Black Market Merchant

Chapter 146: Freezing Strike
56 and the others lowered their altitude to hover just above the blue plasma wall and out of the artillery’s trajectory. When they did, they were immediately thrown back into the battle against the second wave of Twisted. Round after round was poured into the seemingly endless fray of monsters.

”How many are there of these things?! There has got to be a limit to their numbers.” 56 shouted to Dixon while reloading.

”There is, but not while the Hoard Mother still lives.” Dixon called back of his shoulder.

Just then Dixon’s watch started beeping with an incoming message. Dixon pulled his hover bike upwards to answer the call without worry of being attacked from below. Being on the back of the hover trailer in tow, 56 was able to overhear what the call was about. The announcement was being issued out in a male robotic voice.

”Attention all Group Two personnel. If your zone is under control or defenses are capable of being held in fewer numbers, we need your assistance. Moab Cities mayor, Cameron Bakersfield, has granted authorization of the use of its ‘special weapon’. We need additional defense during its transportation to engage the Hoard Mother. The weapons will be moving on the ground on three mobile artillery trucks. Objective: Keep all Twisted away from the trucks as best as possible. The trucks will be driven by robotic AI drivers, so use of all weaponry is authorized. This is a direct order by the Leader of Hunters Clan Lodge 117, Eric Andre.”

Just as the order was issued the blare of alarm horns sounded out from their right. Glancing that way 56 saw that on the right two towers beyond the area that were defending, had red revolving lights going off on their tops. Looking behind the plasma wall, he could also see that the robotic city forces had split formation and were amassing behind the wall. They seemed to be waiting for something.

”Are we going to join up with them?” 56 asked.

Dixon gave a thoughtful expression as he looked down below at Tammy and Sam, as well as the turrets still firing on the oncoming masses of creatures. At the moment, there were no larger Twisted attacking the towers and things seemed less pressing than before. There also now seemed to be fewer creatures coming out of the heavy dust clouds below.

”I think we can. With the special weapon going by right next to our zone, we can easily return here if something were to happen.” Dixon replied. Then he shouted down to his two partners, ”Sam, Tammy! You two hold things here. 56 and I are going to assist the forces getting ready to advance on the Hoard Mother. I trust you two can handle it?”

”We got it boss!” Tammy replied giving a light cackle. ”Ke-ke-ke! These things aren’t so tough now.”

”As long as they don’t touch my bike again, we can handle it.” Sam also replied while patting his bike handle.

”Good.” Dixon said giving them a thumbs up. Then he turned to 56. ”Are you sure you’re up for this? After all you are just here for the ride. Civilians don’t need to participate and risk themselves.”

Dixon started to turn his hover bike and trailer towards the gathering point. They could see that the robotic foot soldiers were forming into two columns of ten abreast. In the distance the Hoar Mother loomed ever closer and 56 eagerly wanted to see how the two sides would face off against each other.

”Nonsense, I am clearly capable. Besides, I think you underestimate me.” 56 said giving a mock hurt look. ”I’ll let you in on a secret. I used to be in the military.”

”Oh really?” Dixon said raising an eyebrow. ”I guess that would explain your shooting prowess. Not many can fire that weapon accurately and remain calm seeing these monstrous sights.”

The two of them were one of the few Hunters that that started to congregate above the blue plasma wall. In total there was approximately sixty that showed up. Below them AI driven tanks had now started joining up amongst the robotic foot soldiers. From this distance 56 could now get a better look at them.

Though the robotic forces looked extremely dangerous, being a technology expert operative cyborg, 56 recognized them with ease. Firstly, they were not the most recent of models of this era. They were at least two generations behind those that the Cyborg Unit fought against. However, they were not to be taken lightly just because they were slightly outdated. Each unit carried laser light machine guns, which replaced their right arms entirely. While on their left arm was a sizable carbon steel and tungsten molded thick blade, running from their elbow joint to half a meter past their hand.

”Are you still recording this Orville?” 56 murmured to his nearby floating companion.

”Rodger boss. I am recording the cities defenses.” Orville chirped back.

Orville hovered further away from the trailers edge and zoomed in on them. The robotic soldiers were then confirmed by Orville to be Infantry Class American Droid Series 18, or ICADS 18. The ICADS 18 stood at a height of two meters, weighing 220 kilograms, without weapons, and had black solar paint providing indefinite energy to the unit. They had a sleek, watertight appearance to their humanoid form that showed they were indeed amphibious too. These particular ICADS has a blue energy glow in their eyes and displaying systems.

ICADS are generally independent fighting units that only need a few commands and prompts to engage targets. Their facial recognition software is so fast in differentiating between civilian and militants that it is even better than a human. It is not too hard to see why they replaced so many humans on the front lines.

