Chapter Five - Dubstep Cannon

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."

--Al Capone

***

"Crap, I forgot to ask your name."

We were coming up on a door that had been barricaded with rubble from the surrounding area. Miss Space Cop paused and turned her shoulder toward me to point to something underneath the planetary icon there, but then remembered we couldn't read the alien squiggles.

"Apex," she said instead.

I scoffed. "Your name isn't Apex."

"And yours isn't Stray," she replied easily with a smirk as she hefted a steel beam as thick as my neck and propped it against the corner.

Fair. "Call me Cat."

"Ash," she provided in return with a friendly nod as she dusted off her hands, then knocked on the door.

"Bark twice if you're human!" someone shouted from the other side.

"Fuck that," Ash answered back. "I don't want you weirdos recording it!"

Something shifted a lot slower on the other side before the surprisingly thick door was pulled open and I got my first look at the survivors. There were half a dozen, four of them office workers, one a janitor, and one, the man that had been at the door, a security guard.

"Good news, folks," Apex called out to get all of their attention - I decided to think of it like her honorary Samurai name, on account of the fact she could apparently snap me in half with that rig of hers. "We've got exfil. Say hello to Stray Cat."

Oh, shit, way to put me on the spot. Grateful I was still in my helmet so they couldn't see my face, I gave the room a wave, to a varied response ranging from, "A Samurai's shown up?!" to, "Fuck yes, finally!" See, why couldn't the sexy alien space cop in a BDSM suit have responded like that? She was probably a domme or something.

... Cat ...

"I'm on it," I muttered. "Don't get your ones and zeroes in a twist."

For the record, I'm a Base 64 system. I have more ones and zeroes to twist than you do.

I ignored Myalis and stepped forward. "Okay, before we do anything else, are there any injured?"

Everyone gave a look around at everyone else to see if anyone spoke up, but one by one, they all shook their heads.

"Well, that's a pleasant change," I noted low enough that probably only Apex and the guard heard me, then pulled my helmet off and propped it under my mechanical arm. "Alright, get your things together." With my flesh and blood hand, I wiggled my thumb between the two of them. "I'm gonna have a word with these two, then we're heading out!"

With everyone else shuffling around at that, I turned toward Apex and the guard and motioned for them to huddle in. "Alright, first order of business. Guard Man, what're you armed with?"

He looked at me sideways. "A nightstick."

"... Seriously?"

He pulled the collapsible baton with a silver nose out from behind him and placed it on a desk in front of us. "It's got a shock prod on the end."

I kept my patented, Stray Cat Brand, You're shitting me, eyes on him until he squirmed. Yet another combat technique developed for deployment against the kittens proven remarkably effective on grown adults.

"If I had anything better, Miss Apex, here, wouldn't have been out there clearing us a route on her own," he finally said in his defense. "Or at the very least, I would've sent them with her."

"I thought you were building security," I pushed, not without a bite of accusation to my tone. I didn't like not getting the full story. "What kind of security in this town is armed with nightsticks?"

"I am!" He gave an aggrieved sigh, and it sounded so much like mine had that I felt a little bad for it. "Look, lady, there's nothing on this floor but a bunch of pencil pushers. Nothing to steal, and too many people that get nervous when they see a gun. Honestly, we're here more to keep the company's insurance premium down than we are to actually guard anything. There's a small armory down in the Central Hub, but the whole reason we're stuck here is because an unlucky shot from one of those drop pods cut us off!"

I took that in with a nod. "Any chance this armory is on our way to the nearest car port?"

But he shook his head and waved the idea off with a meaty hand. "Forget it. Even if it was, emphasis is on Small. By this point, unless I was the only security guard left alive in the entire building, that thing's been stripped. Not that it would've done us much good. It's mostly sidearms, a couple shotguns, a riot shield or two. That sort of thing. Equipment for dealing with a robbery or somesuch, not a damn alien invasion."

"And your incursion protocol?"

"Throw away our lives to get VIPs to safe rooms, same as every other security outfit in this fucking city."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

That was a very ... truncated summary, I was sure, but it rang true. "So glad I didn't end up in private security," was all I came up with to say.

The man scoffed in sour agreement. "Yeah, you're sure not missing anything, kid." His eyes immediately widened as he realized what he said and yanked out of arm's reach at my stink eye. "Er, lady!"

