Chương 765: Chapter Forty-Two - Princess Carry

"They're all like 'go touch grass' or 'just hang out with your friends' and maybe even 'search for discounts to stretch your budget.' And like, sure, that's nice and all, but like... fuck, that won't help things long term, you know? I think shooting someone might, though? Like, someone mean? A politician or something?"

--Transcript of discussion between Ronnie Myers and his therapist, read at his trial for Third Degree Political Disruption, 2029 The strike group ended up, predictably, all bunched up by the entrance into the wall. For some reason the bigger tanks went in first, and the fit was so tight that we had to let them through one at a time. The Pikes, being as wide as they were, had to enter at a very clean angle, so there was a bit of backing up and trying again involved.

Fortunately, this close to the wall we had support from the guns mounted above, and the main thrust of the Antithesis attack was happening about a kilometre down the wall, near the far north-eastern corner, not out here. A few aliens wandered over, or charged at us from afar, but the Wolverines stationed in a wide semi-circle were enough to fend them off. Once everyone was through, I followed in as the last one, then waited as the doors shut. We were, technically, within the walls once more.

There was a sort of partition wall here, however, splitting off this section from the wider area around, though the inner wall was... okay, it was more of a fence, really. I think it was meant to keep civilians away from the hydroelectric facilities under this part of the megacity plate. I moved the MEOW over to one side, then sat back with a sigh. I hadn't realized how much tension was riding on my shoulders until now. Plus, I still had to piss. Shaking myself, I refocused, then tapped the comms.

"Good job, strike group," I said.

"Any injuries?"

"Nothing serious, ma'am," the sergeant reported.

"Good enough for me. Can someone that isn't me break the news to Tinwhistle that we lost one of the Wolverines?"

"Does she scare you too, ma'am?"

"Samurai aren't supposed to be afraid of anything," I replied.

"But that doesn't mean that I want to be the one to make the call." There was a bit of laughter on the other end of the line. I don't think it was even the joke, more the relief and tension of the moment slipping away. For a few of them, that had probably felt like coming real close to dying. For a few of them, if they thought about it, that whole push was a waste of time.

Everything we did could have been done with one or two more artillery guns, or a few more waves of drones, making it so that no one on our side had to risk their lives. It wasn't even wrong to think that. The whole thing could be viewed as a bit of a waste of time. But... nah. No one had died. I got some experience out of it, a nice fat stack of new points, and I got to get a feel for the Antithesis' invasion in this area. I was a hands-on kind of woman.

Seeing stats and numbers and whatnot was well and good, but those were just numbers, I didn't have whatever weird thing going on in my head that let me understand those numbers. Lucy could do that, and I was sure a bunch of others could too, but for me? I needed to see to believe. I opened the cockpit, then grimaced as a few bits of alien splattered off the moving parts and onto the ground. A chunk hit the edge of the cockpit and clung there until I kicked it off.

After landing I looked around and was happy to see that support groups had come out. The ammo truck wasn't here yet, but there were mechanics and other support staff checking everything out. Lots of smiling and manly hooting as the members of the strike group worked off their adrenaline.

"Hey!" I called out to a small group loitering nearby. They wore fatigues and looked military enough.

"Get a hose or something and wash my mech down, would you? I don't want the charred alien to stick on the paint!" I got some quick salutes for that and then the bunch started to run around. Must have felt good to be given something to do. I was just turning around when I noticed someone flouncing over. There was only one person in my extended friend group that flounced. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst, then turned and nodded to Princess.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi!" she replied, chipper as hell. She was in a fresh princess-y dress, a pale, pastel-y green this time, with long-sleeved gloves and fills that climbed all the way up her neck. She was also wearing big galoshes, those oversized rubbery boots that were good for wading around in shin-deep water. It looked a little weird, but she managed to pull it off, looking more like a princess that didn't know how to dress than someone that had raided a weird thrift store.

"What's with the boots?" I asked.

"Like 'em?" she asked as she twisted her entire leg to show one off.

"It's for the water. Oh, there's aliens in the water, by the way."

"Fantastic," I said.

"I heard you needed a hand?"

"A bit!" she replied.

"Check this out." From the many folds of her dress came a little mechanical arm with far, far too many joints. It was tipped by a small mechanical hand with four digits that sprang open. A screen appeared between all four, projected from the fingertips.

"A map?" I asked. It was a multi-layered 3D sort of map. It spun around a little and aligned itself with reality, and then I had a good idea of where things were in relation to us. Mostly because there were slightly-oversized models of a Cat, a Princess and my mech on the map. Deeper in was a Knight, so that was probably where her sister was hiding.

"Yup! So, the hydroelectric dam has a whole lot of water running through it, obviously, but there's also this whole section outside of the walls with these maintenance tunnels." She gestured and an area was highlighted in red.

"Is that a problem?" I asked.

"Looks like you could close it off and it'll be a problem for tomorrow. Or just flood the place?"

"Yeah, we thought about that, but it turns out that the aliens did too? I think? I don't know how good they are at thinking, actually."

"Fair," I replied.

"So, what's the whole problem?" Princess pouted, then sighed.

"They're swimming up the river. There's actually a lot of them? And they've built these little tunnels at the bottom that are letting them flood into the maintenance tunnels. We got hit so hard that they've actually crossed the walls, though we managed to push them back. The maintenance areas being so tight is actually helping a fair bit? It means that they can't fight up so easily. One guy with a gun can hold for a while, but it's becoming a lot." Yeah, I could see that becoming an issue.

If the Antithesis started to push with higher tier models... well, the only advantage we had there was that the stronger models tended to be larger.

"Okay. So, did you and your sister come up with a solution yet?"

"Yeah!" Princess lit up.

"We have! So, I talked to my AI, and there's some acids we can fill the tunnels with. It'll slow the aliens down. And then we have squads in these cool suits that I bought that can go in and clear them. It's dangerous, but we can do it."

"Alright," I said.

"The thing is, we kinda need to stop them from getting into the river in the first place? I sent a drone out to see where they were coming from, and look." She moved the image on her projector up, then a second mechanical hand came out from the folds of her dress. How many did she have under there?

"See?" she asked as she pointed. I squinted. The image had moved up the river... or down the river, I guess, for a good ways, and there was a space where the shore was rather shallow and sandy looking. There was a nice number of aliens there, and judging by the tentacle-y things dipping into the river, a small hive as well.

"Shit, how far out is that?" I asked.

"Three kilometres down river," she said.

"They're swimming upstream. Or walking at the bottom of the river? We can take care of the ones that make it here, as long as that hive is taken out and the area's blown up a little to stall them. If I plug the holes and secure the area here a little, then we'll be able to hold out for today."

"And then what?" I asked. She shrugged.

"Then it's tomorrow's problem? If we don't, then we'll either have aliens on this side of the wall, or they might continue to dig holes. Big sis called that 'sapping' and apparently it's bad. Plus there's the hydroelectric stuff, which we kinda wanna keep running. Do you think you can help?"