The downside of ICADS is their EMP resistance is only mid-tier and hacking is quite common. Fortunately, each ICADS unit must be independently hacked, otherwise the robotic forces would have been scrapped decades ago.

56’s attention was turned away from the robots when one of the Hunters called out. ”Look, I think those are the special weapons trucks. They are huge!”

56 looked towards the back of the robotic forces and saw three large green trucks driving out from the city and onto the dust tan ground. As they came closer, he saw that they were modified rocket artillery vehicles. Instead of multiple rockets launching tubes they now only had four large ones. However, their size and appearance weren’t all that impressive. In fact, the AI tanks looked far more threatening.

”How is that supposed to take down the Hoard Mother?” 56 thought to himself.

Just as he thought this, every Hunter simultaneously received another message from the Hunter Leader. Again, it was delivered in the male robotic voice.

”Hunters you are to provide aerial suppression and once again stop the largest Twisted from hitting the special weapons. The first two trucks contain the special weapons. Unlike conventional rockets, these specially made projectiles contain Liquid Nitrogen. Any rupture of the projectiles would destroy the artillery trucks and surrounding area. Additionally, the fire accuracy of these Liquid Nitrogen rockets is still not within acceptable parameters. Meaning they will need to be escorted within close combat reach of the Hoard Mother.”

Hearing this sent a murmur through the Hunters. It was clear that no one wanted to be nearer to that creature than they need too. 56 on the other hand, was fascinated.

Someone called out from the Hunters, mirroring 56’s own thoughts. ”Liquid Nitrogen rockets? Do they plan to freeze to death that giant Hoard Mother?”

Then the message continued. ”The third truck has tungsten tipped rocket rods. Once the Liquid Nitrogen freezes key locations, the tungsten rods will be launched in an arched pattern to build up kinetic energy and destroy the frozen locations. The impact will be strong enough to break the internal structure of the Twisted and prevent it from healing itself. Once this happens a collective bombardment from AI Tanks and city defense artillery will ravage the exposed areas. This, we assume, will be enough to destroy the Hoard Mother for good. I now wish you luck and safety.”

56 pondered this for a second before he understood the concept. ”They are basically using the ’Rods of God’ project from my time! This time utilizing the freezing temperatures, reaching close to -210°C before being solid, to freeze the creature; then break it with the rods like glass on concrete. The kinetic buildup of the original Rods of God could burrow a hundred meters into the ground. So, I guess this would be a smaller scale of that. A sure-fire way to strike deep into the Twisted. What a rather interesting idea.”

Just then the alarm sounded loudly from below them once again. In unison every ICADS 18 pointed their guns forward and prepared to fight. Then a female’s announcer voice was being broadcast out on the speakers from the plasma towers to the immediate area.

”Attention! The Plasma Wall will now be temporarily lowered. Please prepare to engage the incoming Twisted. All personnel stop any Twisted from entering the area. Lowering the Wall in 20… 19… 18…”

”Here we go 56!” Dixon shouted pressing down on his hover bikes handles.

The bike and trailer dipped down and headed for the far-left side of the glowing wall. Here the Twisted must have sensed the commotion and were starting to swarm the area. Occasionally an impatient Logos Cutter or Night Hound would luge at the plasma and instantly be melted away.

”3… 2… 1… Lowering Plasma Wall!” The lady announcer shouted.

As quickly as flipping a light switch, the blue wall suddenly disappeared. As it did, the Twisted swarmed unhindered into the city outer limits and towards the ICADS and AI tanks on the ground. In turn, the ICADS 18 broke out into a hail of gunfire. Firing in unison, the blue laser projectiles ravaged the charging Twisted and the ICADS uniformly started slowly marching forward. Hunters flittered back and forth in the air firing down from their hover vehicles, deal a fair amount of damage to any Plains Strider or Land Octopus. However, the Twisted were just too many!

Just as 56 was thinking they were going be overrun, the AI Tanks and artillery open fire. A wall of explosive power irrupted from further ahead on the battlefield. A secondary explosion happened a split second later and napalm was deployed by a second barrage from the AI Tanks. This effectively hindered any Twisted reinforcements for the meantime. By now the ICADS 18’s and any remaining Twisted had engaged into close combat. The ICADS had now broken formation and were engaging the Twisted in a myriad of independent battles.

The Logos Cutters, though many in numbers, were unable to chew and cut down the solid built, sleek robots and fell easily to the robot’s blades or squashed underfoot. The Night Hounds fared better, and many were able to puncture the ICADS armor, but very few ICADS actually fell to these attacks. Hunters easily finished off the remaining burning Twisted that had been trying to break through the wall of flames. The Twisted were soon routed and the entire robotic attack unit and special weapons were now past the Plasma wall and in front of the dwindling wall of napalm flames.

”Plasma wall closing in 10… 9… 8…” The announcer lady called out.

There was no turning back now. Next stop, the Hoard Mother.