Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Forty-Two - Back Against the Wall

“You want to see a Samurai improve real fast and go from a non-threat to one scary motherfuck?

Put their back against a wall and place an entire army of enemies before them. If they’re not dead within the first few minutes, then whatever they’re up against is right fucked.”

--Extract from an interview with AussieMan, August 2041

***

Seeing the tiny black forms of the Model Ones around the busses with all of my friends--with Lucy and the kittens aboard--fall out of the sky like autumn leaves was like lifting a weight off of my shoulder.

The busses soon passed out of my range of sight, still hounded by a few flyers, but they were hovering over the faint outline of a barricade built across a distant street, with brightly glowing red flares marking safety, and a pile of wayward Antithesis proving that the safety was real.

My guns went quiet.

You have a few moments to purchase some things, I think. The AA gun will be attracting a lot of attention. By the way, here’s your new point total...

Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 94 Points
New Total: 207

That was a fair amount of points. I knew exactly what I wanted to buy. “Myalis. I need earmuffs.”

I see. Do you need literal earmuffs, or would any sound suppression system work?

“I want my ears to work tomorrow morning,” I said.

Forgive me, I didn’t think it was that big an issue. Combat Sonic Suppressors cost ten points for a pair. They should protect your hearing without impeding it.

“Please,” I asked while bringing my empty hand up. A box hit my palm with a satisfying smack. I was getting used to the whole teleporting boxes thing.

New Purchase: Combat Sonic Suppressors Mark I
Points Reduced to... 197

Popping the lid revealed two dark blue disks, the same colour as the armoured bits of my spinal mounting, with parts of the metal case cut away to allow a faint pinkish glow to escape. “What’s with the glowing?” I asked.

I changed the design somewhat to better match your other equipment. Vanguards tend to put a lot of stock in their gear looking like it is worth a lot, regardless of its actual value.

Now I felt as if admitting that they looked cool would make me sound vain. I placed the box down, took out one of the two padded disks out of it, and pressed it against my ear after moving a few loose strands of hair out of the way. It stuck on fast.

The other went on the opposite side. I turned this way and that and... couldn’t hear any difference.

They block all sound and absorb a fair amount of inaudible vibrations, then recreate those same sounds using an array of over two hundred micro-speakers inside the disk. Any sound at a level that could harm you is suppressed.

“Damn,” I said. It might have been because I was paying attention to my hearing, or it might have been dumb chance, but something had me turning around and looking down the side of the building. I had never had the good sense to develop a proper fear of heights, so hanging off the side of a sheer drop of twelve floors didn’t set my heart racing.

Seeing dozens of monsters crawling up the side of the building on the other hand, that had my heart jumping to my throat.

They were Model Fours, with long tentacles that grabbed at any crevice in the walls and whose wide, padded feet were clinging on like some sort of geckos. “Oh, shit,” I said as I whipped out my Trench Maker. The nearest was three or so floors down, but was climbing pretty damned fast.

I punched a burning hole into the mass of tentacles at its front.

They are probably attracted by the sound of the AA gun. They are rather out in the open though, and should be easy enough to eliminate. A point farming opportunity!

I was aiming at the third Model Four down when the guns on my back shifted around and sprayed flechettes at something next to me.

I jumped back from the edge and twisted around in time to see a trio of Model Ones flop onto the ground, very dead.

I suspect that some higher-tier Model has spotted the hole in the defences. You might have to prepare to fight off a number of Model Ones and potentially some Model Twos.

And that was on top of the clever fucks trying to scale the walls.

This day was a roller coaster of crappy twists and turns. I was moving towards the other corner of the building to see if there were more Model Fours coming up from there when a flock of Model Ones burst over the edge. Some flew too high and were immediately mowed apart by the AA gun’s twing gatling guns, but a few dipped low enough that they were able to skirt the edge of the roof. They flew past me, heading towards the gun emplacement.

I was pretty sure the smaller guns set on the AA gun were meant to act as some sort of point-defence, but there were only a few of those and a lot of Model Ones still.

My back-mounted guns opened up on the birds, tearing apart the flock in the time it took to blink.

Still, that was just one smaller group.

I rushed to the edge and looked down just as a couple of tentacles slapped onto the edge of the roof and started to pull up a Model Four.

I planted a pair of bullets centre of mass and watched it bump into another Model Four on the way down.

Setting my legs on a V, I aimed down the side of the building and emptied my magazine into the xenos crawling up the side. At the rate they were coming, I was going to run out of bullets before they ran out of bodies to throw at me.

“Tch,” I spat before pulling back and away from the edge. The last thing I needed was for an errant gust of wind of a shift in the rainfall to fling me off the side. Why the fuck weren’t there any rails?

I shoved my gun back into its holster to let it reload and moved back towards the AA gun. I couldn’t just run at the enemy all day, I’d need to let them come to me.

I made my stand next to the AA gun, back against a cement pillar that rose a few feet off the ground. Every minute that passed had more Model Fours crawling up onto the edge of the roof. Some stepped right into the range of the AA gun and were instantly pulped, but a few got lucky and came up behind AC units and from the lower sections of the roof.

There were more of them coming up too, they were clever, in their own suicidal lemming sort of way. Avoiding the spots where others had been torn up, and finding a path closer using the bodies of those that came before as a sort of guide on where not to stand.

Not that I made their life easy. Every flock of Model Ones coming in from a dead angle to the AA gun was met with a round of flechettes to the face, and the bigger bastards got to play with the inferno spat out of my Trench Maker.

“Myalis, Resonator!” I called out as a group of Model Fours took to hiding behind some sort of junction box. The bastards were picking up bits and pieces of dead aliens and flinging them my way. Most got torn out of the air by the AA gun, but that cost it a few rounds every time, and I doubted it had infinite bullets to spend.

I stuffed my Trench Maker away just in time to catch and activate a grenade that I caught out of thin air. A press of the tab and an underhand throw later, and the Model Fours were melting out of their cover.

I felt at my back for the ammo I had left and winced. “Myallis, I’m going to need some refills.”

I’m on it. Do you think you can find cover?

“Yeah,” I said as I moved to one of the same AC the aliens had been using for cover.

One restock later and I was back at it. I was probably racking up the points like mad, but it didn’t matter overmuch, not with the growing swarms of enemies coming at me. Soon the flechette guns on my shoulders were only pausing to reload and my Trench Maker was growing warm to the touch as I fired non-stop into a tide of enemies.

At the rate it was going I would either beat off the incursion from this roof all on my own, or I’d have enough points to just fuck off all on my own.

Or maybe the AA guns would stop firing at all between one moment and the next at the same time as my vision flashed.

INCOMING CALL FROM... BIG BROTHER LONGBOW.

“Sis, you might want to find cover. My gun’s supply of cannon rounds was way lower than it should have been. Some fuckwit skimmed off the top. I’m going to need to start using the railguns, and you can’t be around when that happens.”