Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Three: Battle of the Cavern (Patreon)

Noon Australian time.

The sharp crack of earth expanding and breaking alerted the Raptors.

The tunnel entrance they had created as a blocking point expanded. To over a hundred times its size.

As the earth fell away, a monstrous form emerged.

Fifty feet wide and nearly twenty high, the massive form of the Ultimate Fighting Vehicle – a monstrosity last seen twenty years ago – breached the shields.

Perhaps some of the Raptors had studied previous campaigns on Earth. Perhaps not. In any case, their reaction – as expected – was to fire at the massive form as it breached the shield.

The Yogzune Maser Cannons fired first, shockwaves of energy lancing out towards the foe. Instead of shattering the target, the beams passed straight through.

And the monster kept coming. Sliding past the shield, heading straight for their positions.

Individual Raptor troops, heedless of trigger discipline, kept firing. Even as dull booms sounded through the cavern, trooper after trooper unloaded their shots into a target seemingly impervious to it.

Less than a second later, a form blinked into existence above the first Yogzune, only to flash into non-existence before its security team could react.

The explosion that followed rocked the cavern.

Another second passed. Another explosion, and then a third.

Three Yogzune Maser cannons listed uselessly, their space-hardened components destroyed by enough high explosive to sink a warship.

The Ultimate Fighting Vehicle trundled forward, more and more shots passing through it, seemingly unharmed.

Until, suddenly, it flickered into nonexistence. Leaving behind a smoking wreck one-hundredth of its size and some very confused Raptors.

<Nanocloud>: That’s it. The last shot went through the engine.

<Nanocloud>: Tessie’s toast.

<Belessar>: She lasted longer than I expected.

<Nanocloud>: The ones who missed centre-of-mass and let their shots drift left are the ones who actually hit Tessie. We’re lucky they’re such accurate shots.

<Belessar>: I count on the enemy hitting what I want them to aim at.

<Nanocloud>: Don’t get cocky. Get busy.

Indeed, it was time to get busy.

For while the Raptors had been concentrating on shutting down the Ultimate Fighting Vehicle’s illusion, Hifara’s tunnel entrances had been opened.

A thousand armoured soldiers had passed through the shield, and were now amidst the Raptor lines.

Plasma flew across the cavern, as the Raptor snipers valiantly re-oriented to aim at the soldiers. But.

There were other targets they had to worry about.

Vines erupted from the ground, grabbing scores of aliens and pinning them in place. Bound by Aspenthorn’s power, the frustrated aliens reached for knives and swords, hacking away at the plants that held them captive.

To little avail. Vines wrapped around Raptor necks, squeezing and snapping.

Across the battlefield, Lafayette’s water constructs danced. Bobbing and weaving into the trenches, they engaged the Raptors in hand-to-hand combat, with the added advantage of being impervious to bayonets and blades.

It was hot, bloody work across the cavern, with Raptors up against many different types of enemies.

The water constructs could block, obstruct and divert them, but they couldn’t kill. Not easily. And those weren’t my instructions to Lafayette anyway.

The Raptors were only too happy to shoot the constructs. Which meant that a cloud of water vapour formed for a second, and then condensed into a new construct even as the spooked soldier stood stunned.

On the other hand, the Wild Boars could kill. And a Raptor being harried and stalked by a water construct had less time to pay attention to the very solid Boar-armoured soldier that would then crush him to a pulp.

Or slag him with their lightning gun.

Lafayette could only control a few constructs, but in the seconds that they survived, a certain amount of havoc was wreaked.

And when they died – or too much water evaporated for them to be combat effective – she just drew more water from the three thousand gallons in the water tanks we’d brought her.

To the Raptors, it must have seemed like an infinite supply of dancing water devils.

That would have been enough to even the battlefield. Unfortunately for the Raptors, Mahotsukoi was there.

As Raptor Lieutenants rallied their troops to form a coherent front and fight back, our resident magical girl spiked gravity.

Across those parts of the battlefield where the Raptors were still dug in.

Plasma Projector Rifles are heavy enough normally. Multiply their weight twenty times, and you’ve got a lot of pulled muscles and hamstring tears.

Multiply it a hundred times, and your most disciplined soldiers will find themselves dropping their weapon.

You know what happens to soldiers in a firefight who drop their weapon?

Take a guess.

Lightning lances, laser fire, and plasma bolts filled the cavern, as thousands of warriors battled it out across hundreds of feet of space.

And then, Indradhanush struck.

Gamma ray bursts, fueled by the power of a microfusion reactor, lanced out. The beams were nowhere near as powerful as the one that had felled the battleship, but they didn’t need to be.

Each shot pierced a Raptor’s head. Hundreds of enemy soldiers fell in seconds, collapsing like puppets with their strings cut.

By this point, any cohesion the aliens might have once had was gone. Dozens abandoned their too-heavy weapons, sprinting past into the darkness of the cavern.

As the Raptors held by Aspenthorn cut themselves free, their comrades fell or fled, leaving the newly liberated aliens at the mercy of the human soldiers.

Who were not in a merciful mood. Though I doubt the Raptors had bothered to learn any human word for ‘I surrender’. Or ‘mercy’.

Green and I walked forward, weapons ready, as the enemy forces collapsed before us. Pushing past the shield felt like warm taffy.

A mound targeted us as we emerged. In an instant, I targeted it with Homing Spark.

The blast was satisfyingly devastating.

Beside me, Devilmade blinked into existence. “I got them.”

“I knew you could. Good work.”

“Thanks.” She gazed disdainfully at the remnants of the Raptors – and yes, they were remnants now. “They didn’t last long.”

“According to our count, this ambush was almost two thousand strong,” Green said. “But they held us up for half an hour.”

“What did that buy them?” I wondered.

“Time to dig even deeper. How many of the enemy do you think are still there?”

RAPTOR ARMY: 704,026.

QUEST COMPLETED: CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

ENEMY RAPTORS DEFEATED: 1,986.

+1,986,000 XP.

+250,000 XP.

+1 INT.