Chapter Eight - What's a Metaphor?

"The armed forces of the world will always need a fast-moving, lightly armoured vehicle of war. Now more than ever. The threats we face today come from aliens who mostly attack from up close or with biological weapons, and protestors who are only rarely armed with anti-material weaponry."

--The Kissinger Institute, 'Armed Forces and You' digital pamphlet, 2031

***

The army was more than happy to let us borrow something to go charging into the aliens, in fact, Lieutenant-Corporal Britannica welcomed the idea with open arms and brought up a catalogue with every tank, armoured car, and transport truck listed on it.

Hedgehog was the designated driver, so I left the choice up to him. I was still a little disappointed when he picked out a small-ish humvee-like truck.

He explained that it had an automatic transmission and drove like a normal car, more or less. It had large wheels and was mounted up, so it would have decent clearance off-road. Otherwise, it was lightly armoured, specifically to deal with lesser antithesis threats, and the gun mounted on the top was remote operated. His AI was willing to take over there.

I got in the Fury with Gomorrah. Tankette had her mini-tank, so that left Princess, Knight, Crackshot, and of course Hedgehog in the truck. My mech was following at the rear, to cover us in case anything happened, though Gomorrah's car had just as much firepower as the mech or the tank, though in a different package.

I checked the time before we left. It was some ways past noon. The little cook-off had eaten into our daylight, but it wasn't so bad. We had some hours of sun to burn still. I did plan on making it back home before night, or soon after.

"Alright," I huffed as I crashed into the passenger seat next to Gomorrah. "It's like herding cats. Why haven't we elected someone who isn't me as leader yet?"

"Because I don't want to do it, and you're actually pretty decent at this," Gomorrah said. "I think we've gone over this before." She put her car into gear, and we started to move along. The highway would be good enough for some ways. We'd have to veer off and either circle around and use some shitty backroads to get to the lake, or go through the woods and push through the line of model twenty-twos way ahead.

I made sure that my comms were off, so it was just Gomorrah and I, and I supposed our AI, who could hear us. "So, what do you think about the group?"

"As a whole?" she asked. "Green."

"Green as in good, or green as in a bunch of untrained newbies?"

She thought about that for a bit. "Can I say both?"

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "But elaborate anyway."

Gomorrah glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "I was only with Princess and Hedgehog, but I guess I can report on Tankette too." I nodded for her to continue. "Princess is enthusiastic. That's about the best I can say about her. She's unfocused, doesn't spend her points wisely, if at all, and she doesn't seem to treat the enemy as a threat. She's mostly fearless though, but I'm not sure if that's a pro or a con."

"Huh, interesting. Knight is super focused. She's actually a good fighter with what she has, and when we gave her a gun she was pretty good with it too. Very calm, a little careful, I think? She reminds me a bit of some of the soldiers we have, but less... stick up her ass?"

"They'll make for an interesting pair together, then," Gomorrah said. "If Knight can encourage Princess to behave more professionally, then they might be able to come out of things without dying."

"Cool," I said. "And the others?"

"Hedgehog is a fantastic marksman. It was nice working with someone who hits the things they're aiming for." I gave her a flat look, but she pretended that she didn't know. "He's great over the coms. Calls out issues, kept me informed on his status the entire time, very military-minded."

"Makes sense, considering his background," I said.

She grunted. "He's a little stiff, however. I... maybe it's because I'm used to working with strange samurai, but he strikes me as very narrow-minded? In terms of the things he buys and his specialisation, I mean. I haven't talked to him outside of a professional context. Though he's not as... personable as some samurai either."

"Stick up ass, but otherwise competent," I summarised.

She sighed. "Yes, more or less."

I leaned back into the seat. "That leaves Tankette, which you didn't actually work with."

"A little. We arrived at the wall before you, and before it was entirely cleared on the other side. She helped with that. I don't know about her behaviour before from personal experience, but I've read the report from Britannica as well. He liked her. She's a little... slow to react? That could just be her tank. It's not the fastest thing around."

I glanced back. We weren't travelling all that fast, I noticed, but it looked like Tankette's mini tank was giving it all it had. Still, it was faster than the convoy had moved.

"How was she otherwise?"

"Good firepower," Gomorrah said. "Not perfect aim, but she made up for it with high explosive rounds."

"As one does," I agreed.

Gomorrah nodded. "Otherwise, she kept in formation, mowed down some enemies. I have this feeling that she's going to be more of a... not a Grasshopper exactly, Grasshopper is great in fights from what I can tell, but Tankette definitely puts her priorities more in keeping people safe than in killing antithesis. She's levelling the playing field by having a really strong early specialisation."

"Tanks are pretty badass, I wonder why more samurai don't go that route."

Gomorrah hummed. "Same reason the army still has more infantry than tanks. A lot of antithesis fighting is done from walls and from home-to-home, you can't do that from inside of a tank. They have places where they shine, shine really bright even, but others where they're at a disadvantage."

"That's fair," I said.

"And on your end?" Gomorrah asked. "How were Crackshot and Knight?"

"Knight I told you already," I said. "Good with a sword, pretty decent. Needs better gear but that'll come. She's got like... fuckload of baggage. Like, I'm not one for therapy or shit like that, but damn, her and Princess could use some. Uh, otherwise, she's got potential, I guess."

"They worry me," Gomorrah admitted. Couldn't blame her, the Dupont sisters worried me too.

"Crackshot's cool. He's not great against lots of enemies at once, still, but he takes out bigger ones with no problem."

Gomorrah drummed her fingers on her steering wheel. "You are aware that the antithesis don't send out aliens one at a time, right?"

"Eh, he'll figure it out," I dismissed. "He's nice to have around. Funny, pretty calm overall. Like, he's just got this really nice chill vibe to him. I'd invite him to a bar-b-que, or for some beers. If I had a straight sister, I'd let him smash."

"Cat, you are... stop using metaphors. Please."

"You say that like I know what those are."

Gomorrah didn't reply for a bit, instead she focused on the road. There was a row of abandoned cars to one side for some reason. One of them had a model three embedded in the windshield. There was a lot of blood around, and it wasn't all alien.

Looked like someone had hit a model three, then some good Samaritans stopped to help and got chewed up for it.

Another reason to hate the countryside.

"General strategy, then?" Gomorrah asked. "I suggest myself and Hedgehog at the front. Tankette can support as she can with your mech. Princess, Crackshot, and Knight can form our midline?"

"Where's that leave me? And Knight's a melee fighter."

"Right, switch Knight and Hedgehog around, then. As for you, I figure you could scout around, take whatever position's needed otherwise. Ideally we'll have enough fire on any problem that it'll be taken care of relatively quickly."

"You mean firepower," I said.

She shrugged.

"Alright, yeah, I'm down for that. We'll be driving right up to the lake or parking closeby and walking over?"

"We can stop nearby, I suppose. It depends on how much we want to alert the hive, and whether or not it notices us. Either way, we burn it down."

"It's already down, isn't it? I mean, assuming it's in a lake."

"Cat, don't start arguing semantics with me. Or anyone else. You'll just lose on a technicality."

"Was that a pun?"

It was nice, riding in a car and arguing with a friend right before diving into hell itself!

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