Chapter 68: Gold star!

  “Napalm was a big thing during Vietnam. After, people thought it was too brutal, horrible, painful, all of that. Can’t really argue against the idea that melting someone’s fucking skin isn’t fucked up. Some wanted to classify it as a war crime!

  Legally, we can’t use it if civilians are close. However, it turns out that everyone loves war crimes if you do it to aliens!”

  –John ‘Pyro’ Allerdyce, stealth bomber pilot, interview with Military Times, 2035.

  ***

  Had to say, those bumble-bees hit a lot harder than a sting. I only realized that we’d arrived outside when something hit that bus bastard and I started flying away on pure momentum!

  Hitting the tower didn’t hurt that bad, nor did breaking through the wall, but the spinning when my legs hit the edge of the eleventh’ level and bent the metal disoriented the ever living shit out of me!

  Then the back of my neck hit floor thirteen, bent the metal again, and I barely started to go downward when my helmet hit the wall below it! My entire body fina-fucking-ly stopped… Upside down and imbedded in metal…

  “Ow.”

  Are you okay Louis?

  “Are you well mister Panda?” Grasshopper asked at the same time with concern.

  I decided to answer both. “Yup, yup, just… gimme a sec.” I slowly pushed against the wall with my arms, but it didn’t take much to get me out. After a one meter fall, resulting in an impressive ‘thud’ due to my weight, I took a deep breath. “Fucking hell on a stick that sucked….” My… everything hurt. “Repairs?” I asked with a lot of coherence and absolutely no whine to my voice…

  You should be operable in fourty-two seconds. Your brain did not enjoy the multiple quick changes in acceleration, but no true damage was done. Your ribs are cracked, but not broken. The bone reinforcements did wonderful given the circumstances. I believe your enforcers will need you soon.

  “Why?” Small words better for now, brain hurty.

  Model fourteens produce biological ECM, all communication methods outside of the enforcer connections are down. It causes issues with visual augmentations and aiming systems.

  “Shit…” Brain less hurt, fight now, think later…

  I got up and looked around. Plants surrounded me, some kind of soy, along with a lot of soil and water where my tumble broke a ton of shit. The center held a freight elevator and absolutely no rails to prevent someone from falling. The elevator was down on the first floor, so I could see the hole I’d entered from or… Well, ‘made’ might be a better term.

  A quick hop that moved some hurt bits in my chest and I stood in front of the entrance I made.

  Adding six seconds to your healing time.

  I was right, the entire center was a multi-level underground hive. “They must have dug deep.”

  From the response to HFUG fire, I estimate there are at least six levels to this hive.

  “Well, more like four now!” The entire blackened ground crumpled in, which I’d say was meant to happen given how non-lethal it appeared to be. A little army waited in the center, the broken ground turning into some kind of god damn ramp for them to exit from.

  Oh, yeah, let’s not forget the model fourteens starting to take flight! “Railgun!” My beautiful gun deployed and shot at the giant bugs! It missed… “What the fuck?”

  ECM is preventing accurate fire. Your armor is heavily reinforced, but even your visual augmentations are having issues that I must manage at the moment.

  I assembled the Tunneler, but it took longer than usual.

  Your neural wreath was expensive for a reason. It is protected from such interference, but not immune. I recommend an automated decontamination kit if you wish to fight from a distance, you are covered in the model fourteen’s ECM compounds.

  “Fuck! Okay, buy it please!” I said over the booming sound of my overloaded shells. The aim-assist systems were inoperable for now, so spraying and praying it was. Even though my augs were supposedly still doing well, those bus bastards still looked somewhat hazy… “God fucking damn it… If I get closer, will they be easier to see?” I asked with exasperation.

  Light would travel a shorter distance to arrive to you, meaning the interference would be a lot less pronounced, yes.

  The decontamination kit fell on my head, some kind of melting, rolling mass of goo that rolled over my armor from head to toe. It clearly helped, error messages sent straight to my mind reducing drastically, but still, I couldn’t hit the fuckers with precise shots to save my life! “Grasshopper, can you hit them?” I asked the more experienced samurai.

