34

Saturday Morning, February 6th, 2011

Remote Stretch of US Route 4

Vermont​

Dragon > Confirmed by drone, no civilians for three quarters of a mile. That's the best we're going to get, the population only gets denser east of here, and there will be even more civilian flights to divert than I'm handling already. I believe we should go now.

Distantly, I took in a deep breath and let it out.

Fear, anxiety, uncertainty.

These things were not needed for the plan, so I set them aside and grasped the keen edge of clarity.

Focus is what I would need.

Scientia > Okay, agreed. We're doing this.

The Spark's door swung open and I stepped out, allowing myself to fall. Slight pulses from the maneuvering jets positioned at key points on the upgraded armored suit I was wearing kept me on course for the road.

Scientia > Final check?

Dragon > Target lock on primary target confirmed. Capacitors are full, radiators deploying for alpha strike.

Prometheus > Drones are holding station and camouflaged, they are maintaining line of sight on you and the targets, Miss.

Hephaestus > Spark adjusting relative velocity for ground-level jump as needed.

Ares > The Gunboat Diplomacy is on station and camoed up, all systems green, Ma'am. Drone telemetry feeds are five by five, target locks are good. Sanitizer armed and ready to deploy. Secondary antimatter munitions armed and ready to deploy. Point defense capacitor bank at full charge. Main gun aligned in case you need a minimum power atmospheric shot.

Dragon > Let's hope we don't have to go that far.

I'd put the Gunboat Diplomacy together with the assistance of Dragon's manufacturing capabilities in the week since our conversation with Cauldron. Together we'd done in that time what might have taken me two months on my own, Dragon soaking up knowledge like a sponge as fast as I could teach her all the while. Most of the time I sat in class or killed time shopping with Victoria I was explaining scientific principles and engineering tricks. The most important were written up as new papers published by Scientia, but those each took long enough that I expected to spend many years getting everything important out into the world and fully described.

I'd been somewhat surprised she hadn't pushed back against some of the things I'd loaded up the ship with, but Dragon seemed to be a believer in preparedness through having options. Among them, firepower.

I wasn't sure if it was my knowledge of what we were up against, or her experience of being frustrated by enemies her weapons couldn't punch hard enough to stop, Endbringers included.

In any case, at twice the size of the Spark the Gunboat Diplomacy was a sleek, heavily-armored instrument of war that carried no production capacity or cargo space.

Only death.

The ship's secondary armaments consisted of a rack of missiles with antimatter warheads in a range of sizes from tactical to city-leveler, gimbaled x-ray point defense lasers capable of vaporizing holes through main battle tanks, and a special surprise for this mission.

The main gun was a mass driver taken to physical extremes. In true human style it weaponized the space-warping technology created to make the FTL drive possible. When the capacitor banks dumped a full charge it briefly filled the barrel with a wavefront of tightly contained gravitational gradient, in a magnitude not seen elsewhere in the universe outside of the vicinity of a singularity. The horrifying recoil was dumped outward onto the fabric of spacetime itself in the form of intense gravitational waves to prevent firing from accelerating the ship more than fast enough to shred it into subatomic particles.

In space the relativistic gravity cannon could erase any unsuspecting conventional target like the almighty hammer of an angry god.

Throwing a full power shot in Earth's atmosphere would cause uncontrolled fusion the moment the subatomic remains of the metamaterial slug left the evacuated barrel and struck air, flowing forward as the disintegrating slug continued to travel to its target. The effects would be similar to a strategic thermonuclear weapon, and only a perfectly timed FTL jump would enable the craft to survive.

Low power shots that merely hit on a more human scale were possible, if still extraordinarily destructive.

Scientia > Agreed.

I hit the ground by the road more than ten seconds later, the impact light enough that I barely needed to bend my knees. Another application of exotic matter; I had normal inertia, but gravity barely pulled me down. It took quite a bit of getting used to, but strength augmented by power armor combined with little effective weight meant that I had combat mobility that could make a butterfly envious. I had to step carefully when I didn't want to launch myself high into the air.

