Chapter Sixty - Callsigns

“We need a new minority to pin things on. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to blame trans people or the gay. I can’t think of any new group to marginalise though. We have a few options, but none of them fit all of our criteria:

1- We need them to be relatively poor

2- We can’t have that group be associated with us politically already

3- They need a distinct culture

4- They can’t be a group that’s well integrated with our own community

5- The less media representation they have, the better. We’ll take care of first impressions.

6- If they have historical reasons for being disliked, then that would be a bonus.

I’m thinking we can have the people in the south turn against the French? There’s a small but strong French community around New Orleans that we could pin things on. But then the actual French are pretty strong, so it could blow back against us.

Ideas?”

--Internal Memo from Rep. G. Tean, 2031

***

I jumped into the Fury next to Gomorrah and then settled into place. Around us, the borrowed vans were starting to rise from the road, and the interceptors were already in the air, flying circles above.

There was surprisingly little talk as we got ready. I half-turned in my seat and checked out the bomb-launcher in the back of the car. Gomorrah had just installed it, and it was basically just a bigger, more complex version of the bomb-dropping device we’d installed in the vans. There was an opening to place grenades into, so that’s what I did.

“Right, we’re going for longer-lasting things. And they need to survive the drop. Resonators are my go-to area-denial. Gomorrah’s dropping fire. What else?”

Perhaps explosives that are proximity-detonated? They can fill any gaps in the line, and when an antithesis tries to go around the fire left by Gomorrah’s payload, they can detonate.

“As long as they don’t go off when a person’s nearby, that’s not a bad idea,” I said.

That’s easy to arrange. Might I suggest some nyanpalm as well? It’d be a shame to have created a whole new kind of flammable weapon only to leave it unused.

I sighed, but she was probably right. “Yeah, that’s not a terrible idea. Let’s load this sucker up.”

Points Reduced from 37,854, to 37,764

That stung a bit. Not so long ago I was in the 50-thousand point range. But that was before buying loads of food, more equipment, mounts, bomb-dropping devices and literally thousands of bombs. Oh, and some spatulas.

If everything I purchased (spatulas aside) got used to murder aliens, then I’d be back to where I was before, and probably past that.

Gomorrah opened the driver-side door and slipped in. “Is it loaded?” she asked.

“At one hundred percent,” I said. “We’ve got bombs for days.”

“Not really,” she said more seriously. “We have enough to cover something like a four hundred metre stretch. Each bomber... van we have can cover another hundred or so. But the shoreline is several kilometres long.”

“Right, we’re going to have to bomb and return,” I said. “Unless you want us to do all the work from here? We can refill in mid-air, the vans can’t, can they?”

“They can,” Gomorrah said. “It’s a big purchase each time, but I can do it from here. I asked Atyacus about it. There’s... rules about summoning items and where they appear. You can’t buy an item and have it appear too far from where you are, but the vans should be able to fly into range.”

That wasn’t something I’d ever thought about. I’d have to annoy Myalis about it later. After all, buying a grenade and having it appear inside the nearest alien would save me having to throw the damned thing.

“Alright, I think Intel-chan’s keeping a digital eye on our bomber’s loadouts. We’ll know when one of them hits empty.”

Gomorrah nodded once. “Are we ready then?”

“Let’s hit it,” I agreed.

Gomorrah brought the Fury up with a sudden lurch and I hung onto the little strap above the door.

With a flick of a switch on my augs, I connected to the main communication channel being used by the bombers and interceptors. I supposed that that would be my job from now on. It wasn’t like I could do much while Gomorrah was driving us around.

“Ah, this is God’s Righteous Fury, we’re airborne. The rest of you can start climbing. We’re going to circle overhead, then head out to the shoreline for our first run. Intel-chan, you got the coordinates?”

Intel-chan’s voice popped onto the channel. “Mapped out and sent to all pilots. Have fun! Pilots, all call signs, check in.”

“This is Nutcracker one, climbing,” one of the pilots said. I matched his location on my map, each van having an IFF. The vans had been numbered, but now their names were changing to match what the pilots were calling themselves.

“Rear Ender two, coming in hot.”

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“Cockpit Crusher three, rising.”

“Gorilla four, ready to ooga some boogas.”

“Oscar-Oscar-Foxtrot five, ready to bring the pain,” the last pilot called out.

