“The ocean looks peaceful from above. The waves mere texture. But below the surface lies danger. It is no longer ours to control. The antithesis have invaded the shallows and the deep. Someday we will reclaim it back, but until then, the waters have been taken from us.”

  “That’s rather profound, professor, but aren’t you an astrophysicist?”

  “I am.”

  “So why pontificate on the ocean?”

  “Space is also an ocean.”

  -- Interview with Prof. Dwight Hawkins, retired

  As I’m handling a second incursion remotely, I let the Desert Dogs take the lead on this one. When something big shows up, I take it out. In the meantime, I send all the spare attack spiders at the second incursion. With eight with Flamer and Soundbite, and four here, that meant I had twelve available. I immediately connect what I was easily able to control in our testing. Then I start adding more, slowly. I can feel the stress building, but I manage to get them all without needing to sacrifice focus.

  Using a godseye near the second incursion I’m handling, I send the spiders there, and start attacking. Immediately the stress increases, yet still without needing to sacrifice my focus. Looks like my backup brain is picking up its share of the load, letting me have full control of all of them. I send four into the tide to focus the antithesis on them, and back them up with two more. This means I have four points of pressure. Same as when I’m using the Desert Dogs.

  I have a feeling I’ll need more spiders before the day is done, so I order up a batch from three Arc printers, and have them all with the command and control AI so that any one of them could lead a group of them. They should be ready in less than an hour.

  Twenty minutes later Ysys tells me there is more trouble.

  Jane, Gillette is experiencing the same level of attack as we are. Rifts are starting to open there as well.

  “Shit. Can they even handle that?”

  Not until after the pods land and open.

  I call Major Bryce. Before he speaks, I interrupt. “Major, there are rifts forming over Gillette and they cannot handle it like we can. Head over there and shoot those pods. I’ll handle this city’s pods.” Then I break the call off.

  “Ysys. I need another rifle. One that can take out pods. What catalogs do I need to open? It also needs long range senses. Something you can patch into my HUD. What do you have?”

  While you already have an option with the dragonfly’s primary weapon, it is not suitable as a personal weapon. To get that kind of kinetic power in a rifle will requiring opening a Class III Dimensional Weaponry catalog for eighteen thousand points and three tokens, and opening Class II Gravitational Effects catalog for five hundred points and a token. The weapon is the Cobra Assault Cannon for seventeen thousand five hundred points.

  It is shorter than you primary rifle, but with a significantly thicker barrel. This railgun uses a compressed dimensional barrel to allow it additional space to accelerate the rounds. It is powered by a backpack matter energy converter from your Class III Simple Matter Transmutation catalog. Otherwise you would need a small power plant to feed it power. The weapon weighs over a ton, so it incorporates gravity reduction technology to keep its apparent weight down. It likewise has inertial suppressor/enhancer to allow easy movement between shots, and rigid positioning during a shot. The backpack also has a directional sensor suite to allow targeting via augs.

  “I like it. What about ammo?”

  As the rounds go hypersonic, not supersonic, ordinary rounds won’t work. However, there are a number of complex rounds that can be used. You had previously liked the idea of warp bullets. There are larger ones than previously mentioned that would be good for pods. You can purchase Warp Sabots for 100 points each.

  “I remember I needed the Gravitational Effects catalog to make the warp bullets. Get the Cobra Assault Cannon, sufficient warp sabots for an average rift incursion’s worth of pods plus fifty percent, and blueprints for everything.”

  Opened Class III Dimensional Weaponry catalog – 18000 points, 3 tokens

  Opened Class II Gravitational Effects catalog – 500 points, 1 token

  Cobra Assault Cannon with Power Assist – 17500 points

  Warp Sabot X 250 – 25000 points

  Blueprints for Cobra Assault Cannon with Power Assist – 175000 points

  Blueprints for Warp Sabot – 1000 points

  New Total – 416,018 points, 4 tokens

  Several boxes appeared about me on the HT, which dipped suddenly with the weight. I sent my rifle to storage and opened the boxes. The backpack was heavy, and I couldn’t move the gun until I linked in and turned on the gravitational support. Then I was able to lift it. Selecting it in my augs, my HUD lit up with an image of the horizon. Then I aimed higher, and saw the rifts, as well as a number of descending pods.

  “Ysys, how much do I need to lead the target?”

  The cross-hairs show where you will hit. Flight time is already compensated for, as well as gravity. Wind is not, but it is negligible given the flight speed. As per usual, the sabots you bought have in-flight aiming assistance. Note that it takes several seconds to fire each shot, so be sure and aim well and steady.

