Chapter 10, Part 3: New Threats
January 21, 2362
1032 hours
Venom City, Venom
Over the course of the six days after being air dropped into Venom City, many transformations had taken place. All civilians had been evacuated, and comm towers had been set up. The city now had an outer wall dotted with automatic artillery bunkers and MG nests that surrounded the perimeter outside of the city. Inside that wall was an inner wall, which also encircled the circumference of the city itself and had many traps laid in the area between the walls, along with several search towers. Inside the city, soldiers continually patrolled the area with mech, air, and Spade support. Heavy, anti-aircraft flak guns had been set up in secluded alleyways, in order to prevent suspicion. Rocket and missile launchers had been emplaced in houses that had been broken down for their use. Mortar holes, bunkers, pillboxes, MG nests, and barracks were placed anywhere they could be used. No part of the city- resort or slum- had been left empty.
Aloysius was part of Lookout Group 17, a trio of soldiers whose duty was to watch for the enemy and alert the city when they came. Parker, a red-furred hare, and Jorge, a young fur de lance that accompanied him.
"I didn't know that snakes could be drafted into the military," Aloysius commented. "I thought that there were laws against it. Adder, Brutus, and Ace were allowed because they were either already part of a unit or were drafted for emergency recruitment."
"Dat' all change, comandante," Jorge spoke in a mix of Fortunan (Spanish) and broken Cornerian (English), "De government allowed us serpientes entregamos military service."
"About time, too," Parker added. "I never was a fan of racism. Aw, damn! Bogeys at twelve o'clock!"
Aloysius checked his radar. Multiple contacts filled the small circle- lots of them too. But suddenly, they all vanished, one by one. He looked up to see a thick, gray fog cover the horizon, and was a few miles away.
"What de heck?" Jorge gaped. "I 'tot forecast was por luz de sol today!"
"So did I," Parker added. "It's not supposed to ever be foggy on Venom."
Aloysius looked at the fog. It seemed to move at a high rate of speed toward the city, and it didn't change direction despite the fact that the wind was actually blowing towards it.
"Something's not right," Aloysius spoke to himself. "Ace! You see what I see?"
"Yep," Ace replied, his Bloody Maw soaring overhead. "I just picked up multiple contacts before that fog showed up too. Isn't our radar fog-piercing?"
"I 'tot it was too, comandante," Jorge answered, "Dat' fog es muy misterioso."
"Um, guys?" Aloysius called out. "Is it just me, or is that fog coming toward us at over one-hundred knots?"
Everyone looked back at the horizon. The fog had already made it halfway to the outer wall. After ten seconds, the fog reached the search tower Aloysius and the Lookout Group were in, causing them all to curse in surprise. The thick fog soon enveloped the entire city, where it stopped and set in, restricting vision to about ten meters. Aloysius hated fog more than any other weather condition, but he was prepared. He activated his thermal visor. The fog still clouded his vision. Then he tried EMF. The fog turned a ghostly white and covered his entire view, but still couldn't penetrate it. At last, he tried infrared, but nothing changed. There was something weird about the fog, and he couldn't find out why.
"That's it," Aloysius growled as he leapt to the ground, "I'm gonna find out what's going on. Parker, Jorge, keep watch as best you can."
"Yes sir!" Parker saluted.
Aloysius flew on his gigantic, black wings toward the CP. Fog was everywhere, and the troops, mechs, armor, aircraft, and Spades were all in confusion. Nothing seemed to pierce this fog.
After a dozen wing-beats, he settled down at the control point- the Venom City Resort. He entered the lobby, where several soldiers were running about, sending news of any importance. Aloysius made his way to the control room, room 025.
After slamming the door open and startling Xamuros, General Pepper, General Halcyon, and anyone else inside, he bellowed, "What the hell is going on here?"
"I do not know," General Halcyon calmly spoke. "It never gets foggy on Venom, and none of our equipment can penetrate it."
"Anything I don't already know about?" Aloysius grumbled.