Ares > Fourteen seconds to contact. Primary target visually confirmed. Driver's seat.

Dragon > I see it. I've got a firing solution.

I could see the targets down the road. A semi-truck with a grey trailer was followed by a large RV, and distantly behind them both trailed a white van.

I double checked that my armor's camouflage layer was active, and drew Excalibur from my waist with a gentle tug to overcome the magnetic lock. Positioning myself just off the shoulder of the road I held my body side on, hiding Excalibur and the scaled-up flechette handgun with my body.

Ares > Four seconds.

Dragon > Dumping charge, cascade begun. No abort.

Three seconds later the truck was nearly on me, and I spoke aloud. "Burn."

A column of brilliant yellow light obliterated the white van, Dragon's largest artillery laser making the air scream as it struck without warning from the craft she'd positioned high in the atmosphere above.

I was already moving. Excalibur came up in my hand and ignited, burning through the wheels and side of the truck as its momentum carried it past me. The RV behind it tried to swerve out of the way but I'd anticipated the driver's instinctive reaction and was already moving. Excalibur's blade bit into its wheels and undercarriage.

Scientia > Please tell me you got him, or this is going to be a short fight.

The truck and RV tipped sideways and skidded violently down the road, screeching against the pavement until they each came to a stop.

Dragon > Smoke and thermal bloom are inhibiting my sensors more than expected, one moment. I'm using the reserve liquid helium coolant, capacitors are recharging. At least forty seconds until another shot is available.

Ares > With the primary target's status unknown, you should engage the rest while they're stunned, Ma'am.

I thought about it for a moment.

Scientia > No, if the primary target is still up I won't be accomplishing much on the ground anyway. Might as well stick to the plan and put on a show.

I deactivated Excalibur with a thought, and then my camouflage. My armor reverted to its natural white as though I'd appeared out of thin air. Channeling my knowledge of acting I sauntered into the road. My every movement, despite the armor in the way, conveyed confidence, and above all, contempt.

Ares > No sign of the primary's projection. It should have moved him by now if it was active. I have high confidence of target elimination.

Dragon > Agreed, but I could engage with the standby Dragonflight just in case.

Scientia > Negative, stick to the plan. Remember, our goal isn't just to win, here. It's to make a statement. Besides, I wouldn't want the silicakinetic ruining so many suits, and we're trying to keep your new capabilities under wraps.

"Come on already!" I called out, the armor amplifying my voice.

I spared the former location of the van a glance. Through the billowing cloud of smoke I could see little but the diffuse red glow of molten tarmac, but if William Manton had survived our alpha strike it seemed likely the Siberian would have done something by now.

A massive claw ripped through the former top of the ruined semi-trailer, now laying on its side. The metal crumpled like foil and shrieked with a sound that put my teeth on edge.

The massive monster inside wriggled out and got to its massive clawed feet, taller than a man at the shoulder. Its scaled hide was shades of grey and black, save for the eyes and mouth.

Far too many eyes, and a far too-large mouth.

"Hello, Ned," I said, filling my voice with convincing casual disregard for the massive and deadly monster that was once a man.

"Who the fuck are you?" the thing that had once been a man growled.

"Your death," I answered, as though it were inevitable.

He made a harsh hacking sound that I realized was laughter. "I'd like to see you try, tin man. I'll taste your guts."

"Unlikely," I responded with dismissive certainty. "You're going to die here."

"I'll melt your bones!" he roared, and reared back.

My lips quirked. Predictable, as we expected. I was already in the air when the spray of acid hit where I'd been standing, visibly melting the tarmac.

I couldn't get cocky though. Crawler's super acid might just be a legitimate threat to me. Its chemistry wasn't understood, if it even worked by chemistry at all.

Scientia > Crawler is now primary. Requesting fire support, as planned. Dragon?

