Kael settled into his immersion rig, a clamshell of cold metal and warm gel, and let his consciousness bleed into the pack. He didn't pilot them individually; that was too slow. He became the pack. He felt Peaseblossom’s keen vision as his own, Hornet’s listening array as a constant, low thrum of data, and Scarab’s heavy, brutal mass as a promise held in reserve.
“Target down. Package secured,” Kael reported, his voice trembling only slightly. “Pack, form on Cicada. Bug out.” targeting pack
Hornet-7 unleashed a deafening screech of white noise across every radio band, every wireless frequency, every vibration the substation’s walls could carry. The Archivist flinched, his hands flying to his ears. In that half-second of distraction, Firefly triggered the micro-charge. Kael settled into his immersion rig, a clamshell
Kael shut his eyes. He felt the pack’s separate minds, their subroutines, their limitations. Hornet could blind. Firefly could stun, but the flash-bang was set for a full room, not a single target. It would knock the Archivist unconscious, maybe give him a concussion. It might also trigger the dead man’s switch if his vitals spiked wrong. He felt Peaseblossom’s keen vision as his own,
“Firefly, repurpose. Do not deploy flash-bang. Detach one of your demo-limbs. Set it to minimum yield. We’re talking a firecracker, not a bomb. Cicada, you have the tethers. Hornet, prepare to scream on all EM frequencies the second I give the word.”
“Pack, form on Wasp. Arrowhead. Low emissions.” Hornet-7, a flattened disc, peeled off to circle above, painting a bubble of electronic silence around them. Cicada-9, a bloated hexapod, scuttled along the floor, its cargo bay holding a spare power cell and a single, compact-shaped charge. Firefly-3, a stubby cylinder, clung to the ceiling like a metal limpet, its demo-tipped limbs ready to breach any door. Scarab-2 brought up the rear, a brutalist cube of armor and a 20mm cannon that could punch through a bank vault.
“Hornet, confirm no other active electronics. Cicada, get a demo charge on the primary support pillar at the junction. Firefly, prepare a flash/stun for the entrance. Scarab… stand by.” The pack moved with a silent, lethal grace. They were one organism, and the Archivist was the tumor.