Xamuros stood up and ordered, "Get me a sample of the fog."
"But-"
"Do it."
Aloysius shrugged and went back outside with a clear container, opened it, let some fog seep in, and closed it. He made it back into the room and presented the container to Xamuros. The Spade had a little difficulty holding the container, due to the fact that all of his arms ended in a spike. He managed to hold the container by holding it with two arms with the spikes slightly piercing it on the side. Xamuros then went to an unused electrical outlet and ripped out a wire. He quickly opened the container, stuffed the wire inside, and quickly replaced the lid. Only a little bit of fog escaped. Aloysius's eyes widened behind his helmet as the fog made the whole wire light itself with electricity, the sparks quickly absorbed by the fog. Regular fog didn't do that kind of stuff.
"Electronic fog," Xamuros concluded.
"And that would be?" Pepper asked.
Xamuros turned to everyone and explained, "Electronic fog is a natural phenomenon that can occur anywhere at anytime- even in space, since it has no moisture content and requires no medium. It not only clouds vision, but is also shorts out electronic equipment, like you saw with the wire, and it also has magnetic properties. However, the chances of actually experiencing this weather condition being localized in a small area like, oh say, a city like this, are very slim. But in some areas, it happens almost all the time. Take the Bermuda Triangle on Earth, for example. Many ships and aircraft have been lost to the fog, due to its tendency to cling to metal objects, which is why it is now enshrouding Venom City. It shorts out their navigation and electronic equipment, and with near-zero vision, leads them to death from disorientation. Another thing- electronic fog isn't made up of vapor. In fact, no one is quite sure about what it's made of. But the most important thing is, is that it's the only weather phenomenon that can disrupt the space-time continuum itself."
"That sounds like a load of crap," Aloysius sighed.
"It's all true," Xamuros nodded. "The survivors, which there are very few, of the Bermuda Triangle report of somehow getting to a destination extremely early, or extremely late. Sometimes, they wind up in another hemisphere entirely!"
"Okay, then. Anything else?" Pepper asked.
"Yes," Xamuros continued, "There are five categories of electronic fog. Stage one- fog starts to cling to the object and visibility is slightly reduced. Stage two- the fog shorts out magnetic equipment. Stage three- electronic equipment goes haywire. Stage four- visibility is reduced to near-zero. Stage five- distortions in the space-time continuum can occur. Objects caught in a stage five electronic fog can be disintegrated into oblivion. What we currently have here in this city is a stage four."
"So, let me get this straight," Halcyon spoke. "Electronic fog is a natural phenomenon that reduces visibility, shorts out magnetic and electronic equipment, and can distort time and space. Then what in the name of the gods is it doing here if it's not ever supposed to appear here?"
"This electronic fog didn't appear by itself," Xamuros explained. "The humans have found a way to create an artificial form electronic fog. Judging by this fact, they can only create electronic fog up to the stage four category and have created visors that can penetrate the fog for their troops. At least be thankful that it isn't a stage five, or random objects would be spontaneously warped to another location within the planet."
"What about our air support?" Aloysius inquired. "Won't they crash and burn?"
"No," Xamuros spoke. "Your fighters use plasma energy to power themselves. No electronic equipment at all to short out. Only problem will be that our fighters won't have radar or navigation equipment. Another problem is that our surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles will no longer have lock-on capabilities, due to electronic interference. Also, radio will be down for the duration of the fog."
"Great, so the humans have created artificial electronic fog," Halcyon groaned. "So now we have to deal with that and the humans now. And without radar, we will not know when and where they will come. We are sitting ducks out here."
"Alright," the supreme general ordered, "ready the troops and spread the alarm. Keep your wits about everyone."
Aloysius went back outside, and sure enough, heard several shrill klaxons as the alarm rang. He got out his two assault rifles, totted them with ease, and held them at ready. Several shouts went out as the soldiers were ordered to their stations. He got back to the search tower, where Parker and Jorge were waiting for him.
