Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seventy-Six - The Big Players

“Younger Samurai, and by that, we mean those who turned into Samurai recently (it has nothing to do with age!) are generally pretty well protected by the older ones.

But they can’t stop us from shipping them!”

--Deceased anonymous forum user, 2030

***

There were so many flying models out ahead that they were practically a cloud of living flesh, swarming out towards us like grasping vines.

“Damn,” I said.

“I’m going to need a bigger flamethrower,” Gomorrah said.

I nodded, ready to agree with her, when a large flamethrower appeared right next to Gomorrah at just the right height for her to grab onto its twin handles and angle its nozzle up.

It was nearly all-black, except for white detailing within and it was festooned in crosses and skulls and small statuettes across its entire surface.

“Did... did you put extra points into making it all... gaudy?” I asked.

“Don’t you have more important things to focus on?” she asked.

“Not right at this very second, no,” I said. I gestured to the swarm approaching us. “We’ve got like a minute before we’re pecked apart. I’m not going to spend it moping.”

Gomorrah sighed. “You are so unserious.”

“That’s not a word, I’m sure,” I said.

“You know what I meant,” she snapped. “And yes. I did spend an extra point to decorate my flamethrower. So what?”

“Nothing, nothing. I mean, it’s not my kind of thing, but it looks really pious or whatever. I’m sure Jesus will appreciate you burning things to death more if your flamethrower has the symbol of the thing that killed him on it.”

“Shut up, Cat,” she said. “At least I’m not slowly turning into some sort of heathen animal person. You’re one fur coat away from being a god-damned furry, you know that, right?”

I slapped a hand over my chest. “That stings, little G.”

She paused. “How long have you been waiting to call me that?”

“A bit,” I said. I wanted to rib her some more, but time was running short. I wiggled my shoulders and Myalis must have caught on because my new guns deployed from over my shoulder. Dumbass the First installed itself nearby, its plasma rifle twisting around and aiming at the sky. “Ready?” I asked as I adjusted my footing and brought Whisper up. I couldn’t even remember what kind of ammo I’d used in it last, but I was sure it wasn’t pleasant for anything it hit.

Gomorrah shifted her robes with one hand and let her leg poke out of them so that she could place her foot on the railing and hold her new flamethrower up towards the sky.

I snorted. “Trying to distract them with a bit of thigh?” I asked. She did have nice legs. “It’s working for me.”

“Shush you,” she said. “And yes, I’m ready.”

“Whenever you want to start,” I said.

We were still rolling along, the mobile base rumbling beneath as it slowly navigated around wrecked cars and abandoned trucks at a speed that most mobility scooters could outpace. There was going to be no outrunning the swarm.

The base’s main gun turned around and aimed up, as did the machine guns sticking out of its sides. “Myalis, get ready to spend a lot of points on stuff to clear the air,” I said. A big enough bomb might be able to do it, I figured. It wouldn’t be pretty, but if it worked then it was worth it.

Certainly.

The Model Ones flocked closer. I really wished they’d make more noise than the flap of their wings, it felt as if there were some sound-effects missing as the swarm scattered, then started to swoop down towards us.

Gomorrah and I both tensed. My finger started to pull back on the trigger.

The sky filled with actinic arcs of jittering energy. I squeezed my flesh and blood eye shut, but my cybernetic one was enough to capture the sparks darting from bird to bird, each flash leaving an imprint of their bones through their skin before the Model Ones were peeled out of the sky like so much snow.

Alien bodies rained down onto the street with a thudding pitter-patter like heavy hail, some of them crashing through windows, others bursting apart against the road. Only a few of them, with wings locked in place, managed to swoop as far as the mobile base to crash against its side and roof.

“What the--” I began.

A form blew past above us, a person with a pair of mechanical wings carrying a gun as long as I was tall that sparked with electrical discharges. They looked our way, face hidden by a bird-shaped visor, then flew on.

I was about to start swearing when I heard a low hum from behind and turned to see a second flier approaching our position.

Deus Ex landed atop the mobile base’s main gun with a heavy clunk, her twin engines hovering by her side and her face entirely covered by her mask. “Heard you got a name,” she said.

I paused for a moment, then refocused. “Hey,” I said. “Yeah, I did.” I flicked a thumb over my shoulder. “You know the idiot that did that?”

She nodded. “I do. We’re running clean-up in the area now. The way should be clear from here to the edge of the green zone. Good work out there, by the way. That’s a lot of civvies.”

“So, what, you’ll just... take over?” I asked.

I didn’t know why I felt so disappointed, or betrayed for that matter.

“Pretty much. Can’t let the small fry die because they bit off more than they can chew,” she said. “Plus you’ve been out for what, five hours? Six? Go take a break. In a couple of hours it’ll all be over.”

She glanced past me and to the road we were leaving behind.

“On that note, I’m off. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” She bunched her legs up under her and jumped into the air with her entire rig pulling her up and away.

I lowered Whisper by my side and looked over the field of dead Model Ones. A minute ago I’d been wondering if I could take them all on, and now they were dead. It felt as if someone had just yanked me around and shown me the chasm between me and the other Samurai out there.

“Damnation,” Gomorrah said. “I got this thing for nothing.” She wiggled her flamethrower about.

I sighed. “You can probably make toast with it or something,” I said.

My guns retracted and I slung Whisper over a shoulder before looking out ahead of us. We were getting closer to the front meter by meter. At that rate, we’d be there in a few more minutes.

“You think we’re done?” I asked.

Gomorrah nodded. “For this incursion? Probably. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent with other Samurai, but they tend to treat new ones like, well, they treat us like children. It gets better relatively quickly though. I think it’s more about how well you can pull your weight.”

“Hmm,” I said. That made a sort of sense. We’d done a lot today, Gomorrah and I, but I was willing to bet that an older, or rather a more experienced Samurai, could do a lot more a whole lot more efficiently.

“Home,” Gomorrah said.

“Home,” I replied. “Not... I don’t think I have a home, exactly.”

“You mentioned someone close to you, no?” she asked.

I nodded along. “Yeah. I guess wherever she is, that’s home. I’m pretty sure Myalis can track her down for me.”

That would be as easy as... done.

My mood lightened a bit at that, so I found a spot to sit on the railings running around the roof and enjoyed the bumpy ride. It had been a hard day’s work, but one capped by some success. More success than failure. And in the end, I’d get to see Lucy and the kittens again.

That meant all sorts of new problems, but I doubted they’d be as challenging as facing an alien invasion while poorly prepared.