Chapter 58: No, you bite dust!

  “It is said that when fighting a tank, you keep shooting until it burns, changes shape or is fundamentally altered.

  It applies well to the antithesis, creatures which are bred to survive usually fatal injuries.

  Always remember, overkill is a fucking myth!”

  –Samurai Blitzkrieg Machine, advice to new samurai during conference at The Family, 2054.

  ***

  Every single fucking year, some new tech comes out and suddenly, everyone claims it’s the end of infantry! They’re no longer relevant, robots or drones or whatever will replace all soldiers, blah blah blah…

  In truth, yes, machineguns and artillery changed the game in many, many ways, but at the end of the day, it usually falls upon a few soldiers clearing rooms and assaulting directly. Humans are just too good at what they do to be replaced in any meaningful way. The various ‘wonder weapons’ are always countered by new and old tech. Jammers and shotguns for drones are the best example.

  Also, and most importantly, changing tactics. Make every soldier more effective? Then why the fuck would you make them a juicy target in a fucking block in the middle of a field!? Mass assaults were phased out mid-WW1 for a reason! Hell, they should’ve been phased out before but, well, French aristocrat commanders don’t adapt easily.

  Who implemented the new tactics? Canadians, baby! A lot of it came from not being bougie pricks and listening to soldiers who knew their shit. Also, passed down Native-American tactics.

  I had a FUCKLOAD of time to talk to my mom about way too much stuff. Canadian military history was one of her favorite rant subjects and I couldn’t blame her. Still, I learned a few things.

  One of my favorite lessons? A mech’s not scary because of its guns.

  What makes mechanized armor fucking terrifying? Mobility. The big-ass walkers are just dysfunctional tanks on a certain level, but mechanized infantry? Jump jets, assisted running, carrying aid, muscle-assists and so much more, it all adds up to unparalleled mobility and agility for ground forces, paired with higher firepower and survivability.

  In my case, I had enough firepower to rival a classic tank, then you attach that already worrying armament to a fucking small frame that can fit in a doorway, run faster than a lot of cars and jump almost a dozen fucking meters straight up. Oh, also, that walking armory is capable of climbing the fucking walls and hiding above the enemy because spider-mech is just too cool and horrifying a concept not to try!

  That’s a scary mother fucker!

  A fun demonstration came when I decided not to get bogged down by some assholes behind a lot of cover. Another tactic invented by Canada? Mouseholing! “Altany, need demo-shells!”

  I understand your plan, however, may I recommend going through the floor?

  Not as cool, but alright…

  My railgun fired a demolition charge at the ground, creating a hole for me that I jumped straight into. The instant my feet hit the ground, Altany fed me outlines using my drone’s data and I started launching demo shells under the fuckers! In seconds, most of them were at my feet and those that weren’t died quick. “Cole, got a next target for me?”

  And just like that, my scary as fucking hell self went running to another bunch of pricks, along with two other enforcers! Lila was a tiny bit on the slower side, but since her job focused more on longer ranged engagements, it fit the bill. Hell, I fit in access corridors and jumped over catwalks with grace! In my opinion, that mobility made me so fucking much better than a stupid tank!

  It not only helped with causing absolute destruction, but those dumbass mercs couldn’t pin me down, focus heavy armaments or even aim for me most of the time!

  That changed with one little call.

  “I’m pinned down! Need backup!” The worried but not terrified because she was too awesome for that voice of Katy shocked me out of my battle trance. I might have been a bit too deep in the zone for a bit there. What can I say, I love fighting.

  The instant the call reached me, I switched my heading and bolted straight for her!

  Be cautious, you’ll be closer to the edge than I’d recommend. I will attempt to reposition the Panda Litter Carrier to provide potential emergency fire-support.

  I didn’t feel too worried since that building already had many holes, several railguns having already been destroyed in the fighting. The others followed behind but, in my haste, I ended up going a bit too fast and left them a bit further away.

  “Altany, feed!” She complied instantly, giving me a very worrying view of a corner. Every so often, Katy forced them behind cover by firing blind around a pillar. Still, she had minimum thirty assault troops trying to get at her.

