by Skyler Grant
Crystal killed the comm. Apparently me taking damage was something she could live with.
My drones were landing shots with their acid streams. The lead dinosaurs were now surrounded by a faint haze as their armor plating sizzled.
It would eat through, eventually. My people were also playing the price for getting close. I watched as one human drone was impaled by a horn through their midsection, another had their head explode as a dinosaur’s rider took a shot. High caliber kinetic rifles, great.
I got an incoming comm signal from Magpie.
I said, "If your people are getting shaken up, it is not their usual quaking in fear. We are under assault from dinosaurs."
"Hit them in the eyes," Magpie said.
Really? This was the valuable insights she had provided to Sylax? Of course you tried to hit them in the eyes first.
"They are shielded. If you have any other ways to deal with unstoppable armored juggernauts, do feel free to do something besides pratter on uselessly," I said.
"They're living organisms. They still need to breathe," Magpie said.
I really didn't like her. I cut the connection.
Of course, they needed to breathe. They all needed to breathe. The humans on the dinosaur’s back might have some sort of gas masks for an emergency, but I didn't see any respirators. They were breathing the same air as everyone else, and in that there was an opportunity.
I had to take this as a chance to send a message. I didn't want them turning around and leaving. I'd need to start with their rear column.
I could aerosolize the acid I'd been working on to create a corrosive fog. It would be far slower than the liquid against the armor plates, but if inhaled it would go to work right away on the lungs.
I started the necessary modifications.
One of the lead triceratops headbutted a building and a massive concussive wave of force exploded out smashing even the armored walls and causing the structure to collapse.
That was clever, some sort of amplifier for their innate destructive potential. With the force they could deliver, if they got close to my core, they'd be able to do some real harm.
I had to make sure they didn't get there.
Another three buildings went down by the time the batches were finally ready and I released it into the sewer system beneath the streets.
A yellowish fog rose through the grates to envelop the rear dinosaurs in a thick mist, obscuring them from the visual spectrum. Fortunately, my sensors worked on far more than on the visual range. The effects were everything I might have wanted. Not just the dinosaurs, but the riders were affected. The humans in fact began to dissolve at once. The dinosaurs fell to the ground where they began to thrash violently.
The riders ahead of the cloud observed what was happening and began to urge their mounts forward. Triceratops were not built for speed, they were meant to be slow, certain engines of destruction and weren’t built for quick getaways.
I produced more of the materials I needed for the acid cloud and dosed a second batch.
The third I had something else in mind for. If the dinosaurs were vulnerable to breathing in acid, they would be vulnerable to tranquilizer gas as well. I'd have to increase the concentration a good bit from anything I normally used, but I should be able to knock them out.
While I wasn't terribly impressed with the base triceratops design, I was already imagining what they might be capable of with a few select enhancements. Accelerated healing, for instance, would help to counter the acid that had just taken so many down, and if mixed with other upgrades they could be truly impressive.
One triceratops after another collapsed, unmoving. A few of the riders survived. I wasn't certain what, if any, upgrades the Professor might have, but if these were his lieutenants I had an opportunity to gain from them as well.
115
I was so preoccupied with taking down the assault from the dinosaurs I missed a lone airship moving into the skies above my district.
I'd installed extra security around Magpie and her people, and it was that being tripped which finally drew my attention to what was happening. The airship had landed a shuttle and someone was breaching those defenses.
I didn't have much in the way of weapons designed to take on airships. I only had one beam cannon strong enough to reach it. I'd prepared for the eventuality of another attack from Jade, but it could serve this purpose as well.
I opened fire. The cannon cut a jagged scar into the airship’s side before shields sprang to life. Immediately my every sensor started blaring the airship’s presence—it was only stealthy when unprotected. A useful bit of knowledge.
The airship’s shields flickered a few seconds as bombs dropped and my beam again got to melt jagged rents in the hull. Then the bombs found my cannon and in an explosion of fire silenced it.
Wolf soldiers from the shuttle were making quick work of the peasants. Firing on them with some sort of static gun that stunned rather than killed, before placing armbands on them and dragging them aboard the shuttle.
They subdued twelve this way, including Magpie, before the shuttle lifted off and headed back towards the airship. With my cannon out of the way I couldn’t stop them.
One of the remaining peasants in the accommodation quarters was madly hitting a comm panel trying to get my attention.
"I don't believe their coming back for seconds. Do relax, you weren't interesting enough for them to kidnap the first time," I said.
"Save your insults. I am Sven, Magpie's apprentice. Can you rescue the ones who were taken?"
I didn't see how I could. While some of my mechanical drones had flying capability, I didn't have them in numbers enough to take on an airship. Crystal had her dragons and Ophelia still had possession of the Graven, but I wasn't about to burn a favor for the use of either.
"The shuttle is a few minutes off from rendezvousing with a larger ship. I don't have anything that can intercept. I suppose you should have fought to defend them instead of hoping for me to solve your problems later," I said.
