Chapter Forty-Two – Earning the Tier

Chapter Forty-Two – Earning the Tier

“At lower tiers, the effectiveness of a single samurai on the field is actually questionable.

The answer is that while a low-tier samurai might only be that powerful, they won’t be low-tiered forever.”

–A discussion on the value of samurai on large scale battlefronts, 2028

***

I was just planning my route, a map open in the corner of my vision, when some clever asshole decided that a large mass of bunched-together aliens would make for a great target for some artillery.

Something screamed above, and I raised my head and tracked a tiny black speck through the air. Its parabolic arc ended with it smashing into the ground a good fifty metres ahead of the wave.

A loud boom echoed out, while dust and smoke rose out of the impact crater as a massive column. “Nice,” I muttered. “Myalis, can you get in touch with whomever fired that? Tell them they missed.”

On it.

The wave was undaunted by the blast. I think most human armies would start running faster to get to cover or something, but the sea of bugs charging towards the city didn’t change their breakneck pace at all.

I looked at my map again. There were lots of streets to cover. “Okay. We’re going to push them down… Mapleway. I need… these six bigger roads blocked off, and all the alleys along them before the blockage.”

The city was laid out as a grid, with some concessions made for the underlying terrain. This wasn’t New Montreal, built on a massive platform raised above the ground, but a more normal cityscape like they used to build before.

I couldn’t funnel the entire wave. There were too many of them. But maybe I could funnel in a fraction, a good chunk of those heading in towards the city. It would concentrate them, sure, and that would be fucking awful if they ever reached the defenders covering the gap, but I didn’t intend to let that happen.

Funnel them into a big group, then bomb them back to whatever hell they’d crawled out of.

“I need mecha,” I said. “Six… no, eight. See these roads. I want them blocked off. Foam, maybe pepper in some resonators for if they try to climb over.”

I quickly drew some lines across the map. In the end, my design looked a bit like a square-stepped pyramid, with the tip pointing towards New Montreal itself. Every blocked road would be next to an alleyway or a side street that would let the wave move closer inwards. If we blocked off enough alleys and the previous side-roads, then they’d have no choice but to be pulled in. At least, if they didn’t stop to sniff around.

Fuck, I was treating the entire wave as if it were made of water or something, not living things.

“What are the chances this works?” I asked Myalis.

Relatively high actually. Otherwise I would have cautioned you against it. Though it will act more to crowd the wave in than to kill the members of the wave.

Right, that made sense. “Other plans?”

Use the height afforded you by the rooftops to drop proximity charges and other explosives onto the largest mass of aliens. A little dull, but no less effective. In fact, you might want to consider doing that all the same. The numbers in the current wave would overwhelm more barricades, and some will instead find themselves breaking into the buildings around them.

I glanced down at the street. Most of the bigger buildings had shops on their first floors, and most shops had a lot of glass in front of them. Big display windows and shit. I didn’t doubt that a few were designed to be bulletproof, but that wouldn’t stop the aliens for long.

“Alright, let’s get to it. Mecha with ‘nades. Whatever you think is best for creating a barrier. Maybe a few guns on them to keep them safe. And can you ping me the location of any particularly big motherfuckers? We don’t want anything in the twenties to reach the gap.

Understood.

Eight cat-mecha appeared on the rooftop. A bit slimmer than those I had guarding the house. Longer legs, with a few little limbs tucked into their sides, and what looked like a laser array similar to my turrets on their backs.

“Nice,” I said. “Payloads?”

As you suggested. Expanding foam bombs, resonators. You will likely want something with more direct stopping power to remove bigger threats and thin out the bigger knots of opposition. If your intent is to crush the enemy, then perhaps a literal application of that? Gravity grenades, with a limited range to avoid collateral damage, can destroy most things they hit.

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I shrugged. “Alright.”

I’d see if they were as impressive as Myalis claimed.