Chapter 61: Ready for war?

  “You know, there’s a lot of debate about the famous ‘berserkers’. Some say they took drugs like mushrooms before battle, but then there’s debate since high people don’t make good fighters in general.

  Others reference ‘shield biting’ as an explanation, just doing some ‘rage prep’ or something and fighting really intense.

  On the other hand, they could just be people who fucking loved the fucking fight!

  Why? The fuck kind of question is that? Cause it’s fucking awesome!”

  –Samurai Berserk Barry, post-incursion interview, 2044.

  ***

  As I entered Lila’s apartment, the sight of the woman, flustered and frustrated, greeted me. Her cursing was approaching my own levels of disgusting, which usually wasn’t a great sign. “Prolapsing piece of cum drenched shit on a…”

  I interrupted her with a cough. “Hey, need some help with that?” The armor she’d spent so much on looked half-disassembled, but a lot of the original was still there. Those were probably upgrade modules.

  “Fuck… Yes, I’d like some fucking help…” She answered dejectedly.

  I will inform you of the proper installation procedures. The same ones I gave her which she fumbled like a child learning to stack blocks.

  The process began at the bottom, the boot augmentations only needing to be stepped into. I then grabbed two pieces of Mole-Bear alloy, each dark as pitch. When placed around Lila’s lower leg, they whirred and clicked before settling into a perfect fit. The contours hugged her shin and linked with her boots. “So, how are you doing?”

  When I asked her to move her foot, I was surprised to see that the shin guards had an invisible seam that allowed a part of the armor to retreat inward for easier movement. Pistons surrounded the foot, I imagined for strength and speed boosts. “Fucking shitty…”

  Apparently, a spike could deploy from the back to grant stability along with the retractable crampons. Cool. “Feeling like shit about your son?” I asked while moving higher on her legs. The shinguard extended over the knees for protection, but left enough space for a new servo to be clicked into place just as easily.

  With the ease I put those modules together, my theory that she had to be pretty damn shaken to have had issues installing this was confirmed. She nodded in response to my question.

  The thigh shells slotted in place after a bit of messing around with orientation. “I can im… actually, no, I have no fucking clue how hard this is for you. Still, talking about it tends to help.” The shells connected with the new servos and made a bunch of techy sounds. Apparently, that connection allowed power to flow, lighting up the red glowy bits here and there. To my surprise, a very cheap stealth-coating allowed for basic camouflage.

  I put her new ass armor in place while she got her shit together. It resembled mine, various slats creating extremely flexible armor, but it connected to a sort of half-servo half-artificial muscle I had to mess around her crotch to get to fit. When her leg moved, the artificial muscle contracted while servos assisted the movement. “I left him.” She stated plainly.

  I didn’t sugar coat things. “Yes. Not by choice though. You took the only option available, then did all you could to get him back.”

  She snorted in response. “It’s been eight years, Louis. I didn’t try before. Maybe… I could’ve…” Words failed her and her voice cracked while I installed a sort of corset. Inside the shell I could see artificial muscles covering everything and servos sitting at the pivot points of the segmented armor. It balanced flexibility with protection, but achieved less than mine on both counts. There were advantages to being a samurai!

  “Come on, you’ve been trying to think of plans for years. The only reason you haven’t tried is that you had no chance in hell and failure wasn’t an option. Dying in vain would leave him alone with that jackass. Even then, Altany probably had to convince you not to get yourself killed with a shitty attempt. Am I wrong?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  She looked away, confirming my suspicions. I moved on to the gauntlets. They sported the same tech as her corset. Even with all that shit, her armor still appeared nimble, not giving her too much bulk. The new elbow servos appeared similar to the ones on her knees and fit the same.

  Even though Lila didn’t have my appreciation for melee fighting, I still spotted a retractable vibro-blade on her forearm. It eased my mind a bit. The elbows rode back a bit at the elbows in a sharp triangle. Definitely wouldn’t want to get hit by that! The extra at her knee might have the same function now that I thought about it.

  Her chestplate definitely had a bit of boob, but not too much. Tastefully sexy while staying practical! Instead of servos, her shoulders used only artificial muscles for flexibility. Pauldrons were placed on top for added protection and cool. They didn’t inhibit movement too much, which I approved of!

  I’d covered the cost of adding a shield of the same strength as mine on her wrist along with a deployable version on her pauldrons. That, plus the extra-reinforced helmet should keep her alive long enough for healing.