And I was surrounded by fucking morons. This was going to go fantastically. “Alright, children, form up behind the Fury, and keep the line clear unless there’s an actual problem.” I muted myself and shook my head. The pilots were all volunteers, sure, but they were all supposed to be professionals too.

“Are we good?” Gomorrah asked.

“We’re peachy,” I said. “We’re starting the bombing run along the southern shore here, and heading northwards. Nice and easy-like. Arm-a-Geddon and Sprout are going to head out now too. They might call out for fire support if they need it.”

“We could help, sure,” Gomorrah said. “How are you on points?”

“Not bad, but I’ve been spending them fast. Kinda hoping this’ll refill me, you know?”

Gomorrah nodded along. “I understand. Still, points not spent are points wasted.”

“I guess,” I said. “I have a hard time justifying the spending. I dunno. How about you?”

“I’m saving up for something big,” Gomorrah said. “Something that’ll let me punch far above my weight class.”

“Oh?” I asked. “What would that look like?”

“I’m thinking a warmech.”

I blinked. That was... something. “How big are we talking here? Because warmech sounds bigger than, like, power armour. The kind of shit you’d expect to see from a top-tier samurai who isn’t holding back at all.”

“It’s surprisingly worse than you’d expect, actually,” Gomorrah said. “A big mobile weapons platform can only really be used in a few specific scenarios. It’s like a tank. Sure, it’s strong and can destroy things well, but most of the time we’re clearing hives or clearing places room-by-room, or we need to navigate through a city. A tank can’t really do that. A warmech has a few advantages, but not that many.”

“Yeah,” I said. It kinda made sense. “But it’s also a fucking warmech.”

“Exactly,” Gomorrah said. “Perfect for fighting very large antithesis. Things in the upper twenties and thirties. And it’s decent for defending a location if the location’s safety doesn’t matter that much.”

I liked the idea, but it sounded expensive. “Maybe I should get one.”

“It would go counter to your usual MO,” Gomorrah said. “The stealth part, at least.”

“I’m sure Myalis could get me an invisible warmech.”

I certainly could. Your Sunwatcher catalogue actually has a few options.

Sunwatcher? I supposed that made sense, that same catalogue had given me power armour before, so it having something larger wasn’t too surprising.

Do you want to peruse the catalogue? I’m sure we could find something you’d like!

“Are you just going to tempt me into buying something big?” I asked.

I’m pretty sure it will work too.

A secondary screen opened on my augs, and Myalis uploaded a rotating image onto it. It was a highly detailed scan of a quadrupedal machine. It reminded me a little bit of the cat bots I’d purchased before. Only this one had a small human figure next to it. The figure was just barely as tall as the warmech’s legs.

This model is made of reinforced titanium and aluminium, making it surprisingly light. It has twin 105mm cannons, a chest-mounted railgun, two 10mm Gatling guns mounted on its shoulders, a full sensor suite, and its tail and claws can deploy the same kind of blade as your Void Terminus. The pilot sits here, in the centre of the unit within an armoured and air-conditioned cockpit. The controls are entirely intuitive, and there’s an onboard AI to help coordinate and balance the warmachine.

I licked my lips. Fuck, it was kinda hot.

"Alright, focus," I said, shaking my head to clear the thoughts of warmechs from my mind. "We have a job to do right now. Warmechs can wait."

Gomorrah chuckled. "You're right. Let's get this operation underway and worry about the toys later."

I nodded in agreement, and with that, we started our bombing run. The vans fell in line behind us, and we all advanced towards the shoreline, prepared to unleash our arsenal on the unsuspecting antithesis. We flew in a sort of arrow formation, the Fury at the front, with an interceptor on either side, then the vans behind in a trail with the third interceptor way at the back.

We swept around in a big curve that lined us up with the shoreline, then Gomorrah brought us all down lower towards the ground until we were only a hundred metres off. “Bombs away,” she said.

There was a constant clunk-clunk-clunk as bombs dropped out beneath us. I watched through one of the car’s rear cameras as we turned the otherwise peaceful shoreline, lined with waterside homes and old wooden piers, into a warzone.

“Beautiful,” I said. “Nutcracker one, drop your load right after the end of ours, then pull up to circle. Rear Ender, you’re next.”

***