Eight behemoths stomped through the cluster fuck that was the terrain just past Raijin Field. To say it was pock-marked with craters would be a misnomer; it was scoured with more craters than a plague victim.

Still, they were able to move across the terrain with minimal issue. Up closer, they were even more impressive, segmented and armored parts flexing against each other with a grinding noise just barely audible over the explosive shells that killed the Spindlies that were trying to move forward to attack us.

It was amusing, somehow, to see what almost seemed like impatient frustration from them, unable to utilize their greatest weapons to get rid of the intruders.

“Here’s hoping there are only eight of them,” I heard Terry over the comms, uncharacteristically tense, “I have no idea how much of a charge these things are going to take of the Raijin Reactor.”

I nodded to that, realizing he couldn’t see me. Richard and myself - and ten Determinators with Strauss team - cast a brief glance back to the experimental generator that Terry had set up against the easern portion of the base, further from the residential and medical compounds. It wasn’t the safest location, the possibility existing that it could get hit by stray fire. The fact of the matter was that we couldn’t afford to care too much about it. If it exploded, nobody wanted it anywhere near the center of the base.

It would, arguably, be such an explosion that if it was anywhere in the base we’d be extinguishing fires in half of it. But, half was better than all.

The lead Carrier stepped onto the field, artillery pausing on that target, wary of damaging the field.

Lasers sprouted from four of the nearest mines, laser sights landing on the offending limb.

A thunderclap and searing white light resounded, magnitudes louder and stronger than it had been earlier. I felt my helmet clamp down on the sounds being allowed to enter, and I wasn’t the only one who flinched and grit their teeth in pain.

“What the fuck was that?” I heard Strauss’ scout shout, a normally very quiet and tame individual.

“Whoa, uh… unforeseen benefit?” I heard Terry say, checking the system, “Wow… it’s fine. Not a lick of damage. That was a helluva lot more like a natural lightning bolt.”

I dearly wanted to tear into him for not knowing the actual power of the Raijin system, but there was something much more important happening. At the edge of the field, I watched the Carrier recoil, smoke pluming from its body as an incredibly pained groaned rattled through the base. The other Carriers immediately halted their advance, each seeming to point their hammer heads towards the field itself.

One further down the line extended a feeler, testing the area there.

Three lasers came active and sought the offending limb.

“Sh-Cover your ears!” I snarled shutting off sound to my helmet and noticed the way that Sammy Burbaker, the scout, slammed his hands down over his own helmet, manually shutting ports.

The scene repeated itself, this particular Carrier backpedaling, a bolt of lightning coursing through its body. It toppled over the terrain, scrambling on its back.

“Don’t mind if I do!” Patrick laughed, changing targets for his artillery, “Try a solid slug, bud!”

As advertised, a solid slug shell was a heavy, explosion-less shell. The shell on most of the Carrier was too hard to punch through with regular ordnance, but they’d been seeing more damage, namely flaking of armor, with these shells.

A gout of silver blood fountained in the air as the shot hit one of the less armored organs responsible for depositing the Spindlies, the electricity forcing its muscles to spasm and not allow it to conceal them beneath armored sheets.

Six more shots hit the thing, blood pumping from destroyed organs.

“Fuck yeah, finally!” The Iron Chariots team leader howled triumphantly, drawing blood. The biotic managed then to finally flip itself onto its side, heaving a slopping mass of thick silver blood across the ground. It stood, shakily, and then sat itself back down with its more armored parts facing us.

“They’re not indestructible, at least.” Strauss commented, “Wonder if we can duplicate that.”

“Not without the field, and I don’t think they’re going to come up on that one again anytime soon.” I tilted my head to the other seven, which now relegated themselves to pumping out Spindlies.

The artillery team ceased firing, then. The biotics were too close to continue firing, and now that the Raijin Field had been proven as an effective barrier, we couldn’t risk damaging it all the more.

“Terry, remind me to buy you a drink.” Patrick breathed a sigh of relief.

“Will do,” the man replied with a chuckle.

Those of us on the wall flinched as the first Spindlies moved onto the field, lasers pointing at them for a split second.

Nonplussed, I waited for the booming clap of thunder, but this time there was just a loud ‘pop’ as the electricity coursed up, caused smoke to billow from the creature, and then simply fizzled.

“Ah, yeah, I fixed it now.” Terry announced, “I’ve set it to do a test shot and check how much is actually needed to kill something. It… uh… well it’s not perfect. Anything that gets past the first ten meters is default getting some serious voltage.”

“Thank the gods,” Sammy uttered, setting his helmet to regular levels.

