Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Five - Leadershipping

"It takes the average samurai three incursions before they reach a level of comfort and stability with their own abilities and tools to be completely effective. Some take longer, and others are naturally inclined towards the lifestyle of a samurai. A few rare examples flake out and decide not to take part in combat and alien-hunting directly."

--The Family's Guide to Working with Noobs, 2051

***

"So, what do you know about the locals?" I asked as I followed Gomorrah outside. I immediately put my question on hold as I took in the car sitting on my landing pad.

The Fury had been Gomorrah's baby. I think the only thing she loved more than that car was fire and maybe Franny, in that order.

The car sitting ahead of me wasn't the Fury, not unless Gomorrah had gone really nuts with the modifications. It looked a bit like her old ride though, but bigger and meaner. The car was stationary, but it looked like it wanted to be breaking every speed limit in the province.

Four metres of pitch-black, obviously armoured skin on a chassis that reminded me of an old-timey muscle car, with sharply angled panelling. It sat low on the pad, fat wheels tucked deep within. "Damn," I said.

"Pretty, isn't she?" Gomorrah asked, clearly proud. "I'm calling her the Fury Resurrected. It felt like an appropriate name. Bigger engines, a better environmental control system, actual space-capable thrust, and a lot more armour than the first Fury."

"Wait, it can go to space?" I asked.

"Yes, but not for long. And not very well, honestly. If I wanted something space-capable I'd just buy something specifically designed for it. I'm just saying, it's a lot faster and can take more of a pounding. Oh, and it's better armed too. Two gatling guns at the rear, a forward-firing railgun, a missile launching system and flamethrowers for up-close work. It won't be knocked out of the sky by an unlikely strike from a passing model eleven. Oh, and the interior's big enough to accommodate power armour."

"Oh, that's a nice change," I said. The doors to the new Fury opened up, gull-wing style, and I slid into the passenger seat while Gomorrah went around. "Hey, is this real leather?"

"Real fake leather," she said with a nod as she sat behind the wheel. The interior really was more spacious, though I still pitied anyone that had to squeeze into the back.

"Nice," I approved. "So, are we heading straight south? What's the plan here?"

Gomorrah reached to the console in the middle of the dashboard and touched a few buttons. A hovering map appeared between us, projected from a tiny pin-prick hole in the ceiling. New Montreal was impossible to miss, at least until she zoomed out and moved south across a bunch of nothing towards a city that looked a good deal smaller than ours.

"This is Burlington," she said. "It's a fairly small city. Population: just over half a million. There's a big university there, and not too much else. It's mostly a retiree city."

"So chock full of old people?" I asked.

"Just about," Gomorrah agreed. She set the new Fury into motion and we smoothly rose up and away from my place, then we turned and started flying just under the skylanes which had the most traffic. "The place is guarded by three samurai. They're all new. Like, very new."

"We're not exactly old," I muttered.

"Compared to these three, we might as well be," she said. "All three of them became samurai near the start of the global incursion. Like Jimothy. But they've had it a bit worse. They were the only ones around to defend the city, except for the local cops, and maybe a small militia."

That sounded like a hot mess. I could see why Laserjack or whoever wanted us to fly over and check on the place. "What are things like?"

"One in five dead, nearly half the city lost, it's just not looking very good, and while the big-name samurai have been actively breaking most hives, I don't think they're destroying those inside of cities."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Too much collateral, there are shelters and people hiding that would die just because there's a tiny hive nearby. Look, Atyacus will send you the package."

I got a ping, and when I checked it (It had taken surprisingly little time for me to get used to not having pop-ups and ads shoved through my augs at all times of the day) it was a set of compressed files from Gomorrah.

I leaned back, trusting the nun to drive while I looked over what she'd sent. There was a lot there. Maps, connections to live satellite feeds, historical documentation about the city, the location of shelters and projected numbers of survivors. Just heaps of stuff. But it was also organised so that I wasn't instantly swamped without a clue of where to start.

The thing that caught my attention first was the time-lapse of the antithesis movement in and around the city.

They started on the edges, but most of them seemed to come from this big lake right next to the city. The aliens poured out right onto beaches and behind waterfront homes that had no defences. The defences the city did have were all outwards-facing from the outer edge of the city. Nothing faced the waterfront.

That was a mess and a half. The city was effectively split in half, with the antithesis quickly taking over a big chunk of it and only stopping once they were nearer to the less clustered sections to the north of the city.

There seemed to be a lot more homes with big yards where the antithesis had taken over, with the occasional bigger complex or stretch of suburbia. The parts still holding out were the more urban areas with apartments and stores all jammed together.

Downtown Burlington wasn't all that impressive, not compared to the Megacity I'd spent most of my life in. It looked like everyone was being forced to get real close to each other while the few defenders the city had built barricades pointing outwards and tried to keep the aliens at bay.

"Only three samurai, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," Gomorrah said. "You're going to be in charge of the four of us."

I blinked. "Um. Can you go back for a second there. Be in charge?"

"Yes," Gomorrah said. She glanced my way, and even if I couldn't see her face, I had the impression she was smiling. "And before you ask, yes, I really did mean

you.

"

"What? Why?"

"Because someone has to be," Gomorrah said. "And I'm not exactly the leadership type. You, on the other hand, are actually somewhat experienced."

"I'm used to bullying children."

"So you'll have no trouble with samurai," Gomorrah replied. "Look, it was partly my idea, but Laserjack approved of it. Someone needs to take charge in Burlington. The samurai there now are too green, the political situation is a mess, and you're good at blowing right past those kinds of issues."

"Yeah, but I'm... fuck, I don't know," I said.

Gomorrah shook her head. "You won't be alone. And I don't think anyone's expecting you to be perfect at this. Just see what you can do, I'll help where I can. The Family will be redirecting reinforcements to the city before the week's over."

"That's five days from now," I said.

"So we just need to hold out for that long," Gomorrah said. "We've done worse, I think. Besides, we're not far from home. We can drive back every day so that you can sleep in your own bed."

I worked my jaw. I didn't like it. But... yeah, maybe this wouldn't be too bad. I did like giving people orders a lot more than I liked taking them. I flitted through the files until I found dossiers on all three samurai.

Two men, one woman, all fresh as newborn babes. They didn't have good photos of them. By the looks of it, every picture was taken by a civilian aug and uploaded somewhere. The samurai themselves had only had very light communication with the Family so far.

The first on the list was a guy in his late twenties. Whip-thin and rather scrawny. Going by the name Sprout. He seemed to be leaning towards a specialisation in biological weaponry, mostly plant-based things.

That sounded outright stupid when dealing with the antithesis.

Next guy didn't have a samurai name yet. He was Sprout's opposite. A big guy with heavy body mods. Couldn't see anything about his fighting style or what kind of stuff he was getting.

The last, the woman, was in her thirties. The only photos they had of her were taken from afar. She had some sort of coat on, with lots of spikes on it, and seemed to be in the thick of it. They were calling her Manic.

"Holy crap, these are like, the dregs," I said.

Gomorrah scoffed. "We weren't much better at the start," she said.

"I mean, sure, but still." Maybe I was too used to working with professional... ish samurai. Those that, if they weren't professional, were at least experienced enough to make their weirdness work.

This was going to be a spectacular mess, I could just tell.

***