Chapter 11 - Arctic Tactic (part 4, final)

- Geez, these damn locusts just come without an end!

Mirai, from the hill nearby, is busy setting up SAM turrets on the ground to repel the endless waves of autonomous drones that has been jamming our communications. Upon receiving the bad news, she is now handling even more burden.

For my side, the drones by Mirai are helping clearing some of the enemy drones from above, leaving some space for me to access the arsenal, although limited. I take out the Agility module, which is simply a pair of rollerblades with propellers, gear up and rush through the camp, in the direction of the two Intruders.

Blasting through the air at the speed of a horse, I quickly catch up with the Intruders, who have noticed my presence. I withdraw the flamethrower and mercilessly roast their armour with the scorching streams of fire. They try to counterattack, but the module quickens my reaction, and I effortlessly dodge all the attacks. At a closer range, I withdraw a photon shotgun, and within one or two shots, the scattering laser beams actually inflict some damage to their joint.

The actual motive remains buying time to shoot the last two shots, so the moment five minutes is up, I immobilise one of them with a shot to the leg joint. As soon as one of them knocks down, the sound of air being torn apart, like a nightmare to the middle-rating Intruders, comes again, completely penetrates the armour of the fourth Intruder and kills him in an instant.

The last Intruder, knowing that he cannot afford to lose more time, also turns on his thrusters and directly charges towards the position of Mirai, despite me trying to avert his attention. We reach the hill in merely thirty seconds, where Mirai has been anticipating.

On the top of the hill, there now stand three figures, two humans (not exactly) and one Intruder at its maximum, irreversible fury. The satellites are also ready to attack.

Within a finger snap, rockets rain from the sky towards the hill, and we charge at the Intruder at the same time. It opens up a shield to block the deadly rain, and attacks us with by throwing multiple explosive axes at us. We shoot back to make them detonate before they have a chance to touch us, while trying to approach the Intruder that hopelessly defends itself.

The winter scenery becomes turbulent as the deflected rockets blow up the soil and the snow, making the haziest weather ever. The Intruder's armour has taken serious damage and starts to break down, and plus the fact that we try to hold it back by all types of grenade and aerial weapons we have, it cannot move at all.

- Mirai, seventy percent of the armour has been neutralised. Deal the final blow.

- Roger that.

Mirai takes out the photon sniper rifle SR02, aim at a crack on the armour and presses the trigger. The burning laser beam pierces through the thin air, enters the crack and burns the Intruder from the inside. It stops moving and collapses onto the ground.

On the sky, there are flocks of planes, deep black in colour, typical of the Intruders' reinforcements, coming. After collecting samples and carefully putting them into special containers, we quickly retreat from the military camp, towards the plane, and fly back to our base by taking a detour in the opposite direction.

- Phew! What a near-miss that we have here. Five middle rating Intruders and we almost use our trump cards. Mirai, we need to improve our own weapon collection, before we get overwhelmed.

- Yes, but wait until I have a good rest. Calculating wind speed, bullet drop and other weather factors in a blizzard roasts my central processor.

After blasting at full speed towards home, Mirai goes to conduct a self-maintenance, while I maintain the plane. The snowstorms make the plane look a bit dirty and scratched, so I quickly fix them. The engines and electrical components are still working, but a simple replacement for the small parts would not harm.

While maintaining the airplane, I think about some stuff that happened during the battle. There are things that make me curious.

Keeping the thoughts in mind, I put the plane back in the arsenal and go back to my house. Mirai is currently sitting on the bench in the living room, recharging. I take my time and ask her.

- Mirai, there are some stuff that I have been curious about for quite a while. How do your railgun even recharge in a mere five minutes?

She slowly opens her eyes, and snaps her finger. The big screen in the room is turned on, showing a blueprint of the Railgun, with detailed description.

- Before the invention of photon weapons to deal with low level Intruders, we struggle even with them, because normal bullets are rendered useless. That is when we focus our technology on developing railguns, which still use material bullets, but are way more destructive. The Railgun we are using is the most effective type that humanity has ever created.

- In what way, exactly?

- The charging chamber sets up an extremely strong electric field and draws electrons from the ground, storing them in capacitors equipped along the gun. When shooting, the capacitors release a current of tens of millions ampere in a few milliseconds, with strong magnetic field from the pair of neodymium magnets, propels the projectile at speeds of up to 8000 metres per second. Lightweight bullets increases the kinetic energy of the bullet to deal extra impact...

As of now, this thing definitely sounds like one just steps out of a science fiction. It is just impossible, but who knows what happens in forty or fifty years?

- Ok, thanks for that. You can just take your time to analyse their armour structure. We might not be as lucky as today's. I will try to do whatever I can for my side. - I intently try to avoid the discussion, so that I know what I need to know, and before she gives me another lecture.

- Huh, you are in no authority to command me to get some rest like that, you know? You are the one who interrupts my rest at first.

This woman...

It is somewhat late. I take a shower and after a good bathing session, I open my laptop and start researching.

The samples of the armour and weapons of the Intruders we encountered today has been uploaded to the archive of the Codex, and we also collect quite a few of them. I open the blueprint of the armour.

The armour is a roughly five to ten centimetres thick worth of metal alloy, mostly titanium and lead to block off both physical and radiation damage. A thin layer of aluminium is used to neutralise an EMP attack. The joints have thinner layers of armour to maximise agility, but enough to fend off medium damage, like from a TNT bomb in a range of less than 10 metres. On the back, there are two propellers, connected to four to six gas chambers that continuously blast air downwards to support the weight of the armour, but the Intruders with more outstanding strength can wear them and move easily without the support of the propellers.

On the arms, there are customised supporting structures that help to wield different types of weapons, including rocket launchers and melee weapons like the ones we saw today. And of course, their weapons are enhanced with aim assist and target lock, just like ours. The weapons are also heavily shielded to reduce damage, and are designed to be efficient in terms of weight, accuracy and ease of use.

I open the blueprint of the autonomous drones that disrupted our connection today. We currently name them Ephemerellid, due to their swarm formation that represents that of the mayfly family. They are cheap drones made with aluminium alloy to block of electromagnetic signals, as well as to minimise the weight. They seem like disposable units of the Intruders, due to the low quality, but it cannot be ignored that the Intruders may actually call them back for maintenance for further battles. About the espionage properties of such drones, more research is needed as of now.

I take out a sample of the Ephemerellid from the archive and inspect it. The drone is exceptionally light, maybe a hundred grams or less, yet their collective effect is a real pain in the ass. They are designed based on various aerodynamic properties to be energy-efficient, based on the structures of the body and the wings. These Intruders really know what they are doing.

However, something that really makes me curious. This aluminium, although the Intruders attempt to conceal their origin, is distinctive enough in the eye of an engineer and scientist like me who works closely with materials as a part of mechanics.

I finally have a clue. I will make sure these Intruders will have a hard time producing metallic components thanks to this fatal mistake. A great leap in our fifty-years long battle.

Yes. Huntly Mine, western Australia.