"I heard about the electric fog," Parker said, "Damn humans and their tech."
"Shut up and watch for the enemy," the bat roughly ordered. "We need to alert Marcus when they get over the outer wall." Xamuros got up into the tower with the trio. Aloysius didn't mind the extra help. They would all need it.
Movement could be heard in the reaches of the electronic fog, as well as footsteps, and mechanical creaks. Then, to Aloysius's dismay, he heard a long, boisterous moan. Oh no, he thought. An Honor Guard mech. The moan was joined by several others. Honor Guard mechs.
"Aren't Honor Guards supposed to, well, guard?" Aloysius whispered to Xamuros.
"Honor Guards," Xamuros replied, "are not only the sentinels of the lord and high-ranking officials, but their personnel soldiers and messengers. This mission must be of the highest priority for more than one honor guard mech to join the battle."
Suddenly, the fog about half a mile away from the tower became lit with plasma fire and directed energy beams as well as returning fire from the automated artillery and MG systems. The battle had begun.
The three soldiers and the lone Spade fired blindly into the fog, the lasers sending wisps of heated electronic fog into the air. Aloysius fired as long as possible with one assault rifle before it overheated, then did the same with the other. The results were the many cries of pain as the human soldiers were slaughtered by the lasers, plasma shots, bullets, Daggerblade, and Jackhammer shots.
Jorge fired the last rounds in his clip, then jammed a fresh one into his rifle. Parker fired an endless barrage of blue plasma into the fog, hoping that they would reach their targets. Aloysius used his sense of echolocation to find the human soldiers and take then down. Xamuros used his knowledge of human tactics to make his best guess as to where the humans were.
Aloysius gave off yet another high-pitched squeak. When the sound waves bounced back to him, he found that the humans had overtaken the automatic defenses on the outer wall, and were spilling into the space in between the walls. However, Aloysius could tell that their numbers had dwindled, due to the accurate defense systems, although still outnumbering their armies. One thing Aloysius noticed was that the Honor Guard mechs were gone. They weren't dead- he couldn't locate their bodies. But that could wait.
As the last human entered the space in between the walls, he gave off a low-frequency shriek. The fun was just about to start.
* * *
Marcus had been waiting for the signal. He was getting way too bored from just sniping the humans from a distance. His psychic sight enabled his vision to penetrate even the electronic fog that nobody else could see through.
He fired off the last shot in his laser charge and was reloading the sniper rifle when he heard an almost unnoticeable shriek. That was the signal he'd been waiting patiently for.
The blue kitsune turned to a lone gunnery sergeant and ordered, "The signal has been relayed. Set off the charges in area grids two through seven."
"Yes, sir!" the sergeant acknowledged. He got to a plunger, rearranged the wires for the area grid numbers and pressed down. Marcus cracked a thin smile as he heard the charges placed in between the walls explode, either killing the humans there or plummeting them down below.
Now that the humans had fallen for the trap, Marcus aimed back through the scope and started to snipe anyone that survived the explosion and had spilled over the inner wall. Which was about several hundred human survivors. The fun will never end, Marcus thought as he blew the head off of an officer.
* * *
Tallon was waiting in the subterranean part of Venom City, just below the field where the charges had been placed. Everything was green, white, or black with night vision, but at least it was better than being topside with the fog. The electronic fog, as it turned out, only moved on a linear path, so the underground chambers could see the enemies and kill with ease. A light overhead flashed twice. That was the alert that the charges were going to be set off.
"Everyone, man your stations!" the brown-colored fox ordered. "Take cover and fire on my mark!"
Several platoons took cover in the makeshift bunkers that dotted the underground cavern, and a half-dozen SDFK armored hovercars went into ditches that were placed around the area. The brown, triangular armored hovercars could quickly move across the battlefield, and could deliver quite a punch with its turret, which held a 88mm autocannon, as well as a coaxial laser machine gun. Tallon was happy they had some big guns here. A small bead of sweat formed on his forehead as he waited for the explosion. It finally came.