  I aimed at the lowest pod I could see, and took the shot. Suddenly the rifle seemed to lock in place and I had to jump off the HT as it swerved for something. I activated my Skypath, so I could stay with the rifle. Two seconds later, I heard the sabot leave the barrel, and the rifle freed itself to move. I watched the pod I aimed at, and even though the range was almost fifteen miles from me, it exploded almost immediately. Then it imploded.

  I went to line up another shot, and got a warning that the capacitors were still charging. A few seconds later, it was ready, and I took another shot. After the fourth shot, I had a question.

  “Ysys, what happens if I shoot at a rift?”

  The stress of the rift will shred the sabot, making it ineffective.

  “What if you put a proximity fuse on it to explode just before hitting?”

  Almost a good idea, but the rift is warped space, and the warp sabot is not powerful enough to affect it.

  Drat. Well, I could shoot pods for now. So I did. I used the time between shots to focus a little more on my second incursion. After half an hour or so, the rifts closed and no more pods were available to shoot. So I looked to see where my HT was.

  The squad apparently stayed near me, so I booked it to the HT. As I went, I asked, “Ysys, can I send this rifle to dimensional storage?”

  Not while it is active. Once you power it down, the dimensional field of the barrel will collapse, and allow you to store it.

  “Thanks.”

  Once in the HT, I put the rifle down, and took the backpack off. It seemed lighter. I turned the power off, and got a notice in my augs a few seconds later that the weapon was safe for dimensional storage. Then I sent it there.

  Ten minutes later, Major Bryce called. “Calamity, the rifts over Gillette have closed, and all the pods we could get have been shot down. Some did get through, and the locals are handling it.”

  “In that case, return here and resume on site supervision of your PMC.”

  “Roger.”

  Once this hive was dealt with, I had the Desert Dogs head over to my second incursion. It was quickly shut down with the additional personnel. Afterwards, I released the PMC to support the city dealing with leftovers. I called in, and offered support to the council for any tough spots. Apparently, Flamer and Soundbite had already taken down their hive and were already troubleshooting for the council.

  I called Double Fist. “Hello.”

  “Hey, you guys need any additional help?”

  “We would have, with the rifts, but when you sent the dragonfly, that took it from possible city extinction to tough but doable. Oh, we got three new Samurai. We have them on the yellow zones. You?”

  We managed five Samurai, but since we had fewer antithesis in the city, they likely had an easier time surviving. Soundbite is handling them, since you were busy.

  “Ysys says we gained five. Likely more than you since they had less to survive through. Since things are handled, lets finish the cleanup, and get together in a day or two to see what we need to do.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Talk to you then.”

  Since everyone was now doing cleanup, I queued up a batch of spider crew and locusts to be printed. I did one at an Arc here, and one at an Arc in Gillette. I then passed control of the Gillette drones to Double Fist for cleanup, while I took the ones from here and started them cleaning up my second hive, while I had the drones on hand do cleanup where I was. I split the new batch so that I could encircle the city in my search. I let the council know to expect to see them.

  Later that day, the totals came in.

  Pod X 190 – 95000 points, 3 tokens

  Hive X 2 – 1000 points, 2 tokens

  Assorted antithesis – 784 points

  Indirect points – 11488 points.

  New Total – 761,290 points, 9 tokens

  “Ysys, I don’t understand. How did I get three tokens for the pods?”

  As you gain power, pods become easier to take out. So when you start taking them out wholesale, you got one for the first, one for the tenth, one for the hundredth, and so on. Hives have a similar metric, but since they are much harder to take out, you haven’t hit the diminishing returns yet.

  The next day, Flamer, Soundbite, a Family rep and I met with the high council to discuss events of the day before. No one was satisfied with the Family’s warning, as it was so vague. Not even them. Apparently, no one told them there was a projected global incursion. When I heard that, I had Ysys queue up a batch of godseyes at an Arc at each of the eight cities, and sent them scouting for signs of more hives in the countryside. I found several signs of antithesis at each city, so I sent a map of the area about each city with marked locations where antithesis were spotted.

  I interrupted the current speaker. “Gentlemen. It appears that the global threat is not yet over.”

  “What?!”

  I sent the map of our city to everyone in the room, and the corresponding maps to my Samurai contact at the other cities.