  “Boss, you’ll be too close to the sides!” Gary warned during my sprint. I had to be careful around the sides since that meant the…

  I stumbled… Why? What…

  Nanites deploying, you need to move!

  right arm not working… Wait, if not running…

  My instincts took over and the stupid strong plates and shield deployed without any conscious effort.

  The world snapped to the side…

  ***

  “Oh god…” Katy would have shouted, but sneaking instincts died hard. Some railgun that’d stayed hidden until now’d shot her boss… friend. Her friend. He was hurt. She knew better than to count him out at this point but…

  The first shot created a soccer ball sized crater on exit, viscera exploding out of his right shoulder, even fucking with some of his chest! Alright, alright, she wasn’t educated and shit, but the heart had to be a bit to…

  Then, just in time, her friend deployed his shield and stupid strong plates to protect his head.

  One of said plates flew off after a fucking headshot from a cum gargling ship-killing weapon hit his shield, plowed through like nothing happened, than slammed his helmet! It threw him so hard that some concrete flew off when his legs hit a pillar, leaving him a bit behind cover, at least… Or… wait, with Altany having some control over his armor, did he actually ragdoll?

  She had to believe he could take that… “Boss? God, please, boss, answer me!”

  A small, quiet, almost whisper came to her over comms, but it didn’t respond to her. “Second… tier… med… nan… six th…”

  Half the group that came for her went to investigate, making sure they’d finished the job. “Armored Panda, we need that fucking fire-support!”

  “On the way!” One of the B’s answered. Someone needed to take care of those railguns!

  A few merc fuckers pumped some shots in the hole in Panda’s armor, causing no reaction. However, from the camera view Altany got her, did it look like his flesh…

  Just as they were relaxing, thinking their job done, Panda moved! In an instant, one of them found themselves with an arm inside their chest! Another with a chainsaw-tail halfway through their stomach!

  Katy snorted. “Of course…”

  ***

  “Get that fucker!” I shouted while hoping my arm would get back to functional quickly. Another insanely painful shotgun slug got shot through the hole, meaning it’d stay out of commission even longer. The super Paw came to play with the nice mercs in the shape of a tomahawk.

  No time for bracing, move with it.

  My railgun, aiming at a distant target, fired a hypersonic that threw me to the side. I spun perfectly for a diagonal cut all the way through one of the mercs, from shoulder to hip. I also spun like a ballerina at an angle. Fuck that gun could power up hard! A distant window vaporized, making me feel a bit better!

  I apparently ruined someone’s shot since the next one, from a different hidden railgun, took out the left side of my hip, along with a bunch of my thigh muscle! Welp, that leg was fucked for now.!

  Alright, one leg and one arm out of commission. If Francis could fight like that, so could I! “Boss! Are you alright!?” Katy’s voice gave me exactly what I needed.

  Wrath overtook me. These guys were only half the fuckers coming after her! I refused to lose a friend today!

  Taking advantage of the situation since my arm was a bit stuck inside some asshole –not like that!--, the fuckers tried to bury me in gunfire! My armor could take most, where it wasn’t fucking fucked! Thankfully, all my previous movement loosened up the squelchy hold and allowed me to extract myself.

  The pain just helped me focus! I injected myself with KP-Kicking and leapt with one leg! I’d reduced the potency of I bought given previous… issues. Also, a little pain helped, better to know why my shoulder didn’t fucking work than not! Thanks to the incredible upgrades to my grounding and weight, my foot stayed well anchored and grounded, letting my leg push at full power.

  It brought me to one of the fuckers way faster than they thought I could move in this state! The super-paw pierced through one asshole as my fifth appendage took care of another through the chest.

  I used momentum to swing my limp arm at one of my attackers, a vibro-blade coming out at just the right time. The super Paw sliced another one in half in the meantime. Sadly, they were starting to back off.

  My tail proved its usefulness as I pulped whatever it could reach in a semi-circle behind me, catching four of those prolapsing assholes to varying degree, only two fully out of the fight.

  The entire exchange of violence had barely lasted a few seconds, but my arm started regaining sensation! With my neck snapping, causing me to lose all sensation below the neck for a bit, I’d decided to make some emergency purchases.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Class 2 Medical Nanotechnology unlocked!

