Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [100]
Showing contempt for their own creations, the insect creatures studded the exterior walls of the resin-concrete towers with torn-apart robot components - a flat angular head, a black wing casing, bent claw-limbs.
Judging by slight differences in their morphology, these Klikiss were an entirely different subhive from the one that had attacked him on Wollamor. He wondered how many new breedexes were sweeping back into the Spiral Arm, and how many had already gone hunting for the black robots.
Sirix would have to destroy them all, and he hoped his dwindling EDF weapons would last long enough to complete that task. As he processed the remote images from Hifur, he wondered whose hatred was greater. From space, his ships destroyed the landbound subhive. Utterly.
* * * * *
His battle group continued to wreak havoc on any world where the Klikiss might return. He swiftly learned that the insect race was more widespread than he had expected, and Sirix's own prospects grew bleaker day by day.
He and his battle group no longer exercised any caution whatsoever. He could not risk it. As soon as the prowling ships arrived at a former Klikiss world, Sirix ordered massive preemptive strikes to obliterate the long-abandoned cities and any Hansa colonies that happened to be in the way. Constrained to travel only via transportal, the insect creatures were vulnerable to a massive attack from space. And since each subhive was an enemy to all others, they would not spread a warning amongst themselves.
In preparation for later battles, he decided to refine the skills of his two compies, so he assigned PD and QT to man the weapons stations and ordered them to open fire on the targets below. The compies did as they were told, now that their programming strictures had been erased. Though they were not Soldier compies, PD and QT were quite proficient at their tasks.
Sirix's battle group targeted and destroyed the transportal walls on Zed Khell, Alintan, and Rajapar. On Xalezar, he found that humans had established a colony, but the Klikiss had already arrived and seized the settlers. Seeing the EDF ships, the colonists screamed for help, but Sirix had no sympathy for the humans, whom he hated just as he hated his Klikiss creators.
Sirix wiped out the transportal wall first. Next he destroyed the new Klikiss structures. Last, for good measure, he obliterated every remnant of the human settlement. Another planet cauterized. It was good progress.
At Scholld, however, Sirix blundered into an unanticipated obstacle. The subhive breedex had grown stronger, more innovative. As Sirix began his usual bombardment from the skies, the enemy struck back in an alarming way.
Rising up from the ancient city, numerous identical components flew at them to deliver a thousand devastating blows. Then the myriad components clustered together to form a powerful - and ever-growing - swarmship.
The Klikiss had come through the transportals and established industrial bases quickly enough to build their own spacecraft! How long had this been occurring? If the Klikiss could move from planet to planet without their stone gateways, the infestation would spread faster than the robots could hope to destroy them!
The Mantas responded by laying down a suppressing barrage to drive back the interlocking ships, but he couldn't stand against such an overwhelming concerted attack. All robots, withdraw.' He guided the Juggernaut into a hasty retreat. The swarmship swelled even larger as it incorporated more of the component craft, then it came after Sirix's ships.
PD and QT waited at the weapons stations. 'Should we open fire, Sirix?'
'Defensive blasts only.' He had immediately calculated their odds, and he knew they could not target them all. 'We cannot stand against a swarmship of that size.'
Sirix transmitted detailed commands, and the