Apex's laughter seriously undercut what I was sure would otherwise have been a very penetrating death glare, so I settled for a sigh and a roll of my shoulder, instead. "Fine. Myalis, get the man a Hummingbird and a couple spare clips, that should be good enough."

The cheap plastic box appeared on the desk before me, and I lazily slapped it over to the guard before turning to face the space cop. If he couldn't figure out how to open a box, we didn't need to be trusting him with a burst fire machine pistol loaded with smart needle rockets, anyway.

"Alright, Chuckles, what about you?" I asked her, careful to keep my eyes on her face. "I'm guessing you wouldn't mind something big and heavy to swing around with that strength enhancer of yours?"

Actually, I've identified three separate pieces of ranged weaponry on her person. By comparison, her only close range implement appears to be a monomolecular long knife.

"Wait, really?!"

My gaze did drop from her face at that, going down to her torso and hips to quickly seek out the objects in question. What looked like two separate kinds of pistols on her hips, then that big, blocky thing at the small of her back she'd nearly pulled on me in the hallway. No holsters, it all looked like it connected magnetically to flat, metallic hard points on her suit.

I had more trouble finding the knife. There were satchels of different sizes and shapes around her waist, but none of them that could hold more than a pocket knife.

Up.

With Myalis' helpful direction, I finally found it. It was attached in the same fashion as the others, but it was readily apparent why the AI was happy to let me find it for myself. A combat knife with a long, single-edged blade somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter meter in length was in a sheath strapped upside down to the left side of her chest, right around where a shoulder holster would have put it.

In other words, practically level with her tits.

Damn it, Myalis!

My eyes practically catapulted back to her face, and the heat I could already feel in my cheeks made me regret taking my helmet off.

Ash just had a sardonic smirk on her face, though. Either she didn't notice my distraction or she didn't care. "We can't hear the voices in your head, Stray," she casually reminded me.

Fuck.

I cleared my throat into the pit of my fist. "Right. I figured you liked melee since when I found you, you were trying to beat the Antithesis to death with your fists, but Myalis pointed out you're wearing nearly as much firepower as I am."

"Ah," she replied as if that explained everything. And, well, I kind of guessed it did, but it sounded a lot more vague and fumbled to me.

Apex began pulling out each of her weapons and placing them on the table as she identified them. "Standard Defender kit, though a little heavy on the loadout. Less-than-lethal ionizing taser." That was the pistol from her left hip, looking distinctly more like an energy weapon than the other. "Utilizes an ionizing laser to channel an electrical discharge adjustable up to a megavolt. For obvious reasons, colloquially known as the Lightning Gun."

Her gaze flitted apologetically over to the guard as she continued. "Despite the name, I'm afraid it's mostly just a very loud shock prod with more range." A yellow and black sliver of plastic that matched the side of the weapon's grip joined it. "Full charge gives twelve shots at maximum voltage, plus one spare battery. Effective range rated at about fifteen meters in clear weather."

Despite the disclaimer she gave, I found myself having to swallow to keep from literally drooling. I wanted to fire it so badly. It sounded like the absolute coolest thing to ever be called something unfairly lame like less than lethal. "A megavolt's a lot, right?"

Roughly equivalent to the very lowest end of Terran lightning strikes, so yes, its nickname is well earned. By comparison, the night stick's cattle prod discharges approximately fifty kilovolts. I know math isn't your strong suit, so I'll just tell you that makes her taser twenty times more powerful than his.

I glanced over at the guard at that and saw a hungry expression on his face that must have been very similar to what I'd been wearing. I couldn't say I blamed him. A lightning bolt from the palm of your hand? Yes fucking please.

I made a mental note to see if any of my catalogs had something like that. "But how is that anything but lethal?"

It was Apex that answered, rather than my AI. "The Galactic Union's a multi-species alliance. The whole reason it's adjustable is because not every species has the same resistance. Some hides render it straight up useless, and resistance in general is very situational. A megavolt could drop you dead right now, or just knock you on your ass in the street tomorrow because the air was too dry or something, though you'd still be on your way to the burn ward. Humans are one of the more resilient species to it that don't rely on natural armor, in fact."

And speaking of armor, most modern body armor contains a layer of rubber or Kevlar that would negate most of its effect beyond kinetic force. Vanguard armor is even better, of course.

