Doofus’ shield activated when the shockwave hit us, even though it was miniscule by the time it arrived. He whimpered and plodded back into the storage barn, where he sat and watched the sky with untrusting eyes.

Tollya approached, at the head of a group of hobbs armed with extra long spears. She raised her chin at me, thumping her chest with a spear of her own. The hobb woman was already wearing her helmet.

“Squad!” She shouted over her shoulder. “Deploy on wall, reinforce northern primary force!”

The hobbs behind her all grunted or saluted and began marching up the mud-crete stairs to the wall top. The hobbs on guard made room, and the squad began marching north on the wall, spreading out and placing spears every few paces. For all ten of our acres, we didn’t have enough hobbs to cover every inch of wall top, but something told me we might need exactly that.

I pulled up the Fumble-Bees in my helmet, doing my best to ignore the cracks. With the grid in full defensive operation against the bombs falling from directly overhead, I only had a handful of Bees to use as my eyes. So I sent them to evaluate the defenses.

The hobbs had been busy, while I spent pleasurable time with Molls. A six foot deep, six foot wide trench had been cut in the desert hardpack, then lined with mud-crete, and filled with rebar spike emplacements. This was done to every stretch of wall on the northern, eastern, and western sides of the compound.

Roads were left in place and given supporting structures of mud-crete on the sides. Kill boxes of weaponry and hobbs had formed over each gate. Seven simple mud-crete towers were added to the northern walls in the shape of a large letter L. Four towers were attached to the Silken Sands wall, and three were attached to the Sundew Valley wall.

They were approached by simple walkways, little more than planks with rope handles that could be extended or retracted as needed, to deploy or regain spear-wielding hobbs. Each tower pole had sharpened rebar spikes, embedded in the mud-crete and bent to block any climbers.

Over the pits on the northern corner was a line of sprinklers, jutting out from the wall at several intervals. A long, thin, metal pipe connected the line of simple showerheads, and fed from Mo-gas barrels on either side. It was a gravity based system, just pour the fluid in, it’ll fill the pipes and drain out through the affixed spigots relatively evenly. All the hobbs on the wall had to do was tip the barrels over, and the entire trench would have Mo-gas rained down into it.

At the base of the wall, several stacks of tall spears were piled, awaiting distribution. Our versatile arsenal from the militia had been brought out as well, and the grenade machine gun had been affixed to the northern wall, able to defend the secondary gate if needed.

All along the inside of the paved hallway extending from the secondary gate to Sundew Valley’s area, more rebar caltrops had been laid. The area was impassable for them. It also had another range of Mo-gas sprinklers installed along the walls top lip. Steely eyed hobbs and humans lined the walls, gripping weapons and waiting for the inevitable rush.

They were ready for war with the yarsps. I disconnected from the Fumble-Bees and went to get in my truck. It was time to go hit the hive.

The gobbs had ripped into my seats, trying to find metal springs and chunks of fluff to sell, so it was an uncomfortable ride over to Phyllis’ trailer. The seat wasn’t unusable, but it felt lumpy. That, coupled with the dented and torn metal exterior, led me to daydream about upgrades to our fleet.

Couldn’t start off with much worse than a squad of ripped up pick-ups, running on even shittier gas than usual. The mo-gas made the truck belch thick, black smoke into the air when I started it up, and the smell of exhaust was inescapable. I really didn’t like the mo-gas, but it had checked a box, and we’d gotten a ton extra to make the militia feel like they weren’t just trading guns for their food. What the hell I was going to do with regular shipments of the crap, I didn’t know.

At least it was useful for burning the yarsps out of our trenches.

Phyllis was in her docking port, hanging from thin, mechanical arms as something sparked at her side. She was smoking a joint, as usual, and thin wreathes of heavy marijuana smoke wafted toward my open doorway.

At least the seatbelt still worked, not that road rash would kill me.

I was tempted to lean on the truck's horn, but it was three in the morning, and I would hate myself for breaking camp quiet time. A bomb went off overhead, making me and Doof flinch in the car, and I chuckled. Habits. Powerful things sometimes. I hit the horn and flashed my lights at the old lady in the mech suit.

Our headlights had all been smashed out by the gobbs, so Axle found us cheap replacements. The high beams still worked to make everything brighter, but they also changed tint and washed the whole area in red light. It was nauseating and I quit after only two flashes.

Phyllis turned and glared at me, lifting one finger to indicate I should be more patient. I leaned out of the door and shrugged. “We gotta move, Phill! Bugs are coming, we might get trapped here.”

The sparks on her arm stopped, and the mechanical arms retracted. Her gun-arm had changed again, this time sporting an enormous heat shield around a thin nozzle that had several reinforcing smaller arms in a spiral around it. As I watched, the entire construction segmented and reverted, becoming an oversized mechanical hand again.

Her armor was also repaired and had a slight sheen to it in the headlights. She casually walked over to the truck and climbed into the bed, creaking the vehicles already overworked shocks.