Chunks of the ground above caved in from the seventy megatons' worth of explosives detonated, either killing the humans above or making them plummet to the subterranean caverns. Several spider tanks and a dozen platoons of humans fell as debris impacted on the ground, kicking up plumes of dust.
"OPEN FIRE!" Tallon ordered. The several platoons of Lylatians and Spades fired into the incoming humans, still dazed from the shock of the explosion and the fall. They tried their best to find cover, but were usually killed before they did. The well-trained army of Lylatians fired in staggered bursts so they wouldn't be caught reloading at the same time. Along with the heavy autocannons of the SDFKs, the humans became easy prey.
The 88mm autocannons fired a barrage of cannon rounds into the enemy with a series of thunderclaps. Humans that were targeted burst apart from the heavy rounds, the body parts sometimes flying through the air like confetti at a birthday party. Spider tanks were able to fire off a small burst of directed energy, killing a few troops and injuring one Spade, but the autocannons quickly ripped though the armor of the tanks. Soon, the darkness of the cave suddenly lit up with orange explosions as the spider tanks were torn to pieces.
Tallon fired the last semi-automatic burst in the clip of his Colt Mk. XI, and shoved a new clip into the bottom of the rifle. He took aim, then blew a human in half with the high velocity burst rounds. A spider tank found him and fired a long beam at him, but he did a combat roll just as the beam impacted into the stalagmite he used to hide behind, disintegrating the top half of it. Tallon took aim at the tank, then fired the grenade launcher at it, blowing the tank open and taking it out of commission.
After the last human fell, and the last spider tank was nothing more than a heap of junk, the soldiers relaxed. Few casualties had been sustained, and the enemy assault force had been greatly reduced. Tallon called it a job well done, and was just about to give an order when the ground in front of him exploded, revealing a smooth surface. The whole ground in front of him had been turned to glass by the heat. Tallon wheeled around to see a floating robot- a new mech made by the humans.
The mech had a gray, box-shaped body, with two long, downward pointing spires jutting from the rear that formed the stabilizers. In the rear of the body was a gravlift, which the humans definitely reverse engineered, that sent small pulses of shimmering energy in a circular fashion to keep it stable. Near the middle of the body was a pyramid-shaped head with two photoreceptor stalks, and had a large wire running from it to the middle of the body. On the bottom of the body was a long blade-like weapon. Several headlights, literally "head" lights, lit the cavern and illuminated the mech's target- an SDFK.
The floating mech gave of a shrill, ascending tone before the tip of the blade-like weapon lit up. A black bolt of energy rushed for the SDFK and impacted against it. The entire hovercar was disintegrated in an eerie, green flash.
"Crap, everyone, stay mobile and take that thing down!" Tallon ordered.
"Sir, that thing has friends!" a soldier observed. Tallon looked back; six more of the mechs joined the lone mech. One of them was bad enough. Seven was trouble.
Tallon took aim and fired a grenade at the mech that was closest to him. The projectile exploded, sending smoke everywhere. After the cloud cleared, the mech was still floating. A red energy shield shimmered where the grenade had hit it.
"Dang, they got shields! Fire, fire, fire!" Tallon ordered. A barrage of autocannon fire hit the mech that Tallon fired a grenade at. The shield burst, sending a small shockwave outwards. He fired a short burst into the mech, and it shuddered. Flames dotted where the shots had impacted against it. The mech hovered motionless, then a final explosion tore it apart, sending flaming pieces of twisted metal everywhere. One down, six to go.
It seemed that armor-piercing rounds had a better effect on the floating mechs, so he just used regular shots on full auto. A mech fired another blast of its cannon at a soldier. He screamed as the flesh was burned off of him, leaving a charred skeleton to fall to the ground, with the armor flying everywhere. With that kind of firepower, not even the shields on his armor could withstand that blast.
After a few more bursts and six more explosions, the remaining mechs were downed. Tallon huffed, tired from the run, his breath clouding up his visor.
