Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-One: Tunnel Rats (Patreon)

Hifara proved to be as good as her word.

Six times in the next hour, we stood back as she drilled a tunnel around an enemy fortification, allowing squads of Boar-armoured troops to strike them in the rear. Drones sent into the tunnels scouted ahead, sending us images of the enemy for a few seconds before being shot down.

The nanobots with them, on the other hand, kept working just fine.

Deep in the tunnels, the 121st smashed through one enemy emplacement after another. The Sixth Brigade followed, securing the areas behind us.

The Raptors continued to die, and the counter on my Quest continued to drop.

Between Healing, Levitate, and the occasional Homing Spark, I had a decent amount to do behind the frontline. Anne kept an eye on me, too, pointing out alien machinery that seemed worth investigating.

Reverse Engineering was called into play dozens of times, as we penetrated ever deeper. The variety of alien equipment left behind was staggering – far more than we’d ever uncovered in any raid before.

REVERSE ENGINEERED: RAPTOR POINT DEFENSE ARRAY

REVERSE ENGINEERED: RAPTOR DEFLECTOR PLATE

REVERSE ENGINEERED: RESONANT SHIELD SPARE BOOSTER

REVERSE ENGINEERED: HOLOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT DEVICE

The last one had a number of images on it with Raptors in odd-looking positions.

<Nanocloud>: You know, I bet that’s Raptor porn.

<Belessar>: How would you know?

<Nanocloud>: Consider it an educated guess.

<Belessar>: Maybe I should skip reverse engineering any more random devices.

<Nanocloud>: No, you’re in the middle of an alien lair and there’s tech stuff lying around. You should grab everything you can. Whenever you have a spare moment.

<Belessar>: There’s a lot more on the battleship.

<Nanocloud>: Stop arguing. There’s a nice-looking disc in the corner you should reverse engineer.

<Belessar>: I’m pretty sure that’s just a dinner plate.

<Nanocloud>: I see grease. Have you Observed it? It could be a component for something important.

<Belessar>: I just did and it says ‘Dinner Plate, Unwashed’.

<Nanocloud>: Okay, you don’t need to reverse engineer that.

<Belessar>: Thanks. Any feedback from your bots up ahead in the tunnel?

<Nanocloud>: … About that. I think we’re nearly at the end.

<Belessar>: You found the enemy headquarters?

<Nanocloud>: I think so. At least, my bots are running into a shield, and there’s an open space beyond it. And… it’s large. Thousands of feet across.

<Belessar>: See the enemy?

<Nanocloud>: Yeah. Lots of them, all ready to fight. Be prepared.

The tunnels narrowed to a thin passage, wide enough for one suit to walk through. Or two thin people.

At the end, lay the shimmering glow of a shield.

“It’s like the portal to Hell,” one of the troopers remarked. “You know there’s bad things on the other side.”

Donna snorted. “I’ve been to Hell, and that’s not it.”

The trooper nodded respectfully. “You’re one of the commandoes who took the battleship, right?”

“…Commando?”

“Yeah, grapevine says you SF types went with Belessar to take out the battleship commander. What are you guys, anyway? Marines? Green Berets?”

Donna seemed bemused. “Mercenaries.”

“Huh, okay. You’re pretty good for mercs. No offense.”

“None taken.”

<Nanocloud>: …  and that was surreal.

<Belessar>: You’re telling me. I was tempted to step in and explain…

<Nanocloud>: Don’t. Let the guy figure it out himself.

<Belessar>: How does he not know Phoenix Company?

<Nanocloud>: Outside command circles, there’s a lot of wrong info circulating about how things are panning out. It’s only been a few hours since the attack started.

<Belessar>: We’ll have to get it straightened out. After the battle.

<Nanocloud>: After. Right now Green wants you up front.

Green was conferring with some of the other Wild Boars and two men in nanofibre weave.

“Belessar,” he greeted me. “We have intel updates on what’s beyond the shield.”

“You got sensors in there?”

“Stealthed camera drones. Most got shot down but we have enough of a picture.” Green pointed to one of the black-clad men. “Major Adams, 6th Brigade recon element. Summarize your findings for Belessar, please.”

Adams spoke. “They’ve hundreds of troops in there, and they know we’re coming. One tunnel, leading into this area, and it opens up into a perfect field of fire for hundreds of Raptors.”

“A killing field,” I said.

“Precisely. Whoever steps through that will have to charge through hundreds of feet of open space, with aliens shooting at them all the way.”

“I have volunteers,” Green said. “What I don’t have is a defensive screen. Without it we’re basically the Light Brigade.”

“You need ultrahuman support.”

“Exactly. What can you suggest?”