Axle and the hobbs had gone over the fleet after the gobb attack, and repaired the mostly minor functional damage, but I had my concerns as we turned and drove down the main road. Each divot in the gravel nearly bottomed us out.

The main gate guards opened the doors to let us out, and as we exited the metal doors, Afflqwst pinged at me. I focused on it in the helmet and pulled up the notification.

Quest – Prepare your affiliate for an upcoming wild animal attack, scheduled to take place during your absence.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Draft plan of battle. (complete)

2. Modify structural defenses. (complete)

3. Affiliate must survive attack. (incomplete)

4. (Optional) Say final goodbyes to important affiliate members. (Failed.)

PROBABLE OUTCOME – Heavy affiliate casualties, loss of affiliate infrastructure. (30%).

POSSIBLE OUTCOME – Affiliate morale boost and food surplus. (70%).

REWARD – Credit level upgrade.

I was happy to see the odds turn firmly in our favor, but 70% wasn’t exactly a confidence boost. Afflqwst knew more than I did, which worried me when it made these assessments.

Still, no way through but forward. The bombs overhead weren’t stopping, and the yarsps would be drawn to the sound and vibrations like flies to shit. I chuckled as I pulled up Axle and called him. I needed some advice.

The Knowle answered on the first ring. He was underground, in residential somewhere, helping with the influx of our people. Anyone not on the wall was being kept underground.

“Axle, how is it?” I asked.

His lips curled and showed teeth for a moment. “Heavy. The bombing is coming from an orbital platform, the other end of their elevator. We’re lucky you hired Morbin, he heard them coming anyway, simply the sound of them falling from orbit.”

“The Fumble-Bees have it though, right?”

“For the moment. If Dearth wises up and starts dropping construction supplies on us instead of electrically triggered bombs, we might be in a different situation. I suspect they are concerned about damage to their own facilities, the bombs we are defending against are quite small.” Another went off in the air above the truck, and Axle’s ears flinched from it. “And loud. These are designed to draw the yarps. I do not think they are actually attacking us. I think they are simply trying to keep the yarsps off their area, and focused toward ours.”

“Right, a tungsten rod would wreck Prescott if they dropped it on us.” I muttered.

“They’re programmed to go off immediately before they hit. Like drum beats on the surface, to draw the yarsps,” he said. His eyes widened and he licked his nose. “I’ve seen Dearth use this tactic before, on other worlds. There will be a great many yarsps, very soon.”

“Rayna is ready. She’s fighting for her home, and I’m going to stop the hive from being a threat. If she can shield us, I’ll do the rest,” I said. “But I could use your help. What else you know about yarsps that can help me?”

Axle sidled out of the crowd and to a wall, where he leaned and held up his phone. “There will be a queen. I have been studying your world, and the similarities between your bees and these yarsps is undeniable. There will be a dug hive, a warren of tunnels. There will be yarsps, and defender yarsps. Larger, more dangerous, they will be near the queen, at the heart of the hive.”

“Okay, that is more or less what I was imagining, thank you Axle,” I said. “Any suggestions?”

He blinked and nodded. “Don’t kill the queen, if you can at all preserve her.”

I nodded back. “I was thinking the same thing. This is a reliable food source if we do it right.”

“Exactly. It will be difficult to contain, but if you destroy most of their population, they will require a great deal of time to repopulate to the point of being a threat. It would buy us days,” the Knowle offered. I could see he was working the problem, so I just nodded and waited for him to continue.

“We could contain the hive, theoretically. I cannot imagine what their meat source is, they must have eaten most of the population of Prescott already, yet they continue to grow. It would be an immense undertaking, but not impossible,” he said, his eyes wandering the crowd around him. “We would need more hobbs. A lot more,” he muttered.

“For now, I’ll take it no longer being a threat every morning,” I said, turning the wheel to take the truck off-road.

The route I was taking led us part of the way back to the militia, going around the mountain to Prescott. But I turned off early, taking an old park ranger road that led through the state park. As I drove, slow and careful on the dirt road, I pulled up the Fumble-Bee footage and placed it in the corner of my vision. I was able to focus on the images while not taking my eyes off the road.

“Axle, I think I’m gonna let you go, I need to call Rayna,” I said, as movement became visible on the tree-line in my footage.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” He asked.

I nodded, and he licked his nose before hanging up.

Rayna picked up as well, adding me to a group call she had in progress. “BlueCleave, boss added to call!” She barked.

“Boss! Boss!” The hobbs chanted, banging their chests. I rolled my eyes and thumped my chest back. They couldn’t see my facial expression, and the salute seemed to get me out of any other social responsibility to these people. I didn’t like the way they seemed to almost worship me, but I certainly didn’t want to damage morale before battle.”

“They’re coming,” I said simply. The words tasted like acid on my tongue as memories of them ripping me to pieces shot through my brain. Dearth was started to really piss me off.