Chapter Forty-Nine - Those Who Love Cannons

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***

The first thing I did once I was back on the ground floor was to check on the mecha cats. I had a handy app-like bit of software I could tap into that basically gave me a shitty map of the area and showed me where the cat-drones were in relation to me. They were all green, which I figured meant we were safe for the moment.

Then I checked on Grasshopper.

My... friend was leaning up against a wall, legs sprawled out and the nanomachine healing kit sitting on her lap. She had a granola bar in one hand and was chewing it slowly as I approached.

“Hey,” I said. “Feeling better?”

She chewed a few more times, then swallowed. “Yes,” she said. “I suspect I’m dosed with enough painkillers that attempting to operate anything wouldn’t be a wise choice.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I said.

The civilians filed into the area behind me. They were sticking close to each other, like a frightened herd of deer that had just been startled. Their eyes were open the same way, as if the first loud noise they heard would be enough to spook them. Honestly, I couldn’t blame them.

Still, if they were a bit more calm, I’d consider arming them up for their own safety. As it was... that didn’t seem wise.

Grasshopper leaned up so that she could see the civilians better. “There’s... less of them,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Oh.”

It was just one little sound, but the way she said it carried a lot of baggage. I half turned and gestured the civilians away. They were reluctant to move until a few of the cat mechs in the area herded them away.

I knelt down next to Grasshopper. “Are you okay?” I asked.

She considered it, then took a bite of her granola bar and nodded. That was the most I’d get out of her, I figured.

“We need to find a way to get everyone out of here,” I said. “I don’t think we can escort the civvies out to the edge of the city. Not with the wave already on top of us.” I pulled up the Family’s map and winced. They had a separate, more zoomed-in and detailed map of the current area. It was being updated a lot more frequently than their regional map. The wave was already at the space where the wall should have been.

A glance revealed it to be made of hundreds of red pinpricks, some of which winked out. I imagined that the defenders were pretty busy. We were maybe seven hundred metres away from the edge, if we could go in a straight line.

That wouldn’t be possible.

“I’m going to call the Family for backup,” I said. “Bet we can get some mercs to fly a tank over. Then we can load everyone on and send them off to safety.”

“I imagine you’ll want me to go as well?” Grasshopper asked.

“If you think you need it,” I said. “Personally... I don’t know what I’d do. But I’m both stupid and hardheaded, which I’ve been told is about as attractive as it is annoying. You always struck me as being pretty smart. Smarter than I am, so I’m not gonna tell you what to do.”

Grasshopper chuckled. “Thank you, Stray Cat.”

“Just Cat,” I said.

She nodded, plopped the last of her bar into her mouth, then made a shooing gesture at me. “Make that call, Cat,” she said.

I did as she asked, climbing to my feet and walking over to the edge of the room where I pulled up Laserjack’s number. I dialled and hoped he wasn’t so busy that he’d just ignore the call. It rang twice before he picked up.

“Are you going to die in the next ten seconds?” Laserjack said, his voice gruff and not ready to take anyone’s shit.

“No,” I said.

“Give me half a minute,” Laserjack said. I waited as the line clicked off and went mute. I crossed my arms but made an effort not to get irritated. The dude was taking care of a whole lot of shit all at once. He was a samurai, just like me, I could afford him a bit of respect.

“Alright,” he said a minute later. “What’s on fire?”

“Nothing. I need evac at my location for a bunch of civilians.”

“That’ll be hard to swing,” he said. “You’re in the middle of it.”

“Civilians and Grasshopper. She’s injured. I gave her some shit, she won’t die here, but seeing a doc wouldn’t hurt. Might need stitches or whatever you give to someone that got chewed up.”

“Ah,” he said. “How many civilians?”

“Maybe twenty, twenty-five? I didn’t count,” I said.

“Is there a cleared landing space nearby?”

I shook my head. “No. Roads are quiet, but they’re a mess.” I could hear the familiar thump that my railguns made from nearby. My cat mechs were working hard to keep any curious aliens down. That wouldn’t last forever. The moment the wave shifted, or a bigger group passed by...

“Clear a space on the road for a transport,” he said. “You have... about three minutes. Prep the civilians too. Laserjack out.”

The line went dead.

I stood there for a moment, then swore. “Okay, fuck. Grasshopper! Your evac’s coming in a bit. I need to make room for it. Can you help the civilians get to it once it touches down?” I asked.

Grasshopper blinked a few times, then she rolled to her side and climbed to her feet. It didn’t look easy, but she made it. “I’ll do my very best,” she said.

I nodded, then hesitated. Front or back? The back was a mess, the front probably had a lot more aliens to deal with. But then the front would be easier for the civilians.

“Myalis, pull the cats back. Keep them close to Grasshopper. We don’t need to secure the entire damned building, I don’t think.”

Understood. How do you intend to secure the street?

“With a lot of bombs,” I said as I crossed the offices on a straight path to the front of the building. “How many access-ways are there on the street? I mean... there’s both ends, plus how many alleys and how many compromised buildings?”

One moment... I count thirty-two ways for an antithesis ground unit to reach the road within one hundred metres of this building’s exit.

“I need thirty-two of those acid rain bombs. I want every passage in to cost the fuckers. As many resonators too. We’ll enclose the area.”

There was a model four at the entrance, prying the doors open with a pair of tentacles. It was strong enough that the glass door was starting to open.

I pulled up my Bullcat and fired through the glass and into the alien. Then I stepped out onto the street.

I may have been a little hasty, I realized as I took in the number of aliens running across. They noticed me at about the same time.

My back-mounted guns snapped out of their housing and immediately started to fire. I expected them to fire single shots, but instead both of them purred, a constant wave of superheated air pouring out of them while aliens all across the street were ripped apart.

Not to be outdone, I leaned into my shotgun, flicked it back to full-auto, then swept across the horde, raining buckshot into every alien I could see.

“‘Nades,” I said.

Myalis caught on, and a large box appeared by my side. I kicked it open and the acid-rain grenades within zipped up into the air above. They darted over the alleys and to the end of the road a moment before a glowing mist started to come down over those entrances.

The immediate area around me was clear, so I dropped to a knee next to the box and started to pick out resonators from within it. I turned them on with a flick of my thumb, then tossed them out across the road. My throwing aim wasn’t perfect, but the fun thing with explosives was that accuracy was optional.

“We’re going to need something for the air,” I said.

Turrets? A bit uncreative, but they kinda worked. I had a lot of points to work with though, and it would feel kind of lame to just face a few cheap-o laser arrays on the edge of the street plucking the smaller alien birds out of the air.

“Myalis, got any ideas for keeping the skies safe?” I asked. “Not something dinky.”

I imagine you need a solution that doesn’t require your direct attention? In that case, how about a Flak Cat Cannon?

***