Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 260: Cissel and Luke - Part 2

"They have to come close to the ground to fire with any accuracy," Cissel explained, her voice dropping into a fierce tone.

"On top of that, every time they execute an attack, they are forced to circle back into the high atmosphere before they can dive again.

You see, their targeting sensors are calibrated for high-altitude scanning; if they stay low for too long, their tracking sensors will keep locked at the same spots they targeted before falling.

Also, once they lock on fixed targets, not moveable ones like us. Their sensors can’t move and track the targets if they dart away from their fire. If they don’t reset their sensors by going up, they’ll keep firing at the spots they locked, even if the target has moved, ending up showering the dirt with wasted laser fire."

"..."

The meaning behind her words was clear. Even if these flying drones were terrifying, they weren’t invincible. They were very limited by the inefficiency of their sensors, just like how Cissel described.

"Now, as we know what we are dealing with, we can finally plan our strategy..."

"Wait a minute," Luke interrupted, his voice thick with hesitation. "That’s all well and good for the flying drones, but what about the D-1000s and the S-1000s? You don’t expect them to just stay behind at the den and watch us from a distance, watching us deal with the flying drones without intervening or attacking, do you?"

His words were met with a sharp, piercing glare from Cissel. Luke hurriedly added, "I know the D-1000s stand no chance against the fortifications John gave us, but what about the S-1000s? I heard they fire using plasma cannons. One direct hit from those could melt these walls, right?!"

"They use miniature and significantly weaker versions of plasma cannons," Cissel corrected him, her patience clearly wearing thin.

"And I have a feeling we won’t be fighting them just yet. Mark looked like a cautious program; he would try to fortify the den and secure his base of operations before sending the heavy ground units to flush us out.

Our first concern will be the flying drones. Once we swat them out of the sky, we wait for the ground units to crawl into our kill zone, and then we butcher them."

She impatiently rolled her eyes before adding, "Is there any other question you need to get off your chest before we actually talk about the strategy?"

"Yes, one more," Luke said. As she had expected, he was a bottomless pit of doubt and inquiries when he was nervous. "What’s the main weak spot of the S-1000s? Is it the weakened plasma cannons?"

"That’s correct," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "The cannons aren’t integrated like the ones we are using, or the ones John enhanced recently. They are smaller, weaker, slower, and they require a long time to recharge between bursts.

It’s thanks to their limited energy cells that they carried, which are barely enough to power up these metallic behemoths. Not to mention, the moment they begin firing from those cannons, the S-1000s’ mobility drops by a huge margin, as most of the power output is directed towards the cannons.

They become sluggish, slow to react to any sudden threat, and easily outpaced even by you. Even if their outer bodies are enhanced by heavy alloys, they can be killed easily by our towers and automated cannons as they turn into sitting ducks.

And if they get close and we meet with a deadly situation? Our grenades will turn them into scrap metal. Is that all?"

"Well..." Luke felt as if he had asked one more thing; Cissel might seriously consider killing him herself just to save the machines the trouble. And yet, there was one question that had been gnawing at the back of his mind since she started talking. "How come you know all of that? It feels like you know all the ins and outs of these different units... It feels like..."

"I told you before: don’t ask! Never ask!!" She glared at him in a way so threatening and final that it made Luke swallow the rest of his sentence. The warning was clear; some secrets were off-limits, even in the middle of a war.

"Now, to handle the flying drones, I’ll take the lead," Cissel commanded, shifting back into speaking about their upcoming strategy.

"I’ll draw their fire and act as the bait. Once they commit to a low-altitude strafe and fire at me, you jump as high as your stats allow and smash those flying drones towards the ground.

Once they are within twenty meters of the ground, our defences can lock onto them and finish the job. It’s a simple cycle of bait and smash. Come on, there is literally nothing left to ask about! You’ve already asked me about every nut and bolt!!"

Just as she was in the middle of her exasperated outburst, Luke raised a single hand. It was the universal gesture for ’I have a question.’ Cissel’s patience finally snapped, her daggers twitching in her hands, but before she could scream at him, he pointed toward the distant horizon.

"The den is active! The machines... They are here!!" he shouted.

The moment the words left his mouth, Cissel spun around, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the shimmering air above the distant den. There, rising like a swarm of angry hornets from the ground, she saw the machines. Three hundred units in total, exactly as John had predicted.

"Stay here!" Cissel commanded, her voice deep and authoritative.

In their team, John had always played the role of the scout, the one who danced on the edge of the enemy’s blade to gather intel. But John wasn’t here. Without a second thought, she decided the role was now hers.

She had a very high Speed stat and an additional agility ability that augmented her movement. Not to mention, she knew more about what was coming than Luke.

Yet before she could take a single step, Luke moved his massive club in her path, stopping her cold.