front line, its head dipped down, shielding its smaller brethren as it charged forward.

  Just as it was about to impact the wall, I saw a large black shape hop over the wall and stand in the creature’s way. “Please tell me you’re not planning to do what I think you’re going to do, Bob,” I whispered a second before the two shapes collided.

  Even from a distance I felt the impact as the Megapede slammed into Bob. The creature folded like an accordion, its momentum completely halted. The bear held his ground, thanks to his subspace anchors, but he did not get away unscratched. His left arm was severed, and his armor buckled so badly that his chest became concave. At some point his anchors failed, causing the bear to be thrown back against the wall, where he lay still.

  “Shit, Bob, when are you going to learn that you’re not invincible?” I growled. Although I knew it was a bad idea, I immediately ordered the nearest Kodiak to cross the wall and attempt to retrieve him. There was no way that I could risk ordering the bears to open the nearest gate or sortie out to retrieve him, but I couldn't leave him out there either. Hopefully troops on the wall would be enough to hold back the rest of the horde, and the vehicles’ armor would hold up long enough, because otherwise the idiot would have to wait.

  Although Bear Force One managed to kill most of the massive flat arthropods, it wasn’t strong enough to stop them all. One of the megapedes lowered its head early and charged straight through the Antithesis forces instead of over them. Apparently they were faster in this more compact form, and that allowed it to surge forward, bursting out of the Antithesis lines and directly into the nearest Bear-acade wall.

  The wall panels didn’t just buckle, like they did when assaulted by Model Twenty-Threes or Model Twenty-Eights; they exploded backwards as the numerous anchors holding them in place were sheared off by the force of the impact.

  The megapede didn’t last much longer since it received a shot from the UHR to the head before it managed to make it to the city walls, but the damage was done. Hundreds of Antithesis poured through the gap, shielded on their approach by the megapede’s body.

  I sprinted down the wall, firing into the oncoming horde as I desperately tried to close in on the breach. The reinforcements I’d stationed behind the wall, pretty much any bear that didn’t fit on the wall, poured into the area, trying to stem the flow. This might have been a lost cause if it wasn’t for the fact that, since badgers weren’t designed for ranged combat they’d all been on standby behind the wall, ready to jump into the breach.

  The plasma-wielding melee bots poured into the area, smashing and burning everything that got close, and by the time I reached the breach they’d managed to create a physical barrier with their bodies. Somewhat plugging the breach.

  “Nyx, I need to replace those wall sections ASAP. If I pay for them with points, can you teleport them directly into place?” I shouted over the melee.

  Of course. They won’t be able to withstand another blow from one of those living siege weapons, though, Nyx reported.

  “I’m aware! My first priority is plugging the hole. We’ll worry about preventing it from happening again once things stabilize,” I replied. “Make one of them a gate section. I’ll have the badgers push forward to make room, then allow them to retreat back while the bears staff the walls. Drop them as soon as there’s space! Ready?”

  Always, Nyx confirmed.

  All at once the badgers surged out of the gap, stepping directly into the charging Antithesis, meeting the frenzied monsters with fist and fire. As soon as they were clear, brand-new wall panels materialized, allowing the surrounding bears to scramble back into position. With the added firepower, the badgers were able to push the assault back and slip back inside, with only minimal losses.

  With the crisis handled, I took a moment to take a breath.

  The situation wasn’t good. The dead goliaths were acting as impromptu shields, allowing the Antithesis to approach far closer than I liked, and they were so large that I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to break them down. Hopefully Wild would have something.

  At least the Megapede stampede seemed to be letting off. There were still some out there, but they were far less numerous than before, and it was unlikely that any of them would get to the wall.

  For now, anyways. I could already see the Antithesis fungus crawling up the side of one of the monsters, and if the network still had connections back to the hive, it meant these things could rise again. Even though we survived this assault, the fight was far from over.

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