  I also added throat plates exactly like mine, covered in nano-grain alloy. It cost a hell of a lot, especially to adapt them to her armor’s design instead of mine, but the peace of mind they brought was worth it.

  A brand new helmet replaced the old one, which I’d help pay for in vengeance. It was a lot less angled than mine, sporting two half-cones filled with sensors, radar, lidar and all that good shit. It had a bit of a stylised snout, but just slightly different from mine.

  With a shit eating grin that came across without any problems, especially accompanied by a picture from my augs, I asked the big question. “Ready for war, Mama Bear?”

  Man, those servos really did great work, her punch almost threw me on my ass! I’d have loved to have seen her face when I replaced her ID on every single comm channel and system we had!

  ***

  The air at high altitude was thin and crisp. We were above the clouds, some of us seeing stars for the first time. With all the smog and clouds hiding the light below, we still got a pretty nice sky to stare at. Still, we had a job to do.

  “Time?” I asked, tension palpable in my voice.

  Twenty-three hundred and fifty-eight. The court order will be violated in two minutes.

  “How much control do you have in his systems?” I didn’t hold out hope on that question. That damn intranet was unbreachable without a physical access point.

  I only have access to a few security personnel’s augmentations, but not many. I should be able to call him directly however.

  I nodded. “Call him.” The tone rang a couple times. Not long after, the voice of that prolapsing asshole rang in my ears.

  “What is it? I’m in the middle of…” I decided to interrupt him. I felt a vicious smile creep onto my face at the discomfort I imagined my voice caused.

  “Heeeelloooo Kevin. This is Louis Larose. That pre-arranged meeting ambush didn’t work out for you it seems. Now, you have a minute before being in violation of the court order. I have plenty of evidence of that which I can show to any court. I’ll give you an extra two to give up my nephew, or I’m coming to get him.” There was stunned silence on the other end, but he rallied.

  “Fuck you! You’re not getting him, he’s mine!” I could almost feel the spittle.

  “Thanks, I really wanted a recording of you saying that, see you soon bud.” I cut the call and switched to enforcer comms. “Evidence gathered, assault is a go. Ground teams, you have AA in your sights?”

  “Yes, boss.” Bella answered, as verbose as always.

  “Je les ai… / I got them…” Rosalie said in that ‘I’m taking a shot’ voice.

  “Altany, think we got them all?”

  Sadly, no, but we have enough backup firepower to cover them when the enemy opens fire.

  “Good enough. Assault team, all ready?” A chorus of ‘Fuck yes!’ came back to me. “Mama Bear, you ready?” Nothing but ‘acknowledged’ came back this time. Every single enforcer had taken to the call sign and it appeared my sister was still a bit miffed about it!

  We were getting Lila’s kid. Every enforcer knew Lila. She was one of us, an original, someone who took bullets for other enforcers and trained with the newbies constantly. She personally made sure every prostitute in our territory would be alright. Lila was a friend to all of us.

  We had her abused kid to rescue from some big corpo piece of shit. Few things could motivate us better. What surprised me? The willingness to use the equipment we needed for this mission. I didn’t look forward to it myself!

  “Alright, I’ll go first, make sure you’re strapped in and that you have the back up method attached. In order, Katy and Vincent –stay invisible Katy–, David and Felix, Alex and Mama Bear, then Francis to keep the extraction site clear. Wait ten seconds to jump after me. When all AA is out of commission, and we’re certain of that, then lower the hover fleet with Armored Panda Carrier going first. Ground teams, open fire.” We were above New-Montreal’s clouds so I didn’t get to see what happened.

  I still had to do it though. I swore with my mic off. “Fuck me sideways with a nailed bat…”

  It won’t disconnect unless I deem it so.

  “So fucking reassuring…” The method Altany had selected was… fucking terrifying. With my harness attached, I simply stepped off my fucking APC!

  The drop was long and abso-fucking-lutely scary as all nine hells! For most of it, I endured free-fall! Going through the clouds, I had zero visibility. No, only when the city showed itself did I finally see the building!

  The skyscraper was a tall fucker! Above most other buildings in New-Montreal! Wider at the top and circular, it didn’t have any connection to other buildings for the last twenty floors. That made it fucking hard to assault, which was sort of the point. Anything entering its airspace got destroyed in an instant. Things like, well, fucking me!