“Guess they don’t explode if they instantly die by electricity either.” I sighed in relief, and at the same time felt bitter about that. Perhaps if we’d just had them come to the field, I wouldn’t have sixteen dead on my hands.

But no, this was a stop-gap measure. These biotics would more than likely eventually figure out a way around it, if they were at all intelligent.

I had reason to believe that they were, at least to some extent. It seemed unusual to me that there was a seemingly abnormally weak biotic in the area. The crabs, though somewhat large, were far less threatening than even wolves were. They were likely quite durable, and they could hit with a fair amount of force with their punching claws, but they were slow and clumsy. Any of my teams would be able to tear through one given enough time. I couldn’t see any value in evolving to fill such a niche style.

Unless they were somehow forced too by these more advanced biotics. I’d heard that biotics would sometimes stratify themselves into hierarchies based upon the hives and Generations in the area. In this case, the Gen 2 Carriers might have forced a lesser Gen 1 to form, designed only for defense. And then, the Carriers tested and tested again the Spindlies until they were ridiculously good at penetrating armor.

All they would need to do then would be to tweak the settings, push the defensive qualities of the crabs and the offensive abilities of their spawn to extremes.

Perhaps in the future this interaction would change, but for now it did a lot to explain how the Spindlies were capable of doing what they did.

“Alright, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” Richard said, two large mechanical arms attached to his exo suit, each one connecting into large, pressurized canister on his back. His equipment was much more suited to him now, a far cry from what I’d seen in the Gauntlet.

The three tails of the suit could balance him, were prehensile, and were also barbed. There were two arms that extended up over his shoulders, and launchers tipped both those, and the wrists of his arms. Claws extended from his hands, suitable as slashing weapons and capable of injecting poison. Grenades of several assortments hugged his body as well, and it didn’t take more than a glance to know that he would be more than capable of moving quickly around the battlefield.

“Now’s a good a time as any.” I nodded to him before turning to Strauss, “We’re going to see about dealing damage to a few of the Carriers. If you can, come in and see about taking one of them down afterwards. Don’t overextend for it though, as soon as our air support comes in to give us room to breathe we’re going for the hives.”

“Playin’ my song.” Jeremy grinned, “Team, form up.”

His team, down two members at the moment, was joined with five Determinators that would help them during the mission. We had five ourselves, and hopefully they would be able to offset the loss of our teammates for the time being.

We waited for the next wave of Spindlies to cook themselves on the Raijin field before we jumped down, running flat out across the open ground. The Carrier on the outside of the formation noticed us as we moved, shaking it's hammer head and buffeting us with deep bass sounds like a war cry. The two tentacles that previously hung backward lifted up over its body, tipped with two morning-star like protrusions. It moved to bring them down, slapping them forward at us.

Evading them was easy, though, they weren’t very fast, and their movements were telegraphed. As we moved past them, I lashed out with one of my blades, superheated metal searing through the upper layers of the shell.

It wasn’t as durable as the rest of the body, that much I could tell, but I still was only able to cut four inches into it without a dedicated swing. Still, it twitched in response, drawing the tentacles back as is set out another vibrating moan.

When we were only twenty meters away, Richard began to deploy his weapons. The arms mounted on his back and the launchers on his arms began to fire gel-wrapped packets of acid. An instant later, a pair of grenades exploded between the Carriers nearest to us, flooding the area with a faily transparent fog. It was an emergency measure in the event a Spindlie tried to explode.

My task, then, was to clear the chaff.

I brought up my rifle, every round swapped with explosive-tipped bolts. The Carrier’s underbelly undulated, sheets of armor opening only directly beneath it as eight Spindlies began to mobilize. I fired, along with the five Determinators with me, tearing through them before they could even begin to move. I managed to get a few rounds on the inside of the Carrier as well, but regrettably there was no especially explosive response.

I suppose it would have been too much to ask for if the Spindlies could explode while still in their mother-biotic.

Richard was dumping massive quantities of acid on the thing, if nothing else. Noxious gas and hissing noise filled the air. “Next one.”

I nodded as we repeated what we had here, with the exception that this particular Carrier no longer even had tentacles, having been blown off by direct hits from artillery previously. This time, one of the Spindlies had managed to explode, but it devoted the bulk of its energy to firing away from the Carrier’s, rather than into us. If we were able to get them to ignore the Carrier’s presence, perhaps that would have been a way to do some damage. Whatever their spikes were made of, they were especially durable and sharp.

Something for us to look into, now that we had more technological advancement available. RR&D was probably investigating it right now, after what we’d run into already.

“Alright, this is gonna be the last one,” Richard shook his head, “This is the last of the hardcore stuff I’ve got.”

