Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Sixty-Four - Tougher Means More Boom

“The international standard shipping container is 12.2 meters long, and 2.43 meters wide. That’s enough room to carry over a hundred people with relative comfort, assuming that they don’t need too much breathing room.

This math, of human lives and resources, is the math of tyrants, despots, and the desperate.”

--Excerpt from ‘A Survivor’s Tale’ 2024

***

The first trucks were packed so full that the people within would probably be bumping shoulders the entire time they moved. Those had left some minutes ago.

The trucks being stuffed full of people now had so many being pushed into them that it was a miracle no one had been trampled yet. And still I wanted them to pack in more. “Faster Monroe!” I called out.

As we took over more trucks, it cleared some of the road up. Sure, there were some that we just couldn’t use on account of them being driverless vehicles, and the rather ordinary old cars dotting the road were left unused as well. That just meant that there were large gaps with no one in them, or no one except for a whole lot of antithesis.

The first wave to come around the far end of the street looked like crap. They had wounds already and looked like they’d been rolled around in dirt before reaching us.

The sight of them had set the crowd to screaming and panicking, and it was all Monroe and his boys could do to stop them from turning into little more than an unruly mob.

That had been five minutes back. The first wave was wiped with a few hisses from Whisper and one gout of flames from Gomorrah. The crowd had resettled, another two trucks were filled and drove off.

Then Monroe announced that the first three had arrived at the hospital, our relay point. They were met there by an entire platoon of soldiers with tanks and enough weaponry to stop a small incursion in its tracks.

That was the first wave, back when the trucks only had a hundred or so people in them. Now we were trying to cram in five hundred people into three trucks, one of which was a half-trailer, and things weren’t fitting in right.

I was leaning over the top of a car, Whisper’s little tripod legs digging into its roof to keep it stable. I’d long given up just using concussion-tipped bolts and had switched to garrot grenades that at least turned a small section of the street into a blender after impact. It was doing a number on the ever growing waves of aliens coming at us.

Gomorrah was doing her bit too, spraying entire sections of the road with liquid fire that washed up walls and over cars and turned any passing aliens into so much burning meat.

The air stank of melting plastic and rubber and plants.

The land-bound bastards were a problem, but a relatively small one. We had to empty trucks to make room, which gave us plenty of materials to build a barricade with. The problem was the fliers.

My Hydra mounted guns perked up and spat out twin lines of death into the air, intercepting a flock of Model Ones that came hurtling past our barricade.

The people behind me screamed as their little bodies smacked into the ground with dull thumps.

“Ma’am!”

I looked over my shoulder to see Monroe rushing over to me. He ducked down as soon as he was close, using the car as cover. “What?” I asked. The time for pleasantries was well past.

“Ma’am, truck six ran into some antithesis on the way back,” he said.

My blood ran cold. “Did they make it?” I asked.

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “They were close to the rendez-vous point, they sped over and the soldiers there took care of the xenos. But we can’t send trucks eight and nine now, they’ll get hit on-route.”

I fired ahead without looking until Whisper clicked empty. The ground ahead was a target rich environment, even unaimed shots were bound to hit something. I took a knee and started to reload. “We’ll need to send the next trucks with one of your cars as escort,” I said. “Send them in a group. You have my turrets?”

“Yes ma’am, we installed them at the end of the street, like you asked.”

A measure to keep us more or less safe from any aliens that tried to circle around. That, and the turrets were pretty decent shots against aerial targets.

“Myalis, turrets, and guns and ammo and all,” I said. “Monroe, how many trucks are left?”

“We have six here. Two are packed already. About six hundred civilians left to embark,” he said.

I nodded. “Myalis, six times.” My AI was smart enough to get what I meant and six boxes with turrets appeared. “Place those atop the trucks. They’ll keep them safe,” I said.

“Thank you ma’am. We’ll send the next batch ahead in two minutes. It’ll be another five until we’re done,” he said.

I was thankful for my ear protection because there was no way I would have been able to hear him otherwise, not with the number of turrets firing ahead of us.

“Go!” I said. “I’ll act as rear guard.”

Monroe paused. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew what that meant.

“Yes ma’am.” He took one of the boxes for himself, then gestured over a couple of civilians that had proven trustworthy enough to help.

I slapped another magazine into Whisper and stood back up to make more points. That’s when Gomorrah reached me. “What’s going on?” she asked.

I took one look at the nun, noting how the air around her was a hazy mess of hot air that I could feel from where I stood. “Five minutes until the last of them are packed,” I repeated. “They’re getting hit enroute, so we’re sending them in groups with turrets and soldiers now. I’m staying behind to cover them for a bit.”

Gomorrah nodded. “I’ll stay as well,” she said.

I felt myself grinning. “Can’t miss out on this many points?” I asked.

“Not on your life, Stray Cat,” she said. “We can run back to that hospital of yours while making it cost the aliens for every step.”

“I like it,” I said.

I was running on a whole lot of adrenaline and maybe a bit of panic, but there was also a sort of gleeful joy in seeing so many aliens being torn apart, in knowing that what I was doing right then and there was saving people in a very real sense.

It was like donating a dollar to charity, but better.

I was about to fire another quip out at Gomorrah when I noticed that she was staring out past our barricade. “What in the name of the Father is that?” she muttered.

I looked out ahead and felt my joy pop like an overfull balloon.

There was an alien coming around the corner, a model I hadn’t seen yet. That wasn’t terribly unlikely. So far we had been dealing with the same sort of bastards, Model Threes and Ones and Sixes, with the occasional Model Four showing up in all of their tentacular glory.

This thing was different.

It was four legged, and built like a bear if bears were in the habit of trampling cars. Its body was the same black-green as most Antithesis, but this thing was covered in a layer of fine pale-green quills that looked almost wet to the touch.

That’s a Model Five. It’s a model dedicated to biological warfare. It’s quills are dangerous, even to a Samurai. Do not let it approach you. If you see Model Ones around it, be very careful.

I raised Whisper, aimed at the middle of the monster, and fired.

Something so big shouldn’t have been able to move so damned quickly. One moment it was turning around the corner, the next it was rushing at us at an angle that had my first shot missing it entirely.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Language,” Gomorrah muttered.

The Model Five’s mouth opened, revealing what could only be the organic version of a firehose for a tongue. Faint pinkish gas started to waft out of it. The wind was at our backs, for now, but I didn’t want to find out what would happen if and when that reached us.

That’s about when it stepped into the thirty-meter range of Gomorrah’s flamethrowers and she lit it up.

Just to be damned sure, I fired off a trio of garrot grenade-tipped bolts into the monster's chest and watched as they tore it apart in a spray of flaming meaty giblets.

“It might be tougher than average,” Gomorrah said. “But we’re still two Samurai.”