  I engaged my mental coprocessor and time slowed. I wanted as much as possible to handle whatever came! Good thing too! The ground team did great work using both enforcer sniper rifles and those long-range railguns that almost killed me. Most AA guns were taken out.

  Most.

  The fuck-huge cannon that rose out of the top of the building seemed uninjured. Bella started putting dents in it right away, but no massive damage. “Altany! Railgun! Cook its rounds!”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Coilgun ready, you’ll have to counter the momentum, please fire at the target I mark with the stock on the other shoulder.

  I did as I was told, not wanting to swing off the building! My aim-assist helped and I felt Altany shift my aim by controlling my armor minutely.

  The clearly samurai-bought weapon was already tracking me. Thank the fucking mesh I presented a small, fast moving target! Shrapnel peppered me as flak rounds exploded nearby. That shit hit harder than I thought it would, honestly.

  My railgun fired at the same time I did, counteracting the recoil in a pretty jarring way. It felt a fuckload different mid-air! I didn’t fucking enjoy it!

  The AA gun emplacement exploded, then exploded again as the munitions cooked off! It felt quite satisfying, even from a distance. As I approached the landing site however, I focused more on the fuckers aiming at me. Lots of SMGs. Those guys were supposed to fight indoors clearly. I ignored their fire to focus on landing.

  Altany’s idea of an insertion method was apparently a very long bungee jump! At some indeterminate point, the cord tensed and I lost momentum. Not very gradually, might I add.

  Close to the landing pad, the cord detached and dropped me for a pretty jarring, but not painful, rolling landing. I didn’t have time to get my bearings as three slack-jawed security personnel got their shit together.

  Using all my boosted shit, I aimed quick shots at their elbows and knees. From what I knew, these guys weren’t guilty of much, just working for an asshole. A lot of them did fucked up shit, but I didn’t come here for a massacre. I’d avoid one unless necessary.

  That didn’t mean I’d take chances. The staballoy hornet’s nest slugs did a number on their augmented limbs and advanced prosthetics. All of them were covered in ceramic plates and kevlar, so I had to boost my shots heavily. In the end, I had to go semi-auto to make sure. My ears told me what I needed to know before I communicated with everyone.

  “Landing site clear for now, drop! I’ll hold back the next ones. Altany, highlight egress points please.” A few hatches, stairs and doors glowed purple in the night’s gloom. Altany even highlighted them on my echolocation, which she’d never done before and it felt weird as shit!

  Suddenly, one of those doors flew open and I aimed.

  Louis, that weapon can penetrate your armor!

  Too late. I only got a few slugs on target before a fast firing samurai-tech AR started hitting me. My plates deployed and blocked most shots. The heavily armored corpo-secs had some sort of all white high-tech guns with large-caliber AP rounds. They also had a bit of explosives in them.

  I noticed mostly because of the small explosions in my left hip, guts, right leg and left arm! First time getting shot with explosive rounds. It felt fucking fantastic! “Fuck!”

  I gritted my teeth against the pain and let it bring me wrath. They’d be shooting those guns at my enforcers soon. Those fuckers had my nephew. Lila’s son needed me!

  I deployed my shield and switched to my Grave Digger. I didn’t wait around, charging them as I opened fire. My focus unshakable, I emptied all the super buckshot I had to stagger them, followed by more precise hornet’s nests at the highest velocity I could pull off with my handgun. That armor kicked ass though. No, this would get messy.

  Those fucking rounds penetrated my shield with some kind of glowing metal! However, they lost too much velocity to get through my armor. My shots had injured or staggered them. Six had fanned out around the entrance, focusing on me!

  The Paw assembled in its longest configuration and I started chopping off limbs. Thanks to having learned proper edge alignment and all that crap, I took big swings that cut perfectly and got more than one limb at a time. They’d hurt me, a lot, but I still didn’t want to murder the fuckers if I could help it. A few more shots got me in the side before I finished.

  “Stay the fuck down, or die. Your choice.” I tried to keep my pained groans out of the threats. It didn’t leave me feeling that merciful at the moment! Some of them screamed, some tried to crawl for their guns. I only had to execute one before they got the message. These guys were paid security. They also weren’t paid enough to die.

  I checked, Kevin Richard didn’t feel like paying life insurance for them, the dumbass.