  Points spent… 1000!

  New purchase: Medical nanites and materials!

  Points Spent… 5980!

  Points reduced to… 1205!

  I’d assaulted a few hidden hives and kept the proceeds in preparation for this kind of shitshow. Would my previous model have fixed it? Sure, but not anywhere near fast enough. Add to that big damn holes in my armor and, yeah, better go full wolverine.

  Totally for practicality’s sake, I one hundred percent wouldn’t do all I can no matter what to turn into my favorite superhero, the ultimate symbol of resilience and the coolest Canadian character in fiction of all time. Nop.

  I also liked having a functional arm! Soon… “How long for my arm!?” I asked while the super Paw came home so I could grab pillars, the ground or even ceiling for better mobility. I had to use those vibro-claws to make fucking handles! Thankfully, that martial art download was good for mobility. I even had to go full-kangaroo a few times, resting most of my weight on my tail to kick and punch through evil mercs!

  5 sec– 8 s– 12 seconds. It would help if you stopped getting shot.

  “I’ll do my goat fucking best…” I muttered through my teeth, the burning pain of rounds tearing through my flesh inside my chest a fucking fantastic way to wake the fuck up in the swine sodomizing morning!

  Since the Grave-Digger was mostly on my right arm, moving it all to the other would be real fucking hard, but I at least had my shield… on the arm I had to use to stay a moving target…

  Alright, I could work this out! My pretty cutie railgun –what the fuck was that, drugs?-- didn’t work great right now since I had absolutely zero stability or grounding, forcing me to go without or get tossed around. So… I could stop moving? The asshole-railguns couldn’t get through that much concrete, right?

  Choosing a pillar to hide behind, I disengaged and bolted for it! The… run? Hop? Skip? Whatever, it became great practice for using my tail for mobility to push in one direction or act as balancing weight.

  Since I’d been on absolute offense since the start, my retreat took them off guard enough to allow me the little bit of time I needed. My one arm hug turned into a defensive position as I deployed my shield, planted claws in concrete and stabilized with ground spikes. The nice railgun unfolded and opened fire at low-velocity with as much spread as possible!

  These are air-burst munitions, usually more appropriate for areal targets but given the situation, I believe hitting literally everything everywhere is a better option than attempting killshots.

  “Agreed! Please tell me you can drop patches on my armor for repairs…”

  There are automated repair patches for 35 points, although this price excludes the cost of the replacement parts and materials you’ll need. They won’t bring you to full operational efficiency, but they’ll do for now. Do you…

  “Yes!” Fuck’s sake, Altany’s habit to prattle on kind of got in the way sometimes. Sure, she’d been word vomiting at high speed, but still!

  I felt a weight like a wet blanket fall on my shoulder and back. The… thing started to whirr and make clicky noises, like a minuscule construction crew, but without all the cursing.

  Pop your hip like Robin when he tries to make a point and fails miserably at looking intimidating.

  After complying, another similar weight fell on it, which made sense given I needed gravity on my side for this installation. Just in time too, since, apparently, yes, anti-armor railguns could pierce through concrete!

  Thank god they lost a ton of velocity and the tungsten carbine or whatever rod only punched and probably cracked a few ribs. It threw me back and buried most of my dumbass under a literal ton of concrete…. However, that also meant I was… okay, hidden might be an overstatement but still!

  I looked through my drone’s camera, making sure Katy wasn’t in trouble, then waited… Every second felt like an eternity! I’d argue the mental corpocessor didn’t have that much to do with it.

  I took the time to send orders, check my armor’s readouts, verify my awesome pawsome APC got in place, fold my laundry, masturbate, make a cup of coffee –oh come on, drugs, stop making me unfunny!– and when my arm fina-fucking-ly became a functioning arm again…

  “Go!” The Tunneler opened fire on the PMCs, along with, oh, I don’t know, Lila’s insane anti-material LMG, Synthia’s triple-gun design, Roger’s two massive-caliber semi-auto pistols with drum magazines, the just arriving –seriously, we had to have fucked up somewhere– APC’s autocannons and one of its HFUGs while the other de-stroyed the fuckers that dare hurt their commander!