“As planned,” I nodded to him, the third Carrier that we could deliver anything too.

Behind me, I heard the clank of steel as one of the Determinators caught a spiked blast to the chest, doing little more than scour lines in its armor. When the gas was given the right conditions, it was anathema to the Spindlies explosive force. Too bad we couldn’t synthesize this stuff on the spot, but we brought enough for this at least.

Two Determinators helped to pry the tank off of Richard, and then as one they heaved the tank high up in the air. It arced end over end, and I sighted my rifle upon it as it came over the top of the last Carrier on our list.

He’d be getting the biggest dose of it.

I rattled off several shots, a burst of pressure and the explosion of the bullets enough for the canister to warp and shred open, dumping a huge amount of acid down upon the Carrier beneath it.

We backed off quickly, wary of getting any of this stuff on us. He’d specifically mixed several components under pressure to elicit the maximum reaction. It was something that he wouldn’t necessarily be able to do again anytime soon.

“Alright, that’s done, we’re coming back around for the first target to join up.” I called on the comms, noting already that Strauss and his team were engaged with the target.

“Got it, we’re actually able to get through some of the armor now.” He said, and I had to admit that the acid had done wonders for us. They’d managed to focus fire and cut through a pair of legs on the Carrier. We moved quickly over the uneven terrain, minding our footing even while the second Carrier we’d hit attempted to threaten us, spawning another batch of Spindlies.

As before, we tore through them without giving any chance for them to respond. This battle was all about tempo, now, and we were doing our best to maintain the upper hand.

I did notice, though, that the other Carriers were not idle, the four of them were ambling around us, seeking to fence us in. It wouldn’t be a concern if we only went after the last biotic in the line, but had we stuck around for the third, even the second in formation, they might actually end up being a considerable threat.

In our sprint, though, I noticed something peculiar. One of the Determinators rounded one of the few standing formations of coral, and came face to face with an undamaged Spindlie. I grit my teeth, having it take aim and knowing that likely this particular Determinator was probably going to be destroyed.

Contrary to what I expected of it, though, the Spindlie moved forward, trying to stab the machine with its arms. It scratched the armor in its efforts, but without the explosive force behind it the lances simply weren’t capable of punching through.

I had the Determinator push the Spindlie back with an armored backhand, unable to do so due to the spikes retracting as it tried. I frowned, having it continue to hold its position as we left the worst of the blast zone.

“Is it hugging it?” Richard commented dryly.

“Just about,” I shook my head, incredulous at the sight before the epiphany rang through me. I remembered the fight between the crab and one of the Spindlies that we’d witnessed, how the crab had battered and broken it with its claws with no consequence until the spike ball sustained enough damage that it became aware that it would die. Then, and only then, did it decide to explode, even though it should have been clear in moments that there would be no way for it to kill the crab otherwise.

“They only explode if damaged,” the realization stirred in me. I’m not sure if this would have been relevant information previously, but this would make this far more manageable.

We could explore what this really meant later, in the meantime I had the Determinators all take aim at the Spindlie and fire at the same time. The concentrated burst gave it no opportunity to explode, easily allowing them to dispatch it.

Frustration welled in me as I realized that this would have been very goddamned nice to know before now. All the targets that we’d killed at range could have been handled in close range with overlapping firepower to guarantee kills.

Given the keenly depressed air that Richard put off, I’m sure that he felt the same thing right now. We had a lot of wounded for very little reason now.

We continued to fall back, though, and I noted how Strauss team was managing through half of the legs now. If nothing else, we could keep it from moving easily.

“Reaper, we’ve got new contacts,” I heard Jeremy say, “Sammy says there’s… people, coming around on your side. I think they’re going after one of the wounded Carriers.”

“What?” I nearly fell from stopping too fast, “Who the hell is it? Everyone should be in base.”

I glared through the night, the bioluminescence no longer here due to the fact that most of it had been devastated by artillery fire. Sure enough, though, I could see the body heat of almost thirty people making their way forward towards the third Carrier, acid still burning through the top of its body.

They weren’t people that were with us, and I hissed in annoyance as I realized who it was.

“Our tail seems to have finally decided to show up.” I glared at them, realizing that their leader matched someone that I’d took note of earlier. The second-in-command of the Hunter’s Order, now probably his own leader of a splinter faction, Alex Werrick.

“They’re going to get themselves killed.” Richard turned fully towards them, a complicated look on his face.

I shook my head, “Let them. They’re not our problem in the first place, and they’re basically kill stealing right now.”

Richard turned to look at me with steel in his gaze, “We have to help them.”

Perplexed, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”