  “I just sent out scout drones, and this is what I found. It looks like there is a lot of work to do.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The meeting ended shortly after, and the baby samurai were sent to the many sites with PMC backup. The older Samurai would keep watch and intercede only if needed. I spent a lot of my time on watch via a pair of attack spiders I held in reserve. With all that free time, I set up a permanent scouting setup for the area, coordinating with the other seven cities, and upgraded the attack spiders. Likewise, I continued with my medical upgrades.

  It took nearly two weeks to get all the newly identified hives cleaned up. As a reward for our baby Samurai succeeding, I gave them each a small Class I printer for their lair.

  The next regular council meeting happened two days later. “Folks, I have created a scanning system that should alert us to the presence of antithesis nearby. This city, and the other seven in the Rock Springs evacuation group, has a scanner network that covers twenty miles out with high fidelity. Beyond that, the coverage depends on drone flights, as there is no infrastructure to support the needed scanning pylons. That gets us intermittent scanning out to fifty miles.”

  The chairman asked, “Who will have access to this network?”

  “Samurai will have full access, and can make changes as needed. I will be sending each city’s leadership an access code to view the data, and all PMCs registered to the eight cities will also be given access codes. The central hub will be in my enclave.”

  “What about changes, and expansions?”

  “I’m sure such can be accommodated, but for now, the Samurai need some down time after all the incursions. We need our rest. I would like to table that until the next meeting.”

  “Quite right. We can wait for such. Now that we are prepared for anything, we should be fine. Thanks for your report.”

  Why did he have to say that? It felt like he jinxed it. With that, my part of the meeting finished, and I only had to stay until the next break. No way was I going to stay the whole day they would likely take.

  The next few days I added the new Samurai into the local network, and Double Fist did the same over in Gillette.

  It didn’t even take a week from the council meeting for his proclamation proved wrong.

  The group chat we set up for the evacuation sprang to life with the message “Mars is attacking Earth – video” from Liberace.

  I entered, and asked her, “What’s up?” I could see an image of a new Samurai that rocketed to notoriety by killing her city’s mayor during his press conference.

  “Wait till everyone is on. I don’t want to keep interrupting the explanation.”

  So I waited. With that message, everyone was on almost immediately, even the brand new Samurai.

  Liberace said, “Now that you are all here, something happened on Mars. Listen to this video from Stray Cat.”

  The image animated, and began, "Hey, assholes. Just a friendly head's up; Earth is about to be blown the fuck up in... t-minus not very long, so listen up."

  Finally, she ended with, "Yeah, anyway, Stray Cat, out. Good luck out there."

  Liberace added, “This went out a few minutes ago. But this is big. What should we do? What can we do?”

  Cowboy Bob said, “That was a big gun in the background, and they were shooting black holes and stuff at Phobos. Did you see the other Samurai? Stray Cat said Phobos was being handled, and I think we can believe that. Her warning was about that attack wave headed our way. Spread all across North America, it’s too much for our group alone. We can do our part, but we need data. How do we handle this? Who’s willing?”

  Soundbyte said, “I can handle the communications. Just send me a message, and I’ll add you to the list of Samurai committed to this.” Suddenly, a screen lit up to the side with Soundbyte and Double Fist listed.

  As soon as I told Ysys, my name appeared. Even as more were added, one of the other Samurai said, “Calamity, you organized the Evacuation. I vote you should be in charge of whatever we plan.”

  This was quickly agreed upon, even before Soundbyte’s list finished adding names.

  “Then I will contact this Gomorrah, and offer the services of the thirty eight Samurai of the eight cities.”

  Less than a minute later, the meeting was over. I guess, in the face of a very big threat, Samurai can act quickly. I had Ysys send the message, but attached some questions about being given access to whatever sensors were tracking things, and what we would be responsible for. I also had Ysys clear all the print queues for my Arcs and construction printers.

  While I waited for her reply, I asked, “Ysys, what do I have for tracking the incoming antithesis?”

  We discussed some possibilities while waiting for Gomorrah’s reply. Eventually, it came, but from the regional Family office.

  “Hello, Calamity. I am Frank Castle from the Family’s Plains Regional office. Gomorrah passed on your name, along with the others you sent. We welcome your help. What can I do for you?”

  “I will be coordinating the effort of the eight city alliance, and I need data. What am I looking at?”

  “Eight city alliance? I’ve not heard of that.”

  “It’s not official. But the Samurai of the eight cities that helped evacuate Rock Springs have stayed in touch. I was the one that masterminded it.”

