As we headed towards the bridge, I fell back a little to resupply from the Gladiator - and to talk to Agni.

“How’re you doing?”

She shrugged. “I thought I’d have to do the buildings, actually. It’s a good thing you didn’t force me to reveal myself.”

“We got lucky with the Gurkhas.”

“And unlucky, too. There’s no way an Indian Army officer won’t recognize my work for what it is. If it had been the Aussies, or the Germans, you could probably fool them....”

“I could claim it as a special ability of mine.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve an idea of how to deal with the Bushy Park horde, but I need to be within line of sight.”

“You do?”

“It’s pretty simple. We just need to get through the shield for a second, that’s all - then I can let loose the flame. Surround the Park with a fire, circle and sweep inwards.” She shrugged. “Repeat Rawalpindi.”

“I’m sorry, I know how much this is going to cost you.”

“You really don’t, but it’s okay. This time I’m killing aliens instead of humans. Can’t do anything if there are civilians somewhere in there, though.”

“Nanocloud’s confirmed there aren’t. Well, not living ones at least.”

“Then we’re lucky they landed in the middle of a massive cluster of forested woodland. So I’ll burn it down and we’ll deal with whatever happens afterwards.”

“The Greater Carnotaur?”

“Yeah, I’ve no idea what to do there.”

“It’s fine, I’ll think of something.”

I couldn’t figure out what, though. Ten million HP was a lot. And that was before factoring in the shield, which made ranged options unviable.

I decided to check on the missiles instead. Mario Acosta was running escort with them, and he waved to me. “Come to check on your arsenal?”

“Yeah. I’m going to equip one of them now. Say, can I use up one missile?”

“You can use up all fifty, the Major-General says. You want to do your blue light thing?”

“Yeah.” I pulled back the tarpaulin covering the missiles.

They were neatly stacked on racks, with each being clearly labeled with a number and serial inventory.

Here went nothing.

I used Reverse Engineering on one of the missiles.

FOR REVERSE ENGINEERING HIGHLY ADVANCED EXPLOSIVES FROM THE HUMAN ARMORY, YOUR EXPLOSIVES SKILL INCREASES BY 3 LEVELS.

EXPLOSIVES ADVANCES TO LEVEL 8.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: HELLFIRE-X MISSILE.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: PLASMA WARHEAD.

YOU HAVE MISUSED MILITARY RESOURCES FOR A PURPOSE THEY WERE NOT INTENDED FOR, HOWEVER. -25 ETHICS.

YOUR LAWBREAKER SKILL AND HIGH RELATIONSHIP WITH THE U.S. ARMY PROTECT YOU FROM ANY ADVERSE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES.

As the description of the Plasma Warhead unscrolled before me, I reflected that this would have been useful earlier.

PLASMA WARHEAD

COST: 1 KG PLASMIUM + 4 KG HYDROGEN + 10 KG TNT + 5 KG POTASSIUM CHLORATE + 5 KG STEEL + 1 SMARTPHONE + 700 MP.

A BASIC PLASMA WARHEAD THAT CAN BE FITTED ONTO A SPECIALIZED MISSILE FOR A HIGH-YIELD EXPLOSION.

DAMAGE: 750,000.

NEEDS TO BE FITTED TO A MISSILE AS AN ACTIVE WARHEAD, OR A REPLACEMENT FOR ITS WARHEAD.

HELLFIRE-X MISSILE

THE MOST ADVANCED SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILE IN THE HUMAN ARSENAL, THIS 45-KG MISSILE IS DESIGNED TO DESTROY TANKS, AND CAN EVEN DO SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO SMALLER SHIPS. CARRYING A WARHEAD CONSISTING OF 14 KILOS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVE, IT IS NOT EASY TO FORGE.

DAMAGE: 350,000.

So the Hellfire could punch through a tank and vaporize it with a single shot. Perfect.

I’d still need three to kill a Carnotaur, though, and that was assuming I could knock down its shield.

