Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Fifty-Three - Mop Up

"No no, there's nothing to worry about, mister mayor. We have a dozen samurai guarding the city. I'm certain we'll be able to prevail against any threat against New Montreal."

--Laserjack, to the mayor of New Montreal, 2057

***

"Who goes in first?" I asked with a gesture to the parking garage entrance. It wasn't anything special. A cement ramp leading down to a hip-high barricade that could sink into the ground when someone paid the entrance fee. The lights were off inside, which wasn't surprising, none of the lights I could see outside were on.

The area had either been cut off, or some of that earlier shelling had done a number on the power grid. There were probably hundreds of generators around, but who would install one in a glorified parking lot?

"I'll take point," Emoscythe said. "I'm used to closer-range engagements than you are, I think."

"Fair enough," I said with a sweeping gesture to the hole. She nodded to me and stepped ahead. "Myalis, get me a couple of cats. Maybe with spotlights or something. I'm sure Emoscythe can see in the dark, but I like light more."

Understood.

Emoscythe glanced over her shoulder as two cases thumped lightly onto the ground and a pair of cat mechs slid out from within. "Drones?" she asked.

"Yeah. They're handy."

She nodded. "They can be, yes. Don't rely on them overly much. They eventually become a point-sink when dealing with higher-tier adversaries."
"How's that?" I asked.

"You risk spreading your points out too much. Ten ten-thousand point drones is impressive. But a single samurai with a hundred-thousand points worth of gear would be a lot more effective. And there's a point fall-off with drones. Not when you're right next to them, but when they're operating independently. They're like giving normal people weapons. You'll only receive a fraction of the points. Good for plugging holes in defences though, especially if you find a way to keep the drones on theme."

She reached down and patted one of the drones on the head. It was, in most respects, a normal cat mecha, but this one had really big eyes that glowed like headlights and the gun on its back had a light attached to the side of it which turned on with a thump and acted as though a very narrow sun had just risen in the room.

I squinted at a sea of cars and aliens.

Emoscythe and I paused near the base of the ramp and kind of just stared as more and more glowing eyes opened up in the shadows.

The two lights from my drones scanned across the lot, making the many, many aliens they swept across flinch back. I loosened my shoulder, expecting a charge at any moment.

Instead, the aliens started to shift and move around the edges of the room.

"They're going to try and pinch us in," Emoscythe said. "This isn't normal behaviour. There's something important to them here."

"Let's take it from them," I said. "They're trampling on our shit, aren't they? It's only fair." It was like an eye for an eye, but I was a vindictive bitch and I'd be taking a lot more than that. "Where do you think they're hiding whatever's so important here?" I asked.

The floor trembled.

It was a subtle thing. Just a slight rumble that I might not have noticed if I wasn't paying attention to it. If the place had power and the vents were on, then I probably would have missed it entirely. A few puddles of spilled oil, water, and soft drinks shivered as another thump made the floor shift.

I prepared for trouble. Gun up, eyes searching the room for whatever was making that noise. It wasn't any of the antithesis looking at us. The biggest there were a few of the chunkier model fives hanging out in the back.

Then I saw it. One of my cat mechs turned, its spotlight splashing onto a black wall. The wall moved, and I realized that it was flesh and fur. As the alien turned, I could make out some more details. It was partially hidden behind a delivery van, but the van wasn't nearly big enough to hide all of its bulk. The model turned, six legs bigger around than I was in all of my armour, working in tandem.

Its face was... disconcertingly human-looking, with a fixed neck that kept the face tilted towards the ground. Two long mandibles came down from over its shoulders, big and sleek, but with a pair of three-fingered hands at the end and a joint in the middle so that they could flex.

The monster was holding onto a person's body in one hand. It brought it up to its mouth and chomped down with flat, cow-like teeth that nonetheless crunched through bones the same way I might chomp into a chicken nugget.

"What in the fuck is that?" I asked.

"Model twenty-two," Emoscythe said. "That explains why they're all acting as if there's a hive around. There is one."

"That thing's a hive?" I asked, taking in the obvious implication.

She nodded. "Mobile hive. Slower to make fresh aliens than a normal hive, of course, and it can't make anything too large, but it'll be trouble nonetheless. I'm certain there's plenty of biomass around here to keep that thing going. And it could supply a new hive with worker drones and pre-processed biomass."

"So we kill it," I said.

"Obviously, we're here, aren't we? I'll report this to the Family though. That thing wasn't made here. It snuck in and I can't see any reports of any models in the twenties spotted in the current wave."

Some disturbing possibilities there, but I liked the solution to all of our problems. "Do I bring the whole building down on it, or do I just burn it out?" I asked.

"Let's not crush ourselves," Emoscythe said. She flicked her sword around in a tight circle. "I'll take out the model twenty-two, can you cover me?"

She didn't wait for a reply before she started moving in towards the big alien. That was like the gunshot that set off the race for all the other xenos. They saw her approaching and rushed across the parking lot. I brought my Bullcat up and snapped a shot or two into the nearest, but that wasn't going to be enough.

The mecha cats I'd deployed opened fire as well even as they backed up towards me, headlight eyes focusing on the nearest of the aliens.

"Myalis, I need B.E.E.S.," I said. "A whole lot of them."

Myalis obliged, and a crate-full of B.E.E.S. grenades appeared next to me. I grabbed the first, flicked it on with the same hand, then flung it to the side while glowing microdrones poured out of the grenade and started to hum through the air.

By the time I'd deployed my sixth grenade the entire parking garage hummed with the incessant drone of a whole lot of very angry robots.

I ran to catch up to Emoscythe who was slicing her way through any obstructions on her way to the model twenty-two. The big mobile hive stared placidly as she approached, still chewing on some unfortunate nobody. Then, when she got closer, it started to move.

Emoscythe slipped to the side while pirouetting on one foot as one of the model twenty-two's legs struck out where she'd been.

Her sword casually flicked up, and the model twenty-two blinked dumbly as its foreleg crashed to the ground, gushing green blood.

I picked a few resonators out of the air and tossed them around the room. Their high-pitched whine added to the chaos. I wasn't an expert, but I think the room's enclosed acoustics might have helped the grenades' range.

A model three made it past the circling barrier of B.E.E.S. and leapt at my face. I grabbed it out of the air out of sheer reflex and was surprised that I wasn't bowed over by its weight shoving up against me. I held onto its head with my mechanical hand for a moment, before I squeezed my fingers shut.

Brains splashed all over, as if I'd crushed a fruit, and I made a mental note to be careful if Lucy ever tried to hug me while I was in this suit.

Emoscythe danced under the big alien, sword slicing across its underbelly so that guts and innards spilled out of it. There were long strands in there, like a weird colon, but filled with what were unmistakably model threes the size of large chickens.

Another leg was cut off, and the model twenty-two finally started to panic, legs kicking out and body spinning. It even threw its lunch at Emoscythe who ducked out of the way.

And then she held her sword by her side, set her feet apart, and glared.

A moment later her stance had changed and her sword was now on her other side, a long blur fading out of the air before her.

The model twenty-two groaned as it split apart down the middle. Behind it, a few of the pillars holding up the parking garage crumbled.

"Let's mop this up," she said. "We should report this too, while we're at it."

***