Chapter Sixty-Six - Tanks and Soldiers and Guns, Oh My!

“Most modern militaries in the early 2000s were designed to counter other modern militaries and minor uprisings.

The Antithesis changed that. Now most forces split their attention between crowd suppression, their traditional anti-military role, and incursion suppression.”

--Introduction to the ‘Three Way Problem’ by Professor Ivence, 2054

***

I don’t know why, but when I imagined the army showing up, I was expecting a couple of troop transports. Maybe a few armoured cars.

I wasn’t expecting tanks.

My knowledge about tanks wasn’t exactly great. I’d seen them in movies and games, and maybe in a history documentary or two. I knew they were big armoured things. For some reason, it never registered that they’d be fucking enourmous.

The tank that rolled onto the road with the arena was nearly wide enough to take up the entire street. It had smaller gun emplacements all around it, turrets with armoured screens under them, and a main gun sitting on the back with a barrel I could have stuck my head in.

Wheels instead of tracks, though. Big ones, with hexagonal-patterned tires, four to a side.

The tank turned my way, casually rolled over the hood of some poor civilian’s little sedan, then made a tight turn a couple of metres ahead of me and stopped with a hiss.

I stared up as a hatch hummed open. The inch-thick doorway was shoved up by a little hydraulic arm, just enough that a guy was able to poke his head out. “Are you Stray Cat, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said. “Nice ride.”

The soldier grinned. “Thank you, ma’am! We’re the only super-heavy here. Thought it would be best to have us break the tide, as it were.”

“Super heavy?” I asked.

He reached an arm out and gave the vehicle an affectionate thump. “One hundred and fifty tonnes of alien killing beauty.”

“Nice,” I said. I think I saw the appeal. I wasn’t a gun nut, but that cannon on the top. Well, bitches did love cannons. “You guys going to stick around here?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

I heard something off to the side, and leaned back to see a few more vehicles coming over. Tanks, but these were no bigger than an SUV. Fewer wheels, and the asymmetrically-set gun wasn’t as panty-wettingly big.

“Cool. You’re really freeing me up here,” I said. “There are some civilians holed up in the arena. Saw some Model Threes and Fours around earlier. And watch out for Model Nines. They’re nasty fuckers.”

The tanker saluted. “Will do, ma’am. Do you need a ride anywhere? We have infantry being dropped off here.”

I shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

I wouldn’t mind riding on a tank.

As it turned out, what he meant was that when a troop transport came around--just a sort of enclosed truck, lightly armoured and unarmed--to drop off a couple of squads of infantry, it waited around for me to hop on.

I didn’t complain. It saved me some walking, but I did kind of want to ride in one of the tanks. Lucy would trip.

I stayed standing in the cramped rear of the transport, eyes on the road passing by behind us. The town had taken a serious blow already, but a lot of it seemed somewhat superficial. Some clean-up, a bit of cash spent repainting homes, fixing yards and replacing all the glass, and Black Bear would be right as rain. More or less.

The transport rolled to a stop before the headquarters, and I leapt out of the back.

There were a lot more soldiers around than I’d expected. They seemed to be using the front of the headquarters as a staging ground, tents going up and blocky mobile homes with com-arrays on their roofs parking in neat rows.

I saw some of the local police around, mostly hanging out close to the main building itself. Either they didn’t want the army going in, or they were just focusing on keeping the civilians safe while the soldiers took the brunt of any potential attack.

The army certainly had the better equipment. More of those light tanks were parked here and there, sandbags already going up around them, and others were setting up AA-guns on mounts on the lawns of the buildings across the street.

I found Gomorrah sitting on Fury’s hood, one leg kicking back and forth while she stared off into the sky.

“You look chill,” I said as I moved over.

The nun looked down, her impassive mask staring back at me. “I was. Just relaxing a little before we get back to work.”

“We’re taking the Fury?”

“We’re not walking.”

Fair enough. “Right. Before we go. Did you find a place to land us?”

