Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.20

Chapter 20

Movement

The scout drone was the first to report a rapid increase in movement indicators. Its scanners detected the fine movements in the distant trees before anything else. Given the size of the disturbance, it sent a priority-marked report within seconds.

Nellie was in the process of pulling on her boots and marveling at the increased sensation in her robotic limbs since her upgrade. She had always been able to feel them, at least to an extent, but now there was no real difference between her robotic and flesh arm at all. It was like she had been wearing gloves and finally taken them off. She had forgotten how much she should feel and was wondering at the increase when a small icon appeared in the corner of her vision and began to flash red.

“Shit!” She leaped to her feet as the scan data was fed into her implant. “Lucy, we have to get to the wall!”

“The other scout is on its way there now, as are the synthetics.” Lucy dressed in a blur of movement and held the door open for Nellie. “Shall we?”

They grabbed rifles from a rack near the door and ran for the walls. Dar and Vey were already there, their eyes fixed on their scopes as Nellie watched the drone feed in small boxes on either side of her vision.

Nellie leaped onto the wall and lifted her rifle to use the scope, only for Lucy to push it down and tell her to test her eyes. Nellie activated the night vision mode that came with her HUD suite and marveled as she saw clearly, even if everything looked a little yellow now. Still, it beat what she had before with her one robotic eye. She could see a faint moving blob emerging from the trees and zoomed in.

She wavered on her feet for a second as the image zoomed forward. It was disconcerting, and she made a note to put the Zoom in a separate box next time. Hey, she was new at this. Teething problems were to be expected.

Once she regained her balance, she focused on her vision again and drew in a sharp breath. An endless-looking flood of strange creatures was emerging from the forest. Their dark skin contrasted against the frost-covered ground. She mentally chose one of the creatures to track, and a target box appeared around it with the word ‘analyzing’ flashing above it. The progress bar ticked over to complete a moment later, and a small 3d model of it was overlaid.

Nellie zoomed out, her eyes starting to hurt with all the information, and she canceled everything but the target box.

The creatures were low to the ground, with three pairs of legs to each side, but they were mammals, at least the weird half-amphibian-looking things that passed for mammals in this world. A line of bristles ran from their long tails all the way up to the squashed-looking faces that reminded her of some sort of Pug that had traded fur for slimy skin.

“Yuck,” Nellie said absently. “What the hell are they?”

“Locals refer to them as swamp-dogs,” Salem offered.

“Really?” Nellie asked.

“We were given a database of local wildlife as part of our startup. It helps us to appear local.” Salem said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. “They are not dangerous.”

“Can you send that to me somehow?” Nellie asked.

Salem nodded, and a small mail icon appeared at the top of Nellie’s HUD. She opened it and waited as pages and pages of info flew out. They funneled into another file, and she waited a split second before information on the ‘Swamp Dog’ appeared next to the targeting box.

Swamp Dog:

Non Aggressive

Herbivore

Territorial

Suitable for Domestication

Source of Protein

“Gross, people eat that?” Nellie asked.

“You’ve eaten worse,” Lucy reminded her.

Nellie did not appreciate the reminder and felt her stomach lurch momentarily before it calmed again. Forcing her mind back onto the approaching Swamp Dogs, her mind turned immediately to one question. Why the hell were swamp creatures running through the snow? There had to be more to it than just a temperature change… right?

The flood of creatures split and flowed around the yard, staying clear of the walls by a good margin. Standing and watching while they passed, Nellie was struck that not a single one of them even looked her way. Despite the light and the movement on the walls, they never even looked.

“This is more than some desperate migration or aberrant behavior caused by the cold and dark,” Nellie said, shaking her head as she spoke. “This is fight or flight.”

“They’re running from something,” Lucy agreed.

“What?” Salem asked, scanning the distant trees.

“Shall we go find out?” Nellie asked.

“Seriously?” Salem asked.

“Better than finding out when it gets here and eats us,” Nellie said grimly.

“Eats you lot,” Baz leaned on the wall and smirked at Nellie. “We are synthetics, not made of meat.”

“Sure hope they can tell the difference before they eat you,” Nellie narrowed her eyes at him.

“Good point, I’ll fly!” Baz laughed and hopped off the wall.

“Wishing we had weapons mounted on the shuttles?” Lucy asked as Nellie kept glancing over at the distant tree line.

“Yeah, can you…” Nellie started.

“I’ll have it done before you get back,” Lucy promised and vaulted off the wall after stopping to kiss Nellie on the cheek. “Have fun!”

