Chapter Seventy - A Perfect Time for a Picnic

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***

I turned left and right, looking for any aliens.

Well, living aliens. There were literal piles of dead ones all around, some still crackling and burning merrily away and lighting up the mineshaft.

I imagined that the mining company would have to patch the mine up a little. We’d left a few holes on the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling.

Mostly that was me, but I’d share the blame around with Gomorrah too.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” Gomorrah replied. She looked around as well, then casually hosed one pile of dead Antithesis. One of them flopped around, not entirely dead yet. “There will be more, I’ll bet, but I think we took out whatever the hive has acting as a mobile guard.”

“So the next batch will be... what, the immobile guard?”

“No, probably the Antithesis that guard the hive itself. Bigger, meaner bastards. But I don’t think they tend to move as much. Kind of like a last line of defence.”

“To protect the queen or whatever?”

Gomorrah looked my way. “You need to pick up a damned textbook. Antithesis don’t have queens. They’re plants. They have root networks and flowers and seeds.”

“Right, right,” I said. Standing a bit taller, I stretched my back out until it popped. “Can I have five to reload things?”

Gomorrah nodded. “That’s probably for the best. I think we could both use a small break. I skipped breakfast.”

I’d eaten breakfast with Lucy and the kittens that morning, a messy affair with cereal and burnt pancakes and some actual eggs, but that had been... I glanced at my aug’s time readout. It was nearing four in the afternoon. Not as long as it felt, but still a while ago. “Yeah, I could use a bite,” I admitted.

Gomorrah stared at the ceiling for a bit, then tugged off a glove and held her hand up for a bit. “That way.”

“Uh, why?” I asked as I looked down the way we’d come from.

“The air’s flowing from that direction and pushing deeper into the mines. We’ll be upwind of all the smoke.”

“Upwind, right... which one’s that?”

Gomorrah shrugged. “Up is where the smell’s coming from, down is where it’s going. More or less.”

“Guess snacking with smoke in the air’s going to make it taste bad.”

“Oh, the smell isn't the problem,” Gomorrah said. “I like the smell of burning Antithesis. It’s earthy. It’s the chemicals I use in Archangel’s Kiss. They’re all sorts of cancerous, and toxic, and generally liable to leave you dead from inhaling them.”

“You named your flamethrower Archangel’s Kiss?” I asked. “Is that... like, some of your repressed nature trying to come out?”

Gomorrah started walking off. “I was thinking of a more biblical angel.”

“A hot dude with wings? Kinda disappointed, I thought you batted for the winning team.”

She sniffed. “I bat for the winning team—God’s team.” She was quiet for a moment, and I didn’t say anything. “That was far cornier than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, it was pretty bad.”

“Also, biblical angels are more... wings and wheels and eyes. Here, I’ll send you a document about it.”

“I’m sure it’s a fascinating read.”

“It has pictures.”

I snorted.

We reached a point some hundred metres away from the carnage, and I saw Gomorrah raise a hand just before she caught something out of the air. A blanket? She unfolded it and set it on the ground, then sat down atop it.

I didn’t even bother questioning it and just sat down next to her. It was nice to get some weight off my feet, even if my boots were stupid-comfortable. “Have you tried Protector food?”

“Uh, just the juice boxes,” I said.

“You’re going to love this then. Anything you won’t eat?”

“I’m a malnourished orphan, my list of foods I’m picky about is real small. Though I’m not fond of mushrooms, they’re just rich people mold.”

“Right,” she said as two boxes appeared between us. Both were roughly rectangular, and made of a familiar plastic-ish material, though the hinges on the back were a bit different than the cases I was used to.

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Gomorrah slid her mask off and took a deep breath. “That’s better. The mask is comfortable, but it’s a bit stuffy.”

I reached up and undid the clasps holding my helmet in place, then pulled it off. My hair was a sweaty mess, and my head felt lighter without the weight of the helmet on it. It did feel nice. The air stank a bit of dust and smoke and gunpowder. Or maybe that was just my cloak.

Gomorrah handed me one of the boxes and I fiddled around with it for a bit before the case popped open and released a puff of steam.

I stared.

There was a small spork clipped to the top. The rest of the MRE had what looked like a square of shepherd's pie and a small sandwich, with some veggies here and there with some sauce drizzled on them. Probably a healthier, more balanced meal than I’d had... ever.

The problem was that the sandwich was cut to look like a cat’s face, with little carrot-stick whiskers and a little cheese nose.

“Myalis, is this a joke?”

I didn’t do anything.

I whipped around to stare at Gomorrah, a Gomorrah who was very pointedly not looking my way, and who had a suspicious quirk to her lips.

I picked up a whisker and bit into it angrily.

That was enough to break Gomorrah, and she started to titter.

“I didn’t take you for a bully,” I said.

“A bully?” she asked. “Really?”

“You’re just kicking a girl while she’s down,” I said.

The nun rolled her eyes, still holding back laughter. “Get over it.”

“You know this means war,” I said.

“You are terrifying,” she said. “Can I rub your belly until you feel better?”

I wanted to throw one of the little carrots at her, but they were absurdly good, and I wasn’t going to waste food. “This is really good,” I said as I took a bite from the sandwich. The bread was good, and the meat and sauce and cheese inside were also... good.

I lacked words to appropriately describe how it tasted, but it was definitely a whole order of magnitude better than some of the crap I'd tasted before. “Mmm, have you tried the little juice boxes?”

“Yeah, they’re great. Which ones did you try?”

“There are more flavours?” I asked.

“The strawberry one tastes really nice. There’s a milkshake one too.”

“Oh, damn,” I said. “Milkshakes give me the runs though.”

Gomorrah lowered her spork. “Could you not be quite that candid? Besides, I think there’s a world of difference in quality from whatever you drank before.”

“Pretty sure the ones I tried didn’t have any milk in them. Though the ‘shakes’ part was entirely accurate.”

“You’re disgusting,” she said.

I grinned over at her. “Alright, I’ll stop. But it’s really fun to rile you up.”

She shook her head. “Some friend.”

I only smiled harder. “Yeah, actually.”

The nun actually looked as though she was starting to blush before she wiped it all away with a scowl. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the hive?”

“We’ll be fighting bigger, uglier bastards, right? I figure running in there guns blazing might be fun, but not all that safe. Maybe I can sneak ahead? Except this time I just plant a whole load of bombs all over and set them off all at once.”

“And then we sweep in and pick off the rest,” Gomorrah said. She took a bite from some veggie that crunched wetly, then nodded. “Simple, but it might work.”

“Does your chuuni fire cannon need air to work?”

“My what?” she asked.

I pointed to the flamethrower.

“It’s called the Archangel’s Kiss. And no, it doesn’t require air to burn. But having an oxygen-rich environment wouldn’t hurt. Why?”

“Because I have these neat thermobaric bombs, and I think they’re pretty intense when they go off in tight spaces.”

Gomorrah bit her lower lip in a way that I would have enjoyed had I been trying to be flirty or something. “That is a nice idea,” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. I noticed that my MRE was done. I couldn’t remember shovelling the last of it down, but I suppose I had. “Anyway, I need to reload on ammo for my handgun, and refill the cats. I guess I’ll leave them with you while I range ahead?”

“That sounds fair.” Gomorrah stood, then gave me a hand up too. “Now, let’s burn this hive down, shall we?”

***