Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Eighty - No Country For Old Cats

Chapter Eighty - No Country For Old Cats

"Die young. It's not worth it, being old."

--Slogan of the Young Bloods, PMC group, 2051

***

"Myalis, is that thing dead?" I asked.

Death confirmed. Points deposited.

"How many?" I asked even as I allowed myself to slump back. There was some crap on my seat that dug into my back. Oh, and I could see the sunlight through the walls of my mech, which meant that shit had been way closer than I liked.

You received two thousand points for the elimination of that Model Thirty-Three.

That was it? Then again, a chunk of that was split with Invincible. Maybe even ToeJam, if he'd damaged it and survived. Which meant that big fucker was worth a heap of points.

There was a shushing followed by a pop over the comms. "Samurai Stray Cat?" someone asked. Young, male, still kind of gruff sounding.

"Who's this?" I asked. I hadn't switched channels. Unless something got knocked around?

"This is Two. One is injured and I'm taking command in his stead. Can you confirm that you're well?" Two asked.

Very imaginative names, this bunch. "I'm alive," I said. "And not injured. My mech's another story. The alien's dead, but feel free to empty a few more rounds in the fucker if it so much as twitches."

"Understood. Samurai Invincible and our team is coming around to assist you."

I grunted, then reached over and grabbed one of the screens that showed my drone's visuals. From above, it looked like... well, like I'd tumbled down the side of a short cliff with a fuck-large spider-velociraptor and crashed through the roof of a store.

I shifted until I was sitting back down, then I reached over and tapped into my mech's diagnostics.

There was more red than I'd ever seen before. But... well, the mech was made tough. I knew, I'd opened it up a few times and fiddled around with its insides. I had a passingly decent idea of exactly how much of a pain in the ass fixing all the errors being thrown up would be.

I got my feet into place and grabbed the yoke, then I started to extricate myself from out of the alien's body.

It was larger than my mech, kinda. The thing had a relatively small central body, but it had legs that went on for days. I had to chop off a leg with my mech's claws to get it to let go, then all I had to figure out was how to climb out of the wreckage.

We'd fallen right through the roof of... was this a snow-mobile dealership? There were a few crunched up next to some ATVs. The lights in half the shop were down. There was almost enough room for my mech to stand there.

Crawling down onto my belly, I made for the exit, then shoved right through the safety glass.

Once my mech was out, I had it stand up tall and pulled the latch to open the cockpit.

Fuck-all happened.

"Yeah, figured," I muttered. The cockpit was all chewed up. Something was probably jammed into something else and now it wasn't opening up like it should. I bent down a little, then gave the roof a few swift kicks. Something crunched and the top moved up a little.

Enough that when I pulled the release again, it screeched upwards and out most of the way before getting caught on something.

I cursed as I left the cockpit and sat up atop my mech.

It looked like the alien had gone for the face. Honestly, that was for the best. There were lots of delicate, probably expensive sensors in there, but it was otherwise mostly for show. Then it had tried chewing on the mech's neck, the top of it, where on an animal there would be a lot of important nerves and the start of its spine, and on my mech I had my cockpit.

There were punctures in the armour large enough for me to fit my thumb into. Armour meant to take small arms fire like rain off a windshield. A few bits were crunched in, and I winced as I ran a hand over a plate that was bent almost in half.

That was going to be a bitch to replace.

I saw some of those Family troopers making their way over. Just a few of them though. A look upwards showed the rest of them camping out up the road. They were taking care of their injured while one of those quadcopters came down gently nearby.

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"Do you need help, ma'am?" one of the troopers asked.

"Nah, I'm good," I said. I continued to climb over my mech, checking it over from above. The side-mounted guns were fine. I had a few errors thrown up, but that was probably just some damage from the fall.

I'd need to check into it. I did grab one sensor mounted over the gun and gave it a shake, only for it to wobble. It was... not supposed to wobble. I groaned, then allowed myself to slide off the side of the mech to land in a crouch.

I was still connected to it via my augs, so I had the mech turn on its camo, only to wince harder. Lots of scratches and dents and places where the optical coating was screwed up.

By the time I was finished going around it twice and poking what was pokable, I heard Invincible thumping his way down the road. "You got scratched up too?" he asked.

I glanced back and up. The dude's armour was partially peeled back, revealing the kind of square-jawed face that would fit right in on a meme post about chads and virgins. The bloody gashes and bruised cheekbones kinda added to it.

Frankly, I found it a little off-putting, but even I could admit he was traditionally handsome. "I'm alright, myself," I said. "Might have a new bruise or two, but I'll live. My mech... eh."

He nodded. "That's gonna be a point or two to replace."

I let out a sigh. "Yeah, I'm afraid that's what it might come to." I could sit this one in the garage and tinker with it, though. Maybe build something for like, a very specific loadout?

"Shit happens," Invincible said. He reached down to a plate on his chest and tapped it open, revealing a small compartment. He pulled out a small cardboard pack, bit something out of it, then tucked it away and reached for one of those old-timey hotel-style match boxes. He lit up, then grabbed his fresh cigar and gestured to my mech with it. "You gonna scrap that?"

"Nah, I'll keep it to fix," I said. "Sec, I'd love to chat but... any of you know if ToeJam is alright? And the troopers up there? Shit happened in a blur and I didn't see if anyone was too badly hurt."

One of the soldiers, whose voice I recognized as Two, spoke up. "Three minor casualties. One fatality," he said.

"Well, fuck," I said.

That was a lot of dead to one rampaging alien.

Actually... that one alien had fucked up three samurai, played with Invincible here like he was a chew toy, and took just about everything I had to put down.

I shuddered. It was hitting me, suddenly, how close I'd come to adding another notch to the number of samurai it killed.

"Myalis, can I have something real incendiary?" I asked.

A few moments later, the corpse was burning up. So was the back of that shop, but I figured they probably had fire insurance, and I handed out a couple of anti-fire nades to the troopers, in case shit got out of hand.

It might have been a slight waste of points, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything left of that piece of crap.

One of the quadcopters came down further in, then shot off in a hurry in the general direction of New Montreal. "ToeJam has been evacuated," Two said. "There's a second team coming in to gather our KIA and secure the area. The Family wishes to offer its gratitude for your assistance."

"Yeah, no prob," I said.

"That's what family's for," Invincible said with a dark chuckle. He puffed out a little more smoke, then dropped the cigar and stomped it flat. "Nice meeting you, Stray Cat. I'm gonna get back to a safe space, have my bones checked, then head out again."

"Alright," I said. "Nice to meet you too. Uh, see you around."

He nodded seriously. "It's a small world."

Weird guy. I glanced at my mech, then the area. It was... safeish. So sticking around wasn't helping anything. And heading back out... well, that wasn't gonna happen with my main weapons platform in this kind of state.

"Fuck me, I'm gonna have to spend points again, aren't I?"

Hurrah.

I rolled my eyes at Myalis' sarcastic cheer, but I had the impression she wasn't displeased about it.

***

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