Baz headed due south in the smallest shuttle with Dar and Vey while Nellie got into her armor and headed for the shed. The little black pod was perfect for this.

She slid into the control chair and glided it up into the sky on muscle memory alone. Nellie headed a little west of due south to increase their chances. The sensors and readouts from the instruments were fed into her implant, creating an overlay of the land around the pod.

“How does your body work when I’m not in the yard?” Nellie asked, trying to distract herself from the fear and anxiety. It felt a little rude to ask but….

“It’s not that complex,” Lucy replied through the pod speakers. “I’m here with you, and I am there as well. The two operate independently until we reconnect and the memories merge.”

“That sounds pretty complex,” Nellie said softly, “You’d have two sets of memories at the same time.”

“I’m an AI,” Lucy replied. “It’s normal for me.”

“Sorry, just trying to distract myself,” Nellie admitted.

“I can think of other things to talk about,” Lucy laughed. “Veeery distracting things.”

Nellie laughed, only to lose her smile as a clearing in the trees showed fast-moving shapes. She didn’t even need to scan these ones. A squirming mass of Abomi-Toads was running their way through the clearing. There was more in that one clearing than she had ever seen before.

She reacted instinctually to the sight of so many of them in one place. She was firing before she even realized she was pulling the trigger. The gap in the trees became a killing field as the repeated flashes of weapons fire stemmed the tide of creatures.

She gasped and pulled her finger off the trigger. In seconds, the area was once more covered in toads. Nellie could see she had killed twenty of them, the number displayed on her HUD, but it cleared the area for less than five seconds. The sheer numbers here were staggering.

“There is no stopping this many,” Nellie said as her breath seemed to catch. “Lucy, what the hell do we do?”

“Let’s get back and get those shuttles armed,” Lucy said, but she sounded distracted.

“What is it?” Nellie asked.

“Am I crazy, or did these things have to come past Duke’s to get here?” Lucy asked.

“Fuck!” Nellie pointed the pod back towards the yard and called Baz to return as well. He reported the same sightings she had, which meant the line of Abomi-Toads was at least five miles wide and probably significantly more.

===<<<>>>===

Crush-Cha threw a new power pack to Three and returned to firing on the line of creatures. They had been moving over empty land when they were hit, which was pure luck. They would have had almost no warning if they had been in the trees, which they had been keeping to until they were forced to cross this wide plane.

Even so, they had only been granted seconds before the first Swamp Dogs hit them. The creatures were barely cattle usually, but even cattle can be a danger. Just ask anyone who has ever seen a stampede. Crush called the play, and the column formed into a wedge.

His squad formed the spear tip that turned the dogs aside; the others simply had to keep the pressure up and make sure they didn’t turn back. At this point, the dead bodies were piling up and doing half the work for them. Still, they kept the pressure up. Things like this could turn in a moment, Crush knew.

“Out!” One called and pulled back to get a fresh power pack. The others shifted to cover her firing lane until she returned. “Freshing clips!” She called, and Crush ginned as he felt new packs clipped onto the back of his belt.

They were all coming along well.

As One stepped back into place, Crush gave her a nod of approval. She was the third to run out of power packs but the first to think of supplying the others before she returned. One was going to make a hell of a squad leader. It was still a few months away, at best, but she was a natural.

They got their first sign of clear air as the spear's tip broke through the last of the dogs. There were still stragglers, but they avoided the dead piled around the column as, slowly, the column broke out. Crush quickly checked that none of his people were hurt and then headed back down the column to the biggest truck. They had converted it into a mobile command unit.

He pulled himself up the sides and onto the top, scanning the distant trees. They looked still, at least for now. He turned to watch the Swamp Dogs again and noted that none had stopped or looked back.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what that meant.

“Are you sure you aren’t jumping at shadows?” Brix asked. “We are only a day from the meet-up spot with Duke. If we head out now and keep moving–”

“If those had been Decadons or worse,” Crush said calmly, “We’d all be dead right now.”

“But it wasn’t,” Brix replied. “Just a bunch of Swamp Dogs.”

“This time.” Crush cautioned. “No way they were the only thing heading this way.”

Brix thought about it for a moment, “Still, if we can make it to–”

“We can’t,” Crush insisted. “Even the dogs could have taken a few if they hit us in the trees. Sure, they wouldn’t stop to eat the dead, but they could trample us pretty well. Brix, they could have tipped a supply wagon over, and we’d damn well starve. It’s too big a risk.”

