Sergeant Wormface sat atop one of two heavy vultures, currently parked ten miles away from the primary Azhurai Conglomerate fortress. Using his internal HUD screen as a display for the sensors of the vulture, he zoomed in, taking in the battlefield as a whole while some worms observed small parcels of the fight, each individual seamlessly adding their knowledge to the whole.


    Trenches sprawled around the circle of magnificent constructs. Like so many warding gargoyles they remained motionless in the face of the Singularity’s vast arsenal. Three grinding days of siegecraft had led to this moment, yet the shield remained—a translucent, humming dome that shimmered like liquid diamond under the constant barrage.


    Richard gave the final order, and dozens of officers complied in a staggered list of fire commands, starting with the most distant batteries and accounting for travel time. Within seconds fifty thousand guns turned the shield into a molten supernova. Thousands of artillery shells landed at once, shots landing in the staggered formation demanded by enemy shielding.


    Tens of thousands of troops fired as one, unleashing full auto barrages to scorch the air as they loosed continuous volleys against the barrier. Pulse cannons, their barrels glowing white-hot, sent lances of particle fire screaming toward the fortress’s defenses. Anti tank cannons -tracked beasts of war dug up from century old bunkers- fired hypersonic slugs, each impact sending seismic shockwaves through the radioactive air.


    And still, the shield endured.


    Richard’s shoulders slumped a micrometer lower with each passing second. “By the void mother…” he muttered, watching the barrage continued, cycling between first and second volleys with mechanical precision. The artillery corps adjusted their calibrations, unleashing a synchronized bombardment to coincide with the massed infantry fire. Athena’s promised Juggernauts fired their own barrage, three thousand high explosive missiles landing a half second behind the artillery strike like falling stars, slamming into the shield with apocalyptic force. Shockwaves knocked soldiers off their feet. While plumes of molten fire erupted from the impact zones.


    Yet when the dust cleared, the barrier still stood.


    Richard’s voice crackled over the comms. "Begin phase four.”


    Colossal energy arrays whined to life, rising from Singularity and Technomancy Headquarters alike as weapons meant to counter orbital battlestations lobed thunderous doom across the continent. Power cores burned blue-hot, siphoning reactor energy into the blows.


    For a moment, the shield flickered. A whisper of victory passed through the ranks. Then, with a deafening reverberation, the energy surged back into place, fully recharged by the combined solarium reactors of golems. Silence fell. Even the relentless artillery paused, their munitions spent in vain.


    Wormface drank it in, passing the visual and sensory data to his Queen. Pulse pounding. Today was the most awe-inspiring display of military force he had ever witnessed.


    And it had amounted to nothing.


    A new transmission came through, clipped and measured. "All units, fall back. The shield is beyond our capacity to breach."


    They had come with every weapon in the arsenal, every strategy, every ounce of tactical brilliance. And still, the fortress remained untouchable.


    —


    “Well shit. That was enough raw firepower to crack a whole damn fleet! Even the Death star would have melted!” I swear, grinding teeth. “Screw this, take us to the Tulverian HQ, Splendeur should have reached it by now.”


    “Yessir!” Calls Helen, kicking the hover tank’s repulsor engine into gear.


    We rise a few feet then zip over the battlefield, crossing no man’s land with no fear. Two vultures join us, the swifter jetbikes taking up defensive positions to our front and rear. We keep it to a scenic pace of a hundred and twenty miles per hour, broadcasting our transponder signals and active coms. Singularity forces read our scans and allow us to pass, most forces in full retreat.


    Richard took a careful count of each Azhurai golem, and calculated their output based on destroyed examples until we knew exactly how much firepower it would take to crack the shield. Based off the energy readings we took during the bombardment we exceeded that threshold by double, only to realize we underestimated the Azhurai’s internal reactors.


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    >Terran Thena: Uhm, can you double check these numbers Alaea?


    >Executrix Alaea: Already did, you’d need to bring ten times the firepower to drop that shield. Yeah, good fucking luck! That’s the same as a constant orbital bombardment of a hundred Singularity frigates! Or twenty Novan Battlespheres. I’m kinda impressed by those cheating bastards. Feels like they picked up their ball and went home. Antisocial cowards.