Dragon > Resonance crystal is still boiling coolant. Twenty seconds, any sooner will slag it. Tracking target.

I landed as light as a feather, my movements flowing with unconscious and perfect grace. Crawler lunged and I launched myself into the air again. Triumphantly, he spat at where my ballistic arc would take me. A thought arrested my momentum with my armor's thrusters, and I came down outside of Crawler's reach.

"You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you Ned?" I taunted him.

"FIGHT ME!" he screamed.

I shook my head. "I'm not going to fight you, Ned. I am going to kill you."

He spat acid again, before charging at me. I danced out of the way, foregoing an excellent opportunity to cut off some limbs with Excalibur as he thundered past.

I didn't want him developing resistance just yet.

"Have you not figured it out yet, Ned? The Siberian is already dead. And after you I'll be killing the rest of them."

About to charge again, he hesitated.

A moment of doubt?

He roared again and resumed his charge.

Dragon > Base temperature reached. Dumping charge, cascade begun. Get clear!

My legs flexed and I catapulted myself into the air. Crawler jumped after me, and a powerful thruster pulse threw me forty feet away by the time the monster landed with a meaty boom.

Then a pillar of yellow light once again cleaved the sky, air exploding in its wake.

As soon as I landed I raced into the smoke. Crawler's regeneration was so fast I had a very short window, and his rapid adaptation meant that the same method of stripping away the bulk of his flesh likely wouldn't work twice.

My steps soon found me wading calf-deep in molten rock that was once the road and its foundation, my vision obscured by smoke beyond a few feet.

Navigating by dead reckoning, I tripped over the quickly growing fleshy ball, burning even as it regenerated and grew.

Excalibur's blade loyally thundered into existence at my call and I thrust. The incredible heat burned away the flesh to reveal a hard black sphere underneath the size of a softball.

His core.

"Come on…" I grunted.

The sphere reddened with heat, but the flesh it grew was becoming stubborn, denser and slower to incinerate.

"Come on…" I urged.

The sphere whitened as it heated further, but some of the flesh was no longer burning away.

With a thought and a grimace I disabled Excalibur's safeties and increased the flow to the cusp of the theoretical red line.

Matter annihilated with antimatter, and forth sprung the fury of the fires of creation harnessed by persistence and insight. Human ingenuity met the resilience of Entity evolution and brought battle.

At last I perceived a crack in the sphere despite the incredible intensity of light, and then I was abruptly flying back, tumbling over the ground.

I stopped the tumble and used the inertia to stand, replaying in slow motion what I'd seen.

Crawler's core had evidently finally had enough and exploded.

I checked my hand. Excalibur was there, stuck by a magnetic lock, but glowing white hot. After operating beyond the safe limit it needed time to cool.

The lower sections of my armor weren't much better after having been immersed in molten rock.

Scientia > Crawler down.

Dragon > Confirmed. Good work, but don't get sloppy now.

Mouse Protector > Go Sci!

I reattached Excalibur to my waist so it could cool after the stunt I'd just pulled with it. I didn't really need its help now, anyway. The only two real threats to me were dead, and it was time for the second phase.

If I'd just wanted the Nine dead I could have done it from orbit in any of a variety of sudden and explosive ways. I was here on the ground for two reasons, and the first was to make a statement. The flight of camouflaged drones above, controlled by Prometheus, weren't just to give Dragon and Ares targeting solutions. They were recording the fight from a dozen angles to supplement the feed from my armor.

The sound of smashing glass drew my attention to the semi's cab. A scarred, ugly, and muscular form in a stained wife beater and jeans had kicked out the truck's battered windshield and was crawling out.

Hatchet Face.

Jack looked dazed, still in the driver's seat of the truck beside him.

Confident strides took me towards the power-nullifier. He managed to recover his hatchet just before I reached him.

"Yer gonna die," he growled at me.

"Perhaps, but not today," I said, exuding serene confidence.

