Chapter Forty-Four – Machina

Chapter Forty-Four – Machina

“There’s an entire industry of trade where people, often scavengers working in some very specialized unions, will rush out to an incursion to pull the best, most juicy toys from the wreckage, often before the area is properly cleared.

So the scavengers come, and when they find a Samurai’s trail, they follow it like hyenas after an injured antelope.”

–Excerpt from ‘After the Fall: A History of Post-Incursion Areas. 2040

***

I was down forty points.

I also had four sub machine guns hanging around me from a couple of straps hooked onto their short stocks. They were called Stingers, and while they were cheap as shit and a bit bulky, they also had 120 round magazines that could be emptied with exactly thirty seconds of continuous fire.

My Trench Maker was strapped in place, the pockets and holders on my back were full up, and my new arm’s rocket launcher was loaded up with three HE rockets that I could call up by thinking about it hard enough.

It was pretty cool.

I still had points to spend, but not the time to spend them in. At least, not if I wanted to protect the AA gun for even a moment more.

Hesitation gripped me just as I was opening the door back onto the roof. The kittens, Lucy, were probably safe by now. They were across the front line and were no doubt being pushed into some sort of shelter or an evacuation area.

I could just tuck away in some corner, maybe find a route towards the edges of the incursion myself. It would be safer, probably.

“Fuck me,” I said as I slammed the door open.

The roof was crawling with aliens. Model Fours, over a dozen, all huddled low and ready to move up towards the gun above us. Model Ones, an entire flock’s worth, sometimes flopping down dead if they poked their head up too much and got tagged by the point defence guns. And more. Large winged models that I had only seen in flashes when looking out were circling the building.

I saw hungry eyes turn my way.

They looked first into my eye, then down to the two guns I was holding like the star of some samurai flick.

I pulled back on the triggers and grit my teeth as the recoil had me stepping back. Twin lines of steel death washed over the nearest Antithesis.

My left hand stopped firing way before my right. “Myalis! Resonator!” I called as I let go of one gun. A grenade fell into my hand, and in a second was sailing above the heads of the xenos still in my path.

The familiar ring of the resonator wasn’t nearly as irritating with my new earpieces. At least, it wasn’t as irritating to me. The aliens didn’t take kindly to it.

They rushed at me. “Fire!” I screamed just as my right-side gun clicked empty.

The guns over my back slid out into place, fully loaded and ready to tell the aliens, in no uncertain terms, that they could fuck right off.

My second Stinger clicked empty. I unclipped its sling, marvelling at how easy it was with two hands, flung it to the ground, then pulled up the other two waiting by my hips.

The next barrage was more about putting down tenacious aliens than really mowing them down. The resonator had a decent range, but its effect diminished with distance. The fliers were still zipping about unmolested, that was, until my back-mounted guns turned them into so much meat.

I stepped out with a glance up for any surprises, then emptied the last of my bullets into a few aliens that were still writhing around while melting. I didn’t need a flailing tentacle to batter me down.

More were crawling up from the edges, and a look around revealed what had to be hundreds of Model Ones and some of those other fliers circling the roof like vultures around a corpse. They seemed content to circle though, without charging right at my exposed form.

I ran up the little stairs towards the AA gun and winced. The machine was tough, but it had taken a beating. Its sides were covered in gore and burnt bits of alien, and a few battered bodies hung onto it like Christmas tinsel.

I saw a Model Four lunge at it, only for the entire weapon platform to spin around so fast I felt the wind of its passing where I stood.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The end of a railgun slapped the Model Four so hard most of it flew off the roof.

INCOMING CALL FROM… BIG BROTHER LONGBOW

“C’mon Stray Cat, you should get to cover, not stand around like that.”