    >Terran Thena: The mission isn’t bravery. It’s economic dominance. Cowardly as that shield might be, it’s peak performance. Girls, a larger conglomerate ship landed on Earth…


    >Executrix Alaea: We need to tech up. Odin is just the beginning. Think Science Vessels on their true scale, with Drakken laser drills instead of that stupid little underslung dish. Richard is cooperating with us fully and we have more solarium reactors than I can use, like Project Odin is fully powered, frankly it’s overpowered.


    >Terran Thena: I’m groaning and laughing at that awful pun. Is this Graughing?


    >Matriarch Hygieia: wtf is in my head. Overpowered graughing? Pffft.


    Our Diamondback slows, reaching the Tulverian HQ siege zone and slipping into the trenches below. They built near a river delta and deliberately redirected three rivers through their trenches, keeping several feet of running water at all times. Smooth riverrocks line the trenches here, and I’m suddenly deeply curious on the details of Singularity tunneling tanks. How is it that we were able to knock out their outposts and lay siege?


    Scanners pick up singularity forces all around us, a classic encirclement though I notice our trenches are far shallower than expected, most likely a compromise between living perpetually waterlogged, and dying to plasma fire. Given a choice i’d take the plasma round over having both feet rot off.


    Alerts flash across my screen. Wormface jams his throttle to max, shooting ahead speeds that would break any vertebrate’s neck. Tulverian automated defenses lock onto the vulture and never fire.


    “Just like Alaea said, they have no power. At least, not enough to shoot.” I radio.


    “This feels like the worst trap I’ve ever seen. How can a gun aim, establish a radar lock, and then not pull the trigger without power? Emergency power should have shut down the sensors so they wouldn’t be accidentally discovered while vulnerable!” Wormface coms, circling back and scanning the gun emplacement thoroghly before catching up to us.


    We arrive at Tulverian HQ and find Splendeur, his black scaled shield bearer, and six Tulverians, all prime examples of carnivorous lizard warriors with fearsome bone crests scraping the sky and three inch claws protruding from once timid fingers. Even their jaws have bulged, with a row of teeth now jutting from their maws like coastal breakers.


    ‘Why are the iguanas looking more like velociraptors?’ I ask the Swarm.


    ‘Biological adaptation. Their bath removed all radiation and the small numbers encouraged a second tier of mutation. These ones are far stronger, although it seems to be a dead end for them. They’ll become a bit larger but can no longer differentiate into other Tulverian bioforms. A crude form of evolution.’ Wormface answers.


    Truth be told, I find the feature incredibly intriguing. Similarly to how one would view evolving an SCV into a warhound. Logical, confusing, and entirely how to solve widow memes. Those damn one shot wonders that get flown into your mineral line and explode with the force of a nuclear warhead, only to fly off in a medivac.


    I pop the hatch, splashing down into three feet of water. Shields push the water away, while my armor’s extra heavy reactor mass keeps me from sinking.


    “Oh, zat is impressive shielding commander.” Splendeur says, looking us up and down.


    Those eyes speak to my sensibilities, flicking from visors to shielding, to the railguns and pulsers in our hands. We’ve traded our old technician armor for the good shit. Black combat armor with shielding covers all my troopers, except for Helen who is still in her cloaking tech suit. I’ve considered rebuilding the cloak, but there are never enough fabrication cycles available, not when a cloaking device takes weeks to cook. At this point I’ve got our return to earth penciled into the schedule before I can make a sort of advanced physics lab to cook cloaking devices on the regular.


    “Alright General, let’s reclaim your base.”


    “Gladly!” Splendeur shouts, before hooting in his native tongue.


    The blast doors slide open, somehow avoiding any disturbance in the water as our alliance enters Tulverian HQ.


    ‘Hey Helen, what conditions will trigger Splendeur’s betrayal?’


    ‘The good general isn’t a general at all. He is a translation assistant. Before the bioweapons hit he was fifty fourth in line for command. So if one of his superiors survived, or he can obtain- uhm… the word doesn’t translate well, but it’s the iguana version of a Matriarch I guess. A breeder maybe? Yeah, a breeding sow. If one of them are present he can still wage war.’


    Great, if Splendeur’s babymoma is alive he’ll shoot us in the back. Of course that’s how it is.