He swung his axe. His form was so sloppy as to be non-existent, relying entirely on his brute rating to give great strength and speed to his blows.

With his power depriving his enemies of their powers, he'd never needed to be better.

I nonchalantly caught the axe by the blade and held it firmly in my grip, just to make my point.

His eyes widened, and I let him strain fruitlessly against me for a moment with his enhanced strength before I kicked low, sweeping his legs out from under him and disarming him of the axe in one combined movement. He went down on his back and opened his mouth to say something, but I spun the axe around into a secure two-handed grip, raised it high, and brought it down with every ounce of strength my powered armor and perfected synthetic muscle could bring to bear.

The air cracked as the axe broke the sound barrier, and crushed his skull like an egg with a tremendous boom as I brought it down between his eyes.

I dropped the remains of the axe haft. The wood above my hand had exploded into splinters, and the head was a shattered mess of metal fragments.

A black censor bar briefly appeared in my vision over Jack's mouth, indicating that he had tried to say something. Software I'd written in preparation for the fight had filtered out his voice from my audio feed and ensured that I couldn't accidentally read his lips. If he started trying to communicate by miming it would block out his whole body, just to be safe.

I knew his power probably only worked on parahumans, but I could take no chances. If there existed any possibility at all that he could twist my brain then I would have to be a moron to listen to one word out of Jack Slash.

A reflexive sidestep took me out of the path of the windshield as it leapt into the air and broke into a cloud of shards, along with the semi's other windows and the windows of the RV. The glass flowed into the air and joined Shatterbird there as armor, outspread wings, and a revolving cloud of razor sharp shards.

I took my new gun off my waist and raised it, mentally selecting the settings I wanted. Shatterbird reacted instantly by rearranging much of her glass cloud into extra layers of armor in front of her and began to move evasively while she directed another flow of glass straight at me.

When the moment was right I fired. Another crack and boom rent the air as an ultra-hard magnetic monopole penetrator dove unimpeded at many times the speed of sound through all the layers of glass that Shatterbird had arranged in front of her.

Her head exploded and her limp corpse fell out of the sky, glass raining down around it.

I made my way towards the RV. I was keeping to the plan and saving Jack for last. Both for dramatic reasons, and because I had a very specific use for Jack that would have to wait until Excalibur cooled a bit more.

Had Dragon and I not created the plan while far outside the solar system I would have reacted to any thought of giving Jack a reprieve by instantly killing him, just to be safe. Even with every precaution we weren't completely sure about the limits of his power to influence minds, and that made me nervous.

Mannequin jumped out of the side of the RV that was facing up, the windows absent with all the glass seized by Shatterbird. His head swiveled to face me, nearly straight behind him, the clearly inhuman movement creepy. The misshapen body's off-white shade, the color of bleached bone, only made it worse.

He turned to face me, and a jump took him to the ground. I continued my advance.

"Hello, Alan. I'm sorry for what the Simurgh did to you," I said.

His right arm became a blender of whirling blades that he launched at me, chain unspooling from inside his body to keep the arm physically connected.

My body and armor moved faster than any normal human, and I possessed the specialized knowledge and skill needed to use them at that speed. Mastery of entire families of martial arts designed for augmented humans, artificial bodies, AI-controlled robots, and powered armor answered my call.

With perfected reflexes I caught the weaponized arm behind the whirling blades, smoothly reattaching my gun to my waist so both hands could grip it securely. Then I stepped high and coiled the chain around my ankle with a circular motion before bringing it back down.

Power armor servos and engineered muscle strained as I pulled the section of chain between the arm and my foot taut and kept pulling. The tough tinker alloy held out for a moment, and Mannequin pulled himself forward towards me at speed by reeling in the chain.

Then with a loud ping a link finally gave and snapped. I tossed the still whirling arm aside and caught the charging Mannequin in the head with a powerful kick, exploiting a split second of hesitation in his guard that must have been from surprise.