  “Oh, yes, I’ve encountered them before. Many of my automated systems are inoperable, but I can easily remedy the problem with the help of math! Who needs big, fancy technology when you have the incredible power to calculate all you need in your head?” She said, a great big smile audible in her voice. Another massive shot boomed out and another blurry form fell back down. “All you need to know is weight, velocity and distance, and the calculus is easy!”

  I blinked. Did that insane chick teach math or something? Whatever…

  A blurry form got closer to my position, and I made a decision. Shooting accurately through ECM wasn’t my specialty. Taking hits and dishing them out up-close and personal was!

  I jumped at the buzzing bitch and prepared like I’d done in the mesh so many times! That included playing some heavy metal to give my echolocation something to work with no matter what.

  In truth, straight punches were a bad idea with this tool. Thankfully, that martial art I’d downloaded focused a ton on rotation and circular movements. Usually, there would be big disadvantages around exposing your back, but for someone with a tail? It just gave that tool more range.

  Also, there was a big advantage in this case. I cranked up for something like a haymaker mid-air and the moment I had a clear picture, my arm-cannon fired!

  The results were predictably destructive! I’d made my fist as wide and flat as possible, wanting to avoid penetration. It shot forward at supersonic speed, transferring ridiculous kinetic energy as my body followed the angled punch’s trajectory. By using spin instead of forward acceleration, my body had a much easier time following.

  That didn’t mean my fucking arm didn’t hurt like a rat sodomizer! I hit one of its bone plates and the entire bug bus crumpled inward violently, gore spreading in a circle around the point of impact!

  Many ligaments also tore in my arm… and my shoulder… maybe a bit in my chest… I might have put too much propellant.

  I cranked up my mental coprocessor to the absolute max and focused on echolocation. Fuckers were blurry and, oh, yeah, I spun like an out of control top started by a high-powered electric drill!

  My vision wouldn’t tell me shit, but echolocation? That collected useful information, like my position relative to another model fourteen below me! My tail whipped out, breaking the sound barrier, cracking the air in its wake, then impacted that thing in the shoulder. The heavy weight at the end did ridiculous damage, destroying a wing in the process of tearing out the sort-of leg along with damaging a massive section of its chest!

  A massive chunk of torn out plant flesh followed me down. The hit slowed me some but not that much. Thankfully, another one of those fucking plants had yet to take flight and I could juuuuust make it if I twisted a bit and extended my foot and…

  Had to say, the almost super-sonic drop-kick on top of one of those things’ back with a fuckload of weight to back it up impressed me a bit!

  The armor fell in on itself, crushing some of that donkey dick devouring asshole’s passengers and making sure it couldn’t fly!

  It also helped break my fall, which I badly needed! Falling from that height wouldn’t feel great by itself, but doing so with a super-sonic punch’s induced spin? Yeah, I tore something in my left leg, the one that hit. Shit, it felt near my crotch… My entire arm hurt like a horse-cock sucker on crack! I could feel every over-stretched or straight up snapped ligaments. The nanites were trying their best to reattach them, but those things were high-tension tissue, which complicated things. I felt the fucking pull…

  Instinct took over and my other leg pushed me away from the falling plant fuck my tail hit! A great thud resounded behind me as the fucker fell on the one I’d just injured. Looking at it, I did estimate that the one below was super dead, and so were the smaller models inside! “Huh… No need to tell people I didn’t mean to do that.”

  It will be our little secret until someone asks.

  “Impressive work mister Panda! Great understanding and application of conservation of angular momentum! I’d give you a gold star, but you seem busy. I’ll save it for later, but you showed them the power of sir Isaac Newton! I’m very proud of you.” All throughout her little speech, she never stopped shooting, hitting perfect headshots through the fucking ECM!

  “Seriously!?” I didn’t blush, shut up…

  “Oh, yes, it’s important to reward good work!” Okay, fuck it, why not. I had bigger things to worry about! Literally, much, much bigger.

