Chapter Fourteen – Combustion Beam Flag-tillery OR; Flying Disco Balls of Death

Chapter Fourteen – Combustion Beam Flag-tillery OR; Flying Disco Balls of Death

“–We haven’t gotten permission yet.

–And I’m thinking of a line of lighters, matches, and maybe small blowtorches? Flashlights, maybe?”

–Overheard discussion about My First Gomorrah Dolls, 2057

***

The swarm came at me with its fastest little guys first. That mostly meant model ones, the flying fucks being way faster than all the rest. And a whole lot weaker too.

“Myalis, can we top-load a few of those air-explosion rounds, like Tankette used?” I asked.

Your internal magazines have four empty slots for rounds, but they’re not designed to be filled from the top. You’ll have to empty your current magazine to the level where the new rounds will be introduced.

I shrugged. Fair enough. I tapped through a few commands and then let my twin Gatling guns rip into the flying part of the swarm. It was the big-guns that I needed to empty, and that was just as easy. I took command of the guns, aimed them ahead, then let loose. 105mm rounds scythed ahead, curving slightly as I’d aimed a little high and over the front of the incoming swarm. They crashed into the ground some four or five hundred metres away then exploded.

“What do I have loaded in right now?” I asked as I glanced at a readout on the side. “Oh.” They were anti-armour rounds. They had some explosive oomph to them, but nothing too satisfying.

What do you want for anti-air? I have a few options on offer. The size of the guns you have gives you a lot of space for customization!

I fired another pair of shots. “You have three more shots to convince me, I guess. Maybe only a few, I think we’ll go for some HE after that. The Twenty-Twos shouldn’t be too tough, right?”

In that case, I’ll offer three suggestions. The first is a simple air-burst explosive round. It fires conventional fragmentation all around, with a shaped charge to ensure that local flying targets are prioritised.

Finally, as a last option, explosive-powered lasers.

“You’re not just going to leave that last one hanging, right?” I asked.

They’re chemical laser rounds. When they exit the barrel, the round has targeting software that adjusts a series of sixty-four spiral-set mirrors, then the chemical combustion triggers a split laser to fire for a short duration. It’s usually a kind of flak reserved for use in space, but it is good enough for a short-range engagement like this one.

“Okay, well, obviously we’re going with the lasers.” I shook my head, why even offer the other two if explosion-lasers was an option from the start?

There was a faint clunk as a few anti-air lasers were loaded in. I returned my focus to the field. The Antithesis were well and truly aware that we were here, and they weren’t happy about it.

The model twenty-twos each had a small horde around them, some hundred or so aliens each, and if we didn’t cull them, that number would only grow as the big guys snacked on the local vegetation and puked out more lower-tier models.

The first of them showed up in the distance, moving our way with slow, lumbering steps. It wasn’t a quick model. Or maybe it was, it just moved slowly, but its size meant that every slow step still carried it a good ways. It wasn’t quite keeping up with its little pals, but it wasn’t falling too far behind.

Until I plugged two 105mm rounds into its torso and watched them detonate. That slowed it way the fuck down.

There were more model ones coming, a whole flock of them. They had probably zipped ahead from the other model twenty-twos still making their way over.

I fired off the last of my armour-penetrating rounds, emptying the mech’s internal magazine before the anti-air rounds were automatically loaded up.