He tumbled onto his back but started to get up immediately, limbs bending wrong to speed the movement. I bore down on him, thrusters making up for my lack of attraction to the force of gravity, pushing me down as I pinned his torso to the ground with my knee. My right hand took hold of his remaining forearm, preventing him from bringing more whirling blades to bear. My left gripped his neck.

He tried to buck under me, his legs delivering powerful but fruitless blows to my armored back. I simply pulled.

His head tore off first, and I tossed it aside. It was nothing but a decoy; the mad tinker had long since relocated his brain. His remaining arm partially unreeled in response to my pull, doubtlessly trying to prevent me from ripping it off.

With my left hand freed, I gripped the forearm chain and strained until a link gave. I tossed the forearm aside as well and pivoted.

Something landed on my back. I reached and grabbed it.

One of Bonesaw's horrible spider robots, made with human nervous tissue. It tried fruitlessly to inject me with something, needle fangs unable to penetrate my armor.

Not that any venom or disease, tinker or mundane, would have done anything to me anyway, but Bonesaw didn't know what she was currently dealing with.

I smashed the robot against the ground and then resumed dealing with Mannequin. He thrashed increasingly desperately until I tore off the second leg and tossed it aside.

The life support systems in each of his sealed body compartments would keep him alive, but disconnected and without leverage he was harmless.

I stood, only to be knocked over by a concussive explosion. I turned the energy into a controlled roll and came up on my feet.

Burnscar's young, burn-spotted face showed no emotion as she formed a ball of condensed, intense flame between her hands and prepared to throw it from where she stood on top of the RV. Beside her Bonesaw was doing something to another one of her spiders.

I drew my gun again and mentally changed the settings to non-lethal, and extra special non-lethal.

My first shot passed through a burst of flame as Burnscar teleported. The second struck Bonesaw in the lower back with a capsule that buried itself beneath her implanted subdermal armor and began pumping enough anesthetic and paralytic into her to incapacitate a herd of elephants.

I hoped it would keep the medical tinker busy for a minute, although I wasn't sure I would get even that much. I'd had to make sure an overdose would do no more than incapacitate even if I underestimated her implants and abilities, which severely limited how creative I could be with the toxins.

She may have committed unspeakable atrocities, but she was also an abused child. I wasn't going to execute her when I had alternatives, kill order be damned.

I spun, using the sight of the drones above to help spot Burnscar. She'd stepped out of the flames of the burning asphalt around the molten hole where Manton's van had once been, and with a motion of her hand sent a stream of flame in my direction.

The heat was a light tickle compared to close proximity with Excalibur, the first and foremost design requirement that the outer armor layer had been built to sustain. I ignored the flame in favor of snapping off another shot.

She teleported. I shot and missed as she teleported again.

I tried flashing my armor a brilliant white, enough to dazzle a normal human, and then fired.

She teleported, her ability to see evidently unimpaired.

An aspect of the immunity to fire given to her by her power, maybe? It would stand to reason, with fire being bright.

Scientia > Ares?

Ares > Point defense lasers could aim quickly enough to strike between jumps, but would maim or kill her, Ma'am.

Burnscar - Mimi - wasn't entirely to blame for her murders. Her power altered her cognition to the point where she seemed incapable of understanding that hurting people was wrong, and inflicted terrible depression on her when she didn't use it.

She likely had at least some of the blame for her actions, but the waters of moral culpability were muddied enough that I wasn't prepared to kill her out of hand.

I thought through what else I'd brought, trying to think of what might work. It would have to be something that could react very quickly, so a laser was a good choice, but the x-ray lasers on the Gunboat Diplomacy were designed to be far too destructive.

Scientia > ...Those aren't the only lasers you have. Hit her in the eyes with the comms laser. Temporary blindness only, if you can. Hard to judge her degree of resistance.

Ares > Aye, Ma'am, locking on the teleporting target's eyes from forty thousand feet through smoke and heat shimmer with an improvised weapon. Good thing you always make the best, or this might have been difficult.

