Chapter Fifty-Four - It''s fun to play with the P.M.C.


    Chapter Fifty-Four - It''s fun to play with the P.M.C.


    "As a soldier you need to be aware that you are NOT a mercenary. You are a part of a greater fighting force whose goals are to defend the people and integrity of your nation. You are a fighter for justice, not mere credits."


    --US3 Army Propaganda, 2042


    ***


    I hugged my bike close, the rumble of its engine sending a bassy vibration through me, which was nice. I was still feeling fresh and tingly from my shower, but the flight was giving me time to recentre myself.


    What was coming up was probably not going to be fun and games.


    I got a warning from the city''s automated driving systems as I shot past the exterior wall of the city. Myalis calmed them down for me, probably told whatever automated AA they had to chill out as well.


    Flying past the security of the wall wasn''t safe, but I figured it wasn''t all that dangerous either. Not as long as I was moving quick and staying far off the ground. Anything that could attack me would have to come from the air, and so close to the city it would have been gunned down a while ago.


    I just wanted to see things with my own eye and I figured it was worth the risk.


    The northern wall stretched across the city. There was a river here, entering from the west and leaving out of the east. The main part of it was buried under the megastructure of the city proper, but some parts of the lake to the west were visible from my altitude.


    The wall circled around the entire northern part of the city. A flat grey of concrete and metal, with evenly spaced towers along its length.


    It would have been impossibly imposing from the ground, but from up here, it wasn''t quite that impressive.


    For one thing, the wall wasn''t that straight. It didn''t just curve out to encompass the swell of the city, but it had small sections that pushed further out, or that were uneven to account for crooked terrain.


    The suburbs around this part of New Montreal were still lived in, even those beyond the wall. Probably because the wall wasn''t the only wall in the area.


    There was a second, much less impressive set of fortifications some ways out from the main wall. "How far is that second wall from the big one?" I asked.


    The spacing isn''t even, but the furthest section is four kilometres away.


    That, and the kind of armoured force that even a corp might have a hard time justifying.


    Tanks were expensive. I knew this because while Lucy liked watching cute videos of baby animals, the algorithm tended to push pseudo-military content my way. Stuff about tanks and cool army tech shit. It wavered, and it would only come up every so often... but I still had a soft spot in my heart for large lumbering vehicles of war.


    So I knew that they were expensive as fuck, not just to buy, but to maintain. Actually, I really knew that lately. And my mech wasn''t a fifty-ton tank built by humans. It was probably a lot easier to repair and maintain than any of the tanks parked out here.


    A soldier ran up to me and saluted. "Stray Cat. Samurai Gomorrah is waiting in the command unit. Follow me, please."


    No nonsense there. And not much grovelling either.


    Then again, it was late, and things looked like they were winding down for everyone here. I didn''t comment as I followed the soldier towards a mobile base near the centre of the lot.


    It was one of those typical eight-wheeled behemoths, with multiple gun emplacements bristling out of every corner and more turrets on the roof, along with a bridge that jutted out of the front a little.


    I found Gomorrah within, leaning over a table whose surface was a screen, along with two officers ahead of her. "Hello," she said. "You''re twenty minutes past our meeting time."


    "Huh... more punctual than I''d have guessed," I said. "So, what''s going on?"


    "Long version or short?" she asked.


    I could tell from the glance the officers shared that they were caught a little flatfooted at the moment. "Short?"


    "Short version it is. Maybe that''ll make up for you being late." She tapped the screen, which was currently displaying a map of the area I''d just flown over, though zoomed out and in daylight colours. "The convoy tomorrow will be heading along this road, northbound, until they reach here." She tapped a point some fifteen kilometres past the shitty wall.


    "Alright," I said.


    "The problem tonight is this." She pointed to a red circle a bit to the west. "There''s a hive somewhere in this area, and it''ll be the perfect spot to ambush the convoy. Assuming that the antithesis are smarter than usual, then there''s a good chance this hive will be trouble. Our mission is to burn it down."


    "Easy enough," I said.


    Maybe this wouldn''t take all night after all.


    ***