  A model six, half-again the size of the fuckers at Peach-Trees, started running full-tilt at me. Thankfully, I wasn’t the lightweight I used to be!

  My other arm-cannon already loaded, I boosted my mental speed and waited for the right moment.

  Please do not injure yourself more, I believe you’ll need at least one arm.

  I even had time to give Altany an eyeroll! My right arm hung limply at my side, still inoperable and wildly painful, but my left prepared for a downward punch. Just had to wait for… precisely… the right… Boom!

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  I’d loaded it much lighter, mostly to make sure it augmented my strike instead of overtaking it. My gauntlet had a protruding spike that pierced that elephant fucker’s head like nothing, followed by my as-wide-as-possible fist, which flattened its fucking face and threw plant-brain matter in all directions!

  Hell, its head got pancaked enough that my spike pierced the ground, helping me stop that massive prolapsing cunt! I still slid a few meters, but stayed on my feet. Then? I tried to catch my breath… Most of the smaller models tried their luck climbing up the sides, but everyone’s coordinated efforts kept them back rather easily.

  “And conservation of momentum! Two gold stars!” Grasshopper praised once more.

  I nodded before repeating the old adage. “Physics is a heartless bitch.”

  Altany seemed to hum in my head, which sounded very fucking weird.

  I would dispute the accuracy of such a metaphor. If I were to make a better one that a human could understand…

  Physics can be compared to a math savant writing a dissertation while fueled by nothing but amphetamines and LSD for a week without sleep. Every calculation is correct and makes sense if you are willing to listen to a few hours of mad ramblings about her hallucinations.

  Grasshopper actually full-on laughed at the joke. I didn’t get it. Really needed a math module, fuck.

  Yet her shots stayed deadly accurate. Nice, friendly, but scary. She truly belonged in Canada!

  I looked around me. I appreciated the little break, but hoped it didn’t get in the way of anything. Inaccurate fire from HFUGs created impressive destruction around me. Being near the center, no shell hit anywhere near my position. I was pretty sure Gary kept track of that shit.

  If I wanted my leg to heal, it had to stay immobile, so my Grave-Digger assembled and kept the little fuckers at bay. There weren’t many of them, which confused me a bit… Wait a sec… “Altany, if there’s a level under us and the HFUGs are poking holes in the sides, won’t that…?”

  Too late.

  “Wha–”

  The sound of a thousand pissed off crackers being crushed invaded my ears as the stone ground under me buckled… Wait, no, it didn’t crumble as it should… I assumed that that was bad. Always a good assumption to make!

  And boy, it sure as shit was!

  Some sections fell inward as others stayed up, probably due to more fucking tentacle trees!

  Then out came a swarm! A ridiculous amount of model ones in massive groups flying away from the hive, trying to spread themselves away, uncaring of anything aside from escape. “Gary! Flak now!”

  “Already on it!” My newbie said, which would have been obvious if I paid attention. Every HFUG stopped firing downward, pausing their destruction to switch ammunition.

  “Altany, can you connect to my APC?”

  Yes.

  For once the AI was being succinct. I could tell when she did as the Bs immediately asked me what to do. “Focus every single gun on those fuckers, buy new rounds or whatever, deploy the auto-cannons, use the tail, do not let a single fucking pigeon escape!”

  Before I’d finished speaking, every single gun we had in the sky had already started taking care of flyers. The Armored Panda Carrier would focus on the ones that survive the initial assault. They could do this! The fuckers were flying out of that ridiculous cloud of organic ECM, which made targeting a fuckload easier.

  My beautiful girl (yes, I decided that my personnel carrier was a girl) opened fire with its tail, spitting some kind of… mist?

  Hypersonic micro-flechettes. Perfect for aerial targets that need to be eliminated with little care for stopping power.

  Well, it worked! Every shot created a line of dead plant pigeons until they hit the ground. HFUGs followed up with flak rounds while both auto-cannons came out to play. Even the tail’s point-defense SMGs participated! They did a good job for single-targets.

