***Port propulsor disabled***
“I’m losing control!” he told himself. ANAD’s response was sluggish and he soon realized why.
All along the line of engagement, the enemy bots had unraveled their multi-stranded peptides and wrapped themselves tightly around each ANAD assembler, hugging the assemblers with arms of collapsing molecules.
Soon the entire line was a tangled snare of peptide chains, like balls of twine hopelessly knotted together.
Time to get ANAD some help, Winger decided. He opened another coupler channel.
“ANAD master to Detachment…Reaves, Singh…anybody…get the replicant swarms going! Get into pilot mode and get down here with me…”
He did what he could, trying every trick he could think of…first was to fire off the bond disrupters…see if I can zap these buggers off me…
He salvoed ANAD’s full array of disrupters, lighting up the tangle of thrashing molecule chains…again and again. Each jolt tore through tight covalent bonds in the enemy’s peptide chains, liberating thousands of electron volts but to no effect. If anything, the chains re-assembled even tighter, slowly crushing each ANAD assembler.
Winger gritted his teeth. If at first you don’t succeed… Next tactic was to try and slash his way out…he rammed his pyridine probes to full out, quickly re-configging the buckyball ends to something a little more deadly…an undulating knots of really reactive oxygens. With his new ‘swords’ thus in place, he revved ANAD’s propulsors to get some spin going, and tried slashing and cutting and flailing his way through the seaweed-like chains of enemy peptides.
The effect was even worse. Each time an enemy bot had its chain severed, it replicated a new one before Winger could maneuver ANAD through the opening. It was like hacking through a jungle thick with vine, only the vine grew back faster than you could cut it back.
Winger was getting frustrated. He thought briefly about executing a quantum collapse, but that was a desperation tactic, a retreat and besides, they had to know what the hell they were dealing with here inside Shavindra. If Symborg were here--
He’d save the quantum maneuver for later, if he needed it.
Still thrashing and hacking at the enemy bots, Winger caught a glimpse of some thermals on his scope…familiar blooms growing fast.
It was the cavalry.
His coupler circuit crackled. “Skipper, it’s Reaves, with Mighty Mite and Deeno on my flanks. We’re on max propulsor…sensing you’re stuck inside all that garbage up ahead—“
Winger was glad for the help. He knew perfectly well that the real nanotroopers were crouching near him on the floor of the temple inner chamber, while the ANAD swarms approaching were being remotely piloted. But all the same, it was like having his Detachment right with him even on this godforsaken molecular battlefield.
“Reaves, you and Deeno see if you can out replicate these buggers…big-bang if you have to. Barnes, close from your side and try to draw off some of this swarm.”
As the battlefield churned and heated up with max ANAD replication, Mighty Mite Barnes closed the distance, piloting her own ANAD swarm like a miniscule battalion, wading right into the middle of the fray.
“I’m going bang,” Reaves told him. She triggered off a max rate replication with her own swarm, churning the air with furious atom-grabbing. Deeno D’Nunzio did the same. Soon, the air around the chamber burned supernova hot as assemblers copied themselves and built structure like frantic brickmasons.
I hope this works, Winger thought. He was running out of tactical options fast.
The tactic was a basic ANAD operation: try to out-replicate the enemy and overwhelm him with sheer mass. With any luck, the Shavindra bots would soon find themselves smothered and unable to react fast enough to ANAD’s exponential attack.
Winger tried flexing his effectors and detected a slight loosening.
Maybe if I just fold up my outer pyridines…retract the buckyball ends…I can—
He tried it and was able to squirm free of the enemy bots’ grasp. Spinning up propulsors, he shot free of captivity…only to run into another knot of mechs. Winger flexed and thrashed his effectors but it was no use.
Shavindra bots were more maneuverable, quicker than ANAD.
“Sheila…it’s not working…I’m stuck in a bog of mechs here….”
“That’s not all, Skipper. I’ve got big thermals nearby and they’re not nano. Take a look on your viewer.”
Winger switched away from ANAD mode and squinted at the view on his eyepiece. Through the flickering fog of nanoscale combat, he made out the outlines of the generator platform, still winking in and out of view with rhythmic pulses. Beyond the platform, faintly visible, were shadowy forms, moving forms.
Winger realized they had more company in the chamber, human company.
“Let’s try to grab one of those techs, Sheila. You got any MOB canisters left?”
“Affirmative, Skipper.” The DPS tech scuttled along the chamber floor around the left side of the quantum generator platform, to get a better angle. Sergeant Victor Klimuk shadowed her moves, to give covering fire.
A new pulse erupted from the generator, deafening the chamber. As the decoherence waves radiated outward, every structure in their path winked out of view, smeared like rain on a windshield, before the passing probability waves collapsed into material stability again.
“Here goes—“ Reaves muttered. She aimed the MOB launcher at a cluster of technicians and fired off several rounds. Instantly, the burst of nanomechs engulfed the enemy and slammed them to the chamber floor.
“Got ‘em!” Klimuk pumped a fist. “I’ll grab that short one in front…cover me!”
Klimuk managed to seize a struggling technician and drag him back toward their position. The MOB barrier was already squeezing hard and the tech’s screams and gasps were muted by the suffocating blanket of mechs steadily contracting, pinning him down into the cocoon.
He offered no resistance as Klimuk and Reaves secured the prisoner and half-dragged, half-carried him back toward the chamber door.
Winger dove back into the fray that still threatened ANAD. All about the chamber, a dense fog had settled in, a fog of exponentially replicating assemblers locked in combat. The fog flickered and crackled with trillions of volts of ruptured bonds as the mechs battled from one end of the chamber to another.
ANAD was still in a straitjacket, enveloped in enemy bots. Winger spun propulsors and flexed effectors but it was no use. Despite his own increasing mass, ANAD seemed trapped.
“ANAD, I can’t out-maneuver these buggers. And we can’t out-bang ‘em into submission. They counter everything I come up with.”
Nanotroopers Episode 7: Hong Chui Page 12
