Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Thirty-Three - Long Road Ahead

“There have been proposals over the years for a comprehensive defensive strategy. Something that would keep Earth entirely secure, no matter the size or scope of an invasion.

The issue is always the same though; who would foot the bill?”

--Quote from, Ongoing Threat, 2051

***

I kicked a model three’s corpse in the head, and with the added boost from my armour, sent it flopping back to the edge of the road. “Think we’ll have to deal with more of them?” I asked.

The convoy was rolling on behind us, surprisingly quiet, actually.

“Maybe,” Grasshopper said. “But there’s always more xenos out there. Even in this forest... I don’t envy those who will eventually clear it out.”

I winced. Yeah, someone would have to go tree-by-tree, checking every inch of the place for any missing chunks of antithesis stuff, just on the off chance the fuckers rooted themselves down and started a fresh hive here.

“We’re going to need to do that everywhere, aren’t we?” I asked. If the incursion was world-wide, then even after clearing all the current hives, we’d have to canvas the entire damned planet.

“Seems like it, yes,” Grasshopper said. “I don’t know what that will mean for the future, but maybe it will be for the best. We’ll have a chance to root out every last foothold they have on our world.”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t quite as optimistic as she was.

I kept an eye out on the trees and brush around us, but nothing showed up to try and eat our faces. Even as we reached the very end of the forest, I could feel my heart thundering away as I fully expected something to jump out at me.

It never happened though.

“Want to pick a side, or should we both stand on the same one?” Grasshopper asked.

“Huh? Oh, of the convoy? Uh, splitting up is probably safer,” I said.

Grasshopper nodded, then moved to the side. “See you in twelve minutes,” she said.

I snorted and found a spot of my own on the edge of the road. We both stopped just a few metres from the edge of the woods where the trees grew a little more sparse. I raised my gun to my shoulder, but left it pointing at the ground.

“That was something,” I said.

It was a good experience, I think.

“I guess,” I said. “Hard to say how often I’m going to have to do something like this. Doing a lot of new things lately.”

A Vanguard’s life is rarely stagnant.

I snorted. “Yeah, tell me about it. So, how many points have I made?”

Current Point Total:
19,874

Tokens earned:
One

I whistled. “That many?” I asked. Had I really killed enough aliens to make my point count climb so high? Token was nice too. Harder to get and all.

Since you were working with another Vanguard, the total number of kills was divided between the two of you, in turn, you both received slightly more than half the total points. It means that you shared in the kills that you didn’t make as well.

“Huh,” I said. That was a good deal.

It encourages Vanguards to work together. The difference in points earned is negligible to us, especially when you consider the increased survival rate among Vanguards who work together as a group.

“I thought samurai were picked from people who like working alone,” I said.

They are, yes.

I frowned. “Then doesn’t that, uh, contradict the other bit?” I asked.

No, not if you see the wider picture. For one point you could purchase a crayon drawing of said wider picture. It might be helpful.

I laughed. “You’re such a pain in the ass,” I said.

I relaxed a bit as the convoy moved on. All the trucks were accounted for, and other than a few smoking turrets, it didn’t look like it had been damaged all that much. A few trucks had splatters of antithesis gore on their bumpers, but that wasn’t a big deal.

The few drivers I saw waved at me, and one even honked his horn as a friendly greeting. I waved back, because why not.

Finally, the last truck in the formation rumbled by, and it wasn’t followed by a trail of salivating monsters.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said as I joined Grasshopper in the middle of the road.

She nodded. “I imagine we killed a good number of the aliens here. Now we need to catch up to the front of the caravan. Though I imagine letting it get a little further down wouldn’t be a bad idea before asking it to stop.”

“If you don’t mind riding in the back, you can hop onto my bike,” I said. The hover bike was already flying back, a distant black speck growing nearer and nearer.

Grasshopper stared up at my ride. “Did you know that a full quarter of all motor vehicle deaths in the last decade have involved a hover bike. They only account for one tenth of all personally-owned vehicles.”

“Is that a no?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t mind. Though I have to admit I’m not too comfortable with close physical contact.”

“Oh,” I said. “Uh, we can buy some blankets or something, if you want?”

She giggled. “No, it’s fine. Uncomfortable doesn’t mean allergic to.”

“Right.”

My bike spun around and came to a gentle landing right next to me, so I hopped onto it, then scooted forwards so that Grasshopper could get on. She did, though I immediately realized that she was going to make flying awkward. Her gear had to weigh a lot, despite being all spindly and weird.

I moved just a bit faster than the convoy, mostly so that Grasshopper wouldn’t be nervous, and because it gave us a good opportunity to see what kind of shape the convoy was in from above.

“We did pretty well there,” Grasshopper said.

“Yeah, I think so,” I replied. “Any obstacles between here and the city?” I started to lower us down with a press of a pedal, then winced when the bike’s autopilot kicked on and stopped me from dropping too fast. Hopefully Grasshopper didn’t notice that, or she’d get to point out that her accident statistics were spot-on.

“Only the strange boredom.”

“The what?” My hover bike’s legs deployed as I landed us on the roof of the mobile base with a solid thump. I wondered what the guys inside the base were thinking about all of this. Probably some pretty horrific shit if they saw us wiping out a wave right in front of them.

Grasshopper climbed off my bike, then stretched as though it had taken us an hour to get there. “The strange boredom, where there’s nothing to do, but plenty to look out for. We should be in light orange to green from here until the outskirts, but we still need to be on the lookout for trouble.”

I nodded along, then moved to the front of the base. I sat myself down next to an antenna thing and just let my legs dangle off the front. “No reason to be bored and uncomfortable,” I said.

Grasshopper hummed in agreement as she moved over to that huge gun she’d been using earlier. “I suppose not.” She laid herself down behind it and pressed one of the big eyes of her helmet right up against the scope. “Nothing but clear skies ahead.”

She was right. The mobile base and the entire convoy moved on towards New Montreal with barely a hitch. We had to squeeze past a few cars that had been abandoned on the road, but Grasshopper was able to connect to the car’s systems, boot them up, and drive them into the ditch. Turns out they’d just stopped working because the local internet network glitched out.

A little ways closer to the city, and I could see why. A small town was on fire. Or had been, at least.

It was one of those stop-over places. Just a few hundred homes and a big four-way intersection with one of each fast-food chain and some gas stations. Smoke still rose out of the shell of homes, and one of the stations was covered in whitish fire suppressant foam, likely dropped on it from above.

Not one person was out and about, and some of the homes we passed had boarded up windows and doors. Freshly done, if I were to guess. Didn’t know if that would even slow looters down. If I was looking to loot someone’s place, I’d go for the homes with lots of security. They probably had more shit worth the trouble.

And then, maybe an hour after we left the very edge of the forest, the convoy was rolling into New Montreal, or at least the suburbs.

Cranes were lifting up massive slabs of cement, and I noticed entire rows of buildings being torn down. Thousands of folk in bright hardhats and vests were crawling around the city, like maddened ants, and the proof of their labour was impossible to miss.

A wall was going up around the entire city, topped with guard towers where crews were installing AA guns, and larger cannons were being mounted on swivels.

It seemed like the city was preparing for a long war.

***