I hoisted the missile onto the hardpoint. I’d had to unload half my Javelins to avoid getting overloaded, of course, which made things harder - if the missile didn’t work, then the Javelins were the only way to reliably hurt the beast. And even a mechanical launch didn’t do enough damage to really make a difference….

Could I use Control Points to disrupt its actions? Worth a try. Maybe I could cause it to trip over its toes.

“You Belessar?” a voice interrupted.

I turned to see a trio of ultras.

Shamrock wore a light green costume with a yellow hood and mask, with a three-leaf sprig in dark green dominating his chest. Besides him stood a woman in a red-and-blue striped bodysuit, with a circle of seven colours emblazoned boldly in the centre. Unity, I presumed.

The third ultra wore a simple coat and jacket, with the only concession to his status being a black-and-white chequered mask. In his hands was a small box with a pattern of lights across the surface.

“Chequers,” the man introduced himself. “I specialize in knowing the right time to do the right thing. You must be Belessar?”

I nodded. “Unity and Shamrock, I presume? I’m not familiar with your powers.”

The squat woman shrugged. “Unity. I’m strong and I punch hard.”

“Shamrock,” the other man said. “I hurl explosive potatoes.”

“... pardon?”

“I can imbue potatoes with the power to explode. And then shoot them at the aliens.” The ultra glared daggers at me. “You got a problem with that?”

“That’s actually quite effective - potato starch has a lot of stored chemical energy. Do you carry around a supply of potatoes or do you summon them?”

Shamrock seemed surprised. “I can use any potatoes within a hundred feet. Although that’s not generally the first question people ask..”

“What’s your range? And how much damage does each do?”

“About a thousand feet… and I don’t know about the rest.”

“You don’t find his flaming potato attack funny?” sniggered Unity. Shamrock gave her a glare.

“I’ve been targeted by flaming turkeys. They’re dangerous.”

“... that sounds like one hell of a story.”

“Living or dead turkeys?” asked Chequers.

“No, it was a cooked turkey on fire.”

“Thank the Lord. I was trying to think of what ultras would drive poultry to commit suicide…”

“Instead you got attacked by the world’s worst ultra chef?” Unity asked.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Well, if we survive the battle you’re telling us the story.”

“Done.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH UNITY INCREASED TO SYMPATHETIC (1).

RELATIONSHIP WITH SHAMROCK INCREASED TO SYMPATHETIC (1).

RELATIONSHIP WITH CHEQUERS INCREASED TO SYMPATHETIC (1).

“What’s with the box?” I asked.

“It’s a prototype shield disrupter.”

That got my attention. “Does that mean….”

“My teammate Razorback made six of these. They’re intended for taking down shield towers, but they don’t work quite right. Each alien’s shield has a specific frequency - we have to match that with a gravitic wave of the same frequency and opposite phase. The disrupter generates a gravitic wave, and if the frequencies match, then it knocks down the shield.”

“So does it match the frequencies automatically?”

“No, and that’s the problem. It has to be hit at a very precise time to ensure the shield actually collapses. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’ll use your Battlecognition to identify the time to emit the wave.”

“Yeah.”

“Why only six?”

“Unfortunately, each costs about thirty million dollars.”

I winced. Five Carnotaurs, six generators…. it would be close. “You can’t knock them all down together?”

“According to Razorback, it’s not possible. Each has a different frequency, so each disrupter has to be activated at a different time. The time window for activation is also very precise - about four milliseconds. If we’re off by a millisecond, then it doesn’t work, and we write off the thirty million dollars.”

“... so it can only be operated by a battlecognitive.”

“Yeah. The other five boxes are with me in the car. Got held up getting them here.”

“If you can take down the shield, we should be able to kill the Carnotaur.”

“I hope so. And you’ll have to do it fast, because the disrupter only works for four minutes before burning out. Then the shield’s back up.”

So, do a million points of damage in four minutes. Or, when we went up against the Greater Carnotaur, ten million.

No pressure. “We’ll give it our best shot.”