Taking position at the front again, I began proceeding down the tunnel and only two minutes in we met resistance. Raising my weapon alongside gramps and my robots, we sent a storm of bullets and laser fire through the passage, easily slaughtering the armed molemen we stumbled upon on the way.
Stepping over their corpses that were filled with leaking bloody holes that were left courtesy of gramps and I and burning ones that were caused by my robots, we progressed along the passage coming across more and more armed molemen reinforcements the closer we got to the main chamber.
Our group killed our way through what must've been a minimum of 1,000 armed molemen. We fired so many rounds that it had even gotten to the point that we needed to retreat to let our weapons cool down before we could continue butchering them and making further progress. After fighting for a little over an hour, we started encroaching on the main chamber's entrance.
Slaughtering our way in the massive chamber we've been making our way towards these last several hours came into view. Scanning the area as we were killing our way in I saw what must've been cave ceiling of fifty feet in height and an area that covered tens of thousands of square feet that was all covered in luminescent plants providing light to the many, many thousands of human mole rat hybrids that currently inhabited the space.
"We've found the nest gramps, let's kill them all." I said, letting go of my NPDM.
"Leave none of them alive, kid." Gramps responded with a bloodthirsty grin from behind his armored helmet.
As my weapon came to rest against my abdomen, I opened the pouch I had magnetically attached to my war belt and started taking the many T-4 Plasma Grenades I had within and setting them to explode on contact and chucking them into the crowds of molemen. The instant the first one made contact, it blew up, releasing super heated plasma and annihilating 50 of them right out of the gate.
With the first going off, the many more I had sent flying across the massive space soon touched down, deleting swaths of them from existence and leaving the chamber's floor scorched. Gramps, seeing what I was doing, followed suit, becoming a human pitching machine like myself whilst my robots covered the place in a laser light show.
When I had depleted my plasma grenade stock, I swapped back over to my NPDM, placing the red dot's reticle on a nearby moleman's head and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apart with the 7.62 bullet I just fired. As that target's body began falling over, I kept applying pressure to the trigger and rapidly transitioned from one moleman to another, dispatching them with insane speed and ruthless efficiency.
We kept up the fire, sending hate at anything and everything that moved while tanking rounds from the hostile molemen. Ultimately, we killed and killed until there was but only one singular moleman remaining alive in the chamber. Walking up to the last remaining moleman, I saw the creature was broken and trembling in fear, not putting up even an ounce of resistance.
Not wanting this to go on any longer than it needed to, I took my FBLAR-1 Laser Assault Rifle that I had swapped to since my NPDM needed to cool. Aiming my laser assault rifle at its head, I pulled the trigger, sending a burst of laser fire through its dome, ending the killing there for the moment. At the end of it all, we had laid waste to the molemen, leaving the expansive chamber covered with streams of blood and piles of burnt and broken bodies.
"Damn, that was a hard fought battle. I even had to resort to my combat knife more than a few times there. Do you have any injuries, gramps?"
"Nothing serious, just some bruising." Gramps answered in his deep and rough voice, though it was missing the energy it usually had.
"Mm, what do you want to do now, old man? There are obviously more of them throughout this entire cave system that need to be exterminated, however our gear is getting more worn down than I'm okay with and both you and I have run completely dry on 7.62 ammunition. You also sound pretty tired, so why don't we call it here for today and pick things back up tomorrow?"
"Sounds good to me. I could use a nap."
Nodding my head, we looked around the place and gathered whatever loot we could bring with us without interfering with our combat ability and started the long journey to the foundry while keeping an eye out for any more molemen we may meet on the way back.
The return journey was relatively light on the molemen numbers, so it only took us slightly less than two hours to arrive back to the Genesis Foundry. If we hadn't encountered any molemen on our way, we could've cut that time even further, but I can't complain about being able to farm some more exp, equipment, and skill.
Whilst coming up on the facility's entrance, gramps said. "Dom, you did good today. Keep it up and you'll have no problem accomplishing what you want to."
"Thanks, gramps."
Just as our group closed in on the large armored doors of the facility, we heard rumbling, so we turned around to see what was up. What we saw as we turned around was a large swarm of molemen rapidly approaching us.
"Gramps, it seems like we still have work to do."
"It would appear that way, kid. Let's mow 'em down quickly and get some rest."
How do I want to handle this, I could trigger all the microfusion cell mines I have laid throughout the tunnel and kill most of them in an instant. However, I'd rather not collapse the mine tunnel and have to waste a ton of time clearing rubble and refortifying the tunnel.
If I fight it out normally with the two laser assault rifles I have with me, I'll more likely have to engage them in melee combat, which is something I'd rather avoid since it will just drag things out... I'll just contact Alice and have her bring me a weapon that can thin their number by quite a bit without bringing the tunnel down.
"Alice, you there?"
"Of course."
"Can you go to the locked room next to the mine entrance in the facility and grab the 5.56mm minigun I have ready and loaded there, I'm going to need it."
