Chapter Sixty-Six – Tanks and Soldiers and Guns, Oh My!

Chapter Sixty-Six – Tanks and Soldiers and Guns, Oh My!

“Most modern militaries in the early 2000s were designed to counter other modern militaries and minor uprisings.

The Antithesis changed that. Now most forces split their attention between crowd suppression, their traditional anti-military role, and incursion suppression.”

–Introduction to the ‘Three Way Problem’ by Professor Ivence, 2054

***

I don’t know why, but when I imagined the army showing up, I was expecting a couple of troop transports. Maybe a few armoured cars.

I wasn’t expecting tanks.

My knowledge about tanks wasn’t exactly great. I’d seen them in movies and games, and maybe in a history documentary or two. I knew they were big armoured things. For some reason, it never registered that they’d be fucking enourmous.

The tank that rolled onto the road with the arena was nearly wide enough to take up the entire street. It had smaller gun emplacements all around it, turrets with armoured screens under them, and a main gun sitting on the back with a barrel I could have stuck my head in.

Wheels instead of tracks, though. Big ones, with hexagonal-patterned tires, four to a side.

The tank turned my way, casually rolled over the hood of some poor civilian’s little sedan, then made a tight turn a couple of metres ahead of me and stopped with a hiss.

I stared up as a hatch hummed open. The inch-thick doorway was shoved up by a little hydraulic arm, just enough that a guy was able to poke his head out. “Are you Stray Cat, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said. “Nice ride.”

The soldier grinned. “Thank you, ma’am! We’re the only super-heavy here. Thought it would be best to have us break the tide, as it were.”

“Super heavy?” I asked.

He reached an arm out and gave the vehicle an affectionate thump. “One hundred and fifty tonnes of alien killing beauty.”

“Nice,” I said. I think I saw the appeal. I wasn’t a gun nut, but that cannon on the top. Well, bitches did love cannons. “You guys going to stick around here?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

I heard something off to the side, and leaned back to see a few more vehicles coming over. Tanks, but these were no bigger than an SUV. Fewer wheels, and the asymmetrically-set gun wasn’t as panty-wettingly big.

“Cool. You’re really freeing me up here,” I said. “There are some civilians holed up in the arena. Saw some Model Threes and Fours around earlier. And watch out for Model Nines. They’re nasty fuckers.”

The tanker saluted. “Will do, ma’am. Do you need a ride anywhere? We have infantry being dropped off here.”

I shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

I wouldn’t mind riding on a tank.

As it turned out, what he meant was that when a troop transport came around–just a sort of enclosed truck, lightly armoured and unarmed–to drop off a couple of squads of infantry, it waited around for me to hop on.

I didn’t complain. It saved me some walking, but I did kind of want to ride in one of the tanks. Lucy would trip.

I stayed standing in the cramped rear of the transport, eyes on the road passing by behind us. The town had taken a serious blow already, but a lot of it seemed somewhat superficial. Some clean-up, a bit of cash spent repainting homes, fixing yards and replacing all the glass, and Black Bear would be right as rain. More or less.

The transport rolled to a stop before the headquarters, and I leapt out of the back.

There were a lot more soldiers around than I’d expected. They seemed to be using the front of the headquarters as a staging ground, tents going up and blocky mobile homes with com-arrays on their roofs parking in neat rows.

I saw some of the local police around, mostly hanging out close to the main building itself. Either they didn’t want the army going in, or they were just focusing on keeping the civilians safe while the soldiers took the brunt of any potential attack.

The army certainly had the better equipment. More of those light tanks were parked here and there, sandbags already going up around them, and others were setting up AA-guns on mounts on the lawns of the buildings across the street.

I found Gomorrah sitting on Fury’s hood, one leg kicking back and forth while she stared off into the sky.

“You look chill,” I said as I moved over.

The nun looked down, her impassive mask staring back at me. “I was. Just relaxing a little before we get back to work.”

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“We’re taking the Fury?”

“We’re not walking.”

Fair enough. “Right. Before we go. Did you find a place to land us?”

“I figured I’d find the biggest hole and slip into that,” she said. We were both quiet for a while, then she sighed. “Don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I lied.

“Did you have a better idea?”