We sent out our drones as soon as we received the news of our enemies approaching so that we could get direct visuals. Video feed was live in a few minutes.
The large tank was leading the rest. We programmed the turrets to wait till the whole platoon was within the sensory range of the turrets. Soon we could hear loud wheezing sounds which meant the last unit had entered into the firing range and the turrets had started with artillery firing. I looked at the screen to see the effect and it was satisfying. I could see multiple units pinned down under the heavy artillery firing. The intense bombardment had caused severe damage to their armour. My eyes next went to the units that lied strewn about, immobile, armours filled with gaping holes, smoke rising from them. Our spider defence turrets had done their job well. About half of enemy units were either destroyed or crippled. Now, we just had to wait till they came closer and then we could release our beasts of war.
The sensors of our turrets were divided into grids. They would fire at a location only when the sensors in that region were activated. This helped in focused fire and curbed wastage of ammunition. Moreover, it assisted in locating the enemy units. The drones were not enough to cover everything visually. While we were watching the enemy get bombarded, a thought suddenly struck my mind. I couldn’t see the large tank that contained Sergei neither did any of the junk resembled his tank. THE TANK WAS NOT IN OUR VIEW!!! I was dumbstruck. The turret sensors hadn’t picked its location and that meant it could be anywhere. What surprised me the most is, how did they cloak themselves? The sensors were designed to even detect objects floating over them. The drones were already occupied with providing visual feed of the movement of the other enemy units even though they were diminished in numbers. We had only one other option, that was to send in the Felines. We sent all of them to cover the ground as much as possible.
What we found was not pretty. Soon after the Felines were sent out, two of them were able to track down the tank but it wasn’t alone. The next visual was petrifying. The tank was not moving on the ground anymore. It was hovering on what seemed to be three pairs of nozzles used in rocket propulsion systems but at low power, just so that it could float at a small height. However, that was only my initial observation of the propulsion. The vessel had already surprised us, possibly it had more tricks under that thick armour. The exhausts from the nozzles hid tiny protrusions along their sides which seemed to generate some kind of pulse. I assumed those pulses were electromagnetic in nature and most probably were blocking the sensors linked to the turrets. Then, I noticed long shadows projecting out of the thick shadow of the tank. As my eyes went from the bottom to the top of the vehicle, I saw two pairs of wings coming out from the front and the back of the vessel. The ones at the front were longer and wider than the ones at the back. Looking closely, I found that the wings at the front supported multiple firing weapons including rocket and missile launchers. I advised the Feline operators to tune in the machines to look for gamma radiation and there they were, specific signatures of grade X nuclear warheads from the pre war era. I called Phil and showed him the data. Our dome could sustain a maximum of three hits from those warheads and certainly Sergei had more than that.
Immediately, Phil sent out instructions to try and hack any missile on that tank which was technically flying right now. I issued strict orders that every operator engaging that tank should make sure that not a single warhead hits the dome or else the city would fall.
Soon, I received a dreadful piece of information. There indeed was an electromagnetic field around Sergei’s vehicle and it blocked all kinds of hacking attempts from our side. Not just that, the units surrounding the tank were also shielded from external attacks. This meant, there was only one way to deflect the hits and that was by intercepting the missiles using our machines and that too at a minimum distance from the city. It was unfortunate that my adventures were proving costly for the city I built with my hands and I had to save it at any cost.
To be continued….
Chronicles of Tomorrow: Echoes from the Future 