  Wait, if all those guns focused on the skies… “Altany, defenses?” I tested my arm, still feeling pain but the limb could function once more. My Tunneler and railgun assembled and turned towards the sides.

  So. Fucking. Many. Aliens. They died in massive batches, the army becoming a wall of flesh on the pit’s edge. “Fuck!” I aimed and fired, but the model twelve’s god damn interference still meant shit visibility and accuracy.

  I tested my leg once more and looked around for where I’d be needed most. Everything still hurt like a bitch, but fuck it, no time to complain. I released my dose of KP-Kicking and leaped at the worst section!

  Even in flight I opened fire, aiming downward to make sure I didn’t hit friendlies. Even with light distortion, I could recognize a dark army of plant fucks when I saw it.

  I had to make as much noise as possible, but thankfully, I’d never stopped playing music! I raised the volume to make myself a target. Then, I landed…

  My feet flattened a model four as my super-shotgun spat a line of super-buckshot. The rounds tore jagged craters filled with green gore into the fuckers around me while my tail sliced and diced everything in range. A model three leaped at me, earning itself a round-house knee that split the thing in half. High-powered slugs replaced spent shells, but the fully-automatic fire never stopped. Aiming was very much optional in this crowd!

  Everything wanting to jump on my back met my tail, and none survived that meeting. My support-hand only let go a few times to intercept something leaping at me with the Grave-Digger. I’d have to reload soon, shit. “Altany, railgun as much super-napalm as possible at the center! Blank check!”

  Coilgun primed, I will try not to disturb your fun.

  My railgun couldn’t aim well with all the interference, but a general direction? Yeah, why the fuck not? Altany waited for the right moment when I just so happen to be in a braced position to fire some thick shells with a ton of weight. Thankfully, I also had a ton of mass!

  Our heavy-mortar fire was apparently more complicated than cluster-shells. Each became a sort of… drone? What the fuck?

  Hovering Overwhelming Napalm Expander, Type Y. They hover over an area, spreading enhanced napalm stored in off-world vats. In ten shots I should have full coverage, but it seems the enemy is using the ground as an umbrella.

  It appears that the ‘trees’ you set on fire were only the tip of the iceberg, as you would say. Each is connected below the ground to a much deeper network. It am unsure as to the effectiveness of this method for full elimination, but it will be worth the rather large point expenditure.

  I am using a less potent accelerant than chlorine-trifluoride so that you may travel within the area unhindered. Do you wish to change this?

  “Nop, it’s perfect! Will it… burn or whatever the ECM shit?”

  Yes and no. The upward gust of warm air should help disperse them, but do not expect a full return to normal until the battle is over.

  Welp, back to the slaughter! I ran out of propellant and disassembled the Tunneler. My super-Paw joined the party along with the Grave-Digger, currently using high-caliber handgun rounds for more magazine size since it did the job.

  I let myself fall into a trance, following the alien martial art’s movements, spinning and slashing in wide arcs. My blade slashed through the ground almost as easily as through flesh. Aliens came and died as they entered my shredding dance.

  It was an interesting style, using my Super-Paw almost as much as my tail in this crowd. These techniques were created with horde-fighting against antithesis in mind, not meant for considered defense and offense, but pure offense that uses momentum and, above all else after that, morphic weapons and armor.

  I’d slash with the SPaw and, of course, the xenos still came, so I used a roundhouse kick with a blade extending from my foot or on my tibia, then switch legs to deliver a back or hook-kick if my tail didn’t already take care of the problem the moment after my roundhouse. If something was still close? Well, I’d use an arm blade with my free arm or fire with the Grave-Digger, but if the thing’s even closer, then that’s a good occasion for a spike-empowered reverse-elbow.

  Then my melee weapon comes around and no matter the range, it can handle it if my tail didn’t, which it probably did. Constant, non-stop assault leaving no non-deadly openings.