  “Altany, could you put a turret down those stairs please?” I said on one knee as my nanites got to work. I needed to be combat effective so I also added one of my colonic injector’s nanite suites. That glowing hot metal really made things a fuckload worse!

  Thankfully, Vincent and Katy arrived before any fuckers could take advantage. The turret started spitting rounds at enemies I couldn’t see, giving us time. “Boss! Are you alright?” Katy asked, the lovely girl.

  “Yeah, careful, those guys got through my armor. Fuck, they even got through my shield. I’m healing, I should be good to go before everyone gets here. Secure the landing site, watch those access points.” I took deep breaths as I waited to be combat effective. I also bought some repairs and replacement plating.

  These were micro-shaped charges, which you have access to. It is surprising to see them in human hands, the earth designs are quite poorly done and ineffective. They were either acquired from a vanguard or developed from reverse-engineering in my opinion.

  This trip would be expensive, point wise, but I didn’t give a single fuck. This was a family mission. I’d spend all I needed to.

  Some assholes poked their heads out in various places, but Vincent’s explosives and flashbangs kept them away. The rest of my enforcers helped as they arrived. “We’re dealing with better AP than I thought, careful what you use for cover! Francis, I’m leaving turrets to watch your back along with Alex. Formation stays the same, Me, Vincent and David behind me and Katy on flanking duty. Open spaces go to Mama Bear with Felix giving covering fire. All good?”

  I liked the determined, motivated tone when they shouted ‘yes boss!’. Lila fussed over me a bit but we didn’t have time. I switched to my Tunneler and we headed in.

  I kept the stealth recon drone out front, giving us all the info we needed. Hopefully, we’d get an access point to plug Altany into their intranet. I followed her directions, which were based on blueprints. It took a few turns to finally encounter resistance.

  The assholes had prepared a welcoming party for us! A fortified position that clearly had the firepower to take us all out. HMGs, railguns, etc… All within a corridor nice and large enough that I never thought a penthouse would have it. How fucking rich was this guy?

  They clearly followed us on the cameras since they prepared when we got closer. Fuck. “Katy, you’ve been stealthed the whole time, right?” After an affirmative, I told her the plan. I didn’t like it, it was risky, but no one thought of a better one. There were no flanking routes. I’d keep an eye on the assholes through the drone and tell her if she got spotted. Best we could do really.

  The drone transmitted my voice loudly and clearly. “Put down your weapons and you won’t get killed. I didn’t come for a massacre. I’m sure you can tell remotely that your buddies upstairs are still alive. I only killed one who wouldn’t give up. The others are disabled. However, I don’t have a non-lethal option for you guys. I know the fucker didn’t pay for any life insurance.”

  All through my little speech, Katy ran through to the other side of the corridor and sprinted towards their position. My drone transmitted the sound from the top right, pulling their attention away from the blur of Katy’s imperfect stealth-coating when she ran top-speed. I didn’t lie to them, but it also created panic and a good distraction. She jumped high, her light frame allowing for quite a bit of acrobatics. By using the walls and hyper-friction silencing pads under her prosthetic legs, her stealthed form stayed unnoticed.

  She arrived around the next corner and took cover. I kept going with my speech as she got ready. “I didn’t come here to kill you guys, I came here to retrieve an abused child that is legally my sister’s. I’m Mad Panda, maybe my reputation precedes me. I took down a lot of PMCs with more guns, you won’t be the first or the last. Come on, you’re not paid enough to die.” Katy sent a ‘ready to rock’ and I tensed up, prepared to fuck shit up!

  I didn’t get to... “You give me your word you won’t kill my guys? I heard you don’t lie and you don’t kill unless you have to. You’re right, we ain’t paid enough for this shit.”

  I blinked dumbly for a few seconds. It probably felt ominous for them, but that answer just kind of stunned me. I didn’t think that would work. “Hum, yes. If you don’t do anything stupid and none of you are pedophiles, I won’t kill you.”

  The commander nodded at that. “It’s a deal.”

  This is why Robin and I do branding.

  Altany sounded particularly smug. Meh, she earned it this time. “Alright, drop your weapons, power down those railguns and step away from the HMGs.”

  They complied, nice. “Alright, I’m coming around the corner. Katy, cover them for me, would you?” The commander jumped and reached for his sidearm by reflex when Katy unstealthed behind them. His holster was empty however and it had just been a reflex, so I let it slide.

