HEART OF THE WORLD
MACKENZIE COUNTY, AB
11 NOV 2011, 00:21 MST
Dia surveyed the defense array Duncan had built. Thousands of flechette guns ringed the crystal spire that marked the shaft down to the new Worldstone. All had automatic targeting of anything demonic. Underneath the guns, more thousands of pop-up turrets, fed by an array of flechette foundries and power generators. Each launcher had thousands of flechettes, more than enough to kill all the monkey-demons that were approaching.
They watched dispassionately as the first wave approached. There was no point in subterfuge, the guns opened up as soon as the first monkeys were in range. Hundreds died before they pulled back. As they milled just outside the guns engagement envelope, Dia nudged some new parameters to the leading edge launchers, and another hundred or so died as more flechettes tore through the group.
The monkey-things backed off further, a large mass forming as new arrivals streamed in. Dia lobbed a Type-I drone at them, just to keep them disrupted. It’s point defense flechettes worked admirably, and when they were expended the warhead took out a sizeable group. The monkeys scattered, sending groups to either side to probe Duncan’s defenses, and all the scouting groups died as soon as they approached.
“Nice try, clowns. Come at us!” taunted Dia.
The monkeys did not rise to the challenge. They milled a little longer, dodged the next drone strike, then sent a flight overhead at high altitude, well above where the flechettes could reach.
Dia saw it as a chance to test out some of the other toys, and lit it up with the lasers and masers once the group was well within range. They were unsurprised when conventional beam weaponry did nothing, but the failure of the cobalt-doped lasers causes a flash of irritation.
Dia jumped right to what Duncan had termed the Plasma-R, an oversize version of the plasma soliton guns. The compressed plasma projectile streaked into the sky far faster than the monkeys could dodge. Better yet, the plasma confinement was partially magical, and their magic disrupted the field at the perfect range. A brilliant flash filled the sky, and when it was gone, so were the monkeys. There wasn’t even any ash left behind.
The monkeys did not try another overflight. While they waited, Duncan built five more launchers at the same scale, and worked out how to turn them sharply enough that they could lob shots over the horizon. The resulting plasma artillery bombardment drove the demons even further back.
They waited for a time, and grew impatient. “What are they doing?”
“Ask Agent Brown. The Americans can see where they are with their satellites.”
“Why don’t we have aerostats up?”
“Oh. Right.”
While Duncan was getting observation platforms ready to launch, Donna called Agent Brown. He didn’t have much to report, the demons were massing about a hundred kilometers to the southeast.
“Can you give me coordinates?”
“Sure, but the General suggests waiting a bit,” said Agent Brown. “Let us watch them to see if we can figure out what they’re planning. Best guess right now is they want more numbers before taking another shot at you.”
“Fine.”
Dia waited impatiently, only somewhat distracted by the task of reloading the few projectiles they’d used. She poked Duncan into adding yet more launchers, just because it was something to do.
After half an hour of increasing surliness among the three of them, Agent Brown pinged them. “We’re getting an odd energy signature that looks somewhat like the portals.”
“Give us the coordinates.”
Once Agent Brown relayed them, Duncan launched a sensor toward the demon-monkey ‘encampment’, and used it to coordinate another plasma-artillery strike, followed up by a pair of Type-IV drones, whose warheads mostly served to bounce the rubble left by the initial strike.
“Is the signature gone?” asked Donna cheerfully.
“Yeah. I’ll keep you posted if they try again.”
A wing of monkeys knocked down Duncan’s sensor, but they sent up more to replace it. The fourth one had a large explosive warhead and a cobalt shroud. It got left alone.
“They’re learning. Gwen, how much longer?”
“Eh? Sorry, fiddly bits. Um... a few more hours, at least. We’re getting faster at it with practice, but there’s a lot of scribing to do.”
“We’ll keep them off you.”
The demons tried to set up three more portals, each a further away than the last. Dia gleefully blew them all apart. Shortly after the third was destroyed, the monkeys took out Duncan’s sensor observing them.
Donna pinged Agent Brown again. “They’ve changed tactics again. What can you see?”
“They’ve gathered up half a million or so by now, and it looks like they’re going for a frontal assault.”
“Oh good. Time for some real fun.”
“They may be gunning for your launchers.”
Duncan snorted at that. “We’ll make more if we have to.”
While they waited for the charge to arrive, Duncan crafted another plasma generator on the far side of the shaft, buried twenty meters underground with only its emitter exposed.
Once the monkeys cleared the horizon, the plasma launchers opened up. The swarm flowed and churned in a way that kept the impacts from taking out too many in a single shot. Then they were among the flechette launchers, and the triad’s attention turned to them. The ones on the leading edge ran dry in seconds. Duncan started the reloading process, but each would take a minute to finish rearming, and the monkeys were no longer waiting.
As they reached the leading edge, the monkey-demons slammed into the ground, turning the launchers into wreckage and sending debris flying everywhere. This fouled the aim of the flechette launchers to each side, so the monkeys pressed on, a narrow wedge driving forward.
Dia launched waves of drones into the leading edge, and their detonations blunted it for a time, but there was little time to repair the damage. The monkey’s trench grew forks like lightning, burrowing out to the sides and destroying launchers with a vengeance.
Duncan frantically worked on shoving the smaller plasma launchers onto independent platforms. “Buy me some time.”
“Got it.” Dia sent the command to pop up the buried launchers, and ordered them to blind-fire into the main mass. Without targeting their hit rate was abysmal, but there were so many of them, and so many monkeys packed in tightly that the death rate was atrocious.
Then a half dozen plasma launchers rocketed into the sky and started to rain devastation down on the tightly packed monkeys... and on the gun array.
The wave of monkeys broke and fled, with plasma chasing them. As soon as the flying platforms got out of reach of the flechette cannons, the monkeys turned on them and destroyed them. Duncan cursed and started to build new ones, but the monkeys did not return to the fight.
Once the new plasma-armed rocket platforms were ready, Duncan turned to rebuilding the devastated gun array. The level terrain in that sector was now pocked and cratered, and instead of filling in the holes they poured energy into reforming new ones.
“That’s odd,” muttered Duncan.
Dia was suddenly very alert. “Odd is bad. What is it?”
“Magic is sluggish in the battle zone. Residue from the dead monkeys? No matter, I’ll build the guns here then install them.”
Donna pinged Agent Brown. “Can you tell us what you’re seeing in our zone?”
Agent Brown’s voice sounded harried. “You’re still there? It looks like the demons are almost on top of you.”
“What? They retreated.”
“The main mass did, but it looks like there are still thousands there, slowly advancing.”
“How close?”
“Closing on a hundred yards from the center.”
“Duncan! Target 110 meters from the core, splash something big!”
One of the new rocket-propelled plasma cannons launched into the air and fired. A shallow crater appeared where it hit, and from the edges of the crater, dozens of tiny flecks of darkness swirled into the air. “Mites! Burn the ground, they’re hiding in the rubble!”
Plasma splashed through the battle zone, adding more craters. The mites rose up then like a cloud, and swarmed toward them.