Burnscar teleported again, and the sarcastic VI tracked and fired. Burnscar reflexively jerked her head to the side and I seized the opportunity. My shot hit her in the gut, and she blindly sent an ineffectual wave of flame in my direction before going down.

Scientia > Nice shot, Ares.

Ares > Thank you, Ma'am.

Dragon > One of these days your algorithms are going to stop scaring me.

Scientia > I'll show you some approaches that are even better. I was in a rush at the time.

Surveying the field, what wasn't on fire was mostly a charred wreck. I saw Bonesaw sluggishly lifting herself up, so I hit her with another special round. She shuddered, weakly failing to pull it out before she slumped once again. Her implants would no doubt deal with it soon, but it bought me time.

Then I saw Jack land on the ground, having recovered from the crash enough to pull himself out of the cab. His eyes met my helmet, and in that moment he knew I'd seen him.

Impressively quickly he drew a bowie knife from beneath his coat and slashed with it. The projected edge did nothing appreciable to my armor.

I strode toward him, as inevitable as a funeral march.

He kept trying. Different blades, different angles, my helmet and joints. He was trying to find a weak point.

There were none.

When he turned to flee I shot him in the calf with an uncoated penetrator. He went down, probably screaming, although my software was blocking out the sound and his mouth when he twisted to face me on the ground.

"No one can hear you, Jacob. Nothing you say or do matters now," I said, reattaching my pistol to my waist and drawing Excalibur, sufficiently cooled for what I was going to need it for. "The world has no room in it for monsters like you."

He raised one arm, slashing ineffectually at me with a butterfly knife and his power while trying to crawl away.

"Goodbye, Jacob."

Wielded with the perfected lethality of a billion generations of humanity, Excalibur flashed in a single clean arc. Jack Slash's head tumbled to the ground, and his body slumped after it.

I reattached Excalibur to my waist and used my HUD to find the nearest camera drone overhead and drew it down towards me for a dramatically framed shot, the debris and smoke of the end of the Slaughterhouse Nine punctuating the scene behind me.

"Hello. My name is Scientia. I am the author of all of the papers you may have heard of by now, and yes, everything in them is real and not tinkertech. I'm in no danger of running out soon, either."

With a magnetic click I released the lock on my helmet and pulled it off, long brown hair tumbling out and revealing the face I'd chosen for this remotely operated war body.

My old face. Taylor's identity had to be protected. But with my old face I could unmask without losing anything important, or endangering the people in Taylor's life. It was a dramatic gesture, but making a dramatic gesture was my goal. To connect in a way that would leave an impression.

I looked into the camera, commanding attention with my eyes.

"There are some things I want everyone to know. I am here because I believe in us, in humanity. I know that we still have the promise of a bright future. A future with no more monsters, with no more disasters that desolate cities, with no more desperation and poverty, with no more dictators and tyrants.

"I am here to build that future. Humanity will live, and more than live. It will thrive. I will not stop working until we all see our furthest horizon. Every last person will be free to seek their own destiny in peace and prosperity."

I made a sweeping gesture to encompass the scene around me. "And woe to every monster that stands in my way. I won't let them stop me, because as long as you need me I will be your sword, your shield, and your guide in the dark. I won't let any monster or challenge stop you, either. Together we will fix all that can be fixed, build all that can be built, and protect all that we love."

With an understated and confident smile I offered the camera a jaunty salute, and mentally marked the end of the recording.

Dragon > Good on the first take, I think. Although I'm still on the fence about calling out all the world's monsters and tyrants. They make for a long list.

I put my helmet back on. All the smoke around wasn't a threat. This war body could pass for biological to observers, but internally it was mostly solid state technology assembled molecule by molecule. Getting it in my eyes was still an annoyance.