  “Very good work. I’m glad you stayed in touch. Since you’re leading the same group in the defense of your area, I expect good things there as well. One less thing we will need to worry about. That said, what data do you need?”

  “Initially, access to the scan data of the incoming antithesis. The sooner I get that, the sooner I can plan. I also need data on what’s needed to take them out, what area you want us to cover, and who the neighbors are that I need to coordinate with.”

  “I’ll get right on it. Oh, can you send information on how well covered your cities are? That will help us decide how much you can cover.”

  “We have serious printing ability. I expect they will be busy.”

  “Serious enough to make a significant difference?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll add that to our simulation. Here’s the access code for the radar feed.”

  As an aside, I said, “Ysys, send the current sensor and offensive ability of the eight cities to Frank.”

  Sent.

  “Just sent you our data. Anything else?”

  “No. And thanks. I’ll keep you appraised of any changes in the information. You do likewise.”

  “I shall.”

  “Frank, Out.” Then he disconnected.

  “Ysys, forward that information to the group chat. Are the sensors we were talking about better than what they have?”

  No, but they don’t have good coverage out this way.

  “Would it help if we added more sensors to the network?”

  Yes. It would help us by increasing the resolution for everyone.

  “I expect we will need far more than ten, so get the blueprints, then start printing in the Arcs at all eight cities. Then load them up and deliver them were needed. Add them to the network as they come online. Oh, best maintain an ongoing list in the chat room showing what is being printed, and where everything is going. Alert everyone the printers are gearing up for battle.”

  Blueprints for Near Space Multispectral Radar Mark II – 800 points

  New Total – 760,572 points, 9 tokens

  Printing started. I’m starting negotiations with the existing network to add our sensors in. Since a Samurai is running it, they should be easy to add.

  “Next. What do we shoot them down with? The further away, the better. Blueprints, of course.”

  I recommend the Mark VII Interceptor MIRV blueprints for seven thousand five hundred points. Each missile can take down ten distinct targets. However, at the current range, their effectiveness will be compromised due to a lack of accurate data. Once the wave of antithesis gets about three hours out, we will get more accurate data. We have some data from the stream of drones being sent to Phobos, but they don’t have the resolution needed for the Interceptor.

  “Sounds like we need better on site data. Can you replace the warheads with a set of high resolution sensors that can aid targeting?”

  Very good idea, Jane. That would act like a spotter for artillery. However, they will suffer under proximate blasts, and ECM from the antithesis.

  “Then lets spread the first couple of missile’s worth of sensors for a wider area, and replace one warhead with a sensor package in further missiles. Have the sensor slow down to get away from the other warheads, and have it dynamically link to the sensor net. With new sensors constantly being added, we should be able to saturate the volume, and have them guide the MIRVs to the biggest antithesis they can handle. We can also report what’s coming better. Get the needed blueprints, and start printing.”

  Blueprints for Mark VII Interceptor MIRV – 7500 points

  New Total – 753,072 points, 9 tokens

  “I suspect the best placement won’t be all in the eight cities, but also in the areas between. See how many of the Bigfoot’s are available. Let’s use them to distribute them to the countryside. They’ll need launchers, power supply, and targeting sensors to aim them right. Later, when the antithesis are too close, we need to switch them to local area denial. Perhaps a more powerful set of plasma casters like I have. It can use the same power plant, and won’t need reloading. Each set should be deployed from the Bigfoot ready to go.”

  While that can be done, I recommend adding some construction drones to assemble everything. How do you want them controlled?

  “Make an on-site station where a single person can control it. But launch authority must be by Samurai. I don’t want anyone trying to use these for other purposes. How many can we get operational before the antithesis start arriving? Best projection for the most kills.”

  While we could be pumping out until the last minute, that won’t help the tally much. Optimal numbers before diminishing returns will be three hundred eighty seven sites. In your HUD I’ve shown the needed locations.

  “I see. Looks weighted to the east.”

  It is. The center of the oncoming swarm appears to be the location of the Big Gun, but it is spread out enough that most of North America will be hit.

  “Start assigning Samurai to the sites. Weaker ones should be closer to the cities, and more powerful ones farther away. Oh, and the sites closest to the cities can be handled by PMCs. Lastly, I can control a number of sites like I can control drones. I can head out in an HT and place myself in the center of the ones I control. Any Samurai able to control more than one, I want controlling multiple. Don’t overload them, but let them get what points they can.”

