Atomic Strike

CHAPTER 5: THE ATOMIC BATTLEFIELD

Spider-shaped automatons, V!room ambush drones are designed to bury themselves in advantageous positions and emerge to ambush enemy forces like trapdoor spiders.

A trio of drones detected movement. Three targets... no four... no three, and multiple enemy combat microdrones.

The targets drew within range.

The spiders pounced.

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Two flashes of light – signifying successful hits by her ship's gamma-ray lasers – marked the destruction of two drones. Alerted by her neural interface (and by the heavily-filtered light streaming into her retina), Betty spun around, and kicked the third drone (too near to fire upon with naval artillery) in the optics package, following up with a karate chop to the chassis.

The drone's spun nanotube armor was no match for Betty's powered macromolecular armor, and the drone crumpled like an aluminium can.

Two more drones appeared in her field of vision, and Betty blasted them both apart with one round each from her shoulder-mounted cannon - before realizing that she could have left them to her overwatch.

Satisfied that her surroundings were secure, Betty scooped more dirt into her bracelet fabricator, resumed the fabricator's routine. From her bracelet, a small armada of mite-sized robots poured across the landscape. The microbots kicked up small clouds of dust as they removed mines, identified ambush robots, and ripped apart the enemy's nano-sensor network.

With orbital support at the ready, the enemy was unlikely to contest her advance to the habitat facility – at least not without a thick roof over their heads.

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A salvo of micro-missiles, each armed with a small kiloton-yield nuclear shaped charge, descended onto six different points on the massive wall of the habitat facility. As the cloud of glowing vapor cleared, six gaping holes emerged in the façade of the (already depressurized) facility.

Consisting of an interlinked series of atria and courtyards surrounded by multi-tiered balconies of offices, shops, and residences, the habitat facility, in nicer times, had been home to thousands of V!room workers. In a bid to make the facility seem a little more like home, they had covered the terraces and balconies with purplish-black climbing photoautotrophs, which had given the facility much of its character.

The workers were now dead or dying of radiation poisoning, and the plants had desiccated in the vacuum of space, becoming dry and crispy fronds that broke on the slightest touch.

The defenders had expected to be assaulted by a substantial force, with armor, air support, and drones. As such, they had prepared a conventional defense of the interlinked courtyards (which would have to be taken to move heavy forces), emplacing heavy weapons and personnel on the middle balconies to fire against enemy units canalized into killing zones.

They had not expected an assault by a three-man fireteam, nor had they expected the enemy forces to attack directly through the chains of abutting apartments and offices – by blasting holes in the walls between them. This was, in hindsight, entirely predictable, considering the long history of "mouseholing" through walls in urban warfare.

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For her part, Betty had not expected the enemy to turn the gravity upside down – a gambit that had cost her precious seconds as she sought to reorient herself.