"How much kinetic force are we talking?"

"Enough that it makes for a decent hold-out pistol," the space cop answered again, "but if you've got a choice, a good, old-fashioned slug thrower's better. Which brings us to Number Two."

The other pistol joined the directed energy weapon, along with two spare magazines. It had an angular grip with a protective brace and the slide seemed mounted kind of ... sideways? It clearly wasn't based on any pistol from Earth, but it was still obviously built for humanoid hands, making it instantly recognizable as a firearm.

"Union has a funky name for it making a big to-do about solid rounds, chemical combustion and anti-personnel roles, but it's exactly what it looks like. Different recipe from white powder, but same concept. They use different metrics for size, but it's pretty close to a ten millimeter and just enough off that I can't use them. Fifteen plus one capacity, high-supersonic rounds that fragment and shred after penetration. Reliable, powerful and accurate. Not much else to say besides the paperwork for taking it out on patrol is asinine."

Guard Man and I nodded at the explanation. Alien lead spitter. Our monkey brains wrapped around that just fine. Sounded like a really powerful bullet, but I wasn't sure exactly what constituted high-supersonic. I'd ask, but the answer probably wouldn't mean anything more to me than, really fucking fast.

The knife joined it with little ceremony. "Monomolecular combat knife. Not much to say, it's a fucking knife. Amazing edge retention, though. Couldn't tell you the material they use, but I've chopped, pried, stabbed and twisted with this thing and never had to get it serviced. Just don't lick it if you use it for cheese and crackers."

The guard gave a scoffing bark of appreciation at that, and we moved along.

She paused with an expression of anticipation before she pulled out the last weapon. I'd thought some of my weapons were boxy, but this thing was ... it was a fucking box. I could see the round barrel, the grip came down from underneath, and there was a short shoulder stock, but the overall frame was a rectangular cuboid. She pulled out two chunky blocks I guessed were batteries for it from a nearby pouch and placed them with it.

"The Type-Five Kinetic Pulse Riot Suppression Weapon," she named it with a proud grin, one hand still resting on it with distinct fondness. "Or, as everyone without a bureaucratic datapad shoved up their ass calls it, the pulse shotgun. Discharges an acoustic wave frequency with enough kinetic force to throw a couple tons of collective mass at ten meters. Obliterates a concrete wall at the barrel, still classified as less than lethal. Eight shots out of a full charge on max intensity."

Wait, acoustic, I knew that word, it meant sound, didn't it?

I put both hands on the desk as I leaned toward her. "Are you saying you have a fucking dubstep cannon?!" My voice cracked with my enthusiasm, but I didn't care.

Neither did she. Instead, her grin widened as absolutely far as her face could physically allow. "It's my favorite."

I ogled the beautiful, boxy work of alien wonder a little longer before leaning back to take in the whole table. The shotgun, the knife, the pistol, the taser, and off to the side, half forgotten, Guard Man's sad little stick. I wanted two of those things in my personal collection very, very much, and I'd gladly take the pistol for a spin if she offered. Part of me wanted to stick its not-10mm rounds in my Trench Maker to test its adaptability.

But I shook my head back and forth to clear the clutter back out. "Wait, if you've got all of this punch just sitting on your belt, why were you trying to, y'know, actually punch alien plant monsters?"

Ash's smile slipped a bit at that. "Ah, I wanted to conserve my ammunition."

My eyes went back to the spread before us. "For what, an invading army?"

A very small, very poorly equipped one, perhaps.

I glanced to the side as if turning in the direction of an earpiece. "Come again?"

Even if all of her magazines and batteries are full, that's under one hundred individual shots, most of it rated as less than lethal even if every shot had the power to drop a target. Which, against Antithesis, it certainly would not. Her equipment is quite advanced for non-Protector technology, but ultimately, she is clearly a law enforcement officer, not a soldier equipped to kill.

"Oh ..." My shoulders slumped. "That's ... a lot less impressive."

On the contrary, it makes it even more impressive that she was fighting and killing Antithesis with such an inefficient loadout. I look forward to seeing her in action and how she actually does it.

"Careful, Myalis," I sniped sourly. "You're starting to sound like the horny one."

Ask her if she would be willing to use Protector weaponry in place of her own. I believe we may have an offer for her. In fact, heavy melee may actually be an excellent place to start.