  I had no doubt in my mind that the Flowing Magma Pelt was a common type for the Mole-Bears which, given the alloys required, really wasn’t surprising. It gave me so much flexibility and made every limb a deadly weapon with just a thought!

  My melee weapon was also heavy, which might have made it harder or more tiring to wield if it didn’t go through everything so easily! I simply kept accelerating, using every little bit of energy to keep the momentum going. I accelerated right up to the limit of my control, then stayed there and used my weight to stay in motion.

  “About to –fucker!-- be… Overwhelmed!” Marinia said, clearly struggling. She might have been the greenest enforcer present, which meant she had less to work with.

  “Altany, I need a marker!” A map point appeared like augmented reality in my vision and I jumped. “Drone footage?” I asked before receiving a video in my augs.

  I have access to one through the ECM by using their augmentations as a relay. The footage will be slightly blurry, I apologize, here.

  My brain buddy played back some of the earlier violence and I wanted to whistle! Marinia impressed me during our sparring, but seeing them against an army was another thing altogether! The footage sped up to my boosted speed and I marveled at the deadly dance…

  The bayonet on their shotgun extended while other parts flattened to transform into a bladed spear that they twirled in a whirlwind of death! When the xenos closed in, in a practiced and efficient move that looked cool as fuck, it became compact and went to their back before two sabers were unsheathed.

  I’d sparred against those sabers in the mesh and, honestly, brain-downloaded martial art or not, that badass often beat me with those. Now? Well, apparently Krabi-Krabong was a good choice against antithesis!

  Those forearm shields were meant to be used a bit like tonfas, simply heavier and more protective, including a small strap for the arm, but in this case both were integrated into the armor and had a bit of mobility along with offensive options. Any model three going for a bite on those usually got their heads split open! They also did great when punching, transforming into spikes.

  When they wanted, Marinia also used electrified punches against bigger targets in close proximity. Better an immobilisation than a wound that wouldn’t stop them. What followed?

  Well, I should mention those sabers were fucking vibro-blades! They went through plant-flesh like butter, fucking hell…

  Of course, my sprint didn’t stop to appreciate my enforcer’s awesomeness. I had to barrel my way through xenos, but I had an enforcer in trouble, nothing would stop me! I jumped across stone platforms covered in napalm, getting some on me in the process, but my armor could take it.

  I needed to get there!

  ***

  Marinia had positioned themselves between two of those gigantic hydroponic towers, which meant at least a bit of funneling. The fucking xenos didn’t stop, never tired, but they sure as fuck did!

  The militia did their best but as corpses piled up, firing angles disappeared. The enforcer already had to fight on a carpet of dead xenos, fucking with their footing.

  Then, a burning, somehow still alive model six charged over the slop and headed straight for them!

  Marinia… part of them wanted to run… The kids needed them but…

  Panda would take care of them. It rendered the decision pretty easy. The militia behind… They didn’t give a singular fuck about the Kais back then, but now? Marinia… Cared about those soldiers.

  The other enforcers stood their grounds in other corridors and if those positions got surrounded…

  The militia would die, no question about it. The other enforcers? Probably also dead…

  And… Marinia couldn’t live with themselves if they let that happen, if they ran and left good people to die. Certain death or no, they had to try.

  So, they stared down the massive bastard and waited. “Take care of my kids…” They muttered to anyone that could hear. The model six charged…

  A massive crash interrupted the heroic last stand! Something impacted the elephant fucker and whatever it was made it punch a hole through a metal wall! A few moments later, every enhanced muscle tensed to snapping, Marinia saw a burning shape come out of that tower.

  “I promise.” Panda answered in front of them. They were covered in napalm and burning plant guts, a disgusting metal monster that came to their rescue.

  Not knowing what to say, Marinia simply nodded.

  Incoming.

  Both of them looked towards the center where a massive monster came over the hill, burning and ignoring weapon fire like it didn’t even feel bothered by it! The beast had a way too human-looking face with two mandibles. It looked so massive that it would have to destroy hydroponic towers to get out!

  That is a model twenty-two.