Chapter Twenty-Eight - Morale

“Morale, while not a factor that is easy to quantify, is nonetheless an important measure of the potential success of troops on an active battlefield.

For this reason, it is usually a good idea to allow your troops to see any local samurai at work. Nothing inspires hope like the casual disregard for death and the destructive capabilities of a samurai in action.”

--Morale and Victory, officer’s training tips #358, 2039 edition.

***

I ran up one of the ramps set up behind the wall, then paused near the top as soon as I could see over the defences.

The aliens approaching us weren’t quite like the tides I’d seen in the defence of New Montreal. Those tides had been so thick that I couldn’t see the ground past all the antithesis, and they went on basically forever, with no breaks in their formation except where a shell went off to create one, and even those were temporary.

Here, the formations were a lot patchier. With trios of aliens running together and the occasional larger group. Often, some bigger, slower xenos were running on their own, too slow to keep up with the much faster and more common model threes.

The remote-controlled and human-operated guns nestled in the wall spat at the aliens, short, loud bursts that ended with a few corpses rolling across the pavement.

Those that managed to get close anyway got to meet Gomorrah’s drone, which hissed out lines of liquid fire onto them and turned the aliens into rolling balls of flame. The smoke might actually be a problem later if it interfered with our vision. Then again, it also removed the corpses, turning them to ash before they piled up so high that they became an obstruction, or worse, a ramp of dead flesh.

So far, things seemed alright.

Then I ducked down with a curse as something smashed into the wall some ten metres off to my left with a huge bang. The metal under my feet rattled and I grabbed on until the shivers passed. When I looked up again, I saw the broken remains of a large chitinous wheel, its edges cutting into the wrecked cars and cement barriers that made up the wall.

Little spines had sprayed out from around where the wheel impacted, and even now some of them were falling down around us, sticking into the ground on the safe side of the wall. No one was hit, but I imagine some of the gunners were spooked.

If that had hit one of the little openings... yeah, that would mean one gun down, and maybe a couple of volunteers dead too.

I glanced down the road, looking for the model fifteen that had spat that.

Myalis helped, highlighting three figures without me having to ask. One was on the road a ways away, protected by model fives on either flank and moving forwards on its little legs even as its gut swelled and I imagined it was preparing to launch another wheel.

The other two were better hidden, both of them in a building off to the right. It was some storefront, but the middle floors of the building were taken up by paid parking spaces. The walls on the street-side had been torn apart, giving the model fifteens somewhere to shoot from.

As I watched, one launched one of its wheels.

The massive spinning lump of antithesis flesh smashed into the road, spinning so fast that it tore up the topmost layer of asphalt before that spin turned into forwards movement and it zipped across the gap on a wobbling path towards the wall.

I locked onto the wheel and my shoulder-mounted guns popped out of their housings and fired. The whip-like crack of two railgun sabots ripping through the air echoed across the street and the wheel imploded as holes were punched into its structure.

That didn’t end it though. As the wheel exploded, it unravelled, sending a whole swarm of long, thin needles scattering into the air.

The aim was atrocious, and most of them were flung right into the ground or at an angle where they wouldn't do much, but there were so many, and they all moved in the direction of the wall.

I ducked down again and winced as a few needles whistled past. “Motherfuckers,” I swore.

Someone screamed, and as I glanced back, I saw a green-armband volunteer panicking at the sight of a needle embedded in his chest. A medic ran over and tackled him to the ground, and soon they were applying some sort of gauze-spray over the wound and dragging the guy to cover.

He’d live, I figured. If he had the energy to scream, he was probably going to be alright once the medics got done with him.

The blow to morale though...

Fighting an enemy was rough, but if it was a fight, that meant that you had a chance to win. Getting fucked over by an enemy you couldn’t see or do anything about? Just sitting there and waiting your turn to die by big needle or enemy teeth? Yeah, that would break someone’s nerves sooner than later.

“Myalis, can you connect me to... Intel-chan, I guess.”

Certainly.

“Yo,” Intel-chan’s voice said in my ear even as her avatar popped into being in a box at the edge of my vision. “Oh, you’ve got the nice tech in here.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, dismissing that. “I need you to relay shit to whoever’s in charge of this section of the wall. I don’t have time for a meet and greet, not while we’re being shelled.”

“I can do that,” Intel-chan said.

“Good. Tell them that I’ll be right back and for the gunners not to shoot me, please. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t do anything, but it would annoy me and waste ammo.”

“Uh, yeah, alright.”

With that said I stood, grabbed onto the edge of the wall, then vaulted over it.

The far side of the wall was covered in rough spikes, jutting spars, and in general, wasn’t designed to be pretty or easy to climb, but I managed to find a few places to put my feet as I jumped down.

Once on the ground, I whipped out my Laser Pointer and started walking.

I stomped over a few corpses, then edged around some piles of burning alien flesh. It took until I was a good dozen metres from the wall before I was close enough that the antithesis started to really notice me.

With the gunners very carefully not shooting close to me, that meant that as a trio of model threes ran my way, nothing opposed them.

Until I raised my gun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger. I scored a line of fire across the trio, then side-stepped their bodies which were carried forwards by their running momentum. “Hmm, I need something with a bit more punch, ammo-wise,” I said.

You’re currently using armour-piercing thermite-tipped tracer rounds. Do you want something with more stopping power? Something explosive, perhaps? Or just a round that’s heavy enough to stop them in their tracks?

“Just something with a lot more kick,” I said. I was having a hard time describing what I wanted because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to begin with.

Coming right up.

The bottom-rear of the gun opened up, and a cylinder fell out and clunked to the floor, only for the gun’s weight to shift back up as it closed and as a new magazine was teleported in. “Heavy,” I said as I weighed the gun. It had gained a couple of kilos, I was sure.

Depleted Iridium rounds. They burn, are highly radioactive, and have a half-life with only hours remaining. They are also quite heavy and the rounds are specifically designed not to penetrate too deeply.

I shrugged, then aimed at a salivating model three charging at me from down the road. It was still a few dozen metres away when I feathered the trigger to fire as small a burst as I could. The kick was a lot more than I was used to, but seeing the model three backflip, all of its forward momentum stopped dead, was more than satisfying enough to make up for that.

I continued my enthusiastic walk, brrt’ing any aliens that came too close and letting my railguns handle any that wanted to skirt around.

As I came closer to the model fifteen, it turned its attention towards me, and I saw its stomach sack expanding as it prepared to launch another wheel at me.

“Frag,” I said, my hand opening up by my side.

A grenade landed in my palm, and on reflex I flicked it on, then tossed it ahead. It clinked on the ground, then bounced up and behind the model fifteen.

I started to walk to the side, placing the alien between myself and the grenade, then I turned my attention to its guardians. The model fives were heavier, chunkier aliens than most. They didn’t go flying as far when I peppered them with a few rounds apiece.

Then the grenade went off with a loud ‘whump’ and I suppressed a flinch. The building across the street rattled as dozens of little holes were punched into its side.

“That’s one down,” I said. Two more to go, and look at that, they were within explosives range!

***