  Pink mist everywhere…

  Welp, nothing like massive overkill to make the few of them left near Katy surrender! “Boss, are you alright?” She asked in comms, maybe feeling like she messed up since I got hurt helping her.

  “I’ll be alright soon-ish. You did a good job keeping them back, Katy. As a stealth specialist, this shit was not in your wheelhouse. Altany, how long before I can walk normally?”

  You’ll need at least four minutes, maybe more depending on how much you choose to move. There is quite a lot of flesh and bones to regrow and replace, my apologies.

  Ok, not full-on Wolverine yet, not even close, but still pretty damn good! Combat-effective at the very least. Also, an important feature: taking care of fluid in my fucking lungs, yeah! The coughing and vomiting last time had been… unpleasant. “Alright, more shit to upgrade later. We still got mercs to take care of?”

  None that you need to worry about. Cole’s forces proved very effective and professional, impressively so for a human PMC company of this region.

  Yeah, I had plans for Cole. For now though… “Let’s find out what these morons were thinking…”

  ***

  “Yeah, should’ve seen that one coming…” I said, standing in my pristine armor. I’d had to buy replacement parts, and auto-repair kit and I might have bought a nanite-based decontamination kits from my new tier two catalogue that just so happened to polish my armor to a shine in the process. Pure coincidence!

  Hey, it helped with intimidating the idiots! Although, really, that had been stupidly easy. Most of them surrendered quickly and without too much resistance after initial losses. I’d found out why by going through their augs and hacking their main office.

  These weren’t PMCs like I or Cole ran, groups that were a step below corpo, entirely owned by soldiers. No, these guys came from larger, corporate PMCs, with execs and shareholders and everything!

  Said corpo cow cunts received a big payment for making the assault and came to collect on the ridiculously massive illegal bounty Kevin Richard –and probably a bunch of Kais– put out. To them, a bunch of their guys dying didn’t matter that much because the risk to reward ratio was worth it, especially with Richard covering expenses for the assault. Losing this many would be a blow, but with the amounts on the line? A calculated gamble.

  Their own fucking people’s lives… I wanted to slam their head in the ground and grind their bones to fucking dust… “Fucking corpos…” I growled through clenched teeth.

  You seem agitated. I understand and appreciate your feeling, but Cole is approaching. You wanted to speak with him, I believe?

  I shook my head. “You’re right, thank you Altany.” It took a few deep breaths before I had the composure to speak without sounding like a revving chainsaw ready to murder an army of zombies. “Yo, Cole! How are your men? Any injuries?”

  “No sir, at least nothing your medic couldn’t fix almost immediately. My people are fans!”

  “That’s good, ‘cause I wanted to talk about something…” I closed my mic. “Hum… Brain bro, got any intel?”

  For the love of the protectors, never, ever call me that again. Cole’s Beer PMC and corporates security firm. They are not the largest, nor the most effective, but their corruption index is quite impressive and they are known to be a long-sanding unit with powerful ties, which helps their combat effectiveness to a high degree.

  It contributes to your own force’s power as well. A study of medal of valor recipients indicates that the reason they took the actions they did was focused beyond all else on the people sitting next to them. Team cohesion is an important datapoint when evaluating infantry fireteams. Theirs is quite high.

  From my understanding, they all know and live near each other, hence their low corruption index since it could ruin things for not only their colleagues, but their friends.

  “Huh, thank you, that’s really helpful…” It really was. That information crystallized my future plans much more clearly. I passed off the extra long pause as thinking time and continued our conversation. “So, you’re probably going to get fired.”

  “Yeah…” Cole said with a deep, resigned sigh.

  “Want a job?” That perked him up! Still, that guy was smart, so his answer was cautious.

  “Define job…”

  “Well, I’ve been having a bitch of a time in gang territory finding volunteers that I could accept to act as deputies. To be clear, I do mean deputies under a sheriff, aka Johnny Law. I want them to be as far as possible from the piece of shit corpo-secs that used to abuse the people in my building.” Cole nodded at that, to my surprise.

  “Smart. You don’t want corpo-sec officers, since those are just sub-cons with no legal liability for their actions. Your deputies are going to be held responsible by a samurai, making the situation completely different.”