Scientia > It's a judgment call, but I still think the benefits outweigh the risks. Communicating clearly from the outset helps build trust and inspire, and that's what this approach was all about. Besides, luring some of the monsters out could prove useful, and they'll be looking for the wrong face anyway. Mouse, I'm ready for you.

Mouse Protector > Finally!

Mouse Protector popped into existence next to me wearing a sealed biohazard suit with added mouse ears. She removed a gloved hand from my still warm armor and set down the heavy metal case she held.

"One mouse trap for a very, very naughty mouse," she said, offering Jack Slash's head a glare.

"Thank you for wearing the suit," I said. "No telling what Bonesaw might have released, and I wouldn't want to have to grow you a new body."

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "Don't want my eyeballs to melt, I get it."

I popped the lid on the case, filled with nutrient and nanite-rich goo while she walked over and gave the mass murderer's corpse a sharp kick before picking up his head. I took it from her when she brought it back and submerged it in the goo before closing the lid.

Mouse Protector managed a satisfied smile through the plastic faceplate as she hefted the case. "Alright, I'll get your pet head back to your head collection."

"One head isn't a collection," I protested.

"Mannequin's counts," she pointed out.

I looked at where Mannequin's pieces lay and back at Mouse Protector.

"I haven't actually collected that yet," I countered, reaching ineffectually for the first argument that came to mind.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your weird hobby," she said with a wink, and disappeared.

I sighed and made my way over to the unconscious Burnscar. "Door to the new Burnscar cell, please," I said out loud.

One of Doormaker's portals obligingly appeared in the air, and I muscled the limp body through before it closed.

I repeated the process for Bonesaw and then Mannequin's pieces. They each got different cells that Dragon had put together. Bonesaw's had a removable robotic surgical suite. After I'd finished here the first thing I was doing was stripping out her horror show of cybernetic implants.

Scientia > Ready for evac.

Hephaestus > Acknowledged.

The Spark appeared in the air next to me, hovering a foot off the ground as the door slid open. I got in, the door slid closed, and I held on as I took manual control and blasted us off on conventional engines to get some distance from ground zero.

When we were high enough I messaged Dragon.

Scientia > Is the area still clear of civilians?

Dragon > Yes, drones are obstructing traffic. You still have three quarters of a mile of clearance.

Scientia > Okay. Ares, deploy the sterilizer bomb.

Ares > Command acknowledged, Ma'am. Deploying.

An internal bay on the Gunboat Diplomacy opened and dropped a shiny silver cylinder the size of a large fire extinguisher. When it was at the right height and orientation it triggered.

In an instant a surging pulse of gamma rays bathed the whole area in a cone of enough radiation to light fires and kill every last living thing, down to radiation-resistant microorganisms under two meters of soil.

It would leave a huge circle of dead and burning forest, but we were taking no risks with anything Bonesaw might have prepared. The area would recover eventually.

Inside the Spark I stripped out of my power armor and laid the body down to go through a thorough sterilization cycle of its own. It might be immune to plagues, but I didn't want it acting as a carrier when I used it and the armor again. Drones would clean the outside of the Spark in space.

I withdrew my awareness from the war body and came back to myself, sitting comfortably cross-legged on Taylor's bed.

Time to operate remotely on Bonesaw, then get Mannequin's brain in the lab to see if we could figure out how to reverse Simurgh conditioning from it.

Burnscar would get professional counseling when she woke up, as well as Bonesaw.

Most of Jack Slash's brain was already being eaten by nanites. All I cared about from him was keeping the key parts of his brain alive enough to maintain a connection to his power so that I could learn from the existing neural architecture how to communicate with it.

And Dragon should be done patching together video feeds into something suitably well-edited soon.

All in all, a successful mission.

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♦ Topic: Announcing the End of the Slaughterhouse Nine

In: Boards ► News ► Events ►America

Scientia (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)

Posted on February 6th, 2011:

The Slaughterhouse Nine are no more. Video footage here, along with a special message. Please note that the footage contains death and graphic violence, and is not suitable for all audiences.

(