Chapter Fifty-One – One Dam Thing After Another
Chapter Fifty-One - One Dam Thing After Another
"The only real problem with hydro-electrical energy is that it's so hard to justify surge pricing."
- William Bell, CEO of HydroCanada
***
I stopped the MEOW a few feet into the wall, then opened the main hatch. Doing so loosened some crap stuck to the hull and it fell down with a thump onto the gravel-covered roadway. I grimaced at the sight of it. Bits of that ugly fucker I'd tangled with a few minutes ago.
I grabbed the edge of the cockpit and leapt down, landing with a crunch on the ground.
Glancing up, I squinted at the MEOW, taking in the damage. There were a lot of thin little scratches on the paint, just narrow white lines. Some of them disappeared when I reached up and gave them a good rub with my thumb, but others were deep enough to catch on my nail.
That was probably the flak rounds. The bigger damage came from the alien claws. Most of those had just scraped off the mech's armour, but I was a little disturbed to find nicks along the edge of a few plates, and one of them was bent slightly out of shape.
I think a tentacle had grabbed it there? Damn, those things had some serious torque behind them.
I made my way around, grimacing as I took in the spot that should have held one of the MEOW's gimbal-mounted guns.
With a command sent through my AUGs, I had the mech lower itself onto its belly, then I hopped up and grabbed the edge of an armoured plate with my mechanical arm and pulled myself up.
The gun was meant to fold into a sort of socket that could be covered by an armoured plate that slid out over the gap. That plate was now out of whack, though it was still present, just the rails that slid out with it were fucked.
The rest of the mechanism was turbo-fucked. There were several metal rods that were simply snapped off, and the interior ammo box had spilled out all over, with loose rounds caught in the mechanism.
I reached in, then pinched a bullet out. It was squished down the middle, gunpowder leaking out of the bass casing. I flicked it over my shoulder and jumped off the side of the mech. No point in crying over that. The damage wasn't so bad.
It would need replacing, but everything there was replaceable. A few panels removed, then a new gun and some new parts for the control mechanism, and finally a bit of rewiring.
Ten hours, or three weeks, depending on how much bullshit got in my way. Frustrating, but for now, it wasn't all that bad. It would only lower the mech's combat effectiveness a little, and I'd more than made up for the cost in points already.
I looked over to Strike Group Hammer, then wandered over to Hatner.
Most of the group was in a good mood. Lots of back-patting and whooping, even as some of them were sprayed down behind a semi-transparent tent and then changed into fresh fatigues. The vehicles were getting a similar treatment off to the side, and that filled the air with a rather sharp, acrid scent that made the little hairs in my nose shrivel up.
I nodded to a few of the troopers, but tried to make it clear that I was here on business. Hatner, at least, wasn't joining in on the celebrations. A body was in a bag, and a group of the personnel from the base were carrying it out by some straps worked into the sides of the bag.
"I'm... yeah," I started rather lamely. "I'm going to be heading back to the main command area, back by the wall to the north. Or... no, wait, I need to meet up with Princess, first."
"Are you going to be taking a break at all before that?" Hatner asked.
"If I'm lucky, being stuck in a meeting in command will be a break," I replied, and received an indelicate snort in return.
I didn't want to be there anymore, so I gave Hatner a smack on the shoulder and started to walk off, only to stop. It took a moment, but I ordered something from Myalis, then set it down onto the ground next to me with a loud clink of glass on glass.
The soldiers cheered behind me when they discovered that large case of alien-made beers I'd left behind. Hopefully they wouldn't get too much shit for drinking on the job.
I continued on my way until I found an entrance into the hydro-electric plant that looked promising, mostly because it was being guarded by a pair of soldiers that pointed me in the right direction.
The interior was a bit of a mess. Lots of tunnels and short passages, but I eventually heard distant gunfire and followed that down to a lower level, and then into a large, cavernous room with several massive industrial machines. Turbines of some sort, maybe? The room had catwalks above and the usual assortment of parked forklifts and little mini-trucks.
About two dozen soldiers were doing the usual 'hurry up and wait' routine across the back of the room. Lots of guns leaning against crates and supplies stacked up on the floor.
I wasn't able to find Princess, but Knight wasn't hard to spot, she was the only one standing around in full plate armour.
Her gear had gotten an upgrade. It looked like she had gone up two sizes, and now her armour had little pneumatics worked into it. The wider-set shoulders and extra six inches of height made her tower over the smaller soldiers around, though her head looked a bit small without a helmet on.
"Stray Cat," she said as I wandered over.
"Yo," I replied. "Nice gear."
"Thank you," She replied. "It's been nice to be more effective. Though the tunnels have been stretching what I can manage."
"I can imagine," I said. I glanced at the weapon leaning on a bench nearby. It was a mace. I recalled her using a sword before, but judging by the clumps of Antithesis flesh on the mace's flanges, that worked just as well. "Where's Princess?"
"She's down there," Knight said with a gesture over one shoulder. "Don't worry, she'll be coming back out. She was just resupplying the team we have guarding the tunnels. Thanks, by the way, for taking out that hive. Hopefully that'll stem the tide for a while."
"I hope so too," I replied."We're still going to have to keep an eye on it, but the Antithesis today seem... ah..."
"Reactive?"
"Yeah," I said with a nod. "Reactive is a good word for it. They're being tricky little fucks today. Got ambushed a few times, and now there's some bigger models out there screaming or whatever and we can't figure out where they are. Feels like there's a sort of... change, or something?"
"A paradigm shift?" Knight asked, and I was reminded that this woman had a proper education and all.
"Sure, something like that. Libre went off on it when I last spoke to him. He thinks that the Antithesis are doing a sort of... mass tactics change."
"That would be a disaster," she said.
"We just need to change our own, no?" I asked.
"That's... significantly easier said than done," Knight said. "For you, it might just be a few minutes of buy new equipment and approaching fights differently, but for the average soldier? They don't get new gear every week. And then there's the way cities are defended. The logistical lines for stationary defences are insanely complex. Even just changing something small, like the ammunition type, could mean months of work. Some factory somewhere would need to produce new items, which means sourcing new raw materials, which means shifting entire production lines elsewhere. Even just one city deciding to use a different type of munition can have global repercussions. Smaller ones, but global still."
"Ah," I said. "So Libre was onto something?"
"Maybe? I don't know if he was thinking about the logistical side. That might just be my first concern because... that's what I was taught to think about first. Well, that and the political implications."
"And there are political implications to all of this?" I asked.
"Yes. Obviously. For one, there might be panic if the public finds out that the Antithesis are changing. If people decide that there's a source, then someone will use that to bolster whatever campaign they have going on."
I was saved from having to think about it too hard when Princess flounced over, the many guns on little arms sticking out of her skirts bouncing along with her. The fact that she was grinning from ear-to-ear while covered in splatters of blood was not exactly reassuring. Then again, it wasn't human blood, so there was that.
"Hi Stray Cat! Did you come to say hi?"
"Yup. And now that's done, I should be heading back. Need to check in on command and the main bit of the wall. Just wanted to make sure the two of you were alive."
"Aww!" she said before using a sleeve to rub blood off her face.
Yeah, nah, I wasn't sticking around here.
***