"I'm on it."
While Alice was going to retrieve that for me, gramps, I, the robots, and the many turrets that were positioned all around the door began firing at the coming horde, cutting them down and turning them into sieves one by one. As that was taking place, I used my second thought process to open a large enough gap in between the massive armored door to allow the retrieval of my incoming minigun.
The fight kept going on for a number of minutes, with us keeping the waves of them at bay when Alice neared the opening with a metal cart she had the weapon placed on. Thus, with my minigun arriving, I left the old man, my bots and the turrets to handle things whilst I retrieved my weapon upgrade.
Speedily running through the gap, I went over to Alice, who was standing behind the right side of the armored door, and said. "Thanks Alice."
"No problem, that's what I'm here for." She responded, happy to be of help.
Ditching my NPDM because it had no ammo, I placed the backpack magazine on my back and grasped the front handle of the minigun. Lifting the heavy weapon off the cart, I started running back with the weapon in hand, leaving Alice behind in the safety of the facility.
But before I passed through the gap in the door, I said to her. "I'll catch you in a bit, babe."
"Alright, I'll see you soon then, darling. Stay safe."
Closing and resealing the door behind me with mechanical domination, I sprinted to the very front while holding down one of the two triggers to get the minigun's barrels spooling. Blasting past my many turrets that were firing 1,600 laser pulses a minute and gramps and the robots that were all unleashing hell with their laser weapons, I made it to the front.
With nothing I didn't want to shoot in my line of sight, I took a stance that would best allow me to handle the recoil of the minigun. Straining and locking my muscles to keep the weapon from flying all over the place, I lifted and aimed the minigun at the continuously swarming molemen, and held the trigger down.
*Brrrrrrrrr…*
The stream of bullets I sent out of the six rotating barrels of the weapon flew towards the incoming molemen and the very moment the storm of rounds arrived at the first victim, they penetrated and ripped right through it, passing as easily as a hot knife through butter. Continuing to hold down the trigger and maintaining control of the recoil that very much wanted to get out of my control, I directed the 5.56mm rounds from their abdomens' to their heads now that I had a handle on the recoil.
Once I started directing and concentrating my fire there, the molemen began dropping like flies one after another, with many of the rounds taking out two if not three molemen at a time. Tanking and easily shrugging off the rounds coming from the molemen, I kept up the fire for the next 15 seconds when I expended all the ammunition held within the minigun's backpack magazine.
Running dry on the minigun, I dumped it and returned to using the two FBLAR-1 Laser Assault Rifles I brought with me originally. Dual wielding the two of them, I aimed the two laser assault rifles at the remaining moles that weren't decimated yet, like most of their group was at this time, and squeezed both triggers.
*Bzzzzzt-Bzzzzt-Bzzzzzt*
Spewing 1,600 laser pulses a minute now, the gang and I kept laying the fire upon them and began pushing forward. As we kept increasing our collective kill counts, they started to retreat, back pedaling into the cave system. Continuing the push, we walked them all the way out of the mine tunnel and continued to slaughter them until we couldn't see them any longer from where the mine tunnel and cave system met.
"You think that's it for now or what, gramps?"
"It could be, but since a group of them came swarming after us, it pretty much guarantees that they have a moleman king or something amongst them calling the shots. So we're going to need to kill him before the waves stop coming or kill so many of them that the king can't gather enough of them to send another wave."
"Hmm, that sounds about right. I suppose I'm going to need to work on beefing up the defense more to kill off any molemen swarms that might come when we're away."
"That would be the best thing to do until we can come back tomorrow to continue where we left off."
Heading back the way we came, we had to step on literally hundreds of bodies since we killed so many of them in the tunnel. After doing so for the next several minutes, we made it to the armored doors for the second time today and hopefully the last. Wanting to remove my armor and get a bit of rest before I got to work on bolstering the defenses, I quickly opened the heavy armored doors of the foundry. As soon as everyone picked the loot that they dropped to fight the molemen horde, we headed on through the now open doors.
Once everyone was through, I closed them again via the same method as when I opened them, sealing them shut and making a beeline for the armory along with everyone, including Alice, who had now rejoined us from the planning/lounging area.
Returning to the armory we stripped our kit and stored whatever weapons and ammo we had looted from this trip, my Multibots and prospectron being the exception since I was going to have them carry at least one weapon from now in the event that anything ever happens. My robot workforce now armed with much better weapons than their inbuilt ones, we departed from the armory and went to the planning/lounging area to take a much needed breather.
Before I could even take a seat, Alice came to my front and locked her arms around me, hugging me.
Wrapping my own arms around her and hugging her back, I asked. "You good, Alice?"
"Nnn, I'm just happy you returned to me in one piece."
"I told you everything would be fine, didn't I?"
"That you did." She responded sweetly, letting go of me for a second and letting us take a seat on the couch before latching onto me once again the millisecond she took her position next to me on my right side.
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Want to keep me motivated to write throw the work some power stones.
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