The big man stared ahead for a long time, his jaw working overtime as he chewed over the situation. Crush felt for the man. He was on track to lead a sector security station, not command a bunch of militia in a resistance war.

“Advice?” Brix asked eventually.

“We head for a village and try and block the walls,” Crush said immediately. “I know there was a place to the east of us. The scouts said the walls were breached in one place only. We set up there, block the gap as best we can, and defend.”

“For how long?” Brix demanded. “Dammit, Crush, we are low on food already.”

“Plenty of Swamp Dog around right now,” Crush said grimly. “That will hold us for a bit until we get a squad out to contact this Duke. Maybe he has a place that needs defending?”

“What about the rebellion?” Brix frowned. “We can’t fight off the Feds if we are hiding in some village.”

“Rebellion’s gonna have to wait, Brix.” Crush said levelly, “We have to survive this first.”

The column moved east as fast as it could, keeping away from tree lines where they would have no warning if anything was headed their way. Crush kept moving, his hoverbike skimming back and forth at its maximum hover height so he could buy just one extra second. Even split seconds could mean the difference with some of the things on this planet.

He would have traded a few inches off his stubby tail for the damn trucks to move a little faster. He gunned the thruster and skimmed forward ahead of the column.

“Clear left,” One called over the squad comms.

“Clear right,” Three called.

“Nothing on the ass end!” Five called.

Crush ground his teeth for a second before breaking into a reluctant smile. The man just could not take to military discipline. Fought like a dragon, though.

Two and Four were off scouting ahead; their check-in wasn’t for a few minutes, but Crush decided to swing by and check on them. His scales were itching; he was so wound up.

Four nodded to him from a perch in the upper branches of a treeline and gave the hand signal for all clear, so he moved on. It was important to do the occasional surprise inspection. The soldier who was always waiting for someone to come and tear into him was never caught off guard. At least, that was what Crush told himself. Deep down, he knew he was checking up just because he didn’t want to wait any longer to know his people were okay.

His mood was slightly improved as he saw Two scrambling out from behind a bush, frantically pulling his trousers up and almost dropping them when he tried to give the all-clear signal.

He skimmed off ahead of the frantic trooper and finally saw the village. After another couple of hours, the main column would arrive.

They had that long, surely?

===<<<>>>===

Nellie watched the laser arrays being fitted on their largest shuttle and fretted. She really missed the Bly at times like this. Nothing they had even came close to her ship. Looking up into the choked-out sky, she swore to herself that she would be up there again soon.

Somewhere a few lightyears from the nearest Abomi-Toad would be nice. Make that dozens.

“The arrays will be ready in five minutes,” Lucy said as she walked over with Salem trailing behind her. “The other shuttles will be about a half-hour more each.”

“How much were we able to load onto them?” Nellie asked.

“This one has three arrays. Two front, one rear. The other two only had room for a single array, so I’m installing one on the bottom of each shuttle so They are omnidirectional.”

“Can they still land?” Nellie asked.

“I’m adding a set of landing struts to the base of each,” Lucy said with a smile. “Good catch.”

“Thanks,” Nellie said proudly. “I’m starting to get a handle on this stuff.”

“How long do we have until the Abomi-toads get here?” Paren asked anxiously.

“At least six hours at their recorded speed,” Lucy said immediately.

“It’s a half hour to Duke’s place and about a forty-minute trip from there to the village to warn them,” Nellie said nervously. “Should we head to the village first?”

“I’ve relayed a warning via their drone system,” Salem said. “It was acknowledged, and they are ensuring no one is outside the walls.”

“If we have to help Duke, we will need to have at least a couple of the shuttles leave at the one-hour mark to ensure the village has some extra defense,” Nellie said anxiously. She really needed to be in both places at once, or even better, in three. Her yard had high walls, but would that be enough?

One hour and five minutes later, all three shuttles lifted off the pads and formed into a flying v shape for the trip to Duke’s farm. Nellie, Baz, and Lucy were flying with a backup crew of at least one in each shuttle, just in case.

Nellie had Paren with her while the Synthetics were in Baz’s shuttle, and Lucy was flying with her massive robotic form waiting in the hold to answer any problems that might arise. The numbers felt off to Nellie but it had been decided by combat power, not physical numbers. Nellie and Paren were both fully armored and geared, and their nanite boost would ensure they could hold their own. The synthetics were also geared up, each far stronger and faster than a human or brackta would be.

Lucy was in a flight suit and carried a twin set of pistols. Her massive ‘Big 5’ body could handle any problems she had. The damn thing could cut the shuttles apart, anything organic didn’t stand a chance.