"So, what happens if no one responds to the beacon?" Griffon asked.
"They won't leave us to die here. We're still human after all," Madeline retorted.
"Actually, going off of an entirely biological standpoint we're only three percent human. The rest of our DNA changes based on any external forces. Our brains aren't even the same shape as humans anymore and have started growing down our spinal columns," Loyd mentioned as he walked back into the room. "The beacons have been turned on and we've already been contacted by the outer colonies who are sending a full battalion to our current position. They also mentioned that since the sand storm was coming down a large number of swarmlings have been digging themselves out and clustering together to our south east." Loyd paused as Madeline realized just how screwed they all were. "If you want to survive, I suggest you all get to the hangar."
xX to the hangar Xx
"Everyone here?" Loyd asked. "Then let's begin talking about how we're going to try and survive this next attack. We won't be able to outrun this swarm, they have too many fast movers among them. We have thirteen hours before the swarm reaches our outer defenses. In this time, we need to set up a perimeter wall and dig a trench around ourselves. We only need to hold out for five days before the outer colonies battalion arrive. In exchange for our help, they want the neural control system upgrades we have."
The room was deathly quiet for a moment as everyone weighed their options.
Argenti raised her hand to ask a question. "Sir, why don't we just take to the air? Are the warp crystals not functioning?"
Loyd looked down at Argenti and smiled. "That would work if we could figure out where they went. They disappeared shortly after we arrived. I believe the energy spikes we've been detecting on mars are them. The only other aircraft we have are incapable of lifting the crawler while it's loaded down with food and water."
"Then what about transferring the food and water to one of our aircraft and flying away without the crawler?" another of the younglings asked.
"That's not an option as we will lose our refinery if we don't take the crawler. And none of you are going to want to go back to using stone furnaces to smelt the ore," Tiny stated.
"That and we won't have the air purifiers for when the next sand storm occurs," Griffon added.
"This next battle we'll need to handle with our superior intelligence and speed instead of giving the enemy a chance to use their numbers. The only way I see any of us surviving this encounter is by using the CTAS as a last line of defense. Their primary weapons will still be their spears and shields but with a little added punch from Griffon's latest discovery." Loyd stepped aside as Griffon took center stage.
"We all know how the energy crystals work but we've never thought about what happens when you detonate them. My work over the past few days has been devoted to tuning a laser to cause a microburst from a crystal without destroying it. And the new spearheads that were installed earlier are my achievement. A continuous low-frequency laser can charge a crystal over a few seconds to release an enormous amount of energy in a single short burst. Effectively turning the crystals themselves into a focusing lens."
Jim stepped forward after Griffon and pulled out an air writer. "The enemy will be coming from the south east but we have to prepare for them to encircle us at some point during their attack. The enemy numbers just shy of seven million and are all the size as a large dog. The first ring of defense will be our trenches, followed directly by a sloped wall covered in razor wire. After the wall, we will have a group of laser batteries with overlapping fields of fire. Another trench and wall will be built behind these batteries with small gaps for everyone to retreat through. Behind the second defensive wall will be a line of trenches with razor wire covering everything except the trenches. If the enemy tries to use the trenches, we will simply destroy them. On the other end of this, no man's land will be the CTAS in dugouts with additional laser batteries positioned either side of them. If this line falls all of our aircraft will already be ready for takeoff and we'll overload the furnaces with some of the nuclear fuel the away team recovered from Chernobyl. If this final line breaks, we'll have to abandon the planet and the outer colonies will have full access to all of our technology from the other crawler. Are there any questions?"
One of the children raised their hands. "What about all of the bodies? Won't they start piling up?"
"That's why we're using lasers the bodies should burn and blow away as ash with the wind. Anything else?"
The room remained silent.
"Then Loyd will give each group their assignments."
Loyd stepped forward with a tablet and a micro projector. He turned the projector on and revealed a list of names and jobs. "Find your name on the list and get to work on your assigned task. For those of you who need tools for your job, they are positioned in four piles in each of the cardinal directions around the crawler. Those of you who are not on the list are to pilot a CTAS and help wherever you can. We only have eighteen hours before first contact so get to it!"
The assembly ran in every direction getting to work.
"Commander Loyd, there aren't enough CTAS for all of us. We need one more," Argenti said.
"You're coming with me. I need another brain to tackle an issue in the command room."
The two of them walked away from the rest of the younglings and rejoined the rest of the commanders. The halo table had a projection of the crawler and its surroundings as everyone started working on the fortifications.
Sara looked up from where she was working on something and waved over at Loyd and Argenti.
"We have the laser batteries in the production queue. Next, we need to get that razor wire set up," Madeline stated.
��We're going to need to strip several of the plates off the crawler to get the resources we need. The laser cannons we had installed are still broken but we can assign some of the trenchers to both of those jobs once they finish," Jim added.
"We're also going to need to feed everyone before the battle so once the laser batteries are set up, we can pull some of those people away to fix dinner."
Loyd stepped forward. "We have eighteen hours, right? It's 20:00 right now! The first wave is going to hit us with the sun setting. We need to add floodlights to our production queue."
"Or we can use the lasers themselves as floodlights if we run out of time. Just remove the focusing lens and add a divergent lens and flood the entire area in light," Argenti commented.
"That only works if the swarm doesn't attack in as big a group," Griffon replied.
Loyd leaned over the table. "Not if we have the lenses swapped out after every burst. You said yourself the lens would get too hot, so why not change out the lens between each shot? Rotate the lenses at high speed like a Gatling gun."
Griffon scratched his chin. "It should work. The only issue is that I've gotta change the design in the fabricator." He stood. "I shall return."
"Then that fixes one of our problems, now we need to figure out how to take out those flying bastards that are going to hit right after the first wave," Madeline stated annoyed.
"Why would we need to do anything differently? We just use the laser batteries that aren't being attacked to take them out. If that doesn't work, we can always use some of the sulfides we got from that ancient warehouse."
"How would that help?"
"If we used some sort of rocket to get them over the enemy, the explosion should scatter the sulfide like shrapnel which would take the fliers out of the air in a massive corrosive fireball."
"The odds of that working are slim but I don't think anyone has a better idea," Tiny admitted.
"Then run tell Griffon we need some of our missiles swapped out,"
Sara sat back looking at what she had been making with a smug look on her face. "This siege is going to be fun if we're allowed to use chemical weapons."
"Why do you say that?" Loyd asked, unable to stop himself from smiling from the blood lust building inside him.
"What kind of psychological scar do you think we can send through to the swarm hive mind? We can poison one or two of the swarmlings with one of those drugs used in interrogation back on mars and watch as the entire swarm curls up in pain."
"Are you talking about the wildfire drug?!" Madeline cried. "That stuff was outlawed minutes after the first batch was made! How the hell do you think we're going to make it here?"
"We don't need the wildfire; we just need silica needles and lots of them. We're going to mass-produce the Gympie bush needles and spread them around the area outside our defenses," Argenti explained, an evil smile spread across her face. "We're going to manufacture the most painful thing from an Earth plant to slow down the swarm."