QUEST ALERT: CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

NANOFIBRE WEAVE HAS ALWAYS BEEN LIGHT ARMOUR. NOW, ARRAYED AGAINST THE REMNANTS OF THE RAPTORS IN A FORTIFIED POSITION, YOU HAVE TO BREAK THROUGH.

GET THE 6TH BRIGADE AND THE 121ST REGIMENT PAST THE ENEMY DEFENSES, AND SET THE STAGE FOR THE FINAL BATTLE WITH THE GUTHNAR REMNANTS.

REWARD: +250,000 XP. +1 INT.

AS THE ENEMY IS IN FORTIFIED POSITIONS, BONUS +1,000 XP PER ALIEN DEFEATED.

Nice to know that even my power thinks of this as a bit of a challenge….

“Major. Can you show me the enemy positions?”

The Major handed over a tablet. Photos of the cavern beyond were on it.

The Raptors had indeed dug in.

The ‘open space’ beyond the tunnel end was hundreds of feet wide. Smooth, with no cover to be found anywhere.

Tiny dots marked the positions of trenches. Burrows, rather. Raptors ensconced in tiny dugouts, with Plasma Projector Rifles aimed in our direction.

A few more mounds dotted the cavern, but the vast majority of aliens seemed to have chosen independent locations rather than clustering together.

Steel supports ran through the

They were learning, and fast.

More worrying were three large, metallic boxes with protruding tubes, evenly spaced across the width of the chamber.

I recognized the Yogzune Maser Cannons.

500,000 damage per shot. Even a tank would be vapourized by that kind of fire.

I’d ordered the battleship to disable the cannons so that they could be distributed to the troops. It shouldn’t have surprised me that some did actually bring the cannons with them. Though how they fit those things through the portal…

What did I have to work with?

The tunnel was wide enough for one or two ultras to walk through at a time, not large enough for armoured vehicles, and the Yogzune would splash anything large enough to be an actual threat.

Missiles or rockets would splash against the shield harmlessly. Same for energy weapons.

Which meant someone would have to walk through the shield, in the face of withering fire, to launch a weapon at them.

Or.

Change the situation.

I turned around. “Hifara. You can move sand and stone around. Can you create sinkholes?”

The ultra stepped forward, nodding. “I have done so in the past.”

“Can you reach through a shield?”

“Unfortunately not. I’d have to be past it.” She moved forward, glancing at the screen. “You wish me to collapse the chamber ahead?”

“That won’t help. The enemy’s further in, and to reach them we need to follow the tunnels.” I activated my Mindspeech link to Nanocloud.

<Belessar>: I need some ultras here at the front. Fast.

<Nanocloud>: Travelers on the standby. Who?

<Belessar>: Mahotsukoi, Indradhanush, Aspenthorn, Quantosphere, Devilmade and Lafayette.

<Nanocloud>: Odd combo but sure. Sending them.

<Belessar>: I also need the spare microfusion reactor, whatever fullersteel plate we have left, every portable water tank you can scrounge up, and Tessie.

<Nanocloud>: You want my car? … Why don’t you use your own?

<Belessar>: I’ll buy you a new one.

<Nanocloud>: One Tesla Spinmaker, partly used, coming up.

“Hifara, I need some additional tunnels bored through the walls. Stuff that will emerge at various points around the chamber.”

“You want multiple points of exit,” Hifara nodded.

“When we breach the shield, it’s not going to be at one single location. I need as many tunnels as you can make, each leading up to the edge of the shield – but don’t reach the entire way.”

Hifara’s posture betrayed undertainty. “You want me to make tunnels – but not complete them?”

“Get the tunnels built and stabilized – except for the last foot. The last foot should be solid rock – right upto the point we start the assault. Then, you crumble that much rock simultaneously across the different tunnels, and the troops all emerge at the same time.”

“That may not be possible. I can build the tunnels, but getting that many walls to crumble at the same time is more than I can do.”

“If you get the space to within a foot,” Green broke in, “we can finish the last bit with a thermite charge.”

“Won’t that collapse the tunnel? With the troops in it?”

“Not if we use the right type of charge. We have specialists who can pull that off.”

“That settles it,” I told Hifara. “How long will it take you to dig the tunnels?”

“About thirty minutes.”

“Colonel – we place squads in Hifara’s tunnels. Two Wild Boars and a team of nanofibre weave equipped troops in each. We lead with a heavy element from here, which draws enemy fire and soaks it up. Simultaneously, the tunnel squads breach and hit them from multiple directions.”

“That won’t be enough, Belessar. A half-decent officer can get the aliens to spread their fire across the new attackers in less than a minute.”

“That’s what the rest of the ultras are for.”