"I can get us aboard the shuttle, but they are excellent hunters and came prepared to prey upon our weaknesses. Do you have manpower to assist?" Sven asked.
So the Wolven weapons were specially designed to bypass whatever served as defenses for these people. That was interesting. I again had to wonder just how much these people and Sylax had in common. It was worth finding out, and it was also worth making sure anyone that tried a strike on my district felt some pain from it.
I began to teleport human drones to Sven's location. Time was a factor, the only ones I had available were from the first wave against the dinosaur attack. They wore heavy armor and were equipped with acid sprayers.
Sven sketched several lines in the air and they glowed in the aftermath, a circle of shimmering light surrounding my drones, and they vanished from the room.
Because of my connection I never lost track. Even as they were vanishing from the room they were materializing in the hold of a shuttle. The kidnapped peasants were laid out in a row on the floor, bound and gagged, with soldiers seated on benches on either side.
They were fast, faster than my drones. Despite the element of surprise, they still managed to get on their feet and fire first. Blue darts of energy splashing against the armor of my human drones and causing ripples of energy.
I couldn't detect any actual damage from the shots, whatever they were doing wasn't effective against my people. I had them open fire with the acid sprayers. The first two soldiers struck began to dissolve at once—these were not heavily armored dinosaurs, but rather soldiers dressed for a stealth infiltration.
"Roger, Avana, transform," shouted one of the Wolves who must be their Commander. He was my next target. Any further words were drowned in screams as his flesh bubbled and dripped away.
Then the fight got a lot more hairy, literally, as two of the soldiers transformed. When I was an airship, I'd seen some of Baron Wolfson's forces in their wolf form, actual wolves. T
his was something different, part-man and part-wolf. They were massively muscled and clawed, and before I could focus acid streams on them one of my drones had been eviscerated even through the heavy armor, claws shredding the protection and digging into the flesh beneath.
I ordered my people to redirect their fire and acid streams converged. They took it better than they should have. They had some form of accelerated healing, not equal to Ophelia's, but at the rate they were regenerating flesh it was better than the one I could grant. The soldiers already melted hadn't shown that ability.
Either they only had it in this form, or these two were special and the only ones capable of a transformation this extreme.
I spoke through one of my drones to Sven, "Get your people out."
I had my drones abandon fire on the Wolves and shift aim to the engines. Acid poured into the vulnerable components and sparks began to fly.
The shuttle was still in my airspace and it would crash into my district. If these two could survive my acid sprayers, they'd survive a crash landing. My labs were eager to meet them.
116
Things worked out just as I hoped. The shuttle went down and although the crash took out two buildings directly, and a third as a result of the explosives I had within misfiring, I was able to capture the two transformed Wolf soldiers as well as get samples of their technology.
In addition to the Professor’s dinosaurs and their riders, this left me with a lot of research to get underway. While my teams increasingly handled this for me, I did look over the projects.
Research Projects
Professor Lieutenants
These subjects initially show signs of heightened mental capabilities. Will expose subjects to puzzle death-maze protocols to determine full potential.
Safari Gear
The Professor Lieutenants all wore khaki outfits that seems both lightweight and especially resistant to kinetic impacts. Will expose to punishing conditions both independently and while worn by test subjects to determine potential.
Triceratops
These armored behemoths appear to be based on historical records and may be actual recreations. Potential will be tested by exposing them to a range of destructible environments as well as subjecting them to genetic analysis.
Werewolves
These soldiers once appeared to be human, but have now transformed into a hybrid with some sort of wolf. Their claws are capable of shredding even heavy organic armor plating and they rapidly regenerate from any damage. Will expose to predator prey protocols to determine full potential.
Stunners
Weapons captured from Wolven forces. While they proved ineffective against heavy organic armor they seemed highly effective at taking down the subjects classified as "Sylax Peasants". Such subjects are not cleared for use in laboratory studies, but the weapons can be deconstructed for study of components and manufacture.
Completed Projects
Jade Lieutenants
These subjects displayed advanced powers of innate kinetic shielding and offensive kinetic control. They were exposed to puzzle death-maze protocols to determine full potential. By working with the samples provided we can extract one of two possible variants either emphasizing this innate shielding or offering some sort of limited kinetic mental control.
I could pick what sort of power I wanted. It was something I hadn't seen much of before, although I hoped I would more often as my research facilities continued to grow more powerful. In the past I'd captured powerful subjects only to get variations of their powers far weaker than I'd have liked.
In this case it seemed I could pick between passive shielding or active kinetic ability for my agents. They both offered a lot of advantages. Your typical bullet-firing gun was dealing kinetic damage and they were a common choice in weaponry. Anything that could mitigate that damage was useful. So was the ability to manipulate matter with a thought.