  On it. I’m sending out inquiries about how much each Samurai can control. I know Flamer, Soundbyte, Double Fist, Whiplash, and Storm Load can all handle several, as they have already handled your attack spiders. I’ll maintain a map in the chatroom, and also update the Family.

  “Send the projected emplacements to the Family, and include personnel assignments when you know them. How soon for the first of the new sensors goes online?”

  Projection sent. New sensors online in about ten seconds. However, it will take a closer to a minute to get it integrated into the net.

  “Let me know when the net significantly improves the image.”

  I took a quick break to get a drink from the fridge. Two minutes later, my HUD changed, showing the new sensor image.

  “Whoa. That’s a lot of ‘em. How badly is it going to hit?”

  Locally, I think less than one tenth of a percent will survive and make landfall in the area. Given reports coming from the Big Gun, they should have from one to two percent landing. Other areas will go up from five percent near cities, and may be uncontested in remote areas.

  “That’s going to hurt. Why is our area so good?”

  You have many Arc printers. That means you can generate much more defensive weaponry than other sites. You are geared for mass production.

  “That new gun I got for the pods. Can it reach the antithesis?”

  Yes, but your ammo won’t do all that much to the majority of them. Also, the power supply won’t last long as there are too many targets.

  “Can I get its bigger brother as a weapon emplacement on top of my lair? Hook it up to local power? We might not need the gravitational and inertial compensation. Maybe make it longer and thicker.”

  Making one the size of a large scale AA, it could be made to fire and reach. Also, a larger payload. Perhaps half the diameter of the Big Gun. What kind of ammo were you thinking?

  “They already shot a black hole at it, so duplicating that probably won’t help much. Hmmm…. I have mater to energy conversion generators. Can I… Oh. Antimatter. What if we hit them with antimatter?”

  Actually, that’s a great idea. It will need a round that carries a pocket dimension filled with antimatter. Otherwise, the act of firing will cause the isolation of the antimatter to fail. Not a good thing. A Cobra Assault Cannon Platform Upgrade will be twenty thousand five hundred points. The blueprint for the upgrade will only be thirty thousand. One round will be four hundred eighty points. However, you cannot print antimatter until you hit Class V matter transmutation utilities, so blueprints won’t do you much good. It will take each round about five seconds to leave the barrel. While there is power enough to fire rapidly, the barrel needs to cool down sufficiently before firing again.

  I head up and over to where I want the platform to be installed. “Lets put the platform here. Later we can put up a hologram to hide it. In fact, let’s print a hologram generator for here as well. Get a hundred rounds. Would an external cooling system help?”

  Yes, but it would reduce the useful life of the barrel.

  “If you add a cooling system, will the life be shorter than our firing window?”

  No.

  “Then get one as well. Blueprints as well.”

  Cobra Assault Cannon Platform Upgrade with Cooling – 20500 points

  Blueprint for Cobra Assault Cannon Platform Upgrade with Cooling – 30000

  Antimatter round X 100 – 48000 points

  New Total – 654,172 points, 9 tokens

  “Can you think of anything else?”

  With all the new installations, we could use them to extend the ground sensor system.

  “If you can do that without slowing the printing, go for it. Otherwise, we can retrofit sensors later.”

  The first twenty three will not have the sensors. Adding sensors to the rest is a matter of seconds on the print.

  “Okay. One last chat. Ask everyone to attend, starting in two minutes.”

  I waited in the chat, and when two minutes completed, over thirty were listening.

  “Update for you all. I’m printing a bunch of weapons, and I want you and some PMC people to man them. These weapons will target them while still in space, so there will be plenty of time to get back to your cities to defend it when they arrive.

  “The reason I called was to alert you about that, and to see if any of you have any other ideas to help defend the cities. I have a bunch of points to throw around to make things happen. Lets spend ten minutes coming up with ideas, then finish the meeting by doing the good ones.”

  There was instant bedlam, so I got folks to settle down a bit and not talk over each other. We did get three ideas that were deemed worthwhile, and I was set back forty five thousand points. With the chat over, I asked Ysys to send five hundred points to all the new Samurai with the message that it was for their use to survive, be it medicine, armor, or weapons.

  I went over into the new gun platform, and connected my augs. “Ysys, I want a twenty minute break before I need to head out to take over the main platforms. In the meantime, refill the ammo as needed. I’m going to start thinning out the swarm. Can you set the aim assist so that they explode in proximity, back to front? I want to give them less time to adapt.”

  Ready. Take your time, as you will get about two shots per minute.

  Time to earn more points.