Jester, can you call out clear lines to the Heavies? Call the front grid 30 units. Tell me if I can fire a direct to point shot or if it needs to be a vertical column from the front grid.”

“Yes. First, call. L7, straight to point. Fire on a 2 count.”

I counted a 2 count in my head and pulled the trigger. The shot just barely missed the edge of one of the tide breakers along its trajectory. Reloading “5 seconds till next shot.”

Jester narrowed his field of fire to focus on the wake of carnage my rail shot carved out. Probably looking for quick finishes on targets. “2 heavies down. Next shot at your convenience. R15 straight to point.”

I waited till the meter was filled just enough to get my next shot off, without compromising a follow-up shot. “Firing!” The shot easily pierced between the tide breakers and carved a new gash all along its line. This one much more obvious as it slashed across much of the front line.

“Good shot. 4 down. I don’t know how you are going to manage it but on my mark R1 Vertical Column.” I charged my secondary meter with a light element Aether. A few moments after I finished charging Jester called his shot. “Mark!”

“Firing!” My shot discharged slightly more Aether than I was expecting on that shot taking the meter down by 2/3rds as opposed to the previous 1/3rd, and still took all of the Elemental flavored Aether. The effect was awesome. The shot hit a small flat spot on one of the tide breakers. It hit at just the right angle to turn and blast down the vertical column on the outside edge. The shot was about twice the width of previous shots and cleanly carved an edge to the horde. “That went better than expected. Longer cooling period. 15 seconds. Hopefully, that was good enough to buy that time.”

“Good enough? I had you route most of the heavies to that side. You just took out no less than 15 with one shot. The Heavies have slowed considerably. Although they are spreading out. Exxes, expect them mixed in with normal squads.”

“Understood. Can you call them out on the same grid, and same units going back? I want to possibly break them up further.”

“L3 and uh 10.”

Exxes actual feet touched the ground. She leaned back against the rear-facing spider legs and lifted the front ones. A glowing orb appeared at the tip of each lifted leg. “Grenades out!” She called as she tossed them out. The report from the grenades followed just moments after large gouts of flame burst out. The pops from the grenades was a little more unnerving as there were screams that followed.

“I’m not sure the realism on the screams was totally necessary here, but you picked up two on that Exxes. If you can go again, single lobs on points L8 and 5, second on R9 and 12.”

“Grenades out!” Two more projectiles were tossed out to the chorus following the pops.

“You picked up 3 more, 7 injured. Cleaning up now.” He fired off 7 double shots in quick succession. “Still a couple of heavies, but they are staying further back or holding up shields.” Jester’s voice took on a slightly more worried tone. “We have fast units moving in. Looks like riders!”

Before we could try and strategize, the riders cleared past the tide breakers bounding over them easily. With Exxes still being forward, they started to swarm towards her as she started trying to move back. “Back up incoming!” I pulled out my shield unit from its holster on the back of my belt. I connected the units together. The shield snapped into place easily covering my body it being at least twice as wide as my rig was. It was about 3/4ths my height. I held it up turned sideways to charge at them, from the left side. I sprinted out to meet them as Exxes was keeping them back as she deftly dodged them using the high mobility of her spider legs. She had activated her held silver emitter. She was whipping it at them. It looked like a sword, but it deceptively bent, twisted, and shifted to track the nimble opponents. She moved to the right as she heard me coming. I approached with a guttural warcry. They started to turn towards me, I turned my left shoulder into the shield just slightly as I jumped towards them to better get my evasion boosters directly behind me. These had no charges so I had no idea what to expect from them. Since my rigs system didn’t have much drain on it, when it wasn’t charging some utility or other, my evasion boosters were a bit stronger than I expected. To put it bluntly, I wasn’t prepared to be hurled across the entire of line of riders and to end up tumbling after having bowled almost all of them over.

It’s never a good thing to find yourself on the ground in front of an enemy. This was no exception. I started to get up to my feet realizing that I was directly in front of the rider that I hadn’t knocked down. I was watching the charging rhino like beast in what felt like slow motion. This was not going to be fun. I just barely noticed the flash over my right shoulder as it struck the mount square in the face. I wasn’t spared the rider crashing into me, as it was launched off the beast as the mount crashed into the ground. The rider slammed into the shield and knocked me on my ass. The combined emitters came loose from my grip landing a meter or so away. The goblin thing gathered it’s wits before I could, and was preparing a two-handed smash on my face. I got my right arm and forearm shield up just in time to have it bludgeoned back into my face. Seeing the next one. I got my left arm up just barely in time. I fired off a standard shotgun charge, and my vision exploded into Aether goo and bits as the simulation of the little monster was shredded into so much gore shrapnel. The wet mess was unpleasant. I rolled leaving the lower torso of the goblinoid thing to fall as I scrambled away from the frontline. I grabbed my large shield and separated it and reholstered both units. My eyes took in the scene of carnage as Exxes stepped literal holes in the downed enemies before her, the sharp tips of her spider legs glowing and punching through with no resistance. I was just about to get clear of the front line that Exxes was dismantling. The only warning I got was a roar just before one of the goblinoids was hurled at me. I tried activating the evasion boosters with more restraint. I still jerked a bit as it threw me to the side, just barely missing the thrown goblin. Barely having a moment to sigh in relief before the next one was thrown in my direction. This time a slug slammed into it even as I went to dodge its trajectory. The body stopped dead in the air having collided with a literal cube of stone. Two more came sailing at me. I abruptly dodged giving me clearance from both of them. A stone bolt again met one of them, the one closest to me. Despite the dodging. I now had plenty of clearance from the frontline and was behind Exxes. I fired off all three elementally charged quarrels in an even spread along the front line. The quarrels detonated as they struck a target hurling jagged metal fragments in all directions maiming and crippling large swaths around the initial victim.