"What…," Tallon gasped for air, "were…they?"
"They were Drones, sir," a Spade went to him. "They usually hang around siphoning facilities to guard them, now. However, it seems that they were reassigned for this siege. That weapon they had was the Dark Energy Bolt Cannon, capable of disintegrating anything smaller than a standard fighter."
"Great," Tallon groaned, "another enemy. Well, let's get back topside. There's nothing alive down here but us. Move out troops, triple time!"
* * *
Fox could hear the distant clamor of the battle, but he couldn't see much in front of him. He held both of his blaster in his hands, ready to fire. He heard that the humans had made it inside the city, and they could be anywhere. Here, Fox was just a sitting duck all out by himself and Marcus.
"Hey, dad," Marcus called, "you alright?"
"Would be nice if I could actually see over ten meters in front of me," Fox sighed.
"True, true," Marcus agreed. He fired off a round, and Fox heard a scream as a human fell down to the ground. After a few seconds of walking, Fox found the body- a gaping hole in his chest.
"Nice shot," Fox commented. He hated this fog more than rain just about now. His vision was clouded, radio was useless, and worse, the humans could see him while he couldn't. It gave him a sense of helplessness. Marcus had been making all of the kills, and Fox knew he was getting too careless by not noticing any potential threat.
"If we don't find support soon, we'll be dead sooner or later," Marcus frowned. "We need to find at least another soldier for help." He fired off another round into the air. A human dropped from a rooftop and landed on the ground.
"I hate this fog," Fox grumbled. "Hey, a Landmaster!" A lone tank was moving away from them.
"Hey! Hey!" Fox shouted. "Over here!"
The tank swerved its turret around and started moving towards Fox and Marcus, then suddenly stopped. The Landmaster was lifted into the air by some unseen force, and then was flung towards the two foxes at a tremendous speed.
"GET DOWN!" Fox shoved Marcus into the ground as the Landmaster tank soared just inches over their heads and crashed into the ground, sending pieces of metal everywhere. The father and son got up and looked back at the tank. Nothing seemed to have affected it, yet it was flung several hundred meters through the air like a pebble. No one inside the tank could have survived that.
"Uh, dad?" Marcus tapped Fox's shoulder. "You might want to turn around."
Fox wheeled around, both blasters ready. One look at the thing in front of them, and the heat vanished from his body.
A gigantic mech the size of half a football field and as tall as a two story building loomed overhead. It looked like a bipedal creature crawling on its belly, except crawling was how this thing walked. At the rear, six, razor-sharp swords replaced what would have been its feet and were all connected into two appendages. The arms were as long as the leg's and body's length put together, and they ended with large pincer-like weapons that each had a two-pronged weapon attached to both of them. Its head was triangular, with four curved mandibles starting from the rear of the head extending forward. The thing's two gleaming, crimson eyes sent shivers down Fox's spine.
The thing seemed to smile at Marcus and Fox as two, twenty-meter long tentacles erupted from its elbow joints and aimed them at the two. Fox and Marcus ran as fast as they could into an alley the thing couldn't reach. However, the thing stuck its head into the alley's entrance. Fox and Marcus fired repeatedly into the face of the creature, but the shots appeared to have no affect. The mech opened up its mandibles.
Fox felt a feeling of weightlessness for some weird reason. He looked down and discovered that he was being lifted off of his feet into the air. Marcus, as well as any other object in the alley met the same fate. Fox tried to get down, but couldn't. The mech closed its mandibles.
Fox, Marcus, and gigantic pieces of debris were flung into the air for several hundred meters before landing with a thud against the side of a small building. The shields took the damage of the impact, so they were left unharmed.
"What the hell was that?" Fox groaned.
"I have no clue, but it's coming for us!" Marcus cried.
The gargantuan mech leapt into the air and landed several blocks away from the two soldiers. It heaved up on of its arms, and leaned on the other for balance. Energy began to be sucked into the center of the two-pronged weapon.