“I figured I’d find the biggest hole and slip into that,” she said. We were both quiet for a while, then she sighed. “Don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I lied.

“Did you have a better idea?”

“If I say anything related to lube, you’ll be pissed, right?”

She nodded.

“Right, right. So, I was actually thinking. The mine has to have an exit. Or at least, an entrance. The orbital strikes might have poked a few holes in the surface, but the company had to get in somehow.”

“You’re thinking of hitting the hive from that direction?” Gomorrah asked.

“It’s an idea,” I said. “If we drop into the middle of the hive, between... whatever dead end is in that, and the exit, half of them will be able to run away.”

She shifted. “Unless we come in by the main entrance and then half of them leave from that new hole. Did you want to split up?”

“No. Let’s stick together. And that hole is monitored. Any aliens coming out of there will be tracked. At least, I hope.”

“And not those from the main entrance?” Gomorrah asked.

I shrugged, then made a crumbly gesture with both hands. “We could collapse it?”

“That... makes some sense. A few rockets by the entrance might do it.”

“I’ve got a lot of options when it comes to bombs. Like, an unhealthy amount. I’m sure there’s something I can buy for a few points that’ll do the trick.

I stretched, then gestured to the Fury. “Let’s go?” I tossed my crap in the back. “Oh, and we need to call Cause Player.”

“You need to call him. I’ve been talking to everyone today. And don’t forget your cats.”

I had forgotten about those. With what looked like a few hundred soldiers around, they were probably not as useful to have around. “Myalis, can you recall those? Would they fit in the trunk?”

“The trunk’s not too big,” Gomorrah said. “But you can try.”

My mecha cats trotted over, some of them surprising the soldiers as they sauntered by. As it turned out, you could fit them in the trunk, but it was a near-thing. They had to fold themselves up all neat and tight, and I had to shove them in a bit.

I slumped onto the passenger-side seat and started looking through my contacts while Gomorrah gently took off and started to hover over Black Bear.

My augs rang, and soon enough, Cause Player picked up. “Hello?” he asked.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re alive?”

“Yeah. That blast nearly knocked me off my feet. Nearly destroyed my camera too, but I still got a good angle on everything. It’ll make for a great VOD.”

“Uh, yeah. That sounds cool. No injuries?”

“I have good armour,” he said. “Are you okay?”

I allowed myself to grimace. No one could see it. “I’m fine. The hive’s not entirely gone. It’s currently settled into this mineshaft. Gomorrah and I are heading over there now.”

“Can I come? Tight quarters like that make for a great show.”

I considered it for a bit. “Sure. We’ll take the side leading deeper into the hive, you take the other side.”

“That’s fewer aliens for me,” he said.

“There are two of us,” I said. “If the tunnels split again, we’ll be able to handle it better. Plus we have mechas with us. I’m a stealth and bomb specialist, Gomorrah has all the flame-throwers.”

“I guess. At least I’ll be around if you two need help, or vice versa. Let me put my stream on pause.”

“You don’t want them seeing us?” I asked.

“Do you want to be seen?” he asked.

“One sec,” I said. “Gomorrah, two things. Cause Player wants to come with. We’ll be splitting up at each entrance. I think we could drop him off at the main entrance and take the other ourselves. And do you mind being on-camera? This dude’s got like, a Twinge livestream going on.”

“I don’t mind people seeing me, or Fury, for that matter.”

“Neat,” I said. I opened a text box and started to send a text to Lucy. She’d want to follow Cause Player’s stream, knowing her. “Cause Player? We’re good. We’ll swing around to pick you up in a couple of seconds, er-- as soon as we know where you are.”

“Cool. Do you have a map of the hive?”

“Ah... yeah, but it’s shit. Let me get one from the mining corp, they must have a map of their own damned mine.”

We really weren’t going into this as prepared as we should have been.

But I figured we’d be fine. Overwhelming firepower corrected a lot of wrongs.

***