Wolfran the Knight Avenger

In

The Last Crusade of Altraumzen

Episode 7: Demonic Drone Tango

Wolfran checked his own scratch defenses which had been set up in the lull after claiming the castle’s massive courtyard. He grimaced at the scant laser auto defenses. Skyfall forces were meant for maneuver and ambush, not static defense. That was the domain of the heavy mechs and planetsappers.

What defenses they brought were designed for basic headquarters entrenchment, and much had been lost in their skyfall before the lines had been formed and the counter attack launched. Their drone defense would at best take 10% of a swarm this size. There was one silver lining however. The sheer mass of the swarm meant the mechs couldn’t miss with their conventional weaponry.

“Zweihanderkriegers fire on the edges, lancers hold fire till the drone controllers are made clear. Laser defenses concentrate on suicide drones. Stay close and protect your brothers’ backs gentlemen, and we will weather this storm yet!” Wolfran called into his intercom getting the usual cheer and chant from veterans preparing for impossible odds no less daunting than the last crises they’d crushed.

Taking up his own zweihanderkrieger the Captain watched the range as he prepared to begin the barrage on the mass of drones blotting out the sun. At this distance the many thousand of hawk sized drones were indecipherable, but even without his muech’s optics Wolfran knew what he was facing.

Ishtar’s drones were simple hardy designs best described as metal dragon flies with twin sonic gravity generators instead of wings, and a modular payload section in the belly or held by the metal legs. The armaments varied from heavy explosives, lasers, cluster missiles, and even plasma cutters designed to chew through armor at close range. In the appropriate numbers an unsupported armored mech element would be stripped and her drivers torn to shreds in a matter of minutes.

The drones were cheap, and in mass effective against more expensive assets, but with proper laser defense they were easily countered. There were days when Wolfran’s father questioned his son’s choice joining the Skyfall medium mechs, and not the heavy armored knights. Seeing the swarm grow in detail was one of those moments Wolfran had to smile as he knew the answer in his mind.

The heavies’ jobs were too easy. As maddening as it was to be forced to depend on his Magnus for their ultimate salvation in this engagement Wolfran was at the tip of the spear while the heavy fist of the order was the shaft. However, it was true that death by drone was hardly a noble warrior’s end so Konrad had best not choose today to fail his Captain. This horde had reserves to spare, and Wolfran had many more skulls to crush before this crusade ended.

The lasers opened up first. Small erected towers with balls of glass and metal at their zeniths housed the laser arrays, and in a burst of energy pinpointed the drones carrying explosives on their final flight in the rapidly approaching host. The blasts sent a rain of drones down to the moon. Multiple chain explosions erupted as suicide drones flying too close to one another burst into massive blasts. The swarm began to attempt to spread over a wider area, and that is when they flew into range of the zweihanderkrieger.

Wolfran fired and a chorus of lightning bolts raked the sky and fired the edges of the swarm. As a result the surviving drones packed in close and shielded the suicide drones with in their midst. Also, and more importantly for the Captain’s strategy, the drone controllers that still lived would be cocooning themselves at the center of the mass. These were not drones with upgraded computers for basic algorithmic tactical analysis. The controllers were cybernetic machines inhabited by demons.

They varied according to what twisted being had been lobotomized and torso fused with a small metallic chassis encasing them in light armor and sonic antigravity engines. Some took on the form of werewolf heads, other’s twisted tentacled beasts of old monstrosities best forgotten, and even others were the upper torsos of many sacrificed humans in dark rituals. Just another abomination to be cleansed, and sin to be marked for the day of judgment.

A swarm this size would have hundreds of them, and unless they slaughtered every one the swarm would continue in perfect unison. Each had to be destroyed for just one inhabited machine could house thousands of demons, and thus control masses of drones on their own. This meant hacking the metal monstrosities was impossible as well. There were no wireless links for the swarm was controlled via supernatural means not physical methods. The demons listened to their goddess Ishtar and none other, but the Prince of Lies himself. So destruction was their only means of cleansing the evil above their heads.

Further carving by both laser fire and zweihanderkrieger bolts compacted the mass of drones into a riving sphere rapidly falling to the moon’s surface aiming directly for the largest mass of laser emitters over their makeshift headquarters. Controllers were notoriously obsessed with self preservation. Unclean spirits were very reluctant to give up whatever physical form they could obtain, and the functioning laser array was their biggest foe once they were amongst the troops. Fortunately, the controllers were ignoring the fortress laser defenses which must mean they considered their electronic protections impregnable.

Answering laser fire burned across the ground in large fire inducing arcs. At this range the weapons were useless against even the infantry’s armor, but perfectly capable of lighting unshielded supplies a blaze. They proceeded to burn what was left of their rations that had not been moved under the cover of the shielded command unit. A minor loss since if they needed those rations before the fleet resupplied them the knights would most likely be on the verge of being overwhelmed anyhow.

Finally, the lancer’s railgun spears barked, and thousands of drones fell at once as dozens of controllers were turned to burnt crisps in the resulting blasts. Many drones were recovered by the surviving cyborgs, but most crashed into the walls and towers they were descending upon. A dent had been made in their numbers, and the controllers were made off balance. Wolfran had done all he could for his men.

Now everything was in Konrad’s specialists hands as the swarm enveloped the courtyard and proximity turrets barked to life on the mechs and infantry automatic positions. The mortars fired a desperate last barrage of early erupting shells into the mass. The carnage was overwhelming, but unable to black the charge. Nothing would stop the melee now. Half the swarm was dead, but that hardly mattered when there were hundreds of thousands to spare.

In a rush of humming generators, thousands of lasers, screaming cluster missiles, and plasma cutters the bug-like robots swallowed the crusader’s lines. The lasers did a final burst in all directions letting a brief glint of sunlight burn through the churning cloud before they were snuffed out by cluster missiles and suicide drones. Wolfran heard his auto turret spinning in every direction covering the air in a hail of plasma shotgun blasts. In seconds the piling of drone scrap at his feet had buried his mech up to its knees. Soon his turret’s ordinance would be spent, and then the real fight would begin.

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