Chapter Sixty-Four – Hot and Bothered

Chapter Sixty-Four – Hot and Bothered

“While the enemy doesn’t understand psychological warfare, we as humans do. It’s why we give soldiers armour that looks good, weapons that look fearsome, and why we paint our heroes as great and unkillable.”

-Propaganda and You, a guide to the eternal war against the plants, 2053

***

The Bastion came around on auto-pilot, rear hangar doors open and moving in sideways so that a whipping wind was shoved into our faces even as the ship started to drop out of the sky.

“Myalis, anything?” I shouted over the wind.

The ship’s scanner suite has picked up motion ahead of you. While it’s not enough to confirm the presence of a hive, it certainly suggests some amount of Antithesis movement.

“Got it,” I said. I glanced to the side where Princess was clinging to one of the floor-to-ceiling bars right next to the bay door. “Ready?” I called out.

She removed one hand from the bar and gave me a shaky thumbs up.

Behind us, the others were a lot more calm about the rather hot drop. Nya was standing at a thirty-degree angle against the force of momentum, and Shy was casually holding onto a railing to stay afoot.

“Myalis, open up our landing zone!” I shouted.

Firing.

The turrets on the underside of the Bastion rotated, and then they opened up. There was a cacophony of loud, repeated booms. The noise, somehow, reminded me of New Montreal traffic. People talking with their horns, only a little less honky and a little more boomy.

Then the Basion launched a pair of rockets straight downwards and the explosion rattled the ship and shook the entire forest we were approaching.

Landing zone cleared.

The Bastion dropped down, more even now, gimballed turrets shifting from side to side, looking for a target. The ship’s legs came down and clamped onto the muddy, recently-blown-up soil, then the rest of the ship lowered itself. A small ramp shifted out of the side, making it easier to climb in and out.

“Alright, Princess,” I said. “Let’s get moving, yeah?”

“Yup!” Princess said. She looked outside with wide eyes, then glanced back at me. Instead of walking out, I walked in, then all the way up to the MEOW. Or… rather, the Mechanized Exploration and Operations Walker Mk IV.

I’d purchased the walker just a few days ago, after the whole phobos incident. It had drained a lot of my points to buy and I’d never once used it.

Now felt like a good time for it, though.

I smacked the mech on the flank as I passed it, then linked up to it through my augs. It was surprising how useful repairing the Nyanzerfaust was in ways that I hadn’t initially expected. Learning about one mech’s function taught me a lot, if only by osmosis, about working with others.

The side of the mech opened, and a set of small steps unfolded out of the bottom. The MEOW’s interior, unlike the Nyanzerfaust, was a bit more wide and open. The ‘cabin’ section was located between the front legs, in the ‘trunk’ of the body and beneath the main gun. There was the usual crash-seat for the pilot, but also a pair of small fold-out seats at the rear with their own controls.

None of the rear seats needed to be occupied. The pilot could control the mech, the guns, and all the sub-systems all at the same time via a link and the rows of buttons and knobs around the forward seat, but… yeah, a second pair of eyes and hands wouldn’t hurt.

“Come on, Princess!” I shouted.

“Coming!” Princess said as she darted over.

I pulled myself into the mech and fell onto the pilot’s seat. Princess hesitated at the entrance, then clambered in. She smoothed her skirts down so that they wouldn’t catch on anything, then sat on the seat to my rear and right.

Hooking myself into the mech’s interface, I started it… her? Yeah, I started her up, then moved my hands onto the appropriate joysticks. “Okay… do you have decent augs?” I asked.

“Uh, yes. Sis told me that it was one of those things I should invest in first.”

“Cool. Sending you a link to the MEOW’s interface now. I’m setting you up as gunner.”