It had to come down to my ability to replicate the effect. I could already create armor that absorbed kinetic impacts, and grant bio-armor abilities that subjects could invoke even when they didn’t have a set of armor with them. I didn't have anything that could emulate the effects of telekinesis. I instructed my researchers to proceed with that variant.
While I was looking at research I decided to do an upgrade as well. With all that had just happened morale would be low. It was a good time to upgrade my entertainment facilities to the next tier.
Upgrade Options
Entertainment
Gamble
With this option you will build your entertainment facilities in such a way as to take advantage of the need for chance and risk. This can pay off with big rewards both for your people, and for you. In addition to occasional rewards and losses experienced by your people, you too can gain unexpected reserves of resources or points with the construction of these facilities.
Game
Instead of focusing upon luck your people focus on skill. By constructing virtually simulated environments you can provide your people with competitions where skill and forward thinking matter. This approach will result in increased morale gains for the skilled, but may further frustrate those lacking in talent.
This was an easy choice, it didn't much matter to me if the untalented or unskilled were happy. It was the morale of those who were useful that mattered. I selected the Game option.
While I had some structural damage to my buildings and would need to respawn some drones, these attacks had mostly worked out in my favor. I had several promising new test subjects to study and the dinosaurs in particular were a new source of Biomatter. The grinders might have a hard time with that heavily armored flesh, but I'd manage.
Fortunately, the Wolf airship hadn't stayed around to fight any longer. They were the sort to leave men behind it seemed, at least for the moment.
It was wise of them. While my beam cannon might be out of operation for the moment, it wouldn't remain that way and if I felt threatened enough I could teleport bombs into the air to detonate. I didn't lack for explosives.
All the same, they might be back, and I really did need better weaponry to protect myself against aerial threats. On the Powerhungry the main cannons had been a constant source of frustration until I eventually built power cannons feeding off the abilities of a Powered individual to project them at a distance. I still had the schematics of those guns.
It had worked better when I had a collection of prime power holders at my disposal. Still, I could imbue people with the virus that powered Hot Stuff to create lesser pyrokinetics. While a single heat cannon powered by one of those would be relatively unimpressive, multiple weapons would be incredibly dangerous.
It required some highly specialized parts to create—that had always been a problem on the airship. Now, with my most recent manufacturing upgrade, I could produce those directly from my growth vats. I'd do that, build a dozen cannons located around the district and a crew of fiery human drones to man them. The next airship to darken my skies uninvited would regret it.
117
I wondered what James Wolf was hoping to do with the prisoners he'd almost captured. I didn't have long to wait for my answer. It was only a few hours after his airship fled that I received a broadcast being sent out to the entire city.
It was an arena of some kind, with stone walls surrounding a pit with a dirt floor. Within it were two dozen terrified people, naked but for the bands around their wrists just like the ones the Wolves had put on the peasants.
Magpie and her people were still recovering from their ordeal. I opened a comm channel to her and sent in the video.
"What is this?" she asked, her voice sharp.
"What they had planned for you, I expect. Others of your people?" I asked.
"Not exactly. Burr Harr and his tribe. Another village, not mine. Another group who tried and failed to kill Sylax," Magpie said.
I had no idea that so many people shared my hobby. We really should start some sort of club, but then, I planned on mak
ing a success of things, which was something none of these failures had ever managed.
New figures were entering the arena. Massive, furred wolves like those I had captured. Their eyes looked with a raw hunger over the villagers.
"I wonder who would have been more tasty? You seem stringy," I said.
"The wolf does this? He will pay," Magpie said.
The wolves closed in. There was something malicious about the way these creatures moved, toying with the captives, then one swiped out with their claws to leave a leg gushing blood before pulling back. The first kill was a child ripped out of the arms of her mother, fanged teeth digging into the young flesh and tearing it apart as the mother screamed and wailed.
"Why does he hate you so?" I asked.
I wasn't nice, I truly wasn't, but there was needless cruelty here. This wasn't just murder for murders sake, this was hurting these people, terrifying them and breaking them, and wanting to make sure the entire city saw it. This was the sort of thing Sylax would have been proud of, had she been the one to put on this spectacle.
"Me and my people are tricksters, dearie, and we have tricked that tired old wolf before. But it is more than that. It is not us he is hoping to terrify. This is a lesson to you and the others about what he does to those who stand in his way," Magpie said.
Most of the peasants were now bleeding from wounds, a few had lost limbs. The wolves continued to circle, taking their time and enjoying every moment. I thought that Magpie had to be right, there was no audio for this transmission, there were no speeches and no grandstanding. Wolf was letting cruelty speak for itself. For those who had sworn allegiance to Sylax it was perhaps a good tactic.
"Is this all a trick then, and your people are simply pretending to be the wolves’ dinner?" I asked.
"No, I think this trick is on us," Magpie said.
One of the peasants had been dragged aside for a wolf to rut with, a sight made all the more terrible by the fact another was choosing to eat her face while it happened.