Chapter Sixty-Five - Sky's the Limit, But I Can Reach

"Wow. Insurance is such a scam."

--Lord Burninator, at his criminal trial for Mass Arson, 2032

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"So, what're my options when it comes to AA?" I asked.

Presuming from context that you mean Anti-Air and not Alcoholics Anonymous, or automotive insurance, then we do have quite a few options. In fact, you have options for all three.

"Wait, all three?" I asked. I was off on my own, feeling a little awkward for being away from all the others, but it wasn't all that bad. I'd be rejoining them in a minute or five.

Indeed. Technically, as a vanguard, you could subscribe to any number of insurance services. The companies offering them make the information about their low premium Samurai tier policies as easy to find as possible. As for the alcohol, I have substances that are so addictive that you'd never have time to be addicted to alcohol to begin with.

"You are far less reassuring than you ought to be sometimes," I said.

I find it amusing.

"You think you're so cute," I muttered.

I'm adorable. Now, shall we talk anti-air options? You have fifty-one thousand, one hundred and seventeen points at the moment, which is a very respectable amount of buying power.

I glanced over to the others. They were mostly crowded around Tankette's updated tank with a few further out. Crackshot and Emoscythe were sitting in a rather nice wrought-iron bench that had definitely not been there minutes ago.

"That's... a lot of points. Shit, I'm close to the big leagues, aren't I?"

No. You're still some ways away from that. However, you certainly are edging your way out of the more beginner tiers. Now, what kind of budget are you looking at?

I rubbed my chin for a moment, then nodded. "I think two thousand or so? I know I have a lot more I could splurge here, but that doesn't feel right for a one-and-done kind of event. I'll want something that I can move back to our home and slap onto the roof. So it needs to look pretty intimidating? As for weapon-types... maybe something that fires larger rounds so that I can load it full of explosives?"

That's a clever idea. How about a Mark Six Heavenly Striking Tiger Automated Anti-Air Platform? It would come up to a thousand nine hundred and fifty points. A few shy of your stated limit. The system is autonomous, with very competent long-ranged tracking capabilities, and it's designed to fire 30mm shells.

Those were some chunky bullets. "Will they go far enough?" I asked. "Ideally we can hit them while they're still, like, nearly in space?"

That complicates things slightly. But I could have the barrels reinforced, add a water-cooling system, and elongate the receiver to compensate for those additions. It'll allow you to fire the same projectile but with a larger propellant charge. You might still want specialty shells to reach that far up, whereas lower targets can be taken out with more traditional rounds. All that would increase the cost by two hundred points.

That was a smidge over my initial budget, but not by so much that I'd mind. The gun was probably going to earn that point cost back, and then some. "Alright, do it," I said.

Not so fast. This gun is rather large. Placing it right in front of you wouldn't mean that it can't be moved, but it might be best to lay it down in its final intended position.

Ah, that made a heap of sense. Myalis was pretty good with the deliveries of stuff. She'd never dropped anything on my toes before and I'd come to trust her with that kind of thing. "Lemme ask Hedgehog where he wants it, he seems like the one to ask." It was him or Emoscythe, but she was being cute with Crackshot and I wasn't gonna cockblock my guy.

Hedgehog was happy to help. He explained the rough idea of the current layout, going on about overlapping fields of fire and combined arms and firing intervals. He didn't want our flak to mess up our missile fire, and there were issues with several of our things interfering with our targeting.

The army had more balloons they were putting up, there with powerful sensors strapped to the top pointing into the sky to better identify incoming fliers, and we were going to piggyback off of that a little.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The army also had its own AA. A mix of rather simple 'big gun that shoots up' and surface-to-air missiles specifically designed to track and hit antithesis.

The army had a lot of gear for taking out swarms of model ones, even far from a base or a fixed location. They were a minor threat on their own, but in big enough swarms they were definitely a problem. They also had some weapons platforms for bigger fliers. But what they didn't have was weaponry designed to take a flying antithesis out from over a dozen kilometres away.

The strange truth was that warfare had become a much closer game in the last few decades. Range was still king, but when the enemy always rushed to come to you, it made things much easier overall.

Since the thing I was aiming to buy had decent range and seemed like it wouldn't have great traversal, Hedgehog insisted that I place it more or less in the middle of the camp forming up around the Big Gun.

He called over one of Major Tinwhistle's assistants, some sergeant engineer who bobbed his head in understanding, then literally took off running. Ten minutes later we had dudes digging a hole then filling it with concrete and rebar and basically setting down a platform for my AA gun to sit on.

It only took a few minutes for it to set. It was some sort of quick-drying cement, and the engineers were attacking it with what were basically industrial hair-dryers to get it to set even faster.

The engineers placed some large metal plates over the whole thing, then backed off and kind of just lingered there. It looked like they wanted to be the first ones to take a peek at my new toy, which was fair, I supposed.

"Alright, I'm ready," I told Myalis.

New Purchase: Mark Six Heavenly Striking Tiger Automated Anti-Air Platform

Points Reduced To: 48,967

The gun appeared with barely a whisper. Myalis had obviously calculated it so that it arrived with no space between its feet and the metal plates the engineers had set down.

It was pretty big, the size of an old school SUV, with four long barrels covered in metal shrouds sticking out of the business end of it.

Of course, all four shrouds were shaped like pouncing tigers, with the barrels sticking out of their mouths, and the boxy remainder of the gun had my familiar neon cat logo slapped onto the sides.

There was a space in the rear that someone could easily walk into, with access to several ammo hoppers that were currently filled with 30mm shells with cases longer than my forearm.

The turret spun around, then aimed straight up, the moment so quick and sudden that I jumped in surprise.

"Looks good," I said. "If a bit gaudy. What's up with the name? It sounds like some Chinese web novel's protagonist."

"You've read a novel?" Hedgehog asked.

"I mean, I've seen ads," I said with a shrug.

The name fits the naming rules.

"What naming rules?" I asked.

The ones I made up.

I narrowed my eyes at nothing in particular. I could almost feel Myalis laughing in the back of my mind. "For someone so smart, your sense of humour is weak." She didn't rise to that bait and left me stewing in silence with my new super AA gun.

Tilting my head back, I looked up and into the sky. It was a little overcast, but it seemed as though the clouds were lifting in a few spots, enough to see the sky, at least. It was just dark enough to make out some stars past the incredible light pollution put out by New Montreal.

No aliens, though. Not that I'd probably be able to see them until they hit our atmosphere. Still, it was strangely unnerving to look up, feel so tiny, and yet know that death might be raining down on me at any moment.

I shook my head and pushed those thoughts away before turning around and marching off to meet the others. We'd chat a little more, then I wanted to head back home for the night.

The world might end tomorrow, but that didn't mean I couldn't spend today with Lucy and the kittens.

Besides, I was learning not to hinge too much on 'mights.' I was a samurai; defeating the odds with superior firepower was what I was meant to do.

***