I took more distance falling back to the barriers. I could feel the minor drain as all the barrier units started recharging. I figured while I was taking a moment. Now was a good as a time as any to test another elemental volley. I queued up the force elementally charged pod. I marked my targets switching between left and right moving in towards the middle but keeping the middle clear. “Jester can you use some stones to try and move them into the middle after this salvo does its business.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Firing!” The projectiles again launched straight up before streaking down. This series of projectiles was not without fanfare. As they all struck their targets. Bodies were flung everywhere. Mostly redirected back into the center of the horde, the bodies were being hurled like projectiles away from the impact zones. Stones started impacting stragglers, getting the horde to pack more to the center. Certainly not single file, but they were much more bunched up. The horde was just starting to spread again. “Exxes, Move to the right! Get clear!” I pulled the long affixed rail on my left shoulder up and into position. The stabilizer legs fired out and down behind me as I went down to one knee. They helped form a brace as if it was artillery. It was artillery. I used the electrically charged Aether to fuel it. It spooled up. The magnets whined just a moment before the projectile was fired. Exxes had just finished clearing to the far side when the Rail cannon fired. The projectile tore through the air. The electrical charge superheating the air to plasma in its wake. As the low-pressure wave following the projectile caused the air behind it to readily convert to hot plasma, It created a superheated shockwave, you could see the goblinoids become instantly charred as the superheated plasma washed over them and cooked their lungs. A wide stripe up the middle dead instantly from the projectile, plasma, or having their lungs cooked as they simulated a need to breathe. The biggest downside to this was the destruction of three of the tide breakers. As the horde recovered from the destruction, they swarmed towards the opening in the middle.

“Exxes, you should fall back. We are coming up on the back of the horde, but with that opening, they are going to cut you off.”

“I don’t have another volley ready. I could use another rail shot, but If this is supposed to test me, then how about we fight together at the front Exxes.”

“Fine. Nothing wrong with a little teamwork, don’t slow me down. Jester, thin the herd. I know you got some more tricks.”

“You got it, boss.” Jester methodically started peppering the horde with stone spikes that had a similar function to my tide breakers, but it didn’t seem that he could put as many out or as deadly. It still helped to slow the encroaching horde, but less so. He hopped down and pulled out his pistol like back up. It fit into a slot that ran along the back of his hand. “I’m tapped for the moment on big shots, but I can provide some close range back up.”

“Welcome to the melee.” giving him a salute before readying up my buckler weapon. I snapped it on. Noting the meter was slowly refilling after the initial activation cost was taken. “Hey, Exxes do you mind if we let them get a little closer? I want to give them a present.”

She waved me forward with her right hand and her forward right leg pantomimed the action. “I’ve been impressed so far, give me another interesting spectacle.”

“I don’t know how cool this one will be, but I am hoping it will be effective. I charged my shotgun with an electrified load of Aether and a dark and entropy load. I waited till the first few started to get close and I blasted them with the electrically charged shot. The one right in the middle clearly died on impact, but as I had hoped it would work, the rest just peppered with the electrically charged projectiles seized up and twitched as they were stunned. More had caught up to the first ones and I fired off the dark entropy blast into the densest group of them. “Let’s see how that works.” I moved off to the side again and waited with my shield.

“Oh, that’s nasty.” Exxes winced at the sight.

“I’ve seen an effect like that before. That’s particularly dangerous. I would suggest caution. That mixture can be incredibly fickle.” Jester chimed in.

The group of goblins hit by the blast was visibly starting to melt wherever it touched them. Anything that came into contact with them at the spots of the sloughing goo of decay started having a secondary reaction and looked incredibly lethargic and weak. As if they were rapidly becoming ill. “Ewwww. I see what ya mean. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to touch any of them.” I pulled out my backup weapon and readied it in my left hand, still having the buckler on my right. I joined Jester in picking off the ones that looked sickly pale, while Exxes fired off explosive blasts into the denser groups... The goo seemed to start being less effective as time went on, and Exxes’ blasts of fire clearly cooking it off. “Looks safe to get into melee now”

“Finally! I’m feeling fatigued from using my blaster too much. I should be able to recover as we fight in close quarters. This I can do all day.” Even though she sounded casual about everything, she started using her spider legs to stab foes left and right, as her body just drifted along. An effortless ballet of death. A heavy was preparing to hurl a grunt at Exxes and I noticed it far too late to warn Exxes. I fired up both forearm shields with force energy in one swift motion as I holstered my buckler and sidearm, and aimed my evasion boost to intercept the hurled goblinoid. The instant acceleration from all evasion boosters firing at once was staggering, but it looked like my math was good as my now shielded body was interposed between the hurtling goblinoid and Exxes. The force element violently detonated as the goblin hit both shields. Hurtling the goblin back from whence it came, and launching me just as violently away. Both crashes were spectacular. The goblin had become a cannonball as it was hurled back into the surging goblinoids. I was slammed into the wall near the left side of our ‘fort’. I had become a bit of a wreck as most of the damage was prevented, but the defensive systems had broken and gone down with me. The barrier walls started to sputter and fail. It seemed the surge had broken them in some way. Maybe a negative feedback loop, like trying to charge a battery with an inverted charge. I picked myself up noting my forearm shields were shot. “Exxes I have an idea. Can you hold them till I tell you to run?”

“If Jester keeps covering my back. I should be fine.”

“Buying you time. Get moving.”

“On it.”