  I thought he realized he’d been a goner if shit hit the fan. After quickly restraining them with some samurai zip-ties or something, I gave a quick word to the commander. “Thanks bud, I don’t like killing, even though I’m good at it.”

  He gave me an understanding nod. “I feel you, and you’re right, the asshole didn’t pay for life insurance. I don’t want to lose my guys for this sort of bullshit. Their families deserve better.”

  I nodded back. “Got to go get my nephew, don’t do anything stupid and I’ll be out of your hair in no time, sorry for the interruption.” However, I stopped myself short. “If you’re looking for work after this, ring me up. You seem a decent sort. Might have something for ya, no guarantee though.” That made him jump a bit. I left him to stew on that.

  Just like that, we were off.

  ***

  Lila felt tenser than ever before. Her son was here! They’d confirmed it! Somewhere in this building, she could remedy her life’s greatest sin, her biggest regret, the thing that kept her up at night.

  She’d free her fucking son tonight! That, or die trying! The ground teams were keeping the fuckers occupied downstairs, made it clear that extraction from there wouldn’t work. The only way they could keep her from him was killing her right here, right now.

  She knew that Louis felt the same. People didn’t really understand their relationship, hell, even she didn’t a lot of the time. It’d never been romantic, no matter how much fucking was involved. They just… understood each other in a way she couldn’t describe. They felt a kinship, a closeness that existed only through the power of friendship.

  They were brothers and sisters in arms, they spent countless hours shooting the shit, they had fun in more ways than just sex. When Louis called her his sister-by-choice, it clicked better for her than anything else.

  Although, yeah, neither of them had ever been into the step-sister kink shit. That was just disturbing. Robin got grossed out by it as well.

  Still, they were family. She carried his son, and he fought and bled for hers, no matter the consequences. She loved him like a brother. It made sense.

  … A brother she had sex with– urgh oh god that was gross! Hopefully, when Jackal and her actually started dating, it wouldn’t be anymore.

  The thought of that sexy, crass, hard but soft inside woman put a little smile on her face. One bright spot in this miasma of horrible emotions. They’d try, soon… After this.

  “Contact, down the concourse!” They all took cover behind some concrete plant pots. There had been quite a few renovations in the past few years. As far as penthouses went, the place was ridiculous!

  It looked more like a building’s floor than anything else! There were massive bulletproof windows, open spaces with fake stores, plant life everywhere. The nicest prison she could have ended up in.

  Still a prison. “Felix, Vincent, covering fire! Make them hunker down! Lila, take them out from here as much as possible! Katy, drop!”

  Finally, some tension release! Few things provided covering fire like a rain of buckshot from an auto-shotgun! Add esoteric super-buckshot and a grenade launcher, and even with all that armor, they scampered. All of them found somewhere to hide, but they wouldn’t hide from her!

  She rested the super-MG on a plant pot solid enough to be good cover and scanned with IR for targets. Her awesome machinegun fired anti-material rounds at crazy velocity in hyper-bursts. It destroyed walls, plant pots, benches, anything in her way!

  “Where’s my fucking son you pieces of shit!?”

  Lila didn’t expect an answer, really. The scream just tore out of her, a primal release of so, so much pain and misery. Years of worry and shame, of self-recrimination, of wondering what she could have done.

  Even without battle drugs, the adrenaline coursing through her veins made her feel almost no pain when she got clipped. Few of their weapons could get through her armor, but some did. She didn’t give a fuck. Hell, the pain felt good on some level, that feeling of fighting a good fight, not just a one sided massacre. A real fucking battle!

  Katy did wonderful work, using that gun in her arm to get accurate shots in the gaps of their armor. The girl also just stabbed a lot of them. Good newbie enforcer.

  All in all, Lila took out twenty of the assholes. Not all of them died, but like Louis, she didn’t enjoy killing. It didn’t bother her like it did him, but that didn’t mean she liked it any more than he did… Most of the time…

  They got back on the move, Katy staying down to cover them from the shadows. Louis protested, he wanted the little assassin close enough to protect. However, the woman stuck to her guns and he relented.

  Katy was an enforcer, so they trusted each other. It was her call in the end. Louis fussed over Lila a bit, giving her some unnecessary meds. Yeah, her shoulder bled a bunch, but not that much. She could fight!

  Blood is somewhat important for the functioning of your body Lila.

  “Alright…” She grumbled good naturedly.

  Meh, never say no to free meds, especially in combat.

  And there would be combat!