Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Sixty-Seven - Not Mushroom for Emotions

"No, blowing things up is not a good substitute for proper therapeutic care."

--The American PMC's Guide to Therapy, 2nd Edition, 2041

***

I had the MEOW leap over a fallen tree while Princess took potshots at the aliens trailing after us. They'd come out of the woodworks, kind of literally, as we ran away from the hive. I figured we were mostly dealing with the Antithesis that had ranged out and away from the hive and who had come running back when we poked their home with high-explosives.

"Anything big?" I asked.

"Just some smaller ones," Princess said. The guns rattled, though I only really heard them through my implants. The MEOW's cabin was airtight and sound-proofed, I doubted I'd be able to hear much of what happened outside of it unless I popped a hatch.

I glanced back, and yeah, the only models keeping up were the ones and threes. The rest were on the slightly slower side and couldn't keep pace with the mech.

"Myalis, are we still in the blast radius?" I asked.

Yes, though you're on the edge of what most would consider the survivable zone.

"What's that mean, exactly?" I asked. I mean, she did say that I ought to ask more questions.

The survival zone is the area where an unprepared civilian has 50-50 odds of living.

Maybe I could keep moving. A few more minutes wouldn't hurt. There was a rise up ahead, some hundred metres or so. It was a grassy cliff without much vegetation around, so I aimed for that and was soon clawing up the side of the hill.

Once at the top, I turned around and looked back. The map I had on my hub showed that the heap of explosives was about a kilometre and a half away. "This safe?" I asked.

You're outside the light damage radius. That means that a person standing out in the open might only suffer from very mild burns and would only be at risk of further damage from a bad fall from the outer blast or if a piece of debris happens to strike them.

"Cool," I said. "One sec..." I opened a call to the Bastion and the others. Almost immediately, I heard chatter from Nya and Knight, with the occasional retort of a gun coming over the line. "Sorry to interrupt. Princess and I are about to detonate the first hive. There might be a small boom. Ah, if no one is using the Bastion we'll call it over for retrieval."

The plan was more or less to let each group of two tackle their hive, then gather everyone up at the end before moving on to the next set of hives, maybe with some switching up along the way.

Hopefully with some switching up along the way. Not that Princess had been all that bad.

"Hey, want to press the detonator?" I asked.

Princess gasped. "I can?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug. I loved pressing the big red button, but I'd done it a few times, and there was no harm in giving Princess a chance. Besides, seeing the explosion from up close was half the fun anyway.

I had the detonation thing linked to my augs, but it was a simple matter to send that over to Princess.

"Okay. On three... one... two... boom!" she said.

Nothing happened for a fraction of a second, then there was a flash in the distance. A bright ball of fire rose, pushing the air all around it out and away. A split second later the ground started to tremble and a shockwave blasted past, followed moments later by a wall of dust and kicked up debris.

"Woo!" I cheered ever as the earth continued to shake. "Bet they saw that one from the city!"

"Yeah!" Princess said.

The MEOW had little wipers on its cameras, which turned out to be damned useful. They cleared things out so that we could watch the expanding ball of fire climbing into the sky. It was a real mushroom cloud, though a smaller one.

Hive destruction confirmed.

"Nice," I said. The ground stopped shaking, and I shifted the MEOW so that it had better footing. There didn't seem to be any aliens left between us and the now-burning crater where we'd left the explosives.

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I tapped into the Bastion's controls from afar, made sure that no one had requested it for aerial-support, and recalled it.

Since we were the first out, I figured it'd make sense for us to be the first to return as well. Probably? The Bastion spun around, and my wider-view map of the area showed it slowly returning to our position.

"I think that worked out pretty well," I said.

"Yeah," Princess said. She was quiet for a while, then in a lower voice continued. "Yeah... thank you, Stray Cat."

"Hmm? Yeah, no problem," I said.

"No, I mean... Thank you. Um. Knight says that I'm a bit much sometimes, but you've been really cool. You are really cool. And, yeah, thank you."

"Uh, sure, no problem," I said.

Could I maybe make the Bastion fly a little faster? I was not one for this kind of squishy emotional bullshit.

"When my dad died, I was happy. Is that messed up of me? I... I can't really tell my sister that. I think she knew that he wasn't a very good guy, but he was nice to her. Gave her stuff, and spent time with her, and he wanted her to be... like him when she grew up. He was proud of her, you know."

"Uh-huh," I said. What else was I supposed to say? I wasn't the one that was meant to comfort people, dammit!

"And for me. Well, for me it wasn't the same. I was a mistake. You know, he told me that I could be a problem for him, I could risk his whole career. He paid my mom to mostly keep her quiet. I think it got out, and when it did, he was really angry. It was only my sister that kept things okay. She liked me."

"I think she still does," I said.

"Yeah. She's a good person. I'm not sure if I am. For a while I'd just smile and be happy when she was around because... I don't know. I'd get her leftovers, I guess."

I glanced back. Princess was sitting on her little fold-out seat, knees up against her chest. "I don't know much about family, but I think that it's more important to pick yours out than it is to care about whatever your family is by blood. Do you like Knight?"

Princess looked up, eyes going wide. "Yeah! Of course I do! It's just... ah, for a while I think I only liked her because she helped. Which isn't a good reason to like someone, is it?"

"I've heard worse," I said.

"I guess," she replied. She went silent for a while. The Bastion, mercifully, was finally getting close enough that I could spot it in the distance. "Thanks for killing him," she said.

"You're... welcome," I said. "But you know, I didn't do it for you. He, ah, double-crossed me. And I wasn't in a mood to let that stand."

"I know. I can't remember who said it, but there's a cool saying about how it's sometimes not the reason for action that matters so much as the result, right?"

"Sounds halfway wise," I said.

The Bastion came in for a slow, gentle landing right atop the hillside, engines burning spots into the grass even as the rear bay doors opened. I moved the mech forwards and into the bay, then I opened the side-hatch even as the bay door shut and the Bastion started to rise again.

"Give me five? I'll just do some quick post-combat checks and reload things here."

"Sure!" Princess said before squeezing her way out of the mech.

I let out a sigh when she and her frilly petticoats were out of my sight.

You handled that very well. All things considered.

"There's a reason Lucy's the one that handles the kids," I muttered. "Her dad, do you think he..."

I wouldn't know. And I wouldn't pry into another AI's Vanguard's life.

"Yeah, that's fair," I said. "Should have shot the asshole in the knees first."

I did a quick system check on the MEOW and it came back green across the board, though it was low on ammo for some of the side-arms and the main gun. Since we had a few minutes while flying back to the next pick-up, I decided to reload things, which involved figuring out how to reload things in the first place.

Better to learn that now rather than mid-fight, though. Mostly it was a good way to keep busy and give Princess some space... away from me.

***