  “Yeah, and, well, you guys are good at defensive actions and shit…”

  “You want us to defend the building while you’re out until you find deputies? That’s doable, depending on your defenses. I imagine the place is a lot more vulnerable without most enforcers and its two samurais during missions, I can understand the need.”

  “Huh…” Okay, for once I hadn’t been blunt enough! “No, I want your boys to be deputies.”

  He blinked a couple times in surprise. “I… Mister Panda, we’re not trained for this kind of shit. Also, we’re not a part of your community, you’d be much better off going internal on that one in my opinion.”

  “Well, that’s something we can fix! I’m offering to have your guys trained for non-violent conflict resolution, deescalation, mental health crisis-management, all that good shit. Sure, they’ll be an awesome defensive force if needed, but we have the militia and enforcers for that. No, your guys are loyal, smarter than average and seem to already have a certain sense of community. I’m not just offering to hire you, I’m offering to have their family move over. They’ll be protected by two dedicated samurais, will have militia to help them in fighting, and for most of the time this’ll be a very safe, almost cushy security job.”

  “They’d be held accountable by their neighbors along with Johnny Law, but as long as they treat the community with respect and don’t behave like assholes, that will mean their families will be safe and I’ll also make god damn certain they’re fed. I own the building, so I’ll offer to beat whatever rent they currently have for probably better apartments. They’ll be paid during training, I’ll throw on a signing bonus or something, Robin would be better for this kind of talk and I’ll have to talk to the council but whatever! It’s an idea I’d like for you to talk with your people about.

  “From everything I can tell, you’re good people Cole, just doing a really fucking shitshow of a gig. I can understand that, and when you were stuck between your duty to your boss and the one to your men, you made the same choice I would. I have a lot of empty apartments, I’d love to fill them with folks like you and yours.”

  Silence stretch for a good ten seconds between us as he digested the idea. I’d have loved to give him more time, but sadly, I had shit to do. “I’ll leave you to think on it, gotta make a few calls.”

  We exchanged very few pleasantries before I turned to look into nothing. “Call Johnny, Robin, Jackal and…” I hesitated, but I probably should. Ask the people who knew more about shit than I did about stuff I didn’t get well… “... Laser Jack.”

  Johnny was the first to pick up. “Howdy! How’re yall? I’m guessin’ that was a trap?” That actually got a chuckle from me.

  “Yeah, it was. They really threw an army at us. Ended up injured, but no one other than me got anything that couldn't be fixed almost instantly. The call’s…” Jackal picked up next, quickly followed by Robin and Laser Jack.

  “Mad Panda, I’m surprised to receive your call, but glad that you did. If you called me, I’m guessing there’s a problem?” Laser Jack sounded actually concerned, wow!

  “Hey sweet Peach, how was your ambush?” Robin was trying out new nickname, which made me dread the next few attempts… Could I live with sweet Peach? No, no I could not. Even if I didn’t say shit, he knew, so there would be more of that torture next time.

  “Excuse me, ambush?” I ended up filling in Jack for the next few minutes as Jackal’s silent glare could be felt through the voice call. That chick could get intense!

  When I was done, I laid out my idea. “So, there are around four corpo PMCs in that assault from what I can tell. I don’t appreciate fuckers who spend their own fucking men’s lives like chips in a fucking poker game. I especially don’t appreciate the ones who attempt to collect on illegal bounties while, I’m just guessing here, probably being legally distant enough not to face consequences.”

  “Agreed.” Jackal growled low and deep, surprisingly enough. It was appreciated though.

  “That ain’t nothin’ less than negligent homicide in my book.”

  “My idea is that I want to stream this shit, make sure other corpos know what the fuck happens when you fuck around that hard. Laser Jack, do you see issues?”

  “News travels faster than you do. I have a few members that can take on the fourth group, little show of force. One of our core tenants is protecting younger samurais, this type of thing is exactly what we were built to handle. We can also help spread the news in the right channels.”

  That surprised everyone else. Corpos being… helpful? The flying fucking hell just happened? “Hum… Alright, that sounds good. Uh… Robin, know any extreme punk streaming platforms that won’t kick us out for excessive gore?”

  I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t look forward to it.