"Dang! Run! Run!" Fox shouted. They tried their best to avoid the blast, but couldn't Fox was thrown off of his feet, and landed front-first into the street.
Fox had never before in his life experienced shellshock, so he didn't know what to expect. Everything was over-textured and out of focus in his vision, and a weird ringing filled his ears. Worse, he couldn't move one bit of his body- he couldn't even blink. His first thought was, Am I dead? The sound of the world slowly crept back into his ears, sounding like a gigantic breaking wave. Everything snapped back into focus, and Fox got back to his feet. Marcus was far away, a look of horror on his face. The mech! Where was the mech? He turned around, and stared right into the mandible-filled face of the gargantuan.
"Oh, God," Fox gasped.
Suddenly, Fox was swept off of his feet and landed on some metal object. He was floating in midair, and turned several times to avoid the blasts from the mech. He looked down. He was on top of a Longsword. A golden Longsword. He was on top of Xamuros.
The hovercraft picked up Marcus and zoomed away. After going down several dozen blocks, the hovercraft braked, making the two passengers fly off and land face-down on the ground. The Longsword unfolded itself, revealing Xamuros in bipedal form.
"What were you two thinking?!" the field master exclaimed. "Why the heck did you dare confront a Harvester up close and-?"
"Whoa, slow down," Fox interrupted. "That mech back there was a Harvester?"
Xamuros sighed, "Yes, Commander Fox. That thing was a Harvester." They all looked back to see several soldiers confront the mech just a few blocks away, the bullets pinging off of the monster.
"Why's it called a Harvester?" Marcus asked.
The Harvester suddenly extended its tentacles out of its elbow joints, and they dug into the chest cavity of two of the soldiers. The two troops tried to pry them off, but were hoisted into the air by the tentacles. Their bodies jerked as if something was being sucked out of their bodies. The soldiers squirmed one last time before falling limp. The Harvester detached its tentacles, and repeated the process for the other soldiers who couldn't get away in time.
"That's why," Xamuros shook his head. "The Harvesters are a special kind of mech that acts as a mobile siphoning facility. However, it doesn't have the power to siphon energy from the core of a planet, so it drains energy from enemy soldiers, like you just saw. It can also drain energy from anything that produces energy- electric poles, mechs, Spades, soldiers, hovercars, and the list goes on. Sometimes it produces so much energy that it must vent it out through its weapons- the particle-charge cannons and its gravity disruptor, which you both were hit by. Their armor is virtually impenetrable to any weapon."
"So how do we stop it?" Marcus asked, ducking as the mech threw a tank it drained over his head.
"Does anyone here have a three-hundred-megaton explosive?" Xamuros inquired. The two foxes dropped their jaws open. He continued, "That's what I thought. Right now, there's now way we can destroy that thing, unless…"
"'Unless'?" Fox repeated, also ducking as a lamppost drained by the Harvester landed behind him.
"Unless we starve it of energy," Xamuros answered. "It operates through a continuous supply of planetary energy, so once we starve it-" He paused to cut a comm tower that was drained in half so that it didn't hit him.
"-we'll take it out of commission!" Marcus finished.
"Yep," Xamuros nodded. "Problem is, we don't have anyway to do that except by trapping it in a prison where it can't escape. Any ideas?"
Everyone looked around and took notice of the several skyscrapers that conveniently surrounded the area where the mech was in a circular fashion.
"Dominoes, anyone?" Fox asked, a smile stretching across his muzzle. Xamuros spun his head around.
* * *
It's part 3 of 6, and we're starting to see still more of the humans' mad inventions. This time, there's electronic fog, a new Drone-class mech, and...the big, bad Harvester-class mech. By the way, once I finish posting up all of Contact's chapters (eventually...), I'm going to post up a database of every damn thing that appears in the whole Contact Saga. So far, it's fifty-two pages long, last I checked.
So I have a really, really active imagination. XD
Anyways, hope you've been enjoying the story so far.
