Chapter Twelve - Be Libre, Not Happy

  "This year's Competitive Racism contest is brought to you by... McDonalds!

  I'm Lovin' It!'"

  --Start of show sponsor reel for the 2051 Olympics

  ***

  I stepped out of the Bastion to Fortunate Son shouting about how the lead singer wasn't a senator's son. There was probably some level of irony there, but I was a bit too preoccupied with piloting a multi-ton mecha to really deep dive that at the moment.

  The MEOW was the mech of choice for the moment. It was tankier, and even if it didn't pack quite as much of a punch, there didn't seem to be that much alien resistance on the ground. The main gun atop the Bastion barked, and a 105mm hello reached out to some poor Antithesis coming down a hill in the distance.

  I moved to the right and then commanded the Nyanzerfaust off to the left, which left plenty of room for the others in the middle.

  Hedgehog, Princess and Knight ran over towards the trenches a bit behind us, keeping their heads low to stay out of trouble. They were greeted by cheers and whistles, which I took as a good sign.

  Shy... disappeared.

  It took me a moment to find her already way out ahead, hitting the aliens from an oblique angle. Well, as long as she knew what she was doing.

  I settled the mech I was in into a wide stance, shoulders braced and legs far apart, then I switched my attention to the main gun and started to look for targets to blow up. It wasn't too hard to find some, the Antithesis were coming down in pretty steady numbers.

  Surprisingly, the quality of them was... lacking? There were a few double-digit models near the back, but the vast majority of what I was seeing were lower-tiered models. Threes, mostly. The dog-like aliens were common as dirt, so that wasn't surprising, but seeing them make up so much of the enemy force was... maybe a little unusual?

  I wasn't a xenobiologist though, my job right then and there was to blow aliens up, so that's what I got up to. I did notice when Hedgehog joined in. He had set up a machine on the back line that looked a bit like an angled wall filled with holes on a sort of metal base that he could turn. It made more sense when the machine opened up and those little holes each spat out a rocket that arced up and then came down with so many little explosions across the alien front that it sounded like popcorn going off.

  Princess and Knight were chatting with someone that looked like they might be a samurai, judging by the armour while occasionally plinking shots towards any of the aliens that got closer, and Shy was... moving around in a constant explosion of shotgun blasts that threw her around and let her hit aliens from weird angles before disappearing.

  I sat back for a moment and looked over the tactical map that the Bastion had created with our little fly-by.

  The number of aliens was big, probably enough to overwhelm that position, but... maybe not? I mean, yeah, it would, but unless they ran out of ammo and common sense, they'd have plenty of time to get to cover and enter the wall.

  Which begged the question, why were they out here like this in the first place?

  I paused even more when I noticed that the Antithesis weren't charging in quite as much. In fact, it looked like they were sending in fewer and fewer models our way. I flicked on the comms to our shared channel. "Hey, Shy, am I nuts or are the bastards holding back?"

  It took a while for Shy to reply. She sounded a pinch winded when she did. "You're not, ah, nuts. They're not pushing with all of their numbers. I see a lot of them further back as well."

  "That's weird, right?"

  "Maybe? The Antithesis don't always just throw themselves at a problem if they can't get through."

  "I guess," I muttered. I didn't like it when the enemy wasn't a mindless moron, it made my job a lot harder. I picked off some of the closer aliens, then watched as a second volley of rockets from Hedgehog crashed into the countryside, each one evenly dispersed. That wiped out a good number of the remaining Antithesis. Those that were left were way out in the distance.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I zoomed in, the range-finder on my mech's scopes painting them as being about two kilometres out. Too damned far for an easy shot. I could still do it, because even if my own aim was ass, I could still swap to high-explosive, and HE rounds had a way of making up for bad aim with enthusiasm.

  Still, I held off on it for the moment. The aliens were scattering. I didn't miss the fact that a lot of them slid into burrows in the ground or ran off into some sparsely covered forests and disappeared into the shrubbery.

  "What the fuck is that all about?" I wondered.

  "Hey, Miss Stray Cat," Princess' voice came over the comms, making me jump.

  "Yeah?' I replied a moment later. "What's up?"

  "Uh, Miss Crisis Mode is here. She's nice! She seemed very happy that we're here too, but she got a call from someone called Libre? I think he's the guy in charge, and he wants to meet with whomever's in charge of our group. I think he's not happy."

  I worked my jaw. Well, that was kind of mutual at the moment. "Sure," I said. "Let me pull my mechs back and repark the Bastion, I'll be out in a minute or two."

  Hedgehog's playlist had shifted to Run Through the Jungle, but that song was pulling to an end. There was a slightly awkward pause before something else started to play. O' Fortuna? That's what the system said on my augs, at least. It sounded like latin gibberish to me.

  I had the ship move over to be closer to the wall and the entrance into Quebec city proper. Meanwhile, the Nyanzerfaust parked itself just behind the trenches, and I could see militia-types coming out to gawk and take selfies.

  The fact that I could tell that this was all militia was... concerning.

  I moved the MEOW closer, then jumped over one of the trenches, bringing me closer to Princess and Knight and the samurai that had to be Crisis Mode. She was the only one in that bunch that looked up to my mech with apprehension.

  I opened the mech up, then leapt out, landing with a crunch of boots on loose gravel. "Hey," I said. "You're Crisis Mode?"

  She stood up taller at that. "Yeah. I mean, yes, I am, Crisis Mode, of Quebec city. Pleased to meet you."

  Crisis Mode was maybe in her mid-thirties or so, at a guess. Tanned skin, bright eyes, and a pretty noticeable French accent to her English, though she spoke it well. "Cool! Good to see you with my own eye. You've met Princess and Knight, and probably grumpy old Hedgehog over there? Shy is... off somewhere. She's hard to spot, but she's nice, if quiet. And Gomorrah is coming in with the army in a bit. They're probably just an hour out, at most."

  "Good. I mean, thank you," she said.

  "Yeah," I replied before I scanned the area. "How have things been here? Overall, I mean, not just here."

  "Things have been... not ideal. Not awful. It could be worse. We're holding out? Libre is good at keeping things working, but morale has been on the lower side. We've been taking more losses lately. The aliens just... keep coming."

  "Yeah, they do that," I said. "Most of the time. Never really seen them retreat like this. Giving me goosebumps. So, Libre wants to chat?"

  "He does," Crisis Mode said. "He sounded upset. I think you may have ruined some of his plans."

  "Wow, that must suck for him," I said without much pity. "Let's wait for Gom to arrive. She's good at being civil. Something I lack. Don't worry. We'll set this whole situation straight soon enough."

  Crisis Mode nodded quickly. "Thank you. If any of you are injured, I can help," she said, though she petered out at the end there when she scanned us over. Which... yeah, we were fresh. Other than some mud on my boots, I was clean as could be, and the others looked like they'd just woken up ready to blow up some aliens.

  "We'll keep that in mind. So, any good sights to see? Souvenirs to pick up? My girlfriend will be annoyed if I don't bring anything tacky back."

  "Uh," Crisis Mode said.

  Yeah, I think we could at least get her to worry about things other than this whole mess.

  ***